Volume 4, Issue 99: Another Toothpick
"You choose this life, it comes with responsibilities."
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Good morning. Happy Christmas Eve Eve. When Christmas is on a Monday, like it is this year, the entire week preceding it is blinding chaos: Every second is a dead sprint. I am behind on everything, and am never behind on things. I always joke that the week between Christmas and New Years is the only week off I get all year, the week where I finally get back to all the old emails, respond to the outstanding letters, read those New Yorkers I never got around to, occasionally spend five minutes or so blissfully staring off dumb into space. Never will this be more true than this year. I hope you all are holding up, and a happy holidays to each of you.
Every year, I wrap up this newsletter season with two clip shows, to give myself a little bit of a break down the stretch. The final one, next week’s, looks back at the year, month-by-month, with the best pieces and newsletters I wrote all year. The penultimate one, this one, is my Top Ten Movies of the Year list, as released on the Grierson & Leitch podcast earlier this week. You can listen to that on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Tim and I have been revealing our top 10 movies of the year to each other every year since 1991. The only difference now is that we record it.
But here you can get the words, straight on tap.
Thus: The Ten Best Films of 2023.
The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne. (Available for rental.)
After two disappointments (Nebraska and, especially, Downsizing), Alexander Payne gets back to basics with a very funny, wistful story of a grouchy but brilliant teacher at an exclusive private school (Paul Giamatti, in the quintessential Paul Giamatti role) stuck, alongside a woman in mourning (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), taking care of the one kid (Dominic Sessa) left behind by his parents over Christmas. The movie is a throwback in every sense of the term—even the credits and trailer look like they’re from the late ‘70s—but you’ll care very deeply about all three of these people. This is your classic cynic-with-a-secret-heart-of-gold movie, and man am I ever a sucker for those. Of all the movies on this list, this is the best “watch with your family when you’re out of things to do over the holidays” movie.
Passages, directed by Ira Sachs. (Available for rental.)
We’ve all known someone like Tomas—perhaps we’ve been unfortunate to find ourselves under his spell ourselves. As played by a great Franz Rogowski, Tomas is a narcissist libertine in every possible way, as destructive as he is desperately indulgent. Yet … it is not difficult to understand why both his husband Martin (Ben Whishaw) and his mistress Agathe (Adele Exarchopoulos) find him impossible to resist, in spite of all their better judgment. This movie is sexy, smart and entrancing in the same way that Tomas is, and part of its power comes from finding yourself rooting for Martin and Agathe just to get away from him … while wondering if you’d be able to do the same yourself. I highly recommend Hunter Harris’ fun piece about this movie, which gets the tone exactly right.
Anatomy of a Fall, directed by Justine Trier. (Available for rental.)
The body of a dead man lies in the snow. Did he jump from the balcony of the home he shared with his deaf son and his wife Sandra, a celebrated author of mystery novels? Or was he pushed? Anatomy of a Fall is a mystery, a procedural and the story of a marriage all wrapped up in one, and the movie’s brilliance comes from its abilities to tie all those stories together and connect them all to the theme of the unknowability of everything: In the end, the movie asks, what is truth? Can we ever find it? Is it worth even trying? That it’s as entertaining and compelling as it is speaks to how well-thought-out the movie is: Most movies struggle with being just one thing, but this one pulls off being several, effortlessly.
May December, directed by Todd Haynes. (Available on Netflix.)
Back in the ‘90s, Gracie (Julianne Moore) had an affair with a 13-year-old she worked with at a Savannah, Georgia pet store, spurring a national scandal and sending her to jail for several years. But when she got out, she married the kid, and now, years later, their children are about to go to college when an actress (Natalie Portman) comes to Savannah to shadow them for a movie she’s starring in about the story. Inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau scandal, Todd Haynes’ new movie is funny, sad, strange and a little bit haunted—one of the best parts about it is how hard it is to pin down. The movie is so light on its feet that it’s able to be a little bit of everything; Haynes is a master of tone, and there’s no other filmmaker I’d trust this with more.
De Humani Corporis Fabrica, directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel. (Available for rental.)
This is an immersive documentary about a hospital in Paris. How immersive? Well, you get to see surgeries from the inside—deep inside. The new documentary from the directors of Leviathan—which brought you so far inside a whaling boat you felt encased in blubber—takes you all throughout this Paris hospital, not just the surgeries that take place there but also how the staff interacts with each other, and how the sick and dying respond to those trying to keep them alive. This is a movie, in the end, about the human body, how it’s a miracle that any of us are able to walk around the world, how resilient and vulnerable this bag of organs we carry around with us all day really is. It’s incredible what happens in this hospital in one day. Then you remember it’s happening everywhere, all the time.
All of Us Strangers, directed by Andrew Haigh. (Currently in theaters.)
What would it be like if you could transport yourself back to the home you lived in when you were 12, interacting with your parents, but as you are now, as adults—all being adults together? That’s the premise of All of Us Strangers, in which a writer (Andrew Scott) discovers, when he visits his childhood home, he can speak with his parents, who died in a car accident when he was a child. But that’s just the clothesline for a movie that’s about loss, and love, and hope, as well as a terrific generational document of the last 30 years. Rarely are movies both this sad and this optimistic.
Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan. (Available for rental.)
What more can one say about this movie that hasn’t been said? Just an incredible technical achievement, a movie that’s basically three hours of men talking science and philosophy to one another that has the thrill and propulsion of your most electric summer blockbuster? I’m still not sure all the Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh stuff works, and I sorta wish it didn’t end with what’s essentially a courtroom scene, but this is a movie that’s so big and accomplished that you find yourself so blown away that its flaws just feel like the picking of nits. This, along with its unlikely spiritual partner Barbie, feels like the movie we’ll remember this year for, and maybe remember this decade for.
Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese. (Available for rental.)
If The Irishman was a crime epic about a world that Martin Scorsese knows inside and out, this is even more compelling for being a world he can only understand from the outside in. A truly American saga in every sense of the word, to watch Killers of the Flower Moon is to see America at its ugliest and also its most self-delusional: One of the most incredible things about watching this movie is the consistent shock of these doofuses doing terrible things and not even once sweating going to jail for it. They’re monsters, but why wouldn’t they be? Why should they stop? They’re winning. That Scorsese makes this so entertaining speaks to just how insinuating this movie is. And wow, what an absolute whopper of an ending.
Past Lives, directed by Celine Song. (Available for rental.)
I’m a sucker for a doomed love story, but one of the many, many things this debut film from writer-director Celine Song does right is that it makes the doomed aspect of it feel ennobling—it makes the sadness feel romantic, and moral, and just. The movie is in many ways in conversation with the great Richard Linklater Before films, but it even expands on them, adding a modern, international touch and offering an alternative arc to the whole story. This movie will wreck you.
The Zone of Interest, directed by Jonathan Glazer. (Currently in theaters.)
Writer-director Jonathan Glazer’s first film since his landmark Under the Skin, this tells the story of the Hoss family, middle-class strivers who have made a lovely home for themselves and just trying to advance, even thrive, in the world they’ve created. The Hosses, of course, are Rudolf and Hedwig Hoss, and Rudolf is the commandant of Auschwitz, which is never seen from the inside but always just over the fence from the house the family has built to hide its horrors—after all, that’s happening over there, and our lives are here. The Zone of Interest is about many things—and is a jaw-dropping technical achievement, particularly when it comes to sound—but central to its impact is the very human way we try to shut out the rest of the world and focus on what’s in front of us … and the more awful what we’re shutting out is, the harder we work to shut it out. This movie couldn’t possibly be more urgent. It’s going to rattle around my skull the rest of my life.
We actually rank our runners-up, so if you’re curious:
The Iron Claw, directed by Sean Durkin
Maestro, directed by Bradley Cooper
The Mission, directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss
Ferrari, directed by Michael Mann
The Killer, directed by David Fincher
Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Afire, directed by Christian Petzold
RMN, directed by Cristian Mungiu
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, directed by Sam Wrench
Showing Up, directed by Kelly Reichardt
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, directed by Joaquim dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson and Kemp Powers
Blackberry, directed by Matthew Johnson
Asteroid City, directed by Wes Anderson
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, directed by Kelly Fremon Craig
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, directed by Christopher McQuarrie
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, directed by Raven Jackson
Sisu, directed by Jalmari Helander
A Thousand and One, directed by A.V. Rockwell
Knock at the Cabin, directed by M. Night Shyamalan
I love writing about movies almost as much as I love watching them. And remember, one of the Grierson & Leitch podcast’s avid listeners has that a massive Excel spreadsheet with the grades and links for every movie we’ve ever talked about. Sometimes, when I need a break, I’ll just flip through that spreadsheet. I find it a perfect document.
Anyway, please see all those movies, they’re all great. You’re home all week, most people aren’t working, or at least not working all that hard, go watch some movies. And happy Christmas Eve Eve.
Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.
The 50 Greatest Sports Movies, Ranked and Updated, Vulture. Updated with The Iron Claw.
Zack Snyder Movies, Ranked, Vulture. Updated with Rebel Moon Part One.
Five Teams on the Spot, Post-Yamamoto Signing, MLB.com. Always on deadline, even over the holidays.
PODCASTS
Grierson & Leitch, in addition to Dorkfest, we had a big lightning-round show with a ton of movies we missed in the final weeks of the year.
Seeing Red, Bernie and I did a year-end recap show. (It was a bad year for red birds.)
Waitin' Since Last Saturday, no show this week, previewing the Orange Bowl next week.
LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK
Illinois 97, Missouri 73, Illiniboard. All I want to do is read about that Illini game last night. That ruled. Christmas is always better when you smoke Missouri in the Braggin’ Rights game.
ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!
This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers!
(I will be responding to my growing queue of these over the holidays, so if you’ve written, you should hear back from me in the next couple of weeks.)
Write me at:
Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO
“I’m Insane,” Dinosaur Jr. For forward momentum reasons, I listen to a lot of Dinosaur Jr. when writing fiction: I find it hits the right spot in my brain. So here is a song I caught myself putting on repeat when working on the book this week.
Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section.
Also, now there is an Official The Time Has Come Spotify Playlist.
We’ve got some Leitches in town for the holidays.
Seriously, a Merry All Of It to everyone out there. Be safe, and enjoy these people, someday they won’t be there, and neither will you. This is the good times.
Best,
Will
Somewhat shocked that though you mention it as a spiritual partner to Oppenheimer and that it will be one of the movies we remember from this year, Barbie didn't make even your list of runners up?