#most watched genre crude humor and satire . well......

[geffenrecords]

I laughed a little . alright

[somemovieguy]

Top 10 Must-See Films of 2023 (So Far) (Part 1 of 2)

October 29th, 2023 (Post #1)

2023 Has been an incredible year for cinema of all genres, from grim and heavy films like Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer to Emma Seligman’s side-splitting LGBT comedy Bottoms. Of the 37 I have watched so far (which can be reviewed my letterboxd, link in bio), these are numbers 10-6 of the 10 most essential films of 2023 (so far): (***May include spoilers***)

#10: Skinamarink

Kyle Edward Ball’s feature-length debut is as terrifying as it is inventive. With Skinamarink, Ball takes the popular YouTube genre of analog horror and captures it beautifully on the big screen. Horror as of late has consisted of tropes so stale that only a complete genre reinvention such as this could captivate and terrify the audience to the extent that Ball did. With a sparse story, this atmospheric film perfectly captures the feeling of being scared of the dark as a child, and not knowing what might come out of the dark to harm you. (Note: the absolute best way to experience this movie was in the theater, so I suggest watching this one with all the lights in the house off and with loud headphones.)

#9: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

The Spider-Verse sequel, though its conclusion felt sudden, is still a marvel in the world of comic book movies. The incredible talent and dedication of the artists who worked on this film are what make it such a captivating work with its staggering attention to detail. There isn’t a single frame in this film that doesn’t feel cinematic; it is truly a work of art. The Spider-Verse films are those kinds that are just so gorgeous and heartfelt that, despite their runtime, you haven’t the strength to look away for even a moment.

#8: Barbie

Greta Gerwig’s mainstream breakthrough Barbie had unmatched cultural impact with its hilarious dialogue and strong feminist themes. This film can be described as an intro-to-feminism, but I believe a better way to describe it is both an analysis of and a celebration of sisterhood (and girlhood in general). It explores culturally relevant themes of how the patriarchy affects women and girlhood, all while keeping things lighthearted with comic relief from the Kens of Barbieland. This strikingly colorful film is heartfelt, funny, impactful, and existential, all rolled into one.

#7: American Fiction

Cord Jefferson, a TV screenwriter known for his work on Succession and Watchmen, made his feature-length debut this year with the bafflingly hilarious American Fiction. Jeffrey Wright’s starring performance is captivating and heartbreaking, but what sets this film apart as a top-10 pick is Jefferson’s comedic writing. He satirizes the white-liberal tendency to “support” black voices in media insofar as they only paint pictures of stereotypes of black culture. My viewing of this film was at the 2023 SCAD Savannah film festival, at which Jefferson came on-stage after the showing for a Q&A about the film. He explained how it feels as a black American to be reduced to stereotypes of poverty, and he advocated for the telling of black artists’ stories because black creators make incredible art, not only to appease feelings of white guilt. (Note: I've included a few photos below from the SCAD Q&A)

#6: Bottoms

Bottoms, like American Fiction, is an essential 2023 comedy. It follows two loser-virgin-lesbian best friends played by Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri, who are desperate for the attention of Kaia Gerber and Ruby Cruz’s hot-girl-cheerleader characters. They create what is advertised as a girls-only self-defense club and lie to their members about going to juvie to gain their respect (and hopefully the interest of Gerber and Cruz). They begin to receive the attention that they desired, but the club devolves into a Fight Club for girls, ultimately dissolves, and their lies are revealed. The film’s crude humor and absurd (& at times heartwarming) ending sequences make it an unforgettable comedy as well as an essential watch for LGBT media.  

Top 5 TBC in next post.

[ryuichirou]

What other animes are you interested in? :3

I mentioned what animes are my favourite in this post already, but I think I’ll elaborate a little bit about what I’m interested in 👀

Something that is on my mind right now (other than SnK of course) is Osomatsu-san. We loved the first season and rewatched it a bunch of times. I think the 3rd one is airing already?? This is why I started seeing it in my tl again.

I love the gags, the artstyle (I think it’s charming…), the characters, and Ichimatsu is my absolute darling. Osomatsu-san has a great cast of seiyuus, listening to them screaming and bickering and whining is fun too. I love how ruthless a lot of the jokes are and how self-aware the whole anime feels. Satire/parody/crude humor are very fun to me in general, this is why we also love Gintama and South Park. Oh and Hetalia lol

There is a lot of Osomatsu-san content (new seasons, a movie?? audiodramas too…) for us to watch and I’m excited about it. Right now I’m in a state between “oh, I remember it pretty well” and “wow, I don’t remember shit”…

We also tend to enjoy longer animes, like Hunter x Hunter, for example. I think it’s easier to dive deep into them because we often binge the episodes as we watch, and if the series is 12 episodes long… well, it’s over before you could even blink haha. Of course, we still watch shorter anime from time to time, but still, when we find something super long and super interesting to enjoy for some time, it’s like finding a treasure on some kind of an island. This is what happened when we finally watched HxH last year.

HxH is extremely precious to me. What I appreciate about it is how it kept surprising us and breaking the usual shounen tropes. Gon is great and a very enjoyable protagonist to watch, he is naive, but very stubborn and street-smart (forest-smart..?), and his moral is surprisingly not as black-and-white as one’d expect from a green anime boi. He can be surprisingly brutal lol The amount of times I went “omfg GON WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY-“ is, well, a lot.

And Killua… Killua Killua Killua :C I was sure I’d adore him when we just started watching HxH but his character development gutted me like a fish. I was expecting a lot of edge and sass, and what I got was a beautiful depiction of love and adoration of another person, loyalty and fear that all of it might end one day. Ok, I’m getting carried away AHEM- I think Killua and Levi are two of my absolute faves right now. They have a lot in common now that I think about it haha

Ugh I can gush over HxH for hours, let me just say that I love it very much, I’d love to revisit it one day and draw 2301848 sketches of every single character from it because the designs are amazing and their personalities are very fun to play around with. Also, Madhouse did a great job with the animation, pacing, directing and all that jazz.

What else… oh, EVANGELION. Once again, beautifully written characters is the most interesting aspect to me, but I just love thinking about Evangelion, to be honest. Like I mentioned, I love the story of its creation, the production, the lore, everything. I flip through screencaps from NGE a lot, I listen to songs from it a lot. I stare at my Kaworu figurine a lot…

I’m also very into Revolutionary Girl Utena but my adoration for it is a little bit pacified right now, I’m waiting until we rewatch it so I can refresh my memories about it. When it happens, my sanity will be gone forever I think lol

All of the titles I mentioned above are the ones we would discuss aggressively, buy merch aggressively, read all of the djs available aggressively, stuff like that. With passion.

We also rewatch something super old and obscure from time to time, like a couple of years ago Katsu was kind enough to want to rewatch Gravitation, and we ended up reading the entire manga afterwards. And I loved every second of it.

If we’re talking genres, well, we do love horrors as you probably have noticed, but I can’t remember anything in particular that would be a good horror anime. Not an anime that is “technically a horror” (like Hellsing and err Tokyo Ghoul ???????), but like a horror anime. There are some cool conceptual things (like Mononoke), but for getting a horror experience I’d rather read manga I think.

Satire and parody are fun; I’d say that it’s my personal favourite genre. A good thriller anime is always a huge Yes (like Monster), and I guess we generally tend to watch Seinen/Shounen, but now that I think about it, we don’t really look at the genres??? If it looks fun, we’re interested 👀

Oof sorry I’ve been talking for ages and it feels like I haven’t said anything interesting or useful, but here we are lol