Category: 2023

  • The Iron Claw (2023)

    Indulge me a quick childhood memory. Please. Preteen Phil (that’s me) was an avid professional wrestling fan. Growing up in Oklahoma City of the late 1970s, I religiously followed Mid-South Wrestling and spent many a Friday night at the State Fairgrounds to see National Wrestling Association stalwarts such as Harley Race (the NWA heavyweight champ!),…

  • Best documentaries of 2023

    While 2023 was a banner year for narrative films, at least in my opinion, I was less enthusiastic about the year’s crop of documentaries. There were a handful of standouts, such as the thrilling Beyond Utopia (pictured below), but none of my picks for the Best of 2023 approach what I would consider a masterpiece.…

  • The best movies of 2023

    With the Academy Awards a week away (Sunday, March 10, for you sticklers), this seems like as appropriate a time as any to trot back out my picks for the Best Films of the year that was 2023. For those keeping score at home, my latest ranking has some differences from my initial take back…

  • 2023 Mother’s Day movies: Beau Is Afraid & Evil Dead Rise

    For all those celebrating Mother’s Day this weekend, I recently caught up with two pictures currently in theaters that would offer an interesting double feature for the occasion … provided you have an ambivalent relationship with that poor woman who went through labor for you, who scrimped and saved every penny for you to go…

  • Missing (2023)

    As gimmicks go, Missing has a mildly intriguing one. The mystery-thriller unfolds entirely on screens of computers, cellphones and smartwatches. If you happened to see the 2018 thriller Searching, then you know the shtick: amateur sleuth investigates a mystery through the trappings of the internet, social media and the like. In fact, Searching‘s editors, Nicholas D. Johnson and…

  • Plane (2023)

    I think it’s fair to say you will never see Plane as an in-flight movie. At least, I sure as hell hope you don’t. In Plane, after all, the fictional Trailblazer Airlines relies on faulty technology and pushes its pilots into dangerous situations, all for the sake of saving a few precious dollars. Can you…

  • M3GAN (2023)

    Hey, all you parents of screen-addled kids: Stay away from M3GAN. At least, that is, stay away if you don’t want to feel horribly guilty for letting computers and smartphones raise your child. This fiendishly dark horror-comedy has a lot to say about parenting and tech addiction, but such social observations are neatly ensconced in the…