Prior to 2023, Lily Gladstone was best known for her work in indie filmmaker Kelly Reichardt’s works Certain Women and First Cow. Her collaboration with Martin Scorsese this year could make her a Best Actress recipient. Gladstone is the subject of my final Year Of write-up. If you missed the previous entries, you can peruse them here:
Starring alongside previous Academy Award honorees and nominees Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, and Brendan Fraser, it was Gladstone’s performance as Mollie Kyle in Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon that earned the most rapturous reception from critics. She has Globe and Critics Choice pending noms to show for it and victories from numerous groups including the National Board of Review. It is entirely possible we’ll see her costar and last year’s Best Actor winner Fraser calling her name in lead Actress on the Oscar stage.
The love didn’t stop with Moon. The Gotham Awards named Gladstone Best Actress for The Unknown Country, a small-budget road trip drama that originally premiered at South by Southwest back in 2022.
It was indeed a killer 2023 for Gladstone as she earns a slot in my Year Of posts.
My look at trends and performers who had an impactful cinematic 2023 arrives at Bradley Cooper. If you missed my previous three write-ups, you can access them here:
Five years after his directorial debut A Star Is Born landed multiple Oscar nominations, Cooper’s sophomore behind the camera project premiered on Netflix this month. Starring as legendary composer Leonard Bernstein, the multi-hyphenate also produces and co-wrote the script. He even took years to learn how to conduct an orchestra. The reward could be Cooper winning a Best Actor Academy Award after four previous performing nods. It’s fair to say there is no hangover for his second at bat.
Cooper’s voiceover work as Rocket in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is also noteworthy. His character was the emotional center of the MCU blockbuster (a success in a year where comic book movies struggled).
Add in a humorous cameo from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and 2023 was when Cooper’s conduct was well-regarded by critics and crowds alike. My Year Of posts will continue…
My first two Year Of posts for the cinematic gifts we’ll remember in 2023 didn’t cover individuals. They focused on the phenomenon known as Barbenheimer and the impressive past few months for video game adaptations. You can peruse both of those entries here:
Now we arrive at one performer whose year shone brightest beyond the silver screen. Yes, we’re talking Taylor, Swifties! Whether it was on her money minting tour or upping NFL viewership due to her romance with Travis Kelce, it was all about Taylor in 2023.
That popularity extended to the multiplex. On October 13th, her concert pic Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour broke every record in the genre. Actually it did so before it release by racking up ginormous pre-sales. When it debuted, the result was a $250 million worldwide gross with nearly $180 million of that stateside. Critics turned into Swifties as well (99% on Rotten Tomatoes).
This reversed perhaps the only blip on Swift’s career trajectory. Her movie past was littered with disappointments like 2019’s Cats and 2022’s Amsterdam. With Eras, she now stands tall as the Queen of the Concert Movie… and pretty much everything else in 2023. My Year Of posts will continue…
The trash heap of movie history is littered with a significant share of video game adaptations. It’s a genre devoid of well-regarded titles as evidenced by Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Wing Commander, Doom, and Max Payne, to name a few. That list also includes 1993’s Super Mario Bros., which tanked at the box office and drew the ire of critics.
30 years later, the tide seems to have shifted and that’s why the Video Game Movie is my second entry for trends and performers that popped in 2023. If you missed my first post on the phenomenon that was Barbenheimer, you can find it here:
Mario and Luigi returned to multiplexes this year. This time around, it was in the form of Illumination animating the Nintendo legends. The results? The second biggest worldwide hit of the year behind Barbie ($1.3 billion across the globe and $574 million stateside). That easily makes it the largest grossing video game adaptation of all time and opens the door for projects to follow. You can count on sequels and spin-offs to this and The Legend of Zelda is already in development.
The successes didn’t stop with the heroic plumbers. Five Nights at Freddy’s, based on the game series with demonic bears in a Chuck E. Cheese type setting, wasn’t a hit with reviewers. It did bring out its fan base and then some to the tune of $137 million domestically with another $156 million elsewhere. Like Mario, a follow-up is in the pipeline.
HBO’s The Last of Us was one of TV’s significant successes of ’23 and the post-apocalyptic PlayStation adaptation has the Globe and Emmy nods (and a greenlit second season) to show for it.
Not every version of a cartridge title was a smash. Gran Turismo only managed to rev up $44 million in North America. However, Mario, Freddy’s, and The Last of Us made 2023 the most notable frame for VG product yet in the box office game. My Year Of posts will continue…
As I do at the tail end of each year, I’m gifting you some posts recounting what enthralled us on the big screen in the preceding 12 months. There will be five for 2023 and, for the first write-up, I didn’t have to think too hard. This year, audiences across the globe were transfixed by the phenomenon known as “Barbenheimer”.
That would be the combination of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Both pictures opened on July 21st stateside. The former – Gerwig’s modern take on the Mattel doll and her cinematic universe – drew critical praise and became the biggest hit of the year with $1.4 billion worldwide. The latter – Nolan’s biopic of the man who built the atom bomb – made $954 million worldwide (good for third overall) and proved that three-hour historical biopics can make unforeseen amounts of dough.
Barbie and Oppenheimer will forever be tied together despite their many differences. The similarities? Crowds were excited to see both. Both are primed to vie for Best Picture at the Oscars. Each could see a trifecta of their actors contend for acting prizes. For Barbie – Margot Robbie in Actress, Ryan Gosling in Supporting Actor, and America Ferrera in Supporting Actress. For Oppenheimer – Cillian Murphy in Actor, Robert Downey Jr. in Supporting Actor, and Emily Blunt in Supporting Actress. And in a welcome development, the summer’s two behemoths weren’t sequels.
With the possible exception of Top Gun: Maverick in 2022, Barbenheimer is likely the most notable box office story of the decade and certainly for 2023. My Year Of posts will continue tomorrow!
My Year Of posts focused on six performers who gave audiences a memorable 2022 culminates with what I’ll consider the Utility Player prize. This goes to a character actor who improves the viewing experience of the projects they’re in. We could coin it the Patricia Clarkson or J.T. Walsh Award.
This year, I’m giving it to Hong Chau. Five years ago, she received Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations for her supporting part in Alexander Payne’s Downsizing. An Oscar nod was expected to follow, but didn’t materialize.
In the half decade since, she’s been seen more in small screen material. That changed in ’22 with two critically heralded roles in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale and Mark Mylod’s The Menu. For the former, her Liz (caretaker and confidant to Brendan Fraser’s lead) could mark Chau’s first Academy recognition. For the latter, her Elsa (second in command to the sadistic chef played by Ralph Fiennes) was a highlight in a terrific cast.
At the Cannes Film Festival in May, another Chau performance received acclaim. Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up features her with Michelle Williams in a dramedy that sports a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score. It’ll be released stateside in 2023. So will Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City where she’ll be part of his typical impressive ensemble that includes Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Margot Robbie, Edward Norton, and many more. Chau is also cast in Yorgos Lanthimos’s And with Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, and Margaret Qualley.
Among all those well-known filmmakers and stars, Chau stands out and earns a final slot in the Year Of write-ups.
My six-part series of performers who had a lot shaking at multiplexes continues with Austin Butler. Like previous subject Jenna Ortega, he first gained recognition in small screen CW fare such as The Carrie Diaries. By 2019, he was turning up in a smallish role for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
This year, he broke out in a massive way as the title character in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic. Critics and audiences immediately lavished praised for his embodiment of the legend. In addition to its $151 million domestic haul, Butler can already claim Golden Globe and Critics Choice Best Actor nods. The Academy will surely follow suit and he’s a threat to take gold (along with Brendan Fraser in The Whale and Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin).
Butler closed out the year hosting SNL with a heartfelt monologue honoring his late mother. He’ll be seen in the Dune sequel in 2023 as well as The Bikeriders with Tom Hardy and Jodie Comer.
Going from a relative unknown to a headliner in 2022… Butler did it. My Year Of posts will culminate with a character actor with a lot on her ’22 menu…
My posts covering actors who had an impactful 2022 continues with a new Scream Queen.
Before we get to her, I came close to giving Jamie Lee Curtis her own dedicated write-up. The OG SQ might nab a first Oscar nomination for her supporting work in Everything Everywhere All at Once and she finished up her iconic role (probably right?) as Laurie Strode in Halloween Ends.
Just as Curtis was concluding her participation in a vaunted horror franchise, 20-year-old Jenna Ortega was making her presence known in another. Some viewers first saw her on the CW series Jane the Virgin. In 2021, Ortega drew acclaim for her more grown-up performance in the HBO Max drama The Fallout. It was this year that she broke out in another genre via January’s Scream. With over $80 million in its domestic coffers, she’ll be back in March for Scream VI.
More kudos followed in March for Ti West’s exploitation homage X. Ortega played a crew member on a porn set who gets more than she bargained for out of the experience. X marked the spot for many critics with its 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Ortega’s frighteningly good ’22 went into overdrive with Netflix’s Wednesday. From Tim Burton, the blend of comedy and horror and its 8 episodes cast the actress as Wednesday Addams from the The Addams Family. Debuting last month, it shot to #1 on the streamer in over 80 countries and holds the record for most hours viewed for a series in the first week of release. In others words, it’s a phenomenon every day of the week.
Needless to say, a second season is already in the planning stages. With her Scream sequel on deck and a role in the thriller Finestkind with Ben Foster and Tommy Lee Jones coming up, Ortega should continue to make her spooky presence known. My Year Of posts will continue with another actor who started out on the CW and had a whole lot shaking on the silver screen this year…
Colin Farrell may have lost a friend in Brendan Gleeson’s character during The Banshees of Inisherin, but he seems poised to gain some with Oscar voters.
That’s all part of a busy 2022 for the actor and he’s my 3rd entry for six posts covering performers who had an impressive 2022 at the movies. If you missed the entries covering Farrell’s Minority Report costar Tom Cruise and Michelle Yeoh, you can find them here:
20 years after Minority Report, Farrell turned up in a quartet of pictures which all drew acclaim. The spring gave us Kogonada’s contemplative sci-fi drama After Yang where he showed off some sweet Dad dance moves in the opening credits. That same month, an unrecognizable Farrell played the Penguin in The Batman from Matt Reeves. The makeup was impressive. So was his performance and an HBO Max limited series focused on the character is in the works.
On a side note, another villain from The Batman came close to making my list of six. Paul Dano, who played the Riddler, could be in line for a Supporting Actor mention in Minority Report director Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans. AND we have Farrell’s Banshees costar Barry Keoghan (SPOILER ALERT: he cameos as Joker in The Batman). He might turn up in Supporting Actor as well.
Back to Farrell. In the summer, he was among the ensemble for Ron Howard’s Tham Luang cave rescue saga Thirteen Lives. Reviews were solid for all three films and they all showcased his skills.
The capper came in the fall with Banshees. Reuniting with his In Bruges director Martin McDonagh and costar Gleeson, Farrell nabbed some career best notices as the naive Irish drinking buddy who inexplicably loses his best buddy. He’s close to a guarantee for a first Oscar nomination and he could win.
Critics and moviegoers were not in the minority appreciating the veteran performer and I’m pleased to report his inclusion as someone who can cheer to a fruitful 2022. My Year Of posts will continue with a new Scream Queen who made her presence known every day of the week…
My Year Of posts focusing on a half dozen performers who had us feeling ’22 continues with our second icon who turned the big 6-0 this year. The first was Tom Cruise and if you missed that post, you can find it here:
The next sexagenarian is Michelle Yeoh. For the past three decades, U.S. audiences have seen the Malaysian legend fighting alongside Jackie Chan in the Supercop pics, James Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies, and Chow Yun-fat in Ang Lee’s acclaimed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In recent years, she probably came close to a Supporting Actress nomination as the overbearing mother in Crazy Rich Asians. Last year, she joined the MCU in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
There were plenty of projects in 2022. She lent her voice to Minions: The Rise of Gru and Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank. A small role popped up in Netflix’s YA fantasy The School for Good and Evil. None of those projects are why Yeoh made this cut.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is. The sophomore effort of the Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) is the multi-genre rumination on life that casts Yeoh as frazzled laundromat owner Evelyn. She also (due to a seemingly infinite multiverse) plays the role in many other iterations including a movie star, a woman with hot dogs for fingers, and a rock. It’s a one-of-a-kind picture with the role of a lifetime for its lead.
An Oscar nomination is a near certainty and a win is quite possible. The box office was impressive with $70 million domestically against a considerably smaller budget. Costars Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis could all be headed for their own awards nods. I currently have Everything listed in 1st to take Best Picture.
A busy 2023 and beyond awaits Yeoh. More voice work is on deck with Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and Kenneth Branagh has put her in the ensemble of his third Poirot mystery A Haunting in Venice. Her Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu will be collaborating with her again on the two planned Wicked films (slated for 2024 and 2025). James Cameron has her showing up (apparently in human form) in the third and fourth Avatar pics.
Yeoh’s part in Everything was originally considered for her old costar Jackie Chan. That’s hard to picture now given her fantastic portrayal. She easily earns a spot in this series. My Year Of posts will continue with an actor who might’ve lost a friend in his Oscar contender, but gained plenty of praise for his body work throughout the year.
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