Tag: 2023

2023: The Year of Lily Gladstone

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:

2023: The Year of Barbenheimer
2023: The Year of the Video Game Movie
2023: The Year of Taylor Swift
2023: The Year of Bradley Cooper

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.

2023: The Year of Bradley Cooper

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:

2023: The Year of Barbenheimer
2023: The Year of the Video Game Movie
2023: The Year of Taylor Swift

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…

2023: The Year of Taylor Swift

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:

2023: The Year of Barbenheimer
2023: The Year of the Video Game Movie

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…

2023: The Year of the Video Game Movie

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:

2023: The Year of Barbenheimer

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…

2023: The Year of Barbenheimer

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!