This year has been remarkable in the field of art. We had the new: Fincher, Mario (a film and a game!), Zelda, Nolan, Street Fighter, Chazelle, Scorsese, Miyazaki (while I was in Japan!), Bethesda RPG, Wes Anderson, Michael Mann, Damon Lindelof, Spielberg, Daft Punk and The Beatles (?!), Aronofsky, Indiana Jones, and the list goes on!
Cinema
I watched 90 films in 2023, including 38 films in theaters (in 5 different cities) and 33 films released this year.
I hope it was the last year for the multiverse trend (think about The Flash, Spider-Man, and the MCU) while another annoying trend seems to start: the surprising two-parts movies: Dune, Spider-Man, Fast X, City Hunter and M:I 7 who even drops the “part one” for the digital release.
The year was more than great in cinema, I would strongly recommend every film in my top 20. And I loved the crazy summer streak at the end of July: Barbenheimer, Slam Dunk, Spider-Man, Elemental, Asteroid City, M:I 7 and Indiana Jones 5.
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🏆 The First Slam Dunk
I'm not a reader of Slam Dunk, I don't watch basketball, I'm not a fan of this 3D animation style and yet, the film took me away. The soundtrack and the editing is amazing. It's the best sports film in a long time. -
🥈 Barbie
It was maybe my most enjoyable screening, I laughed a lot, it was a jolly crowd and the walk in a sunny Westerpark after the film was the cherry on the cake.
The film is not perfect, it takes a lot from The Lego Movie, Ken is more interesting than Barbie, supporting roles are a waste but there are many good jokes and I listened to the soundtrack for months.
Mentions
- Too many other mentions, so rapid fire: Perfect Days gave me chills with simple things; I loved Brendan Fraser comeback; it's a miracle Mars Express exists and Justin Hurwitz is on a perfect winning streak!
You can see the rest in my top on SensCritique.
Web video
In 2023, I watched even more videos on Youtube and Twitch (277 days, compared to 228 last year). Mostly French content, like Etienne et Antoine, a super interesting dive into stand-up comedy, but also:
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I discovered and even subscribed to Dropout with shows like Game Changer, Make some noise, Total forgiveness and Hum actually.
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I continue to watch Saturday Night Live on Youtube every week.
If you don't know Please don't destroy group, it is the best thing that happened to the show recently.
Overall, the quality depends a lot on the host but you can still trust Emma Stone and Adam Driver to deliver great performances, my favorites skits of the year:
Music video
I had two songs on repeat in 2023 and their music videos are also great:
- 🏆 Tokyo Calling - Atarashii Gakko!
I've never fallen for a J-Pop band before, but they became an obsession. I also recommend these other videos: OTONABLUE / THE FIRST TAKE, SEISHUN WO KIRISAKU HADO and 新しい学校のリーダーズ ｢キミワイナ'17｣
- 🥈 With Or Without You - Pacifica
I was following Inés Adam’s videos before she formed the band Pacifica and their first single is a super cool variant of The Strokes. I was also pleasantly surprised by the quality of the video as well.
Mentions
This year, we also got the last songs and videos from The Beatles and Daft Punk:
- Infinity Repeating is just a demo but still a good earworm and it gave a chance for Warren Fu to deliver a gem of a video for animation lovers.
Don't miss the making of series.
- Now and Then is the first track of The Beatles since 1996 and possibly their last. It is a very nice song and the music video by Peter Jackson is so bad I like it. The short making of is even more interesting.
By the way, I discovered on The Beatles' Youtube channel this beautiful music video from last year for I'm Only Sleeping. With an interview of the artist Em Cooper
Video game trailers
- 🏆 Marathon
Without any doubt, the trailer have watched the most, for the art direction, the music, the project (Bungie's new game) and the editing.
Produced by Antibody (art director Joseph Cross) with an original SebastiAn remix of Heavy Metal by Justice, managed by The Elements Music. I would love to have more behind the scenes about the audio and the video.
Mentions
- The War Within Announce Cinematic | World of Warcraft
Crazy to see the evolution of Blizzard and WoW trailers, the more technically impressive they become the less action they have.
- The Big Walk
- Pacific Drive
- The Alters
- EXODUS
Classic sci-fi universe, but the trailer is made by the amazing Blur studio.
WTF
The WTF award goes to the first look video for Everybody 1-2-Switch!. So Bad they removed their video, but I find a mirror link: https://youtu.be/wt2B1iMIvcY
TV
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🏆 Shrinking
The new series from Bill Lawrence, after Scrubs and Ted Lasso, shares all the things I love about its predecessors: a good balance of comedy and drama, a great indie rock soundtrack and a great cast. -
🥈 Scavengers Reign
I didn't even finish it but a sci-fi animated show with this style is everything I wanted. In addition to its visual, the show is touching, like rarely seen before, on the true nature of xenobiology.
Mentions
- The Last of Us was a surprisingly good video game adaptation, HBO is still the best seal of approval. Like everyone, I loved the standalone third episode.
Then, we had a good second season for The Afterparty, a intriging first season for The Big Door Prize.
Solid ongoing seasons for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Foundation, Parlement (a funny multilingual show about the European politics I always recommend) and, sadly cancelled, Our Flag Means Death.
Film Trailers
No remarkable TV or movie trailer to highlight this year but a lot of the big movies had very good trailers: TMNT, Asteroid City, The Creator, Ferrari, Mars Express. I especially love the “Can you find the wolves in this picture?” line in the Killers of the Flower Moon trailer, playing with the edit compared to the film.
The teaser who got me the most curious was Tár, with a lot of images that are not in the film at the end, we need more of this.
Finally, the trailer for Mrs. Davis, the new show from Damon Lindelof, totally threw me off. I have to watch it!
Video Game
A bit of a weird year: I finally finished the best game of 2015: The Witcher 3 with 51h, and played 50h of another game from 2015: Starfield :D
I also started playing The New York Times games: the famous Wordle, the historical crossword and the new Connections, a blatant copy of the British show Only Connect, which didn't stop it from being one of the most Googled games in 2023.
From 2023, I liked F-Zero 99, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Street Fighter 6.
Also worth mentioning: Jusant and Hi-Fi Rush were welcome surprises.
Fin