Best Films of 2023 So Far

Eli Price (00:40.262)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot a podcast where we usually do deep dives into directors and their filmographies But today I am hopping on for a little bit of a break for our usual fare we are taking a break from our Wes Anderson series and I'm doing the solo pod today. Just kind of going over

what I think is the best of the year so far for 2023, as far as films that have come out this year, here in the US. And I'm excited to jump into some of these. So, I am gonna kind of get right into it. We will go through what I think are some of the...

really good films that have come out already this year, maybe touch on some honorable mentions towards the end, and maybe just kind of pointing out some maybe that I haven't seen yet that I'm really looking forward to getting to see in the near future. So what I'm going to do, I have seen so far a total of 18 films from 2023.

I'm not going to go through all of those. What I'm going to do is I'm going to jump into kind of my top 8 so far and just kind of go through those, tell you a little bit about them, why I think they're really good. And yeah, I hope you get some good recommendations out of this and maybe get some confirmations of movies that you think are the best also.

Yeah, let's jump right in. So at number eight, I have a little movie called Skinnamorink. Skinnamorink is directed by Kyle Edward Ball, first time feature length director here. And it is sort of a, it sort of has the feel of a found footage horror film. Very...

Eli Price (03:03.098)
interesting. I will say this about this movie, it's not for everyone. I have a friend Hayden who has been on the podcast a couple of times who's really into like the internet creepypasta style of horror films online and this kind of has that sort of a genre influence which I'm not familiar with all of that stuff so

I'm not carrying any of that into seeing this. And I just felt like it was a very interesting, experimental, just very modern found footage-y kind of horror movie. Basically the premise is you have these two kids who wake up in their house in the middle of the night. And all the like...

doors and windows have kind of disappeared from their house and they're kind of stuck in their house. And I'll just say things get a little creepy. I'll just leave it at that. But yeah, I found this to be very interesting. Some of the themes of just like what's scary to children and you know, kind of the

effects that things out of their control can have on them. But yeah, it's like I said, it's very experimental, very low story. There's a lot of like very still shots, very like close up shots. Like I don't think you ever see the kids faces. You see a lot of their feet walking past like a camera that's on the ground. It's almost like.

And it's like this very grainy, like, almost like a baby monitor. It's like a baby monitor is falling on the floor and you're seeing these kids kind of walk around the house, watch TV, try to make themselves food. And yeah, like I said, some very, let's say, creepy things start to happen.

Eli Price (05:23.522)
But yeah, that's my number eight. Skin of Mourink is the name of that film. You can find it streaming on, there's a horror streaming service called Shudder, S-H-U-D-D-E-R. It's streaming on there. I've never subscribed to that, but I did get a little free trial to check this one out, so I would recommend doing that. My number seven film is a film that a lot of people,

critics at least had on their movie list for 2022 and understandably so it was released in the year 2022. And that is Saint Omer. I am including it in 2023. Usually how I do that is if it's released in the US 2023 that's what I go by and this one did.

have like a limited release earlier this year. So you know a lot of times they'll have like they'll have festival runs in the US but I don't really count that I only count when there's like a limited release. So yeah Saint-Omer it's by

Eli Price (06:51.19)
This is not a French language film.

Eli Price (06:58.942)
Actually, yes it is.

Eli Price (07:07.006)
Yeah, it's directed by French director Alice Diop. And it's this really interesting French language film. Basically like you kind of get a little bit of courtroom drama in it with these little aside scenes. But basically there's this novelist who is attending this trial of a woman who has been accused of killing her 15-month-old baby.

She's attending this trial to get kind of I Guess like information about it kind of notes for the novel. She's writing and the woman Herself is You kind of realize she's pregnant With her child and so she's watching this woman You know stand on the stand give testimony hear the testimonies of

the other people in her life. And she's kind of, I guess, reckoning with motherhood, womanhood, what it means. There's like a really, really interesting kind of biological parallel to what's going on in this trial that's kind of stated later on in the movie.

that I thought was really interesting and kind of a powerful way to think about what's going on here what it means to be a woman what it means to be a mother yeah I love movies like this that for me really allow me to be able to empathize with an experience that I could not just that I haven't had but I could never possibly have

Eli Price (09:05.775)
Yeah, it's a very heavy story for sure. Saint Omer, it stars, I'm going to try to say these names, Kaijai Kagami as Rama and Guslagi Milanda as the woman, Lawrence Coley, that's on trial. And yeah.

I just thought it was very powerful. The way the camera will sit and just watch the faces of these characters, how they're reacting to what's being said, is just very powerful. So yeah, that was my number seven of the year, Saint Omer. My number six is the new feature from Kelly Reichert, who's a director that I'm...

Just growing in my appreciation for and it's called showing up. It stars Michelle Williams Who was just played a great role in? Spielberg's the fabled men's and also Hong Chow is kind of The main supporting role here And she's been popping up in and everything recently really great actress

And yeah, Michelle Williams plays this artist who's kind of working at this art studio in this Portland community. She will, I say she's working at an art studio, she's working at an art college. And you kind of get the feeling that this is somewhere that she went. She's kind of in an admin position, but she's also trying to complete some little sculptures.

for her own upcoming art show. And it's really like something that I really love about what Kelly Rieckert does with her movies is she has this way of kind of creating these very slow slice of life, you know, movies that really like, to me they're just very affecting.

Eli Price (11:28.058)
very human, you really get a feel for whatever she's trying to capture, the humanity of the characters and the situation they're in. So I really appreciate Kelly Rieckert's filmmaking, and this is really interesting, the way she, there's a lot of like a side shots of just college students making art at this art college, and you really get the feel that...

she just appreciates the... just that art is being made. You know, I think the name of the film comes into play a lot with just showing up. You know, showing up and doing what... this creative activity that... that you're doing. It doesn't really matter to... I guess to these... these students, but mainly just to Reichert as the filmmaker capturing this...

doesn't really matter like is this art good or not that's not really what she's interested in exploring it's more of just the artistic endeavor uh... which i really appreciate but yeah this movie is it is it can be slow it's a it's a very slice of life but it's also very funny you know uh... michelle williams character lizzie uh... who's the main character just she has this very uh... you can tell she's very

She's very dry, but she's just in this place in life where she feels kind of stuck. Her landlord is also sort of her best friend, but also like a competing artist. It's Hong Chow's character, Jo, and she hasn't fixed Lizzie's hot water. She keeps asking her about that. She's...

You know, you know they went to art school together, but Lizzie kind of is struggling to actually find time for her art between her job and her family drama and whatever else she's going on. Not to mention her cat hurts a pigeon that Joe finds and brings to her and they kind of she ends up taking care of this pigeon trying to nurse it back to health. Which creates a lot of like very...

Eli Price (13:53.362)
not like roll on the floor laugh out loud funny but a lot of like chuckle funny which I like a movie that can make you chuckle all throughout it. I can appreciate that. And yeah, I just another thing that Kelly Riker does really well is to capture what friendships are really like. And the note that this movie ends on I think is really kind of.

just a nice look at what friendships can, where friendships go, like the kind of ups and downs that they take and yeah, so showing up, it's, I really enjoyed this one, it's just the, watching someone make, watching her make these sculptures, like pressing on you know, the clay and whatnot. The politics of

getting to the kiln early so that you don't get your piece a little charred which is apparently a thing you know and yeah I just you could just tell Kelly Reichert really appreciates just like I said the artistic endeavor but yeah that's my number six showing up and I'm my number five film of the year so far is

a film by Nicole Hoffsner called You Hurt My Feelings. It stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the main lead role as Beth and her husband Don is Tobias Menzies. You have a few others. You have like you have Beth's sister-in-law, sister and her brother-in-law. And they have Beth and Don.

the two leads have a son, that there's kind of just this, all these characters kind of you, you learn about their life, where they are in life. But yeah, the basic premise of this movie is that Julia Louise Dreyfuss's character Beth is a writer. She's had a decently successful memoir that came out. And she is working on her first novel.

Eli Price (16:20.47)
first fooling the novel and she's trying to get it published. Her publisher isn't... her editor, whoever isn't really seeming like she likes it. Her husband is telling her, you know, you're going to get it published, it's going to be great. But then she overhears him kind of telling her brother-in-law that he doesn't really actually care for it, but wants to support her, doesn't really know how to tell her he doesn't like it at this point.

and it just throws her, she doesn't know what to do anymore. And this movie was very funny. You do get a few just laugh out loud moments. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is an actress that I want to see more of. Seinfeld is one of my favorite comedies ever, just one of my favorite shows ever. And Louis-Dreyfus is

She has just a great sense of comedy, but also in this film, you really get to see her she knows how to turn on that kind of sitcom-y humor, but also how to really get really true and human emotions on screen. So I really appreciated her in this film. Yeah.

It's a very low stakes drama and something I appreciated about it is just her and her husband who her husband plays a therapist who is having problems of his own. Is he a really good therapist? Is he losing his touch? All of the characters kind of have these kind of like where am I in my life kind of moments. Their son not knowing what he's going to do. Going through a breakup.

you know, that it's, that small seed of distrust of overhearing her husband is just this small stakes little thing that feels very human and true to life. Like you know, we know there's bigger things going on in the world, but also like these small problems in our own little circle of interpersonal relationships can just throw us for a loop. And they are a big deal to us.

Eli Price (18:46.73)
what we feel is a big deal in our own little worlds. And Hollis Center looks at that, she sees the humor in it, but she also sees the humanity in it. And she laughs at it, but she also really shows that, but that's who we are and that's okay and that's normal. And so I just really appreciated this. I haven't seen any...

other Hall of Center and so I really want to jump back into some of her other stuff. I know Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been in another film of hers years ago. So yeah, I really, really liked this one a whole lot. That was my number five of the year. Well I'm going to take a quick break and when we come back I will get into my maybe some

And then I'll go into my top four of the year so far. And so I will see you in just a minute.

Eli Price (21:12.842)
Hi, welcome back. I've been doing sort of a best of 2023 so far in film today. And yeah, I'm excited to get into my top four. Before I get into my top four though, I just kind of wanted to hit on some that, both are honorable mentions that I'm not gonna talk about in my top four.

and also some that I haven't got around to yet that I'm really excited about. So I'll start off with some that I haven't seen yet that I just like, I feel like are going to be some of my favorite of the year, or at least that I'm just excited to see. So probably the main one that I haven't seen yet that I really wanted to get to theaters and watch that I haven't gotten to is, are you there?

Are you there? God, it's me, Margaret. I've just heard such great things about this movie by Kelly Freeman Craig who directed Edge of Seventeen years ago, which I really liked. A great kind of teen comedy. And I've just heard that Rachel McAdams in this is great, that the humor is great, that just like the way she captures...

I guess like preteen life is just very sweet and human and funny. So I'm really excited to get to see Are You There, God? It's me, Margaret. As of the time of this recording, it's kind of mid-June and I'm pretty sure it's going to be streaming later in June or at least available to rent. So I'm excited for that. One that I look forward to seeing with my wife.

Yeah, when this comes out to Asteroid City would have come out, and obviously we're going to talk about that on the podcast, it has not come out in wide release yet as of now while I'm recording. What did come out recently that I haven't got to see yet is The Flash. You know, I don't have any of these high hopes that it's going to be this fantastic, great

Eli Price (23:37.534)
one of the best superhero movies of all time. But I think I've mentioned on the podcast before that the Flash is my favorite comic book character, so I'm just excited to go see the Flash on screen, kind of, you know, what they do with that story that I'm sort of familiar with, pretty familiar with the storyline that they're going to be trying to cover. So I'm excited to see that.

A few others, they're Blackberry by Matt Johnson. I'm excited to see that. It's kind of a... It seems like it's a biopic, but not really just about the company that made the Blackberry phone back in the day. It just sounds like it's a very funny, interesting movie.

Eli Price (24:33.934)
One other one that I've heard of recently that sounds really interesting to me is called The Artifice Girl. It's about kind of like it obviously deals with some AI. It's a little sci-fi picture by a first time director. So yeah, I really like jumping into movies by first time directors and seeing.

What they do as you can tell I've already kind of talked about I've already talked about one first-time director and It's not gonna be the first first-time feature Director that I talked about today as we will see in just a minute But before I jump back into my top four, I did want to mention a few films that I've really enjoyed this year All the ones I've talked about

So far my top eight. I have kind of rated like four stars or higher or you know if you want to use out of ten that would be an eight out of ten or higher. I have one more that was in my number nine spot which was John Wick 4. I really enjoyed that one. My favorites since the first one I think. And man that that.

that guy fall so much in that movie it's just painful. Another one I really appreciated that didn't quite work as well with me as I've seen it has for others is a movie Close it's a I want to make sure I get this right it is a yeah film out of Belgium and Belgium

Eli Price (26:28.574)
Yeah, that's right. By a director called named Lucas Dont. Dont, Dont. Again, pronunciation. I'm sorry, Lucas. I probably am not pronouncing your name right. Please forgive me. I'll learn how to say it later. But yeah, it's about these two 13-year-olds that have grown up best friends and then.

you know, they're starting to kind of get into that, you know, just preteen pubescent period where they're trying to figure out who they are, trying to be not made fun of, and there's a little bit of drifting apart that happens, and it's a very sad film. I feel like it lays on a little too much, but I really, really appreciated the way that it was shot.

I did appreciate this story overall and yeah it was a good film. Two more. One is a documentary. It's called Jason Isbell Running With Our Eyes Closed. It is about Jason Isbell who is a kind of a country folk artist who I think is a fantastic songwriter and that really comes out in this documentary.

And then just like I don't know it's just a very moving documentary for me As a father and a husband and just seeing You know his struggles With his career and his family. I thought it was a pretty well made documentary And the last one I wanted to point out is Creed 3 I Saw that I watched the first two Creed's not long ago to kind of because I wanted to see this one, too

I really enjoyed the first one a whole lot, thought it was really well done, a great way to kind of reimagine a franchise without just kind of like remaking it, redoing the same thing again. I thought the second Creed was kind of dropped back into what I just said, kind of just redoing what was already done with the franchise before. And this one, this one kind of steps back into not...

Eli Price (28:52.706)
as good as the first Creed I don't think. There's some issues with just the writing I think and the characters are kind of like, I don't know, not exactly believable to me fully. But man, Michael B. Jordan, this is his first go at directing and I think he does a pretty good job. He tries some interesting things that may or may not work, but they're interesting at least.

Tessa Thompson is great in this again, and Jonathan Majors, man, you know, I hate that he's having these personal life issues that are, that, I don't know what is going to happen with his career because of that, because he's just phenomenal. He's a phenomenal actor. I'm not, it's hard for me to buy into some of the beats they take with this character, but he sells it even when...

even when the writing isn't that great. He's just phenomenal. I first saw him in the movie, Last Black Man in San Francisco, and that was one of my absolute favorite movies of 2019, and he's phenomenal in that. He's phenomenal in this. A little, couple of little tear up moments for me. Yeah, I did really enjoy Creed III, so I recommend that too. But yeah, let's get.

Let's get back into my top four. This next one is, and I'm hoping, I'm pretty sure a lot of these are gonna be things that maybe you are aware of but haven't seen or at least, or a lot of them are probably that you haven't heard of. Because a lot of them were just the ones that I found from recommendations, from stuff I listen to, stuff I follow, and you know, especially when it comes to first time directors.

You know, you don't really hear a lot about these, so I'm hoping this gives you some. And this is one that you can go on Hulu and watch right now. It's called Rye Lane. It's by a first-time feature director, Rain Allen Miller, who is a British film director and writer. She is a great writer.

Eli Price (31:18.878)
she kind of captures the... I think Rylane is a street. It's a certain neighborhood in London. Obviously I'm not British, I'm not from London, so I'm unfamiliar with... it's not something that I would see and be like, oh yeah, they're capturing it so well. But you watch it and you do like get a feel for what this neighborhood is like, which I really appreciate when a director can do that.

But yeah, this is a... It's a rom-com is what it is. I mean, there's no getting around it. There's comedy, there's romance. The comedy is hilarious. They do some really, really interesting, innovative things with this as far as like, you get these flashback moments where a character is telling a story about something that happened that is a funny story to begin with, but then...

the person they're telling it to is kind of like in the story like watching as like an audience and kind of commenting from the side. As kind of like this spectator on this like stage scene of the you know the story being played out. So you got stuff like that and just some kind of like some shock humor that's really funny.

man is this movie made me laugh a whole lot this is one that i want to go watch again like uh... told my wife like we've got to watch this again i watch it without her and i'm like you we've got to watch this together super funny and also really sweet uh... the two leads uh... who i was i am very unfamiliar with i don't think they've really done much work at all either of them

which are David Johnson plays Dom and Vivian Aparra plays Yaz and they are they have incredible chemistry comedically and romantically and I don't know I think the way this was shot is really interesting the comedy hits the romance hits and I was just smiling all throughout this movie.

Eli Price (33:46.134)
I highly recommend this one. It was just a good time. And you don't really get romcoms like that anymore, so I really appreciated this. And that's, again, that's Ry Lane. That's RYE Lane, in case you were, I don't know, searching for the wrong spelling. But yeah, so that's my number four. My number three is Broker.

This is a movie by Hirokazu Kureita, who is a Korean director of movies like Afterlife, Still Walking, Shoplifters. These are all movies that have been on my watch list for a while now that I have not gotten around to. So this is actually the first Hirokazu Kureita movie that I've seen.

And it stars Song Kang Ho, who most people will know from Parasite. He's the dad in Parasite. He also plays a key role in Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer, another Bong Joon Ho. So he's a regular collaborator with Bong Joon Ho. But yeah, he's really good here in Broker. The premise of this is you have these two guys who volunteer at a local church in Korea.

that has kind of like a baby drop box, which is basically like instead of a mother abandoning their baby on the street, this church has a little box where they can drop their baby off and the church will take them into their little orphanage. Kind of to keep these babies from becoming malnourished, dying on the street, whatever, beside the point. But basically these guys will sometimes...

erase the footage of the baby being put in and they'll take the baby home and they are brokers essentially which means they uh... are selling these babies on the black market to you know parents that can't have kids and for some reason are unable to adopt the normal route uh... so you have really interesting concept uh... you have uh... song can co is one of them uh...

Eli Price (36:04.746)
Gang Dong-won is the other character who I have not seen him in anything. But he was great in this. And then the mom of the baby who ends up pretty early on, this is not really a spoiler, comes into contact with these guys. She was in The Host with Bong Joon-ho, which I saw. And apparently she was in Jupiter Ascending 2.

but it's been forever since I saw that. But she's great too. And what happens is these three end up going around trying to find parents to sell this baby to. And then you also have these two women who are detectives that are trying to bust these two leads, Senkyon and Dongsu, the two lead guys, trying to kind of catch them in the act of selling to arrest them for...

for illegal selling of babies and so... I get the sense that Coretta is really good at just hitting emotional beats because he hits some emotional beats in this movie that are just like heartbreaking and heartwarming and up and down again it's just really good a really good drama, it's funny

to. It just like you have this kind of found family dynamic that ends up playing out that's really sweet and you get some funny dynamics within that. And yeah, I just thought this was a really sweet, really good movie that really like, I don't know, I just really, really enjoyed it. It's another one that some people might have had as a 2022 movie, but

did not have a limited release until early this year. So I'm counting it as a 2023 movie. That's the movie Broker by Hirokazu Kureita, also on Hulu, streaming on Hulu now. And so I was able to catch up with this recently before recording. But yeah, so that's Broker. My number three, my number...

Eli Price (38:30.11)
uh, two movie of the year is also similar to, um, similar to Skin of Mourink and Rye Lane, uh, first time director. Um, first time feature length director anyway. Uh,

Eli Price (39:14.582)
Yeah, and that is A.V. Rockwell. She is, I think she's done some TV directing and she has a good bit of short films too. But yeah, she's out of New York City. This film is set in New York City. It stars Tiana Taylor as Inez. And then you have,

You have kind of her boyfriend, William Catlett, playing Lucky. And then you have her, the kid who is her son. You kind of see him in three phases of life throughout the movie. So you have three different actors playing him. This is one thing in this film that the acting is really incredible. I was really blown away by the acting of Teyana Taylor.

William Catlett who I've never really seen before. He hasn't been in much. And then these three kids are just phenomenal in this role as Terry the son. But yeah the premise of this is you have this mom who is Inez who has recently been released out of jail. She did some time.

uh... for uh... you know you're not really sure maybe uh... stealing or something like that but um... she uh... she runs into uh... a kid who uh... you know you kind of realizes oh this is her son he's in uh... foster care home uh... and uh... she she's not really supposed to be in contact with them uh... but kind of seeks him out and tries to talk to him anyway uh...

He's kind of standoffish toward her. So, and then what ends up happening is she takes him. He's in the hospital and he gets kind of hurt and is in the hospital and she basically kidnaps him and goes and tries to build their life together. And man, I can't really talk much about this because the...

Eli Price (41:33.694)
Just the drama and the relationship building, the character building throughout this is really incredible. But again, kind of in a similar vein to Saint-Omer, you really get this look at a mother really trying to do the best she can. So again, you know, helping me to build empathy for

Just something I will never experience. And then Terry as the son, in his experience with his mother and who she is and their relationship, their past, it's just super emotionally affecting. This was kind of climaxing with me watching with wet eyes. I just found it to be incredibly powerful.

And I highly recommend it. It's a it's streaming on Peacock premium So you can find it there. Maybe hop on a free trial if you don't have it And watch this one. It's called. I don't think I ever said the name of the movie. This one is called a thousand and one and so yeah 1001 directed by AV Rockwell just an incredible movie

And so that was my number two. My number one is not gonna be that surprising. And it is Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse. You have three directors on this one, Joaquin Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, and Kent Powers. Kent Powers also kind of co-wrote Soul and did some direct.

he doesn't have director credit but was basically doing some directing with that one soul movie that I really liked a Pixar movie and he also he also wrote One Night in Miami which was directed by Regina King based on a stage play that I'm pretty sure he's a he's a playwright too so that's where that comes into play but he does really good he really does good

Eli Price (44:00.51)
emotional beats of the movie, but yeah, Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse, you know, this has been talked about a ton already, but I guess I would just say what I appreciated with this movie is just the huge accomplishments that it is artistically. I mean you have, I don't even know how many animators, but tons of animators working on this.

And you know you really need three directors to kind of keep everything you might even need more to keep everything moving and everything in sync but to be able to take a script and First of all how you write this I don't know how you write What you see on the screen in a script I have no clue but for the animators to see the script and be able to

Translate that into what you see is I don't know. It's just an amazing accomplishment a Few things that I really loved about this You get the you and the first so in into the spider verse the first Of this series of this kind of what seems like it'll be a trilogy You get really just the one universe you get miles Morales

um... his one universe. There is a multiverse stuff going on, but it's, um... people are just coming to his... other Spider-Men are coming to his universe. You don't really see any other universes. And in this one, uh... you do. You go to a few different, um... universes and meet Spider-Men there. Uh... Spider-Mans. I don't really know how to say the plural of Spider-Man, but, um...

Yeah, you meet them in their own universes. And what's so incredible to me is that the art for these different universes is all distinct and unique and speaks toward the character, the world they live in, with Gwen Stacy, who is very prominent in this movie. I would say it's just as much her movie as Miles Morales.

Eli Price (46:25.954)
for this one. Her world is very like water color. You get these very like water color wall backgrounds that sometimes even look like they're like bleeding down the walls. And the colors that they use really match the emotional beats that are happening in the scene. Which I think is really unique and incredible.

You get a stint in kind of like this Indian version of Brooklyn or Manhattan or something. You get that vibrancy of India coming out in that. You have the spider punk character who kind of looks like, you know, anarchist, you know,

posters slapped together. You just have so many different art styles going on, but you don't really feel lost. You feel like you're along for the ride. There's a lot going on in this movie, I'll say that, but it's not a way where I'm like turned off by it. It's more, it more draws me than anything. I want to watch it again to see what else I can see. And so that's...

that's a difference for me when sometimes there's too much going on in a movie and it's so overwhelming that you're just like I'm done with this that's not how this one is to me it's it really drew draws me in makes me wanna watch it again to see what else i can see what else i can feel uh... and so yet the emotional beats of this are just really good uh... you know i heard pointed out i'd like

Eli Price (48:21.566)
It feels like there's kind of a flip in the important characters, the pivotal influences in Miles Morales' life. In the first it feels like it's more of the male characters in his life. In this one it feels like it's more the female characters, like his mom and Gwen, kind of really influencing his identity. And so that's really cool to see. There's some really emotionally affecting scenes.

just the question of you kind of get this isn't really spoiler but you kind of get this idea of canon what is canon what does it mean for a spider-man to be spider-man do they all have to have the same story and that is very well done it you know you

it kind of feels... it doesn't feel like it's just a joke that's like a bad joke. It feels very true to the universe. It feels very... I don't know, it's just very good. Everything is just so well done in this movie. If I have one complaint, it would just be that the sound mix wasn't always the best. It's kind of hard to understand characters here and there.

But I want to say I heard that they actually did a re-edit of the sound and have put out a new version where you can hear the characters better. So bravo to the across the Spider-Verse team for doing that. But yeah, this is just an incredible movie. I want to see it again as soon as I can just to kind of be able to take in everything that's going on. And I haven't even mentioned the performance.

you know the voice acting performances going on here of course you have shimmy more and hailey steinfeld uh... as smiles morales and grins stacy that they do they do a really good job uh... but uh... some new faces here in oscar isaac playing the gilohara uh... or spider-man twenty ninety nine uh... does really good with that i really enjoyed jason swartzman as uh... the spot kind of the villain

Eli Price (50:47.302)
And Daniel Kaluuya, who I didn't even realize was playing the spider-punk character. Really good job. But yeah, Jason Swartzman, I think fit very well for the spy character. But yeah, just all around this was that was just an incredibly fun movie. I can't wait to see it again across the spider-verse. Not an exciting or

uh... pick for the number one film of the year so far but that's what i've got so uh... i've seen some other movies that didn't make the list like air uh... which i did enjoy the super mario brothers movie that i saw my son uh... was fine uh... couple marver the little mermaid not a huge fan of any of those uh... but yeah

with the rest of the movie year. We've got some great ones on the slate that I'm really excited about. Yeah, let me read you off again my top eight movies so in case you were trying to write them down and didn't get a chance. The first number eight, I have Skin of Mareenck by Kyle Edward Ball. Saint Omer, directed by Alice Diop.

at six showing up by kelly rocker at number uh... five you hurt my feelings by nicole hall center at number four rye lane directed by rain alan miller number three broker directed by here because it could read a uh... at number two thousand and one directed by a v rockwell and my number one

So far is Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse. And so, yeah, I hope you're able to catch up with some of these that maybe you haven't heard of or maybe are encouraged to see sooner now. But yeah, I look forward to jumping back into the Wes Anderson series next week, jumping back in with Isle of Dogs.

Eli Price (53:10.998)
Wes Anderson's second stop motion animated film. That's going to be a fun conversation. So I look forward to seeing you then. And that's all I have for this week. I hope you enjoyed this little hiatus. And I will see you again next week. Thank you so much for listening. Please make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

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I'm kind of reiterating things that are about to be said again, but I just wanted to take this time on this solo pod to do that, give a little special extra request for those things. But yeah, that's all I have for this week. Thank you so much, and have a great one.