Greg Laemmle’s Top Ten Movies of 2023.
In-Person Wim Wenders Q&A for ANSELM 3D Saturday in Glendale; 2D runs this week at other venues; MUST END SOON!
If you haven’t yet seen Wim Wenders’ 3D documentary Anselm in Glendale, there’s still time! We’ll have this fascinating portrait of painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer in 3D for at least one more week in the Jewell City and we’ll open 2D engagements this Friday in Santa Monica, Encino, Claremont and Newhall. What’s more the director will participate in an in-person Q&A following the Saturday, January 13 1 pm screening in Glendale. Matt Carey will moderate.
“Anselm offers both a thrilling portrait of the artist at work and, with the aid of terrific archival footage, lets us see what infuses his work with such intensity.” ~ John Powers, NPR
“The director [Wim Wenders] has fashioned a mesmerizing engagement with Kiefer’s art, including just enough face time with the subject to elevate the work’s immersive, bleak majesty, rather than give it an aggrandizing spin.” ~ Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times
“This is a superbly controlled and expressed film and its high seriousness about the nature and purpose of art really is invigorating.” Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
Contest! Submit your Top Ten Films of 2023 for a chance to win gift cards.
Have you caught up on all the 2023 movies you wanted to see? Regardless, it’s time to submit your Top Ten lists! Tell us which films you liked best here and you’ll be entered into a raffle for one of three $25 Laemmle gift cards. If you need inspiration, here’s my highly subjective alphabetical list. (Greg Laemmle will announce his list when we announce the winners of this contest, at which point he should have caught up to May December, Anatomy of a Fall and a couple others.)
Anatomy of a Fall: Sandra Hüller, formidable in court and dominating one of the gnarliest, most riveting marital arguments in cinema history.
Asteroid City: Wes Anderson gives us another melancholy, gorgeous, sui generis movie. “The notion of a perfect movie is absurd, but some movies attain an ideal synthesis of the director’s body of work. Wes Anderson’s latest, Asteroid City, is one such film.” ~ Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Fallen Leaves: Like Asteroid City, it’s a melancholy but funny and silver-lined one-of-a-kind work from a one-of-a-kind filmmaker.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: A wise man (U.C. Berkeley English Professor Stephen Booth) told his students: never be ashamed of what you like. This movie made me laugh out loud, it was so entertaining. Pass the popcorn!
Oppenheimer: Chilling, masterfully done, and awesome, in the original sense of the word.
Past Lives: Celine Song and Greta Lee! Deeply romantic and moving.
Showing Up: Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams! “A serene, pulse-lowering charmer.” ~ Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
You Hurt My Feelings: Nicole Holofcener and Julia Louis-Dreyfus! “Warm-hearted and rueful and hilarious in all the best ways.” ~ Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
The Zone of Interest: The terrifying banality of evil. Sandra Hüller again, this time paired with an equally scary Christian Friedel as Rudolf Höss, as the Macbeth and Lady Macbeth of Auschwitz.
One caveat: I still haven’t seen Barbie, All of Us Strangers, Poor Things or Afire and based one what others have said about them, my list might look different had I seen them. I did see Killers of the Flower Moon with two people who adored it and maybe I caught it on a bad night because, you know what? — I kept checking my watch.
Q1 2024 Culture Vulture Films Announced!
ONLY IN THEATERS wins award from Film Threat. DVDs now on sale at all venues.
The just-released Only in Theaters DVD is now available for sale at all seven of our theaters. In his recent Film Factual review of the release, Brent Simon described the film as “a rich and fortifying watch, and it thankfully isn’t fanciful enough to peddle easy solutions, or clear skies on the horizon. It’s funny and sad and at times emotionally piercing, but most of all it’s honest — a quality we should all want more of in movies, big and small.”
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “staggeringly heartbreaking” MONSTER opens Friday.
Gently devastating in its compassion, Monster, the latest from Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda (After Life, Shoplifters, Broker), is a masterpiece of shifting perspectives that defies expectations. It begins with a mother who confronts a teacher about her child’s behavioral changes. This is the first time Kore-eda has directed a film he did not write in almost 20 years. (The film was the last scoring project by Ryuichi Sakamoto.) We open Monster this Friday at the Laemmle Monica Film Center, Glendale, Town Center/Encino and Claremont 5.
Leading film critics have weighed in:
“Monster is one of the finest films of the year, and its structure — like its circle of characters — carries secrets that can only be unraveled through patience and empathy.” ~ Natalia Winkelman, New York Times

“There is so much beauty in Monster, and so much sadness.” ~ Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic
“Monster’s three perspectives are not so much in argument with one another as they are pieces of the same puzzle. And once they are locked together, the final portrait is staggeringly heartbreaking.” ~ Barry Hertz, Globe and Mail
“While Monster depends on dramatic irony and revelatory twists, it’s also a showcase for director Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose knack for collaboration brings out the best in his actors, especially his younger cast members.” ~ Simon Abrams, RogerEbert.com
“One of the director’s finest, its thematic scope and emotional power growing with each new revelation.” ~ Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
“Across the film, you can feel the push and pull between a master technician who built his career on the patient, delicate plucking at our heartstrings and his newfound desire to please a wide audience with the broadest of affective strokes.” ~ Kyle Turner, Slant Magazine
“Monster is another striking piece of work from a master, a movie that’s so carefully calibrated that you get lost in these characters, forgetting they’re performers and not people caught up in a genuinely traumatic chapter of life.” ~ Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
“Monster keeps its secrets until its final moments, leaving us with the feeling that we have earned its trust and are worthy of the precious, beautiful truths that lie at its heart.” ~ Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, AWFJ.org
“A case of Kore-eda’s incredible felicity in handling child actors, or perhaps the kids challenging and inspiring Kore-eda yet again.” ~ Namrata Joshi, The New Indian Express
“Kore-eda is a master of directing children’s performances, so it’s no wonder that Monster is at its best when there are no adults on screen, the children living in their own world of fantasy and adventure and emotion.” ~ Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
“Sometimes the best reason to watch a movie is because Isabelle Huppert is in it.” LA SYNDICALISTE Opens December 8 at the Royal.
La Syndicaliste is the stunning true story of Maureen Kearney (Isabelle Huppert), the head union representative of a French multinational nuclear powerhouse. She became a whistleblower, denouncing top-secret deals that shook the French nuclear sector. Alone against the world, she fought government ministers and industry leaders tooth and nail to bring the scandal to light and to defend more than 50,000 jobs. Her life was turned upside down when she was violently assaulted in her own home and the investigation is carried out under pressure: the subject is sensitive. Suddenly, new elements create doubt in the minds of the investigators. At first a victim, Maureen becomes a suspect. We open La Syndicaliste this Friday, December 8 at the Royal.
“A politically tinged back room drama of shifting power hierarchies…[Huppert] taps into a level of vulnerability rarely seen throughout her vast filmography.” – Nicholas Bell, IONCINEMA
“Derives its power from the knowledge that this shocking story actually happened.” – Lee Marshall, Screen Daily
“Maureen Kearney’s story is unbelievable. Played with an electric stillness by the great Isabelle Huppert…this is the story of one individual. A heroine, in fact.” – Stephanie Bunbury, Deadline
“Sometimes the best reason to watch a movie is because Isabelle Huppert is in it.” ~ Manohla Dargis, New York Times

“Salomé’s film pivots from itchy whistleblower thriller to irate courtroom drama, with institutional misogyny as its binding thread.” ~ Guy Lodge, Variety
“At no point is a link made between this narrative and The Scarlet Letter, but both the book and the film induce shivers by exposing the gross misogyny of so-called respectable establishment figures.” ~ Charlotte O’Sullivan, London Evening Standard
“This is a truly shocking story that is told with precision and sensitivity.” ~ Linda Marric, The Jewish Chronicle
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