Beta's Top Ten Favorite Movies of 2023

Today marks fourteen years since my first bog post on Beta is Dead. As has been the custom, I will celebrate by sharing my To Ten Movie list of the past year, in this case 2023.

As usual, take in mind that this is my personal list of favorite movies, not an objective “Top Films of the Year” list, since I didn’t watch every single movie. This is just my personal opinion and, frankly, I’d be interested to hear your favorite movies of the year in the comment section.

Some quick notes about some honorable mentions: I really enjoyed The Marvels and Blue Beetle (especially Blue Beetle) but neither appears on the list because there were just way too many better flicks this year. I still want to make a special note that they were both good and should have done better at the Box Office. Also, Barbie just barely got edged off of the list, and I struggled with this quite a bit. I think it was great, and on any other year it would have made it on here easily. However don’t be surprised if you see the other half of Barbenheimer shortly.

Full Top Ten after the jump.

Review: Spider-Man - Across the Spider-Verse

 

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the sequel to the 2018 surprise hit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. When I say “surprise hit” I don’t mean that it was a giant box office hit (it did quite well, though it started slow) but that it was a game changing animated film. Since then both Hollywood and Japan have been chasing the style dragon Spider-Verse made famous (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, being the most recent example that I can think of). I did not review the first film, but I did name it #2 of my Favorite Films of 2018. At the time I said I it was probably the best Spider-Man movie, but with the benefit of hindsight I think you can make a strong argument for it being the best superhero movie and the best animated film ever made (even though I liked Black Panther more at the time).

The original film did well enough that a sequel was announced soon afterwards. In fact, it was eventually announced it would have two sequels, making it a trilogy. Unfortunately, it was another Hollywood victim of the pandemic and delayed by quite a few years, no longer able to strike while the iron was hot. Even so, with how much it had influenced the movie industry since its debut, the hype train for the follow-up was still quite strong.

This film was again written by the hitmaker duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who also produced the flick, along with Dave Callaham. This time it was directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson.

Again, this is one of two greenlit sequel with the second, Beyond the Sider-Verse, being produced alongside this one. The idea of a mostly standalone film getting two sequels pushed ahead at the same time is reminiscent of other film trilogies such as Star Wars, Back to the Future, and The Matrix.  After five years of waiting, does the Spider-Verse manage to live up to is predecessor, ala The Empire Strikes Back, or is it a giant wet fart that should have stayed in the production truck, ala The Matrix Reloaded?

Full  review after the jump.

Black Superheroes: Spider-Man (Miles Morales)

So...did they make his costume black to be funny?

Name: Miles Morales

First Appearance: Ultimate Fallout #4 (2011)

History: On an alternate Earth (Earth-1610), Peter Parker is a teenager who has dedicated the last couple of years of his life to fighting crime as the Ultimate Spider-Man. At some point scientists with ill intent recovered some of his blood and were able to recreate the circumstances of that lead to Peter getting his powers; genetically enhanced spiders. However, before they got a chance to do much with them, career criminal Aaron Davis a.k.a. the Prowler stole the formula, not realizing one of the spiders had hitched a ride with him. Later at Davis’ apartment the spider bit his young nephew Miles Morales and the kid gained powers very similar to Spider-Man. Despite this, Miles had no intention to use his new found abilities in the same manner and was rather insistent that he wanted to live a normal live. This changes when Spider-Man is killed fighting the Green Goblin. Believing that he could have helped the hero if he had embraced his powers earlier, Miles makes the guilt-fueled decision to take up Parker’s mantle and become to new Spider-Man.

Beta Says: Created by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli, Miles Morales was likely, with maybe the exception of Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, the highest profile creation of a comic book superhero in the 2010s. Not only was he the first person other than Peter Parker to regularly wear the mantle of Spider-Man in quite a few years, but he was both black and Latino and was created during a time when America was celebrating electing its first black president. Miles ended up becoming very popular in a very short amount of time, partially due to the marketing Marvel Comics applied to him. Today, he is the star of the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which has only made him even more high profile. Some critics have suggested that the character was merely a big publicity stunt…and they’re at least partially right. Regardless as to how much of Miles' creation came from a good place to better represent the modern world, Marvel Comics were clearly motivated by the buzz of killing off Peter Parker would bring. Hence the reason they gave away the death of Peter before the issue where it occurred came out; to generate reactions from the mainstream media. Miles’ creation was more of a side effect of the publicity stunt, but that did not stop a backlash of negative and confused press decrying Marvel killing off one of its most iconic characters and replacing him based on “Political Correctness.”

Except Marvel didn’t kill off the iconic Spider-Man and, indeed, he was never replaced by Miles Morales and everyone crying about it on the news was being an idiot.

This may take a bit to explain.

The ultimate discussion of Miles Morales after the jump.

Beta's Top Ten Favorite Movies of 2018

I realize that it’s been basically a whole year since my last post, which is bad. In the unlikely event that any of my original readership happen to see this, I sympathize with the radio silence. Here’s the thing; today is the ninth anniversary of the first post I ever made and I figured I might as well throw up my annual Top Ten Favorite Movies list. However, one year from now is the damn ten-year anniversary, which is both hilarious and terrifying. It does seem like I should do something for a milestone that big, but also it feels like it would be very lame to do something for it without having touched the site in years and that there should be content leading up to it. So…food for thought?

Anyway, I somehow managed to watch a decent number of movies this year despite having one of the strangest and most life changing eighteen months of my life. But, as always, I managed to miss several key films over the course of the year, Bad Times at the El Royale being a particularly annoying omission. So if you’re favorite film isn’t on the list then that may be why. Also, this is a subjective list of my personal FAVORITE films, not necessarily the objectively best movies of the year. You may disagree with the list; that’s okay. Your opinion is valid. We’re all friends here. Feel free to post your own list in the comments.

Something a little different this year; I’m going to throw up some Panda Scores as well. For old times sake.

Before I get into the list, let me shout out a few movies that didn’t quite make the list but that I want to give a little love to. First of all, Avengers: Infinity Wars was actually on the original version of this list but was bumped off at the last minute. Still a great movie, especially if you think of Thanos as being the protagonist. Game Night ended up being a better than it had any right to be and is a comedy that worked on just about every level.  The Wife features a killer performance from Glenn Close that may well earn her a well deserved Oscar. And finally, Deadpool 2 in many ways felt like a more complete movie then its predecessor and continues to show that Ryan Reynolds is one of the best actors bringing a comic book superhero to life today. Too bad about its Women in Refrigerators moment.

Sorry, Captain America. Maybe next year...
(Also, I don't feel so good)

Full Top Ten list after the jump.