Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.
Another year of films. Another year of depressingly hopeful favorites.
That’s not to say I didn’t love any comedies. The ones I did just had a tendency to punch you in the gut somewhere along the line. It’s a truth that probably says more about me than I could ever articulate on my own. Grief simply resonates—especially when it can hit hard while still allowing the affected character on-screen to smile in the face of it.
We need a little of that hope in the real world. An authentic, complex hope to mirror the dark, politicized era in which we currently reside. One where anyone who isn’t depressed twenty-four-seven is more than likely not paying attention to anything that’s happening beyond their own personal gain.
Another year of films. Another year of depressingly hopeful favorites.
That’s not to say I didn’t love any comedies. The ones I did just had a tendency to punch you in the gut somewhere along the line. It’s a truth that probably says more about me than I could ever articulate on my own. Grief simply resonates—especially when it can hit hard while still allowing the affected character on-screen to smile in the face of it.
We need a little of that hope in the real world. An authentic, complex hope to mirror the dark, politicized era in which we currently reside. One where anyone who isn’t depressed twenty-four-seven is more than likely not paying attention to anything that’s happening beyond their own personal gain.
- 12/30/2023
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Canada, the home of winter, looks to have no shortage of snowy inns set against fairytale-like landscapes with piles and piles of the white, fluffy stuff.
That’s because Hallmark, long a major producer of Christmas TV movies, shoots a lot of holiday flicks in Canada, even if the plotlines are set south of the border. So do a lot of other U.S. producers for whom British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario offer real snow, iconic mountains and other varied wintry locations to keep American producers in furry parkas coming north with their cameras and Hollywood stars.
In fact, there’s more to budget-friendly production tricks than fake snow on these TV movie shoots, as humble Canada stands in small-town America strung with colorful lights. Shooting north of the border allows producers to tap generous tax breaks and currency savings, seasoned local actors and crews and ample studios and costume...
That’s because Hallmark, long a major producer of Christmas TV movies, shoots a lot of holiday flicks in Canada, even if the plotlines are set south of the border. So do a lot of other U.S. producers for whom British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario offer real snow, iconic mountains and other varied wintry locations to keep American producers in furry parkas coming north with their cameras and Hollywood stars.
In fact, there’s more to budget-friendly production tricks than fake snow on these TV movie shoots, as humble Canada stands in small-town America strung with colorful lights. Shooting north of the border allows producers to tap generous tax breaks and currency savings, seasoned local actors and crews and ample studios and costume...
- 12/25/2023
- by Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It’s Christmas Eve, and you’re as ready as you’ll ever be. Presents under the tree? Check. Turkey in the fridge? Check. Mince pie for Father Christmas and a carrot for Rudolf on the hearth? Check. The thinning of the veil between this world and the next, allowing unquiet spirits to walk the Earth and the long shadows in the moonlit, frosty lanes to shift and darken with things not of this world? Check, check and check.
Because while Christmas might traditionally be the season of goodwill, comfort and joy, it is also very much the time of ghosts. And no one appreciates that quite as much as Mark Gatiss.
Gatiss is one of our most recognisable TV actors and writers, making his name with the surreal comedy of The League of Gentlemen and cementing his reputation with a starring role in Sherlock, his TV take on Dracula,...
Because while Christmas might traditionally be the season of goodwill, comfort and joy, it is also very much the time of ghosts. And no one appreciates that quite as much as Mark Gatiss.
Gatiss is one of our most recognisable TV actors and writers, making his name with the surreal comedy of The League of Gentlemen and cementing his reputation with a starring role in Sherlock, his TV take on Dracula,...
- 12/23/2022
- by David Barnett
- The Independent - TV
Empress Elisabeth of Austria, a starlet of 19th-century Europe, refused to have her photograph taken after she reached her mid-thirties. It’s a detail that hasn’t been copied over to Corsage, Marie Kreutzer’s tastefully anachronistic film about the Hapsburg royal. But that absence of photos as Elisabeth aged remains central to Kreutzer’s vision. Elizabeth believed beauty was her only currency, and she would do anything to preserve it. That includes, most infamously, a tightly corseted waist that measured a mere 19.5 inches.
We’ve seen many onscreen Elisabeths before. Romy Schneider, in the Fifties, starred in a television trilogy that reimagined her life as a bouncy, sweet-souled fairytale. It soon became a Christmas staple in Germany and Austria. Netflix only recently debuted its more feminist-minded take, The Empress, starring Devrim Lingnau. Many depictions offer ample time to the controversy that rocked Elisabeth’s later years when her son,...
We’ve seen many onscreen Elisabeths before. Romy Schneider, in the Fifties, starred in a television trilogy that reimagined her life as a bouncy, sweet-souled fairytale. It soon became a Christmas staple in Germany and Austria. Netflix only recently debuted its more feminist-minded take, The Empress, starring Devrim Lingnau. Many depictions offer ample time to the controversy that rocked Elisabeth’s later years when her son,...
- 12/22/2022
- by Clarisse Loughrey
- The Independent - Film
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