Best of Film 2023
For Lily and Generoso, 2023 was a fantastic year at the cinema! They select and review their ten favorite films, six supplemental features, and one extraordinary repertory release seen at microcinemas, archives, and festivals.
Our writers scour the globe, rewind endless tapes, and press pause as many times as it takes to bring you the ultimate collection of film, broadcast, and streaming visual content to feed your endless appetite for movies.
For Lily and Generoso, 2023 was a fantastic year at the cinema! They select and review their ten favorite films, six supplemental features, and one extraordinary repertory release seen at microcinemas, archives, and festivals.
The hidden gem of the French New Wave, Le Combat Dans L’île gets a lovely Blu-ray from Radiance Films.
The curious and often-neglected horror masterwork Messiah of Evil is again reborn in a terrific new Blu-ray from Radiance Films.
A four-volume collection of Troma’s popular hero films, The Toxic Avenger Collection gives you all the Toxie you could ever want — and even a little Kevin Bacon.
Carl F. Gauze reviews Dreamers Never Die, the loving documentary on the career of rocker extraordinaire Ronnie James Dio.
Starting with small-time jobs, two gangsters take over all the crime in Marseilles in this well-paced and entertaining French film. Carl F. Gauze reviews the freshly released Arrow Video Blu-ray edition of Borsalino (1970).
Two teenage boys build a sexy computer girlfriend with an 8-bit computer… you know the story. Carl F. Gauze reviews Weird Science (1985), in a new 4K UHD Blu-ray release from Arrow Films.
Cauldron Films’ new UHD/Blu-ray release of Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead (1980) preserves one of the best Italian horror films, according to Phil Bailey.
Marleen Gorris’s first theatrical feature is a potent feminist look at the easily disposable lives of sex workers in Amsterdam. Phil Bailey reviews Broken Mirrors.
Peer into the topsy-turvey world of cryptocurrency, a place where you can make your own money and decide what it’s worth just by waving your hand. Carl F. Gauze reviews The Highest of Stakes by Patrick Moreau and Grant Peelle.
Phil Bailey reviews the curious 1971 British public school thriller Unman, Wittering and Zigo, now on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
The second volume of Arrow Video’s Blood Money collection unleashes four more tales of revenge in the old West. Phil Bailey reviews.
Here’s a fascinating documentary on Tom Sullivan and his oeuvre of low budget horror films that remade the genre in the 1980s. Carl F. Gauze reviews Invaluable: The True Story of an Epic Artist.
A pair of silent comedies from forgotten “silk hat comedian” Raymond Griffith are now available for rediscovery on Blu-ray. Phil Bailey reviews Paths to Paradise and You’d Be Surprised, from Undercrank Productions and the Library of Congress, with musical scores by Ben Model.
A child discovers an alien spaceship in the woods, and it terrorizes the town. Carl F. Gauze reviews a restored Invaders from Mars, from Ignite Films.
Phil Bailey reviews the gritty, influential Yakuza Graveyard, released on a new Blu-ray from Radiance Films.
Marleen Gorris’s feminist classic A Question of Silence (1982) receives a long overdue North American home video release from Cult Epics. Phil Bailey reviews.
Obscure German counter-culture thriller Red Sun defies genre expectations with its fairy-tale take on feminist ritual murder. Phil Bailey reviews the 1970 Rudolf Thome film.
Director Pietro Marcello follows up his heralded adaptation of Jack London’s Martin Eden with Scarlet, a bold reimagining of Aleksandr Grin’s classic 1923 novel, Scarlet Sails. Lily and Generoso review Marcello’s exceptional contemporary take on this beloved fairy tale.
The forgotten mystery/comedy The Sunday Woman is finally getting discovered, thanks to a new Blu-ray from Radiance Films.
For Lily and Generoso, 2023 was a fantastic year at the cinema! They select and review their ten favorite films, six supplemental features, and one extraordinary repertory release seen at microcinemas, archives, and festivals.
The hidden gem of the French New Wave, Le Combat Dans L’île gets a lovely Blu-ray from Radiance Films.
This fall, Ani DiFranco brought new Righteous Babe labelmate Kristen Ford to Iowa City, where Jeremy Glazier enjoyed an incredible evening of artistry.
This week Christopher Long grabs a bag of bargain vinyl from a flea market in Mount Dora, Florida — including You’re Never Alone with a Schizophrenic, the classic 1979 LP from Ian Hunter.
Bob Pomeroy gets into four Radio Rarities from producer Zev Feldman for Record Store Day with great jazz recordings from Wes Montgomery, Les McCann, Cal Tjader, and Ahmad Jamal.
Bob Pomeroy digs into Un “Sung Stories” (1986, Liberation Hall), Blasters’ frontman Phil Alvin’s American Roots collaboration with Sun Ra and his Arkestra, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and New Orleans saxman Lee Allen.
Roi J. Tamkin reviews A Darker Shade of Noir, fifteen new stories from women writers completely familiar with the horrors of owning a body in a patriarchal society, edited by Joyce Carol Oates.
Mandatory: The Best of The Blasters (Liberation Hall). Review by Bob Pomeroy.
Feeling funky this week, Christopher Long gets his groove on while discovering a well-cared-for used vinyl copy of one of his all-time R&B faves: Ice Cream Castle, the classic 1984 LP from The Time, for just a couple of bucks.
During AFI Fest 2023, Lily and Generoso interviewed director Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir, whose impressive debut feature, City of Wind, carefully examines the juxtaposition between the identity of place and tradition against the powers of modernity in contemporary Mongolia.
Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO (American Laundromat Records). Review by Laura Pontillo.