The Year 2023 in Movies

Continuing with the final part of our year in review, Matt Lynn Digital invites you to look back at the last year in reviews of books, movies, music and television. We look at these with individual categories, one per day through today. Today we share the forty-seven (47) movies from nine (9) decades reviewed by Matt Lynn Digital in 2023.

(The 1972 movie The Godfather).

The top rated movie we watched in 2023 was The Godfather (1972). Earning 4.75-stars on a scale of 1-to-5, the film presented solid exposition of the power dynamics and traditions for the family as established by the family patriarch Vito, along with the command-and-control structure of the working the business.

(The 2023 movie Oppenheimer).

Four movies earned 4.5-stars in 2023, including the movie Oppenheimer (2023). The movie detailed the role American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer had in the development of the atomic bomb. The further movie Gone Girl (2014) was joined by There Will Be Blood (2007) and the movie Mystic River (2003).

(The 2023 movie Killers of the Flower Moon).

The movie Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) leads a dozen movies that earned 4.25-stars from Matt Lynn Digital. The ongoing murders of members of an affluent Native American tribe for profitable mineral rights, under the guise of marriage and love, made for a somber yet at times poignant movie. Other films to earn 4.25 stars included the movie The Banshees of Inisherin (2022), the biopic King Richard (2021), the biopic The Aviator (2004), the animated movie The Incredibles (2004), the pandemic-fueled horror movie 28 Days Later (2002), the alcoholism-fueled movie Leaving Las Vegas (1995), the coming-of-age movie The Breakfast Club (1985), the supernatural comedy Ghostbusters (1984), the political history movie Reds (1981), the independently released Friday the 13th (1980) and, finally, the movie Apocalypse Now (1979).

(The 2022 movie Death on the Nile).

The mastermind detective movie Death on the Nile (2022) leads a group of nine (9) movies to earn 4.0-stars from Matt Lynn Digital in 2023. Other quality movies in this group include the movie The Hateful Eight (2015), the biopic Walk the Line (2005), the historical drama Gladiator (2000), the movie The Big Lebowski (1998), the psychological horror movie The Silence of the Lambs (1991), the comedy Home Alone (1990), the science fiction movie Planet of the Apes (1968) and, finally, the film noir movie The Maltese Falcon (1941).

(The 2019 movie El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie).

Eighteen (18) movies earned the 3.75-stars rating for 2023, led by El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019). That coda to the Breaking Bad (2008-2013) television series spells out what happened with character Jesse Pinkman. Other movies earning 3.75 stars include the science fiction movie Alien: Covenant (2017), the animated movie The Secret Life of Pets (2016), the animated movie Inside Out (2015), the live-action animated movie Paddington (2014), the movie Chef (2014), the supernatural horror movie Oculus (2013), the biopic The Express (2008), the comedic movie Clerks II (2006), the science fiction blockbuster War of the Worlds (2005), the comedy Freaky Friday (2003), the movie Frequency (2000), the science fiction movie The Fifth Element (1997), the crime drama Absolute Power (1997), the family movie Hocus Pocus (1993), the neo-noir movie Blow Out (1981), the dystopian crime movie A Clockwork Orange (1971) and, finally, the animated movie Cinderella (1950).

(The 2021 movie Cry Macho).

A pair of movies led by the western movie Cry Macho (2021) earned 3.5-stars from Matt Lynn Digital. The other is the fantasy comedy Jack Frost (1998).

(The 2023 movie Nefarious).

Alleged demonic possession was in play for the movie Nefarious (2023), which at 3.25-stars on a scale of 1-to-5 completes our reviewed movies for the year. Having felt manipulated by this film to make a political point, our feeling was that we could have enjoyed this movie more if the presentation had taken a different approach.

Matt Lynn Digital appreciates your continued interest in the content we offer. Should you have albums that you’d like us to review, or similar work to that mentioned above, please be sure to let us know.

Matt – Sunday, December 31, 2023

Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson and Christopher Eccleston in the Danny Boyle movie ’28 Days Later’

A science fiction based post-apocalyptic horror movie brings us to the United Kingdom with the Alex Garland written and Danny Boyle directed movie 28 Days Later (2002). Garland reportedly took inspiration from George A. Romero‘s Night of the Living Dead (1968), as reviewed here, it’s sequels, and the 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids as written by John Wyndham. The various locations across the United Kingdom countryside, along with the facts underpinning the zombies with skills in a barren land story, owe much to Wyndham.

(Cillian Murphy as Jim in the Danny Boyle movie 28 Days Later).

A highly contagious virus studied in a Cambridge, England laboratory of Cambridgeshire county begins the story of 28 Days Later. A group of ecoterrorists free a chimpanzee infected with the aggression-inducing “rage virus” from this laboratory. Almost immediately, one of the terrorists becomes infected by the freed animal, succumbing to the infection and transmitting it to another terrorist. Within days, the virus induces an epidemic resulting in the collapse of society. Twenty-eight days later, we meet bicycle courier Jim at the abandoned St. Thomas’ Hospital in London as he awakens a coma suffered before the initial outbreak of the rage virus. Cillian Murphy portrayed Jim.

(Noah Huntley as Mark in the Danny Boyle movie 28 Days Later).

Jim wanders the streets of London before survivors Selena and Mark rescue him from infected humans that had chase him, Jim, into a church. The group learns that Jim’s parents had committed suicide during the outbreak when getting to the family home in the Deptford part of London. Before even much of an opportunity to process this blow, Selena must kill Mark upon Mark’s infection with the rage virus. Just moments later upon experiencing this at the frenetic pace of a rage infested zombie, Jim and Selena encounter cab driver Frank with his daughter Hannah at Balfron Tower in East London. Noah Huntley, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson and Megan Burns portrayed Mark, Selena, Frank and Hannah, respectively.

(From left, Naomie Harris as Selena, Cillian Murphy as Jim, Brendan Gleeson as Frank and Megan Burns as Hannah in the Danny Boyle movie 28 Days Later).

It is news of supplies and the potential safety of a blockade in Manchester, as brought by Frank, that the previously unfathomable grouping take up a drive to a northwestern section of England. The apparent respite offered by this journey quickly gives way to new realities at the abandoned blockade. The fortified mansion under the command of Major Henry West, as portrayed by Christopher Eccleston, gives way to a new and insidious story of a society that’s died and a fresh hell of intended for Hannah. The subterfuge of the blockade giving way to the true intention of a barricade of sex slavery.

(From left, Christopher Eccleston as Major Henry West and Cillian Murphy as Jim in the Danny Boyle movie 28 Days Later).

The angle of Sergeant Farrell, as portrayed by Stuart McQuarrie, and Jim’s opposition to combat the slavery gives 28 Days Later an adventure and humanity that sets the movie apart from the underpinnings one might expect of other more traditional movies with a zombie angle. The introduction of the Private Mailer character, which offers its own inhumane point-of-view, leads to an odd justice for the blockade to round out this particular storyline. The intrigue that brings the storyline to a close in Cumbria, England within earshot of a Finnish jetfighter flying overhead presents the answer to the question of survival raised from the beginning of the movie that this story has raised and the viewer deserved. Marvin Campbell portrayed Private Mailer.

(From left, Cillian Murphy as Jim and Stuart McQuarrie as Sergeant Farrell in the Danny Boyle movie 28 Days Later).

There’s more done properly in the movie 28 Days Later to overcome what points against the film have been raised by critics, for example, on Rotten Tomatoes here. I give 28 Days Later as directed by Danny Boyle 4.25-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Saturday, October 28, 2023