Flasz On Film

OK, I think that’s the last compilation of my 2023 in Review. I have put together lists of my top 10 movies, 10 surprises, 10 movies I didn’t get to see, 5 most-read articles, and 5 articles I’m the happiest with. Now, looking at the body of writing I created over the year, I thought I’d add a few more shoutouts to pieces I was still very happy with. In fact, I may have written more essays than “actual” reviews this year, so it was a bit more difficult for me to narrow them down to just a handful at a time, especially because it’s quite out of character for me to blow my own trumpet this hard.

Look, it was a real problem finding a set of five articles to complement the lists I have already put together because those essays are like kids to me. Love them all. Some are better put together than others, sure. And I did have a lot of fun conceptualizing and writing those weirdo pieces like the one about Oppenheimer being autobiographical for Christopher Nolan, or how the titling convention in the Fast and Furious franchise makes no sense… Or how M. Night Shyamalan is obsessed about environmentalism. But I decided to highlight five articles that are both important to me for one reason or another and which barely anyone has seen. Thus, this is my attempt at giving them a second life. So here goes nothing.

5. HEAT, Superheroes and the Principle of Microscopic Reversibility

This was a lot of fun to put together, as it runs counter to the accepted consensus that Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is a soft remake of Michael Mann’s Heat, which I watched in preparation for a podcast recording (which ended up longer than the movie itself, so go figure). Now, I don’t debate that it is, but I suggested that it may be so because Mann’s movie is already a superhero film. So, I decided to think about it for a while longer and out came a few thousand words on the subject. (Full article here)

4. On the Often Overlooked Undercurrent of Feminism in Christopher Nolan’s INSOMNIA

This piece also came out of a podcast preparation and in fact it wasn’t the only article I wrote about Insomnia, which is one of the best movies Nolan made throughout his illustrious career. And it is so because underneath its central intrigue plucked out of a bland Nordic thriller, this little movie nobody cares about is a stealth spiritual successor to The Silence of the Lambs with its understated emphasis on the workplace dynamics between sexes and the blatantly overlooked yet pivotal role Hillary Swank’s character played in the narrative. (Full article here)

3. COVID, Fantasy and Period Pieces

This is an article I had been thinking about for a good while and when I finally put it together, literally nobody saw it. Well, almost nobody. Still, I think it’s a fun little exploration of how the COVID pandemic made irreversible changes to the way stories are told in movies and how its acknowledgement or lack thereof divides films into pieces of fantasy or period pieces characterized by varying levels of historical accuracy. (Full article here)

2. How MAGIC MIKE Movies Foreshadow Changes in Steven Soderbergh’s Career

This relatively fresh piece I wrote probably wouldn’t belong on a list like this had I given it a bit more time to exist in the world. However, it may be a good idea to give it a bit of a shoutout because I was both quite happy with myself having written it and it also fit quite snugly into our year-long journey through the cinema of Steven Soderbergh we reduced to practice over the course of many recordings of the Uncut Gems Podcast. I think it goes without saying that Magic Mike belongs in the top echelon of Soderbergh’s directorial output, but the sequels (one of which he directed) are at best a far cry quality-wise, or downright terrible. However, I managed to look at them for long enough and read deep enough into their thematic layer of metaphorical interpretations that I found a plane of symmetry between their central character and Steven Soderbergh himself. Which immediately elevates all three movies in my opinion. (Full article here)

1. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON – Martin Scorsese’s Last Word on Hollywood

Speaking of finding unconventional meanings in the most unexpected places, I thought I’d highlight my little essay I penned in addition to my “regular” review (if you can call my ramblings reviews, that is) of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. As much as some people might think I’m reading too far into things, and I stand guilty as charged, I found immense satisfaction in setting the primary interpretation of this film aside and examining it as Martin Scorsese’s damning indictment of Hollywood, slowly taken over and displaced by power-hungry and money-obsessed bean-counters who have absolutely no connection to the spiritual plane of the art of cinema. (Full article here)

Alright, I’m going to call it a day here. It’s been awkward enough for me to go out there and blow smoke up my own arse by trying to agitate why people should read my stuff. Thank you so much for staying with me this past year and if you somehow find my writing interesting, feel free to browse a bit more and you might find a piece you like that I haven’t picked out of the lineup.

Now, in the immortal words of Tigger, T-T-F-N.