{"id":2661,"date":"2023-08-30T23:58:04","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T04:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/?p=2661"},"modified":"2023-08-31T10:40:23","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T15:40:23","slug":"the-movies-of-summer-2023-whats-worth-watching-and-whats-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/2661\/arts-entertainment\/the-movies-of-summer-2023-whats-worth-watching-and-whats-not\/","title":{"rendered":"The Movies of Summer 2023: What’s Worth Watching and What’s Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s an oversimplification to say that this past summer was an especially turbulent one for the film industry. While more people have steadily continued to return to movie theaters post-lockdown, the industry itself has faced challenges as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA went on strike due to worsening pay and conditions. Though the film industry seems to be in an uncertain place going forward, this past summer was also home to multiple major cinematic events that could define the future of cinema in their own right. Let\u2019s talk about them!<\/span><\/p>\n

Opening the summer was <\/span>Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse<\/span><\/i>, a stunning work of art and groundbreaking work of animation in multiple aspects, breaking multiple barriers in terms of visual style, rating, box office, and representation. However, reports of the film\u2019s production once again remind of the troubled state of the film industry, as articles by <\/span>The Vulture<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Collider<\/span><\/a> soon came to detail the crushing working conditions for the film\u2019s animators. As almost a dark multiversal inverse to <\/span>Spider-Verse, <\/span><\/i>DC\u2019s<\/span> The Flash<\/span><\/i> arrived in multiplexes two weeks afterwards. Another victim of troubled production, <\/span>The Flash <\/span><\/i>shows it in far more unfortunate ways on screen, critiqued upon release for shoddy, seemingly unfinished visual effects and a messy multiversal narrative. Following in The Flash<\/em>‘s footsteps, big Disney releases Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny <\/em>and Haunted Mansion<\/em> came out not long after to disappointing receptions both financially and critically. Thankfully, for blockbuster fans unsatisfied with either the quality or title complexity of any of these releases, <\/span>Mission Impossible \u2014 Dead Reckoning: Part One<\/span><\/i> came to theaters soon after, a welcome tonic for all audiences who felt they\u2019d gone too long without watching Tom Cruise try tempt death in the most grandiose ways possible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, big budget blockbusters weren\u2019t the only thing that came out this summer. Wes Anderson\u2019s <\/span>Asteroid City <\/span><\/i>arrived <\/span>in theaters, a film that is equal parts delightful and melancholic in its examination of the ways in which we use art and artifice to process grief, a narrative delivered poignantly though its director\u2019s precise visual style. On the same day, festival darling <\/span>Past Lives<\/span><\/i> received its wide theatrical release. The film, Korean-American director Celine Song\u2019s debut, is a thoughtful drama about memory and the ways in which we imagine our lives and relationships could have gone, and is definitely worth looking out for come award season. On the straight to streaming end, though no less deserving of acclaim, are Netflix originals <\/span>Nimona<\/span><\/i>, an animated graphic novel adaptation that soars in its centering of an explicitly queer<\/span> narrative and <\/span>They Cloned Tyrone, <\/span><\/i>a sharp sci-fi genre-mashup satire. Also worth noting are <\/span>Theater Camp <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Talk To Me, <\/span><\/i>the former a hilarious mockumentary comedy, the latter a terrifying supernatural horror flick, both extremely fun ways to spend 90 minutes of your day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Undoubtedly bigger than all of these was Barbenheimer, the combined release of <\/span>Barbie<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Oppenheimer<\/span><\/i>. More than anything else, these films have dominated the summer movie scene, and rightfully so; they\u2019re both fantastic. <\/span>Barbie<\/span><\/i>, directed by Greta Gerwig of <\/span>Lady Bird <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Little Women<\/span><\/i> fame, <\/span>is both a hilarious comedy and an insightful story about gender roles under the patriarchy. Meanwhile <\/span>Oppenheimer, <\/span><\/i>directed by Christopher Nolan of filmbro poster fame, is a harrowing portrayal of the chain reactions, both political and psychological, caused by the creation of the atomic bomb, as well as just a purely astounding feat of filmmaking prowess. The success of these two director-driven movies, one a weird, meta-examination of a popular children\u2019s doll and the other a 3 hour R-rated historical drama, signals something of a change in the film industry. In a year where films that would previously be surefire successes, like the superhero origin story <\/span>Blue Beetle<\/span><\/i> or blockbuster franchise sequel <\/span>Fast X<\/span><\/i>, have found little luck at the box office, it\u2019s fascinating to see films like Barbie and Oppenheimer succeed so hugely. Studios are already trying to replicate the success of Barbenheimer\u2013 Paramount\u2019s failed attempt at kickstarting a Saw Patrol double feature and Mattel\u2019s announced slew of toy-based make that clear, but only time will tell exactly how Barbenheimer will change the movie industry. <\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s an oversimplification to say that this past summer was an especially turbulent one for the film industry. While more people have steadily continued to return to movie theaters post-lockdown, the industry itself has faced challenges as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA went on strike due to worsening pay and conditions. Though the film industry seems…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,136],"tags":[195],"staff_name":[166],"class_list":["post-2661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-movies","tag-september-23","staff_name-max-knight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2661"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2679,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661\/revisions\/2679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2661"},{"taxonomy":"staff_name","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memorialswordandshield.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/staff_name?post=2661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}