Mid-Year Review: Movies and TV

Mid-Year Review, Part I: Movies

We’re halfway through 2023, so I thought it’d be a good time to write up some brief capsule reviews of the movies and TV shows I’ve seen over the past six months. 

First up: movies. My favorite film from the first half of the year was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3—huge shock, I know—and you can read my longer take on that movie here.

With no further ado:

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. A delightful fantasy romp anchored by Chris Pine’s roguish charm and Hugh Grant’s devilish smarm. Justice Smith also puts in a good turn as a hapless and exasperated wizard.

John Wick Chapter 4. This fourth entry in the John Wick series ratchets the absurdity of its action up to 11 and mixes it in with some ruminations about the futility of revenge that both make sense and feel oddly out of place.

Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania. While it was a mistake to expect Ant-Man to shoulder such a wide narrative load, this movie got a bad rap—it’s still entertaining enough and effectively establishes Kang the Conqueror as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next big bad.

The Pope’s Exorcist. A fun bit of supernatural and specifically Catholic horror that succeeds entirely on the back of Russell Crowe’s gleefully impish performance as the title character.

Extraction 2. A top graduate from the John Wick school of action filmmaking and the kind of action picture people say doesn’t get made any more. Golshifteh Farahani needs to be cast in more American movies.

Tetris. A light and breezy story of corporate skullduggery and late-stage communist corruption. It’ll make you want to fire up a GameBoy or, failing that, download Tetris on your phone.

Marlowe. If you want to see Liam Neeson play a grizzled, noir-style private eye, this is the movie for you. Otherwise pretty forgettable.

Ghosted. I couldn’t even make it halfway through this dreck. A waste of stars Ana de Arias and Chris Evans.

Cocaine Bear. The title doesn’t lie—the movie delivers on its premise, no more, no less.

No Hard Feelings. Any movie where a nude Jennifer Lawrence beats down a trio of dickish teens on Montauk Beach is well worth seeing. Mostly charming R-rated humor.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Fine but unnecessary. But no Indiana Jones movie should be longer than two hours, and this last entry fails on that score.

Mid-Year Review, Part II: TV Shows

On to TV shows. As might be expected, my favorite show was the third season of Star Trek: Picard. You can read my longer review of that show here.

Beyond that, here’s what I’ve been streaming over the past six months.

Prehistoric Planet 2. A second season of the stellar dinosaur doc-series narrated by David Attenborough. The new discoveries on display are impressive, but the show’s fluffy baby raptors are just too cute and steal the show.

The Great. The entirely untrue story of Catherine the Great’s rise to power in Russia keeps the tragicomic depravity rolling in this third season. Just when you think things can’t get more debauched, they somehow do.

Mrs. Davis. A nun and her ex embark on a quest to find and destroy the holy grail—a mission assigned them by artificial intelligence algorithm she wants to destroy. It’s even more absurd and gonzo than it sounds.

Ted Lasso. A bloated final season with some questionable character choices that still manages to mostly stick the landing—even if it took a couple more episodes than it needed to do so.

Poker Face. Lead actress Natasha Lyonne is outstanding in this exceptionally clever homage to 1970s-era crime and detective shows like Columbo.

Love and Death. Worth watching if you’re a fan of Elizabeth Olsen (and/or Jesse Clemons), but otherwise not a terribly interesting study of a not terribly interesting character.

Beavis and Butt-Head. The morons America both needs and deserves, Beavis and Butt-Head remain blinding beacons of unadulterated adolescent male stupidity in dark times.

Cunk on Earth. The idiotic British documentary presenter you never knew you needed in your life. Keep an eye out for her mate Paul.

The Mandalorian. A lot of wheel-spinning going on in this third season. Grogu remains charming as ever, and he even has a new toy to play with by season’s end.

The Bad Batch. Similar amount of wheel-spinning happening in this animated Star Wars show, but it picks up toward the end of this second season.

Silo. A well-done dystopian mystery series in a post-apocalyptic, quasi-totalitarian community. Solid performances by the likes of lead actress Rebecca Ferguson anchor a somewhat self-serious tone.