2023 was a year of new beginnings.
Setbacks that could have plagued the year led to genuine improvements. Hark's once great company took a nosedive, and he was out of work for months . . . before discovering a company with a dream position.
An invaluable source of Frost mentors for years disappeared . . . just in time for every branch of the military to replace them. Thanks for the memories, Mason Wrestling; the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, Air Force, and Space Force are ready to take it from here.
There's no way Danny returning to Oaxaca could be called an improvement, but the messages, phone calls, and Brody and Riley moving one year closer to Spanish immersion elementary school showed the bond was here to stay.
Brody and Riley had a bunch of new beginnings as well: Riley's first soccer practice, Brody's first basketball practice, Riley's first front/back float, Brody's first underwater swim, and both of their first trips to a waterpark -- the one at Great Wolf Lodge.
Oh, and they saw their first full-length movie, the live-action Little Mermaid. It was also their first movie in a theater. I'm shocked their attention spans made it 135 minutes. Credit to the familiar, catchy songs, and me parceling out popcorn little . . . by little . . . by little. Toddler time can be trench warfare; you've gotta do whatever gets you through!
Here's where Little Mermaid fits in the annual year-end list. As usual, I've seen all the movies, and Hark's seen all the trailers. Hark's also added orange annotations to all my whiteboard reviews. Here's a ranking of all 102 films from 2023...
Note: Films are graded into tiers. Within tiers, films are not ranked.
D: Pinocchio [2002], Priscilla
D+: Bottoms
C: Pinocchio [2022], NT Live: Good, Passages, Foe
C+: War Pony, Sorcerer [1977], Dream Scenario, Poor Things
B-: Jason Isbell: Running with Our Eyes Closed
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [2008], Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Being There [1979], Saltburn
B: John Wick: Chapter 2 [2017], Broker [2022], Theater Camp, Stripes [1981], Sonatine [1993]
Catherine Called Birdy [2002], Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3, You Hurt My Feelings, Animal House [1978], My Sailor My Love
B+: Blue Beetle, Dumbo [1941], Snow White and the Seven Dwarves [1937], Super Mario Bros Movie, John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum [2019], The Starling Girl, May December, The Little Mermaid, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [1989], Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom [1984], Empire of Light [2022], Caddyshack [1980], Cassandro, The Boy and the Heron, Alice In Wonderland [1951], Mysterious Skin [2004], Fallen Leaves
Violent Night [2022], Lost in Translation, The Lesson, Joyland [2022], Eternal Memory, The Holdovers, Maestro, The Iron Claw, The Color Purple, Raiders of the Lost Ark [1981]
A-: Nobody Knows [2004], Somewhere in Queens, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., John Wick: Chapter 4, Slava Ukrani, Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse, Joy Ride, Cinderella [1950]
Chevalier, Seven Kings Must Die, Pinocchio [1940], Joan Baez: I Am A Noise, Wonka, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer
A: BlackBerry, Past Lives, Still: A Michael J Fox Movie, Groundhog Day [1993], Puss in Boots: The Last Wish [2022], Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting, Tetris, The Night of the 12th, Stop Making Sense
The Disappearance of Shere Hite, Finding Her Beat, The Mission
A+: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, It Ain't Over, A Thousand and One, Pinball: The Man Who Saved The Game, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Air, Sanctuary, Every Body, Bobi Wine: The People’s President, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Fremont, The Last Rider, Enola Holmes [2020], Nyad, Radical, Beyond Utopia, Society of the Snow, Flora and Son, Anatomy of a Fall, American Fiction, Barbie
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