The 20 Best DVDs of 2023
In our Best DVDs of 2023 list, along with some classic television, we have selected known treasures and unconventional films to satisfy the discerning cinephile.
Television
Features, reviews, interviews, and lists about television, covering the latest as well historical topics.
Spoof of Spooks ‘Slow Horses: Season 3’ Is a Wild Ride
Slow Horses is acutely aware that it’s entertainment. Many scenes play like spoofs of the straight-faced crummy thrillers that pose as prestige cinema.
Twisted and Ambitious ‘The Curse’ Watches and Condemns Us
Satirizing the struggles of a married couple shooting an HGTV show, Showtime miniseries The Curse bends genres and points fingers to monstrous effect.
Sweaty Roses for Bad Boy’s Da Band
Bad Boy’s Da Band didn’t work out for the same reason it was supposed to. Hip-hop is a monster that feeds off its young and sweats out its expired goods.
‘Lessons in Chemistry’ Reminds We Can’t Have Everything
Lessons in Chemistry shows that our complicated, muddled lives are burdensome, and we must endure and subvert if we are to evolve and find our foothold.
‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ Delivers a Fatal Dose of Poe
Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher delivers a fatal potion of Poe-haunted, nightmarish doom that brings us to our knees before the conqueror worm.
Biopic of Argentine Musician Fito Páez Immerses Viewers
Biopic Fito Páez: El Amor Después Del Amor (Love After Music) is, among other things, a gateway into Argentina’s most celebrated rock star’s songbook.
‘Frasier’ Is Back, But Are We Still Listening?
America is a more polarized political and social landscape since the original Frasier aired. Since it was never a socially conscious comedy like many of today’s sitcoms, who is this reboot for?
The Stars in ‘And the Band Played On’ Almost Outshine Its Message
The starry cast in Aaron Spelling’s adaptation of Randy Shilts’ And the Band Played On makes this message film a Hollywood spectacle as much as a work of activist pop art.
Comedy Series ‘The Afterparty’ Is Among the Last of Its Kind
The second season of Apple TV’s funny, inventive, and self-indulgent comedy whodunnit The Afterparty is utterly unnecessary in the best way.
Lenny Bruce vs. Lenny Bruce: The Real and the Imagined
There are two Lenny Bruces: 1. the real-life subject of thoughtful documentaries and biographies, and 2. the TV/movie hip mentor and accidental deity.
Communitas and Comfort Television
Through the glow of comfort television, we experience communitas – that feeling of “the lost heaven” of the collective – and, for a time, we are relieved of our existential alienation.