2023, best of
all of my life, it's been heartbreak weather
Here’s a list of pieces of art I loved in 2023, most of them new discoveries, grouped, unranked.
Maestro mode
little weirdos at the top of their game (and the falls that follow!)
Tchaikovsky by Anthony Holden
Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller: The Man Who Created Nancy by Bill Griffith
Jane B. by Agnès Varda
Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts
Tolstoy by Rosamund Bartlett
Book 4 of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Turner: The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner by Franny Moyle
Tár by Todd Field
Dance by Judy Cuevas
Francisca by Manoel de Oliveira
Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 at the Philadelphia Orchestra, December 2, 2023
Martin Savage and Dorothy Atkinson in Mike Leigh’s Historical Films
Regency Romances
what it says on the tin, but also metaphorically
Ruined by Rumor by Alyssa Everett
The Last Days of Disco by Whit Stillman
Lessons in French by Laura Kinsale
The Rules of the Game by Jean Renoir
A Day in the Country by Jean Renoir
John Wick 4 by Chad Stahelski
Law as Literature, Literature as Law
evidence as story teller!
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by Laura Poitras
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar by Wes Anderson
Asteroid City by Wes Anderson
Book 8 of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
A 32 year teenage girl
arrested development
The Secret Mistress by Mary Balogh
Party Girl by Daisy von Scherler Mayer
Happy-Go-Lucky by Mike Leigh
The Good Witch by Maisie Peters
All of Nell Mescal’s singles
Midsummer Moon by Laura Kinsale
One Direction still being in my top 5 Spotify artists of the year
ATU 425 C (Animal as Bridegroom) and/or ATU 510 (The Persecuted Heroine)
fairy tales, magic stories, parables
So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
The Jade Temptress by Jeannie Lin
Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas
Stormfire by Christine Monson
Maestro by Bradley Cooper
Tropical Malady by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
La Belle et La Bete by Jean Cocteau
Donkey Skin by Jacques Demy
Please, I love Italians
Shadowheart by Laura Kinsale
Ferrari by Michael Mann
8 ½ by Fellini
The Leopard by Luchino Visconti
Il Barone Rampante by Italo Calvino (read in Italian as slowly as possible)
Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One by Christopher McQuarrie
L’amica geniale by Elena Ferrante (read in Italian as slowly as possible)
Book Club 2: The Next Chapter by Bill Holderman
Seeing Gladiator on 35mm in London
Moms and Mothers
celebrating our most precious natural resource: best actress nominees
A Counterfeit Betrothal by Mary Balogh
A Biltmore Christmas (watched with my mom on Christmas)
Taylor Swift singing “The Best Day” on Mother’s Day in Philadelphia
The Earrings of Madame de… by Max Ophüls
Lily in Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese
Julianne and Natalie in May December by Todd Haynes
Judi and Cate in Notes on a Scandal by Richard Eyre
Penelope Cruz in Vovler by Pedro Almodóvar and Ferrari by Michael Mann
Imelda in Vera Drake by Mike Leigh
Marianne and Brenda in Secrets & Lies by Mike Leigh
I'm not looking for a new England
reforming, reshaping, rejecting geographies of power
Peterloo, Nuts in May, and A Sense of History by Mike Leigh
The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli by Richard Aldous
To Have and To Hold by Patricia Gaffney (a reread!)
To Love and to Cherish by Patricia Gaffney
Forever and Ever by Patricia Gaffney
Just Measure of Pain: The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution 1750-1850 by Michael Ignatieff
Barry Lyndon by Stanley Kubrick
Bob Mortimer’s Stories on Would I Lie To You?
Heartbreak Weather
best romances, otherwise uncategorized
The Counterfeit Rake by Mary Balogh
Sunshine and Shadow by Sharon and Tom Curtis
Kiss an Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong by Cecilia Grant
The Ruin of Evangeline Jones by Julia Bennet
The Show by Niall Horan
