With the onslaught of pumpkin spice lattes and changing leaves, the only thing on my mind is the 10 movies I will put on my Letterboxd top 10 of 2023 list. The beginning of September normally marks the time that awards season buzz starts to take over my feed, but the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes have largely halted that momentum.
The Emmy Awards were originally scheduled for Sept. 18, but they have been rescheduled to Jan. 15, 2024, temporarily stopping my dream of Kieran Culkin, for his role in “Succession,” winning Best Lead Actor in a Drama. The Golden Globes and Oscars, though, are still on schedule for their usual January and March slots.
While I could already populate my Letterboxd list with 2023 favorites, the next few months are when the year’s best films move from festivals to theaters nationwide for all to enjoy.
While going out to the movies can be a difficult thing to do in the middle of a busy semester, students still find ways to engage with new releases.
Dean Zach*, senior English major and political science and creative writing double-minor, acts as the treasurer of TU Film Club. Despite a lot of movies having their release dates moved to later in the year or early next year due to the strikes, he said there are still a few he is eager to see.
“So, there were a few that I was really looking forward to that got delayed, but some of the ones that are left are ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ which looks interesting,” Zach said. “And then I think it’s in December now, it’s a movie called ‘Poor Things’ with Emma Stone.”
As far as performances go, Zach said that Margot Robbie was a tour de force in Barbie and Robert Downey Jr. in Oppenheimer was another favorite.
“Someone who kind of surprised me was Robert Downey, Jr. in Oppenheimer, who, in my opinion at least, was the best actor in that movie and gave the most memorable performance, for me at least,” Zach said.
Trevor Roddy, senior computer science major, said that he is looking forward to A24 and international film festival releases.
“Well, I want to see a lot of A24 movies that have come out this year,” Roddy said. “I’m most interested to see what movies come out of the international film festivals, [which] I usually watch a little more closely.”
While awards season is known for being glitzy and glamorous, for decades it has also had an undertow of controversy when it comes to representation of academy voting bodies and shadier practices regarding who gets nominated and wins big.
Parker Snellgrove, senior English major, said that when he thinks of awards season, he is reminded of the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony where Sacheen Littlefeather went in place of Marlon Brando and declined Brando’s Best Actor award. Brando boycotted the ceremony to protest the portrayal of Native Americans in Hollywood.
“There’s a lot of shadiness, almost, around award seasons and who decides on them and why they matter,” Snellgrove said. “And I respect actors and directors and people like that for wanting to win awards because it’s nice to be recognized for your work, but the actual decision making that goes into who wins what, I think, can be kind of suspect and up in the air sometimes.”
With this air of skepticism comes a diminishing credibility among awards shows. While they are still fun to watch and while I still get overly invested in filling out my personal ballot, more and more people are finding ways to spotlight and support nontraditional storytelling.
“Being supportive of whatever content you consume — even if it’s not international film, but it’s like a guy from Thailand that makes cooking videos — being really emphatic about the various weird places that art is coming from right now is important,” Roddy said.
*Dean Zach was hired by the Trinitonian after the writing of this article.
