So that’s 2022 in the rear view mirror. Good year on the whole, I thought. Plenty of tasty TV & movie content, even if with the former there was arguably way too much to realistically keep up with.
2023, already, has a brace of projects on the roster—some original, some franchise—that look set to ensure we again don’t have a week without something dropping that hits the pop culture zeitgeist. Ordered only by protected date arrival (subject of course to change), these are some of what I’m stoked about over the next year.
Agree? Disagree? Let me know what’s getting you all a tingle this year in the comments.
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BABYLON (January)
Damien Chazelle’s orgiastic three-hour paean to the birth of Hollywood, stacked with stars, filled with visuals that might make D. W. Griffith blush… and it’s tanked in the US by the look of it, with critical discourse ranging from praise to absolute critical drubbing. Everyone loved Whiplash but La La Land really polarises even now (I loved it, still do), so given this seems like a wildly audacious auteur project, I’m not surprised it’s pulling people apart.
Honestly, it just makes me all the more thrilled for it. I’ll be almost certainly podcasting on this one on The Discourse in late Jan when it finally drops here.
HAPPY VALLEY (Season 3) (January)
For as long as I’ve known her (almost eight years), my wife Steph has been urging me to watch Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley, her British crime noir set in the Calder Valley. Two series dropped between 2014-2016 which to say were critically applauded would be an understatement and having binged them over December, I get why my wife was so insistent. Sarah Lancashire is incredible as a middle-aged police sergeant obsessed with bringing to justice James Norton’s psychopath, but around it are a brace of great characters, biting Northern humour & quality crime plots.
It’s the Star Wars trilogy of British crime shows to come. This last season is Return of the Jedi so I’m hoping for one heck of a climax as this runs across Jan into Feb.
YELLOWJACKETS (Season 2) (March)
This basically came out of nowhere at the end of 2021 and, much like Severance a few months later, really scratched that post-Game of Thrones mystery box/online speculation itch by telling a story that fused together Lost weirdness with high school angsty drama—by way of Stephen King horror—and captivated viewers for months. So much so, a couple of mates and I started a successful recap podcast covering it, No Book Club, which I’ll be dropping in on to talk the show once it’s back in March. This left a ton of storylines and character mysteries on the table and my hope is that with a much greater profile, Season 2 will only go from strength to strength.
Really excited for this. Ready to become addicted again.
SUCCESSION (Season 4) (Spring)
Is there a better show on television when Succession is on air? It’s hard to find one. Jesse Armstrong’s razor sharp corporate drama is as black and bleak as anything ever put on screen but boasts the kind of sharp dark comedy you can only dream of, thanks to actors such as Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin & Matthew MacFayden especially. Not likely to be the final season but we’re closing in on an end point now for the saga of the Roy family and whether they can survive a rapidly changing media landscape. The bar is always super high for Succession but Armstrong and his writers always manage to reach or top it.
No season of TV in 2023 do I more anticipate.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 (May)
When I first caught Vol. 2 of Guardians of the Galaxy in cinemas, I was really underwhelmed. It was on honeymoon, in 2018, catching it on a screen inside a beautiful beach side resort at night in Phuket, I realised how much fun that second outing was and ever since, thanks partly to Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame, these characters have come into their own following a brilliant debut in the first 2014 movie. Forget cameos in Thor: Love and Thunder, or fluff like the Holiday Special - expecting a hugely fun, frothy and emotional ‘goodbye’ to the Guardians here and I’ll be surprised if this isn’t the highlight for 2023 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Also: 70s tunes. Bring on the obscure 70s tunes.
INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY - (June)
Far and away the movie for 2023 I am most excited about. It’s Indiana Jones, come on! Yes, of course, this could be a huge fuck up. The trailer wasn’t great, framed in the annoying style modern trailers often are, but James Mangold has a great amount of goodwill in the bank from me, Harrison Ford is my favourite living movie actor, and given the narrative sounds like it involves time travel (have I mentioned how much I love time travel?), I am all over this. I was one of the three people who always liked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but I have a feeling this is going to creatively better it and find a bittersweet way to say a final goodbye to Ford’s most iconic hero.
He might be getting on but it’s not the years, it’s the mileage remember.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING - Part One (July)
Running a close second to Indy is Tom Cruise’s latest death defying derring do with the first part of his Mission Impossible swan song. Frankly, I never imagined they could top Fallout, which for my money is one of the greatest action movies of all time, let alone the best MI film. Dead Reckoning’s marvellous trailer, however, and all of the stunts Cruise has been posting about since the summer, makes me think he and Christopher McQuarrie might have pulled it off. This has for years been the action bar to reach, with even James Bond & Fast and Furious unable to match it, so Dead Reckoning looks like it could be truly an amazing experience.
And hells teeth, imagine what Part 2 is going to look like? Cruise jumping off the Moon? Don’t bet against it.
OPPENHEIMER (July)
Running a close third to Indy is the latest Christopher Nolan epic, Oppenheimer. Now, for some reason I can’t fathom, people seem to dislike Nolan’s work as much as venerate it. I’m firmly in the latter camp. He’s never put a foot wrong in my estimation. I see no reason why Oppenheimer will begin that process. Nolan tackling the birth of the nuclear bomb, based on American Prometheus—a staggering biopic—just sounds like manna from Heaven as far as I’m concerned. Imagine the visuals! What a cast! It’s going to be an epic of a different kind, no doubt rooted in character, but marked with allegory, symbolism and kinetic sequences of the like only Nolan can do.
Bring it on. We could be in line for another masterpiece here.
DUNE: Part Two (October)
Proof of how good this year is for exciting films is that the second half of Dune—part one of which was my 2021 film of the year—is my fourth most anticipated picture of 2023. That first part was exceptional but it’s here that everything kicks off in the battle for Arrakis, the transformation of Paul Atredies, and the rise of the Fremen. Tantalising new cast members announced, an expansion of the plot line, iconic sequences from Frank Herbert’s novel (my favourite book of all time) set to grace our screens, and Denis Villeneuve’s canvas likely wide and all encompassing.
I’ve no doubt this will live up to the first part and in all probability surpass it.
THE CROWN (Season 6) (November)
One year after the passing of Queen Elizabeth, Peter Morgan’s giant project to dramatise the majority of her reign will finally come to an end. I’ve always been a big fan of The Crown, which has as many detractors as fans. I appreciate a lot of it is dramatic license & arguably there are plenty of episodes which string an idea out to almost a point of ludicrousness but the lavish grandeur, the incredible actors on show, the production design and historical areas it strays into never fail to entertain me. The recent fifth season was very good so expecting this to end well, as Imelda Staunton’s Queen passes into the early 21st century.
Then I want a spin-off that does the exact same idea in a different century with a different royal. Elizabeth I anyone?
TED LASSO (Season 3) (TBA)
It took me a while to warm up to—or should I say believe in—Ted Lasso. I watched the pilot, found it twee and irritating & gave up. Then my wife binged and loved the first season so I tried again (there’s a common theme of her being right about good TV) and was all in, especially once I realised it’s not really a show about football (I’d struggled with the Americanised inaccuracies). The second season was mixed, however, taking Ted into some really dark areas & doing questionable filler pieces like that god awful Coach episode. Nevertheless, big hopes that the third season—maybe the last year, maybe not—will come out of the traps in full fitness to score a hat trick.
I still believe in Ted Lasso. When it’s good, few comedy dramas these days can beat it.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (TBA)
2023 boasts films from a litany of great directors - Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, David Fincher’s The Killer, Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, and on and on. But a new Martin Scorsese film is an event to eclipse them all, his first since the brilliant The Irishman, and his first for Apple. This sounds like proper Scorsese fare - a 20s era setting, FBI agents, DiCaprio & De Niro leading the cast. But with the addition of a Native American tribal factor that should see Scorsese delve into an area of American myth new to his lens.
It’s all really exciting and is odds on to end up as one of the most acclaimed films of the year.
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Anyway, what are your choices for most exciting projects in TV & film of 2023? Do let me know in comments and continue the conversation.
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