My Top Baseball Experiences

        On the heels of his incredible effort to identify the „best“ 100 baseball players of all time, Joe „Writing Machine“ Posnanski somehow managed to churn out another fantastic work, a collection of over 100 important, influential or inspiring moments in the sport's history that show „Why We Love Baseball“.

        This has inspired me to take on a similar exercise, and to try and think of what the most important baseball moments of my own life are, at least so far. Obviously, this will be a much more limited list than any overall Most Important moments that true masters like Posnanski, Jayson Stark, or Tom Verducci could piece together. I am but a single layperson who can only fit in watching baseball in real time on very select days, so the moments I am able to see live are limited. Plus, even when I lived in the states, I was rarely able to attend more than 1 or 2 games a year, all of them regular-season games and nearly none of them with any immediate relevance to playoff runs. Plus, since when I do get the chance to watch the sport live, I nearly always watch my favorite team, the Atlanta Braves, most of the biggest or most important baseball moments of my lifetime were ones I did not experience in the moment. As we shall see, there are a couple of exceptions, but it bears mentioning beforehand that this will be an overwhelmingly Braves-heavy list.

        Even if that's the case, I still find this worth doing, as it is very much in the spirit of Posnanski's work. These moments are, for me, the biggest reasons why I love baseball.

12. October 1^st, 2013 (NL Wild Card Game): Cueto Drops the Ball

        It broke my Dad's heart a little to see me grow up a Braves fan, because he learned to love the game from the suburbs of Pittsburgh during the heyday of the great Pirates teams of the 60's and 70's, led by Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell. It didn't help that the rise of the First Atlanta Dynasty in the early 90's was paralleled by the Pirates collapsing into two full decades of stunning irrelevance. I always did feel at least a little bad about that, so when the city saw a brief resergence in the mid-2010's I was surprisingly pleased and made sure to tune into the team's first playoff appearance in 21 years in 2013.

        That first game was a one-off elimination against the Cincinnati Reds, with their then-ace Johnny Cueto on the mound. Even through the television screen, PNC park was hopping, one of the loudest places I ever personally witnessed. Cueto felt it too, and in an early inning, he showed it when he bumbled and dropped the ball between pitches. I recall thinking very clearly at that moment; That's it, game's as good as over. And sure enough the Pirates won easily to advance to the DS. Sadly, that was the extent of it; 3 consequetive playoff appearances brought no further magic, and the franchise has struggled ever since. But it was nice hoping while it lasted.

11. October 1^st, 2016: Game-Saving Double Play in next-to-last Turner Field Game

        The final series ever played at Turner Field was the one time I was able to see regular season games with real playoff stakes. Not for the Braves, unfortunately; 2016 was the midst of the Dark Times and their season had lost all hope long ago. The Tigers, on the other hand, were still mathematically in contention. They'd won the first game of the series easily and, though down by 3 late in the second game, suddenly had a serious late threat going, with the bases loaded, no one out, and Miggy Cabrera himself at the plate.

        After a tense series of pitches, the no-name reliever the Braves had brought in managed to strike Cabrera out. The threat was not fully eliminated until a batter later though, when fresh-faced Dansby Swanson stabbed a shot to left and managed to pull off a double play. Effectively end of the game, and with that, the end of the last serious playoff run the Tigers had.

10. April 5, 2010: „Swing and a drive! Belted right! WELCOME TO THE SHOW!!!“

        Ever since Chipper and Andruw Jones started on the downsides of their careers, I'd been waiting and yearning for the next Braves player to be That Dude, a new supernova that would be unassailably recognized as one of the greatest new talents in the game. There had been false starts and misplaced hope- Brian McCann, Jeff Franceour, Jordan Schafer (oh GOD, Jordan Schafer)- but everything pointed to Jason Heyward being the real deal, especially when, in his very first big-league at-bat, he absolutely murdered this pitch LINK from Carlos Zambrano, prompting one of the best, most spine-tingling calls I've ever heard. I was watching this in my dorm room and literally leaped backward over my chair with joy.

        Sadly, it didn't last long; I also happened to be at the game a few years later when Heyward got hit smack in the jaw by a pitch, and I genuinely believe that was the moment when he just wasn't the same. He's had a great and meaningful career, but he never ended up being That Dude. That would have to wait for Acuna awhile later. But that call for Heyward's first shot will live rent-free in my head forever.

9. July 25^th, 2023: Braves pull off Triple Play in Boston

        The most recent game I was able to attend live, after years of absence from the real deal. The game itself was rough- the Braves lost in pretty brutal fashion- but early on they pulled off a highly unorthodox triple play, the only one I've ever seen live. Since triple plays only happen roughly five times a year on average, that's pretty special and merits a place here.

8. Summer 2012: Chipper Jones' Last Appearances in New York

        Chipper Jones announced during Spring Training that 2012 would be his last season in the bigs. Naturally, that made it top priority to seem him play one last time, and fortunately the summer featured the team visiting both the Mets AND the Yankees.

        I was able to make the second of the 3-game series in June against the Yankees, on June 19^th. Chipper ended up not playing the next day, so the second game of the series was his final on-field appearance against the Yankees. Got to see him barehand a grounder and drive in a run. The second game was on September 9^th, Chipper's last-ever appearance at Citi. Given that he had long been a legend for victimizing the Mets on their home turf, this was a special moment, and it really did mean a lot to see him get two standing ovations, one when he brought out the lineup card before the game, and when he pinch-hit at the end, his final plate appearance visiting the Big Apple.

7. November 4^th, 2001 (World Series, Game 7): Luis Gonzalez Beats the Unbeatable

        I came of age just as the Torre-Jeter Yankees dynasty of the late 90's began to tighten its terrible grip on the sport, winning 4 World Series over 5 years going into the new millenium. As such, I developed the proper and healthy dose of Yankee Hate required of all Real Fans BEFORE my family up and moved to North Jersey, smack-dab in the middle of Axis territory. We arrived just in time to be forced to endure the 3^rd straight WS title in '00, so I knew well in advance who I would be rooting for in 2001, braving the mockery of my schoolmates in doing so.

        Thankfully, the end of that series turned out to be one for the ages; after an incredible first 6 games that had already cemented the series as an all-timer, the 7^th came down to a scrappy, piecemeal D-Backs squad against Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer in history and one who up to then had been virtually untouchable in the postseason.

        It was technically past my bedtime by the time the last game was winding up, but I knew I couldn't miss this, so while my parents were watching downstairs, I snuck into their bedroom-adjacent where the second TV was and turned on the game. I was just in time to catch the final showdown between Luis Gonzalez and Rivera, which ended in a bloop single over the head of Jeter himself to seal the first real blow to finally chink the armor of the Evil Empire. I went to sleep that night dreaming of the taunts I would be able to finally return the next day.

6. May 20^th, 2010: Brooks Conrad Rocks a Walk-Off, Pinch-Hit Grand Slam

        This game was the perfect example of the magical randomness of baseball, and how even the most meaningless early-season game can, out of nowhere, offer up something you've literally never seen before.

        Spring afternoon game, Braves-Reds, not nearly deep enough in the year to have any stakes, and to top it off, the Braves started off by absolutely blowing. They entered the 9^th down 9-3 and I was not a happy camper. And then....some singles, some walks, a choice error, and all of the sudden it's 9-6, the bases are loaded with NO ONE out, and who's coming up but Jason Heyward, rookie sensation. The call from his Opening Day homer (see above) was still ringing in my ears, and I though THIS IS IT. The legend grows!

        The legend did not grow. Heyward struck out on a very good pitch after a tight battle with the new reliever. Now a double play would end it, and with the pitcher's spot up next, the Braves had to go with their last pinch-hitter, career utility man Brooks Conrad.

        And what did this lumpy part-timer do? Oh, only hit a walk-off, PINCH-HIT grand slam to win it all. Not only that, because the Braves were down 3, that qualified it as an Ultimate Grand Slam (yes, that is what it's called). How rare is that? Well, at the time, it was only the 23^rd time one of those had EVER happened (it has since ocurred 9 more times, for a total of 32). Even better, this was only the 5^th PINCH HIT Ultimate Slam, the very first to be seen since 1979. So yeah, after 3 hours of torture, I suddenly got to witness something that had literally not ocurred since before my parents had even met. Baseball!

5. July 5^th, 2010: Chipper Homers, Halladay Goes the Distance

        On surface, this shouldn't be this high, being a mid-summer game I saw live where the Braves lost. And though that would have usually ruined my mood for a bit, this one was an exception, for two reasons.

        First, Roy Halladay himself was pitching for the Phillies and he threw a masterful complete game. So I can say I saw one of the best pitchers of the aughts throw a complete game in the flesh, shortly before the complete game would go the way of the dinosaurs. Can't really complain much about that. Second, and more importantly; this was the only time I was in the stadium when Chipper Jones hit a homer. First inning, right off the bat, straightaway center. When you see your favorite player of all time go yard in person, especially if it's the one time, that's one for the scrapbook, no matter what.

4. November 2^nd, 2016: Miracle Cubs Break the Curse

        Even with the time difference and knowing it would be murder on my sleep schedule for work, I had to catch as much of the 2016 series as possible. Two long-starved teams, with the guarantee that no matter who would, it would be a defining moment in the sports history? Some things simply must be endured.

        And hoo boy, was the final game worth it. All of the games were filled with drama, but the final one of them all lived up to the billing. Multiple plot twists, including a massive shocker of a home run by the ultimale noodle-hitting speedster Rajai Davis, plus an excruciating rain delay, an inspirational clubhouse speech (by Jason Heyward no less!), and then one last come-from-behind drive to secure the end to the oldest championship drought in all of professional sports. This game had it all, and will long stand as one of the greatest moments in sports history.

3. October 2^nd, 2016: The Final Game at Turner Field

        The last ever game at Turner Field, where I went to my first meaningful live ballgames, was always going to be special no matter what. An all-star selection of Atlanta franchise players plus Hank Aaron himself came out to grace the field in pre-game ceremonies, and for a final time, I got to soak in a special place from my youth before it would be gone for good (at least, as far as baseball is concerned).

        Thankfully, the game itself turned out to be pretty damn good too. I got to see another a future inner-circle HOF in Justin Verlander (plus Miggy Cabrera, of course), but the Braves still won in a classic pitcher's duel of a match, with absolutely perfect vibes after Justin Upton went down swinging to end the season, Hank Aaron came back to remove home plate, and everyone danced in the stands. The entire game, and all that came before and after, will remain a cherished memory as long as I live.

2. November 3^rd, 2021: „The Braves! Are WORLD CHAMPIONS!“

        You're shocked, I know. And I get it! This is a weird spot for this one. I, who spent years pining, bitching, and moaning in exquisite terms over the pain of never having been able to enjoy by team topping the dogpile, finally got what I always wanted. And it's only #2 on the list?

        Yes, for a very specific reason, which I will get to. But for this spot, of course it's the entire Game 6 of the '21 World Series. There are loads of individual moments contained within- Fried nearly having his ankle broken, then shutting down the Astros for 6 innings, Sorge literally leaving the yard, Dansby and Freeman (in his last-ever at-bat as a Brave) joining him in the home run department, the final out- but like with the past two picks, it's the whole game's vibe that makes the list, a wonderfully self-contained story of the most unlikely of championship runs.

1. October 23^rd, 2021: Matzek Shuts Down L.A., Secures the Pennant

        And here it is. My top-ever live baseball moment is NOT from the '21 World Series, but rather the NLCS that preceeded it, where the Braves avenged themselves on the Dodgers and dominated in a 6-game series to clinch the pennant. My reasoning for this is very simple; the only reason that World Series happened at all is because of one man, Tyler Matzek, who saved the 6^th game (and in my opinion, the series) from the best chance the Dodgers had to storm back and bury Atlanta once more.

        It had been a top series, and the Braves had pretty much had everything under control, up to the late innings of Game 6, up 4-1 and so, SO close to finally sealing their first pennant in 22 years. Then, genuine disaster suddenly loomed- Luke Jackson, who had been so key the whole season, suddenly couldn't get anyone out, and before anyone could cough, the Dodgers were back a run, had runners on second and third with no one out, and Albert Pujols up at bat (with Mookie Betts waiting in the wings). Granted, Pujols was but a barely-mobile shell of his former self at this point. But baseball has too many examples of injured, old, past-their-timers suddenly getting one more moment of glory LINK at just the right/wrong moment for me to feel safe. There was Capital D 'Danger' in the air and everyone knew it.

        Enter Tyler Matzek. Another journeyman reliever, who briefly fell out of the MLB entirely due to a case of the 'yips', but battled back and found his way into the middle of a pennant race. In the most gripping and tense series of at-bats I have ever watched, he attacked and maneuvered and played every card right, striking out the side (even getting Betts looking!) to save the inning, the game, and the pennant.

        Looking back, this was THE defining inning of that entire playoff run. The World Series itself never felt as tense; there was never that sense of real threat, that Houston was about to take over the series, even when they had a come-from-behind win in Game 5. The NLCS matchup was a whole other level; I remain wholly convinced that, had the Dodgers made out with Game 6, the Braves would have been too thrown off to recover. As such, this is my pick for the best baseball moment I've seen live, even above anything in the WS that followed, for the simple reason that without Matzek in that one inning, the WS would not have happened at all.

        Baseball, man. At it's best, it's magic, pure and simple.

-Noah

My Top Ten Films of 2023

        This list was hard. Possibly the hardest I've yet made.

        There have been some great years for movies since I started this blog, years where multiple movies came out that became instant all-time favorites of mine. We've seen some great triumphs, none more satisfying than my beloved EEAAO sweeping last year's Academy Awards. And I certainly did not see MORE movies this year than I used to; my „new film intake“ continues to remain relatively low compared to when I tried to make it a point to see one new film every week (ah! youth).

        Dakota Johnson was right; the film industry is an utter hellscape in so many ways right now. The major studios and their soulless billionaire owners with more wealth than God seem determined to be as cruel, as narrow-minded, as creatively bankrupt as possible, because that's what post-war Western capitalism rewards. This year saw possibly the biggest and most important strike in my lifetime, and it will certainly not be the last. Problems aplenty in the special effects and animation industries abound, #MeToo ended with less than a whimper, the superhero genre finally started to show cracks, and the cultural Black Death that is live-action adaptations of animated classics remains unsated.

        And yet. The movies I was able to see this year were SO good, and there were SO many of them, that nearly every single film I am about to name, even the honorable mentions, could top other people's lists (and many of them did!!). That this happened in spite of all our troubles was something of a light in the darkness for me; there are still so many unbelievably talented people in every branch of this business, still doing their best to churn art better, more representative, and more worthwhile than ever before, and some are still pulling it off, in spite of it all.

        There was almost no wrong way for me to order these, so of course, that made it all the more stress-inducing to try and do so. So I won't be able to offer much in the way of justifications as to why certain films are higher than others. In the end, all I had was my gut. And here's what my bundle of organs had to say about this year at the movies.

Honorable Mentions: The Holdovers, John Wick 4, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Suzume, Poupelle of Chimney Town

10. A Haunting in Venice (Kenneth Branagh)

        I absolutely, unabashedly love this series. They are old-school campy in the best way possible. This one, however, is the first that I would call a straight-up great movie. Not having read the book, I understanding that his adaption changes a lot to allow for a setting and style that is far more explicitly horror-oriented than the first two films, which were mostly fairly direct whodunnits. The result is the best of both worlds, just enough horror to keep the thrills coming, while still having a compelling and believable mystery with multiple twists and turns right up to the end, with just enough left open to provide discussion fodder afterwards. I hope Branagh keeps making these til he dies.

9. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)

        Out of the year's major big-name releases, I would rank this as the most ambitious. A massively long and exhaustive adaptation of a little-known book detailing one of the most horrific crimes ever committed against a Native American tribe (and yes, that IS saying something), with a focus on authentic cultural representation and language, plus one of the most open fourth wall breaks Scorsese has ever attempted, there are so many ways this could have not worked, or come off as insensitive. And there are fair criticisms to be made that even if this is the „best version“ of a White man making a movie about Native Americans, it still falls short. I myself did find the length a bit too trying at times, and in the crucial final section- where the evil of it all is finally coming to light- I very much wished for less time with the White criminals and more time with Mollie, seeing her trying to process the depths of her husband's betrayal.

        Nonetheless, I do feel that there is value in having a trio of the most influential figures in American cinema take this story, put in the effort to empower the community it impacted, and to bring awareness of it to an audience that would otherwise have never bothered to learn of the Osage Terror. It does mean something when Lily Gladstone becomes the first Native American to win another major award and gives another speech viewed by millions. Controversial and debatable the film will remain, but the fact that it will have an impact at all is still enough for me to rank it as one of the year's most important works.

8. Godzilla Minus One (Takashi Yamazaki)

        I can enjoy a good monster flick, but it's never been „my thing“, and the current effort by American studios to revive the genre have left me relatively cold, so that made it an extra special treat to get this quasi-remake of the original that hit in all the right places. The action set pieces maximize every cent of the small budget and leave a greater impact that most recent Marvel movies, but its the humanistic core- a Miyazaki-esque call to live, no matter what- that makes it something truly special. Alongside the OG, this is the Gojira flick everyone should see at least once.

7. Past Lives (Celine Song)

        A majestic, slow-burn story of how each decision we make- or that others make for us- shape our futures just a little bit more, how our identities can be torn between worlds, and how we can suddenly realize that whole potential paths we once considered are now closed off forever. It is a bittersweet sort of beauty, the way we fall in and out of each other's lives, and it's captured so effectively in the way the three leads interact with each other. Beautiful and poignant, this is the sort of experience that leaves a pregnant silence in its wake.

6. Barbie (Greta Gerwig)

        With the passage of time, and some distance from all my Barbenheimer bloviating from last summer, Barbie has ultimately fallen a bit further down the ladder in my mind's eye, while the artistry of Oppenheimer continues to rise. However, this is not meant as a knock on the film itself. This is absolutely the best and most boundary-pushing version of a corporate-approved movie-as-commercial we could have gotten. It will undoubtedly create a whole new bandwagon for toy companies to try and jump on, but I feel safe predicting that this was the lightning strike we will never see happen again.

        Plus, there is a sad irony at play right now in just how desperate the awards circuit is to show us why super on-the-nose lessons like Ferrera's „Feminism 101“ monologue are still necessary. Yeah, maybe the film's feminism is a touch White, and bringing in Will Ferrell way too easily distracts from Mattel's real-world (and genuine piece of shit) CEO. But if „serious“ industry figures are willing to reward the literal joke song over a wonderful Billie Eilish number, or somehow decide that the female director of the most dominant box-office film of the year doesn't merit a Best Director nomination, then it really does start to feel like Ryan Gosling in the only man on Earth who got the actual point of it all.

5. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders)

        Why does this film work so well? A good 90% of it is literally just following a toilet cleaner in Tokyo making his rounds, eating his lunch, tending his plants. That SHOULDN'T work as a beautiful celebration of the small joys that make up daily life, or as a paean to simplicity over shallow materialism, or offer subtle commentary on the trauma of unmet familial expectations, or as a powerful meditation on how to exist in the Now.

        But it does. It works, presenting an old man's singular and somewhat strange version of nirvana, while still allowing us to glimpse some of the cracks in his soul and leaving it to us to guess whether he is truly happy or not. This is a prime example of the unmatched power of cinema to take literally anything, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, and make it a metaphor for life itself.

4. The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki)

        Damnit, he's still got it. No one can mesh together resigned pessimism with determined optimism like Hayao Miyazaki, and I don't know if anyone after him ever will. His latest (I won't say „final“ because WHO KNOWS) combines a fairly direct treatment of childhood trauma in its first half with a fantasy coming-of-age arc in its second part, transitioning seemlessly from one to the other. The fact that Miyazaki permitted himself to hand over the rudder more than usual shows. There is a lot more variety in the animation styles on display than in his earlier works, which very much works in the film's favor. There may be no Studio Ghibli after Miyazaki. But for now, he's still here, and he remains one of humanity's most essential artists.

3. Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)

        There's not much left at this point for me to gush over when it comes to Oppenheimer. I get why some don't like the movie as an experience, or feel too uncomfortable with the subject matter. But like with Dunkirk, there are a lot of ways Nolan is quietly undermining the shallow „Great Men doing Great Things and Making History“ spin that this sort of movie would usually entail. This is not blind hagiography; the film is VERY critical, openly so, about pretty much everyone on screen (except for David Krumholtz, who is a treasure and I love him). A lot of the power the film holds for me, particularly its masterful final sequence, is how 1-1 the fears of uncontrollable nuclear holocaust can be switched over to climate change. I have been plagued for years with the persistant fear I am trappen in a world on fire, and nothing has been able to capture that emotion via pictures and music like this did.

And now.....

Yes! It's a TIE for the #1 spot. I told you this year was hard, so I decided to go easy on myself for once.

1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson)

        I have gone on record multiple times saying that Enter The Spider-Verse is about as perfect a rendition of the classic hero origin story that can be made by human hands. Well, the bastards came back and topped it. Better character development, better dramatic beats, better music, better jokes, phenomenal expansion of this particular multiverse, greater stakes, and a true gut punch of a final twist. If the first movie was the best possible case study of the origin story, this is the best possible case study of the follow-up. Not a single beat is missed. Like its predecessor, this film is a genuine miracle.

        Now, given the MASSIVE cliffhangers this film ends on, unlike the standalone first movie, whether or not this one holds up long-term will depend on how well the final installment ties it all together. Plus, the stories coming out of production have been less than nice, and I am very much hoping that they do NOT push to bring the film out in less than a year as currently planned. I adore this series and want the finale to do it justice. If I have to wait a decade for that to happen, I am young and strong and patient and I will do it.

1. My Small Land (Emma Kawawada)

        I had to. I just had to. The film that hit me, personally, right in the soloplex of my soul and left me a blubbering mess for a solid three-quarters of an hour. There is a reason refugees are regularly mentioned in ancient secular or spiritual texts as the sort of group where how they are treated says worlds about the values of a given society. And most of the time, what it says about us is horrifying.

        My Small Land, based on real-life stories of Kurdish refugees in Tokyo and partially inspired by a documentary, encapsulates so much of the unique travails and pressures that fall on the young when society refuses to lift themselves up. There is a unique psychological burden when children are forced to bear the weight of cold shoulders and closed doors, and the young amateur Kawawada-san found for the lead role manifests this perfectly in one of the year's standout performances. Life will go on- it MUST go on- but films like these force us to once again look in a mirror and ask ourselves how much longer we will continue to do such terrible harm to each other.

-Noah

My Top Film Scores of 2023

        Another year, another round, and we are back to recount the best in music and film of 2023!

        Ultimately, I saw even fewer new movies this year than I used to, but somehow, the average quality of what I did manage to see seemed especially high. Despite the strike and all the failures and struggles and just plain idiocy infecting the film industry, it was still a damn good year at the movies, with a bevy of masterpieces that featured some of the best film music I've ever heard. This year's lists are especially meaningful to me, so let's start it off right with the best in film music!

7. John Wick 4 (Tyler Bates & John Richard)

        The John Wick franchise, one of the best original IPs to come out of the past decade, came to a fittingly grand conclusion before a hilariously empty Sacre Coeur. While I will need to revisit the series once more to decide where each of the films hold up individually in my mind, the score for this final chapter was easily the best of the series to date. I know there are spinoffs and future installments planned, but much like Endgame, this was the organic spiritual end the franchise needed, and I will leave it at that.

6. Suzume (Radwimps & Kazuma Jinnouchi)

        Your Name remains the peak of both Makoto Shinkai and Radwimps' film work, but Suzume is the closest they've managed to come to achieving that sort of emotional height, easily surpassing their interim film, Weathering With You. A great set of music for an excellent adventure-fantasy story about time, loss, and the beauty of first love.

5. Godzilla Minus One (Naoki Sato)

        So few of us saw this one coming, a powerful, creative, and gripping re-emergence of the Godzilla franchise from the doldrums of its American adaptations. Even better, it brought a smashing and raucous score along with it, the perfect accompaniment to a damn-near perfect film. The film didn't miss a beat, and neither did the music.

4. Past Lives (Christopher Bear & Daniel Rossen)

        The production of the music for this deceptively powerful Korean-American drama mirrored the story of the film as well, with distance playing a key role in forming the musical themes of the film and how they interact over the course of an amazing story about how time and chances taken or missed shape the curvature of our selves. This is one of the year's best listens even when divorced from the film it was made for.

3. The Boy and the Heron (Joe Hisaishi)

        While his work on the latest Miyazaki might not be as instantly iconic as the top, top tier of his discography, Hisaishi's score for The Boy and the Heron nonetheless builds itself up in a way that I found quite powerful and affecting. The main piano theme is simple and effective, and even the "big" moments from the orchestra are not as grand-sounding or bombastic as some of Hisaishi's previous highlights. All that is to the film's benefit; both it and the music are works that thrive on just being themselves and denying the expectations or overhype that would otherwise threaten to sink a new work by old masters like these.

2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Daniel Pemberton)

        The first Spider-Verse movie was, to put it bluntly, perfect, as was Pemberton's soundtrack. And this year they came back and did it again, better than before. I will gush more about the film in my next post. As far as the music is concerned, there are so many wonderful moments where original themes are brought back and re-worked into the new score, while still making room for new additions. Gwen's theme is a fucking banger, and Miguel O'Hara gets the year's single best musical motif for a villain. And the main musical theme for the broader and seemingly limitless Spider-Verse the movies are building out gets the same treatment as the franchise as a whole, made bigger, bolder, better, more exciting. I adore this franchise, and I am praying, PRAYING, that the creators get the message and let the foot off the gas enough for the creative teams building these wonderful creations to have the proper time and energy to give Miles' story the sendoff it deserves.

1. Oppenheimer (Ludwig Göransson)

        Göransson is That Dude, there's just no denying it. As fantastic as his work with Ryan Coogler has been- Black Panther remains the single greatest original soundtrack to come out of the entire MCU- he finds a whole other level in Nolan's latest, and arguably, greatest, film to date. The very idea of using the musical motifs themselves, especially the violin theme for Oppenheimer, and breaking them down- making them more violent, clashing, dissonant- as a way to mirror the chaos and unpredictability of the quantum world the rise of the atomic age centers around is an absolutely brilliant concept. Simple to conceive, perhaps, but unimaginably tricky to pull off in practice, and he does here. My personal favorite track is „Destroyer of Worlds“, laid over the haunting visuals of the final scene where a world is imagined to collapse into fire and ash, as a pulse of music builds in its frantic energy. The track is a major reason why this was, for my money, the single greatest concluding scene in any film of 2023.

-Noah

Movie Review: The Boy and the Heron/How Do You Live

The Boy and the Heron (2023): Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Starring: Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Shohei Hino, Ko Shibasaki, and Takuya Kimura. Running Time: 124 minutes.

Rating: 4/4

        It would be all too easy to simply list the elements in The Boy and the Heron that mirror parts of other, earler Miyazaki films. Elements abound that will immediately bring careful Miyazaki curators to recall scenes and motifs from Porco Rosso, The Wind Rises, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke. There are fluffy and adorable spirit-like creatures, many a bulbous nose, a magical building that seems to hold special properties, a fantasy world adjacent to the "real one" that must be accounted for, and of course a gentle, lilting piano theme by Joe Hisaishi.

        But it would be both crass and inaccurate to simply do a surface-level read of the movie as just a rehash of an old man's favorite toys, a placeholder work from someone past his prime and out of ideas. Like Martin Scorsese,- an aging demigod who also treated last year's audiences to something new and boundary-pushing- Miyazaki may be old, and he won't live forever, but he remains one of the absolutely essential artists in the world of cinema.

        Elements of Miyazaki's own life and personality have made their way into his films before, most notably in Porco Rosso and The Wind Rises, but he freely admitted that this might be the most "autobiographical" film he's yet made. We start with tragedy, as a young boy named Mahito loses his mother in a terrible fire. It is not clear if this particular fire was the cause of Allied bombing, but this is very much set in World War II, and his father is a wealthy and successful man thanks to his business making parts for fighter planes. As such, he is able to still afford a lifestyle most Japanese can't access anymore, and to protect his son he moves them out into the country. This is in line with Miyazaki's own childhood, where his father's profited from war and his mother passed while he was still a child.

        It is immediately apparent that Mahito is deeply traumatized by the death of his mother. There is much in the varied animation of the film to recommend it, but the opening sequences where the world and people shimmer and shift as if in a haze as the fire burns and Mahito tries to rush through the chaos is an instant standout, something that has never been seen in any previous Ghibli film. Images of fire and burning plague him, especially when he sleeps.

        As if it wasn't bad enough to be a hurt boy who misses his mother, we learn (more or less along with him) that his aunt, his mother's sister, is to be his father's new bride, and that she is already expecting. Mahito maintains the sort of strict, polite discipline expected of boys in wartime Japan, but there is a distance he projects towards the woman "replacing" his dead mother, a stiffness and coldness in his movements that all too clearly betray the turbulent emotions inside. And this is all established and told masterfully in the film's first half, nearly creating a film on its own, BEFORE the doors to another world are opened and the film kicks into a higher gear.

        Ghibli aficianados know that The Boy and the Heron is not a direct translation of the film's original title. The Japanese title, after a book that loosely inspired the film's story, is How Do You Live, a title that is a) far more metal, and b) far less misleading that the alternate European one. One would assume by such a title that said boy and said heron would be more or less co-equal characters, or that their relationship would somehow be central to the plot.

        This is not the case. The heron- and while I will not spoil it, there are aspects of this heron that are decidedly not what anyone associates with birds- is very much the starting point for Mahito to be introduced to the alternate dimension/fantasy world where the second half of the movie takes place. Mahito's interactions with the bird are at first antagonistic, but it is soon apparent that this is neither the villain, nor even a primary player in the bigger story that unfolds. After the middle section, the heron is really just another character along for the ride. A strange one, one that helps Mahito adjust to the weird, unknown rules and workings of the quasi-wonderland he enters, but in key moments he doesn't seem to know much more than we do about what's going on.

        It is particularly when in the fantasy world that many of the common elements I listed above appear, inevitably drawing comparisons to Miyazaki's other works. But again, this is not a rehash of old, used things. Miyazaki has, as he always somehow manages to do, brought something quite new into existance, the sort of tale that most wouldn't think possible in animated form. It is a story of grief, of trauma, and of the complex ways people seek to grapple with both, be they child or adult. Mahito's aunt/new mother is, at first glance, little more than a plot device to jumpstart the second half- Mahito is not compelled to enter the fantasy world until she disappears and he feels obligated on his father's behalf to find her. However, this view would also be far too shallow, and misses the small, easily-passed-over ways the film shows us how her own pain over the war, losing her sister, and the rejection she feels from her nephew/son-in-law afflict her just as much Mahito's grief affects him.

        The original title really is the more appropriate one, by the end. The biggest thematic similarity this has to Miyazaki's other greatest works is a striving to understand how an individual- small, breakable, easily overwhelmed- can find the strength, the courage, the fortitude, to continue even in the face of the greatest pain and adversity. How, indeed, does one live? The answer to this question has, I think, changed at least a little bit for Miyazaki himself over the years, and it will as always been interpreted differently by audiences. But one common thread that has never waivered is that answers and solutions that seem easy, that claim to have a simple answer that wipes away all the dirt and grime and contradiction of humanity, are mere illusions. Being able to live requires, above all else, a willingness to tackle all of what existing entails, both the good and the bad and the in-between. I am reminded of the words of Sheriff Bell in the beginning of No Country For Old Men; "A man has to put his soul at hazard....and say ok. I'll be part of this world."

        Word is that Miyazaki is already working on yet another movie. There is no way of knowing how much time he has left, and whether or not this is it as far as the big screen goes. If it is, then this is even more powerful a way to end his body of work than The Wind Rises was, which may for some viewers be a bit too heady and ethereal. The Boy and the Heron is certainly more immediately accessible, and while it may not bowl one over like Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away, the depth and feeling on display is as great and grand as it ever was. Joe Hisaishi, the absolutely essential special sauce to any Miyazaki dish, remains in fine form as well, with a more understated and less dominating work that nonetheless conveys the right power a given scene needs.

        This may be it for the Grand Master, or it may not be. Either way, I am immeasurably grateful that, unlike in The Boy and the Heron, we don't have to choose forever between fantasy and reality. When our world is too much- and right now, it is a lot to bear- the worlds of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli are right there, ready to hold us, comfort us, and let us rest for just a moment before striving back out into battle.

-Noah Franc