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Song of the Day #5,721: ‘PIMP’ – Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band

Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2023
#5. Anatomy of a Fall

Writer/director Justine Triet’s legal drama is the only movie on this list I’ve seen just once. It’s quite possible a second viewing will move it even higher.

This is a gripping courtroom thriller in which the guilt or innocence of the lead character is entirely beside the point. Did Sandra Huller’s Sandra, a successful novelist, push her husband off of their second floor balcony, or did he jump? Or was his falling death simply an accident?

Lawyers on both sides spend much of the runtime trying to make an argument one way or the other, but Triet is more interested in dissecting the dissection itself.

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Song of the Day #5,720: ‘She Loves You’ – The Beatles

A few weeks ago, I featured The Beatles’ ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ the band’s first #1 hit in the U.S. It was still atop the chart the week of February 29, 1964, but just below it was the band’s soon-to-be second #1 hit, ‘She Loves You.’

This single had been a huge hit in the UK the summer before, but a U.S. release was largely ignored by radio and failed to crack the Hot 100. Imagine that!

When the British Invasion finally arrived in early 1964, ‘She Loves You’ came back with a vengeance, rocketing to the top of the chart.

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Song of the Day #5,719: ‘Make Love to Me’ – Jo Stafford

Throwing back to the weekend of February 27, 1954, Doris Day held on to Billboard’s top spot with ‘Secret Love.’ At #2 was a song that had been moving up the chart for about a month, Jo Stafford’s ‘Make Love to Me.’

This song would reach #1 the following week and alternate in the top spot with ‘Secret Love’ for more than a month.

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Song of the Day #5,718: ‘O Quarto’ – Carminho

Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2023
#6. Poor Things

If you liked the themes in Barbie but felt the movie was missing graphic sex scenes and a chicken dog, have I got the film for you!

Director Yorgos Lanthimos’ Frankenstein-esque fairy tale stars Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, a suicide victim whose body has been reanimated with the brain of the fetus she was carrying. The film traces her development from toddlerhood through sexual awakening and intellectual enlightenment.

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Song of the Day #5,717: ‘What Was I Made For?’ – Billie Eilish

Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2023
#7. Barbie

All hail Greta Gerwig, queen of the coming-of-age film!

The writer-director’s first two movies explored young women finding their place in the world, in early 2000s Sacramento (Lady Bird) and Civil War-era Massachusetts (Little Women). Both are masterpieces, and both are on my list of the ten best films of the previous decade.

Now, with Barbie, Gerwig has tackled her favorite subject matter in a far different context: a big-budget blockbuster produced by a toy company. And somehow she still manages to deliver a touching look at a character discovering what it means to be a woman and a human being.

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