Movies: Best of
2022 was a shitty year for me and my family. I broke my leg, had surgery, the surgery failed, and then I had to get a second surgery. Plus, I had to put my sick cat down. I spent nearly three months living with my parents, which was tough on all of us. Various other family members experienced injuries, sickness, and other challenges.
But challenging years are usually the years in which we grow the most. I learned A LOT about myself during the multiple times I had to spend flat on my ass recovering from surgery. I learned how important physical movement and being in my own space is to my well-being.
You might be surprised to know that I didn't watch a ton of movies during my recovery periods (I struggled with concentration and a short attention span)...however, I did gain an appreciation for the role that movies play in my life. Movies are to me what poetry and prayer are to others. They provide a chance to reflect. To immerse myself in another world. To see difficult emotions reflected back at me. Movies are both a safe space and a challenging space to me.
I don't think 2022 was a particularly great year for movies overall, but I do think it was a great year for horror movies specifically, and you will see that horror and thrillers make up the bulk of my favorites this year. Horror is therapeutic for me, so I'm glad I had some really excellent horror movies to get me through this bitch of a year.
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The Best
10) Bones and All
It might be recency bias, but I do have to give the number 10 spot to Luca Guadagnino's dreamy cannibal romance movie. Although I wanted more from it, it still delivered excellent performances, shocks, intensity, and blood. Taylor Russell and Timothee Chalamet as the cannibalistic lovebirds, Maren and Lee, have the intense chemistry that only people under 25 can experience and it is a privilege to watch both actors lean into this vulnerability and passion.
9) Men
A lot of people hated this movie, and I understand why. It's outrageous, unexpected, and the final third is a Freudian nightmare that will be laughable to many viewers. But I thought that Alex Garland's surrealistic meditation on grief, guilt, and misogyny was pretty dang good.
Harper (Jessie Buckley) is a widow recovering from her husband's suicide. She rents a house in the English countryside to rest and recuperate, but the owner, Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), is a bit of a creep. Harper begins to experience strange things, such as a naked man following her on her walks in the countryside. And no one in town seems to take her seriously. Men, to me, is a movie about how men protect and cover for other men...and how misogyny is so commonplace and so embedded into our culture, that it becomes exhausting and dull. Where others found the symbolism too on the nose, I thought it was nightmarish and accurate.
8) Benediction
Terence Davies' melancholic biopic about WWI poet Siegfried Sassoon is slow, long, and sad. But it wasn't a slog. The film has a quiet beauty, not unlike one of Sassoon's poems. Sassoon, played by Jack Lowden as a young man, has passion and hope in his life: he is a gay man who has multiple affairs with other men and he is also a veteran of WWI who becomes staunchly anti-war. But over time, we see that hope and passion leak out of his life until he becomes a depressed, embittered older man (played by Peter Capaldi) who converts to Catholicism to find meaning in old age.
Benediction is a film that serves as a visual poem and honors a man who never quite received the love and intimacy he truly desired.
Bodies Bodies Bodies, directed by Halina Reijin, is a horror-comedy that leans heavily into the comedy. A group of privileged early-twentysomethings gather at a mansion to ride out a hurricane. To pass the time, they play a game of "Bodies Bodies Bodies" (also known as "Werewolf" or "Mafia" to some). But when an actual dead body turns up, it's not long before these immature, entitled brats turn on one another, using the Gen Z trick of weaponizing the language of self-care and mental health to blame others.
I actually found Bodies Bodies Bodies to be one of the funniest movies of the year. Pete Davidson, Lee Pace, and Rachel Sennott are particular standouts as the funniest actors in the bunch. I don't really feel like the movie hates on Gen Z too much; rather, it satirizes the most privileged among that group. But then again, I'm a Millennial, so what do I know?
6) Nope
Maybe this is a controversial opinion, but Jordan Peele's most recent film is also his weakest. To be clear, even Peele's "weakest" movie is still pretty dang good. Nope is about spectacle and our collective desire to not just see, but record, amazing sights--even if it kills us. It's also a movie about how Hollywood uses and abuses both animals and crew.
Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer play siblings OJ and Em Haywood--the children of Otis Haywood, a horse trainer for Hollywood movies. When Otis passes away in a mysterious accident. OJ and Em must take over the family business. However, a strange object hovering over their ranch takes up all their time and attention. When they (particularly Em) become intent on capturing the mysterious thing, they risk their own lives to get "the Oprah shot".
The b-plot involves a former child star, Ricky "Jupe" Park (played by Steven Yeun, excellent in this movie), who runs a ranch/amusement park and is still recovering from a traumatic experience on the set of the sitcom he acted in as a kid. The scene where we see what actually happened is one of the best scenes of the year, for my money.
5) Everything Everywhere All at Once
Everything Everywhere All at Once is a nearly indescribable film. Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as "Daniels"), EEAAO follows Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh, wonderful in this role), a Chinese immigrant, wife, and mother who runs a laundromat and feels deeply unfulfilled in life. While being audited by the IRS, she encounters a man who looks exactly like her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan, playing the sweetest man on earth), but claims to be from a parallel universe. It turns out that there are infinite universes, but that all of them are in danger due to a disgruntled young woman, Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu), who is intent on destroying all of the universes and everything and everyone within them.
Only Evelyn--boring, unfulfilled Evelyn--can stop this disaster. Why? Because she is the least talented version of herself in all the universes...and thus has the most potential.
EEAAO is, you might have guessed, very philosophical. It is about regret, how our choices run out over time, and how love might make it worth it to live in whatever timeline you're doomed to live in. But the philosophy is wrapped up in a bow of comedy, action, and surrealism. This is an eye-popping, insanely detailed film that rewards rewatches. If you're looking for a movie that says "life, warts and all, is worth living", this is the one you want to watch
4) Barbarian
For sure this was the scariest movie of my top 10, but it also has many moments of humor to break up the incredible tension. Tess (Georgina Campell) arrives at an AirBnb in a run down suburb of Detroit, only to find that a man, Keith (Bill Skarsgard), is already staying there. But it turns out that Keith isn't the scariest thing in the house.
Directed by Zach Clegg, Barbarian is the wildest roller coaster ride of the year. There is no way to predict the twists and turns this movie makes. Barbarian is also very rewatchable, and is one of the movies I see returning to over and over on this list...especially if I'm showing it to someone who hasn't seen it, because the look on their faces will be priceless. If you haven't watched it, please don't read anything about it and just go in blind.
The Banshees of Inisherin, directed by Martin McDonagh, is a movie about depression, rejection, and loneliness. On the fictional island of Inisherin, off the coast of Ireland, in 1923, two friends--Padraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson)--become not-friends. Colm stops speaking to Padraic one day. When Padraic pushes for an explanation, Colm tells him he's dull and boring and Colm doesn't want to waste his limited time listening to "aimless chatter" and instead wants to write and compose folk music.
When Padraic won't leave Colm alone, Colm threatens to cut one of his own fingers off for every time Padraic bothers him. Does he follow through? You'll have to watch to find out!
Banshees is a deeply sad, yet deeply funny movie. Truly, a difficult line to walk! But Martin McDonagh, who directed In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, is the right director to walk it. His movies are never *just* dramas. They are drama-comedies that also push things a little too far. Gleeson and Farrell give incredible performances as men who desperately need therapy, but only have the pub and the confessional booth as tools to work on their mental health. Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon also give excellent performances as town weirdo Dominic and Padraic's sister (and the only person with any sense on the whole island), Siobhan, respectively.
2) Tar
Director Todd Field's monumental film, Tar, is 16 years in the making. This exquisite film, starring Cate Blanchett as a fictional orchestra conductor Lydia Tar, is a fiercely and intimidatingly intelligent film about the rise and fall of a wildly talented narcissist.
Clocking in at 2 hours and 40 minutes, Tar feels epic. It begins with reverse credits, honoring the people who would be last credited in traditional credits that run at the end of a film. It then drops the viewer into the world of orchestra and classical music and doesn't hold our hands. Lydia Tar is elegant, intelligent, polite, and fearsome. However, her own actions bring her down by the end of the movie.
Todd Field was very likely inspired by Stanley Kubrick (he even had a significant acting role in Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut) and that inspiration can be seen in Tar, which feels cold and methodical but also with an element of madness and danger. Tar is very much not everyone's cup of tea, but I was mesmerized by it, and especially by the sure to be award-winning performance of Cate Blanchett at the center of the film.
Ti West's films X and Pearl seemed to come out of nowhere this year and managed to steal my heart away. The two films are set in the same universe. X takes place in 1979 and Pearl in 1918. Both take place on a farm in Texas near the gulf.
X follows a small crew of adult filmmakers who rent out a guest house on the above-mentioned farm in order to film a "classy" porno titled "The Farmer's Daughters". The ensemble playing this crew is wall-to-wall excellent. Mia Goth is Maxine, an ingenue who dreams of becoming a huge star via the adult industry. Martin Henderson, doing a hilarious and pitch-perfect Matthew McConaughey impression, plays Wayne, Maxine's boyfriend and the director of the movie. Brittany Snow is Bobby-Lynne, an experienced adult actress, and Scott Mescudi (aka Kid Cudi) is Jackson Hole, an experienced adult actor. Owen Campell is RJ, the cinematographer, who dreams of making an artsy porn film like the European ones. Jenna Ortega is Lorraine, RJ's assistant and girlfriend.
The reason I took the time to name all the main characters is because the ensemble cast is what makes X so dang good. The characters play off of each other perfectly and the movie is very funny because of each character's quirks.
Inspired by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, X is a slasher and the killers are, well, unexpected. The two elderly people who own the farm, Howard and Pearl, harbor secrets of their own and don't look too kindly on the people renting their guesthouse.
Pearl was released after X and is a prequel to the film. Mia Goth plays Pearl, a young woman living on that same farm who dreams of being a star in the pictures. But her strict, German immigrant mother and disabled father squash any hope of Pearl making a more exciting life for herself. That repression leads Pearl to lash out in ways that won't be surprising if you saw X! Mia Goth is sooooo good as Pearl in Pearl. The movie is a wonderful surprise--it's more of a "weepie" in the style of Douglas Sirk than it is a horror movie (though it is that, too). Pearl is filmed in gorgeous colors and feels both incredibly sensual and highly dangerous...like the characters might fuck or kill depending on how they feel that day.
While I think some of the movies on my list a "better" than X and Pearl, these two movies are definitely my favorites of the year and the ones I will likely return the most too.
***
Honorable mentions:
Resurrection, The Northman, The Black Phone, Flux Gourmet, Good Luck to You Leo Grande, Watcher, Pleasure (2021), The Menu
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The "Coulda Been Better" Award:
Crimes of the Future -- I was very hyped for David Cronenberg's dystopian film where humans begin growing new organs, but sadly the movie fell flat. Maybe I'll enjoy it on a second watch.
The "Holy Shit, Fuck Me Up Why Don't You?" Award:
Speak No Evil, Soft & Quiet -- two very, very good movies that feel absolutely, skin-crawlingly disturbing. Watch at your own risk.
***
The Worst
Olivia Wilde's follow-up to the very good Booksmart is a beautiful mess. The costumes are gorgeous, the acting ranges from good (Flo Pugh and Chris Pine) to indulgent (Olivia Wilde, giving herself a needless role in the movie) to wooden AF (Harry Styles, honestly very disappointing...he seems like a cool guy, but he was awful in this movie), the plot is ludicrous. When the major plot twist is revealed, the movie plunges downhill, racing to the end, as if Wilde was less interested in the world she created than in the pretty dresses women wear in that world. Don't Worry Darling has entertainment value, but it's not a well-crafted film.
2) We're All Going to the World's Fair
My online cinephile friends will be disgusted that I found this movie to be INSANELY boring...but I gotta calls it like I sees it. This low budget indie, starring a wonderful up-and-comer, Anna Cobb, was marketed as a horror movie and, friends, it's about as scary as a garden hose. The film is more about loneliness and isolation (which, admittedly, are scary things) than anything else. But the movie was such a slow burn, it drove me up the wall.
1) Sissy
This Australian horror film is about a social media influencer who runs into her long-estranged friend and is invited to said friend's bachelorette weekend. During that weekend, Cecilia (or "Sissy") comes face to face with the bullies of her past and her own violent impulses. This movie sucked. The characters are awful. They are bad people, which is ok, but they have no redeeming qualities: they are boring, stereotypical, unfunny, cruel, and one-dimensional. Sissy has been compared to Bodies Bodies Bodies since it's a slasher about entitled young people, but where BBB is funny, well-acted, and captures something that feels true about Gen Z, Sissy is boring, poorly-acted, and rings false.
***
And that's it! See you all in 2023!
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