Top 13 Movies of 2022
Time for the timely time of the year when we can all reflect on our favorite movies of the past year on a yearly basis (yearly). 2022 has been a far better year for movies than 2020 or 2021. As much of a “no shit, Sherlock” moment as this may seem, regardless, we’re upping the number from last year from 12 to lucky number 13. These aren’t the objectively best movies of the year or the ones that are most likely to win the awards; these are the ones I enjoyed the most and I base that criteria off of which ones I catch myself chatting to friends about the most often. And since any top [insert number here] list will inevitably be very fluid depending on the day, I decided to alphabetize them for expediency’s sake. Hopefully you’ll find some films that you'll want to check out!
Be My Baby~The Ronettes
Directed by Zach Cregger (The Whitest Kids U’ Know, The Civil War on Drugs, Miss March)
Written by Zach Cregger
Genre: Horror, dark comedy
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? HBO Max
2022 was a great year for horror movies so prepare to see quite a few films of that genre on this rundown. Barbarian is set in a really bad neighborhood in Detroit as a young woman named Tess Marshall (Georgina Campbell) is renting an airbnb on her way to a job interview. Upon arriving on a late, rainy night, she finds that the house is already occupied by another guest named Keith (Bill Skarsgård) who offers to let her crash at the house while they figure out why this mix-up happened. Of course, it isn’t long before Tess discovers that she may be throwing caution to the wind and has placed herself in mortal peril.
Barbarian is a pretty transparently feminist film about the dangers of predatory individuals though it thankfully avoids becoming too preachy. It has a great sense of dread in its buildup with the character of Keith hitting just the right note of being unnerving in his performance. However they don’t tip their hand as to whether he’s actually dangerous or just really awkward until the perfect moment. But what makes Barbarian a really fun movie is that every time you think you know just where it’s going, it throws a complete curveball in the plot. Slightly before the halfway point the film completely changes gears from being a typical modern horror movie into a really funny dark comedy when we actually get to meet the sleazebag owner of the house that Tess and Keith are staying at. And just when you think you know where that story is going, it changes gears again.
Barbarian is a great exercise in filmmaking as it manages to balance juggling several different plotlines all at once without ever losing focus on the main story and theme. I especially love the owner of the airbnb (not giving the actor’s name since it was a nice surprise) who is one of the most fun characters of the past year. I’d love to gush about it more but this is one of those movies where the less you know going in, the better it’ll be.
If I Can Dream~Elvis Presley
Directed by Baz Luhrmann (The Great Gatsby, Moulin Rouge!, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet)
Written by Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell (The Get Down), Craig Pearce (The Great Gatsby, Moulin Rouge!, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet) and Jeremy Doner (The Killing, Heartbreaker, Damages)
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 2 hours 39 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? HBO Max, DirecTV
One of the most oddly specific film trends of the past few years has been the “classic rock icon” biopic. These films have run the full gamut from great to crap but Elvis sticks out in particular from the crowd. The film was directed by Baz Luhrmann and that name alone should tell you whether or not you’ll like this movie. Baz Luhrmann is an Australian director most famous for Moulin Rouge!, and sports a directing style that is very bright, colorful and with loud music that can feel like a complete assault on your senses. He has a very in-your-face style of filmmaking that can leave you either loving or hating his movies. In the case of Elvis, I loved it.
Elvis is an epic centering around the titular King of Rock (Austin Butler) and how he changed music history as well as his experiences during the turbulence of 1960s and 70s America, particularly centering around his relationship with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). Hanks’ character seems to be the sticking point between whether people like or hate this movie as he’s sporting a pretty laughably fake German accent. Despite this, I still think it’s a great performance. This scumbag manager trope is a character that’s a dime a dozen in these “life of an artist” films but Hanks manages to mix in some humanity with the character’s almost shark-like greed and tenacity.
The movie also does a great job at really humanizing the person of Elvis Presley and his slow but steady downfall. We’ve all heard the countless jokes about the real-life Elvis and his legendarily appalling health and diet but actually seeing how he approached that point in his life is heartbreaking. This is one of the best films I’ve seen really showing the exploitation of show business on a creative level. Elvis wasn’t physically abused, sexually assaulted or anything like that; he was just someone who actually wanted to use his music to make statements and travel the world but was instead slowly trapped into becoming a bland corporate stooge. (I’ll admit to not knowing how much of this film is actually historically accurate but they do have a clever dodge in that regard as the story is told by Colonel Parker who gleefully admits to being an unreliable narrator from the get-go.)
The movie does not feel its length and it seems to take its style cues from the type of movies that the real Elvis Presley used to make. Kinda gaudy, kinda cheesy, definitely stylized but ultimately meaning well. Baz Luhrmann’s trademark style seems to be especially reserved here. Of course, it’s reserved in comparison to his other films so if you tried watching Moulin Rouge! and couldn’t get past the 20-minute mark, well... I won’t say you’ll definitely like Elvis but I will say that you might want to give it a shot.
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Stayin’ Alive~The Bee Gees
Directed by Carey Williams (directorial debut)
Written by KD Dávila (screenwriting debut)
Genre: Comedy-drama, coming-of-age
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Amazon Prime
Emergency is one of those movies that takes a concept we’ve seen many times before and puts a new twist on it to make it a whole new thing. Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) and Sean (RJ Cyler) are a pair of college roommates who endeavor to make history as the first black men in history to complete their college’s Legendary Tour (a 7-party bar crawl). Their plans are interrupted, however, when they make a pit stop at their home and discover a visibly drunk white girl named Emma (Maddie Nichols) passed out in their living room. The rest of the movie then centers around their incessant arguing about what to do with the girl while also trying to complete their Legendary Tour.
Emergency is clearly a send-up to a lot of classic college comedy romps such as Animal House and Superbad (the film even has an easter egg reference to Superbad) with the pretty clear archetypes of the two main characters as Sean is a screw-up asshole party animal while Kunle is a straight-laced control freak that’s roped into his best friend’s shenanigans. However, it adds to the concept some social commentary in regards to the race issue. The chief conflict of the film is them arguing over calling 911 to help Emma as Sean feels that the police will not look kindly upon seeing an unconscious white girl being hovered over by a pair of black men. But, on the other hand, what’s the alternative? Just letting someone die? Matters, of course, aren’t made better by the fact that they are a pair of dumb college kids and end up committing several actual crimes in the process of trying to get her to a hospital.
While the social commentary is there throughout, Emergency is not a lecture; it’s a genuinely fun and funny movie. (Well, usually not a lecture. I do think there’s a scene near the end that does more telling than showing but it’s still a great piece of acting.) Kunle is a very likable main character and I also like how the college the film is set in is deliberately unnamed; it’s not the North, it’s not the South, it’s not the Midwest, it’s just any standard college town in America. Emergency also does a good job at leaving the events leading to the climax of the movie somewhat morally ambiguous to really add to the commentary. It avoids a lot of the easy traps and, for a first-time director, this is a very strong debut.
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Your Day Will Come (Empathy Fight)~Son Lux - Everything Everywhere All At Once
Directed by Daniel Kwan (Swiss Army Man, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, Legion) and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, The Death of Dick Long)
Written by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Genre: Comedy-drama, science-fiction
Rating: R
Running Time: 2 hours 19 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Showtime
Everything Everywhere All At Once has been one of the great sleeper hits of this past year and is one of those rare movies that somehow manages to appeal to the arthouse crowd as well as the general public as well as the stiff upper-lipped awards shows. Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is a washed-up, ill-tempered, mean-spirited laundromat owner who lives with her spineless husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), and rebellious daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). One day, however, she is interrupted by a man who claims to be Waymond from another dimension who enlists her help to defeat an evil being known as Jobu Tupaki. Evelyn is then roped into an adventure to stop Jobu who plans on ending all existence in all the dimensions all at once.
The movie has a lot of fun with multiverse theory. The basic concept is that each decision we make creates an alternate universe where we made the opposite choice. Given enough decisions and choices, there are a few universes in the same tree that can lead to radically different life paths. In this case, Evelyn is recruited specifically because she is the ultimate loser of all Evelyns across all the universes and thus may have unbridled potential that no other Evelyn does. She and her new compatriots then do battle with the forces of evil by absorbing consciousnesses from other realities to enhance their own fighting abilities.
I realize typing this out loud can sound very confusing but the film is much easier to follow than you would think. Despite being a metaphysical think piece on the dangers of nihilism, Everything Everywhere All At Once is genuinely one of the most fun times at the theater of the past year. The methods they use to hop dimensions are very amusing, Evelyn is hilarious in her very acidic sense of humor and the action is exquisite. While the movie does drag near the end during the climactic montage, it’s surprisingly far more accessible for the average Joe than it has any right to be. This is a film that could’ve so easily gone awry and been too pretentious and difficult to understand or spent too much time people-pleasing that it forgot its point. Thankfully, it never veers too far in either direction.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
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Big Lies~Alexandre Desplat - Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Directed by Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water, Pacific Rim, Pan’s Labyrinth) and Mark Gustafson (directorial debut)
Written by Guillermo del Toro and Patrick McHale (Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall, Adventure Time)
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: PG
Running Time: 1 hour 57 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Netflix
Guillermo del Toro is very much a filmmaker’s filmmaker. Similar to the vein of Baz Luhrmann or Quentin Tarantino, his films have a style that is so distinct and completely his own. It can best be described as kind of a Spanish equivalent to Tim Burton though his films are usually willing to flirt with darker and more taboo subjects. Pinocchio has been his most personal passion project as he’s been trying to make this for years (production was supposed to start in 2008) exactly the way that he wanted it. While I wouldn’t call it del Toro’s masterpiece (that would be Pan’s Labyrinth), this is still one of the most unique and stand-out adaptations of Pinocchio that has existed and probably the only film adaptation that can challenge the 1940 classic. (While it may seem a little presumptuous to put the director’s name in front of his own project, I think, in this case, it was done to distinguish this from the other two Pinocchio adaptations that came out in 2022 (the others being Disney’s live-action remake of the aforementioned 1940 film and a straight-to-video meme-famous piece of trash starring-I kid you not-Pauly Shore as the wooden puppet).)
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio hits most of the typical points of the classic story with Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) and his sidekick/conscience, Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan MacGregor), learning the difference between right and wrong and trying to impress his father, Geppetto (David Bradley); but there are a couple key differences that you’ll notice. Most other films of Pinocchio try to ape the Disney version but this is the only one I’ve seen where the look is entirely its own and the characters are entirely their own (my personal favorite being Spazzatura the Monkey (Cate Blanchett)). Pinocchio himself moves very herky-jerky, moving like someone actually made out of wood. The animation is phenomenal, giving the movie a pretty glum setting that still looks gorgeous. And I absolutely love the design of the Blue Fairy (called the Wood Sprite in this) (Tilda Swinton) and her sister (also Swinton). They come off as very frightening and imperious but there’s still an allure about them.
While I love this film, I will caution that it sure as Hell isn’t for everybody. For one thing, Pinocchio’s voice is very chipper and high-pitched and I can easily see it getting on some people’s nerves. Also, despite the fact that the film is depicted as a fairy tale, it does contain some pretty grim and violent commentary and taboo imagery as Pinocchio imitates the crucifix and encounters Benito Mussolini (Tom Kenny). And, yes, it does inevitably invite some comparisons with the Disney classic which is superior and more iconic but, ultimately, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio does end up feeling like its own thing.
If you can get past both of those problems, you’ll be in for a treat. This is one of those movies where I started off a little weirded out by it but liking it the longer and longer it went. It keeps getting better and better until it ends with one of the most eerily beautiful movie moments I have seen in a long time.
Corona~The Minutemen - Jackass
Directed by Jeff Tremaine (Jackass: The Movie, Jackass 2, Jackass 3-D)
Written by N/A
Genre: Comedy
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 36 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Fubo, Paramount+, MGM+
Friendly reminder that this list isn’t counting down what are necessarily the objectively best movies of the year, just my personal favorite. Now that we got that non sequitur that has absolutely nothing to do with this selection out of the way, let’s talk about Jackass Forever. For those who are too young or too old to remember when this franchise used to rule pop culture during the 2000s, Jackass is the epic story of a troupe of grown man-children torturing the Hell out of each other for our amusement. Led by sadomasochistic stuntman, Johnny Knoxville, the Jackass crew can best be described as live-action Looney Tunes wherein they will engage in slapstick that involves them doing dangerous stunts while being pointed at by a camera. Concussions are suffered, bones are broken and many laughs are had.
The films that sprung off of this TV series are films in name only as there is no three-act arc, conflict or anything; instead, they’re more like feature-length, big-budget episodes of the TV show featuring stunt after stunt after stunt, repeat, and then the movie’s over. Jackass Forever stands out from the other films in the series in two key regards though. First is that, due to the length of time since Jackass 3-D, this film functions both as a last hurrah but also as a kind of “getting the band back together” sort of movie. As a result, several members of the classic troupe are missing: gone are Ryan Dunn (who tragically died in a DUI), Bam Margera (Dunn’s best friend who never got over his death and has been self-destructing ever since) and their lead hype man, Rip Taylor (who passed away in 2019). To try to make up for this, they bring in a new generation of performers to do some stunts and, presumably, to test the waters for future spin-offs. While some of them are amusing (particularly Dark Shark), none of the new guys have the same charisma as the original group.
Second, Jackass Forever has an extra level of hilarity because of the advanced age of the original crew. When these guys started Jackass 20 years ago, they were all in their 20s. Now, most of them are pushing 50 and the wear and tear of doing these stunts are both showing their toll and seem a lot more dangerous as their metabolisms have clearly gone downhill. Several of the members bear a more than passing resemblance to Rickety Cricket from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and one stunt in the movie ends with Steve-O breaking his collarbone. (The fact that most of these guys are still walking this Earth after all the crap they’ve been through is some sort of divine prank.)
If you didn’t get the chance to see this masterpiece of cinema in theaters then, boy, did you miss out. After 2020 and 2021 gave us all clinical depression, getting to yuck it up with total strangers at something that appeals to our most basic and juvenile of comedic instincts was one of the best moviegoing experiences of my life. Pound for pound, this also might be the best Jackass movie inasmuch as almost every stunt featured is genuinely funny (fans of the franchise may know that usually each episode or film has at least a couple jokes that fall flat). Featuring such deranged inventions as the Spider Helmet, the Skateboard Guillotine and the Vomitron, Jackass Forever feels like reuniting with a very good, old friend and then laughing at said friend as he gets his testicles crushed beneath a pogo stick.
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Sunglasses At Night~Corey Hart
Directed by Jordan Peele (Us, Get Out, Key & Peele)
Written by Jordan Peele
Genre: Horror, science-fiction
Rating: R
Running Time: 2 hours 10 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Peacock
Jordan Peele has rapidly become one of the most celebrated names in new-age horror over the course of the past few years. After breaking off from his sketch-comedy show, Key & Peele, he made a major landmark with the very excellent Get Out. From there, I’ll admit that I think most of his recent projects haven’t been very good as I wasn’t a fan of Us and absolutely loathed the Candyman remake. Nope, however, is easily his best movie since Get Out and also one of the most creative high-budget films of the past few years.
Nope centers around a brother-and-sister pair, OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Em Haywood (Keke Palmer) who run a ranch that loans out horses to Hollywood films. They slowly start to become convinced that there’s a UFO haunting the skies above their ranch and seek to somehow stop/photograph proof of it. Like most of Peele’s films, Nope has some smart social commentary that’s mixed into the story in a very organic way. Here, it’s especially subtle as you can have some great arguments with your fellow film nerds on what some of the symbolism means (though the symbols don’t always tie into the story too fluidly; if you’ve seen the movie, you probably know what I’m talking about).
But forget all that high-minded commentary, if you’re looking for a good horror romp, then Nope’s got you covered there as well. Nope has one of the coolest movie monsters in a long time and the scares, even if they may take a little while to get there, are excellent and frightening. They’re also some of the most creative scares I’ve ever seen. There’s at least two scenes in this movie that I still hear people talking about and I can easily see becoming iconic. Peele also has a great ear for sound design as they manage to find ways to twist the sound on the ranch to symbolize the UFO’s approach and get you on edge. It’s been a long time since a horror film has tried their hands at a cosmic horror monster and, despite the temptation to make it silly, it hits the right note of frightening.
Before concluding this entry, I would also just like to take some time to acknowledge the horseback stunts in this movie. Stunt work is one of the great dying arts of the movies and not only are the stunts in Nope real to my knowledge but there also aren’t any CGI horses in Nope at all (at least as far as I can tell). That is awesome.
I’m So Happy You’re Home~Tyler Bates & Timothy Williams - Pearl
Directed by Ti West (In a Valley of Violence, The Innkeepers, The House of the Devil)
Written by Ti West and Mia Goth (screenwriting debut)
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Video on demand
I mentioned in the introduction that the movies aren’t in any real sequential order. However, if you were to twist my arm and ask me what my single favorite film from the past year was, that would be Pearl. Pearl (Mia Goth) is a sweet little Texas farm girl who lives under the thumb of her domineering mother (Tandi Wright) while her father (Matthew Sunderland) is an invalid and her husband (Alistair Sewell) is off fighting in World War I. Despite being forced to do chores around the house and never having time for fun, Pearl dreams of escaping from the farm and becoming a star of those new-fashioned movies that they’re making. When she hears of a competition coming to town for an acting troupe, Pearl endeavors to get in by any means necessary. In case this sounds less like a horror film and more like a Hallmark fairy tale, then you’re starting to understand why I love this movie so much.
The cognitive dissonance at play gives Pearl an identity that is entirely its own. Despite the bright colors and happy blue skies that define the cinematography, death seems to surround the movie at every turn. Pearl is set against the backdrop of the Spanish Flu pandemic and constant mention is made of the fact that people are dying left, right and center. Despite the fact that she has a chipper personality that invites sympathy, Pearl is a clearly disturbed sociopath who enjoys abusing and killing her farm animals. The film seems to have a downright sadistic delight in taking the bright, doe-eyed girl who dreams of something more and turning her into a violent serial killer.
There’s this real love of classic cinema that seems to define the direction of Pearl which, as a fellow lover of old movies that nobody watches anymore, I adore. The production design echoes a lot of the happy, desaturated, clearly-fake-yet-still-gorgeous production design of films from the Golden Age of Hollywood such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. Choosing such an upbeat style just makes the actual horror scares even more disturbing. While Pearl doesn’t have much in the way of scenes that make you jump (thank God for that), there’s a lot of genuinely disturbing moments throughout. Plus, Pearl is also just a good movie. It’s very well-paced, well-acted and takes a few surprises in the plot. If you love cinema half as much as the director of this movie does, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
The Mystery of Inishiren~Carter Burwell - The Banshees of Inishiren
Directed by Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Seven Psychopaths, In Bruges)
Written by Martin McDonagh
Genre: Drama, dark comedy
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? HBO Max
As a proud American of Irish Catholic descent, it’s always fun trying to get in touch with your roots and experience Irish cinema. I mean, it’s either that or eating Irish food so the choice is a pretty easy one. Over the years of watching Irish movies, I’ve come to learn that films that are popular enough to escape the Emerald Isle and find their ways overseas tend to be very slow-paced and try to leave a lot unsaid. In other words, these are films that you’ll either like or you won’t and they’ll depend a lot on how much patience you have to watch a truly slow film.
The Banshees of Inishiren is a very simple story: Pádraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson) are best friends living on the island of Inishiren (off the coast of Ireland) in the early 1920s. Pádraic wakes up one day and finds out that Colm is refusing to talk to him, interact with him and just acts like he’s completely invisible. Pádraic is confused and hurt by this and tries his best to find out why Colm is angry at him and to reconcile their friendship. It’s a simple story that steers and veers through some other areas of Irish culture and mythology though it generally retains the focus on their dying friendship. It’s surprisingly more engaging than it sounds as Colm’s reason for wanting to separate from Pádraic ends up being a pretty understandable one and makes for an interesting conflict.
The Banshees of Inishiren was made by Martin McDonagh, a director whose style exists in this very awkward sphere of a genre called tragicomedy. It shows a pretty dark story in a pretty light-hearted manner that has a wit but it’s not really funny either. His most famous film is In Bruges and he received some awards buzz a few years back for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and how much you liked those movies should give you a good idea of how much you’ll like this one. Though I will caution that this is by far McDonagh’s slowest film and you will definitely be feeling its length by the end. The Banshees of Inishiren is also meant to act as an allegory of the Irish Civil War and there is some reading you can make into a lot of the character’s decisions and how it reflects Ireland’s bloody history.
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The Purifying Flame~Colin Steton - The Menu
Directed by Mark Mylod (Succession, Game of Thrones, What’s Your Number?)
Written by Seth Reiss (The New Yorker: Shorts & Murmurs, Onion SportsDome) and Will Tracy (Succession, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver)
Genre: Dark comedy, thriller
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 46 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? HBO Max
Isn’t it such a rare treat when you see a film that you’re looking forward to and it ends up being every bit as good as you’re expecting? The Menu is a very smart and sharp social satire about class conflict that frames it against the backdrop of how the rich and famous treat the people who feed them. Foodie Tyler Ledford (Nicholas Hoult) and his date, Margot Mills (Anya Taylor-Joy), get tickets to a private dinner prepared by celebrity chef, Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes), located on Slowik’s private island. What then follows is the meal of a lifetime as Chef Slowik takes his guests through the various courses with a special surprise for dessert. I should stop there but the ads all spoiled the meat (pun intended) of the plot and you can guess it early on so, yes, Chef Slowik is planning on killing all his guests and turning them into food.
Hitchcockian is a phrase that is pretty routinely used to describe thrillers when they come out. Alfred Hitchcock is still considered the greatest director of thrillers who ever lived and it’s considered an honor if a film can get you thrilled enough to be in the same category as his films. However, what a lot of imitators miss isn’t that it’s just the suspense, it’s the dark humor that made his films great. The Menu is one of those rare movies that is truly Hitchcockian. Not only is it genuinely suspenseful with some really intense scenes but it’s also laugh-out-loud hilarious in its dark sense of humor. The jokes in this movie are funny in the meanest possible way, usually making fun of the characters’ idiosyncrasies, Margot pointing out the dumb pretense of foodie culture or Chef Slowik’s varying reasons why he wants them all dead.
The satire is on point as well. All of the guests on the island each seem to represent some archetype of the bad customer that anyone who has worked in customer service has encountered. Once again, though, it’s not a lecture, it’s genuinely fun to watch. The writing is excellent in the way it spells out a lot of social issues through the lens of food preparation and customer service. Speaking of which, The Menu also enjoys its shots of food porn that we see in other movies (e.g. Chef, Hannibal) but manages to turn these on their head as well in pretty funny ways.
The acting, cinematography and story are all exquisite. The only problem keeping The Menu from being an absolutely perfect thriller is that I do think the character of Tyler is pretty ridiculous. While I get why he’s there and what he’s supposed to represent, there ultimately comes a point in the story when no sane human being would ever act like this. Small potatoes (pun again intended) but it can be distracting at times.
Midnight Storm~Rob Simonsen - The Whale
Directed by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, The Wrestler, Requiem for a Dream)
Written by Samuel D. Hunter (screenwriting debut)
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Still in theaters, currently no announcements on where it’ll stream but will likely be on video on demand by March
The story surrounding The Whale is almost as fascinating as the movie itself. This movie has become a meme-famous film that everyone on reddit and 4chan is endeavoring to see simply to support Brendan Fraser’s comeback/breakout into more serious roles. Really speaks to the power of nostalgia for the millennial generation because I’m pretty sure that this is not only one of the highest-grossing films made by an indie studio but it’s also so profitable that it’s still in theaters despite having been released back in November. In today’s breakneck turnaround time, that’s incredible. Even more surprising considering how The Whale is a very dark and at-times unpleasant movie.
Charlie (Brendan Fraser) is an English professor teaching over Zoom online with tape pasted over his camera to hide his morbid obesity from his students. Confined to his house and having difficulty simply getting off the couch, Charlie’s nurse, Liz (Hong Chau), diagnoses that he is likely going to die in a week. With a death clock now hanging over his head, Charlie tries to get in touch with his estranged bratty daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), and make amends before he dies. What then follows is a very depressing and uncomfortable film that explores some of the darker parts of the human animal and self-esteem.
True to all the hype, this is Fraser’s role of a lifetime. This is a man who feels that he has made too many mistakes in his life and is more than comfortable with letting himself die. You want to see him get better and become a better person but the audience knows as well as he does that his time has run out. The film shows a tragic portrayal of food addiction with his eating scenes being incredibly uncomfortable to watch (watching this movie finally convinced me to start working out again, not joking). While I think we always knew that Fraser was a good actor, seeing the jump from The Mummy to a real tour de force like this is incredible.
While The Whale is very good and heartbreaking, I will confess that I’d place it lower on the tier as it feels more like a play than a movie. The whole film takes place in one location and, while that’s not a bad thing, it doesn’t really have much in the way of creative camera angles. It shows the action as it is with a few choice close-ups here and there. Considering how this was made by Darren Aronofsky, the man who made Requiem for a Dream, this feels a tad disappointing. I think that The Whale is probably more notable for the performance than the film itself if that makes sense. Still, it’s a phenomenal performance and I’d be remiss if I didn’t include it on this countdown. Any movie that gets my skin crawling is doing something right.
Santa Claus Has Had Enough of Christmas~Dominic Lewis - Violent Night
Directed by Tommy Wirkola (The Trip, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, Dead Snow)
Written by Patrick Casey (Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Shotgun Wedding) and Josh Miller (Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Golan the Insatiable)
Genre: Action-comedy, Christmas
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 52 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Peacock (premium)
It has been far too long since we’ve had a new Christmas classic, hasn’t it? The last movie to become a Christmas staple was The Polar Express and that came out all the way back in 2004 (I suppose you could maybe argue Jim Carrey’s Christmas Carol in 2009 but I digress). Granted, there’s been a dime a dozen craptastic Netflix original movies that revolve around the holiday but virtually all of them are promptly forgotten about and for good reason. Violent Night is the first movie in over a decade that I think deserves to join the pantheon of great Christmas movies and I hope to see it stick around.
The best way to pitch Violent Night is that it’s basically Die Hard but instead of John McClane killing bad guys, it’s Santa Claus. A group of terrorists/robbers break into a rich family’s house on Christmas Eve and holds them hostage to try to steal their fortune. As this is ongoing, Santa Claus (David Harbour) is upstairs delivering presents when one of the robbers attacks him and scares away his reindeer. Santa is now stranded and has no choice but to save the family from the robbers to ensure a merry Christmas. In as gory and bloody and swear word-filled a manner as possible of course.
This is the type of campy action movie I love. It knows exactly what it is and is having a ball with it. Plus the writing is a lot smarter than you would initially think. Not only is it very, very funny but all of the characters are instantly identifiable and have understandable motivations. I especially like how the villain (John Leguizamo in the role that he was born to play) and his henchmen all have unique and distinct personalities. That’s something they did a lot in a lot of the classic action movies from the 80s and 90s that you don’t see anymore these days. Violent Night also pays tribute to a lot of classic Christmas movies of yore but in a way that seems loving instead of forced homages. I already mentioned Die Hard but there’s also nods to Home Alone, Bad Santa, Christmas Vacation (Beverly D’Angelo, the mom from the Vacation movies, plays the Grandma in this) and I’m sure other films that I didn’t notice the first time around.
And yet, beneath all the action scenes, grisly deaths and drunken vomiting, this is still a genuinely heartwarming Christmas movie that makes you want to believe in the true spirit of the holiday. I surprisingly really got into the family drama in this as it feels charming enough to offset all the other lunacy. It probably goes without saying that Violent Night is definitely not a movie for children but if you’re of the older age group, love silly action movies and enjoy watching Christmas movies every December, this is one that must be added to your list. I know I sure as Hell am going to be watching it in the years to come and it will never feel like Christmas again until I see Santa shiv a candy cane into an evildoer’s jugular.
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(Don’t Fear) The Reaper~Blue Öyster Cult
Directed by Ti West (In a Valley of Violence, The Innkeepers, The House of the Devil)
Written by Ti West
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 46 minutes
Where Can I Stream It? Fubo, Showtime
Closing off this retrospective of my favorite films of the past year is X, the first film in the X film series. As some of you may know, Pearl is actually a prequel to X which might make it seem a bit weird that I’m ordering it this way but, alphabetization, whatever. Also, the films don’t have that much to do with each other aside from having Pearl in both films. Neither is required viewing to see the other but, if you watch both, you can appreciate how they tie in.
The pitch is pretty simple: a group of filmmakers rent out the guest house on a ranch in Texas to shoot a porno before finding themselves stalked and murdered by a serial killer. Similar to how Pearl was a send-up to films from the Golden Age of Hollywood, X pays tribute to the classic slasher films of the 70s such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Black Christmas, Halloween, The Last House on the Left etc. These are films that Hollywood has been trying to ape ever since they came out 50 years ago but X is one of the very, very few movies to really get the aesthetic down perfectly. X feels like the 70s: the archetypes, the way the characters talk, how they mention things going on in the world, it all feels right.
What makes X especially excellent (pun still intended), though, is that it takes the classic tropes of the slasher film and turns them on their heads. If you watch a lot of the old slasher films, one of the pre-eminent clichés, famously lampooned in Scream, is that of the pure “final girl” wherein a lot of the side-characters who drink, party and have sex get killed while the characters who remain chaste are rewarded by being allowed to survive. In X, it’s the complete opposite. The characters who remain prudes about sex are the first to die while the characters who are more comfortable and confident in their sexuality last longer. Especially when you learn what the villains’ motivation is, it turns X into a very smart parable about the dangers of sexual repression.
What I like about X and Pearl is that they are scary movies but instead of making things jump out at you, they have a real knack for creating frightening moments and letting the camera hold on it to create a scare. One of the best scenes in X is a long bird’s eye view from about 20 feet in the air and just shows the character in mortal peril. No quick cuts, no loud music but you could feel the whole theater tense up as they were watching. It’s that kind of style that makes X such a good movie. Throw in likable and memorable characters, a good villain, great kills and some genuinely funny moments of comic relief that don’t ruin the tension and this is yet another great movie for people who love movies.
Honorable Mentions
All Quiet on the Western Front: Great war flick showing the horrors of WWI with unforgettable cinematography. However, as a fan of the 1930 original, it falls flat by cutting some of the most important scenes from the book. This would be like doing Hamlet and cutting out the scene where they find Yorick’s skull.
AmbuLAnce: Had to include a so-bad-that-it’s-good movie somewhere on here and this is a great piece of action cheese with fun characters. Gets kudos bonus points for centering around the heroism of our EMTs.
Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers: Instead of being a typical kids’ movie reboot, it’s a hilarious Roger Rabbit-esque takedown of washed-up celebrities and convention culture. Unfortunately falls into the trap of making the same reboot clichés that it’s poking fun at (note: making fun of the fact that you’re having a rap scene doesn’t make said rap scene any less obnoxious).
Clerks III: Very 2000s-esque in its style (and soundtrack) with numerous callbacks to previous Clerks products that fans of the original seem to either love or hate. I obviously liked it but I also think that Dante and Randall’s final fates should’ve been swapped.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery: A fun sequel that’s admittedly not as good as the original. Can’t help but feel that it’d be stronger if the midpoint twist was introduced at the beginning of the movie. Probably my favorite out of all these honorable mentions and the one that I'd most recommend.
Hustle: Mired in sports movie clichés but it does those clichés very well. The basketball games are genuinely intense to watch. Even if you hate sports movies, you should watch those scenes alone.
Tár: Objectively probably one of the better movies this year and a good character study on people in power and the Weinstein Effect. Way too long and slow for me to say that I loved it though.
The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A pretty good Vietnam movie that does get a bit much at times with how ridiculous the plot is. Though considering how this is apparently very historically accurate, I don’t know how you would do this story without it coming off as ridiculous.
Turning Red: A controversial Pixar outing that seems to challenge audiences about what topics they would consider “off limits” for a kids’ film. I’ll admit that it hit my limit but it’s still a very good parable and I will always applaud big studios taking chances.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story: An enjoyable parody of the “classic rock icon” biopics. Has Weird Al’s humor where it’s not laugh-out-loud funny but it’s got an amusing wit. The ending is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in my life.
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