Another year, another Top 10 Movies List for me! So 2020-2021, I didn’t catch as many movies as I would have liked and the same holds true for 2022, but I did see enough to return to making and writing an end of the year list. There were a couple movies, Jurassic World: Dominion and Prey, movies that I thought could be contenders, that I started to watch and got them pretty quickly. I think both movies were kind of bad, in different ways.
Prey, I just thought the acting was atrocious, I think the idea was so good and so interesting, but I wish they would have gone with an Apocalypto style approach, really committed to the idea. I don’t want to like poke at this, because I thought the idea was amazing, I didn’t know any of the actors though and it just didn’t really seem that they were up to the task of holding a movie of that size up. Then the CGI was equally awful. I just couldn’t get into it and turned it off for a later viewing maybe.
Jurassic World: Dominion may be the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen. I say that as someone who, my favorite movie of all time is Jurassic Park. I really like parts of Lost World, JPIII and even the first Jurassic World. The latter two movies though in the franchise, really just don’t live up to the series. Just an example of what I mean, the first Jurassic World establishes that Owen, Chris Pratt’s character, has a relationship with the raptors in Jurassic World. That’s why, when he holds his hand up, the raptors don’t just pounce on him and eat him. They have grown up with him and understand that hand means something. In Dominion, not only he and but even other people just randomly hold up their hands and every dinosaur responds to it. It makes no sense. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy what I saw of the movie, but I enjoyed it in the way I enjoyed Rise of Skywalker. Kind of a lackluster “ending” to a franchise I love and it wasn’t worthy of the 10 films on this list.
The top 3 on this list are pretty solidified. There is an insanely wide gap between the rest of this list and my favorite movie of the year. I think 2022 is a really good year for movies for me. All 10 of these films and a few others, I really enjoyed. The number one movie is among my favorite movies of all time and I look forward to getting the opportunity to talk about it. The second and third movies are in the correct slots, but I struggled comparing them, because I really like them both, there are small quibbles I have with each of them that keep them from coming near my favorite movie of the year and I'll talk those quibbles out and hopefully have clarity on which movie I like better between the two of them.
Oh and if it's not obvious, it will be by the end of this list. The horror genre is my favorite genre, I write primarily in it, because I love it. So I gravitate toward it, which is going to lean this list heavily in that direction. That's not to say I don't love other types of movies, My Top 10 Favorite Movies of All Time are (one is blanked out, because it's on this year's list); Jurassic Park, Titanic, The Blair Witch Project, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Thing, ___________, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Mulholland Dr., Back to the Future and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so I like a wide variety of movies.
All right, let's get to it.
10.) Smile
So 2022 was a really rough year for me personally. In spite of the many goals I hoped to achieve, I ended up needing to take a break from the internet. I think there’s a lot of good that can come from the internet, but there’s a lot of toxicity too and if you can easily become mired in it.
So the past two years I’ve really come to grips with my own mental health issues. I don’t say this in a “Hey, look at me!” way, but rather, I was always a “tough it out, be a man, get over it” sort of person. Having to humble myself and realize how big of a flaw this was for myself and how it was affecting loved ones, getting the nerve to talk about my issues with my doctor is something that I’m proud of that I’ve done.
So all that to say mental illness is a very small part of Smile haha, but I like that it addressed the issue. So yeah, I found Smile to be a solid little horror flick. I think Sosie Bacon (the entirety of the movie, my wife and I were trying to figure out who she looked like, well if you don’t know she’s the daughter of Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, so her Six Degrees is literally 1) was really good and I’m excited to see where she goes from here.
There’s one image in the movie that has stayed with me, I think if you have seen the movie, you can probably guess what that image is. I’ll just say it’s near the end, but man, that was such a creepy image and a great payoff for where the movie was headed. So yeah, I really enjoyed this one, it edged out Watcher and Hellraiser for me!
9.) Scream
So the task that the directing team, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett took in having the pressure and legacy of Scream living up to not only this franchise, but the first outing in the series without Wes Craven involved and reviving the franchise that was dormant after it’s somewhat lackluster TV attempt, I feel like was an enormous task. For the most part, I feel that Scream lives up to the franchise very well.
I loved Ready or Not, their previous film and given how meta that movie was, their announcement that they were doing the next Scream seemed to make them a really good choice. Probably my favorite thing about the movie is that there was a love and care for this series, hidden in small little details. Among the more obvious things, there’s a nod to Kirby from Scream 4 and of course the shout-out to Wes Craven.
One of the things Scream does best in the slasher genre, is have characters we care about. I think the series has always been good at doing that, even in 3, which is probably the weakest of the series, still has some pretty fun characters. For this one, of course David Arquette puts in another solid performance. The newcomers that really worked for me were Mickey Madison as Amber and Jasmin Savoy Brown as Mindy-Meeks Martin, the niece of Randy from Scream 1-2. Their shared scene in the basement was probably my favorite scene in the film haha.
I do have two small critiques and the first is that Melissa Barrera, who plays the main character Sam, is mostly just *fine* for most of the movie. She doesn’t distract or anything, but she’s surrounded by characters and performances that we either
A.) Already love and have an attachment to (Sidney, Dewey etc.,)
B.) Get great character moments to shine
I think Sam doesn’t really get that until the end of the movie. I think Barrera *nails* it when she gets the opportunity, but she’s mostly the straight person. I don’t know how they could have resolved this, just a quick idea, since she is *SPOILERS* the daughter of Billy Loomis, maybe make her more of an unreliable narrator. I think the film hints at that idea, but sort of fumbles it. The good thing is that if this series is to be built on Berrera’s back the way it had previously been on Neve Campbell’s Sidney, she shows that she has the chops to carry it.
My last critique is I did feel the movie was sort of spinning the franchise's wheels a little. It reminds me a lot of The Force Awakens. There’s nothing here that you haven’t seen in the series before, including the theme. The Re-quel/reboot idea was sort of done in Scream 4 and in my opinion, that movie pulled it off a little better.
The trailer for this one seemed to insinuate that things were going to be different this time. That this was going to shake the series up in the way that The Last Jedi attempted to shake up Star Wars (which it certainly did, but was subsequently undone by Rise of Skywalker, probably my least favorite Star Wars movie, though it had its moments). So no, Scream does not do what the trailer promised, I do think The Last Jedi has scared studios into taking risks with their franchises. This is a really solid entry into the franchise and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, was possibly just hoping for something new.
I’m hopeful though. Scream VI, if nothing else, by location, has the potential to go to different places. You also wonder if the rise of Jenna Ortega will lead to a shift in the main character, certainly she’s more prominent in the teaser that has been released. Overall though, I feel like the Scream franchise is in very good hands, much better than it being relegated to a third rate television show and I’m excited to see where it goes from here.
Also. Just so I can write my theory down and I could be entirely wrong and if I am, I think it’s awful that Sidney Prescott has been written out of at least the next movie based on not wanting to pay Neve Campbell. By and large Neve has *been* Scream. If she was wanting a pay raise, she’s earned it.
HOWEVER, the way Scream is so meta and with how public a salary dispute was, I would not be surprised if Sidney is revealed to be the killer in Scream VI. Haven’t seen the movie, haven’t read the script, no nothing about the movie beyond the brief teaser we’ve seen. I just have a gut feeling about this. We’ll see, but I wanted to put this out there to see how right or wrong I am a year from now LOL.
8.) Avatar: The Way of Water
So, I really liked this film. Obviously. It’s on this list. Two places higher than some other movies. That said, I have some quibbles with the film, so let’s get those out of the way first.
I really feel like this movie could have used an edit. It feels like the first draft, that they went ahead and made. Which is a weird thing to say about a movie that is a sequel to a thirteen year old movie. The opening of the movie is a mess. It cuts from scene to scene to scene, almost like it’s a cliff notes version of another Avatar movie. It’s like, this happened, then this happened, then this happened, with no real narrative flow.
The ending was essentially a remake of the first movie, only instead of killing the villain, they let him live. It’s an odd choice, because Stephen Lang’s character, somehow still Colonel Miles Quaritch, even though they stress that he’s a clone of the person who died and not the same person, has pretty much zero character growth. There’s nothing to grab onto with that character, beyond Lang himself being a pretty fun, charismatic actor, who puts in a good performance.
Quaritch hasn’t seemed to have learned anything, makes the same strategic mistakes that he made in the first movie and it led to a nearly identical result. There’s nothing about being an Avatar (which makes no sense according to the first movie, there was something, a body/consciousness, that needed to tie a person to being an Avatar, now they can just make them, what consciousness is driving this creature, how did the technology advance to where they didn’t need that, if they could just clone you in the original (Quaritch himself explains to his clone, so the technology existed) why did they need Jake Sully/the Avatar program, why not just clone Jake Sully’s brother because that was the entire reason he was there, why not just make an army of Avatars etc.,)
So it begs the question of why do the Sky People seem to have so much invested in this guy? He has two huge losses. You would think the first one was enough. Maybe there’s more planned in the subsequent sequels, but that doesn’t make for a very satisfying narrative for *this* movie. I get why the movie/Cameron wanted Lang around. He’s great. But the justifications for keeping him around, I found really lacking, in spite of his good performance.
Also, where did Edie Falco go? They were like, hey, Edie Falco!!! Then nothing.
Sam Worthington. My guy. The accent. It’s been thirteen years. Come on, work with a dialect coach. They should have just written in his accent, excused it with a line of dialog, “Oh yeah, whenever his human body died, as he transferred over to being a Na’vi, he got an accent!”
Was a little disappointed in the usage of Zoe Saldana and Kate Winslet in this movie. Kate Winslet, I guess, whatever, there’s not much there to her in this particular movie, maybe this is just introducing her character for future installments. Zoe Saldana was the star of the first movie, so to see her character so brushed off to the side was pretty disappointing.
All right, so why is this movie on this list? The middle of the movie. It is *so* good, it holds up all these other complaints. I *love* Flight of Passage, the Avatar/Pandora theme park attraction at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom. I’m a little more cold to the entirety of The World of Pandora there, but the two attractions really get to the emotional core of the Avatar franchise and when the franchise focuses on that stuff, when it connects that stuff to the audience, that’s when the franchise is at its best and explains why this franchise has made *billions*.
So, it’s weird, because typically Hollywood really struggles getting younger/child characters correct. Cameron has a pretty good history and Jake Sully/Neytiri’s children, adopted or not, are what make this movie so good. I loved the brotherness (?) of Lo’ak and Neteyam. Sort of reminded me of the Starks from Game of Thrones.
And the parts with Lo’ak and the Payakan were *incredible* and exactly what I was talking about with the emotion. It’s hard to capture the words to describe why Pandora is so fascinating, but the exploration of the World of Pandora, the more we learn about it, the more interesting it is and I’m excited for that aspect of the franchise going forward.
Spider. In the hands of *any* other director, Spider is probably the most annoying character ever created. Under Cameron’s direction though and the performance Jack Champion gives, really gives the character moments to shine and makes the lack of character development of Quaritch even more frustrating, because you could totally understand why someone would turn from their ways for this kid.
I don’t know how or why Cameron made the decision to cast a 73 year old woman as a 14 year old Na’vi/human hybrid, but man I’m glad he did and thank God for Sigourney Weaver, who continues to just be amazing, as she always has been. I hope they continue to expand on her and her connection to Eywa. That spiritual connection is the emotional connection I’m talking about and the scenes with her, her awe of what she’s feeling/experiencing is what makes these movies so good and what makes this movie in particular good.
So, I mean it’s weird, right? Like a lot of my criticisms about the movie are the same ones I had thirteen years ago for the first Avatar movie. Same with my praises, visually it’s stunning, there’s so much heart and emotion poured into every inch of Pandora. I know Cameron gets it, because he’s in charge of all this, I just hope for the next one he finds that way to make a focus and we don’t get Quaritch attacks Jake Sully for the third time. Whatever, I’m glad there’s someone in Hollywood still swinging for the fences. Yes, the plots aren’t the most original thing ever created, but for pure emotion, there’s nothing like the World of Pandora and I’m here for every time Cameron makes one of these.
7.) Barbarian
So like I said on twitter, I think that Barbarian, the less you know about it the better it is. It plays off the audience's expectations so incredibly well. Every time you think you know where the movie is headed, it tells you that you had no clue.
So I don’t want to say too much about the film itself, other than give shoutouts to the acting. Don’t even want to say who all necessarily is in it, because that’s part of the audience expectation part.
What I will do is begin my campaign for Justin Long for Scream King. Let’s get that campaign going. He works as someone you love, he works as someone you hate. He works as someone being turned into a walrus, like there’s not been anything in the horror genre that the man cannot do. Seriously. The guy is just so good in any role you put him in and I love his commitment to the horror genre, when he easily could be doing something else. So yeah. Justin Long for Scream King. Let’s make that happen, 2023.
6.) Clerks III
This movie is exactly why I think the critique on Kevin Smith has been so harsh and honestly, fair. Because when he’s into the movie he’s making, when you can truly tell it’s a story that he loves and is passionate about, it shows up on the screen.
Kevin is the real star here. So I actually enjoyed Tusk, however everything Smith has done since I found either really lacking or downright awful. To the point where I was beginning to suspect his skills as a filmmaker/writer had declined, for whatever reason you want to suspect. Because of the number one film on this list, budget can’t be an excuse for a bad movie for me any more and wow, actually looking at the budget here, I’m sort of surprised this cost 7 million to make. Huhhh. I hope like 6 million of that went to Ben Affleck and Rosario Dawson’s pay haha. Not sure why it would be that high. Anyway.
My overall point is Smith is best when he has something to say. Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Clerks II are all films that are almost essentially therapy for Smith, him confronting life or his own personal issues and the same is true here for Clerks III. I took it being about one’s own mortality and the legacy and life we leave behind for others. This has obviously been on Smith’s mind since he had his own heart attack.
Just such an emotionally charged movie though. I’m not going to critique the weak points, because ultimately they didn’t matter for me. What I’ll say is that I’ve never really been a fan of Brian O’Halloran’s work in the previous two Clerks movies, but here he just knocked the role out of the park. The scenes between him and Rosario Dawson were just so touching, so charming, so sad and heartbreaking all at the same time.
So like I’ll end up saying later on this list, I don’t want to pigeonhole Kevin Smith. I want him to make art that he wants to make. What I’ll say is what I prefer for him to make, what I enjoy from him personally the most and that’s movies that he’s passionate about. Something he has a take on that no one else can bring. I even think Tusk fits that bill in some ways. Red State, is him having things to say, but for me didn’t really have much of a point for those ideas beyond how much all the things happening sucked to be happening. Those are the kinds of Kevin Smith movies I love and when he’s on, there’s no one like him and for me, Clerks III was the movie I had the least expectations out of any movie on this list, that ended up moving me more because of how well I connected to the movie.
Quick aside, my dream horror movie is Rob Zombie directing a Kevin Smith written movie. They both shine where the other is weak and I think a collaboration would do wonders for both of them. Could even make Sheri Moon and Jennifer sisters or something.
5.) Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
So my two favorite super heroes work really well because they're Spider-Man from Marvel and Batman from DC. If you put aside Spider-Man from the MCU and take his movies out of the mix, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is not only one of my favorite movies from 2022, it’s one of my Top 5 Favorite MCU Movies.
I’m shocked, *shocked* at the reception I’ve seen for this film the past couple of months. It feels like, when the movie came out, the reception for it was pretty strong. In a very comic book like manner, knowledge of the plot was directly related to the Disney+ series WandaVision. I understand some people don’t like that method of storytelling, but I think it’s something the MCU has established fairly well once it was clear that the movies were leading toward The Avengers.
I’d have to think about and rank my directors, but Sam Raimi is certainly up there. There’s a feel and a joy to his movies that I really love, in spite of horrible things that may be happening on screen during them. I think this is inspired by Raimi’s love of comedy, I know The Three Stooges is always pointed towards whenever people bring Raimi’s love for comedy up and while you have a darkness in things like the Evil Dead franchise (specifically talking about Raimi’s direct involvement like the movies or show, not the remake) or Drag Me to Hell, where you’re literally dealing with demons, there’s a fun lightness to those movies in spots where they aren’t trying to horrify you.
That’s such a delicate balance and other than Peter Jackson, who I think has lost some of that touch that he used to have, I can’t think of another director who can thread that needle so delicately than Raimi. Maybe the thing I love about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is that it is not Sam Raimi doing a standard MCU movie. I love the MCU, but there is a “feeling” to an MCU movie, a formula if you will. People like Scorsese have talked about this and without fail, the MCU movies I end up gravitating toward the most are the ones where the director is allowed to make their vision of an MCU movie.
Raimi has a huge part to play in the making of the modern superhero movie. Without his Spider-Man trilogy, I don’t know if we’re where we are today with them. X-Men had been successful, but Spider-Man validated the superhero film and let Hollywood know that they were here to stay. As I said, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is not Sam Raimi doing an MCU movie, it is the MCU bringing Sam Raimi into the fold. This is for all intents and purposes a Sam Raimi movie, he just happens to be using the Marvel action figures again.
I also think that while a little muddy, not as clear and effective as it should be, I think making Wanda the villain was such a bold choice. But like all great villains, as Alan Moore said in “The Killing Joke” all it takes is one bad day for someone to go bad. Like all great villains, the reason Wanda/The Scarlet Witch (this is the part that drops the ball and isn’t effectively conveyed, Wanda is essentially being possessed by the power of the Scarlet Witch) is such a good villain (well besides Olsen’s great acting) is because we *know* her and we understand why she’s doing what she’s doing. The tragedy is that many of us would make this same choice. There’s a popular video game I don’t want to spoil for (reasons) that does something similar. That’s such good storytelling though.
So part of the current Phase of the MCU is introducing the multiverse, the “What If” aspect to the Marvel universe and that is something steeped in the lore of Marvel comics, so to see it realized in this movie, to see alternate versions of these characters, even Professor X from the Fox X-Men movies, in the chair from the X-Men animated series, this whole thing is just a love letter to Marvel comics on TOP of being just an awesome Sam Raimi movie.
So many good scenes; the Wanda as Samara coming out of the portal/mirror thing, the scene where they’re switching between dimensions was incredible, the battle of the different Doctor Strange’s using musical notes and then using spirits as a cloak/wings was so amazing. Haha sitting here thinking about this, like that could be a cover for a metal album. That just so fits the cosmic spirit of what Ditko was doing with Doctor Strange. I don’t know how you can’t love that.
I liked the first Doctor Strange, but for me, the depth and relationship with Christine is so much more well realized in this movie. I know there were rumors that former Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson (who left the Doctor Strange sequel to film The Black Phone, a movie I liked but was just whelmed by) and Marvel had creative differences in the direction of the sequel. I wonder what those were, because I can’t imagine someone else other than Raimi making this movie. This movie doesn’t feel like this if not for Raimi.
Finally, the Robert Downey Jr. sized hole that has been left in the MCU, I think between this and No Way Home, is effectively being filled by Benedict Cumberbatch. He is the current “leader” of the MCU and Cumberbatch, who I love, is doing a great job filling that void. So yeah man, I love this movie through and through. I hope Raimi sticks around the MCU, even if it’s not for another Doctor Strange then in some other way, because his movies feel like no one else’s in the MCU and they could really continue to use that shot in the arm for them.
Also, we riot if John Kransinki/Emily Blunt are not officially cast in a Fantastic Four movie.
4.) The Batman
So to get something off my chest real quick, I am a little confused about the direction DC is going in now that James Gunn is taking control over the DCCU (which I applaud that decision, I love his movies in general and absolutely loved The Suicide Squad, though they have to show us they can do this, they’ve tried what, 3 times (Superman Returns, Snyderverse and seemingly Flash was going to “converge” into a new DCCU)). They seem to be rebooting everything, but you have stragglers. There’s that Batgirl movie that was finished and canned. Black Adam with The Rock and the return of Henry Cavill as Superman *just* came out, confirmed Cavill would be continuing and now seems to have been let go.
There’s The Flash movie coming *next* year, still on for release by Andy Muschietti (feel so bad for him), already problematic because of star Ezra Miller’s bad behavior, that brings Michael Keaton *and* apparently Ben Affleck back as Batmen and has an appearance from Michael Shannon as Zod from Man of Steel, all this *after* he doesn’t even have a Superman left. Then they’re saying that *this* Batman (trilogy!?!) has nothing to do with the rebooted DCCU Gunn is making. Oh, yeah, you also have Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker that has a sequel coming out.
So. *What*? Is Gunn going to do a DCCU without a Batman? Will we have *another* Batman? Is Batman still going to be played by one of the three Batmen currently playing Batman (4 if you count Kevin Conroy in the Suicide Squad game, also coming out in 2023)? AHHHHHHHHHHHH!
The Batman was really good. I mean, really good. I figured it would be, I loved the new Apes movies (Eh, War I have problems with, heavy handedness). This sounds similar to what Darren Aronofsky wanted to do with Batman and him and Reeves are fairly similar stylistically. I was never worried about Pattinson as Batman. Always knew the guy could act while I don’t know if he’s my favorite Batman yet, I think more films will be required before making that decision, he’s definitely up there.
I do think his Bruce needs a little more characterization, this is something Batman films really struggle with, the dichotomy or duality of Bruce Wayne and Batman, figuring out which one is the real person and which one is the mask and the actors are usually good at one and not as good at the other. I think Keaton was a great Batman. Kilmer was a good Bruce. Clooney could have been a good Bruce with the right material. Bale was a good Bruce and Affleck was a good Batman. So far, I think Pattinson is a good Batman, but they don’t really give *Bruce* much, though not surprising in a movie called *The Batman*.
Paul Dano. Golf clap. Being a villain in a comic book based movie can either do really well for you and your career, where you just crush the role or it can go really bad, Jamie Foxx in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 for instance (thankfully NWH righted that wrong). It’s such a fine line you have to walk and Dano puts down the best performance in the movie in my opinion. He’s appropriately chilling. I had heard after The Dark Knight that Christopher Nolan wanted to do a Fincher-esque Riddler story. This is as close to that as a PG-13 movie can get and I think at times this movie is pushing that rating hard up against R.
The world building. This is the best, most realized Gotham we’ve seen on screen. We get a glimpse into the machinations of the city. See how the mob is really running things, like in Batman Begins, but the Gotham of that movie feels as staged as it was. The Gotham in The Batman, feels so real. You can imagine a city getting this corrupt and with the rise of a figure like Batman (escalation), you could imagine what and who would follow him. The supporting cast all add to this, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell and Peter Sarsgaard all put in great performances that really elevate Pattinson’s Gotham and build the world.
So here’s where I struggle with this movie and I really, really struggled with this and Doctor Strange, deciding which movie would rank higher. I think this is an *excellent* movie. I think it’s an *excellent* Batman movie, top 5, twist my arm and let me marathon through all of them, it may even be the second best Batman movie. Everything is doing *excellently*, but I really, really struggle to think of a moment, a scene, where I’m just like YESSS this is NEW!!
And it’s hard. Is that a problem with the film itself or is it a problem of making a new Batman movie? We know this story. We know even to some extent how this story ends. My favorite scene in the movie is the scene at the funeral of I think the former commissioner? Anyway, where the Riddler gets ahold of Colson. It’s a great scene. Everyone is great in it. And yet, if I think for half a second, it reminds me of The Dark Knight, where Joker sends out a tape to be played, the LOOK AT ME scene. So it’s hard. Everything this movie does, it does well and since I love Batman, I love the movie. But there’s something and I can’t figure out what, that holds me back from placing this movie at the top of the list.
Don’t get me wrong though. It’s really. Really good. And I really love it. But if this Batman is going to be separate from the DCCU (which I think is a mistake, the presence of an actor like Pattinson could really give that thing some credibility) then they need to give me something new. They need to justify why this story had to be a trilogy. We can’t just have The Dark Knight Trilogy Part 2, you need to show me *why* this Batman is a Batman who matters.
3.) Nope
So I originally waffled on where I wanted to place Nope. There’s quite a few horror movies that were in consideration for this list. What I decided is that, just in terms of pure filmmaking, I do think that Nope is the “better” movie. It sort of reminds me of Tarantino a little bit. Some of the things that happen in Nope, in the hands of another filmmaker, you’d be asking yourself the question why you should care or be interested in what’s happening on the screen. Like with Tarantino, I find what is happening in every scene *fascinating* in Nope. Glued to the screen type of fascinating. It’s a movie ass movie and reminds me why I love movies.
So to roll it back a bit. I loved Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, Get Out. It hit me exactly the way it should have as a white person from the middle of America. It made me look at myself, how I act, in ways I had never thought of before all the while being an insanely great horror movie. It’s as good as you could get for the genre.
Us, Peele’s sophomore follow up, did not affect me the same way. It was a miss for me, such a huge miss, that I wondered if I had misread Get Out. I think it tried to have a similar discussion on race and race relations as that movie, while reportedly being inspired by something I love (The Twilight Zone) and even starring an actress I adore in Lupita Nyong’o and for whatever reason, I just did not enjoy anything about the movie.
Then Peele’s Twilight Zone came out and I was almost off the Peele train. I was getting ready to jump, then Nope came out, I turned around, looking at it, just like with Us, there were things about it telling me I should probably love this thing, so I watched the movie, said “Nope!” and sat back down on the Peele hype train.
One thing I have to be better at is allowing (for me) filmmakers to take risks. I even rail against people not allowing for that, Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine or The Majestic, even though I don’t love it, or The Number 23. Just because we like something actors/filmmakers do, does not mean they shouldn’t be allowed to try other things. And it’s all subjective. I’m sure there’s someone out there who has Us listed as their favorite movie and they watch it religiously. That should be okay. I shouldn’t let a single miss for me affect how I think about that artist. Especially an artist like Peele, who’s out there trying new and original ideas. So note to self, let Peele have misses, because when he hits, he really hits for you.
Nope is probably my favorite of Peele’s filmography so far. Like I said, there’s things about it, going to the electronic store, setting up the wacky waving flailing inflatable tube men, where in any other movie, with any other filmmaker, you would just roll your eyes and hope that they get to the point. With Peele, I really relished those scenes, because of the characters and dialog.
It’s everything though. As I’ve said elsewhere, in 2022 I got really into the Easy Allies. If you don’t know them, they’re a group of video game streamers primarily on YouTube, but to steal Allie Isla’s phrase, “the form is the function” and that describes Nope perfectly. Everything works together in this cohesive ball, the directing, the dialog, the acting, it all flows together so well and that’s not even accounting for the fact there are two scenes in this movie that are among my favorite scenes of the year.
The first is the scene where you think that Otis “OJ” Haywood Jr., played brilliantly once again by Daniel Kaluuya, meets the aliens for the first time. The scene plays out the way it does, but the first time you watch it, you’re just completely riveted. It reminded me of the scene from Shyamalan’s Signs when you see the aliens there for the first time. The result doesn’t negate that feeling of watching the scene for the first time, it was so good.
The second is the scene where you actually realize you’re seeing the aliens for the first time. I don’t want to spoil it here. There’s a movie I could compare it to, at least conceptually, that I won’t because that in and of itself would be a spoiler. But when the realization hit of what I was seeing and what it meant, it was like knock me off the couch, mind blown, I can’t believe I’m watching this, Jordan Peele is a genius moment for me.
This year has a trend. I’m talking about these movies by writing my thoughts about them and while I am doing that, it reinforces how much these were the right movies for me. How much I love them. Such a great year for movies and I’m so happy to have Peele prove me wrong.
Also, Keith David continues to be awesome.
2.) Top Gun: Maverick
Haha, when I sat down to write this list out, I wasn’t sure I had much to say about Top Gun: Maverick. That’s because it’s just so *good*. It’s like what do you say that hasn’t been said? What can you bring? With these lists, all I can bring are my thoughts and emotions, my love and passion for these movies.
For Top Gun: Maverick, unlike a lot of Hollywood, it gets its nostalgia down almost perfectly. There’s one small scene, the “Great Balls of Fire” scene where it was like, okay, okay. My biggest problem with that scene, is if you haven’t seen the original, then you’re not really sure at that point of the film why you should care about that. The flashbacks to the scene in the original don’t make it any better. It’s just the movie hitting you on the head trying to tell you this moment is important to Maverick without contextualizing why it’s important.
The rest of Top Gun: Maverick is just so good though. It’s amazing that at 60 years old, Tom Cruise just seems to be getting better and better, when a lot of his contemporaries are trying to capture their previous glories (Will Smith for example) and failing, Tom Cruise is almost like the acting version of James Cameron. He just *gets* and understands what audiences want to see.
And what we get in Top Gun: Maverick, is some great performances from all of the main cast (Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Monica Barbaro) the whole main cast really all get great little character moments. Let’s be real, this movie didn’t need to exist, like a sequel to Top Gun, 36 years after the fact, this should have been a disaster. Instead, it’s just everything that *can* be great about Hollywood.
The cinematography, something I rarely point out in my “reviews” but man, it is breathtaking. That’s a trend for Kosinksi movies, but I definitely want to shout out Claudio Mirando for their combined work together. They always make amazing movies visually.
The action scenes, the scenes where they literally put you in the cockpit of these fighter planes, are breathtaking. There’s no other word to describe it. It’s as close as you can get to actually getting in one of these planes, I don’t even know I’ve played a video game that captures the “need for speed” the way that Top Gun: Maverick does. If I hated the rest of the movie, this movie would still probably be on this list for these scenes alone.
Finally. Val Kilmer. Say what you will about his personal choices (and I won’t). But man. Val Kilmer. He was a huge part of my childhood. Willow. Real Genius. Top Gun. Batman Forever. I love the guy. He’s probably in my ten favorite actors of all time. I’m glad the challenges he is facing are getting him the career recognition he probably should have gotten all along. If you want to define “movie star” Kilmer and Cruise are as good as it gets. And the Iceman scene. Tears. So good.
So yeah man. When I started writing this, Top Gun: Maverick was sitting at a comfortable #7 on this list. Talking it out with myself, remembering the movie just got it bumped up. Amazing movie. I need to grab the 4K copy!
1.) Terrifier 2
The first Terrifier movie is a movie I loved. It one of those movies that came out of nowhere for me, that was a complete hidden gem. I had heard next to nothing about it as I sat down to watch it, other than the fact that I had seen it mentioned here and there on Reddit. Terrifier is a relatively short movie, with credits it doesn’t even run 90 minutes. I think for a movie that short, it is as good as it could be. The cast was relatively unknown (to me) and despite the lack of time, at least all the main characters do a good job with their rolls.
The obvious standout in Terrifier, was David Howard Thorton as Art the Clown. As I sit here, at the tail end of 2022, I think about clowns and clowns have been hijacked by two things in popular culture. Pennywise and the Joker. Those are your standards for what a clown is and should be (ironic because Pennywise is not a clown) in this day and age and probably rightly so, their cultural impact can not be lessened.
Art, like Pennywise, is sort of an unknown creature. There’s hints like Pennywise that they may just be using the form of a clown or may have originally been doing the bidding of a power higher than him (uh Satan!? lol) but there’s this drip feed bit of lore regarding Art that I am absolutely here for. And I can’t even begin to describe how well I think David Howard Thorton plays him. No joke, his performance, in my opinion, is up there with Ledger, Curry, Phoenix and Skarsgard and unlike them, he’s handicapped in the role, because Art is a completely, 100 % silent villain.
No joke, if you haven’t seen All Hallow’s Eve or either of the Terrifier movies. Art the clown does not speak. At all. It’s like he stepped out of the silent movies of the 1920s/early 30s and into our screens to (terrify) us today. And he’s as charismatic in the role as any of the aforementioned actors and because of the handicap of not having dialog, I almost think what he’s doing is more impressive.
Wherever the mythology of Terrifier ends up landing Art in subsequent movies though, he is a clown through and through. The Oxford dictionary defines clown as “a comic entertainer, especially one in a circus, wearing a traditional costume and exaggerated makeup” and wiki defines a clown as “a person who performs comedy and arts in a state of open-mindedness using physical comedy, typically while wearing distinct makeup or costuming and reversing folkway-norms”. That’s Art.
I don’t know if it tells me more the filmmakers or myself, but there’s specific moments in the Terrifier, where (okay one scene actually got to me and made my skin crawl) what I’m seeing I should be disgusted by and yet, because of the performance by Howard Thorton, I’m *so* incredibly entertained. Laughing in a “I can’t believe I’m seeing this” type of way. Reversing folkway-norms indeed.
Villains though, however much we may or may not like them, are nothing without a good hero, a good foil for their plans. The first Terrifier, didn’t really have time to develop anyone to counter Art. The two actresses involved with that film did a good job with what limited material they had. But we knew for a sequel, you need a Nancy to a Freddy. A Tina to Jason. Enter Sienna Shaw.
Sienna Shaw, played by Lauren LaVera, is the perfect counter to Art. Unlike the first film, director Damien Leone created a foil for the character of Art. And with the increased runtime (can we call Terrifier 2 a horror epic. I think it’s entirely worthy of that) there’s an almost comic book like mythology being built up around Sienna and LaVera plays that magnificently. In the first movie, your sort of cheering for Art. In the second, you’re cheering for Sienna.
All of this is done magnificently well by director Damien Leone. Who’s built up his career, starting with short movies and building himself up here. This movie is proof positive that you don’t need a budget. You don’t have the excuse of “covid ruined my film”. All films in production stopped production during that time. All the standard excuses as to why a film doesn’t come out well; crowd funded, living up to expectations of a sequel off a cult hit, covid, budget, they’re all squashed here in my opinion and Leone shows that he has the talent to pull all this off in spite of everything that would normally be used an excuse.
I love this movie. It’s one of my favorite movies ever. Not this year. Ever. It’s everything I love about movies. It’s an insanely watchable movie that brings the best of its genre out. It’s terrifying, horrifyingly fun. It’s almost 2 ½ hour runtime was not felt by me at all, I’ve gone back to watch it multiple times, in a hard year personally, it reminded me of why I love movies. It inspires me to want to work on my own art (HA) and make it better. Not use the things that I’ve used a crutch to hold me back. To make something as great as I can make it and I can’t ask for my favorite movies to do more than that.
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