In 2022,
The XXIV Winter Olympics were held in Beijing;
Russia invaded Ukraine;
Troy Kotsur became the second deaf performer to win an Academy Award;
Salman Rushdie was attacked while giving a speech in New York;
Charles III became King of England;
Liz Truss became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for fifty days days; followed by Rishi Sunak
Elon Musk bought Twitter;
The US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade;
Benjamin Netenyahu became Prime Minister of Israel for the 3rd time;
Argentina won the FIFA World Cup in Qatar;
Elizabeth II, Jean-Luc Godard, Bob Saget, Sidney Potier, William Hurt, Bill Russell, Vangelis, William Hurt, Ivan Reitman, Philip Baker Hall, Peter Bogdonavich, Gilbert Gottfried, Louie Anderson, Ray Liotta, David Warner, Paul Sorvino, Mikhail Gorbachev, Olivia Newton-John, Fred Ward, Mary Alice, Howard Hesseman, Gregory Itzin, Tony Siroco, Shinzo Abe, Vin Scully, Joe Turkel, Anne Heche, Sally Kellerman, Wolfgang Peterson, Robert Morse, Henry Silva, Nichelle Nichols, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Monica Vitti, Meat Loaf, Larry Storch, Pat Carroll, Peter Brook, Lenny von Dohlen, Gaspard Ullieil, Bernard Cribbins, Tony Dow, Dan Vitale, Louise Fletcher, Coolio, Loretta Lynn, Angela Lansbury, Jerry Lee Lewis, died.
The following is a list of my ten favorite films released in 2022:
10) The Batman
Largely eschewing origin (although there are still plenty of references to his deceased parents), this is a great addition to the Batman oeuvre. I didn’t think I would like Robert Pattinson as Batman, but I do.
I loved Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon and Paul Dano is excellent as the Riddler. Andy Serkis is a fine Alfred, although his physicality is something I’ll have to get used to.
I grew up with Batman Returns and the connections between the two films is unavoidable since both feature Penguin and Catwoman as antagonists. I’m not the biggest fan of Zoe Kravitz’s Selina Kyle. The gold standard remains Michelle Pfeiffer. However, Colin Farrell’s Penguin is a highlight and comes close to capturing the brutal insanity of Devito’s earlier version.
I didn’t think we needed another Batman universe, and when I heard there was a Joker cameo, I rolled my eyes. Joaquin, Heath and Jack were excellent and I thought they had exhausted the big screen possibilities for the Clown Prince of Crime, but this movie has me excited about a Matt Reeves helmed film featuring Barry Keoghan donning a bespoke purple suit.
Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) is surprised when his friend Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) tells him he no longer wishes to speak to him.
When Pádraic presses, Colm explains he’s bored with their friendship and wants to spend his remaining days in grander pursuits (primarily his music).
When Pádraic pushes Colm to renew their friendship, Colm decides to cut off on his own fingers to show how serious he is.
It’s a dark comedy with a philosophical soul, a wonderful follow up to McDonough’s previous film featuring Farrell and Gleeson, In Bruges (2008).
Between this, In Bruges and Three Billboards (2017) ,McDonough has developed into a reliable filmmaker whose work focuses on complex human emotions and our unpredictable responses to them.
Gleeson is an underrated actor who commands the screen in most everything he does. Between this and The Batman (2022), Farrell is making the leap to bona fide A lister.
The premise sounds egotistical: Ryan Reynolds and Rob McIlhenny buy a storied Welsh soccer team on the verge of bankruptcy, reinvigorating the club and the surrounding community.
Against all odds, this is phenomenal. Reynolds and McIlhenny are charming and self deprecating, and rightfully position the Wrexham faithful as the real stars. I’m sure there will be a backlash (there always is), but I’m enjoying the ride this wonderful show has set me on, reminding me why sports can be such a lovely, unifying experience. We bond over the losses and the struggle. We define ourselves by our commonality.
It’s one of the most uplifting things I’ve seen this year.
Ryan Murphy’s Netflix deal has produced hits and misses. This is one of the hits. I love this glimpse of the real man behind the constructed image of Andy Warhol, including his insecurities, jealousy, and self loathing. His relationship with Basquiat is riveting. The computer generated voice used to mimic Warhol reading his own diary was hauntingly effective and easy to imagine as a stunt Warhol would have loved.
This is an absorbing documentary about a famous figure. Much of contemporary American culture is built on Warhol’s idea of fame and celebrity. Ironically, the man who said we’d all be famous for fifteen minutes still has relevance forty years after he died.
6) The Offer
Successful television producer Albert Ruddy (Miles Teller) finagles his way onto the Paramount Lot, impressing studio head Robert Evans (Matthew Goode) who inexplicably offers Ruddy a high profile gig producing the movie adaptation of Mario Puzo’s runaway best seller, The Godfather.
When mobsters, including Joe Columbo (Giovanni Ribisi), take offense to some of the language in the novel and aim to stop production, Ruddy befriends Columbo to insulate the film, but when Joe is shot in an internecine mob war it endangers the project.
It’s a fascinating portrait filmmaking in the 1970s featuring meddlesome studio heads like Charles Bludhorn, the mafia, and intense creative discussions between Ruddy, Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola, and Marlon Brando.
In the end, the tension of the production made the movie more special.
This adaptation is definitely told from Ruddy’s point of view and Coppola, for one, has disputed some of the details. However, that doesn’t impact my enjoyment; I love The Godfather and this engaging look at how reality often dictates more than artistic vision
I was riveted, but it was exactly in my wheelhouse and ticked all my boxes.
Adam (Ryan Reynolds) travels back in time and inadvertently gets stuck in the past where he teams up with his younger self and deceased father, Louis (Mark Ruffalo), to stop Louis’s partner, Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) from creating a dystopian future. Jennifer Garner is Adam’s mom and Zoe Saldana is his future wife.
Reynolds is one of my current favorite actors, even if I don’t always love his movies.
This entry in the fruitful partnership of director Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds is similar to Frequency (2000), another time traveling film about the pain when a father dies too young.
It’s not earth breaking, but it contains several emotional truths about the importance of fathers. Because my dad died when I was young, I’m a sucker for any movie about the chance to talk to your dad, to see him as an older man and have him see you grow up.
I liked this more than most and maybe more than I should have.
4) The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
To solve his financial issues, superstar actor Nic Cage agrees to meet billionaire playboy and superfan, Javi (Pedro Pascal).
Once there, Cage is recruited by CIA agents (Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz) to trap Javi, who they suspect is an arms dealer. Eventually, Javi and Nic work together to bring down the real threat, Javi’s cousin, Lucas.
It’s hilariously over the top and parodies much of Cage’s previous work. There’s a delightful segment where Cage and Javi bond over Paddington 2 which slyly argues films can be both successful at the box office and artistic triumphs.
Haddish and Barinholtz are solid. Dependable Sharon Horgan is wonderfully acerbic as Cage’s ex-wife.
Neil Patrick Harris is the weakest part of the film and feels like he’s phoning it in as Cage’s manager.
While Cage is clearly having a great time and gives an electric performance, the star of the film is Pedro Pascal.
After breaking through as Oberyn Tyerll in Game of Thrones (and getting his eyes gouged out by The Mountain), he’s been on an incredible run, culminating in a starring role in The Mandalorian. Here, he shows a penchant for comedy I did not know he had and changes my perception of him.
Cage has, to a certain extent, been crushed by the unbearable weight of Hollywood expectations, let’s hope Pascal is not.
3) Spirited
Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds team up for yet another adaption of Dickens’s evergreen Christmas Carol. Ferrell is Ebenezer who now partners with Jacob Marley in the afterlife to help people become their best selves. Scrooge remains the only person marked as “unredeemable” to make it through their program. Trying to prove he’s not a fluke, leads to an obsession with finding another redeemable unredeemable. Enter: Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds).
The savvy Briggs turns the tables on him and forces Scrooge to deal with his own latent desires and hidden passions.
Ferrell’s goofiness works best in a two hander and Reynolds is a more than capable scene partner. The music from Benji Pasek and Justin Paul is top notch. The duo already have an incredible resume with Dear Evan Hansen and The Greatest Showman. Days after watching the film, I’m still humming the tunes. They seem poised to enter the echelon of great songwriter partnerships.
It was nice to see Octavia Spencer and Tracy Morgan get time to shine. I love Octavia as the romantic lead (a role she gets too rarely). Sunita Mani is wonderful and her timing is impeccable.
This is fun holiday spectacle and feels like it could work its way into my annual rotation as a companion piece to Bill Murray’s seminal Scrooged.
2) 1883
This prequel series to Yellowstone plays like an updated version of Lonesome Dove (1989). I love both.
Shea Brennan (Sam Elliot) is a former Union captain in the Civil War whose wife and child recently died of smallpox. Despondent, he’s determined to go to the Pacific Ocean to honor his wife’s memory. Reluctantly hired to lead a wagon train of German immigrants to their new home, his blunt criticism does not endear him to his charges.
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are James and Margaret Dutton (the descendants of the family in Yellowstone). After a stint as a POW during the Civil War, former Confederate captain James wants to start a new life out west and joins Brennan’s group in Fort Worth. They frequently clash, but forge a begrudging respect for each other.
The Dutton’s eldest daughter comes of age during their journey and her generational struggles with her parents provides much of the plot.
Lamonica Garret is Thomas, a former Buffalo Soldier who serves as Shea’s conscience.
There are a lot of fun cameos starring as famous historical figures, including Tom Hanks as George Mead, Billy Bob Thornton as Jim Courtright, and series creator Taylor Sheridan as Charles Goodnight.
Taylor Sheridan is the best thing to happen to the western in a long time and proves the venerable genre still has something to say.
1) Everything Everywhere All at Once
Housewife Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) is frustrated by her humdrum life with husband Wang (Ke Huy Juan), lesbian daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), and domineering father Gong Gong (James Hong).
While meeting Deidre (Jamie Lee Curtis), the IRS agent assigned to audit their family run laundromat, Wang is temporarily transformed into a different version of himself, Alpha Wang, and explains to Evelyn an alternative version of their daughter has gone insane from hopping between universes and is now attempting to destroy everything.
Alpha Wang convinces Evelyn she’s the last best chance to defeat their daughter and teaches her how to travel between universes.
A lot of recent films recently have focused on a multiverse, but few have pushed its limits this far. Evelyn goes to a world where she’s in a romantic relationship with Deidre and everyone has hot dogs for fingers. Then, to a world where she’s a famous movie star (a delightful meta reference to Yeoh’s real life). Another world resembles the film Ratatouille complete with a rival chef controlled by a raccoon in his toque.
Directed by the Daniels and originally envisioned as a Jackie Chan vehicle, this is an incredibly trippy film. It’s totally unexpected and transitions seamlessly from a bonkers action sequence to an absurd segment with nothing but inanimate rocks having a philosophical conversation about nihilism and purpose.
Michelle Yeoh is incredible, Jamie Lee Curtis is great, and it’s the best work of Jenny Slate’s career. Nice to see nonagenarian James Wong kicking ass. As a child star Ke Huy Khan was Short Round in Temple of Doom and Data Wang in The Goonies. He was an iconic part of my childhood and I’m thrilled to see him in such an awesome movie.
I was a few years ahead of 1/2 of the Daniels at the same high school in Birmingham, Alabama. I’ve enjoyed their work in An Interesting Ball (2016) and Swiss Army Man (2016), but neither prepared me for how much I loved this film. I’m a fan and will be expectantly seeking out their next film.