is a blog about design, technology and culture written by Khoi Vinh, and has been more or less continuously published since December 2000 in New York City. Khoi is currently Principal Designer at Adobe. Previously, Khoi was co-founder and CEO of Mixel (acquired in 2013), Design Director of The New York Times Online, and co-founder of the design studio Behavior, LLC. He is the author of “How They Got There: Interviews with Digital Designers About Their Careers”and “Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design,” and was named one of Fast Company’s “fifty most influential designers in America.” Khoi lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
What got me out of the house and into a seat at the theater last month? Illumination Entertainment’s incomprehensibly tolerable “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” did. Well, it wasn’t so much the movie itself that spurred me to go as it was my kids, who wanted to see it.
So as you can imagine, I did not expect to like it—the whole production gave me so many reasons to hate it, in fact! But for some reason I was fine with it. Like, I did not find myself actively disliking what was on the screen. It was mostly unremarkably acceptable, even kind of enjoyable! I won’t even attempt to analyze the reasons why. Sometimes we can’t explain how we react to movies, mostly because movies are not inherently logical. Movies make no sense! I’m okay with that.
To balance out my cinematic diet, I also watched a pretty healthy portion of classic silent cinema, which accounts for the unusually high number of movies in my roundup for the month: twenty-eight total, eight of which starred Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton, and all of which are about a hundred years old now.
These are mostly one- or two-reelers, short films that go down incredibly easily. They’re a delight to watch and crackling with invention, and I almost constantly find myself wondering, “How did they do that?!”—not just the mind blowing practical stunt work, but also the hilarious gags that somehow still seem fresh. It’s hard to fathom how, after the subsequent century of filmmaking that followed the silent era, when nearly every trope was repeated endlessly, the works of these two geniuses still pop off the screen with endless, vibrant ingenuity. Watching Lloyd’s “Safety Last!” or Keaton’s “The General,” both monuments of the art form, is almost like seeing movies for the first time, so bright are the laughs and so kinetic is the action.
Here’s everything I watched in April.
“Beetlejuice” (1988) ★★ Rewatched. Mostly okay if you like Tim Burton.
“One Week” (1920) ★★★★ One of seemingly countless Buster Keaton shorts that, pound for pound, contain more excitement and invention than the entirety of most contemporary action franchises.
“Cops” (1922) ★★★½ Keaton lives out his horror of law enforcement.
“The Biggest Bundle of Them All” (1968) ★½ A zany 1960s heist comedy with a slack script and even slacker comedic chops, even if it sports a role for Vitorrio De Sica(!).
“Shin Godzilla” (2016) ★★★★ Beautifully realized, whip smart take on Godzilla shines the spotlight on the technocrats, civil servants and private/public partnerships that grapple with what to do about a monstrous lizard creature that emerges from the sea.
“The Way of the Dragon” (1972) ★★ It’s a tremendous shame that Bruce Lee never got one truly solid, top shelf, legitimately good script to work with.
“Grandma's Boy” (1922) ★★★½ Harold Lloyd in a typical setup: a meek man-child has to rise to the occasion. Even with a short runtime, Lloyd somehow manages to squeeze in a pretty full character arc, including a side trip to the Civil War.
“That's Him” (1918) ★★½ Another Lloyd short film, though this comedy of mistaken identity is pretty slight.
“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (2023) ★★★ I should hate everything about this but for some reason I didn’t. Beats me.
“Safety Last!” (1923) ★★★★ Rewatched. An eternal gem of a movie, filled with ornate, sophisticated, hilarious gags, and indelible iconography of Harold Lloyd dangling off a clock face.
“The Housemaid” (1960) ★★ This South Korean classic wallows so thoroughly in the misery of its all-around horrible characters that it almost seems like a joke. In the end, it is.
“Bashful” (1917) ★★ Harold Lloyd goes to a party. Not a whole lot of plot here but energy and enthusiasm to spare.
“The Haunted House” (1921) ★★ Bank teller Buster Keaton somehow ends up at a haunted house. There are some great gags along the way, but it’s one of Keaton’s lesser outings.
“Cobra” (1986) ★ Sylvester Stallone in a pure distillation of 1980s-style white paranoia that also happens to be—surprise!—idiotic.
“Swiss Army Man” (2016) ★½ I understand The Daniels so much better now after watching this vibrant but ultimately hollow “Weekend at Bernie’s” riff.
“Bullitt” (1968) ★★★½ Rewatched. Steve McQueen’s classic policier remains a work of sterling action moviemaking, but it also comes across dumber than ever as the years go by.
“Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” (2023) ★★½ This messy, Guy Ritchie-directed spy caper is convoluted and a bit inept, but somehow I enjoyed it.
“Dr. Jack” (1922) ★★ Harold Lloyd as a country doctor who has all the answers can be fun, but somehow it doesn’t feel quite right.
“EO” (2022) ★★★★ A hauntingly affecting tour of human mendacity seen through the eyes of a heartbreakingly adorable donkey. This film is a real achievement even if it sometimes feels like a pretext for the director’s masterful aesthetic choices.
“Sing 2” (2021) ½ I actually like Bono but this is beyond the pale even for him.
“Shaun of the Dead” (2021) ★★★★ Rewatched. The one time that Edgar Wright truly hit it out of the park.
“Robbery” (1967) ★★★½ This heavily procedural heist film based on the real Great Train Robbery is all dudes all the time, so your mileage may vary.
“The Suspect” (1944) ★★★½ Gleefully polite fin de siècle noir set in London-town-upon-Hollywood puts Charles Laughton in a vice and squeezes tighter and tighter until someone does the sporting thing, cheerio, oi, bob’s yer uncle.
“Freaky Friday” (2003) ★★½ Starts off as a painful slog but when the body switch happens, Jamie Lee Curtis truly owns it.
“The General” (1926) ★★★½ Buster Keaton in an unexpectedly huge Civil War epic—they send a huge locomotive flying off of a bridge! Tons of fun, except for the distasteful romanticizing of the Confederate cause.
“RockNRolla” (2008) ★★ For Guy Ritchie completists only.
This is the latest roundup of my monthly movie consumption. You can also see what I previously watched in March, in February, in January, in 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. Also, you can always keep up with what I’m watching by following me on Letterboxd—where I’m also writing tons of capsule reviews.
Last month, despite feeling pretty exhausted by the whole Chad Stahelski/David Leitch/Derek Kolstad creative axis that was launched into prominence by the unexpected success of the original “John Wick” (still the best of the whole lot), I let myself get carried away by the incredibly positive buzz for “John Wick: Chapter 4.” Fool me once, shame on you; fool me with three sequels and a bunch of ancillary projects all with more or less the same idea? Well, shame on me.
The original “John Wick,” released nine years(!) ago, was a thunderclap of action innovation sporting an eloquently appealing premise: a fearsome hitman comes out of retirement to avenge the killing of his dog, and heads roll. It wasn’t Shakespeare, but it combined just enough brains, a heavy helping of next-level fight choreography, and a smattering of lore, to create an extremely entertaining assasins’ lair of a world, at least for one movie.
Then, over the course of two subsequent installments, director Chad Stahelski stretched that original premise ever thinner and thinner while simultaneously larding it with an ever-increasing mythology of dubious quality. Wick’s world got more and more complicated and its rules became more and more self-justifying, as the actors spent seemingly all of their screen time reciting their world’s obscure, corny bylaws back and forth to one another. By the end of the third installment, John Wick’s initial motivation was all but lost completely, subsumed by a ridiculously ornate universe of bizarre made-up customs. There was plenty of crazy action too, of course; as a stuntman by training, that is the major constant of Stahelksi’s direction. But the action had become essentially meaningless and frankly boring.
I’m not sure why I was so willing to believe that “Chapter 4” would be able to buck that trend, but it doesn’t. That’s largely because Stahelski’s ability to generate new ideas is apparently quite limited. Here is more or less a complete inventory of everything he’s capable of dreaming up: pubescently elaborate protocols and ceremonies; cheesy nightclubs brimming with bacchanalia; physically underpowered Euro-boys as primary antagonists; retro functionaries administering a sprawling bureaucracy of killers; and doggie companions as proxies for “good” guys. These were all in the first three “Wick” movies and they show up in number four too, with only minimal revision. Even the action, which should be Stahelski’s strong suit, is largely repetitive; for long stretches, I felt like I was watching outtakes of the first three movies. That is, at least until the third act, where Stahelski finds a second wind and delivers a series of genuinely inventive action set pieces. By that time though, there’s a roboticism to his entire approach that’s evocative of video games more than cinema, and the whole things feels like it was incredibly unnecessary.
Most sequels are in fact unnecessary, of course, but I think what kept me coming back to the “John Wick” franchise over and over again was a drug-like yearning for the extreme high of that first outing. In many ways, action moviemaking is still living in the shadow of that movie, and many filmmakers are still even trying to catch up to it. But for me, after a decade of “Wick” derivatives, it feels like we’re ready for something genuinely new. I don’t know what it looks like or where it might come from, but neither could I have guessed in 2014 that a low-budget B-movie starring Keanu Reeves and directed by two stuntmen could rejuvenate the form so wholly. I’m ready to be surprised again, though!
Happy tax day, everyone! Here’s the full list of all twenty movies I watched in March:
“Lost Bullet 2” (2022) ★★★½ Rewatched. Sustained excellence in a sequel.
“The Sword of Doom” (1966) ★★★½ Incredibly dark tale of multiple intersecting lives all marred by their connection to an irretrievably fatalistic samurai.
“The Last of Sheila” (1973) ★★★★ Rewatched. A script so cynical it’s irresistible.
“The Love Nest” (1923) ★★★ Buster Keaton turns a fishing vessel into a playground for his boundless creativity.
“Our Hospitality” (1923) ★★★★ A typically stunning showcase of cinematic invention and comedic urtexts.
“The Quick and the Dead” (1995) ★★★ Rewatched. Could have been a classic of contemporary westerns were it not, sadly, for Sharon Stone’s committed but flat performance.
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (2022) ★ Marvel movies are bad, but when they try to be thoughtful, they just end up being offensive.
“Police Story 2” (1988) ★★ There just isn’t enough Jackie Chan action in this Jackie Chan action movie.
“The Bourne Supremacy” (2004) ★★★★ Rewatched. A master class in communicating story through very intentional placement of tiny bits of information in a seemingly random maelstrom of propulsive action.
“If Beale Street Could Talk” (2018) ★★★½ Rewatched. Heartbreakingly beautiful but somehow hard to truly love.
“Be Kind Rewind” (2008) ★★★ Kind of a jalopy of a movie but sometimes what counts most is seeing how much fun the cast and crew had, and they apparently had lots.
“Party Girl” (1995) ★★½ Hard nineties: Parker Posey bouncing around Manhattan in crazy outfits, teetering out of control, and somehow learning the library sciences at the same time? Ridiculous but very, very likable.
“Matinee” (1993) ★★★ An endearing nostalgia trip into the lost world of 1950s B-movies, more sentimental than it is remarkable, though it starts to realize its full potential in a manic third act.
“Police Story 3: Super Cop” (1992) ★★½ The only explanation is that everyone—EVERYONE—in the “Police Story” universe is on crack.
“The Heroic Trio” (1993) ★★★½ A crazy, liminal dream world at the intersection of myth and modernity, from one of the masters of Hong Kong action film. Incomprehensible but brilliant.
“John Wick: Chapter 4” (2023) ★★½ Everyone thought this was great except for me! The third act is impressive, but everything else feels like we’ve done this three times before already—oh, we have.
“Help!” (1965) ★★★½ The Beatles’ second feature is not nearly as incandescent as their first, but it’s still a great time.
“Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?” (1957) ★★ Hare-brained 1950s comedy full of clever visual flourishes and starring Jayne Mansfield.
This is the latest roundup of my monthly movie consumption. You can also see what I previously watched in February, January, in 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. Also, you can always keep up with what I’m watching by following me on Letterboxd—where I’m also writing tons of capsule reviews.
Mid-winter is usually a pretty rough time for worthwhile new movies, but all the same I’m surprised that I actually watched zero of them last month. The reason probably is that I had expended so much energy in January trying to get caught up on the best ones from the end of 2022 that when February came along I was just looking to revisit some familiar favorites—and also dig into some older movies that I’d never gotten to see.
To start with, I got a hold of Criterion’s Bruce Lee boxed set and finally, as an adult, tried to digest some of these seminal martial arts pictures that I’d only ever seen in bits and pieces as a kid. As is customary for Criterion, these five films have been heroically repackaged and annotated, and watching Lee’s fiery acrobatics presented so crisply is a thrill. But there’s no getting around the fact that the movies themselves—plot-wise, character-wise, filmmaking-wise—are creaky, to use a word. More often than not, they amount to little more than action footage—volcanic action footage, to be sure—strung together by drearily incoherent plot setups.
It’s all a reminder of how narrowly Western culture once valued Asian stars. Before Lee’s untimely death the film world clearly recognized the sheer spectacle of his screen athletics, but they had such low expectations for his marketability as an actor that they never bothered to write a fully formed part for him, much less put him in a movie with a real plot. Watching these sometimes tiresomely rote potboilers where Lee’s charisma nevertheless pops off the screen, it’s evident that he was bringing so much more than just action. His performances shined with a fierce magnetism and an unmistakable pathos far beyond what was written on the page. He could’ve have been a much, much bigger star than he got to be before he passed.
All of which is sober context for the amazing night that “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” one of countless inheritors of Lee’s legacy, had at the Oscars. I really try to avoid watching the Academy Awards but, despite myself, I felt compelled to tune in this year to see which if any of the Asian nominees would take home statues. I was particularly touched by Ke Huy Quan’s acceptance speech. I find his story so powerfully moving, and not just because, like me, he also immigrated from Vietnam to the States at a very young age. Despite early success, Quan effectively found himself in the professional wilderness for many years and had even been so hard up for work before “Everything” that he’d lost his health insurance. To land that part and then somehow to win and Oscar for it… that really is a fairy tale come true. I’m not the biggest fan of this movie, but its success is nevertheless very gratifying. It’s also a wonderful culmination, in its own way, of a journey that Bruce Lee started many decades ago.
Here’s the full list of twenty films I watched in February.
“The Silence” (1963) ★★ Terrible title! I can never remember which movie this is. Now that I’ve looked it up again I’m reminded that this angsty, shadowy psychodrama is one of Ingmar Bergman’s more skippable works.
“Black Swan” (2010) ★ All the dream sequences, jump scares, titillating innuendoes and body horror effects add up to a prestige flick that apparently very few people other than me recognize for its astonishing silliness.
“Portrait of a Lady on Fire” (2019) ★★★★½ Rewatched. A magnificently constructed private world that’s made complete by just three young women, temporarily isolated from patriarchal constraint.
“Witness in the City” (1959) ★★★★ Fantastic, gritty French noir that works like the aftermath to an entirely different crime caper.
“Enter the Dragon” (1973) ★★★½ Before his life was tragically cut short, you could see in this explosive but imperfect martial arts bruiser how Bruce Lee was just starting to tap his full potential as a screen presence..
“Game of Death” (1978) ★½ Gets an extra ½ for the iconic jumpsuit, but overall this cash-in on Bruce Lee’s legacy is a pretty pathetic enterprise.
“What About Bob?” (1991) ★★★½ Rewatched. It’s easy to recognize how Bill Murray is at his off kilter best in this screwball psycho-comedy, but Richard Dreyfus also brings a wonderfully deft game as the straight man.
“See How They Run” (2022) ★★★½ Rewatched. Maybe I’m just a sucker for whodunnits, but this admittedly not-revolutionary murder mystery is loads of fun.
“Big Time Gambling Boss” (1968) ★★★½ Yakuza gangsters as principled salarymen. Fascinating.
“The Batman” (2022) ★★★★ Rewatched. I do wish the plot were tighter but I like this more and more with each viewing. It’s like a great downer rock album that just nails its vibe.
“The Last of Sheila” (1973) ★★★★ A deliciously snarky whodunnit with plenty of fascinating gay subtext thanks to a take-no-prisoners script from Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim. Yes those guys.
“The Big Boss” (1971) ★★½ You’ve got to wade through a lot of brainless plotting and paper-thin characters to get to Bruce Lee’s explosive martial arts here, and even then there’s not a whole lot of that.
“Back to the Future” (1985) ★★★★ Rewatched. Loads of Hollywood clichés heaped upon one another—and then executed with sterling, irresistible panache.
“The Favourite” (2018) ★★★★ Rewatched. Maybe the best costume drama for a generation? Certainly the best one that’s also a cutting, contemporary historical allegory. Brilliant.
“Thoroughbreds” (2017) ★★★★ Rewatched. Half a decade later, this early psychological thriller about two horrible young women looks like a classic.
“Bedazzled” (1967) ★★★ Really enjoyed hanging out with Dudley Moore and Peter Cook mugging through some ridiculous scenarios in this swinging 60s sex comedy.
“The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” (1970) ★½ A real comedown for Billy Wilder fans; this Holmes interpretation is not particularly incisive or revelatory in any way.
“Air Force One” (1997) ★★ Rewatched. You really need to turn off your brain for this, at which point it’s pretty fun, and afterwards you feel pretty bad. Junk food, I guess.
“Lost Bullet” (2020) ★★★ Rewatched. This is probably the best action franchise going right now (looking Mr. Diesel’s way).
This is the latest roundup of my monthly movie consumption. You can also see what I previously watched in January, in 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. Also, you can always keep up with what I’m watching by following me on Letterboxd—where I’m also writing tons of capsule reviews.
After seeing as many of the year-end prestige movies from 2022 as I could in January, I came to the conclusion that overall it was a pretty disappointing slate. Few of the movies I saw, even among the best reviewed of the year, seemed like out and out home runs. And there were, for my tastes, too many entries from a genre that I’ve really grown tired of: auteur directors paying tribute to their childhoods and/or to the magic of film.
To be fair, some pretty decent movies have been made in this mode recently. Alfonzo Cuarón’s “Roma” from 2018 and Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” from 2021 come to mind as two particularly terrific examples. But this season alone brought “Armageddon Time” from James Gray, a director whose work has always left me cold; “Empire of Light” from Sam Mendes (same); and “The Fabelmans” from Stephen Spielberg, whose track record with me has always been erratic. I only saw the last of those, which generally got the best notices, and even then I was pretty underwhelmed.
There was actually one more in this batch: Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” doesn’t qualify as an ode to his own youth at all but, probably moreso even than any of the others I’ve mentioned, it goes hard into that “magic of film” sentiment.
What’s utterly unique about this movie is that, for the first two-thirds of an outrageous three-hour runtime, it’s actually really, really good. Chazelle pulls out all the stops to tell a story of early Hollywood as it makes the transition from silent to talking pictures; the movie is fully uninhibited and even unhinged as it careens from drunken orgy to huge scale outdoor film sets to late night showdowns with poisonous snakes and more. Let me be clear: this part of the movie is fantastic.
The problem is that the last hour of the film becomes something else altogether: a terrible, terrible movie, riddled with clichés and storylines that won’t end and sentimental dribbling that hurts to watch almost as much as what came before was a true joy to experience. I honestly can’t remember another movie that was so, so superb for so long, and then turns out so, so bad in the end. Ultimately, my thoughts on this bizarre, misbegotten film are confusingly mixed: it’s totally worth seeing if you can bear the crashing disappointment at the end; I felt fortunate to see it in theaters but it’s way too long; and I’m so glad that Chazelle got to make this movie but I hope not to see another of its kind for a long, long time.
Here are all eighteen movies I saw in January.
“Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” (2022) ★★★★ Did not expect to connect with this but it’s so universally human it bowled me over.
“Shazam!” (2019) ★★½ Rewatched. Totally, unremarkably, unexceptionally fine movie in the Marvel mode.
“The Illusionist” (2010) ★★★ Lovingly crafted homage to Jacques Tati that also completely misses the mark in capturing his sensibility.
“Theodora Goes Wild” (1936) ★★★ Genial and unrepetantly silly Irene Dunne star vehicle from the golden age of the screwball comedy.
“Kamikaze Hearts” (1986) ★★★½ Sometimes aimless but electric-charged quasi documentary made from the fringes of adult cinema.
“Carol” (2015) ★★★★ Rewatched. Still lovely but honestly a little boring.
“Babylon” (2022) ★★½ Honestly no idea how many stars to give this misbegotten hybrid of directorial masterwork and hacky cliché-fest. First two-thirds are auteur-level great, and then it just falls off a cliff.
“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (2022) ★★½ Beautifully animated and apparently very entertaining—I guess, because as with most animated movies these days, it put me to sleep.
“Fletch” (1985) ★ A shockingly raw time capsule from a decade when the ideal man was supposed to be the biggest asshole in any room. Also called “The Reagan Era.”
“Tár” (2022) ★★★★ Not an Oscar-baiting acting showcase, which is what I feared, but a genuinely great performance in a genuine work of art.
“Breakdown” (1997) ★★★½ Rewatched. Extremely efficient, tautly drawn little B-movie from the late 90s in which Kurt Russell’s wife goes missing. Far exceeds expectations.
“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” (2010) ★★★ Rewatched. The cleanest distillation of Edgar Wright’s frequently hyper-showy cinematic sensibility.
“Watcher” (2022) ★★★½ Better than average thriller/horror that trades mostly on an extreme sense of dread conjured up by the isolation of being an expatriate.
“Back to the Wall” (1958) ★★★★ Superb, Hollywood-noir French thriller that got left behind with the excitement over the French New Wave. Twisty in a way that’s still surprising even so many decades later, and shot with an exceptionally sharp eye.
“Marnie” (1964) ★½ Late period Hitchcock in which the director tries to bring his usually suppressed pathologies to the fore, with disastrous results all around.
“The Warriors” (1979) ★★★ Rewatched. Sad to say this much beloved classic from the paranoid 70s may be starting to wear thin for me.
“The Bourne Identity” (2002) ★★★★ Rewatched. Now over two decades old but feels like a million years ago! Still, in just about every way, remains a contemporary classic.
“Speaking of Murder” (1957) ★★½ Jean Gabin in a flabby, wholly mundane gangster flick with very few, if any, real surprises.
This is the latest roundup of my monthly movie consumption. You can also see what I previously watched in 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. Also, you can always keep up with what I’m watching by following me on Letterboxd—where I’m also writing tons of capsule reviews.
There’s never enough time to see all of the movies in the conversation for “best of the year,” much less to summarize thoughts on the previous twelve months of new releases. But here, finally in February, is my movie diary for 2022: a top ten list, some thoughts on honorable—and dishonorable—mentions, and a rundown of everything I watched over the year.
My grand total this year was 217 films, a noticeable decline from 2021, though still about on par with my general movie watching trend over the past five years.
Total Movies Watched by Year
It was a busier twelve months, that’s for sure, but it also felt like a markedly worse year for film. I saw only fourteen new releases in theaters in 2022. While that’s a post-pandemic high, more often than not I felt less than enthusiastic about what I was heading to theaters to see. I’m not just talking about the unrelentingly mediocre pablum that Marvel continued to churn out. Even the year-end prestige fare struck me as particularly lackluster; if I never see another flick in which an auteur director revisits his childhood and/or pays rhapsodic tribute to the magic of film, I’ll be just fine. I’ve also excused myself from the latest “Avatar” sequels—and however many more might be coming down the pike.
Still, I’m hoping (perhaps against hope) that this is all just cyclical, that we’re just in a temporary downturn, and that 2023 will breathe some new life into the movies, particularly theatrical releases. A look at what’s on the slate is actually pretty exciting: a calendar full of new works from Martin Scorcese, Denis Villeneuve, Wes Anderson, Michael Mann, and Christopher Nolan, among others. Reasons to stay optimistic.
Top Ten for 2022
“After Yang” Colin Farrell goes on a quest to repair an android companion that’s on the fritz, and what follows is a remarkably deft, nuanced look at how technology changes us as much it changes the world around us. This beautifully imagined and winningly complex vision of the near future has an uncanny understanding of how mundane details can make for far more convincing sci-fi than wild pyrotechnics.
“Happening” In 1960s France, at a time when abortion was still illegal, a young student seeks to end an unwanted pregnancy, and must clear horrifying societal hurdles in order to do so. Director Audrey Diwan casts an unflinchingly honest and emotionally fearless eye on a brutal social landscape, where women face entrapment at every turn and trust is largely transactional. Hauntingly relevant.
“Petite Maman” Celine Sciamma’s follow-up to “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” is at once fantastical and exceptionally simple: at a time of crisis for her parents, a young girl somehow meets and befriends a version of her mother when she was the same age. There’s nothing ornate or tricky about the execution; it’s just a simple tale of two children at play, and yet it’s still mind blowing and completely heartbreaking in how much it says about inter-generational empathy.
“Tár” A statement movie about art and power and an acting showcase for Cate Blanchett, who is utterly commanding as a musician at the very top of the classical music echelon, and then utterly infuriating as she sabotages herself and spins out of control. As a prestige picture, it feels at first like Oscar bait—my least favorite genre—but director Todd Field makes it a genuine work of art that asks complex questions and refuses simple answers.
“Top Gun: Maverick” A transparently propagandistic pack of Hollywood clichés, with a paper thin plot, that somehow manages to be whatever movie every viewer needs it to be. Looking for a blue-blooded adrenaline rush for red state viewers? Check. Looking for a disquisition on the continued viability of analog in an increasingly digital horror-scape? Check. Looking for an escapist thrill ride in the form of an aerial heist flick? Check. My favorite: looking for a death dream meditation on resolving personal relationships at the end of a long life? Maverick is your man. In its square, uncool way, this relentlessly enjoyable popcorn actioner is a miracle.
“Triangle of Sadness” Lampooning the cluelessness of ultra-wealthy passengers on a luxury yacht is like shooting fish in a barrel, but with this movie director Ruben Ostlund reminds us that shooting fish in a barrel can be a ridiculously good time. What makes this really work is a pleasingly digressive, unhurried style that allows the cast’s astoundingly naturalistic performances to shine. When the characters act stupidly, which they do often, they tap into a deep empathetic vibe that allows you to recognize yourself in them, even as you’re laughing your head off at them.
“Nope” Jordan Peele’s extraterrestrial horror film pulls together a disparate array of hidden Hollywood backstories into an almost cohesive whole—not quite fully successful, but the delirious ambition on display here was some of the most thrilling cinema I watched all year. Its opening scene, which takes place on the set of a sitcom where things have gone horribly wrong, is stunning and indelible. Peele is not resting on his laurels as one of the most exciting directors working today.
“Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” I very superficially assumed that this story of a middle-aged widow’s sexual awakening was not for me. But Katy Brand’s screenplay is so thoughtful about the subject matter, and director Sophie Hyde is so surehanded in its execution, that the universality of the story shines through with exceptional lucidity. It’s hard not to get swept up in both the sadness and redemption in the stories of its two principal characters.
“Turn Every Page–The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb” Over the years I’ve read so much about the writer Robert Caro, about his work and about how he works, that I had modest expectations for this documentary. But its spotlight on Caro’s decades-long collaboration with his editor Robert Gottlieb was a revelation. It illuminates the under-appreciated dynamic between author and editor and it captures for posterity the particulars of one of the most important literary partnerships of the past half-century. I don’t like most documentaries, but I really liked this one.
“The Batman” The super-hero genre is in such dire straits—there were few cinematic experiences that I had this year that I detested more than the Marvel movies I had to sit through—but this umpteenth reboot, imperfect as it is, just thrilled me. It takes itself way too seriously but I much prefer an enterprise that is determined to amount to something of substance. It has a genuinely adventurous, provocative, beating heart that harbors legitimately courageous ambitions to expand the vocabulary of modern myth beyond pure commerce. It’s also the best Batman movie, period.
Honorable Mentions
A few quick notes on some releases that didn’t make the top ten but that I think were still worthwhile:
Park Chan-Wook’s “Decision to Leave” is a beautiful, near miss of a Hitchcockian thriller. “The Menu” can’t pay off its irresistible premise, but it’s loads of fun anyway. The French romantic comedy “Anaïs in Love” is nothing we’ve never seen before, but its warm execution is a winner. I’ve never seen a movie that’s as good as “Babylon” is for its first two-thirds turn so bad in its last act, but it’s still well worth a viewing. People missed Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas hamming it up in “Official Competition” but they shouldn’t. Guillaume Pierret’s “Lost Bullet 2” is building the crazy car-centric action franchise that the Fast & Furious movies have completely forgotten how to be.
Dishonorable Mentions
And a few movies that, in my view, were overpraised:
Baz Lurrman’s “Elvis” has some entertaining musical numbers but otherwise it’s a groaner. Spielberg puts everything he’s got into “The Fabelmans” but it’s still overwrought nonsense. “All Quiet on the Western Front” has a very important message about how war is bad! The movie itself is also bad. Robert Eggers’s “The Northman” is just a high class version of Zack Snyder’s low class “300.” While not un-fun, it’s time to get off of David Leitch’s “Bullet Train”—and other John Wick derivatives.
…
For a more comprehensive overview of what I watched last year, you can see my Letterboxd stats, beautifully presented as always by that amazing platform for all kinds of movie watchers and fans. Below is a month-by-month inventory of everything I watched, old and new, in 2022. You can also turn back even further in time and see what I watched in 2021, 2020, in 2019, in 2018, in 2017, and in 2016. Finally, you can always follow my capsule reviews as I write them at my Letterboxd library.
January 2022
“The Power of the Dog” (2021) ★★½ Exquisitely made prestige drama without a lot of substance.
“Yesterday” (2019) ★★★ Rewatched. Leaves a lot unexamined in its “Only one guy remembers The Beatles” plot, but it has a real soul.
“Polytechnique” (2009) ★★★★ Powerful, hypnotic meditation on a mass shooting.
“Bergman Island” (2021) ★★★★ I expected this to be flimsy fan fiction, but it manages to be both faithful to Bergman’s legacy and uniquely its own expression as well.
“Titane” (2021) ★★★★ This movie has everything in it and I couldn’t stop watching it, even if its images are so excruciating that I also couldn’t wait for it to be over.
“Raging Fire” (2021) ★½ Thick-headed, sad echo of what was once great about Hong Kong action flicks.
“Encanto” (2021) ★★ Wake me when people finally get over Lin-Manuel Miranda, please.
“Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop” (2011) ★★★½ Rewatched. Inspired look inside the mind of one of our comic greats.
“A Cat in Paris” (2010) ★★★★ A kids movie that’s also a revelatory reminder of the power of hand-drawn animation.
“Howl’s Moving Castle” (2004) ★★ I’m sorry, Ghibli fans, I was so bored watching this.
“The Tragedy of Macbeth” (2021) ★★★ Appropriately wry take from Joel Coen that results in a lot to admire, relatively little to truly love.
“Nightmare Alley” (1947) ★★★ The original version is a bit hokey, but still full of wonderfully raw desperation.
“A Hero” (2021) ★★★★ Absolutely gut-wrenching portrayal of what it’s like to be a nobody in a world of bureaucrats.
“Shadow of a Doubt” (1943) ★★★★ Rewatched. Hitchcock crystallizes the ideal of “Small Town USA,” then slashes it to pieces.
“The Last Duel” (2021) ★ Colossally stupid morality tale directed by an overrated production designer who has somehow masqueraded as an auteur for more than three decades.
“The Prisoner of Zenda” (1937) ★★★★ A fairy tale of benevolent monarchies that’s also a marvel of old school Hollywood storytelling.
“Light Sleeper” (1992) ★★★★ An absurd premise but executed so well; Paul Schrader creates a somnambulent version of Manhattan that Willem Dafoe glides through like a wounded ghost.
“Boiling Point” (2021) ★★★½ Scrappy indie film about a restaurant staff basically on fire. Not perfect but very worthwhile.
“Boiling Point” (2019) ★★★ The original short film that formed the basis of the 2021 feature-length version. Also very worthwhile.
“Old Henry” (2021) ★½ The terrific Tim Blake Nelson in a western, but fighting against a mediocre plot and casting.
“To Live and Die in L.A.” (1985) ★½ Rewatched. Aside from a car chase clearly meant to one-up “The French Connection,” the rest of this is satire-level macho posturing.
“Nightmare Alley” (2021) ★★★ Both better and worse than the 1947 original, but not a movie that really sticks with you.
“Radio On” (1979) ★★★ A gorgeous, dissonant tone poem in the form of a road movie.
“My Cousin Vinny” (1992) ★½ I can’t believe this sitcom plot of a movie made any kind of cultural impression at all, much less garnered an Oscar for Marisa Tomei.
“Paper Moon” (1973) ★★★★½ Rewatched. A grand slam of a movie, with a walk-off home run ending that’s spot on perfect. The Coen Brothers learned so much from this.
“What’s Up, Doc?” (1972) ★★★½ A remarkable recreation of the wit and spirit of screwball comedy, but still a recreation. Streisand is fabulous though.
“5 Fingers” (1952) ★★★★ A corker of a spy tale but in the old fashioned sense, so don’t expect explosions and golden girls. Instead what you get is a comedy of manners, rendered with extreme elegance by James Mason in the lead role.
“All About Eve” (1950) ★★★★½ Every bit as good as everyone says it is.
“A Letter to Three Wives” (1949) ★★½ Post-war melodrama sports three terrific leads and digs into some interesting territory for a while, but never really breaks through.
“Kimi” (2022) ★★★½ Capable, small scale noir unexpectedly set in the world of smart speakers defies expectations and manages to be terrific.
“The Worst Person in the World” (2021) ★★★ I would’ve enjoyed this exact same movie more if it didn’t have that clickbait title.
“Gaslight” (1944) ★★★★ I’m amazed that the 21st century reached way back in time to this terrific but fairly obscure noir and turned its title into a culturally incisive colloquialism.
“Lifeboat” (1944) ★★★★ Hitchcock’s specialty: a sparse, limited set; richly drawn characters; and a taut, morally ambiguous conflict. Genius.
“The Hit” (1984) ★★★★ An existential odyssey disguised as a gangster flick.
“Speed Racer” (2008) ★★★★ Rewatched. This might be the best f all of the Wachowski’s films, even that one with the sunglasses and trench coats.
“Rushmore” (1998) ★★★★ Rewatched. Holds up, and shows how Anderson’s early characters were sometimes more internally coherent than they are today.
“The Thief of Bagdad” (1940) ★★ Dunderheaded plot logic, but interesting to see how special effects were pulled off in the dark ages.
“The Addams Family” (1991) ★★★ Rewatched. Raul Julia and Angelica Huston were perfect.
“Phantom Boy” (2015) ★★½ Gorgeously animated, as expected, but not much of a progression from “A Cat in Paris.”
“A Whisker Away” (2020) ★★★ The story, a teenager’s fairy tale in every aspect, is delicately executed, but the main reason to watch this is for the long string of exquisitely, lovingly rendered backgrounds.
“Air Bud” (1997) ★½ There’s not a moment here where naturalism of any kind creeps in, even for a second.
“Napoleon Dynamite” (2004) ★★★ Rewatched. Charming if only mildly impressive.
“Death on the Nile” (2022) ★★ Reasonably entertaining if intermittently bombastic and unconvincingly woke take on a classic drawing room (on a boat) whodunit.
March 2022
“A League of Their Own” (1992) ★★★½
Rewatched. Formulaic but fun, with a full slate of irrepressibly genial performances.
“Steamboat Bill, Jr.” (1928) ★★★★½
Buster Keaton’s masterwork of invention, completely undiminished, even ninety-four years later.
“The Batman” (2022) ★★★★
Takes itself way too seriously but does what we can only wish more super-hero movies would attempt: do away with the fan service and tell a story with a real point of view.
“Morocco” (1930) ★★★
When you’ve got two smoldering hot leads like Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper, having a plot is almost unnecesssary.
“Joker” (2019) ★★★★
Rewatched. Didn’t expect to be as impressed with this—or enjoy it as much—the second time around.
“Irma Vep” (1996) ★★★★
Fleetfooted and nimble and hilarious in ways that so many indie movies, including this same director’s, just aren’t.
“Sherlock, Jr.” (1924) ★★★★
Went back for more Buster Keaton and just bowled over by this genius deconstruction of the fourth wall.
“Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes” (2020) ★★★★
Totally delightful, mind-bending sci-fi comedy from Japan. Highly recommended—but don’t read anything about it beforehand!
“Seven Chances” (1925) ★★★½
Early Buster Keaton; takes a while to get in gear, but it’s worth it.
“Red Desert” (1964) ★★★½
Rewatched. Antonioni’s uncompromising vision is conceptually rewarding but also exhausting.
April 2022
“The Great Beauty” (2013) ★★★½
A somewhat preposterous protagonist makes for a movie that is shallower than it thinks. Still, Paolo Sorrentino’s incredibly vivid direction turns it into something exactly as rapturous as his aspirations.
“Drive My Car” (2021) ★★½
Is Haruki Murakami really that good of a storyteller, or are we all just deluding ourselves? This movie really made me wonder.
“The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil” (2019) ½★
This Korean gangster flick looked promising, but it was so dumb and boring that I…I…yawn…zzzzz.
“France” (2021) ★★★
Not fully successful but still quite compelling blurring of the line between the real and unreal for those who live in the media spotlight, starring Léa Seydoux.
“Rescued by Ruby” (2022) ★½
Ripped-from-the-headlines story of a hero dog that no grown up will ever enjoy.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022) ★★½
Rewatched. I went back because my wife wanted to see it, and I liked and understood it a little better, but it still fell short for me.
“Shiva Baby” (2020) ★★★
Scrappy little indie film with great performances compensates for a shaky script.
“Dune” (2021) ★★★★
Rewatched. For the fifth time. Guess what? This movie is still amazing.
“Happy Hour” (2015) ★★★ A very long, complex journey through the lives of four women friends. Starts very off strong but eventually can’t resolve itself.
“The Player” (1992) ★★★★ A zippy, entertaining compromise between a true Altman film and a great Hollywood script.
“Z” (1969) ★★★★½ A fantastic political thriller that feels borne from the heart of 1960s era social unrest, made with shocking confidence.
“On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969) ★★½ Rewatched. They really were trying to do something different with James Bond in this movie; they just weren’t trying hard enough.
“The Cheat” (1931) ★★ This morality play sports an incredibly rudimentary script but features a fascinating performance from its lead, Tallulah Bankhead.
“Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers” (2022) ★½ Movies that are acutely aware of how clever they are have become a scourge.
“Django & Django: Sergio Corbucci Unchained” (2021) ★★★ Watching this documentary about the great Italian director of spaghetti westerns is like storytime at Uncle Quentin’s place.
“The Color of Money” (1986) ★★★★ I’d always heard that this is lesser Scorsese but it still rocks.
“The Adam Project” (2022) ★ Ryan Reynolds has become the face of the overbudgeted, undercooked Netflix era of film.
“The Man Who Never Was” (1956) ★★½ Rewatched. A much better (if still kind of unremarkable) recounting of the events behind “Operation Mincemeat.” I saw this as a kid and I’ve been fascinated with this story ever since.
“Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) ★★★★ A cinematic triumph of conservative ideas that even a lefty can dig.
“Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) ★★★★ Rewatched. I went back to see it again the very next day.
“The Parallax View” (1974) ★★★★ Rewatched. Still fascinatingly paranoid, but the real star is Gordon Willis’s gorgeous cinematography.
June 2022
“Edge of Tomorrow” (2014) ★★★★ Rewatched. The character building throughout is masterful.
“The Bad Guys” (2022) ★★★ Sharply styled, marginally above-average kids movie.
“Hustle” (2022) ★★ Spend a career making crap and you too can can get applauded for half-trying every once in a while.
“Five Graves to Cairo” (1943) ★★★ A weird little World War II movie where none of the accents are right, but it’s still just smart and cynical enough to be worth it.
“The Package” (1989) ★★½ Quite old fashioned, novelistic take on an action movie, but Gene Hackman is mesmerizing in every frame.
“Mr. Bean’s Holiday” (2007) ★★ Not much of a movie, but they tried to make it into something interesting.
“Lightyear” (2022) ★★★ Not the best, but certainly not the worst thing Disney has put out this year—so far.
“That Darn Cat!” (1965) ★★ Basically nonsense, but delightfully naive in its idiocy.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (2022) ★ Really feels like no one over at Marvel really gives a damn about anything other than buying themselves new vacation homes.
“Confidence” (2003) ★½ Rewatched. Completely undersells the thrill of the grift.
“Highlander” (1986) ★ Bombastic and undercooked. Makes sense only through the lens of a heavy metal afternoon spent in your parents’ basement.
“The Fourth Protocol” (1987) ★★★½ Rewatched. Serviceable, late-Cold War spy thriller featuring Michael Caine in a ridiculous 80s dad ski jacket.
August 2022
“Last Night in Soho” (2021) ★½ A horror movie that’s barely even scary, made by a director more concerned with visual spectacle than fundamental storytelling.
“Oblivion” (2013) ★★★ Visually impressive post-apocalyptic action flick that manages to be surprisingly engaging, despite its many blatant rip-offs from other, better sci-fi movies.
“Spider-Man 2” (2004) ★★½ Rewatched. Much more heavy-handed than I remembered, full of useless moping and unconvincing histrionics.
“Die Hard” (1988) ★★★★ Rewatched. The script is the real winner here but somehow everything else—performances, music, editing, cinematography—is great too.
“To Be or Not to Be” (1942) ★★★★½ Rewatched. Lubitsch’s genius in full bloom; he sees the inherent silliness of theater and drags it out into the coldness of wartime.
“All the President's Men” (1976) ★★★★★ Rewatched. The mesmerizing beauty of grunt work in the service of something much, much bigger.
“To Be or Not to Be” (1983) ★★ Really hard to see why Mel Brooks would remake this without really having anything new to add.
“Bringing Out the Dead” (1999) ★★★★½ An incredible, harrowing journey through the underside of sanity.
“Dirty Harry” (1971) ★★ Shot with great style but little more than an abysmally stupid piece of copaganda.
“Emily the Criminal” (2022) ★★½ A “topical” thriller with some interesting ideas, but loaded with rather boring filler.
“Only the Brave” (2017) ★★ A souped-up, made-for-TV weepie aimed straight at the red states.
“The Outfit” (2022) ★★½ Amusing, small-scale mob drama that’s showier than it is convincing.
“Ted K” (2021) ★★★½ A little bit long, but compellingly imagined and staged. Deducted half a star due to the titles being typeset, ostentatiously, in Arial.
“The Badlanders” (1958) ★★★ A heist flick/Western mashup based on the same source material as the superior “The Asphalt Jungle,” but that manages to deliver its own kind of whallop.
“Bullet Train” (2022) ★★½ Admittedly rather fun for a while, but probably about twenty minutes too long.
“Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” (2021) ★★½ Over-the-top bonkers Romanian morality play that’s really just a one-act show stretched out to feature length.
“On the Count of Three” (2021) ★★★ A tidy little indie film made with heart and smarts, but maybe not quite with enough ambition.
“Police Academy” (1984) ½ Vacillates wildly between slapstick farce, horny 80s comedy, bland actioner and limp morality play, with the only consistent throughline being its utter incompetence from start to finish—and its utter lack of laughs.
“Do Revenge” (2022) ★½ Another frustratingly self-aware yet clueless Netflix original that no one will remember in thirty minutes.
“Heat” (1995) ★★★★½ Rewatched. They’ll never make a heist film to top this one.
“Petite Maman” (2021) ★★★★ A wildly simple premise executed with so little fanfare, and yet it’s both mind blowing and heartbreaking in a wholly unique way.
“Blue Collar” (1978) ★★★★ Doesn’t even try to hide its plainly political agenda, but hangs onto its humanity throughout. Richard Pryor is amazing in a straight role.
“Bad Day at Black Rock” (1955) ★★★★ Rewatched. Understated, highly economical, searing noir that feels like it almost stumbles onto its own story. Superb.
“Brief Encounter” (1945) ★★★★ Rewatched. A wonderful marvel of muted passions in post-War Britain.
“Bottle Rocket” (1996) ★★½ Rewatched. With the benefit of hindsight we can now see that from the beginning Wes Anderson skirted the line between charming and cutesy.
“Decision to Leave” (2022) ★★★½ Rewatched. An intricate, densely layered construction. Invites repeated viewings.
“…And God Created Woman” (1956) ★★★★ Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her immortal. A kind of lightning strike of all the things in the post-War zeitgeist.
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014) ★★★★ Rewatched. Possibly the apotheosis of Wes Anderson’s live action filmmaking.
“DC League of Super-Pets” (2022) ½ Another argument that despite his putative charms, Duane “The Rock” Johnson has outrageously poor taste in projects.
“See How They Run” (2022) ★★★½ This spry corker of a comedy-mystery doesn’t pretend for a moment it can really deliver on its promise of a truly elevated whodunnit—and in the end it does not. But it has a blast along the way.
“Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” (2021) ★★★½ Terrific vocal performances in a winningly gentle, unpretentious indie flight of fancy.
“Joint Security Area” (2000) ★★★★ A thoughtful, even heartbreaking meditation on the continuing pain of the division between North and South Korea.
“Triangle of Sadness” (2022) ★★★★ A bit long and rambling, but a wickedly funny skewering of the super-rich, with amazingly authentic naturalistic performances.
“Knives Out” (2019) ★★★★ Rewatched. With each viewing, I’m more and more impressed by how cleverly constructed this script is.
“Enchanted” (2007) ★★ Rewatched. I was almost okay with it until the shopping sequence meant to symbolize the actualisation of Amy Adams’s protagonist. Gross.
“Monkey Man” (2022) ★★★ Actor Dev Patel tries his hand at an action thriller, with occasionally impressive results.
“Fast & Feel Love” (2022) ★★★ You can’t help but root for this extremely emo, Thai-made, quirky love story, even if it is overlong bt thirty minutes.
“Stars at Noon” (2022) ★★★ An example of a creative mismatch between text and filmmaker; the correct creative team for this doomed expat romance would have been Wong Kar-Wai and Christopher Boyle.
“Prey” (2022) ★★★½ Remarkable by virtue of not being yet another terrible entry in the “Predator” franchise, but also genuinely engaging thanks to the two leads.
“Nope” (2022) ★★★★ Jordan Peele’s directorial voice is more sophisticated and confident than ever.
“The Stranger” (2022) ★★★½ Disappointingly generic title for a distinctively moody neo-noir.
“Anaïs in Love” (2021) ★★★½ On paper, pretty pro forma stuff, but executed so well it’s impossible to resist.
“Dog” (2022) ★★½ Exactly like it says on the tin: this is a movie about a dog, and the dog does a bunch of movie dog stuff. Enjoyable enough if you’re okay with that.
“Three Thousand Years of Longing” (2022) ★★★½ So completely different from “Fury Road,” mostly in a good way, but also frustratingly thin in parts.
“The Fabelmans” (2022) ★★½ A pair of outstanding performances can’t save this confused, frequently overwritten script.
“The Menu” (2022) ★★★½ Sets up a premise so delicious (sorry) that it can’t pay it off, but somehow it still works.
We made it! This is my December roundup, the last of about two weeks of posting generally very tardy recaps of the movies I watched in each month of 2022. Whew. It feels good to be finally caught up.
The end of the year was a good time for a sub-genre that I like to call “eat-the-rich” movies, in which clever film directors satirize the many, many shortcomings, absurdities and humiliations of the very wealthy. This is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, because few people are dumb enough to object to targeting this particular demographic for ridicule. I always try to remember that punching down on very stupid rich people (there are a lot of them, to be fair) is still punching down. Still, this basic cinematic bargain—audiences fork over the cost of a movie ticket and filmmakers deliver economic schadenfreude—is robust enough to have delivered some great cinema over the years. Jean Renoir’s revered 1939 satire “The Rules of the Game” is the prime example, but 2022 produced at least two new exhibits which, if not destined for the same immortality, were nevertheless loads of fun.
First, in November I went to see Ruben Ostlund’s “Triangle of Sadness,” which lampoons the social hierarchy on a luxury cruise yacht to generally brilliant effect. It’s a bit digressive and unwieldy, but it’s exceedingly well made, especially in its uncannily naturalistic performances and dialogue, and it’s already got a place on my best-of list for the year.
Then in late December I went to see Mark Mylod’s “The Menu,” which is thematically quite similar. This black comedy veers into horror territory and skewers the rarefied dining experience at a fictional haute cuisine restaurant named Hawthorn, reportedly inspired by the famous Cornelius Sjømatrestaurant in Norway. The movie takes the inherent tension in the relationship between service laborers and their wealthy customers to wild extremes, with delicious (sorry!) results. Its premise is so enthralling, so outrageous that it seems hard to believe that the filmmakers can pay it off. In the end, sadly, they cannot. But the execution—especially the dark, dark humor doled out along the way (not coincidentally, Mylod is an executive producer on HBO’s “Sucession”)—is almost good enough to justify that irresistible hook. Even if ultimately not fully successful, it still somehow manages to be satisfying and, I’ve found, to be memorable, too. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
“The Menu” was in fact the very last feature I watched in 2022, and I even got to see it at the theater, a happy way to conclude my movie year. I’ll be working on my best-of list for the year soon, too. First I’m going to try to make it through as many of the 2022 movies I haven’t seen yet as I can in the next week or two. Meanwhile, here are all twenty-one movies I saw in December.
“Paper Moon” (1973) ★★★★½ Rewatched. Transgressive fun for the whole family.
“The Blue Dahlia” (1946) ★★ Beautiful couple Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake can’t bring alive this generally sedate noir.
“Athena” (2022) ★★★½ Ambitious, vital rendering of a ghetto riot on the outskirts of Paris.
“The Northman” (2022) ★★ Visually arresting but essentially dunderheaded.
“Lost Bullet 2” (2022) ★★★½ Forget the Fast & Furious movies. This is the best insane car chases franchise out there—by miles.
“Stars at Noon” (2022) ★★★ An example of a creative mismatch between text and filmmaker; the correct creative team for this doomed expat romance would have been Wong Kar-Wai and Christopher Boyle.
“Prey” (2022) ★★★½ Remarkable by virtue of not being yet another terrible entry in the “Predator” franchise, but also genuinely engaging thanks to the two leads.
“Nope” (2022) ★★★★ Jordan Peele’s directorial voice is more sophisticated and confident than ever.
“The Stranger” (2022) ★★★½ Disappointingly generic title for a distinctively moody neo-noir.
“Anaïs in Love” (2021) ★★★½ On paper, pretty pro forma stuff, but executed so well it’s impossible to resist.
“Dog” (2022) ★★½ Exactly like it says on the tin: this is a movie about a dog, and the dog does a bunch of movie dog stuff. Enjoyable enough if you’re okay with that.
“Three Thousand Years of Longing” (2022) ★★★½ So completely different from “Fury Road,” mostly in a good way, but also frustratingly thin in parts.
“The Fabelmans” (2022) ★★½ A pair of outstanding performances can’t save this confused, frequently overwritten script.
“The Menu” (2022) ★★★½ Sets up a premise so delicious (sorry) that it can’t pay it off, but somehow it still works.
I saw director Rian Johnson’s 2019 parlor room whodunit “Knives Out” in theaters in its original run and liked it so much that I watched it four subsequent times (it’s lost none of its luster). Netflix noticed its popularity; last year the service landed an enormous deal with Johnson for at least two sequels. And in November, it allowed the first of them, the awkwardly named “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” to play for just one short week in a limited theatrical release. I bought tickets for the whole family and went to see it just two days after Thanksgiving.
This movie is not perfect—it’s a bit less elegant than its predecessor, it bears some hints of falling into a formula, and it leans a bit too heavily into celebrity cameos, which I personally find abhorrent—but it’s a winner all the same. In terms of film franchises, you could do a lot worse than this hilarious, suspenseful, thoughtful, crowd-pleaser. My whole family gave it a thumbs up—kids, parents, and grandmother too. If you haven’t already streamed it at home on Netflix, where it launched “for real” on 23 December, I heartily recommend it.
But at the risk of cliché, watching it at home is not going to be nearly as fun as seeing it in theaters, where the crowd at my screening all laughed, gasped and clapped in unison. This is a four-quadrant movie, as they say; a film that’s fun for everyone. At a time when movie theaters are still struggling to get back on their feet, when we’re at greater risk than ever of losing these communal spaces where we can all go to experience one of our great art forms together, it’s a terrible shame that Netflix’s pocketbook kept “Glass Onion” from fulfilling its promise as a truly great theatrical experience.
I can only imagine that this could have been one of the brightest box office successes of the year; in its single week run, it pulled in an impressive US$15 million from just 600 theaters. For a franchise that was built on surprising people at the cineplex—it’s hard to argue that the original “Knives Out” would have been as popular as it was if it had debuted on any streaming service in 2019—it feels like a betrayal, or at least a disappointment, that its much better funded sequel now lives on Netflix, buried amongst the rest of that service’s highly uneven back catalog.
Here are all eighteen movies I saw in November.
“Brief Encounter” (1945) ★★★★ Rewatched. A wonderful marvel of muted passions in post-War Britain.
“Bottle Rocket” (1996) ★★½ Rewatched. With the benefit of hindsight we can now see that from the beginning Wes Anderson skirted the line between charming and cutesy.
“Decision to Leave” (2022) ★★★½ Rewatched. An intricate, densely layered construction. Invites repeated viewings.
“…And God Created Woman” (1956) ★★★★ Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her immortal. A kind of lightning strike of all the things in the post-War zeitgeist.
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014) ★★★★ Rewatched. Possibly the apotheosis of Wes Anderson’s live action filmmaking.
“DC League of Super-Pets” (2022) ½ Another argument that despite his putative charms, Duane “The Rock” Johnson has outrageously poor taste in projects.
“See How They Run” (2022) ★★★½ This spry corker of a comedy-mystery doesn’t pretend for a moment it can really deliver on its promise of a truly elevated whodunnit—and in the end it does not. But it has a blast along the way.
“Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” (2021) ★★★½ Terrific vocal performances in a winningly gentle, unpretentious indie flight of fancy.
“Joint Security Area” (2000) ★★★★ A thoughtful, even heartbreaking meditation on the continuing pain of the division between North and South Korea.
“Triangle of Sadness” (2022) ★★★★ A bit long and rambling, but a wickedly funny skewering of the super-rich, with amazingly authentic naturalistic performances.
“Knives Out” (2019) ★★★★ Rewatched. With each viewing, I’m more and more impressed by how cleverly constructed this script is.
“Enchanted” (2007) ★★ Rewatched. I was almost okay with it until the shopping sequence meant to symbolize the actualisation of Amy Adams’s protagonist. Gross.
“Monkey Man” (2022) ★★★ Actor Dev Patel tries his hand at an action thriller, with occasionally impressive results.
“Fast & Feel Love” (2022) ★★★ You can’t help but root for this extremely emo, Thai-made, quirky love story, even if it is overlong bt thirty minutes.
“Knives Out” (2019) ★★★★ Rewatched. The family wanted to rewatch this again after “Glass Onion.”
“The Pink Panther” (2006) ★★ This mostly unnecessary remake is thin as a tissue, but someone forgot to tell Steve Martin expectations were very low.
This is the latest roundup of my monthly movie consumption. You can also see what I previously watched in October, in September, in August, in July in June, in May, in April, in March, in February, in January, in 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. Also, you can always keep up with what I’m watching by following me on Letterboxd—where I’m also writing tons of capsule reviews.
There was probably no other film in 2022 that I was looking forward to as much as Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave.” I’m a huge fan of the director’s previous work; his 2006 revenge thriller “Oldboy” is one of the great, truly twisted cinematic mind-benders and a modern classic, of course. But I also thought his 2016 period romance “The Handmaiden,” in addition to also being very twisted in its own way, was a true five-star masterpiece.
“Decision” started rolling out in theaters back in the spring—but only in markets outside of the U.S. I happened to be in France when it debuted there in early July, but my French is not nearly good enough to follow a two-hour-plus Korean language film with French subtitles. So when the movie finally made it to the States in October, I bought tickets as soon as I could.
And it was…good. Really good, actually. Unfortunately, it’s just not as revelatory, as wildly unexpected as either “Oldboy” or “The Handmaiden.” Park has talked about making a concerted effort with “Decision” to rein in his usual predilection for blood and violence, and one can really feel an atypical sense of restraint throughout this lengthy, densely detailed homage to Hitchcock. In many ways it works; his two central characters are drawn to one another while also being incapable of fully opening up to one another, and Park’s almost fastidious sense of restraint makes their would-be romance feel appropriately muted, even suffocating. But there’s also a nagging feeling of incompleteness in Park’s self-discipline, and the narrative feels like it never quite ignites. Still, I did go back and watch the movie again a few weeks later and felt rewarded by the new details that came into sharper focus. I can imagine it growing on me with each additional viewing.
All in, I watched seventeen movies in October. Here they are.
“Elvis” (2022) ★★★ A terrific music video, but not much of a movie.
“Deep Cover” (1992) ★★★ An intense, ambitious policier with a commanding performance from Lawrence Fishburne, but the script is undercooked.
“Car Wash” (1976) ★★★ Breezy, loose-fitting hangout flick that pulls off a surprisingly meaningful ending.
This is the latest roundup of my monthly movie consumption. You can also see what I previously watched in September, in August, in July in June, in May, in April, in March, in February, in January, in 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. Also, you can always keep up with what I’m watching by following me on Letterboxd—where I’m also writing tons of capsule reviews.
Back in 2014 I was as excited as anyone by the energy, invention and polish of “John Wick,” directed by former stunt coordinators Chad Stahelski and David Leitch. It was an unexpectedly transformative action movie that went on to basically redefine, or at least reshape, how we think about the genre. Stahelski went on to direct, by himself, two “Wick” sequels, each sadly more tedious than the previous. Leitch largely repeated the same pattern: as a solo director he turned out “Atomic Blonde,” “Deadpool 2,” “Hobbs & Shaw” and, last summer, “Bullet Train,” which I saw in theaters back in September. All of them tested audiences’ tolerance for an unending procession of violent stunts, comic book gunplay, and poorly articulated revenge fantasies, and the overall trend has been one of diminishing returns.
To be fair, there’s some fun to be had with most of these (except maybe “Hobbs & Shaw”). In “Bullet Train” most of the pleasure comes from the game performances from Brad Pitt, Brian Tyree Henry and Aaron Johnson. But by the end I felt past the point of saturation for this kind of highly polished, minimally thoughtful action fare. The elaborately staged fight choreography, which was a revelation nine(!) years ago, now seems pro forma, and the convoluted script, which focuses more on hipster posing than any real narrative velocity, feels perfunctory at best. What I’m hungry for is the next “John Wick,” a new, left-field action movie that will show us a different way of thinking about the action genre, ideally with an emphasis on thinking as much as on action—and one that will be as surprising and energizing as Stahelski and Leitch’s work once used to be. Things to hope for in 2023.
Here are all sixteen movies I watched in September.
“Bullet Train” (2022) ★★½ Admittedly rather fun for a while, but probably about twenty minutes too long.
“Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” (2021) ★★½ Over-the-top bonkers Romanian morality play that’s really just a one-act show stretched out to feature length.
“On the Count of Three” (2021) ★★★ A tidy little indie film made with heart and smarts, but maybe not quite with enough ambition.
“Police Academy” (1984) ½ Vacillates wildly between slapstick farce, horny 80s comedy, bland actioner and limp morality play, with the only consistent throughline being its utter incompetence from start to finish—and its utter lack of laughs.
“Do Revenge” (2022) ★½ Another frustratingly self-aware yet clueless Netflix original that no one will remember in thirty minutes.
“Heat” (1995) ★★★★½ Rewatched. They’ll never make a heist film to top this one.
“Petite Maman” (2021) ★★★★ A wildly simple premise executed with so little fanfare, and yet it’s both mind blowing and heartbreaking in a wholly unique way.
“Blue Collar” (1978) ★★★★ Doesn’t even try to hide its plainly political agenda, but hangs onto its humanity throughout. Richard Pryor is amazing in a straight role.
“Bad Day at Black Rock” (1955) ★★★★ Rewatched. Understated, highly economical, searing noir that feels like it almost stumbles onto its own story. Superb.
This is the latest roundup of my monthly movie consumption. You can also see what I previously watched in August, in July in June, in May, in April, in March, in February, in January, in 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. Also, you can always keep up with what I’m watching by following me on Letterboxd—where I’m also writing tons of capsule reviews.
Happy new year. If you’re just tuning in, I’m catching up on my monthly movie roundups for 2022. This post covers August but you can also see what I previously watched in July, in June, in May, in April, in March, in February, and in January.
The start of a new year is a good time to talk about the nearly complete uselessness of many movies’ officially recorded release dates. Some of the best films often debut late in the year at film festivals or in very limited release in theaters so as to qualify for awards season early the following year. As a result, they are listed with a release year that’s out of sync with when the vast majority of audiences actually get to see them. So does that make them a part of the conversation for the current or the previous year?
I ask because I’ve been thinking about my best-of-the-year list for 2022, but also because back in August I saw a surprising number of movies with 2021 release dates, even though no one was really able to see them until 2022. This included “Ted K,” a fictionalized account of how the Unabomber lived; “Official Competition,” a Spanish satire about the making of an arthouse movie; “Paris: 13th District,” a romantic fairytale about life outside of the city’s tourist traps; and “Happening,” a raw look back at a time when abortion was illegal in France. Except for “Happening,” these weren’t all masterpieces, but they were all way, way better than the average movie. (To be clear, “Happening” is a stone cold masterpiece.) It’s just a shame that they get lost in the weird shuffle between best-of lists from the previous year and the following year. I guess that’s showbiz, though.
Here’s the full list for August.
“Last Night in Soho” (2021) ★½ A horror movie that’s barely even scary, made by a director more concerned with visual spectacle than fundamental storytelling.
“Oblivion” (2013) ★★★ Visually impressive post-apocalyptic action flick that manages to be surprisingly engaging, despite its many blatant rip-offs from other, better sci-fi movies.
“Spider-Man 2” (2004) ★★½ Rewatched. Much more heavy-handed than I remembered, full of useless moping and unconvincing histrionics.
“Die Hard” (1988) ★★★★ Rewatched. The script is the real winner here but somehow everything else—performances, music, editing, cinematography—is great too.
“To Be or Not to Be” (1942) ★★★★½ Rewatched. Lubitsch’s genius in full bloom; he sees the inherent silliness of theater and drags it out into the coldness of wartime.
“All the President's Men” (1976) ★★★★★ Rewatched. The mesmerizing beauty of grunt work in the service of something much, much bigger.
“To Be or Not to Be” (1983) ★★ Really hard to see why Mel Brooks would remake this without really having anything new to add.
“Bringing Out the Dead” (1999) ★★★★½ An incredible, harrowing journey through the underside of sanity.
“Dirty Harry” (1971) ★★ Shot with great style but little more than an abysmally stupid piece of copaganda.
“Emily the Criminal” (2022) ★★½ A “topical” thriller with some interesting ideas, but loaded with rather boring filler.
“Only the Brave” (2017) ★★ A souped-up, made-for-TV weepie aimed straight at the red states.
“The Outfit” (2022) ★★½ Amusing, small-scale mob drama that’s showier than it is convincing.
“Ted K” (2021) ★★★½ A little bit long, but compellingly imagined and staged. Deducted half a star due to the titles being typeset, ostentatiously, in Arial.
“The Badlanders” (1958) ★★★ A heist flick/Western mashup based on the same source material as the superior “The Asphalt Jungle,” but that manages to deliver its own kind of whallop.
“The Lost Weekend” (1945) ★★★★ An agreeably overwrought message film elevated by Billy Wilder’s unflinching honesty.
“Tenet” (2020) ★★★★ Rewatched. A rare thriller where it’s as enjoyable to not understand as to understand what’s happening on screen.
“The Sea Beast” (2022) ★★★ A pedantically woke script with few surprises, but for some reason they decided to direct the hell out of it.
“Official Competition” (2021) ★★★½ Little more than an excuse for the three leads to clown around, but their clowning is magnificent.
“Happening” (2021) ★★★★½ A bare knuckled, uncompromising story for our time, set sixty years ago.
“Miami Vice” (2006) ★★★★½ Rewatched. Hits a frequency that few other filmmakers have even heard.
“Paris: 13th District” (2021) ★★½ Buoyed for long stretches by its two ridiculously watchable leads, but never figures out where it’s going.
“Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015) ★★★★★ Rewatched. Every viewing is like peering into an impossibility.
Don’t forget: you can also see what I watched in in 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. Also, you can keep up with what I’m watching by following me on Letterboxd—where I’m also writing tons of capsule reviews.
