Puzzles

Top 15 movies of 2022:

15: “You Won’t Be Alone” Just your typical Australian production, filmed in Serbia and with Macedonian as the spoken language. On the surface this is a horror movie about witches, but really it’s a gorgeous and heartbreaking look at humanity when viewed from the outside. 14: “On the Count of Three” The funniest movie about suicide you’ve ever seen with career-best work by Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Abbott. 84 minutes that covers every single emotion in the spectrum of human feeling. 13: “Decision to Leave” Park Chan-wook is one of the greatest living filmmakers and this is easily the most deeply felt and romantic work of his career. When your partner asks you how far you’d go for their love, show them this. 12: “Tár” Cate Blanchett gives the performance of her life in this incisive look at genius and how easy it can be to let power make you a monster. So sneakily powerful, you don’t even realize how affecting the movie is until it’s already over. 11: “Bones and All” This is the second piece of pop culture of the year that I loved that also features a tad bit of cannibalism, but this truly breathtaking work by Luca Guadagnino uses the eating of flesh as a metaphor for love in ways both sublime and beautiful. 10: “Nope” This one divided audiences quite a bit this year, but for my money, this complete subversion of the alien invasion genre pinned me to my chair in a way no film did all year. Jordan Peele is evolving as an artist with each film, and I can’t wait to see what’s next. 9: “The Eternal Daughter” Tilda Swinton gives an astounding dual performance as a mother and daughter staying in an almost empty hotel that used to be the mother’s childhood home. Advertised as a ghost story, this is actually a stunning rumination on memory and family that I can’t get out of my head. 8: “Triangle of Sadness” The hardest I’ve seen an audience laugh all year came from this dark and delicious satire about wealth, politics and class that once again proves to me that cinema can say some truly profound things if we give filmmakers the chance to be fearless. A masterpiece. 7: “The Banshees of Inisherin” Martin McDonagh has long been my favorite playwright and his direction and script for this fable about friendship is so subtle and magnificent that it will probably take years until audiences really discover how special this little movie really is. Lovely. 6: “After Yang:” The second appearance of Colin Farrell on this list and the quietest and gentlest film of the year, by far. The robot companion of a family starts malfunctioning and the father tries to fix it while simultaneously learning how important this “machine” really was. Will actually add warmth to your soul. 5: “RRR:” In just three hours this movie has spectacular action scenes, musical sequences, stamepeing animals, two romances and the best friendship in a movie all year. Oh, and the heroes fight colonialism with a dance battle. The purest piece of cinema I’ve seen in a very long time. 4: “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Lives up to its title within the first 10 minutes and then spends the next two-plus hours being a martial arts epic, a touching look at deferred dreams and the finest examination of a mother/daughter relationship I’ve seen in years. Michelle Yeoh is a force of nature, with Ke Huy Kwan and Stephanie Hsu giving the supporting performances of the year. 3: “Aftersun” Writer-director Charlotte Wells takes everything we know about cinematic language and tells a story of a father and his daughter on vacation in a way we’ve never seen before. Unforgettable and perfect in every way. 2: “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” I feel like if anyone watches this movie and the only adjective they have to describe it is “cute,” then we watched two different movies. An uncynical and loving story about a little shell and his aging grandmother, living alone in an Airbnb and just trying to be happy. More empathic than any movie I think I’ve ever seen. 1: “Memoria:” Most people won’t like this movie, but, for me, director Apichatpong Weerasethakul has managed to turn film into a different sensory experience, combining sound, image and the lack of both into trying to connect the viewer into the vibrations of the Earth. Dream, memory, self-discovery and collective humanity combine to make a film that only lives as an emotion or a fleeting sensation, not as a story you can describe to others. Very possibly the next evolution of cinema.

Also, I wanted to thank everyone who read my work over the past year. It means so much to me, having the opportunity to share the things I love with all of you, and I appreciate each of you. Have a most extraordinary new year. It’ll be your best one yet.

At top, "Aftersun" was unforgettable and perfect in every way. Meanwhile, below, Michelle Yeoh was a force of nature in "Everything Everywhere All At Once."

Photo courtesy IMDB