My 10 Favorite Films of 2022

1. Pearl (Ti West) - This movie is what one would get if Alfred Hitchcock had dropped acid and remade The Wizard of Oz. The prequel to West’s slasher movie X, Pearl takes place on a farm not unlike the one Dorothy lived on in Kansas. The film is shot to resemble a Technicolor masterpiece (complete with the most Bernard Hermann-like score one could come up with) and Mia Goth is spectacular in the title role.

2. Nope (Jordan Peele) - One of many films from this past year that play at either homage to or reference the magic of Hollywood, Peele’s third film as director is a no holds barred sci-fi horror masterstroke that incorporates his love for both Hollywood history and horror.

3. Babylon (Damien Chazelle) - Telling a similar story to Singin’ in the Rain (the coming of Sound into Hollywood) and paying exquisite homage to the classic, Babylon takes an obviously darker route in its narrative, ending in a beautiful coda to the cinema.

4. Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan;Daniel Scheinert) - Go and watch this crazy multi-dimensional, multiverse Gordian Knot of a movie. Michelle Yeoh will show you the way. Then we’ll talk about it. And talk and talk and talk.

5. Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu) - One of the best directors working today, Iñárritu gives us his very own 8 1/2. Personal and brilliant, just like Fellini’s opus, Bardo is magical realism at its finest.

6. White Noise (Noah Baumbach) - Baumbach takes his usual dysfunctional family-dynamic storytelling and rolls into Roland Emmerich disaster movie territory with his latest film. And after watching this, I very much want to go back to the 1980’s and spend an entire day walking around A&P - preferably with someone with Greta Gerwig’s character’s hair.

7. Tár (Todd Field) - The director’s first film in sixteen years, Tár is a beautifully shot, meticulously designed movie surrounding a brilliant career best performance by Cate Blanchett. And to say Miss Blanchett gives a career best performance is saying a whole hell of a lot.

8. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells) - First time writer/director Charlotte Wells gives us a movie of quiet longing and unanswered questions. Paul Mescal and a wonderful eleven-year-old Frankie Corio (in her film debut) play a father & daughter on what seems to be their last trip together.

9. The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg) - The prolific director shows us a (semi) fictionalized tale of his own life as a child, teenager, and budding filmmaker. Michelle Williams as Spielberg’s troubled but loving mother is one of the finest performances of the year.

10. The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh) - Martin McDonagh brings Colin Farrell & Brendan Gleeson back together and they do nothing short of giving career best performances - as do Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan.

That’s it gang. See you at the movies.

Poem/Jose Morales