2022 Movie Ranking
Note: 2021 Movie Ranking. As usual, this list is HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE. Still want to catch Skinamarink, Barbarian, Wakanda Forever, The House, and Pinocchio.
- Nope: Like Get Out and Us, this was incredibly disturbing but so good. Not sure if I ever want to watch Nope again because characters being eaten alive—eaten alive whole—terrifies me. Anyway, Peele's phenomenal at social commentary. Here, animal exploitation.
- Wendell & Wild: So many elements I love! Settings are a funfair-themed afterlife and boarding school. Faustian deals! Diverse character designs. Anti-prison privatization, pro-rehabilation. So the edgy-on-purpose Kat is actually punk. Henry Selick and Jordan Peele plus Key are the dream team!
- Turning Red: I am so, so thankful for Shi and co. It's a cute movie all around, but normalizing periods made me adore it. My family was and is always honest about puberty, but many others' aren't. (And no one told me about PCOS.) TR is groundbreaking.
- Scream: "No one has made a great Stab movie since the first one." My fave self-aware slasher franchise. And this one tackles one of my biggest pet peeves: fandom entitlement. Also, Kyle Gallner playing a sleazebag for once. 💚
- Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
- Men: Verdant folk horror about various flavors of misogyny. If I was still in school, I'd write a paper on it.
- The Batman: THIS is how you do dark Batman. My favorite version of the Riddler since Batman Forever. (Sorry, Cory Michael Smith.) Riddler acts like he's helping the downtrodden, but the mentally ill are a marginalized group, too. Arthur Fleck knows that. I like how Joker and this are morally complex and the villains have in-film fanbases. Also, Edward ironically crushing on Batman, while despising Bruce. Aw.
- The Munsters: The best Rob Zombie flick. I used to say he should stick to music. Now I think he should stick to music and PG-rated romanctic comedy. It's clear Zombie is an aficionado of Universal and other monster movies. It basically is exactly what it set out to be.
- Halloween Ends: Anyone who says this "ruined" the franchise hasn't watched all the movies. Giving Michael a fanboy/protégée was a cool idea to explore. And interesting use of irony with the whole falling and dropping.
- Smile: If you're into the predetermined death-curse genre, give it a watch.
- Everything Everywhere All at Once
- Bodies/Bodies/Bodies: Movie that makes fun of classist vapidity... Gen Z style. The characters are petty and self-absorbed. Their allyship is performative and it will give viewers secondhand embarrassment. On purpose.
- Death on the Nile: An adaptation of the secondest Christie book I read. (First being The Pale Horse.) While it wasn't really my thing, I totally thought Misses Van Schuyler and Bowers were sapphic in the novel, so it was nice to see that confirmed here.
- Weird: The Al Yankovic Story: Nothing against Weird Al. Just not my type of humor.
Violence