The People We Stumble Upon in This Portable Magic: Reading in 2023

Books are good company in sad times and happy times, for books are people--people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book."

--   E.B. White

"Books are a uniquely portable magic."

--   Stephen King

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* The following books are listed alphabetically, by the authors' last names.

10 FAVORITE READS OF 2023

You are Beautiful and You Are Alone:

The Biography of Nico (2021) -- Jennifer Otter Bickerdike

Full disclosure: I must admit for the longest time I knew next to nothing about the tall, blonde ingenue singer/songwriter/musician Nico, with her unique baritone voice and stubborn, thick German accent, and her finely chiseled cheekbones (giving hint to her days as a former fashion model), and her involvement, throughout the 1960s, with the likes of Andy Warhol and his Factory art studio in New York City, and her (relatively brief) involvement in the Velvet Underground, and her legendary notoriety of drug addiction, etc.

I was aware of some things about her: I remember one of my most cognizant associations with her (aside from hearing some of her tracks with Lou Reed, John Cale, and the Velvet Underground) came from filmmaker Wes Anderson's famous needle-drop of Nico's version of Jackson Browne's "These Days" during the wonderful Green Line Bus scene in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). [Aside: Unforgettable.]

Born Christa Paffgen in post-Hitler Germany and eventually renaming herself Nico, she would dip her toes into modeling and acting, landing a significant part in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960). She was rumored to have a bisexual affair with the French actress Jeanne Moreau, as well as relationships with Ernest Hemingway, Lou Reed, French actor Alain Delon, Leonard Cohen, and Bob Dylan (who purportedly wrote the song "I'll Keep It With Mine" for her). She recorded several solo albums, toured, slipped ever deeper into heroin addiction, and died in 1988. She was only 49. 

Bickerdike's book is not always particularly well-written or fair-handed, I think. The author is often quick to smooth over some of the uglier parts of Nico's character (including accusations of recurring, violent attacks of anti-Semitism and racism). Nico was and is a difficult and complicated subject for a biographer--she is sometimes, oftentimes, hard to like. She is sad. She is tragic. But her story--and Bickerdike's unfolding of that story--is undeniably readable and hard to set aside. Love her or hate her, Nico was groundbreaking and important.

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005) -- Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

Like Nico above (ironically), I knew only the vaguest details about this person called Robert Oppenheimer. I knew of the Manhattan Project, of course, and of the Trinity test site in the desert of New Mexico, and of the twin horrible mornings of August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima, Japan, and August 9, 1945, in Nagasaki, Japan.

Oh, and I also knew of the name Oppenheimer and his "deadly toy" from Sting's 1985 hit, "Russians." [Aside: Such is my life.] 

This is one of the most intensely thorough and well-written biographies I've ever read. Published in 2005 but started 25 years before, historian Martin J. Sherwin eventually recruited the aid of fellow writer and historian Kai Bird to assist in the researching, and the interviewing, and the writing, and the rewriting of the massive undertaking. Sherwin would not live to see the publication of the book, but Bird would follow on and see the long project through to its completion. The book, an eventual Pulitzer Prize winner, resurfaced this past year, of course, serving as much of the skeleton of Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed 2023 film, Oppenheimer. I wanted to read the book to learn more about the enigmatic, prickly genius in the desert, so I could--if nothing else--perhaps have a better understanding of the man and of his resultant "tragedy" before going into the film.

I'm glad I did.

The Shards (2023) -- Bret Easton Ellis

Bret Easton Ellis, a young writer who came of age in the early-mid 1980s as a member of the Gen X "literary Brat Pack," published his first novel, Less Than Zero, in 1985 when he was only 21 years old. He was immediately on the cultural map of the day, thrust into the chaos of instant stardom and celebrity. Other books would follow, including 1991's notorious American Psycho--to date still his most successful novel, as well as his most controversial. Though embraced by some readers upon its initial release, American Psycho was generally reviled and misunderstood and labeled as misogynistic trash. (This reader, however, still regards Ellis' third novel highly: I would rank it as one of the most important books of the 1990s decade, not to mention one of the greatest sustained satires in contemporary American fiction since Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Seriously.)

But all of that aside, Ellis' writing career since his heyday has grown spotty at best. It's been 13 years since the publication of Imperial Bedrooms (2010), a sequel to his famous 1985 debut. And then in 2023 we saw the arrival of The Shards, a fictional-memoir of Ellis' senior year in high school in the Hollywood Hills of 1981. Ellis himself (or at least a fictionalized version of himself) is the book's main character and narrator, recounting events that occurred involving a series of brutal murders in the area, and growing to include, eventually, him and his intimate circle of friends.

It is an odd mixture, in a way, of his two most famous novels, and though at times the plotting is a bit slow, a bit stretched out, a bit too gratuitous and fantastical, it becomes apparent that there is method at work to the telling of the tale. And Ellis tells it well. He is still a skillful and assured writer, and this is a compelling "comeback."

The Last Chairlift (2022) -- John Irving

John Irving has always been a friend to left-wing politics and policies in this country. His novels are replete with the often disenfranchised, overlooked, misunderstood, mistreated, and misfit characters from the outlying world of the "perverse," of the taboo, of the socially unacceptable. From his breakout fourth novel and his first masterpiece, The World According to Garp (1978), in which he dealt with gender issues (primarily women and transgender...long before "transgender" was a catchword in the culture); to another masterpiece, The Cider House Rules (1985), in which he took on the issue of incest and the argument, again, of women's rights--particularly, this time, abortion; to yet another masterpiece (and still one of my favorite novels), A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), taking aim, among several other things, at the Vietnam War and the 1960's counter-culture/Anti-War movement at home.

He is, without a doubt, one of my favorites. I think he is an American treasure. At 81 years of age, this--his latest novel--is "only" his 15th. He doesn't put books out quickly. Some of this is because: 1.) He is, by his own admission, a slow writer, agonizing over the work, shaping it, perfecting it, beginning--quite literally--with the last chapter and the last scene of each book, knowing, in detail, how the story will end, and then working backwards from there; and 2.) Many, if not most, of his greatest novels are long novels, densely packed with characters, and plot, and detail. It is no secret, in fact, that one of his favorite authors, and a great influence on his own writing, is the 19th-century English writer Charles Dickens. This affection for classical 19th-century European novels is of huge importance to Irving's writing. He is a modern 19th-century artist at his core; but whereas his hero, Dickens, could turn out massive tomes with the ease of breathing, it would seem, Irving labors over a book. He takes his time.

My point is, I don't know how many more novels Irving has left in him. He has said, in interviews for this book, that he thinks of each of his novels in terms of trains: He envisions them sitting on rails at a station, awaiting their time. Some of these trains are shorter and some are longer. The Last Chairlift, he claims, is his last "long train." He doesn't have any more long books in him. And so the novel does--admittedly--read a bit like a Greatest Hits sort of novel, in a way. I don't mean that disparagingly, either. I say it with love and admiration of the man's lifework. But it is a book that clocks in at 900 pages. (Yes, that's not a typo.) And it is filled to the brim with "John Irving characters" living out their lives, working through their conflicts, and struggling their way through the densely-wrought construct of a "John Irving novel."

And I loved every last bit of it.

The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (2019) -- Dorian Lynskey

Reportedly, when Donald Trump won the election to the U.S. Presidency in 2016 and summarily took office, sales of George Orwell's classic science fiction/dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four saw an increase in sales of 9,500%.

[Aside: Let's just stop and think about that number for a moment....]

Spurred on, partly, by such a cultural phenomenon, author Dorian Lynskey took on the task of writing: 1.) A deep-dive exploration into Orwell's literary precursors and influences: 2.) A mini-biography of Orwell himself and his subsequent involvement as a journalist in the Spanish Civil War (indispensable to the formation of the young writer's political leanings and artistic temperament); and 3.) a short but incisive literary disentanglement of Orwell's classic political novels Animal Farm (1945) and most particularly (obviously) Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), as well as their possible connections to our current day, since, after all, "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past...." (Nineteen Eighty-Four).

Not only for book-nerds and literary-buffs, Lynskey's book is accessible, readable, enjoyable, and highly thought-provoking.

Rememberings (2021) -- Sinead O'Connor

This is a true story: 

It was 1990. I was a 23-year old young man, without--presumably--a care in the world, lounging around one afternoon and watching MTV. Suddenly a face appears on the television screen--a woman's face, a young woman, finely sculpted, wearing a black turtleneck, standing in front of a black background, her hair buzzed short, and her eyes...oh my God the most amazing piercingly-blue wide eyes staring directly into the camera, directly beyond MTV, directly through the television screen, and directly at me. And the voice, her voice, that begins to sing over a simple resonant chord, eventually joining with a drumbeat and backing music and vocals, comes out of her mouth and suddenly makes whatever I thought I was doing that afternoon seem completely, utterly meaningless....

The song/video was "Nothing Compares 2 U." The singer, I would come to find out, was a young Irish artist by the exotic and sexy name, Sinead O'Connor. And all I could help thinking at the time was: "Who the fuck is this?!"

I immediately rushed out and snatched up a copy of her then-current CD, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (still, to this day, one of my favorite albums; a great collection of songs, with not one weak link in it), and soon picked up her previous album, as well, The Lion and the Cobra (1987). For months--a long stretch of 1990 and into the following year--O'Connor's CDs were on constant rotation in either my car or on my home stereo. I could not get enough of her.

And then the bottom fell out when she made her infamous October 3, 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live and sang Bob Marley's 1976 protest song, "War" (complete with some of her own original lyrics related to child abuse), finishing off the performance with yelling into the microphone, "Fight the real enemy!", and tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II (taken from her mother's bedroom years before), and dropping the pieces to the stage floor in stunned silence. [Aside: I remember watching all of that too....]

In an age before "cancel culture" was a nominal thing, Sinead O'Connor was promptly, summarily "canceled." 

When I saw in the bookstore a new memoir from her a few years ago, I knew I had to have it. I hadn't heard anything from her or about her for a while. I was curious. And I let the book sit on my shelf for a time, until this past year when I decided to pull it down and give it a read.

Literally weeks upon finishing her book and closing the back cover, the news came out last summer about her sudden, untimely death. And amidst the sadness of her life, and her career (both its highs and lows), and her early ending, there was and is and always will be her music and her voice. And it reminds us of her raw, primal talent. And it leaves us wanting exactly what we haven't got.

Wading in Waist-High Water:

The Lyrics of Fleet Foxes (2022) -- Robin Pecknold

Exactly as the title of the collection promises, this is Robin Pecknold's compiled poetry/lyrics of 55 songs, spanning the current studio albums (unbelievably only 5 to date) from Pecknold and his Seattle, WA band, Fleet Foxes. Formed in 2006 and releasing its first album in 2008, the band has gone on to accrue a devoted and finely focused fanbase. Its musically diverse arrangements, and fluid time signatures, and poetic lyrical content, and tight, harmonic vocals have given Fleet Foxes an almost impossible-to-categorize style. Suffice to say, I have heard the band's music labeled as "Prog Folk." (And that seems pretty accurate to me.)

I have listened to the band from the beginning. I have seen them live. I have followed their performances online. I know these songs front and back.... Or at least I thought I did. And what this book makes clear is that there are layers to these songs--lyrically, metaphorically, tonally--that I had not noticed before nor even thought about before. What becomes clear reading the songs' lyrics this way--turning the book's pages, absorbing the songs' recurring imagery, metaphor, subject matter--is just how close all of this really is to poetry, and subsequently how closely all of the songs work together to form a complete body of work. Themes of love, destiny, family, loss, nature, friendship, and finding a way to lead an honest, authentic life are all floating through the ether of Pecknold's poems.

Reading this slim volume made me appreciate even more a band that I already loved. What a great little book.

Amusing Ourselves to Death:

Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)

-- Neil Postman

A bombshell when it first appeared in 1985, this book originally grew from a talk given by Neil Postman (a former educator) a year earlier in 1984--that strange "Orwellian year"--when he was asked to participate on a panel regarding the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and its relation to the contemporary world. Postman chose to hold up in comparison the two classic British dystopian novels of the mid-20th century, Orwell's novel (1949) and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932). His thesis then was that it is, in fact, Huxley's novel that reflects most closely the times we find ourselves in. As Postman points out, it is Huxley's future nightmare that sees society satiated, bored, contented, numbed with state-controlled entertainment and amusement, as opposed to Orwell's future nightmare that sees society numbed by state-controlled secrecy, propaganda, fear, torture, terrorism, violence, and death. According to Postman, it is a Huxleyian world we inhabit more than an Orwellian world.

Of course all of this was originally written and published almost 40 years ago, in the dusky past of Reagan's 1985, when the advent of 24-hr. cable news (CNN) and sports (ESPN) and entertainment (MTV) was in the ascendancy. Postman was talking about TV and its malignant threat to society--the dumbing-down, the lowering of standards, the dependence on technology, the demise of creativity, of rationality, of human intention and ambition and thought....

It doesn't take a genius to read Postman's pronouncements from 1985 and make the leap to 2023, where we all have instant, around-the-clock access to--forget about simple television--a viable computer now in our pocket, at our fingertips, ready to go at all times, listening to us, watching us, directing us, making decisions for us, entertaining us, filling our days, guiding our lives.

We're in trouble, and Postman saw it 40 years ago. This is a book that, frighteningly, is maybe even more relevant today than when it was first published. Essential reading for anyone who cares.

The Human Stain (2000) -- Philip Roth

I use phrases a lot when talking about writers I admire: "One of the great living writers," I might say; or "A great contemporary author," possibly; or "One of the best writers of the past 50 years," etc.

But if I'm asked to choose a "greatest" among American writers who has either recently passed or who is still alive and writing, I believe Philip Roth will be one of three who--in times to come--will be mentioned as one of the great American novelists of the last half of the 20th century and the opening decades of the 21st century. I believe he will be mentioned the same way we talk about great, foundational writers of the (fairly) recent past--novelists like Steinbeck, and Fitzgerald, and Hemingway, and Faulkner. The legends. The heavyweights. The artists.

I think Roth is that good, that important, that lasting.

The Human Stain, published in 2000, forms the third part of a loose "trilogy," of sorts (more like a triptych, I suppose), starting with the great American Pastoral (1997) and continued one year later with I Married a Communist (1998).

The book's narrator, the writer Nathan Zuckerman (who appears in several earlier Roth novels and is at times considered to be a fictional stand-in for Roth himself) is the common thread that runs through the three novels. In The Human Stain, Zuckerman is approached by Coleman Silk, a retired eminent classics professor at a prestigious East-coast college, who left his teaching career in disgrace after being accused, by some students, of making a racially insensitive slur in his classroom. Silk, who resigned in disgrace then (in order to avoid scandal) enlists Zuckerman to tell his story.

And the story of Silk's life is a stunner. As is Roth's novel, here. His writing is so clear, and crisp, and potent, and powerful. Roth was an absolute master, and this is yet another late-career work of art from him. It is a work of genius.

The Queen's Gambit (1983) -- Walter Tevis

Let's be clear: While I suppose there is some perverse desire deep inside me to foster a misguided notion in people that I'm an avid chess player--and not only an avid chess player but a good avid chess player--the truth is that while, yes, I have played chess before, and yes, I have read books about chess, and while I am interested in the game and can sit before a board and move pieces around and literally "play" chess, I am not a good chess player; I am certainly not an avid chess player; and if I'm really pressed to be honest, I don't even know if I can claim that I fully understand the game.

But I know I would like to. I have always wanted to be a chess player. For some reason I have always wanted to be that guy--the one who knows the game, who can talk about classic matches, classic moves, classic openings, classic endings.

But I'm not. And I'm okay with that. (I guess.) And so while I'm being honest I will admit that, like many readers, I suppose, I came to Walter Tevis' "little chess novel" by way of its 2020 miniseries on Netflix, starring Anya Taylor-Joy in the lead role of Beth Harmon.

That movie adaptation was fantastic, I thought. Tevis' book is even better. Possibly most well known for his tough, classic 1959 debut novel, The Hustler (turned into the equally great film starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason), Tevis would also gain notoriety for subsequent novels (as well as their popular film adaptations) like 1963's The Man Who Fell to Earth (with its psychedelic, trippy sci-fi fantasia starring David Bowie), and his sequel to The Hustler, 1984's The Color of Money (which would, in turn, be translated to the screen by the great Martin Scorsese).

But back to The Queen's Gambit, for the moment--a quiet, unassuming, brilliant, perfectly written little novel, with every word in its right place, nothing absent, nothing wanting, complete. Read it.

Rumors of Cinema's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: Movies in 2023

All told, 2023 shaped up to be an important and integral year of movies. 

Audiences came back to the movie theaters in droves, and the movie theaters repaid audiences with an array of smart, edgy, expressive films, taking on a variety of subjects, and styles, and stories. A respected filmmaker like Martin Scorsese could, earlier in the year, speak to the press regarding what he saw as trends in the movie industry hinting at the destruction of the movies--his interviews and published statements read like a veritable Jeremiad warning of the possible demise of cinema as an art form--only to release, later in the year, his own new film, putting his words into action. Rather than simply telling people what the problems are in today's films, Scorsese showed people what he meant. He showed, through his own art, what a great film still looks and sounds like. He demonstrated how to keep the art of cinema alive. [Aside: What balls....]

Looking back over the year that was is always a fun endeavor as a cinephile. Sometimes there's no discernible reason why you like something; you just do. Sometimes it's maybe the way you felt at the time and how it all comes back to you upon review. Sometimes it's the craft and the care of the thing in question. Sometimes it's the story, or the form, or the sound, or the look, or the style, or the overall feel that washes over you as you think back on it.

The traditional end-of-year "Best Of" lists are always subjective and often pointless. It is a ridiculous notion to rank "The Best" movies of a year just recently past when you're obviously dealing with a list of titles from an array of different filmmakers, and different stories, and different visions. 

Because such an undertaking is grounded in each viewer's personal taste, there's certainly no perfect science to it. There's no real method involved, other than some primal, instinctual "gut" feeling for those films that stirred something in you, that moved you, made you laugh, made you think, made you wonder, and made you feel. And that's obviously going to be different for everyone.

For what it's worth, then, here are some of my favorite memories at the movies in 2023. Notice I'm not referring to it as a "Best Of" list, ranked in order of preference. I'm not going to do that. 

[Aside: I'm not (darn it) a professional film critic. I don't get paid to go to movies and to then review them. (Dammit...) I do this kind of thing because I love movies and always have. And I love discussing movies and always have. And while I saw a lot of new films this past year and loved a lot of what I saw, I by no means saw everything. There are some titles--as of this writing--that I either haven't yet had a chance to see or that haven't yet been released in the United States: Movies like the great Kelly Reichardt's Showing Up, Cord Jefferson's American Fiction, Aki Kaurismaki's Fallen Leaves, the legendary Victor Erice's "coming-out-of-retirement" film Close Your Eyes, Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things, and the masterful German director Wim Wenders' latest film, Perfect Days. Had I already seen a few of these films--and others that come to mind--I feel fairly certain they would be appearing somewhere on the list below. As it is, though, I haven't seen everything, and so several fine films are unavoidably absent. This is the way.]

Maybe some of these films--most of them--could be considered some of the best movies of the year, across the board. But maybe not.... Whatever the case, these are the ones I liked the most. In a year that turned out to be chock full of great movies, these are the movies I thought were the greatest--the films that worked most effectively (for me, anyway) at keeping the wonderful art of cinema alive.

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* The films below are listed alphabetically, by the filmmakers' last names.

10 FAVORITE FILMS OF 2023

 

Asteroid City -- Wes Anderson

Anyone who knows me (a little or a lot) probably knows what a fan I am of Wes Anderson's films. If we're close and we've "talked film" before, there's a chance his name and his work has come up in conversation. If someone has followed this blog for any time and has read my year-end movie reviews in the past, you will possibly recognize my devotion to Anderson's films in my annual list of the year's favorites. I don't do this just to be stubborn or because I feel I need to live up to some precedent set by myself. I do it because I genuinely admire him as a distinct film artist (one of the most distinct film artists--with one of the most distinctive visions and visual styles of storytelling--working in the world today). His work is entertaining, thoughtful, and important to me.

But my opinion of him and of his films is not shared by everyone. I know that. And I understand why. The vaunted "Wes Anderson Style"--practiced and perfected since his debut in 1996 with Bottle Rocket, the elaborated feature-film version of his original college-student short--has, for many viewers, really grown tiresome and thin over the decades. But I'm a holdout: I'm still a big fan. I'm still all in. And Anderson's 11th feature film this past year sees him hitting a new benchmark, I believe, in visual storytelling, narrative structure, and thematic exploration of many of his familiar concerns (loss, grief, family, loneliness, despair, community, acceptance, love).

Priscilla -- Sofia Coppola

Sofia Coppola's dizzyingly lovely-and-tough interpretation of Priscilla Presley's 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me, is wonderful, charming, disarming, sad, and impressive as hell. Like the book it's based on, Coppola's film offers a close look at the relationship between Priscilla and the King of Rock-and-Roll, spanning the years of 1959 (when 14-year old Priscilla Beaulieu was first introduced to the world's biggest music star of the day...10 years her senior [Aside: yes, the creepiness factor of 24-year old Elvis grooming the young, beautiful freshman in high school is a little hard to watch in 2023]), to 1973, when Priscilla decides to leave Elvis in the depth of his drunken, drugged-out stupor of fame and celebrity. It is a smart, clever, stylish, insightful film--familiar trademarks of Coppola's finest work--with top-shelf acting from its leads (Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi), ethereal cinematography from Philipe Le Sourd, and Coppola's usual brilliance as director.

Like Wes Anderson above, Sofia Coppola is a somewhat divisive filmmaker who can separate audiences into at least two different camps. You either buy into her dreamy, shoe-gazey, poetic visuals and her light-as-air narrative style, or you don't. I love her work. And Priscilla, her 8th feature film, is no exception. It's a strong return to form for her. It's one of her best films in years.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse -- Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers

I don't know that I found any movie more entertaining than this one in 2023. This thing is just flat-out fun, a laser-light fireworks show of all that contemporary animation can do. From beginning to end, wall-to-wall, the movie is packed--every corner of every frame--with details and delights that reward with each rewatch. But it's the human story--the characters' arcs, their journeys, their relationships with one another (husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, young love, obligations, parents, children, responsibilities, fear, anger, resentment, reconciliation)--that really makes this movie pay off. 

The second "Act" of any classical 3-part story structure is generally the most important to a well-told story. A third film (Act III) of this Spider-verse story is currently under production. I can't imagine how the filmmakers are going to top this installment of the trilogy. (But I look forward to finding out.)

May December -- Todd Haynes

It's possible the same could be said of filmmaker Todd Haynes what American novelist/essayist John Updike once famously said of fellow author J.D. Salinger (of The Catcher in the Rye fame): "He loves his characters more than God does."

From Safe (1995), to Velvet Goldmine (1998), to I'm Not There (2007), to Carol (2015), to 2023's May December, Haynes has consistently explored risky, or dangerous, or transgressive themes and characters and narratives. He does the same here in his examination of truth and artifice, as well as the artifice in truth, and the truth in artifice. And running through all of it are the strong performances that one has come to expect in a Haynes film--particularly this time from the two female leads, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, both of whom have received their share of much-deserved pre-Awards buzz.

The Boy and the Heron (original Japanese title:

How Do You Live?) -- Hayao Miyazaki

Legendary Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki supposedly announced his retirement in 2013, following the release of his own Studio Ghibli's 20th feature film, The Wind Rises--an animated historical biopic with some (not entirely uncommon) autobiographical touches from the film's then 72-year old writer/director.

Regarding retirement, Miyazaki changed his mind. And now, 10 years later, the 82-year old filmmaker has released his latest concoction of autobiography, dream imagery, myth, fantasy, war, love, familial strains, friendship, atonement. It's all here on display. Familiar themes, familiar character types, familiar plot devices, familiar imagery. And while for some this may come across, finally, as a bit derivative and less-than his greatest work, I find it to be the same thing that a great artist like Monet was getting at with his countless waterlilies, and train stations, and haystacks in the rolling pastures of rural France. Miyazaki is an old master at his craft, and he is one of the world's great living filmmakers. And The Boy and the Heron is a late-career celebration of the man's unique vision and artistry--an important addition to his oeuvre.

Oppenheimer -- Christopher Nolan

No lesser Hollywood heavyweight than legendary writer/director Paul Schrader declared Christopher Nolan's latest film, Oppenheimer, to be "the greatest film of the century."

Now, that is a lot.

And while in many ways such a statement is more than likely a case of recency-biased hyperbole, you will swear--while sitting in the audience for Nolan's 3-hour intimate epic of the man and his "device" that changed the world--that maybe Schrader is onto something....

This is a damned good film. It's a great film. I believe this is Nolan's best work. And Cillian Murphy, unforgettable in his performance of the title character, is almost sure to win awards. It's a monumental achievement all the way around. If it's not the "movie of the century," it certainly feels like it.

The Holdovers -- Alexander Payne

I love Alexander Payne's films. More than likely, if the average, casual filmgoer were asked to mention a handful of the great American movies over the past 25 years, chances are Payne's filmography would not come to mind. (And therein, ironically, lies part of the secret of his artistry and his greatness.)

Citizen Ruth (1996). Election (1999). About Schmidt (2002). Sideways (2004). The Descendants (2011). Nebraska (2013)....

Payne hails from the center of the country itself--the plains of Nebraska--and it is decidedly this quiet, unassuming, not-wanting-to-draw-attention-to-itself Midwest sensibility that informs all of his films and makes them the quiet, unassuming, masterful works of art that they are. You will not find flashy camera movement in his movies. Nor edgy editing or narrative playfulness. And this surface "simplicity" and minimalistic storytelling approach is deceptive. Because every one of those titles listed above is a great film. Payne makes distinctly American films, yes, but they are also saturated with his love of 1960's French and Italian films, as well as his love of the films from the great early-1970's cinema renaissance in America. Even in this work, his latest, you feel vibes from the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, and from Hal Ashby, and from Michelangelo Antonioni, and from Robert Altman. It doesn't unnecessarily call attention to itself, but these influences are all over The Holdovers. It is its lifeblood.

This is a wonderful film. I love this movie.

Killers of the Flower Moon -- Martin Scorsese

I texted friends, upon seeing Martin Scorsese's film adaptation of David Grann's great 2017 book of journalistic reportage of the same name, something along the lines of: "I don't know if this is the best American film of the year, or if it's the equivalent of the mythic 'Great American Novel,' but it certainly is, quite possibly, 'The Great American Movie.'"

With a sweeping statement like that, I didn't mean that Scorsese's latest is the greatest American film ever made (although the proverbial "jury" is still out, I suppose). I meant, more, that it is--philosophically, maybe--the greatest film about America ever made....

(Again...the jury is out. But we'll see.)

This is a beautiful, harsh, ugly, lovely, sensitive, painful, violent, honest, terrible, wonderful movie about the truth at the heart of the "greatness" that a country like America has always (vocally, anyway) aspired to. Scorsese has dedicated the bulk of his storied career to studying, in depth, the painful beauty of greed, and sin, and hatred, and love. At 81 years of age, he has never stopped pushing the envelope. He is a risk-taker, a maverick, a genius. And this is one of the best films of his legendary career. It is a late masterpiece.

Past Lives -- Celine Song

This is the one movie that genuinely moved me more than any film this past year. It is simple in its presentation. It is minimalistic in its style and its approach. It is narratively straight-forward in the layout of its story, and its characters, and its "conflict."

But...wow...does this thing work. It sneaks up on you. It's so affecting and so graceful and so powerful in its unmannered manner. The humanity expressed within its carefully regulated story. The scale of emotion--both expressed and repressed--among its trio of central characters. It's enough to make you hold your breath for fear that you might knock the whole thing over.

And then the film's last moments....

Suffice to say, the closing scene knocked my (emotional) legs out from under me. I was a wreck in the movie theater. (I'm man enough to admit that.) 

Past Lives could very easily be my favorite movie of the year. Period. End stop. (A masterpiece. Undoubtedly.) Hailing from the theater, this is, amazingly, Celine Song's film debut as writer/director. I look forward to whatever she does next.

Anatomy of a Fall -- Justine Triet

Courtroom dramas are naturally designed to play out as great theater. All the classic narrative structures and character types are naturally in place--the conflict, the archetypal antagonist and protagonist--as well as the arcs of the various people in the story. It's all there:  A perfect display of Storytelling 101.

French film writer/director Justine Triet is at the top of her game here with the deceptively simple/complicated study of love, hatred, marriage, parenthood, children, vengeance, love, and dogs (Oh my God, Snoop....)

In many ways, this movie haunted me like no other. It wouldn't leave me alone in the days and weeks after viewing it--a masterful film. And lead actress Sandra Huller delivers (I think) the greatest acting performance of the year. She is phenomenal. I hope she is recognized at awards time.

This is a great movie. I still can't stop thinking about it.

___________________

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Four Short Films: Roald Dahl -- Wes Anderson

A hell of a year for Anderson. Stylistically, visually, and narratively brilliant. Check it out. (To my knowledge, only available on Netflix.)

Squaring the Circle: The Story of Hipgnosis -- Anton Corbin

As a lifetime fan of Pink Floyd, The Alan Parsons Project, Peter Gabriel, etc., I was naturally drawn to this documentary film about the history of the London art-design company that created some of the most memorable, historic, iconic rock album covers of all time.

Fascinating.

The Iron Claw -- Scott Durkin

Maybe only fellow filmmaker Christopher Nolan held he same passion to make his film this year as did Scott Durkin in his loving telling of the tragic true story of the doomed Von Erich family from the 1980s world of professional wrestling....

Quite simply, if this story weren't real, you wouldn't believe it. (Seriously.) This is heartbreaking stuff--breathtaking, moving, and great.

Good storytelling. Good acting. Good filmmaking. I like it.

Barbie -- Greta Gerwig

Okay. Here it is: The one everyone's been waiting for.... (I know. This film is supposed to be higher up on the list, right?)

Anyway, I did not forget this film, the ridiculously popular pink-half of the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon that defined "Summer 2023" at the movies.

To be clear: I liked this movie. (Notice I did not say I loved it, though.) It is a funny movie, It is bright. It is intelligent. It is witty. It is self-referential and self-parodying. (But, in my opinion, for all its strengths, it gets a little too serious and sanctimonious for a movie with the name Barbie in the title.) Still, though, its screenplay, its production design, its performances, it direction...this movie works, for the most part, and is a fun memory of the year that was.

The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House

-- Hirokazu Kore-eda

Based on the long-running manga series of books, Kiyo in Kyoto, masterful Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda (After Life [1998], Still Walking [2008], Shoplifters [2018]) brings to life this simple story told simply in his typically beautiful, humanistic style. An extended series presented on Netflix over the past year, this "movie" is a touching, thought-provoking, sensitive, and moving portrayal of good people being good people and doing good things for one another.

(This thing made me smile and tear up more than once, I must admit....)

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny -- James Mangold

I know. I know.... Stop it. (I'm sure I'm the only person to include this movie on an end-of-year "Favorites" list, I know. Still....) In my defense, I will say only this:

I enjoyed this movie. Was it perfect? No. Was it great? No. Were there weak spots and faults? Of course--absolutely. And yet....

The movie was good. Did it make me smile and laugh? Yes. Did it make me choke up a time or two (seriously)? Yes, it did. Did it make me happy to have witnessed the arc of Harrison Ford's development/resolution of this classic film character that he helped to create over the past 40 years, resulting in a somewhat reasonable and satisfying close?

Yes. Yes. And definitely yes. (I don't apologize for this.)

Godland -- Hylanur Palmason

A young Danish priest in the late-19th century--with an old-fashioned camera (tripod, and black-caped hood, etc.)--travels through the rural lands of Iceland to start a church in a far-flung no-man's land corner of the country, taking posed photos of the locals along the way.

A startlingly stark, vivid, ephemeral, tense, and visually stunning film. The cinematography, alone, is some of the best I saw in 2023. The landscapes are astounding, and the compositions throughout the film are beautiful, and harsh, and threatening, and breathtaking, and unforgettable.

Godzilla Minus One -- Takashi Yamazaki

Maybe the biggest pleasant surprise of the past year for me in the movie theater--this is a surprisingly wonderful and exhilarating film. I'm a film buff, yes, but admittedly was never a huge fan of the legendary Godzilla series; nevertheless, this new film takes up the mantle of resurrecting--with a perfectly straight face and a disarmingly affecting human story on the side--the atomic-age monster-from-the-deep and his requisite tale of rage and revenge.

Minimal budget. Fun screenplay. Great direction, and acting, and production values, etc. And the result is timeless. As strange as it may sound in 2023, this is a fantastic Godzilla movie.

Artificial Intelligence

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--"

    -- John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

"Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,

Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams

And our desires...."

   -- Wallace Stevens, "Sunday Morning"

----------

I bought an artificial houseplant,

so new its green the kind of green--

leaf and stem, unwashed and unused to

soil and sunshine and soft

fickle nature of nature,

still-life, sedate, unchanging, unmoved--

it lacks only, it seems, a passion of life.

No need for watering this kind of plant,

with no deepening roots to drink the air,

no open-mouth yawn for sunlight,

no biology exploding deep unseen

in its burning furnace of life,

no miracle of science and wild.

I moved the plant from its place,

this false fern play-pretending at truth

turned a slight rotation only, a hairbreadth change of angle.

And it was then I saw

a spot--

a single black streak on leaf,

something colorless, shapeless,

an ungreen something

      unplanned,

      a mistake in design,

      functionform

               meaningless,

no defined purpose,

      definition undefined.

Something real,

this spot,

left turned away from the sun now,

facing outward now

this stain,

this imperfection,

this blemish in production,

this reality,

the author's mark now

facing me.

Finding Our Way Back: Watching Films in 2022

"To find something, anything, a great truth or a lost pair of glasses, you must first believe there will be some advantage in finding it."

--  Jack Burden, All the King's Men (1949), Dir. Robert Rossen

"Big things have small beginnings...."

--  T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dir. David Lean

____________________

It's happening.

It began slowly enough, tentatively at first, just a few smatterings of "lines" and "crowds" [Aside: if we stretch the meanings of those words a little, I suppose] beginning to gather at the local multi-screen movie theaters. In the days, weeks, and months during the height (or low-point, if you'd rather) of the COVID-19 pandemic, movie theaters resembled haunted ghost towns more than they did the sprawling, colorful, bustling home of communal movie-watching that we perhaps remembered from days gone by.

Movie theaters stayed open during the pandemic--most of them anyway--and being the cineaste that I am I kept sniffing them out, checking online every week to see what was currently showing. During the days, weeks, and months of COVID-19, theaters were half-staffed (if that)--still open...but barely. At the time, your local movie-house was offering a few new films (made and released before the industry was shut down, obviously), as well as a few second-run offerings (a chance to catch a movie that you perhaps didn't see when it was initially released). 

In a few instances, as well, theaters were showing revivals of some older classics: Perhaps it was Michael Curtiz's Casablanca (1942); or Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959); or Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941); or Mel Stuart's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971); or Ridley Scott's Alien (1979); or Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949); or Robert Mulligan's To Kill a Mockingbird (1962); or Victor Fleming's Gone With the Wind (1939); or Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); or Hiyao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2002).... 

Not bad.

I remember one such weekend I was sitting in the semi-darkened theater shortly before the start of William Friedkin's 1973 The Exorcist--along with, literally, two or three other people [Aside: obviously two other sad, pathetic, boring "cineastes" such as myself, with nothing better to do, I guess, on a Sunday afternoon]--and I had a fleeting moment of thinking: "What in the hell am I doing? What is going on here?"

Still, movie theaters survived. It might have seemed like they were on life-support at times--intubated, themselves--but in one form or another they pulled through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first signs I saw of the EKG's little heartbeep-blip for movie theaters was with the 2021 release of the less-than-spectacular Godzilla vs. Kong. Though a ridiculous movie, it was still kind of fun in its over-the-top, "we-know-this-is-terrible-but-just-sit-back-and-enjoy-yourself-anyway" sort of way. For the first time since the pandemic began and the theaters saw a precipitous drop in business, there was a legitimate crowd at the theater for this movie. 

[Aside: Leave it to two of the greatest classic movie monsters of all time to drag audiences back into public space, back to the movies. As bad as Godzilla vs. Kong was--and it was bad--there was something about what it accomplished that couldn't help but put a smile on your face.]

In the meantime, of course, many things were happening around the world on the movie-watching front--and all of it outside and away from the local movie theaters. As if to build on Aristotle's classical theory of physics, horror vacui (or "plenism")--which has something to do with nature hating a vacuum (otherwise known as "an empty space") and thereby nature rushing in to fill it--online streaming services have exploded in popularity and availability. Everyone's home is now literally a personal movie theater: practically anything you want to watch, at anytime, is merely the click-of-a-button away. It could not be easier.

There is even the weird hybrid these days, too, of movies being released in theaters and on streaming services concurrently, or else released in the theaters for a few weeks and then released on streaming.

And while it's true that even though something is gained from this easiness of staying at home and watching movies in your sweatpants and your recliner, something is inevitably lost, as well. Many of the movies that I list below were watched at home. (So, I get it.) But several of the movies were watched in the theater, too. Not just because I'm some kind of annoying purist romanticizing the big-screen, communal experience found at the local movie-house (although there is something to all of that.) I still have maintained my love for "going to the movies" at the local movie theater simply because....

Well, just because.

And I don't seem to be alone in that passion for the "going-to-the-movies" experience. It seems to be making a drastic comeback, this idea of returning to the movie theater. We seem to be returning to at least that sort of "normal," anyway. At least a little bit. It may never return to what it was in pre-pandemic days (because at-home movie-streaming is here to stay and will only continue to grow), but with huge recent hits like Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water movie theaters are crowded again, and showings are filled and/or sold out, and the buzz around seeing certain extravaganzas on the biggest screen possible with the greatest sound possible is once again a thing.

Who knows what direction all of this is going? But enthusiasm seems to be back for the movies. Either that or it never went away. Regardless, as audiences wanting and needing and loving to fill up on movies, we seem to be getting our share--one way or another. And one way or another, either by literally "going to the movies" again or by staying home and letting the movies come to us, we are finding our way back.

* * The following list is in two parts--favorite films I saw in 2022, as well as a handful of others that I liked a great deal for reasons of their own.

* * The following movies are ordered alphabetically by their titles.

____________________

(1).  2022 Films: "Best Of"

All Quiet on the Western Front  (2022) -- Dir. Edward Berger

Erich Maria Remarque's timeless 1929 novel All Quiet on the Western Front possibly created the whole "anti-war" genre with the desperation, sadness, despair, futility, and death running through its brutally realistic scenes of the insanity and horror of W.W. I trench-warfare fought along the "western front" bordering Germany and France.

The novel has been adapted for the screen--large and small--many times (sometimes more successfully than others). Berger's film is visually and emotionally stunning. It is devastating, of course, as any film carrying this title should be. 

I was struck, though, by just how different this adaptation is from Remarque's source-material: While Berger's film keeps many of the same characters and certain key scenes and plot points of the novel, much of it really isn't Remarque's novel at all. Through most of the film, I felt this All Quiet on the Western Front had more in common with Sam Mendes' 2019 W.W. I masterpiece 1917 than the original novel of which it is loosely based and shares a title.

None of this is a criticism or a complaint, however, merely an artistic observation. In the end Berger's film is a creative re-molding/re-telling of Remarque's famous book; it maintains the spirit of the written source, and by its close you will feel the same horror, the same emptiness, the same revulsion, the same sense of waste, the same hatred of war that Remarque wanted you to feel in his original work. This is an All Quiet on the Western Front for 2022. Many of its scenes and images will linger with you long after the film is over. It will have an effect on you. You may be shocked. You may find yourself sickened. And by its inevitable, inescapable closing scenes you may even cry. 

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) -- Dir. Martin McDonagh

The son of Irish parents, Martin McDonagh was raised in London and first made his name as a young, burgeoning playwright on the London theater scene. With plays like The Lonesome West (1997), The Cripple of Inishman (1997), and The Pillowman (2003) he gained notice for his wordplay, his wit, and his ability to turn his stories and his characters on a dime, revealing uncharted depths not yet explored.

He soon made a name for himself in the movies as well, writing and directing his own screenplays, including In Bruges (2008), Seven Psychopaths (2012), and the Academy Award-nominated Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017). 

2022's The Banshees of Inisherin is his first film since Three Billboards, and (seeing as how I thought Three Billboards was ridiculously overrated) this is the far superior film--perhaps his masterpiece, in fact.

The unique McDonagh dialogue--the sharp Irish wit, the turns-of-phrase, the joy, the sadness, the ability to leave an audience wanting to use the word "feck" in all of its wonderful grammatical forms--is just right throughout the film. The stunning cinematography. The performances--leading and supporting--as well as the music by Carter Burwell all set the stage for a warm, menacing, uplifting, tragic, funny, sad rumination on the nature of friendship, of community, of love, and longing, and loss, and faith, and revenge, and war.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) -- Dirs. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Full disclosure: When I first saw this movie, I wasn't sure I liked it. I wasn't sure what to think of it, to be honest. I wasn't sure what I was thinking at all, really, particularly during my initial viewing. 

So much comes at the viewer so quickly, without let-up, without time to catch up on whatever plot development or character development you might have just missed, there is no time to process, to fully absorb, to think even. Images, ideas, movement, sound, all coming at you--literally--everything, everywhere, all at once (to coin a phrase).

I've heard it said that this is possibly the first feature film to fully attempt replicating the experience of what being on the internet is like. (If we want to go back a bit further to 1999, it could be argued that The Matrix might have been the first film to seriously scratch the surface of this idea, possibly....)

Don't get me wrong: I like this movie. I wasn't sure that I did at first, but on a repeated viewing--after having some time to think about the film, and to talk about it with others, and to process it, the film began to take on a shape for me--it clicked into place, more and more.

The movie is kind of like the experience of being online, to be sure, which is a very strange thing for these bright, young filmmakers to have accomplished. And then to do all of the technical/editing wizardry while at the same time telling a very human, ultimately moving family drama. (This is, in fact, the movie's most impressive accomplishment, I think. For example: The quiet, meditative scene with the rocks overlooking the canyon is on a shortlist of one of the greatest film moments of the year.)

What brought the biggest smile to my face at the movies this year, though, was the return of Michelle Yeoh (garnering the most glowing reviews of her esteemed career), the return of veteran actor James Hong (always a delight), and the celebrated return of Ke Huy Quan ("Short Round" for fans of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as well as "Data" for The Goonies fans)--and all of them sharing moments onscreen together.

The movie can be exhausting (it's true), but it is finally, also, exhilarating. That is a rare combination. 

[Aside: But, then again, see RRR below.]

The Fabelmans (2022) -- Dir. Steven Spielberg

It is no secret that over the long course of his career, Steven Spielberg has threaded personal elements of his own life into the body of his work, addressing various memories, thoughts, emotions, fears, angers, and anxieties, working them out onscreen, and resolving them with a Hollywood ending at times--a full emotional outpouring of grace, forgiveness, hope, and redemption, eliciting a sense of closure and meaning that, let's face it, usually only happens in the movies.

Themes of divorce, broken families, lost children, abandonment, the saving grace of one's imagination, of one's dreams, the power of hope. This is all in the fabric of his films over the years: The Sugarland Express (1974); Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977); E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982); The Color Purple (1985); Empire of the Sun (1987); A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001).... 

I could go on.

He is certainly no stranger to incorporating autobiographical elements into his art. But never before has Spielberg so intentionally set about detailing (albeit still a shadowy "fiction," of sorts) the story of his youth--his growing up in Arizona, and his parents' splintered marriage, and their eventual divorce, and his early love of movies, and his grappling with his Jewishness and the pervading anti-Semitism of his teenage years, and always his preternatural gifts of experimental, homemade filmmaking beginning at an early age. A form of escape for him, yes, but also--and more importantly--a way for him to control the uncontrollable and to fashion the world the way he wanted it to be.

This is a uniquely personal movie--even for a filmmaker like Steven Spielberg who has spent his life making unique, personal movies.

Fleishman is in Trouble (2022) -- Prod. Taffy Brodesser-Akner 

Journalist/editor/novelist Taffy Brodesser-Akner published this, her first novel, Fleishman is in Trouble, in 2019, and I loved it. At the time I was reading it I felt she had either been looking over my shoulder since my divorce in the long-ago days of 2004 or had somehow found a way to tap into my mind--my thoughts, my memories, my bank of feelings regarding the whole expansive universe of divorce: rejection and pain and sadness and loss and lostness... I thought the book was extraordinary. I thought it was an honest and revealing contemporary take on a tricky subject matter.

But it's what Brodesser-Akner accomplishes about 2/3 of the way through her novel that impressed me even more--a "flipped-script" meta plot-twist that I did not see coming and that (as a reader) changed my perception of everything that preceded and followed it.

Brodesser-Akner oversaw the movie-adaptation of the novel and decided on the long-form storytelling approach. (When I was young, classics like Roots, and Shogun, and The Winds of War created the template for something called the "mini-series." Now, in today's streaming world, the same thing is more commonly referred to as a "limited series.") Whatever you want to call it, this 8-part, episodic retelling of her novel is fantastic. 

The writing, carried out by Brodesser-Akner herself, is brilliant. The directing--from various contributing filmmakers--is spot on. And the casting is perfect. The film's three leads shine--Jesse Eisenberg (giving some of the most heartfelt work of his career), and Lizzy Caplan (whom I had to look up because I wasn't familiar with her), and most notably Claire Danes (whom I have always loved and who impresses me here in ways she's never done before; she is exceptional in her turn as Rachel Fleishman, and I hope she is recognized for her work at awards time).

I know this isn't the typical sort of film normally mentioned this time of year in the same breath as most movies rounded up for "best-of" lists. But all the same, I'm including it. (And come to think of it, Ingmar Bergman released some of his finest late-career films--including Scenes from a Marriage and Fanny and Alexander--originally as multi-episode series on Swedish television. So if those movies are accepted as "great films," in whatever form they take, then maybe the rulebook can go out the window.)

Regardless of whatever type of movie we want to call it, Fleishman is in Trouble moved me, made me laugh, made me shake my head knowingly, made me cringe, made me care, played upon my expectations, played with filmic structure, and--put simply--was one of my favorite movie-watching experiences of this past year.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) -- Dir. Rian Johnson

Rian Johnson's Knives Out (2019) was one of my favorite movies of that year. A wickedly fun tribute to the classic Agatha Christie murder-mystery template, Johnson's first contribution to Christie's original world saw a typically dysfunctional group of crackpots assembled in a country mansion, an untimely murder, followed by Johnson's own Hercule Poirot, Daniel Craig's wonderful Shelby Foote-by-way-of-Foghorn Leghorn world-class detective, Benoit Blanc.

Johnson's follow-up three years later (delayed by the pandemic) is an unsurprisingly fun return to the files of Benoit Blanc and its exaggerated milieu of madness, murder, and mayhem.

I'm not sure this one is quite as much fun as the original film, but I'm also not sure if that's because Knives Out came out first and has the benefit of originality bias. Whatever the case, this is a wonderful return to Johnson's take on the "Whodunnit?" genre. As long as Rian Johnson is willing to churn out these stories and Daniel Craig is willing to return as this great comedic sleuth, I'm all in.

Nope (2022) -- Dir. Jordan Peele

This is a thought-provoking  and mysterious meditation from Jordan Peele on our popular culture of passive audiences quietly feeding on a steady diet of "spectacle" via the media, the internet, and even films themselves. Peele is hitting his stride here as an insightful, challenging filmmaker--a provocateur, in every sense of the word. 

With Nope, only his third film, he is in fine form. In his brief filmography, Peele really hasn't hit a wrong note yet. 2017's Get Out surprised everyone with its razor-sharp satirical take on race relations in America in the guise of a slow-burn, old-fashioned horror tale. Us (2019) upped the ante a bit, perhaps--wider in its reach yet no less lacerating in what it had to say about a fractured modern society, all in the guise, again, of contemporized terror.

This time, the horror is front and center, hitting us hard from the film's shocking opening and not letting up with its growing sense of hovering (literally) dread and unease. This is a movie about the weight of trauma, the inability to elude memory, and our attempts to control the modern-day terrors of our everyday world. Peele is on a roll.

The Northman (2022) -- Dir. Robert Eggers

You don't just watch a Robert Eggers movie, you live in it for a while. You get used to its rhythms, its paces, it ways of talk, its movement, its mannerisms, its compositions, its colors and shadings, its music, its melodies, its whispers, its screams, its heavens, and its horrors....

And then you come out of it and you suddenly are forced to re-enter your own world again. 

Like Jordan Peele above, here we have another young filmmaker with this, only his third feature, following the remarkable one-two debut punch of The Witch (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019). Put simply, Eggers makes movies today that are distinctly his own; it is safe to say that his filmography, to date, is not quite like any other living director's. 

His scripts and production designs are deeply and thoroughly researched into the histories and the locales and the cultures of the stories he tells. They are detailed, and dense, and you need to pay attention, and you need to follow closely, and you definitely can benefit from watching them more than once. 

The Northman, his "Viking epic," is no exception--it is extraordinarily rich. And Eggers is supposedly following it with a retelling of F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent German-expressionist horror classic Nosferatu. (This sounds to me like a perfect fit of story and storyteller.)

RRR (2022) -- Dir. S.S. Rajamouli

I really had no idea what to expect with S.S. Rajamouli''s RRR, beyond the positive buzz I'd heard and read leading up to seeing it.

I had no way to predict how much fun this movie would be, how entertained I would be from beginning to end, and how much I would smile during its 182-minute runtime.

And the moustaches... Did I mention the moustaches?

This movie is unlike anything I saw this past year. [Aside: Hell, I think this movie is unlike anything I've ever seen....] Part historical period-piece, part romance, part bromance, part family drama, part coming-out-of-nowhere "Bollywood" musical, and full-on 120% action extravaganza, RRR is like a pure shot of adrenaline directly to the heart. 

I don't recall the last time I've been this surprised by a film, nor the last time I've had so much fun with a three-hour epic, nor the last time I've bothered all my friends with repeatedly saying, "I know you're going to think I'm crazy, but...you've GOT to see this thing to believe it!"

TAR (2022) -- Dir. Todd Field

A recurring theme among some of this year's better films seems to be: A brilliant filmmaker releases a great third film to the world in 2022....

Add writer/director Todd Field to the list. With a film resume' like In the Bedroom (2001), Little Children (2006), and now what I think is his masterpiece, TAR, a few things are apparent: Todd Field is certainly eclectic in the subjects of his films; he is not (obviously) going to be hurried to make his art; and he damn well knows what he's doing.

TAR is another one of those movies that is mysterious, and humorous, and disturbing, and intriguing on its first watch, and on its second watch you notice things, see things, hear things that you either missed before or weren't able to piece together before. (I imagine this only increases with each repeated viewing.)

Much has been said about Cate Blanchett's celebrated Lydia Tar, and deservedly so. It's been called her "best work" and a "career-defining performance." Such accolades are not wrong. She is phenomenal here--it's fun (and also frightening) to watch her sink her teeth in this role. Blanchett is a seasoned actor--one of the greatest that we have-- digging into character, fully committed, fully giving all of herself for the dark, twisted performance of a lifetime.

(2.)  2022 Films: Honorable Mentions

Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (2022) -- Dir. Richard Linklater

If all one knows of contemporary American filmmaker Richard Linklater is his 1993 breakout hit, Dazed and Confused, which follows the graduating class of 1976 on the last day of school in Austin, Texas, that would probably be okay. But then you would be missing out on Linklater's amazing catalog of filmwork--a catalog of movies ranging from his indie-defining debut three years earlier, Slacker (1990), filmed on a 16 mm Arriflex camera with a budget of only $23,000, to his "Before" Trilogy (1995-2013), starring Ethan Hawke and Julia Delpy, to his ambitious, 12-years-in-the-making intimate epic Boyhood (2014), etc.

Linklater is a chameleon of a filmmaker; he is comfortable in various genres, exploring different types of films, and expanding his already expansive oeuvre. As a result, then, he is often misunderstood. He has--from the beginning--been a film artist concerned with profound things: the notion of time, the passage of time, and our perception--unfixed and changing--of our passing through time, as well as our memories of it.

This "little" film--his latest--is a delightful and touching bit of animated autobiography (to a degree) from Linklater, reminiscing about a Texas boyhood, and big dreams of a world away, all set in the summer of the Apollo moon landing.

The Batman (2022) -- Matt Reeves

When I first saw the trailer for this--the inevitable latest iteration of Bob's Kane's midnight vigilante--I thought, "Oh my God, another one? Again? So soon?"

I was not entirely looking forward to this. Even though Robert Pattinson has come into his own in recent years and is impressing me as an actor who can hold his own with anybody onscreen (i.e. Robbert Eggers' 2019 Persona-esque masterpiece The Lighthouse). And even though I have been a fan of Matt Reeves' work, going back to 2008's Cloverfield. And even though this new Batman's trailer looked kind of interesting and even pretty cool...still, I had reason to be hesitant.

And then I heard that Cat Woman would be played by Zoe Kravitz. And The Riddler, played by Paul Dano. And The Penguin, played by Colin Farrell. [Aside: Colin Farrell--let's just say it--had one hell of an impressive year at the movies. Go ahead...Google it. Not only this film but also The Banshees of Inisherin (see above), Thirteen Lives, and After Yang. Remarkable.]

But along with an impressive cast like this, though, I also heard that the film's proposed running time would be close to 180 minutes, which prompted my next thought: "No movie with the word 'Batman' in the title needs to be three hours long."

And  then the movie came out. And (although I still stand by my rule on the relationship between the word "Batman" and a film's length) I was more than pleasantly surprised. 

Blonde (2022) -- Dir. Andrew Dominik

This is undoubtedly the most controversial film on my list this year, and I would be surprised if it is mentioned among others' favorite movies of 2022.

And yet...here it is for me.

It is an imperfect film: It is too long; there are scenes and sequences that could be trimmed (if not cut altogether); I have questions about some of the film's pacing, as well as questions regarding one or two particularly notorious shots/edits. (Yes...those.)

But still.... I think the storm of controversy that exploded around the film is unfair and misplaced. I think what Andrew Dominik was setting out to do was brave and brilliant. And for the most part I feel he succeeded.

Based on the 2000 novel by Joyce Carol Oates, the film intimately portrays the sad, tortured life and career of Marilyn Monroe (a.k.a. "Norma Jean"). For me, the movie is a post-#metoo takedown of patriarchal, chauvinist, sexist, privileged, power-elite, Harvey Weinstein Hollywood. Though criticized for its supposedly unfair handling and "male-gazing" treatment of its star subject, I find the accusations to be off-the-mark.--particularly attacks against Ana de Armas and her portrayal of Monroe. She is strikingly brave in her performance here. (Though the film may have its flaws, she is not one of them. She is wonderful as Monroe and deserves to be recognized for her work.)

Dominik's 2007 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a great movie, one of my favorite films of that year. He has shown before an inclination to explore themes of the cult of fame and the nature of celebrity--what it is, what some will do for it, and what it will inevitably do to them. He is still chasing after those themes.

Crimes of the Future (2022) -- Dir. David Cronenberg

It's fair to say there are not many directors like David Cronenberg. At 79 years old, he is still hard at work and still just as polarizing a filmmaker as ever. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Cronenberg emerged from "the Great White North" with some arty student films in the early 1970s but soon made his name (sort of, for those who saw it anyway) with his first feature release Shivers (1975).

From the beginning, his films were known for their low budgets, their weak "acting," and their cheap-looking effects. But despite that, his films were also known for their innate ability to create an incomparable feeling of dread and disgust--what would later come to be known as its own underground genre of "body horror."

Bigger, more expensive, more expansive, and more successful films would soon follow: Scanners (1981); Videodrome (1983); The Dead Zone (1983); The Fly (1986); Crash (1996); A History of Violence (2005); Eastern Promises (2007); et al. 

Like every artist, over the years some of his work has "landed" and some has not. But over the course of his career Cronenberg has never swerved from his dark, brooding, "body horror" vision. And this past year he returned in full glory with a film that only could have come from the mind of David Cronenberg.

[Aside: Reportedly, Cronenberg would even be considered (briefly) by George Lucas to direct Return of the Jedi (1983). That would, of course, not come to pass...which is probably for the best. For David Cronenberg's career, not to mention for Star Wars, as well. (Dear God...can you imagine?)]

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) -- Dir. Guillermo del Toro

Literally decades in the making, if this film doesn't define the terms "life's commitment" and "determination," I'm not sure what does.

Guillermo del Toro set his sights on the classic 1883 novel from Italian writer Carlo Collodi many years ago, knowing that he wanted to do his own movie-version of the famous, often-told tale.

And...wow...when Guillermo del Toro puts his name to the title of a film, he is not kidding. 

Visually stunning, yes, as you would expect from del Toro. But perhaps the most amazing thing about this stop-motion animated film--almost an impossibility, really--is that while watching it you are able to momentarily forget the famous (and infamous) screen iterations of Pinocchio over the years, and you feel, strangely, as if you are watching it all for the very first time.

All told, that is quite an accomplishment.