Best of 2022

(That's the best dance  number of the year)

I had some great things happen this year.

I got to meet one of my favorite actors of all time Hiroshi Abe.

I met director Shinji Higuchi who did Shin Ultraman and Shin Godzilla.

I met one of my favorite directors Marq Evans in person and his son and we got to talk vampire movies and NOSFERATU in particular.

And I got to interview another of my favorites Signe Bauman while sitting in a graveyard. It was  rescheduled interview that went way better than it would have had we not had to reschedule (this is one of my most favorite interviews I’ve ever done and one of the reasons I love Ms Bauman)

BEST BITS

Bill Nighy in LIVING is magnificent and the reason to see the film

S. S. Rajamouli director of RRR showing Hollywood how to make a movie and creating one of the greatest dance numbers ever put on film (see above).

The swarm sequence in UNTIL BRANCHES BEND, a sequence so amazing you will wonder how they did it

The 19 minute single take in RMN transcends fiction and will convince you the film is a documentary

Moments in del Torro's Pinocchio will reduce you to tears when you are screaming in terror

BEST WHOLE FILMS

TANTURA- the official history says nothing happened ... but stories say otherwise- As a historian I'm horrified how good people bury their past.

STRANGER THAN ROTTERDAM- A funny true story about what it took to get Stranger Than Paradise made

1946 THE MISTRANSLATION THAT SHIFTED A CULTURE is possibly the most important film of the decade or perhaps more. Its a crushing look at how the inability to translate a few words has caused death and destruction on a grand scale as being gay was wrongly made a blight in god's eye

ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They’ve Been Taught)- a life time of wisdom in 10 minutes

BRIAN AND CHARLES-a man builds a friend and gains the world

POPPY- a 97 minute smile as a young woman with Down’s Syndrome proves she is a force to in her own right

FIRE OF LOVE- The year’s best love story is also about volcanos.

FREEBIRD - I dare you not to cry during this look at the arc of a life a man with Downs Syndrome

REACHER- I don't watch series but an  8 hour killer thriller makes me say I want more

MAMA HAS A MOUSTACHE- children talk about their parents with love

FRANK AND EMMET one of the absolute best films of the year is about a friend saying goodbye. It will crush you

THIS MUCH I KNOW TO BE TRUE- Nick Cave in performance is a religious experience

 GETTING IT BACK: THE STORY OF CYMANDE the story of one of the most influential rock groups you never heard of but whose work you know.

FAVORITE DAUGHTER A magic story about mothers and a daughters.

CHILDREN OF THE MIST- a moving look at an out dated practice of getting a bride which answers the question should a filmmaker ever get involved. Yes, yes they should.

ONDONA-10,000 NIGHTS The story of a soldier who refused to come home for decades after the war ended.

VENGEANCE IS MINE ALL OTHERS PAY CASH-comedy action romance craziness of the best sort

OMOIYARI: A SONG FILM BY KISHI BASHI is an unexpected film that's part concert, part autobiography, part examination of the Japanese internment during WW2. Its all magic.

TROLL – who knew Norway could make a wicked giant monster film?

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON this deeply moving film about a shell and his grandmother will cause the kids to laugh and the parents to sob. A joy

THE LETTERMEN the true story of two men in love during the Second World War told via letters.

STRANGER AT THE GATE what happens when hate meets love? This is the moving story of a man who wanted to commit a massacre who was changed by meeting the people he was going to kill

TURN EVERY PAGE the story of Robert Caro and his editor as they work to finish one last book.

THE FORE-MEN- time traveling Science Fiction film that will leave you wanting more (a feature is coming)

INU-OH perhaps the best animated film of the year tells a story we haven’t see before in a way that makes us marvel.

IMMEDIATE FAMILY- the best backing band in the world tells the stories of their hits. Guaranteed to make you sing along

ENNIO seeing this bio of Ennio Morricone on the big screen was one of the greatest things I’ve ever experienced in a theater

CASA SUSANNA is a moving film about some trans women trying to find a place to be safe.

GARY MULE DEER: SHOW BUSINESS IS MY LIFE, I JUST CAN'T PROVE IT one of the funniest  men I’ve run across tells his story and tells jokes in the the year's best comedy

RETURN TO SEOUL – a gloriously unexpected film about a young woman trying to find her past and future.

The 'VOUS a glorious look at a BBQ place and the people who make it the place to be.

ALL THAT BREATHES a beautiful about men and birds

GOD DAMNED ASURA troubling drama about a crime and how it effects a number of people. It would rock your world

PRETTY PICKLE is a film that is wrong on so many levels

THE ROUND UP truly great action film kicks ass and takes names. If you need something until John Wick comes out do I have a film for you

MATTER OF TRUST a multi story drama about the levels of trust in our lives. It will haunt you for days

HEAVEN TO THE LAND OF HAPPINESS the greatest Choi Min Sik performance in a film about not wasting our time on earth

CAVE OF ADALLUM moving film about one man trying to change the world one person at a time

STORY OF BONES What do you do when the bones of slaves are in the way of progress? It’s a film about how the past affects the present

OUR FATHER THE DEVIL Chilling thriller was an unexpected discovery at Tribeca. Anyone who saw it was scarred by it and could stop talking about it

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH MARRIAGE Signe Bauman’s jaw dropping animated Broadway-esque musical. This isn’t an its medium but something transcendently alive. I wanted to stand and applaud when I saw it.

HALLELUJAH the story of Leonard Cohen’s song is glorious

NICHOLAS BROTHERS STORMY WEATHER we may never see the like of the Nicholas Brothers again but damn some people are gonna try.

HAULOUT late addition to this list is the tale of how the melting ice is dooming the walrus. Visually one of the greatest films I've seem in decades, its proof that the Academy and other awards groups are shorting the work of those making shorts, documentaries and short documentaries when it comes to cinematography

The most haunting image of 2022

2022 Horror and Genre films

 Last year I broke all the end of the year lists down by genre or subgenre, however this year I’m being lazy and I’m only going to discuss  the Horror and Science Fiction films and Festivals as separate genre. There are other great films but these are the films I’m recommending

The stand out HORROR films:

ARTIC VOID-Investigators are going to town up North where weird things are happening. This is a an example where a really good horror film is wrecked by the promotional material  which gives it all away and explains what is going on. If you can avoid the promotional material this is solid little film.

JETHICA- two friends reconnect, unfortunately there is something strange going on. This is a killer supernatural tale that isn’t scary so much as just great.

LEGIONS-  demonic horror film that takes things into unexpected places. Finding films like this is why Fantaspoa is such a great film.

CATCHING SPIRITS- awesome supernatural dance short about a girl who can capture spirits.

TRUSTING HANDS- seemingly nothing film about a woman and relaxation tape is one of the most disturbing films of the year. This is truly the magic of the movies.

NIGHT SIREN- Not the expected horror film. Yea it has to do with witches but the monsters are people. This transcends genre to be one of the great films of any sort this year (I’m putting it here because it will get eyes on the film more than any other list- this should be on the best of the year list)

FIXATIONS- mind twisting film requires that you stay with it. It’s a film that seems unremarkable until it suddenly makes perfect terrifying sense. This had me talking to the screen

The stand out SCIENCE FICTION films:

SAMARITAN- yes the Stallone film. Move away from the expectations and the clunkiness of some of the plotting and this reveals itself to be a killer superhero film.

VESPER is about a post-apocalyptic world where the environment is dead and the rich live in self-contained communities. This is not where we’ve been before but a world you will want to revisit.

LINOLEUM off kilter story of a man’s life and you really just have to go with this because it’s just Wow

The GENRE FESTS

A few quick word on the great genre festivals I love to cover every year. (I am not including fests like Sundance, New York Asian or Tribeca that have a section for genre films but whole festivals devoted to horror Scifi and other fun things.

Fantasia is the king of the festivals. I blame Ted Geoghegan for getting me hooked.  Years ago he sent me an email saying I should be covering the festival and it’s been downhill ever since.  Full of the best films from across the globe this is the place to see the BIG international films that will be important. I know some people will argue that Fantastic Fest is THE place, but that fest is simply too small to come close to what Fantasia does. Fantasia screens hundred of films and they are all worth a look. If you want to see the films that matter this is the place to go.

While I’m toting the horn of Mr Geoghegan I have to say that the last few years he has allowed me to get a taste of the fantastic Fantaspoa. This dark festival in Brazil is truly amazing. Every year it programs some of the craziest films that you don’t see anywhere else. It is an absolute bloody delight. I just wish more of the treasures ended up in the US

Closer to home is the Brooklyn Horror Fest. This small little gem of a fest has been growing exponentially every year. Because it falls when I’m broken by the New York Film Festival I tend just taste the fest remotely while other Unseen reporters go to the festival. It’s a wonderful clearing house of the important films of the year still on the festival circuit.

The two best festivals of any sort that I will literally drop everything for and cover are both in Canada.

Blood in the Snow is a glorious annual event that programs a week of cinematic madness every year. The last few years they have co-programmed with The Super Channel so people at home can enjoy some of the madness. I remember wading in the first year and wondering why the hell more people weren’t covering it. These are some of the best films you’ll see all year, and more to the point they are often the BIG films people will be talking about down the road. Many times over the last few years I have been asked by people to cover a film only to tell them I saw it at BITS. It’s a delight. And even if you don’t like something you’ll at least know why it was programmed.

And the best (genre) fest I’ve run across is still Frank Apache’s Cabane a Sang. This ever growing festival is quite simply the best programmed festival of any sort I’ve ever run across. (I am very serious about that) Out of the hundreds of films I’ve seen at the fest there have been maybe two that I didn’t like. Seriously Frank and his programmers know what’s good and they give it to their audiences. There is always something to enjoy about their films, scares, blood, thought provoking ideas, action, really stupid but funny humor. If you watch the films in the order they present them you will have a great time. I mention their ordering because not only do they program great films they put them together so perfectly so as to complement each other. Too many festivals forget that but not Cabane, they make sure you see the best films in the best order. It maybe the best festival of any sort on the planet, period. Yes there are other bigger fests, but as a whole Cabane  is the festival I walk out of every year not quibbling and being completely satisfied.

Film Finds 2022

FILM FINDS are those films that come damn close to the best of the year but just miss the cut BUT are so freaking good not to remember at the end of the year.(And more than a few should be on the best of the year, except that I wavered)

This is my list:

DELICIOUS- a meal for the soul about cooking during the days of the French Revolution

IMPERFECT-moments in this documentary on a handicapped production of Chicago rocked me (you feel the rage in the Cell Block Tango)

SUMMIT OF THE GODS- why we do what we do with the story of mountain climbing. Glorious

GROSSMAN-portrait of David Grossman is a meditation all parts of life

LOVE TASTING- Stunning filmmaking in a tale about the final days of some kids in school. This is why you need to look beyond the big features

SILENT WORLD-being deaf during the apocalypse is more terrifying then you realize

MAIKA- this shouldn't work but does family film about a young girl from space looking for a friend.

HOW IS THAT FOR A MONDAY is a caper film that is so much more that wonderfully doesn't give us the same old world view

MEET ME IN THE BATHROOM- nostalgia for the NYC music scene before the turn of the millennium

I AM WHAT I AM mind blowing animated film from China about a young man finding his place in the world was one of the great surprises of the film year

BLIND MAN WHO DIDN'T WANT TO SEE THE TITANIC is the story of a nearly blind man trying to get across town to see his girlfriend whom he’s never met in person. Shot so we see the world from his POV this is filmmaking of the highest order

HYPOCHONDRIAC is a descent into madness.

WE FEED PEOPLE the story of a chef and his organization who feed people after disasters. It is a film full of hope and life

HOLD YOUR FIRE the story of a robbery and police siege gone sideways

MONTAUK 77 a ride share that turns into heist film that turns into something else. An inde film that I didn’t think I would like became a film I can’t forget

DIO DREAMERS NEVER DIE is as good a music bio as they come. A whole life documentary that rocks.

BAD AXE one of the best docs of the year is a look at one family racism and America. Rightly in the running for an Oscar

CODE OF SILENCE haunts me. The story of a woman looking for what happened in the past is as good an empowerment film as they come.

LIFT the power of dance to change lives

SANSON AND ME how the system destroys good people is revealed through letters and recreations

LOWDNES COUNTY AND THE RISE OF BLACK POWER staggering film about how one small county’s black population asking to vote changed the world forever. It will rock your world

NO BEARS Jafar Panahi’s latest film will rock you as his story of a filmmaker trying to make a film collides with a village full of hate

BUFFY SAINT MARIE is a film I didn’t expect to like turns out to be one of the most revealing and wonderful viewing experiences of the year

MY SISTERS WEDDING a very funny film that proves, in a weird way, Kenneth R Frank should be making dramas because his scripts walk the fine line between comedy and tragedy and never fall off.

TOP GUN MAVERICK I didn’t think I would like this, but this is a damn fine film

RMN With the 19 minute single take being a best of the year event this look at racism in Romania and everywhere else

MR ORGAN possibly the scariest film of the  year is true story of a guy who likes to screw with people until the break

CONFESS FLETCH the best film version of Jeffrey Mac Donald’s novels deserves many sequels  since Jon Hamm makes the role his own.

FAST AND FEEL LOVE love and friendship in the cup stacking community is a glorious hug for those of us on the fringe

MAIGRET Gerard Depardieu is a perfect fit with the famed French detective  in an adaption of a novel deep in the series

OFF BEAT COPS Hiroshi Abe kills it in the story of a super cop demoted to the police band. Its off beat in the best sort of way- and demands a sequel

GIRL FROM THE OTHER SIDE magnificent animated film about a girl and her protector.

FREEDOM ON FIRE a painful look at the evil that Russia has done to Ukraine. One of the best films on the conflict

OFFICIAL COMPETITION Penelope Cruz is a director who is prepping for her new film with two completely different actors. They should have released this closer to the end of the year so it had a shot at Oscar nominations

COLD WAR KITCHEN the magnificent story of a chef training men in prison to cook and changing their lives for the better.

The Disappointments and Least of 2022

We begin the year end wrap up with a look at the most disappointing and least (worst) things to happen all year in the world of film 

Before I get to the film the worst thing that happened was the death of friend and fellow writer Gerald Wright. He was great man and his loss was incalculable. He will be missed.  

THE MOST DISAPPOINTING FILMS OF 2022

FROM WHERE THEY STOOD – This look at a series of photographs that were taken in a concentration camp during the Second World War is good, but any power is lost with its over length. Why is this two hours?

FINAL CUT-Why remake a classic a horror film and stay close enough to the original that you are forced to compare them? This is proof of why the director of Oscar winning THE ARTIST never hit again.

CROWS ARE WHITE is a look at an atypical monk loss ground because the man at the center is really annoying.

BLACK PHONE much heralded horror film left me scratching my head since the story makes no sense what so ever. (and don’t get me started with it not feeling like the 1970’s)

YEAR BETWEEN Alex Heller’s nightmare of a film about a nightmare character never gets the horrified tone right and it annoys more than shocks.

IDINA MENZEL: WHICH WAY TO THE STAGE is self-serving puff piece about the singer as she tours and heads toward a concert at Madison Square Garden. It’s a film that kind of cooks things to make Menzel seem even more special.

MASTER GARDNER is Paul Schrader’s over inflated story of a man and the women in his life. Full of self-importance that only the director sees it crashes and burns. It’s got moments but mostly it needs a rewrite

I did not have high hopes for BLACK ADAM because I knew using a character most people don't know would require a lot of exposition, but I didn't expect something so inert. This film is as slow as the slow motion it favors for action films. Using a mostly uninteresting characters and cliches (the Justice Society excepted-they deserve a better movie) this film spins its wheels with a tale of no stakes and even fewer moments of excitement. Yes the film made me yelp with delight with a Hawkman line, but the film is other wise semi interesting images with no soul and worse no fun. I was at least hoping for bad but fun.

While I am all for people taking films as they come, the lack of trigger warnings for a couple of films at some of my favorite festivals has to be called out because sometimes you need to warn your audience. Fantasia should have warned its audience going in that the animated film OPAL was not for the young or old, it should not have been in an early slot so parents would take their kids.. It was a very adult film about a father raping his daughter repeatedly.  Some animated films are not child friendly. 

I know the film maker and the PR firm of  BLAZE where behind Tribeca not issuing a warning about the deeply disturbing and graphic rape that starts the film. I was repeatedly told not to mention it in my review by the PR  people but having friends who were sexually assaulted I mentioned it any way. As it is many reviews  of the film mentioned it because they too were rattled by it.

LEAST (WORST) FILMS OF 2022

HONEYCOMB- first bad film of 2022 is a badly acted, I can't believe someone thought this was well written.

GAY HAIRCUT is a terrible film about a haircut

IT IS IN US ALL- this film about a man becoming involved with a younger man he literally crashes into. Low key and smoldering, it makes no sense unless you read the directors notes on the film.

BITCH ASS is a horrible horror film about a man who likes to play games and tricks people into his house so he can play with them until they die. Just awful.

355 has a cast to die for that is lost in a badly edited action film that generates no excitement or sense.

ABJECT yet another couple go away to save their marriage tale that goes nowhere

ARMAGEDDON TIME another cast is lost in a film that seems like it was based on a bad sitcoms idea of life.

L'ODGE D'OR surreal look at life adds up to nothing and goes no where

ALL JACKED UP AND FULL OF WORMS exists only to push buttons. What can you say about a film where the happy ending has the hero and his woman getting together to produce a baby he can rape? I'd be offended except it's just the filmmakers doing something just to get noticed and having to stoop below ground level to do so.

HUMAN FLOWERS OF FLESH paint drying is more exciting than this film which takes pride in being the slowest film in the slow cinema subgenre (They actually use that line in their promotional material on FestivalScope.)

RAZZENNEST is a fake art film being riffed ala Mystery Science Theater 3000 as if it were a DVD extra. Why make a bad film to riff? More to the point why make fun of riffing. Not only pointless but badly done.

IT IS NIGHT IN AMERICA is a dull look at animals wandering into civilization via zoomed grainy night vision images

SQUEAL not really good story of man who ends up captured by a family and forced to live with the pigs. Yea, no.

ISLAND OF LOST GIRLS is a home movie turned wildly over long and dull children’s film about kids getting lost at sea and having non adventures. This exists only to pay for the filmmakers family vacation.

COUNTRY GOLD is a dreadful mocumentary/riff about a Garth Brooks like singer coming up and having dinner with George Jones and stuff. It has a couple of moments but mostly it has nothing .