As the first quarter of 2022 comes to an end, it’s been a wild ride for movies from January to the end of April. Viewers were fortunate to see great films from a wide variety of genres in film from horror to documentaries.
Will there be more blockbuster theatrical releases in 2022? Could 2022 mean the return of movie theaters?
Last year’s box office numbers were well ahead of 2020, but still far from pre-pandemic numbers, according to a Dec. 23, 2021 Business Insider article.
When coronavirus restrictions were in place, most people still found entertainment by streaming movies, which made them call themselves cinephiles.
A cinephile is a person who’s obsessed with movies, usually has a massive hard-copy collection of films on Criterion and loves everything from ‘40s movies to the latest releases and even obscure movies.
They’re also known as me.
For me, it was hard to find at least five films that came out in 2022 that I wanted to watch again; many were forgettable, but these were the ones that stood out.
I’ve challenged myself to view at least one movie a day this year and since COVID-19 restrictions are loosening up, I’ve been trying to head to the movies as often as I can.
I decided to include different genres, from documentaries to Viking sagas. Here’s the countdown of the movies I actually found worth watching this far into the year:
No. 5: “Fresh” directed by Mimi Cave
I was a little skeptical when I pressed play on this movie simply because I didn’t think it would be interesting enough to hold my attention, so I put it on while doing homework. With how captivating the film was, I soon realized I wasn’t getting any work done.
The comedy-thriller movie follows a woman named Noa, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones, who’s tired of dating apps and takes a chance on a guy named Steve, played by Sebastian Stan, who flirts with her over cotton-candy grapes in a grocery store.
The film subverts the romantic comedy tropes that are thrown in with a mix of thriller and hints of gore. The romantic beginning perfectly sets up the bitterness of the primal things that happen when Steve starts to acquire a strange appetite.
I wouldn’t call it insanely scary, but it was wincingly bone-chilling and convinced me to maybe never go on a date again.
Noa and Steve’s power dynamic switches throughout the movie. Then it shifts into a sea of red flags when Noa finds out Steve has no social media.
Without spoiling big plot points, there’s one scene that is in the movie where Noa and Steve are dancing. They’re not moving fast and they’re not touching but they are synced in their moves.
At this point in the movie, you’re entranced. The scene was slowed in a way that messed with my brain.
“Fresh” is the next sleepover movie.
Nothing says “sleepover” better than watching a horror movie about dating those with interesting appetites while sharing a collective experience of “What just happened?” with friends.
No. 4: “Lucy and Desi” directed by Amy Poehler
This documentary captured the love and hardships that struck American actress Lucille Ball and Cuban actor and bandleader Desi Arnaz, two of the most influential people in the television world.
“Lucy and Desi” really captures the complexity of their relationship. Nobody can replicate the love they had for each other better than archival footage and tapes of themselves.
Director Amy Poehler used home videos, interviews and vintage clips to take the audience on a journey with the most powerful couple in the entertainment industry who risked everything to be together.
Poehler did a magnificent job telling this story. She has cemented herself as the underdog of documentaries and I say that not being the hugest fan of her work outside of “Saturday Night Live.”
Near the end of the film, Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of the two, tells the story about a phone call between her parents right before her father’s death. It’s heartbreaking and stripped down to the truth.
She sits outside and explains that when Arnaz was sick, she told her mother she should call him because he won’t be awake much longer. She leaned over to her father, holding the phone so he could hear.
“She said, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,’ and he said ‘I love you too honey’ and the next morning at 12:05 in the morning, he died,” Arnaz said in the documentary.
So many scenes made me choke up with tears, including when Desi Arnaz said after their divorce “ ‘I ‘Love Lucy’ was never just a title.”
“I Love Lucy” centers around the lives of Lucy Ricardo, played by Ball, and her bandleader immigrant husband from Havana and the “I” in “I Love Lucy,” Ricky Ricardo, played by Arnaz.
This documentary also made me realize how the 2021 movie, “Being the Ricardos” was and dreadful. Watch “Lucy and Desi,” not that trainwreck.
“Being the Ricardos” is a 2021 film directed by Aaron Sorkin that tried to capture the hearts of a new generation with Nicole Kidman as Ball and Javier Bardem as Arnaz. It made me fall asleep to the point where I started suggesting it to my friends with insomnia.
“Lucy and Desi” made me feel so connected with Ball and Arnaz. I felt like they taught me life lessons.
And, yes, I do love Lucy.
No. 3: “X” directed by Ti West
Young horny people vs. old horny people, a match I didn’t think I needed to see but director Ti West made me watch. And I liked it.
“X” follows a group of young filmmakers in 1979 who set out to make a low-budget adult film in rural Texas. They end up fighting for their life when the old lady of the house, Pearl, played by Mia Goth, catches them in the act.
Within the first five minutes I knew I was in for a ride.
You’d think there’s nothing scarier than old people but then West goes and makes them horny.
Maxine, also played by Goth, looks in the mirror in her dressing room at the “Bayou Burlesque” club and says she’s a sex symbol.
She gets up off the chair as “In the Summertime” by Mungo Jurry plays and it cuts to outside the club where there is a mural painted on the building of a bayou where Brittany Snow's character, Bobby-Lynn, is getting her swimsuit ripped off by an alligator.
The main three characters strut out of the building door that is painted over by Bobby-Lynn’s legs, suitcases in hand to pile into a blue van that has “PLOWING SERVICE” painted across the side.
The movie delivers a spot-on ’70s atmosphere an audience can expect from an erotic horror movie set in Texas,with an unexpected sadness at its core that makes audiences feel for Pearl.
When they get to the ranch, Wayne, played by Martin Henderson, announces that they’ve made it to their studio backlot.
Everyone is relieved as “Too Sweet to be Forgotten” by Ronnie McFarlin plays and Bobby-Lynn just says, “Thank goodness, I’m horny.”
After that it’s nothing but fun cinematography with people being murdered in some crazy ways.
At first the old woman, Pearl, scared me, as she barely had hair, her posture was worse than mine and her staring was just eerie.
The movie’s young characters are so eccentric and it doesn’t stop when it comes to the old ones.
As I learned more about her, other than that she was horny, I started to feel bad for her.
I learned that Pearl just wanted to feel pretty, to feel loved, to feel desired as she did when she was younger. It made me realize old people are still human and I’ll eventually end up like Pearl.
It’s a fun watch especially if the audience wants a slasher film with interesting aesthetics and odd, life-evaluating themes.
No. 2: “The Northman” directed by Robert Eggers
“The Northman” is a $90 million Viking movie directed by Eggers that feels too big to wrap my head around. The film is a long poem about revenge and brutality all written in blood.
Prince Amleth is a young man when his uncle murders his father and kidnaps his mother. Two decades later, Amleth, is played by a ripped Alexander Skarsgård, on a mission of vengeance.
The film is Eggers’s third big picture and his best one yet. Previously known for “The Lighthouse” and “The Witch,” Eggers is known for making dark movies based in different eras.
“The Lighthouse” is set between 1910 and 1920, “The Witch” in the 1630s and “The Northman” in 10th-century Iceland.
The film is lensed by Jarin Blaschke, an American cinematographer. . He perfectly captures the blood and violence of this epic Viking saga while honing in on the richness of the landscape and Skarsgård’s power.
The acting in “The Northman” is phenomenal. Nicole Kidman, who plays Queen Gudrún, serves the best monologue in the whole movie that changes the plot of the film.
Kidman’s acting left me speechless. It changed everything in the story and when I let out the biggest gasps bubbling inside me, I heard everyone else in the theater do the same.
Anya Taylor-Joy, who plays Olga, a feisty character with a connection to the spiritual world, came in and left me wanting the prince to find love, which is cheesy, yet fantastic. In another scene, Taylor-Joy delivers a scene in the Old Norse language that’s like an explosion.
I haven’t seen two grown men fighting over lava since “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” and I didn’t realize how much I got hyped until I saw Amleth and Fjölnir naked sword fighting in the end.
No. 1: “Everything Everywhere All at Once” directed by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert
This fantasy adventure climbed its way to the top of my list because I can’t stop thinking about everything, everywhere, and everyone involved in its production.
Production company A24, along with the writing and directing duo collectively known as “The Daniels,” created a stunning multiverse movie with humor, stunning visuals and unexpected sentimentality.
Watching this movie made me feel like I was levitating.
It follows a Chinese family that owns a laundromat and is having problems with paying their taxes. Things shift when the mother, Evelyn, played by Michelle Yeoh, gets confronted by her husband from another multiverse in the elevator of a tax collector’s building.
The husband, Waymond, played by Ke Huy Quan, tells her the fate of the world depends on her.
She complains saying that there’s no way he has the right person, she’s just an ordinary mom trying to deal with her taxes, but if it’s anyone who can save the world it’s obviously going to be a mother.
She ends up learning the ways of the multiverse and her daughter.
I laughed, I cried, I questioned my existence, and I called my mom right after.
In the beginning it was nothing but exciting and quick fight scenes but it switched gears near the end and I’ll never forget that experience with my roommates.
Trying to hold it in, I let my tears go and when the screen went black, we sat in silence until we got up and pointed at each other and said, “You were crying? I was crying! I couldn’t see you so I didn’t know if I should full-on sob.”
It had so much emotion built but it was never cheesy. The movie didn’t force me to cry, it forced me to live what I’m going through, to never be afraid to ask for help because there is always someone there to offer support.
I hope to watch more movies like this throughout the year. I want to go on a journey with characters, not waste two hours of my life with them.
Here’s to more adventures at the movies.
