"Top Ten" List - #2

 2. The Gold Standard

There’s one more category “above” this one, but these are the movies that I feel like were the best of the year and that I also loved and enjoyed reading commentary about this year. This is also this year’s biggest category, at least partly due to some bedeviling release dates for movies that I just decided to count as 2022 movies because that’s when they were available in the U.S. and therefore available to me.

I think it’s nice that we share the same sky.

I feel a little dishonest putting this movie here, because I didn’t initially respond that strongly to it. I practically dragged myself kicking and screaming to go see it. Every description I read or heard about this movie sounded pretentious and boring and stupidly vague and made me decreasingly desirous to know more. I also had a less than ideal viewing experience for a few different reasons, which affected my real time understanding of the movie. Having said that, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie that more astutely embodies what movies are and what they can do than this one. On the surface, it’s incredibly simple. Ninety percent of it or more is just a father and daughter on vacation in Turkey – no real plot to speak of – but the total package is kind of a miracle. And for a director’s first feature to be this confident and at the same time restrained, Charlotte Wells should be a name everyone is on the lookout for from here on out. The same for her two stars, Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio. The weird thing (and what frustrated me initially) is that I was only able to see what the movie was doing once I got home and started reading/watching other people’s thoughts on it. And not in an “oh, that’s what that was” way but more like “of COURSE.” And understanding or interpreting things in the past more richly or in a different way is precisely what the movie is about. As in, it’s literally what the main character is experiencing. Now that I go back and reread all the comments that failed to inspire me to see this to begin with, they’re much more meaningful to me. Of course. This would have been a great movie to see with other people and chew over afterward, but I couldn’t do that with this one and don’t get to do it often enough in general. (Available to rent - not cheaply - on streaming services.)

The way of water connects all things. Before your birth, and after your death.

I have issues with Cameron’s world building and sense of tone and dialogue — and when I left the theater after seeing this I couldn’t tell you the name of a single new character — but the filmmaking on display is undeniably impressive. There’s some stunningly dumb science here (that stuff from the tulkuns stops aging? Like, permanently? You’ll never die???) but it’s a very small part of the movie so I can ignore it. The previous movie was a game-changer and even people who disliked it seemed to still have respect for the technical marvel of it all. I think it’s the same with this movie. I’m glad we spent far less time away from Pandora this time, but I wish we could have an entirely new villain because the bits with Na’vi!Quaritch were my least favorite. I really loved that we got to see a new area of Pandora and the underwater scenes were incredibly beautiful (though I couldn’t help thinking of how hard they must have been to film given how Cameron tends to be with his actors). I adored the tulkuns and hope we get to see much more of them in future movies. I also liked that this movie focuses a bit less on Jake and Neytiri, since Jake at least has never been that interesting to me. I was very fond of Lo’ak and especially Kiri and I’m intrigued by the mystery of her parentage (and of course glad that Sigourney Weaver still gets to be in these films). I know that this is not as engaging a world as the Star Wars universe and not as easy for fans to play in, but I don’t think that’s a priority for Cameron. I like seeing him doing exactly what he wants and pushing the medium further and further. (In theaters.)

Jesus? What the f***?!

At one point, during this year’s Fantastic Fest, C. Robert Cargill declared 2022 to be for horror what 1982 was for movies in general. What he probably would never say (but I will) is that he and his co-writer and director Scott Derrickson made one of the best horror movies in a year full to the brim with great ones. I had the chance to see this at last year’s FFest and it has absolutely held up. It’s a rare movie set in the 1970s that actually feels like the 1970s rather than a Halloweentown-style facsimile. The kids feel like real kids, especially the two leads, Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw. Ethan Hawke, who has never really played a straight-up villain before, is utterly terrifying. Jeremy Davies manages to wring some empathy out of a character who I never could have imagined feeling the least bit bad for. And I loved seeing James Ransone, who seems to be part of the Derrickson stable at this point. I love the set design and the locations used – I still can't get over the neighborhood, which looks exactly like so many neighborhoods I knew growing up and which probably still exist in a lot of towns, except for the ones bought out by airports and shopping centers. The movie has an excellent structure. I love the increasingly threatening appearances of the black van, giving us just enough bad vibes to be horrified when Finney is confronted with it. I love all the pieces of the previous escape attempts that all come together to help Finney find his own way out. And I think most of all I love that the supernatural element, while creepy at first, is actually a force for good. (Available to rent on streaming services.)

A lion doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria (nicknamed “Sisi”) isn’t just a historical figure; she’s a cultural icon, at least in Vienna, where her image and kitschy merch tie-ins are comparable to Mozart’s. Probably the most famous incarnation of her in pop culture is the film version played by Romy Schneider in a trilogy of Austrian films from the 1950s. It’s an infantilized, cutesy version of the Sisi that’s still popular across Europe even now. Marie Kreutzer’s CORSAGE delightfully pokes at this persona, and Vicky Krieps (who I’d only ever seen in PHANTOM THREAD) pilfers and takes what she wants from the history and creates a character that is truly her own. In so doing, she makes this woman feel more alive than I imagine a more reverent depiction would have. The movie also revels in deliberate anachronisms, not in the overly hip style of MARIE ANTIONETTE, but much more casually – a modern doorway here, a clearly modern passenger ship there – just enough to take you out of it for a second and remind you that what you’re watching is artifice and not meant to be taken as a historical document. Think SPENCER, by way of (a great deal more subdued) WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY. Perhaps the most clever touch is the movie’s complete reimagining of this woman’s death, which incongruously gives her an enormous amount of agency at the end of a film that has shown us over and over how she bristled against her role and the expectations of her. I also have to shout out the music, which is all modern and mostly synthy pop. Soap&Skin’s “Italy” will be in my head for quite a while, as will Vicky Krieps’s ethereal dancing to it over the closing credits. (In theaters.)

May all of your dreams come true.

No, this isn’t a documentary about Captain EO. Inspired by Robert Bresson’s AU HASARD BALTHAZAR, it’s a road trip drama starring a donkey named EO (played by six donkeys, called Ettore, Hola, Marietta, Mela, Rocco, and Tako in real life), and it is phenomenal. It reminded me a lot of THE STRAIGHT STORY in its deceptive simplicity and its purity. We first see EO in a Polish circus, before the circus goes bankrupt and sells him off to farmers. He gets out of a fence he’s being kept in and sets off into the wild, wandering into various adventures, both good and bad. This isn’t a cutesy animal story, it’s not an anthropomorphic animal story like BABE (ain’t nothing wrong with BABE, though), and it’s definitely not for younger kids – not that it’s inappropriate, by any means, but I suspect most children under 12 would lose interest pretty early. If you are an animal lover, there are moments in this movie that will be truly upsetting. There’s no on-camera violence toward animals, but what is implied just off-screen can be horrifying. Whatever horrors or brief delights await this poor donkey, the film is gobsmackingly beautiful to look at, and it’s kind of amazing how 84-year-old director Jerzy Skolimowski is able to use the camera to make these donkeys so expressive, as if they are actually acting. (I couldn’t help thinking of KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS – a much less accomplished filmmaking venture – and the cow that can act. But could that cow carry an entire movie? I think not!) The ending is nonchalantly brutal, without showing us anything, and I may never eat salami again. (In theaters - I’m hearing it will be a while before it’s available for home viewing.)

It’s so dumb.

Oh, it’s so dumb, it’s brilliant!

NO! It’s just dumb!

I hope we get an entire Benoit Blanc franchise because this movie manages to match, if not exceed, the excellence of KNIVES OUT. This has a much different feel from its predecessor. We trade the autumnal manor house for a much more summery feel, following most of our cast of characters as they journey by boat to a private island in Greece owned by their friend, tech billionaire Miles Bron. (I’m sure there were several intentional parallels to that Musk guy, but they can’t have known all the stuff that would happen in the weeks surrounding this movie’s release that made Miles an even more stunning parody.) The movie starts off very LAST OF SHEILA, with Miles concocting (with a significant amount of help, it turns out) a murder mystery game for his guests to solve. Just like with KNIVES OUT, there’s what you *think* the mystery is going to be, until about halfway in when things become much more complicated (and thereby more interesting). There’s a whole new cast of characters, of course, most of whom are fairly insufferable. Except for one, who the movie sets you up to root for – for this mystery, the role of Ana de Armas will be played by Janelle Monae, who prior to this I thought was … okay as an actress, but she’s on another level here, playing essentially three characters, and there’s a reason she’s getting all the awards buzz. I loved every bit of this, perhaps especially the use of the song “Mona Lisa,” which brought back memories of my mother playing it on the piano when I was a kid. Also, blink and you’ll miss them, but there are cameos from both Stephen Sondheim (who co-wrote THE LAST OF SHEILA with Anthony Perkins) and Angela Lansbury. (Available on Netflix.)

You’re the only adventure I’ve ever had.

Movies in general have been strangely sexless in recent years, but a few movies have cut through with occasionally brutal honesty regarding physical intimacy. This movie takes place almost entirely in a hotel room between just two people. And there’s nothing that explicit about the sexual content, except that sex is talked about openly and there is a focus on female pleasure (which is so rare in movies it certainly *seems* explicit). Emma Thompson plays a retired teacher who was recently widowed and who hires an exceedingly attractive male sex worker in order to experience a series of sexual acts she has never had a chance to try and which she feels she has missed out on – sort of a specialized bucket list, if you will. She is also hoping to finally have her first orgasm, which she never had in over 30+ years of unfulfilling “missionary style” with her late husband. This movie shouldn’t be remarkable, but it is. It is so refreshingly sex-positive and body-positive – not to mention actually intimate – that I was quite moved by it. I’m still not sure how I feel about the sudden end-of-act-two bring-down, but it does give us the necessary reminder that these hotel room encounters are transactions and manufactured fantasies, and that both Leo and Nancy are playing roles when they’re together. (Available on Hulu.)

I wasn't able to study, now I am.

Were you ill?

The kind of illness that strikes only women and turns them into housewives.

I saw this, I think, less than a week after Alito’s draft opinion on Roe v. Wade leaked and what a time to see a movie that so painfully shows the world we could be going back to. Set in France in 1963, when abortion was still illegal, this movie follows a young woman named Anne who becomes pregnant and desperately seeks a solution that will allow her to continue her university studies and have the life she’s been working for. It’s so wild to me to see what life for women was like at a time where there was literally nowhere you could go to terminate a pregnancy and it was even dangerous to ask around. Anne can’t even trust doctors because some of them are anti-abortion (and in fact one of them lies to her about a medication he gives her, which he claims will end the pregnancy but in reality makes Anne’s situation worse). Anne makes the choices that she must under desperate circumstances, but it’s extremely nerve-wracking to watch all the things she has to go through. It only occurred to me while watching this that these people women and girls sought out to “take care of it” were not actually performing abortions, as in removing the fetus; they were simply making it so that the women miscarried on their own. And, we are told, if the miscarriage goes actively bad and the woman has to go to the hospital, their fate is decided by the first doctor they see, who must report the event as either a miscarriage or an abortion (and if it’s the latter, the woman will go to jail, after having nearly died). This was incredibly hard to watch but really well done, putting the viewer firmly in the shoes of its protagonist and putting us through the hell of her increasingly hopeless crisis. (Available to rent on streaming services.)

Side note: After burning through all of Agnès Varda’s filmography recently, I was thrilled to see Sandrine Bonnaire (the star of her film VAGABOND) in a supporting role.

Now I remember what it’s like to be alive.

I’d never seen IKIRU, the Kurosawa movie this is a loose adaptation of, and I decided not to see it right beforehand so I could let this exist as its own thing. I’m sure many find it cloying and overly earnest, though I have to believe that making this an English story (not just British, specifically English) creates a buffer of restraint that cuts the sweetness. Bill Nighy has never been better, and it seems like this was a role he was destined to play. I was reminded a lot of his character in GIRL IN THE CAFE. His character, Williams, works in a government office and has for decades. It’s one of those jobs where the goal very much seems to be to get as little done as possible. After he gets a troubling medical diagnosis (yes, this is another cancer story - yay *feebly blows noisemaker*), he realizes how much of his life he has wasted just going through the motions and decides he’s going to do something about it. This movie is just all-out gorgeous. It has the look of a 1950s British film, the costumes are immaculate (particularly the sea of bowler hats), and the cast is lovely – there’s such an understated joy beneath the surface of Nighy’s face that perfectly underscores his character’s awakening. (I also can never see Adrian Rawlins without thinking of him as James Potter.) And in an absolute coup de grace against my soul, the final moments of the film are scored with one of my favorite pieces of classical music of all time. It’s called “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,” composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the Tallis piece it’s based on is the old English hymn “When rising from my bed of death.” I heard the first two chords, recognized it immediately and keeled over in my chair mimicking the Pippin “why was I given emotions” meme. (In theaters.)

I need to know if you’re with us or with them.

There has been so much cinema this year satirizing wealth and class, and this is another one. But it’s one of the more interesting ones to me because it takes something that seems fairly specific and niche and makes it a stand-in for something much larger and more universal. Nicholas Hoult and Anya Taylor-Joy play Tyler and Margot, who are going to dinner at an extremely exclusive restaurant – so exclusive that it only serves 12 patrons a night, is located on a private island that guests must take a boat to get to, and costs more than $1000 per person. As we move through each course – helpfully named and described for us with onscreen text, like we’re reading an actual menu – it becomes more and more clear that something sinister is going on, which Margot notices before anyone else does. I saw the trailer for this approximately one fafillion times over this past year, going back to at least the spring, and while it seemed interesting, I was worried I’d seen in the trailer all the movie had to give me. Nope. There were still plenty of surprises in store, and just when I thought it had gone as far as it could, it just took everything further. This movie seems like it’s coming for “foodies” but it’s much more a satire of people who can afford the best in life but take no enjoyment in it. The cast is an incredible ensemble. Anya Taylor-Joy is, as usual, a treat to watch as our audience surrogate. Nicholas Hoult is great as maybe the most annoying foodie ever (I was ready for Tyler to die as soon as he swatted Margot’s hand away from a dish so he could take a photo of it). Hong Chau, who is also in another movie in this category, is low-key the MVP (and makes me want to shout “WE GEL” at people randomly). And Ralph Fiennes is clearly having the time of his life in this movie, playing the head chef. (Still in some theaters; available on HBOMax and to rent on other streaming services.)

Every animal got rules.

Nobody is doing horror like Jordan Peele; his stories are fresh and original, and that makes his films exciting, must-see events. I think most people knew going in that there would be aliens (though it turned out there was only one), but the movie is about so much more than that, as all of Peele’s films so far have been. It’s really about our cultural obsession with spectacle and the commodification of the unusual and horrifying – which is always accompanied by a few yahoos who think they can handle it or harness it for their own ends. Steven Yeun’s character is crucial here, and the whole backstory of the disaster that befell his ill-fated sitcom back in the 90s is kind of the movie’s mission statement. We anthropomorphize animals so much that we think we understand them much more than we actually do. This character also carries a lot of the allegory of how humans seek to profit from disaster and spectacle – not just his “show” featuring the alien, but how he has profited from his experience on the sitcom, particularly the massacre, which he only seems to be able to talk about in terms of the SNL skit that parodied it. (I loved the detail of having the monkey be played by Chris Kataan, who actually played a similar character when he was a cast member.) Our investment, however, is with OJ and Emerald (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer). Their relationship is fascinating to me, and Keke Palmer is my favorite part of the movie (OMG the fast high-fives she gives OJ over the nonelectric camera!). And that upended shoe is still the creepiest thing in the entire movie. (Available on Peacock and to rent on other streaming services.)

You can't listen to music that exactly describes the emotional thing you're going through. You know how cheesy that is? I don't listen to Alanis Morissette when I'm going through a breakup, and I'm not listening to Papa f***ing Roach on the day I'm gonna kill myself.

[Content Warning: suicide] A dark comedy about suicide doesn’t sound like something that would work at all, and I remember going to see this thinking it wasn’t actually going to be a comedy but that people didn’t know how else to categorize it. This movie is about two best friends who each have decided to kill themselves. They meet at a spot where they’re going to do it, point their guns at each other, and just before they’re supposed to pull the trigger, one of them suggests they give themselves one more day to do some things they’ve always wanted to do or tie up loose ends – in short, to celebrate their last day. So we follow them through this day as they do some fun and/or wild things – shoot at a gun range, ride dirt bikes, rob a gas station – and have some difficult confrontations. You never quite know where this movie is going to go, and it certainly doesn’t end up where you might expect. The two leads have incredible chemistry, and it’s fascinating to watch their characters almost completely reverse roles. And Tiffany Haddish is, I think, the best she’s ever been here, despite not having a lot of screen time. The thing this movie really gets right, though, is the tone. This movie could have gone terribly wrong in so many ways, especially in trying to find lightness in something so incredibly heavy. But it miraculously finds humor and humanity in these characters and their lives, and it’s pretty thrilling to watch. (Available on Hulu and to rent on other streaming services.)

Secrets aren’t always things we try to hide. There’s just no one to tell them to.

First, a warning that I’m going to spoil one big thing about this movie, but as it’s right there in the title I feel fine about it. This movie is precious and I want to hold it close and wrap it in blankets and dress it in adorable sweaters and corduroys. All I’d ever seen of Celine Sciamma’s films was 2019’s PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE, so this was definitely a surprising follow-up to that. Our heroine is an eight-year-old girl named Nelly, whose grandmother has just died and who has gone with her parents to clean out her grandmother’s house. While her mother is away, Nelly is wandering through the woods and meets a girl her own age building a fort. She soon realizes that this girl, Marion, is actually her mother in the past, when she was Nelly’s age (Nelly and Marion are played by twins, Josephine and Gabrielle Sanz). I love that this reveal comes relatively early and that we watch Nelly having these interactions with someone she knows is her mother but is also this little friend she can play with. (I’m really curious how Sciamma directed these girls regarding what they know about each other and when.) The movie is so incredibly touching, and I think we can all identify with how hard it can be to imagine that our parents were ever young – especially *this* young. It’s only 72 minutes but it packs a whole lot into that short runtime, and it is just as beautiful and cinematic as Sciamma’s previous film. And for a movie centered on two children, it is surprisingly low on sentimentality. It’s cute without being cutesy, which is incredibly hard to pull off. (Available on Hulu and to rent on other streaming services.)

What’s a burden?

It’s something painful you must carry, even though it hurts you very much.

The 1940 Disney PINOCCHIO is probably still my favorite Disney movie of the classic era (pre-1960). There have been a lot of adaptations of the Carlo Collodi novel over the years – with wildly varying levels of success (I have not seen this year’s live action one with Tom Hanks; I just cannot) – but this movie is I think the most artistically successful and meaningful adaptation since the 1940 version, which in many ways I think it exceeds. Set in fascist Italy during both World Wars, this version sees the carpenter Gepetto lose his beloved son Carlo and, after two decades of mourning, cut down a tree in a drunken rage in order to make a new "son" from it. And while he sleeps, a blue wood sprite brings the doll to life so that Gepetto won’t be alone anymore. Almost all of the elements we know and love from the original story are here, with basically all of them tweaked -- some of them heavily -- to fit the new setting (this movie’s version of the Pleasure Island sequence is particularly brilliant in my opinion). This is one of the most incredible animated films I’ve ever seen, and I actually forgot for most of the movie that it’s stop-motion, because it’s so smooth and natural-looking. The visuals are beautiful and dark, especially the representations of death and the afterlife. The score, by Alexandre Desplat, is gorgeous and there are some quality songs (though for me this was one of the only weak spots). The voice cast is incredible – you’ll never pick out Cate Blanchett, unless you looked it up beforehand. And the theme of nonconformity seems fitting for both the film’s time setting and our own time. If you’re looking for where this sits among Guillermo del Toro’s other works, this reminded me of both PAN’S LABYRINTH (for the visuals) and THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE (for the tone and message). And like both of those movies, it has contempt for traditional Hollywood stories about children that ignore how dark and unsafe it can be to be a child (real or not). It’s amazing and a must-see. (In some theaters; available on Netflix.)

I’m here to be the next big porn star. 

This has been labeled an “erotic drama” but it’s not really erotic in the slightest. The main character is a young woman who moves from Sweden to Los Angeles with the intention of becoming a porn star. We see her first gig, where she is extremely nervous but ends up impressing everyone, and then she works her way up the ladder, pushing herself to do more and more extreme things to get noticed by a well known agent. We also see her harden as a human being as she occasionally throws people under the bus to get what she wants. We see several very different film sets, and all of the technical stuff that goes with shooting this kind of film. I was especially struck by two scenes – nearly back to back – that show just how different an all-female film crew can be from an all-male one. What is used on one set to make performers feel safe is weaponized on the other set to manipulate and coerce performers to do things against their better instincts (even the instinct of self-preservation). This movie is frequently very uncomfortable to watch. There are conflicting accounts as to whether the sex scenes in the movie are simulated or not, which is further complicated by the fact that a lot of the actors in the film are real-life porn actors. This is an incredible film, though. A harsh watch to be sure, but an interesting look at a very specific world. (Available on Paramount+ and to rent on other streaming services.)

The problem with enrolling yourself as an ultrasonic epistemic dissident is that if Bach's talent can be reduced to his gender, birth country, religion, sexuality, and so on, then so can yours.

I don’t know whose idea it was to call this a movie about “cancel culture,” but that’s a very bad sell. I spent most of the movie expecting something else when what it actually is is much more basic and interesting. It’s more about abuse of power and how dangerous and intoxicating extremely brilliant and talented people can be. We follow Lydia Tár, a world-famous conductor and composer (and EGOT recipient) over a period of weeks (months?) as she prepares for a live recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 with the Berlin Philharmonic, for which she serves as the first female conductor. There isn’t what you’d call a story – instead, we watch Lydia’s life slowly fall apart as various situations and dynamics play out. Director Todd Field smartly dispenses with the necessary exposition about who Lydia is and what she is to the world by opening the film with an interview, where we can plausibly be told all her credentials in a concise way. We see her interactions with various colleagues, her long-suffering assistant, a potential protégé, and her wife and daughter, and we get a picture of a person who has reached such a pinnacle of success and admiration that she seems almost beyond reproach. Which is exactly the kind of situation that frequently becomes toxic and abusive because the idea is that this young up-and-comer should be honored that this brilliant person deigns to show them attention. There’s very little flash here, in the film or in the central performance of Cate Blanchett (arguably a career-best for her, which is a very high bar to begin with). But it’s so compelling to watch her manipulate and charm everyone around her, even (perhaps especially) as you recognize exactly what she is doing and. how awful it is. (Still in some theaters; available to rent - not cheaply - on streaming services.)

Be small down there.

I was floored by Chinonye Chukwu’s previous film CLEMENCY, which was one of my 2s in 2019. Like that movie, TILL centers around a powerful female performance, this time with Danielle Deadwyler playing Mamie Till-Bradley, mother of Emmett Till. The movie isn’t as much about Till’s murder as it is about his mother’s pursuit of justice after his death and the story is entirely from her perspective (though we do see scenes without her, when Emmett is in Mississippi, leading up to his murder). Deadwyler’s performance is the meat of the film, but there are some stunning supporting performances as well. Jalyn Hall is fantastic as Emmett and really sells his innocent but tragic misunderstandings about the difference between being Black in Chicago and being Black in Mississippi (I hope it’s clear I’m not saying he did anything wrong in the slightest; obviously, I’m referring to her concerns about how people will respond to him). And Whoopi Goldberg is so great as Mamie’s mother that I seriously miss when she was in movies more regularly. I’m sure The View is a great gig, but give me Oda Mae Brown, give me Terri Doolittle, give me Dolores Van Cartier! (ETA: I see that a third Sister Act movie is currently in pre-production, so I guess we're getting Dolores at least!) This is a fantastic, moving film and I love seeing Mamie’s journey from devastated mother to civil rights activist, learning all the painful lessons about who you can count on and – even more importantly – who you can’t along the way. (Available to rent - not cheaply - on streaming services.)

I need to know that I have done one thing right with my life!

Yes, I know. I KNOW. I’ve seen the complaints, and I understand them and sympathize with them, agree with some of them, and I’m not about to try and persuade anyone to feel differently. But speaking as part of the demographic that is supposed to be the most offended by it (i.e., fat people), I had a wildly different experience watching this. I was incredibly moved by this movie. It’s not flashy, and I don’t feel like it’s didactic. It knows how powerful its central performance is and focuses almost entirely on that, to the point of 1) never leaving Charlie’s home and 2) using a 4:3 aspect ratio to give us basically nowhere else to look. It shows Charlie to us not as a carnival sideshow (though again, I acknowledge that’s how many have seen it) but to confront us with this person who for many would inspire a reflexive response of revulsion and make us ask ourselves *why* we respond that way. I think that, no matter what someone’s feelings are about the use of the fat suit or what director Arronofsky’s intentions might have been, most would still acknowledge that Brendan Fraser’s performance and his empathy for this character are unimpeachable. The rest of the cast is stellar as well, particularly Hong Chau and Samantha Morton. Perhaps the movie itself, without these performances to elevate it, is not that hot. But those performances and those characters *are* the movie, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being taken in by them. (Or, for the record, *not* being taken in.) (In theaters.)

Hope for the unknown is good. It is better than hatred of the familiar.

On the surface, this looks like yet another #metoo movie, where we have to watch women suffer at the hands of men, then after they come forward and tell their stories, the men in question see little in terms of consequences. The movies are almost always sensationalist (or worse, exploitative – looking at you, PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN), we always know how they end, and frankly, I’m just kind of tired of them. This movie is a welcome novelty. Based on a novel that itself is based on real events that happened to a group of Mennonite women in Bolivia, the story revolves around a group of women, most of whom have been repeatedly drugged, raped and often impregnated. They have been told for years that this was the work of devils or their own imaginations, but someone finally caught a few of the men in the act. While the men of the town go with the accused to post bail, the women meet and debate whether to do nothing, to stay and fight or to leave. We do not see any scene of the actual attacks, thank God. We see glimpses of the aftermath, usually involving one of the women waking up with bruised thighs and blood on the sheets. The whole movie (well, nearly) is just as the title suggests. These women talking through what they’re going to do and the pros and cons of each potential choice. It is brilliant, intelligent and immensely moving. For a movie called “Women Talking,” though, it’s odd that the most emotional and magnificent performance to me was by a man – Ben Whishaw, who plays August, a schoolteacher who is taking minutes of the proceedings (because the women cannot read or write). His answer to the women’s question of whether they should take the male children if they leave absolutely wrecked me. This movie is smart, thoughtful and beautiful, in ways I did not expect. (In theaters.)

Everything we feel, we have to put into words. Sometimes, I just want to feel things.

First off, I am withholding SUCH A RANT about Neon holding this over from 2021. Still mad about it. Just saying. This movie follows a woman named Julie, who we meet when she is in her late 20s. She is flitting from one life path to another – she was a med student, then a psychology student, now a photographer. She begins a relationship with a comic artist who is significantly older than her, and they seem to be making it work for a good long while until she meets and falls in love with another man. Julie is a woman who seems unwilling to stick with anything that requires an actual commitment. And while it might seem like this is another of many stories about a twentysomething struggling to “adult, waaah,” this feels completely fresh. The movie doesn’t judge Julie for the choices she makes and (I think even more importantly) it doesn’t give us answers about which choices are better or telegraph what she should or will do. You truly don’t know what she’s going to do next at any point in the movie and that makes it thrilling to watch. And the movie does an exceptional job of showing how making those choices closes off other option. If you've seen the trailer or seen the image above, you might have a false impression of what this movie is. Believe me, this is not sentimental and it's not fantastical or magical; it's quite grounded in real life. But it's also very much rooted in Julie's point of view. This is phenomenal, with great writing and a great cast led by Renate Reinsve. (Available on Hulu and to rent on other streaming services.)