December 12, 2022

Top 10 Films of 2022

1. "Stars At Noon" (Claire Denis, France)

2. "Women Talking" (Sarah Polley, United Artists)

3. "The Son" (Florian Zeller, USA)

4. "The Whale" (Darren Aronofsky, A24)

5. "Triangle Of Sadness" (Ruben Ostlund, Sweden)

6. "No Bears" (Jafar Panahi, Iran)

7. "Athena" (Romain Gavras, France)

8. "Tar" (Todd Field, USA)

9. "Bones And All" (Luca Guadagnino, MGM)

10. "Bardo False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths" (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Mexico)


Other great films:

Alcarràs (Spain)
Argentina 1985 (Argentina)
As bestas (Spain)
Au grand jour (Canada)
Babysitter (Canada)
Chien blanc (Canada)
Close (Belgium)
Decision To Leave (South Korea)
En corps (France)
EO (Poland)
Falcon Lake (Canada)
I Like Movies (Canada)
Imaculat (Romania)
L'Innocent (France)
Living (UK)
Mascarade (France)
La Nuit du 12 (France)
Saint Omer (France)
Viking (Canada)
The Wonder (Ireland)


Top 10 Guilty Pleasures of 2022:

1. "Babylon" (Damien Chazelle, Paramount)

2. "Blonde" (Andrew Dominik, Netflix)

3. "Competencia oficial" (Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat, Argentina)

4. "Deep Water" (Adrian Lyne, 20th Century-Fox)

5. "Un Ete comme ca" (Denis Cote, Canada)

6. "Kaymak" (Milcho Manchevski, North Macedonia)

7. "All The Beauty And The Bloodshed" (Laura Poitras, USA)

8. "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, UK)

9. "Crimes Of The Future" (David Cronenberg, Canada)

10. "Grinders" (Ricky Greenwood, USA)


Top 3 Shorts:

1. "Haulout" (Maxim Arbugaev, Evgenia Arbugaeva, Russia)

2. "Aspirational Slut" (Caroline Lindy, USA)

3. "Nu" (Olivier Labonte LeMoyne, Canada)


Other great shorts:


Top 3 Music Videos:

1. "Therese" (Brady Corbet, Maya Hawke)

2. "Made You Look" (Meghan Trainor)

3. "Showed Me" (Lauren Dunn, Madison Beer)


Other great music videos:


Top Commercial:



TV Top 10:

1. "Wednesday" (Tim Burton, Netflix)

2. "Euphoria: Season 2" (Sam Levinson, HBO)

3. "Irma Vep" (Olivier Assayas, HBO)

5. "The Crown: Season 5" (Netflix)

6. "The Playlist" (Per Olav Sorensen, Netflix, Sweden)

7. "Love And Anarchy: Season 2" (Lisa Langseth, Netflix, Sweden)

8. "Ancient Apocalypse" (Graham Hancock, Netflix)


10. "The White Lotus: Season 2" (Mike White, HBO)


Other great TV shows:

1923: Season 1
Evil: Season 3
Minx
My Brilliant Friend: Season 3 (Italy)
Stanley Tucci Searching For Italy: Season 2
Swimming With Sharks

Top 3 Cartoons:

1. "Ice Merchants" (João Gonzalez, Portugal)

2. "The Flying Sailor" (Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby, NFB, Canada)

3. "Lilith And Eve" (Samuel de Ceccatty, UK)


Other great cartoons:


Top 3 VR films:

1. "L'Horizon de Khéops" (Emissive, France)

2. "Red Tail" (Fish Wang, Taiwan)

3. "The Man Who Couldn't Leave" (Chen Singing, Taiwan)


Other great VR films:

All That Remains (Taiwan)


Top 3 Stand-Up Comedy Shows:

1. "Ricky Gervais: SuperNature" (John L. Spencer, Netflix)

2. "Christina P Mom Genes" (Ryan Polito, Netflix)

3. "Bill Burr: Live At Red Rocks" (Mike Binder, Netflix)


Weak films of 2022:

Broker (South Korea)
Bungalow (Canada)
Holy Spider (Denmark)
Inu-Oh (Japan)
The Quiet Girl (Ireland)
Respire (Canada)
Rodeo (Canada)
RRR (India)
Tori et Lokita (Belgium)

Weak shorts:

Night Ride (Norway)
Le Pupille (Italy)

Weak cartoons:


Weak TV shows:

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Top Musical of 2022

"Elvis" (Baz Luhrmann, Warner)

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November 11, 2022

Women Talking (2022) *****

A masterful portrait of humanity at its most vulnerable and at its most brave. Also, a superlative example of feminism at its most intelligent, generous and biting.
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October 10, 2022

Stars At Noon (2022) *****

Enigmatic, mesmerizing and sensuous drama set in totalitarian Nicaragua during the Covid lockdowns. A masterpiece of "exotic/erotic" cinema. But instead of an Emmanuelle-style fantasy, we have a realistic portrait of a real woman forced to humiliate herself and to sell her body in order to survive and escape from a totalitarian nightmare. Winner of the Grand Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival and Margaret Qualley's most memorable acting performance to date.
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Bardo False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths (2022) ****

Uneven, but often brilliant film that explores Mexican history and identity in a deeply allegoric and personal way.
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The Whale (2022) ****

Almost every film review of this film describes it as a story of an overweight man and his problems. It is not. It's a story of an angry young girl lashing out at the entire world and coming to terms with a traumatic event from her childhood when she was eight and abandoned by a father whom she adored. One of Darren Aronofsky's best films.
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Tell It Like A Woman (2022) ****

An impressive achievement. Not so much for the technical craft or the directorial vision (except for the Lucia Puenzo's episode, which is indeed superbly directed). There is a thematic coherence between the first five episodes. But what really stands out is the simplicity and the emotional rawness, especially in the first two episodes. They are incredibly moving and touching in the most visceral way. The first story especially serves us a gut punch on many levels. What makes it stand out is how completely it makes us identify with a mentally challenged woman undergoing a psychotic crisis and how she manages to get out of it. The tension is unbelievable. The next two episode also deal with mental illness, but in a softer manner. The second episode is also memorable, and has some unexpected moments of subtle humour. The fourth segment is about ordinary life of a single mother raising two young children. Nothing dramatic, just everyday routine. And the fifth is a more conventional thriller about a veterinarian who discovers that the woman who brings her dog to her clinic is a victim of abuse. It's a very tense story, well handled. The last two segments are completely different from the first five. The shift in tone is jarring. The sixth episode is a Bollywood extravaganza with musical numbers. The seventh is an experimental animated film that is very difficult to decipher. On their own, they are quite interesting. But they have nothing in common with the first five episodes which are very realistic and emotionally charged. The sixth segment tackles transphobia. That's also a social issue, like in the five previous segments that deal with mental illness (the first three), single motherhood and abuse. But the treatment in the sixth segment isn't realistic at all. It's pure spectacle.  There's actually something very interesting in that tonal shift - a refusal to let women's stories be pigeonholed into just social realism, and insisting on a full range of cinematic expression. 

Segments:

"Pepcy And Kim" (Taraji P. Henson)  *****
"Elbows Deep" (Catherine Hardwicke)  ***
"Lagonegro" (Lucia Puenzo)  ****
"A Week In My Life" (Mipo O)  ***
"Unspoken" (Maria Sole Tognazzi)  ***
"Sharing A Ride" (Leena Yadav)  ***
"Aria" (Lucia Bulgheroni, Silvia Carobbio)  ***
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No Bears (2022) ****

Another excellent film from Jafar Panahi. It's about an Iranian filmmaker trying to direct (via Skype) a movie filmed across the border in Turkey while residing in a small village on the Iranian side of the border, and getting involved in a serious conflict in that village over a photograph of a young couple. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.
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