Tuesday, July 5, 2022

2022 in Movies: Mid-Year Review

2022's early film slate has offered many blessings and curses. The Batman delivered a vivid, immersive portrayal of Gotham and Bruce Wayne's long journey to becoming a hero that was unlike any previous live action portrayal of the character. Michael Bay discovered drones and did some wild, inventive shit with them that could fundamentally change how action movies are made over the next decade or so. Roland Emmerich confirmed he longer knows how to make dumb fun disaster movies with the bafflingly dull dud Moonfall. And perhaps most importantly, Gru rose again. Here's a full ranking of every film I saw from January-June from worst to best along with a slew of mid-year accolades and awards.

53.Moonfall (D-)

52.Elvis (D)

51.Morbius (D+)

50.Dog (C-)

49.Texas Chainsaw Massacre (C-)

48.Blacklight (C)

47.Home Team (C)

46.The Bubble (C+)

45.The Man from Toronto (C+)

44.Studio 666 (B-)

43.Deep Water (B-)

42.Crush (B-)

41.Marry Me (B-)

40.Turning Red (B-)

39.The Adam Project (B-)

38.Uncharted (B-)

37.Crimes of the Future (B-)

36.Senior Year (B-)

35.Lightyear (B)

34.The Lost City (B)

33.Fire Island (B)

32.I Want You Back (B)

31.Jurassic World Dominion (B)

30.Metal Lords (B)

29.The 355 (B)

28.The Fallout (B)

27.The Bad Guys (B)

26.Fresh (B)

25.The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (B)

24.Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (B)

23.Dual (B)

22.The Outfit (B)

21.Chip'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (B)

20.Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (B)

19.Top Gun: Maverick (B)

18.No Exit (B)

17.KIMI (B)

16.The Worst Person in the World (B)

15.Hustle (B)

14.Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (B+)

13.Spiderhead (B+)

12.On the Count of Three (B+)

11.The Northman (B+)

10.Men (B+)

9.The Black Phone (B+)

8.Watcher (B+)

7.Everything Everywhere All at Once (B+)

6.X (B+)

5.Scream (A-)

4.Emergency (A-)

3.Ambulance (A-)

2.Jackass Forever (A)

1.The Batman (A)

Awards and Accolades:

Top Movie: The Batman

Top Director: Matt Reeves (The Batman)

Top Lead Performance (Male): Donald Elise Watkins, Emergency 

Top Lead Performance (Female): Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Top Supporting Performance (Male): Paul Dano, The Batman

Top Supporting Performance (Female): Brittany Snow, X 

Top Breakthrough Performance: Donald Elise Watkins, Emergency 

Top Script: Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt, Scream

Top Cinematography: Greig Fraser, The Batman

Top Score: Michael Giacchino, The Batman

Top Editing: David Kashevaroff and Ti West, X

Top Visual Effects: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 

Top Villain: The Riddler (Paul Dano), The Batman

Worst Villain: The Moon, Moonfall

Top Action Sequence: The 100+ minute chase scene through LA, Ambulance 

Top Piece of Overacting: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ambulance

Best Performance in a Bad Movie: Austin Butler (Elvis)

Worst Performance in a Good Movie: Claes Bang (The Northman)

Biggest Waste of Legitimate Acting Talent: Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson and Michael Pena, Moonfall 

Movie I'm Most Excited to See in the Second Half of 2022: Bullet Train 

Top Performances:

1.Paul Dano (The Batman)

2.Donald Elise Watkins (Emergency)

3.Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

4.Robert Pattinson (The Batman)

5.Brittany Snow (X)

6.Kristen Stewart (Crimes of the Future)

7.Christopher Abbott (On the Count of Three)

8.Maika Monroe (Watcher)

9.Emma Thompson (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande)

10.Elizabeth Olsen (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness)

Most Underrated: 

1.Watcher

2.On the Count of Three 

3.Spiderhead

Most Overrated:

1.Elvis 

2.Turning Red 

3.The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Biggest Surprises:

1.Scream

2.KIMI

3.No Exit

Biggest Letdowns:

1.The Bubble

2.The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

3.Turning Red

Top Acting Ensembles:

1.The Batman

2.Emergency 

3.X

4.Scream

5.Hustle 

Top Miscellaneous Things I Didn't Gave Props to Above:

1.The suffocating, slowly escalating suspense of Watcher.

2.The editing, score, cinematography and design of The Grabber's mask in The Black Phone.

3.The brilliant absurdist comedy elements of Everything Everywhere All at Once.

4.The pitch-perfect final moments of X, Dual, Watcher, Emergency and The Black Phone.

5.The underappreciated performances of Zoe Kravitz, Colin Farrell and Andy Serkis in The Batman

6.The sincere effort by Matt Smith to give Morbius a pulse 

7.The gnarly gore and shockingly strong cinematography of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

8.The unmistakable fingerprints of Sam Raimi all over Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

9.The lengths Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas went to make Deep Water relatively compelling.

10.The kickass final major fight scene in The Man from Toronto that comes out of nowhere and is 100x better than anything else about the movie.  

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