Josh Kupecki's Top10 Films of 2022
Fri., Dec. 16, 2022
1) Decision to Leave Absolutely the most satisfying time I spent in the cinema this year.
2) Crimes of the Future Just one word: plastics.
3) The Innocents Children with psychic powers, one a burgeoning sociopath. A riveting and terrifying experience and, as I see it, likely based on actual events.
4) Vortex Gaspar Noé's most merciless and affecting film to date. The kind of experience people mark with a tattoo.
5) All the Beauty and the Bloodshed I now know artist Nan Goldin better than I know myself. Monumental.
6) A Love Song Like the best songs, familiar rhythms transform into something wholly unique.
7) Flux Gourmet "A fiendishly toothsome skewering of the art world," wrote the insufferable food critic. Me? I've dubbed my new band the Mangrove Snacks.
8) Armageddon Time Evocative reminder that you can't always get what you want.
9) The Banshees of Inisherin The unbearable lightness of being boring. Mark me down for Team Jenny in the Great Donkey Debate of 2022.
10) God's Country The year's best Western.
Near Misses: Aftersun, Resurrection, To Leslie
Most Overrated: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Most Underrated: After Yang, Happening, Sundown
Wild Card: The continuing fallout of the Streaming Wars™ has seen a number of casualties and (profit) losses, but most disheartening is the flat-out removal of media from various platforms. If something isn't streaming, does it exist anymore? Not in the eyes of the general populace these days. When is that video store reopening again?
Acting Kudos (Male): Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin), Caleb Landry-Jones (Nitram), Paul Mescal (Aftersun)
Acting Kudos (Female): Dale Dickey (A Love Song), Thandiwe Newton (God's Country), Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie)
Best Director: Park Chan-wook (Decision to Leave), Eskil Vogt (The Innocents)
Best Original Screenplay: Justin Benson (Something in the Dirt), James Gray (Armageddon Time), Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Noah Baumbach (White Noise); Audrey Diwan, Marcia Romano (Happening); Kogonada (After Yang)
TV Series/Event: Severance. An insatiable appetite for narratives has made it gradually more difficult for stories to surprise me. Not a boast, just a lament. But Dan Erickson and co. left me in a state of confounded delight for three months. I eagerly await next year's melon party.
Worst Film: Triangle of Sadness. A mildly interesting opening act becomes completely forgotten as the film retches up mirthless slapstick class warfare, cribbing from Buñuel and Wertmüller. Seemingly written by a middle school edgelord with the tab for the Das Kapital wiki open.
The Little Film That Could: Ultrasound. Still thinking about the narrative gymnastics of Rob Schroeder's mindfuck (from Conor Stechschulte's epic graphic novel, Generous Bosom). The gaslighting film to end all gaslighting films? Decide for yourself, as it's currently on Hulu (for now).