Nothing in life is sure except death, taxes, and my list of movies I saw in the previous year. 2022 continued the decline in the annual number of movies I saw from the peak in 2020. In 2022, I saw 73 movies, considerably less than 2021's total of 113 movies. This year saw a combination of factors leading to this lower total, including a new dog in my family, a long vacation, and greater responsibilities at work taking more of my time.
As I contemplate my goals for 2023, I need to consider what is truly important: watching more movies.
My list of new films includes all the movies that I saw that were released in 2022 or 2021. I have indicated which movies were seen outside of a theater by prefixing them with an *asterisk. If the movie was released in 2021, that is indicated in parentheses after the film's title. Finally, I have included my rating on a scale of [zero] to ****, with four stars being the best.
This year, Matt Reeve's hugely successful followup to his excellent Planet of the Apes trilogy in The Batman was my favorite new movie of the year. But after that, the comic book superhero movies were fairly disappointing. I was really looking forward to Thor: Love and Thunder, but a lot of the magic from Thor: Ragnarok (2017) seemed to be gone, and both Black Adam and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever were forgettable.
This year also saw a number of strange choices about which movies had theatrical releases and which movies were discarded like straight-to-video throwaways. Disney spent $175 million on Pixar's Turning Red, a very good movie that Disney just dumped on Disney+ as if it was Better Nate Than Ever (also released direct to streaming, and I haven't heard of it either).
On the other hand, they tried giving Walt Disney Animation Studio's $180 million Strange World a theatrical release. But that movie was embarrassing to watch and it made less in its entire domestic run (~$38 million) than the other big animated flop Lightyear made in its opening weekend alone ($50.5 million).
Disney isn't the only studio making strange decisions about which movies to discard into the anonymous trash heap of a streaming library: Netflix gave Glass Onion a one week limited theatrical release in approximately 600 theaters before unceremoniously dumping it on their service along with Hallmark Christmas Movie ripoffs like I Believe in Santa. And WarnerMedia cut the legs off of The Batman by releasing it to HBO Max after only 45 days in theaters.
I am optimistic that the movie studios will come to the conclusion that a theatrical release adds value to the contents of their streaming libraries. Because without a theatrical release, it is hard to tell the potential audience that a given movie is more than just some made-for-streaming library filler. But I have always enjoyed the movie-going experience. So maybe I am still missing something because I don't want theaters to go away?
Now, on to the list. Is this the only list that places Violent Night above The Fabelmans?
Source: Amazon
The Batman ****
Glass Onion ***1/2
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent ***1/2
Violent Night ***1/2
The Fabelmans ***1/2
Top Gun Maverick ***1/2
Halloween Ends ***1/2
Jurassic World Dominion ***1/2
*Turning Red ***1/2
Uncharted ***
Bullet Train ***
Ticket to Paradise ***
Thor: Love and Thunder ***
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ***
*Minions: The Rise of Gru ***
Death on the Nile (2022) ***
The Lost City ***
*The Bad Guys ***
*Hocus Pocus 2 ***
*Red Notice (2021) **1/2
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever **
Black Adam **
*Don't Look Up (2021) *1/2
*Strange World *
Older movies
Casablanca (1942) ****
Midnight (1939) ****
Dog Day Afternoon (1975) ****
It's Always Fair Weather (1955) ****
Get Shorty (1995) ****
Last Action Hero (1993) ****
Beverly Hills Cop (1984) ****
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) ****
The Third Man (1949) ****
The Big Lebowski (1998) ***1/2
The Mask of Zorro (1998) ***1/2
It Happened One Night (1934) ***1/2
For a Good Time, Call... (2012) ***1/2
The Caine Mutiny (1954) ***1/2
Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) ***1/2
Love in the Afternoon (1957) ***1/2
Let's Make Love (1960) ***1/2
The Talk of the Town (1942) ***1/2
Cleopatra (1963) ***1/2
Funny Face (1957) ***1/2
Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) ***1/2
In a Lonely Place (1950) ***1/2
Blind Date (1987) ***
Road to Bali (1952) ***
Rapture-Polooza (2013) ***
Hudson Hawk (1991) ***
The Great Muppet Caper (1981) ***
Backdraft (1991) ***
Roberta (1935) ***
Dave Made a Maze (2017) ***
The Boy Friend (1971) ***
Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955) ***
Office Christmas Party (2016) ***
Innerspace (1987) ***
To Catch a Thief (1955) ***
Free Solo (2018) ***
Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) ***
Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972) ***
The Harvey Girls (1946) ***
The Mummy Returns (2001) ***
The Girl Next Door (2004) ***
Pretty Baby (1950) **1/2
Can't Stop the Music (1980) **1/2
You Said a Mouthful (1932) **1/2
Du Barry Was a Lady (1943) **1/2
Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) **1/2
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) **
In Like Flint (1967) *1/2
Caprice (1967) *
