These are not the “Best Movies of 2022”, just My Favorite Movies of 2022. I saw 59 movies in theaters in 2022 and here are a few I liked so much that I watched them twice. Usually, the second time at home with my wife. And now in no particular order: The Fallout (2021) Technically this is a 2021 movie, but I saw it in 2022 and loved it, so it had to make my list. Two high school girls…
I’m not a movie critic. I don’t sit in the theatre with a little flashlight and pen taking notes to distill into a scathing review. I’m a videophile. I love movies. I have seen many movies, and I love talking about them, and I love recommending the ones I like to my friends. And even more, I love it when my friends end up liking a movie I recommend. But there is a trick to suggesting a movie and giving…
If you decide to watch one feel-good movie this year about dementia, it better be Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020). The titular Dick is Richard Johnson, a retired psychiatrist and the aging father of documentarian and cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. Soon after diagnosing dementia for her father, Kirsten decides to enlist Dick to create and record a series of fictional situations to help her and her father process his illness and eventual death. While this contains some seriously emotional moments and realizations…
Alright, I’m going to start out by admitting that I never saw the original “Dora the Explorer” animated TV show, so I can’t really commit on how true the movie is to the original source material, in case some millennial purist wants to know. But what I can tell you is that Dora is sweet, fun, and funny. Somehow in a couple of months between the airing of the last episode of “Dora the Explorer” TV show and the release…
I always see a few animated films each year, and they tend to be high quality since they are targeting both youngsters and their parents, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is no exception. The Spider-Man films have always been some of my favorite Marvel movies since they are action-based, light on world-saving, and heavy on comedy. Spider-Verse’s action seems like it is taken directly from the comic pages and released into a medium that can showcase the artist’s true intentions….
The two smartest girls in high school are on a mission: They want to make up for all the lost time spent studying the last four years by attending the school’s dopest party the night before graduation. What could go wrong? Ok, I’m not going to answer my own rhetorical question; you have to watch the movie to see what goes wrong. But I will say what goes right. First, this film is laugh-out-loud funny. Yes, it does have the…
Like Father (2018) stars Kristen Bell as Rachel, a workaholic 30-something, and Kelsey Grammer as her long-estranged father Harry, who shows up at her wedding hoping to reconnect and witness the happiest day of her life. Unfortunately, life and some sitcom-ish scriptwriting conspire against them to have Harry accompany her on her honeymoon cruise. This is a fun little sitcom-like drama with plenty of laughs, lots of sweet moments, and just enough character growth to be believable—a great way to…
I watched 168 movies in 2018, according to my Letterboxd Diary. You can click on the link and see the movies I watched and their ratings. For the most part, I will ignore the blockbusters (except A Star is Born) and focus on movies that did not have big budget advertising and that you probably haven’t heard about. All but one of these have passed the wife test and have a thumbs up by both the misses and me. A…
Housebound (2014) Kylie is an angry, destructive, juvenile delinquent who gets sentenced to house arrest after a botched ATM robbery. She is forced to move back into her childhood home with her mother and stepfather, and to make matters worse the house might be haunted. Kylie is placed under house arrest with an electronic ankle bracelet enforcing her confinement. This turns out to be every bit of a bad punishment for her mother and stepfather as it is for her….
The Little Death (streaming on Netflix) Taken from the french “La Petite Mort” which describes “the brief loss or weakening of consciousness” or for my American movie going audience “I’ll have what she’s having”. I’m glad I don’t have to try and pronounce the “La Petite Mort” because I sound stupid when I speak french correctly, and a complete idiot when I get it wrong, which is most of the time. And speaking of stupid, there is nothing that makes…