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Archive for the ‘Movie Mania’ Category

I want your (free) DVDs

Posted in Movie Mania, tagged , , , , on March 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »

It begins … again.

Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in.

Video stores are long gone, and streaming has almost totally replaced the days of VCR’s and DVD players.

With a Roku device being approximately the size of a large eraser, I understand why many people have divested themselves of physical media.

Heck, I did it several years back, when I sold off my own collection.

And yet, the itch is always there.

Holding a DVD case in your hand, marinating in the soft glow it gives off, whether it’s an Oscar Best Picture winner like Rocky or a not-award winner like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, takes me back.

To 15 years in the small-town video store biz.

To the ever-present smell of popcorn and the streaks of “butter” forever mashed into the carpet.

To the thrill of unrolling new posters and fighting over who got to claim the free movie studio swag, be it a t-shirt from Apollo 13, a bomber jacket from The River Wild, or a Forrest Gump box o’ chocolates.

To playing Bugsy Malone and the original Gone in 60 Seconds and SpongeBob and Riverdance and opera on the in-store TVs until customers lost their minds.

All it takes is one generous person to offer me some free DVDs, and I mentally plan out how I can turn the side room in my duplex into a small-scale recreation of Videoville.

This time, I tell myself, I WON’T spend money on movies, only offer a forever home for movies being given away.

I’ll be strong, but compassionate.

In a world where the Criterion Channel got caught editing “objectionable material” from Oscar Best Picture winner The French Connection — without telling viewers — and in a world where so many movies simply don’t exist on streaming, I’m preserving history.

When the apocalypse hits and the internet goes down forever, if I have DVDs, the movies will live on.

So, I’m doing it for the good of all mankind, is what I’m saying.

Sure, David, sure.

Well either way, I’m doing it.

Going back to my misspent younger years. Preserving movie history.

Relaxing by putting movies in precise alphabetic order (remember, you DON’T COUNT “a, and, or the!!”), and gazing upon the wonder of physical media.

So, want to clear out space in your own abode? I’m here for you.

No VHS – it’s a duplex! But DVD, if it doesn’t cost me money I don’t have, yes.

165 Sherman, Coupeville, WA, 98239 is the address.

It’s the place where the cats will be wandering by outside, shaking their heads and whispering “He’s back at it, boys.”

Now, I just need to see about liberating the chair with the Videoville logo on it that’s part of the bench at Coupeville High School basketball games.

Cause what better way would there be to sit among my movies, pretending like it was still 1997?

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A man, a recliner, a lot of wasted hours

Posted in Movie Mania, tagged , , , , on January 1, 2024| 2 Comments »

Nicolas Cage would like to have a word regarding your use of a cell phone in a movie theater.

Movie watching ain’t what it used to be.

In so many ways.

Gone are the days of me camping out in the Oak Harbor theater to the extent where the back row seats were shaped to my butt cheeks.

It wasn’t Covid that killed the public viewing experience for me.

It was cell phones, and the moment when modern theater owners decided that no, they really didn’t want to do anything to keep the morons from lighting up in the dark and ruining the experience.

I watched films in off-island dollar theaters where we openly debated as to whether the chunks of stuff on the wall were smashed-up brownies or something far more nefarious.

Possible (human) manure? Not a deal-breaker.

Cell phones? The end of civilization as we know it.

And so I’ve gone inside, choosing my own recliner and I’m better for it.

NOT playing at a theater near you.

We’re at a time when a month of a streaming service costs less than a single matinee ticket, and that’s before adding in the gas spent, the endless ads unspooled before we even get to the movie trailers, and the inflated cost of Reese’s Pieces.

Not to mention having to overcome the urge to “liberate” all the cell phones and light them on fire in the middle of the theater in a tribute to the cinematic gods.

Not that streaming is perfect, as tracking down movies through the labyrinth is becoming increasingly more difficult.

First the studios splintered into a million little pieces, and now they’re slowly, methodically lurching their way back to being cable TV again.

The dream of me being able to hide under my blankies and watch whatever I want, whenever I want, for as few pennies as possible, remains just that — a dream.

But I endure.

While frequently complaining to the universe, which the landlord’s cats have informed me makes it harder for them to enjoy their dinner in the manner they require.

So, while I wait for them to launch a coordinated attack on the duplex and stuff a rag in my mouth, I surf the internet, and complain, then complain some more.

At least there are no cell phones to set on fire, except for the one which my sister makes me have, but which I frequently ignore.

This year, as an experiment, I decided to document every film — feature length or short — I viewed.

I counted rewatches and new experiences alike, and the final number hit 602.

Some will be horrified by the number, I’m sure, but know this — back in my video store days, it was a LOT higher.

If you want, you can pop over to the Letterboxd page I used to track my viewing:

https://letterboxd.com/davidsvien/list/recliner-life-what-i-watched-in-2023/

And then you can join my nephews in informing me that, “Uncle David … you watch a lot of crap, don’t you???”

It’s true.

Though man cannot exist on Citizen Kane or Lawrence of Arabia alone.

You need The Apple in your life, too, and some Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical to keep things interesting.

It’s why I watched two films this year, with wildly varying plots, both called Malignant.

Plus, the quadruple threat of Cocaine Bear, Grizzly II (with a very young George Clooney), Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, and Night of the Killer Bears.

And hey, if they didn’t want me to watch the really gnarly stuff, our library system wouldn’t put crap like Cannibal Holocaust on their free-to-the-world streaming site, Kanopy.

They’re the dealers, I’m just the guy trying to keep my cinematic high going. Sometimes you get Miami Vice-grade white thunder, sometimes it’s all weeds and sticks.

Streaming, where cinematic fever dreams live forever.

As I coast into a new year and move back into not publicly documenting each and every viewing experience, thereby giving my nephews ammunition for calling my sanity into question, one question lingers.

What were the best films I saw in ’23?

To start, we’ll toss out repeat viewings and go only with stuff which was brand new to me.

I know Boogie Nights and Moulin Rouge are great. You (hopefully) know Boogie Nights and Moulin Rouge are great. Movin’ right along.

And here’s where I’m going to throw in a plot twist, and finally accept something which I had to learn over my video store years.

The films I’m about to hail are not necessarily the best I saw, but my personal favorites.

Best is in the eye of the beholder, something I thought about as I rewatched Bottle Rocket, the film that tore apart Coupeville, for the first time since 1996.

Twenty-seven years down the road it was even better the second time around … for me.

I know there are many, many people out there who probably still hate the film, or at least remember hating it, and trying to convince them to change their mind is pretty pointless.

Listen, you love Avatar, and I think the series is a pointless waste of time and money, and I love the Coen brothers, and you get the shakes when their names come up.

It is what it is.

So, here we go, 23 films that I saw for the first time in 2023 and loved (or at least seriously liked).

Your mileage may vary.

 

Short films:

 

#10 — My Cat Lucy – YouTube

Hairballs are the work of the Devil.

 

#9 — The Punisher: Dirty Laundry – YouTube

Down ‘n dirty day in the life of the Marvel Comics vigilante, and a better cinematic take on the character than all of his feature film appearances combined.

 

#8 — Hors Piste – YouTube

Fun animated mini flick about a botched mountain rescue. PS — my nephews thought the title was hilarious, even if it doesn’t mean what it sounds like.

 

#7 — Ivalu – Kanopy

A young woman goes missing in Greenland, and things spiral downwards from there.

 

6 — Ice Merchants – YouTube

Eye-popping animated tale of daredevils chasing frozen water treats.

 

#5 — (tie) La Chambre (The Room) – Netflix and Knight of Fortune – YouTube

Two different countries, two different tales of people picking up the pieces after a death in the family.

 

#4 — The Red Suitcase – YouTube

A young girl, sent to another country to be a child bride, makes a run for it in a tense thriller.

 

#3 — Bob & Don – YouTube

Beautiful tribute to lifelong friends/comedian all-stars Bob Newhart and Don Rickles, proving opposites attract.

 

#2 — An Irish Goodbye – Kanopy

Two brothers try and fulfill their late mother’s bucket list, eliciting big tears and bigger laughs.

 

#1 — Boom – YouTube

I’ve seen this three times now, and it’s better than anything Pixar or Disney have done in a decade. The eggs running away, with just the legs having broken free, was my favorite moment of 2023, hands down.

Disney needs to open the bank vault now.

 

Feature films:

 

#10 (tie) — Mandy – Tubi and Babylon – Paramount+

Fever dreams about madmen (and women), with directors going absolutely for broke, no matter how many people they offend along the way. Nicolas Cage in a drug-fueled chainsaw duel and Margot Robbie sharing screen time with degenerates, both human and animal — now that’s cinema. Of a certain type…

 

#9 — The Holdovers – Peacock

Pitch-perfect ’70s set story of a band of misfits forced to spend Christmas break together on an otherwise shuttered campus. Paul Giamatti’s best work yet, and that’s saying a lot.

 

#8 – Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – Disney+

Listen, I’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark 10 billion times. Even if this was bad (and it’s not) I would have given it some slack. How nice to have it be a genuinely touching, rip-roaring farewell to Harrison Ford in the role.

 

#7 — Lifeguard – Paramount+

Sam Elliott was once a young(er) man! Long before his bushy mustache became an international star on its own, he made this tale of a man hanging on to a fading life even as everyone else around him sells out. Far deeper than you expect — but, hey, it was the ’70s, when films were far more willing to be morally complex.

 

#6 (tie) — In a Valley of Violence – Netflix and The Sisters Brothers – Tubi

Two strong recent Westerns which honor the tradition of Eastwood and Leone, while finding their own unique paths. The former is proof John Travolta still has the juice when he wants to bring it.

 

#5 — 99 Homes – Kanopy

Lacerating tale of a man who loses his family home in the economic crash, then gets it back (and more), at least for a while, by becoming the very thing he hates.

 

#4 — Boyhood – Paramount+

I put this one off for a few years, and now wonder what I was thinking. Shot over multiple years, so we can see the young lead actor grow up for real on camera, it burrows deep to find something real and remarkable.

 

#3 — Licorice Pizza – Max

Paul Thomas Anderson, the man who gave us Boogie Nights, Hard Eight, and There Will Be Blood, is money in the bank, and this coming-of-age tale is another home run for the modern master.

 

#2 — Maggie Moore(s) – Hulu

Did I mention I love the Coen brothers? This VERY dark comedy/crime thriller, starring Jon Hamm and Tina Fey, is like a perfect performance by a really good tribute band. It might not be 100% the real thing, but it’s really dang close.

 

#1 — Hickey and Boggs – Tubi

A ’70s film with morally questionable lead characters (cops/PI’s/con men, etc.) sinking into a world of corruption, with no happy endings?

That’s my jam, baby.

From Chinatown — my favorite all-time film — to others like Night Moves, The Outfit, The Seven-Ups, Dirty Harry, The Long Goodbye, Farewell My Lovely, The Conversation, The Parallax View, Trick Baby, and now this one, which somehow evaded me until this year, I eat ’em up and come back for more.

Problematic enough to make a Gen Z TikToker have a stroke.

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“I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel.”

Posted in Movie Mania, tagged , , , , on July 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Tim Burton (left) and Pee-Wee Herman, making magic.

Indiana Jones. Norman Bates. Scarlett O’Hara.

Whether it’s Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name, or Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, some movie characters live forever.

Pee-Wee Herman is one of those immortals.

Through three movies, a TV show, a stage show, and several decades, the man-child with the bow tie and the extra-fancy bicycle elevated Paul Reubens and put him up there, rightfully, with the icons.

The news of the actor’s death, at age 70 (how could Pee-Wee be 70???) after a private battle with cancer, hits every emotional button I have.

I was 14 when Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure came out and have loved every frame of it ever since.

Look, I’m not saying it’s one of the best films of all time. I’m saying it’s bigger than that.

It’s not Chinatown, or On the Waterfront, or Lawrence of Arabia — pristine cinematic gems which stand at the tippy-top of my Mount Rushmore of films.

But Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Hoosiers, has a hold on me which is uncanny.

No matter how many times I see it, what unspools remains as fresh today as it was in the ’80s.

Few things are better than harassing my nephews by endlessly replaying the Large Marge scene or Pee-Wee dancing to Tequila in platform shoes, or his attempted visit to the Alamo’s basement.

“I know you are, but what am I?”

“Go ahead and scream your head off! We’re miles from where anyone can hear you!”

“The mind plays tricks on you. You play tricks back!”

“Is this something you can share with the rest of us, Amazing Larry????”

“I say we let him go!!”

Some movies have great lines sprinkled across a sea of pedestrian dialogue.

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is gold, Jerry, gold, every last line of it.

“There’s a lotta things about me you don’t know anything about, Dottie. Things you wouldn’t understand. Things you couldn’t understand. Things you shouldn’t understand.”

During my 15-year run in video stores, one of the true highlights was winning a bet with Miriam, the owner of Videoville.

I had pledged to rent the pretty much unknown Bottle Rocket — Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson’s first film — 300 times if she sprung for three VHS copies in the days when VHS copies cost their weight in gold.

325 rentals, and a lot of peeved customers later, I collected on that bet.

My bounty?

A laserdisc copy of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure for the store and the chance to play the scene of our hero “rescuing” snakes from a burning pet store while screaming like a ninny in glorious high-def.

Not saying it was heaven, but with the store wrapped in the smell of popcorn drenched in fake butter, it was pretty darn close.

Look, there’s a lot going on today, same as yesterday, same as tomorrow.

But, in that words of that immortal sage, Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Go, take a break and just marinate. Watch all 91 minutes of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure or at least catch a clip or two.

Be a loner, a rebel, shed a tear, pour one out and pity the fool who doesn’t enjoy Mr. T’s cereal.

Not all heroes wear capes. Some wore bow ties.

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Sorry haters, “Bottle Rocket” still pops!

Posted in Movie Mania, tagged , , , , , on June 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Still my jam.

Yep, you’re all still wrong.

Back in 1996, two years into my 12-year run working behind the counter at Videoville, I relentlessly pushed a movie on renters.

A film which fractured Coupeville and exposed one simple truth — my taste in movies was often radically different than that of my customers.

That would be reinforced many, many, MANY times over the years.

Light one up for Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, my old friend.

You can go hang out there in the corner with Hands on a Hardbody, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Apple, and the deeply misunderstood Cat in the Hat.

Don’t view it as a kid’s movie, but instead as Mike Myers crafting a warped tribute to old-school Catskills comedy, and you’ll be much happier.

But anyway, Bottle Rocket, which gave the world Owen Wilson (and his smashed-in nose) and Wes Anderson (and his love it or hate it cinematic style), was then, and remains now, a highly divisive movie in Cow Town.

In a 1996 world where most new VHS copies of movies cost between $70-$100 (it was a different time…), a lil’ store in Coupeville bought three copies of a micro-budget independent movie.

All because, battling a brain-splitting headache at 2:00 AM, I watched an advance copy of said film, and promptly convinced a VERY understanding video store owner, Miriam Meyer, only one move made sense.

Don’t pass on an oddball comedy from a first-time writer/director, starring an unknown goofball with a smashed schnozz, as many stores across America would.

And don’t buy just one copy.

Go for the deal the distributor was offering. A deal they probably thought no store would accept.

Buy THREE copies, get some bucks knocked off the overall price, and I would guarantee to rent that trio 300 times.

In a town the size of Coupeville.

So, we made a bet.

A bet I won, which resulted in Miriam buying the store Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure on LaserDisc — the format which was going to revolutionize the biz.

Until it didn’t.

Every employee arriving to work when video stores ruled the world in the mid-90’s.

We rented Bottle Rocket on VHS 306 times … and approximately 304 of those times, the reaction was brutal.

There was apathy. Indifference. And a whole heck of a lot of visceral hate.

Hate I still hear about to this day, a full 17 years after I departed Videoville.

Which begs the question — could I have been wrong?

Beset by a migraine, fueled by the heady mix of a microwave burrito and Excedrin, did I overestimate Bottle Rocket’s brilliance in the early hours of a 1996 morning?

Or was 99.2% of the town just flat out wrong, heathens with no taste for the finer things?

That existential quandary hovered in the air on a recent Saturday afternoon in 2023, as I returned to Bottle Rocket for the first time in 27 years.

No migraine, no microwave burrito, no Excedrin, just some presumably clear eyes taking a second look at the film which will forever mark me in this town.

Which is saying a lot, as I have mainlined an ungodly number of movies in my time.

The total number is unfathomable at this point, but I once tried to tally up the titles seen. When I hit 10,000, I quit counting.

That was a looooooooooooong time ago.

As a lark, I’ve been keeping tabs on my viewing habits this year, which you can view here:

https://letterboxd.com/davidsvien/list/recliner-life-what-i-watched-in-2023/

With my video store days long gone, and sports writing duties somewhat restricting my time, I’m still on target to hit about 500 in 2023.

Not a record-buster, but decent numbers.

But for every Chinatown and On the Waterfront in my past, there have been a gazillion lesser cinematic moments.

My nephews, after finding out I once paid to be the only person in a mall movie theater for a showing of the 2000 Jason Biggs “comedy” Loser, now find it hilarious to bring that nugget up 10 times a week.

“Man, Uncle David, you watch a lot of crap, don’t you?”

I do, I do. Just look at my Letterboxd list…

Taste, or lack of it, is in the eye of the beholder.

Or something like that. Now hush while I go watch a double feature of camp and schlock with Glee: The Concert and Sisters of Death.

My Roku seeing me choose movies to watch.

But back to Bottle Rocket, and my first viewing of it in 27 years.

Back then, it unspooled on a VCR.

This time around, it was streaming on Hulu.

Both times? Bliss, baby.

Time has been kind to Bottle Rocket. If anything, I think it’s better the second time around.

Over the years, Wes Anderson has become among the most precious of directors, each of his films even more hermetically sealed — lil’ masterpieces of elaborate art design aimed at a crowd of about three of us.

I like most of what he does, and outright love some of it, like The Grand Budapest Hotel.

That said, other modern-day filmmakers like the Coen brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson have proven to be his superior in my eyes.

And if we’re talking old-school pros like Akira Kurosawa and Billy Wilder, or the controversial but brilliant trio of Elia Kazan, Leni Riefenstahl, and Roman Polanski, he’s not even in the conversation.

But Wes Anderson is very, very good at a very narrow form of filmmaking, and give him his props for that.

Then go back and watch Bottle Rocket with fresh eyes after 27 years, and it’s a jolt to be reminded how different his debut film was from the movies he’s now best known for making.

There’s no all-star cast — Owen and Luke Wilson are first-timers, and Lumi Cavazos, so sweetly winning, was virtually unknown to American audiences.

Unless you had made a road trip from Whidbey to the theater in Mount Vernon to see her in the Mexican art house smash Like Water for Chocolate back in ’92.

Worth the gas money.

The ever-luminous Lumi Cavazos.

James Caan, of Godfather and Rollerball fame, was the only “name” in the cast in 1996, and his small role, as a weird (maybe) crime boss was a million years away from his normal hyper-intense roles.

Wes Anderson hadn’t become obsessed with art design yet, and the movie — a gentle, goofy comedy about slightly cockeyed people finding connections through small-time crime — plays out across normal Texas landscapes.

It’s laidback, charming, witty, a light dollop of fun floating through a too-tense world.

Martin Scorsese, perhaps our greatest living director, said Bottle Rocket “conveys the simple joys and interactions between people so well and with such richness.”

Are you going to argue with the dude who made Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore?

Simple joys … maybe that’s the problem.

In my push to hit 300 rentals, I might have oversold the film, made it sound like it would transform lives and inspire a generation.

Bottle Rocket is what it is, then and now.

Just a whimsical good time, something to ease head pain in 1996 or bring back good memories in 2023 of a time when video store life was in its prime.

I loved the film then. I love it now.

Maybe it’s time everyone else in Coupeville took 91 minutes to reevaluate it.

And if you still hate it afterwards? Well, you’d just be wrong.

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Ramblings from my recliner

Posted in Movie Mania, tagged , , , , on December 24, 2022| Leave a Comment »

The best new movie of 2022. Or so say I.

What a strange movie world we live in these days.

There was a time in the past when I spent countless hours camped behind a video store counter, taste-testing Reese’s Pieces, while dabbling in life as a self-syndicated movie reviewer.

From Whidbey Island to Yelm and maybe even a bit of Renton, my movie-related ramblings popped up in old-school newspapers for a decade and a half, making me a (very) low-rent Roger Ebert.

One who spent so much time at his local movie theater he could detail every small whorl of the water stain which graced the ceiling in theater #1.

And yet, because Whidbey Island is far from the madding crowd, a lot of the films which made my year-end “best-of” columns were first viewed on video, be it VCR tape or early-day DVD’s.

The surreal “win a free truck and lose your mind” documentary Hands on a Hardbody.

The smoke ’em if you got ’em fun of Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical.

Or overseas fare like Lagaan, a 224-minute(!) Bollywood musical about cricket(!), Japan’s bonkers ‘n blood-soaked Suicide Club, and The Terrorist, a stark tale from India of a pregnant suicide bomber.

In 2022, though, video stores are largely no more, and I have gone the entire year without entering a movie theater, as self-entitled asshats with phones drove me away long before Covid entered stage left.

And yet, thanks to the sometimes wonderful, sometimes super annoying, world of streaming, I’m probably watching as many films as ever.

If not more.

I opened this year on a crazy crusade to look back at 1997’s cinematic output, using the 25th anniversary of those films to justify watching Boogie Nights and L.A. Confidential for the 200th time.

Now, Batman and Robin, with its bat nipples and non-stop Arnold ice puns, was even worse than I remembered.

I am so glad George Clooney found the Coen brothers, while the Dark Knight broke up with Joel Schumacher — a decent director who gave us The Lost Boys, Falling Down, and Tigerland.

I am a huge Jack Nicholson fan (Chinatown 4 Life), but found that, while viewing multiple Oscar winner As Good As It Gets for the first time in 25 years, I kinda, sorta hated every single thing about the film.

But overall, ’97 stands tall.

Even if I’m still ticked L.A. Confidential, with its whip-smart dialogue and densely layered plot, lost the Oscar to Leonardo Di Caprio gettin’ all sleepy in the cold water in hour seven of Titanic.

But come on.

The Sweet Hereafter, Jackie Brown, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, Grosse Point Blank, Ulee’s Gold, In the Company of Men, Traveller, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, Eve’s Bayou, The Matchmaker…

Air Force One to Con Air, Breakdown to Mimic, the non-Elton John RocketMan to George of the Jungle, The Spanish Prisoner to The Fifth Element, Smilla’s Sense of Snow to Cats Don’t Dance, ’97 has a deep, deep bench.

And we’re not even talking about the cheesy pleasures of Pierce Brosnan saving the dog but letting grandma boil alive in volcano waste during Dante’s Peak.

Or Jon Voight being swallowed, barfed out whole, then swallowed again, all in loving closeup, during the slimy climax of Anaconda.

Good times.

But don’t take my word for it. Go rewatch a hundred or more of those suckers like I did and thank me later.

When I wasn’t wallowing in ’97 nostalgia, probably the best film I saw in ’22 was The Outfit.

No, not the tailor vs. the mob tale which used that title this year, but the punch-to-the-stomach 1973 neo noir starring Robert Duvall and Joe Don Baker.

Featuring an incredible cast of old pros (Robert Ryan, Timothy Carey, Karen Black, Richard Jaeckel, Elisha Cook, Jane Greer, Marie Windsor) it’s down ‘n dirty in the best way possible.

Tracking a calm, composed, but VERY upset Duvall as he carves a path of revenge through the mafia after his brother gets whacked, I found it on some obscure freebie channel on the fringes of the streaming world.

Which is where most of the gems hang out in 2022 in this strange modern-day movie world.

Or even sorta-gems like Stryker, a 1983 Mad Max wannabe which combines nuclear holocaust, killer dwarves, and barely dressed, heavily armed warriors driving dune buggies.

In other words, a decent Saturday night.

But David, you ask, if you’re avoiding theaters and spent a chunk of time watching back catalog stuff, did you just completely ignore the new films of 2022?

Hardly.

While my viewing of new product is hampered a bit by my current aversion to theaters, I still cleared 70+ films carrying 2022 as their release date.

And not a single one of those was illegally downloaded, so there’s that.

My thoughts on the year?

While a lot of possible award winners have yet to unspool in front of my eyeballs, 2022 seems unlikely to match ’97 in terms of depth or wanting to go back and rewatch things down the line.

Which doesn’t mean there aren’t gems, cause there are.

They’re just buried under a pile of pointless remakes (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Firestarter, Hellraiser), and lackluster sequels/prequels (Halloween Ends, Jurassic World: Dominion, Minions: The Rise of Gru, Lightyear, Confess Fletch, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder).

Now, Jackass Forever, Scream, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and Prey — which put the Predator up against old-school Native American warriors — bucked that trend.

Truth be told, I laughed at Thor’s screaming goats, but films like Uncharted, Ambulance, Morbius, Alice, Spiderhead, and even most of Nope faded from my brain before the end credits finished.

But there were ones which stuck the landing, ones I treasured, ones which make my personal top 20 for the year.

“Are you not entertained?!?!”

Adult Swim Yule Log — A hidden horror film with hillbillies, space aliens, cursed hanging trees, sentient killer logs, and an evil lil’ dude living in an active fireplace. Someone spiked the holiday nog.

After Yang — A young girl’s robot companion slowly dies, while Colin Farrell stares into the abyss searching for answers.

The Banshees of Inisherin — Sometimes hilarious, sometimes horrifying, tale of melancholy Irishmen driving each other crazy, while Colin Farrell stares into the abyss, still searching for answers.

Barbarian — The best argument against Airbnb rentals ever put on film. Twenty minutes in, you’re pretty sure you know where this is going, but you’re wrong. Really, really wrong.

The Batman — In which the Emo Dark Knight descends into the muck and mire, then punches his way back out again. As you do.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe — No hugging, no learning, and more laughs than any other film this year. A love letter to old fogies like me who remember when the letters MTV meant something.

Blonde — The feel-bad film of the year, relentless in wallowing in Marilyn Monroe’s pain, made memorable by often-stunning work from Ana de Armas.

Don’t Worry Darling — Ignore the endless bad publicity and enjoy a highly stylized peek into the lives of the rich and paranoid. Part futuristic, part retro, all guilty pleasure.

Dual — Chilly sci-fi film about a woman who has to fight her own clone to the death, after discovering her loved ones like the clone better than they like her.

Emily the Criminal — Aubrey Plaza should get all the Oscars (but likely won’t even be nominated) as a deeply hurting, ultimately amoral woman who survives in a world of sharks by being smarter, and tougher than anyone expects.

Everything Everywhere All at Once — Michelle Yeoh enters the matrix, in a wild mishmash of comedy, pathos, and time-traveling IRS agents.

Facing Nolan — Superb documentary about Nolan Ryan, the toughest man to ever throw a pitch in Major League Baseball.

Gold — Greed is good, as Zac Efron loses his mind trying to hold onto a hunk of gold in a blighted, futuristic hellscape.

No Exit — A group of strangers, snowed in and increasingly desperate, eyeball each other as the twists come fast and furious.

The Northman — If you see only one movie that ends with two naked dudes sword fighting in an active volcano in Iceland, make it this one.

Pearl and X — An unexpected double feature, with the latter a loving homage to late ’70s/early ’80s slashers, and the former a surprise prequel telling the tale of a young woman teetering on the edge of madness.

See How They Run — Light as a feather romp about a murder mystery unfolding backstage during the production of an Agatha Christie whodunnit. Saoirse Ronan is a delight as an overly earnest British cop.

Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 — Some people just want to watch the world burn while listening to Limp Bizkit.

Vengeance — Is it a fish out of water comedy about a big city know-it-all humbled by small town life? Or a tale of ice-cold revenge delivered too late to truly even the scales? It’s both, and all the better for it.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story — The totally true story of an accordion-playing musical legend which finally answers the question, “What if Madonna became an international cocaine kingpin?”

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