I don't have a top-ten list of my own; I'm just not in the habit of making such lists, which require one to have a little more available brainpower than I usually have: you have to spend time thinking about which movies go on such a list as well as how to rank them and why. But, lucky for me, there are others who do top-ten lists. One of my go-to critics on YouTube is Chris Stuckmann; I've been watching his reviews for years. Stuckmann is an aspiring filmmaker who, last year, finally had the money, time, and opportunity to make his own film—"Shelby Oaks," a horror movie. Because he is a cinematic insider of sorts, he is often more charitable, in his reviews, than other critics because he understands that no one goes into filmmaking with the express purpose of making bad films. Stuckmann's point, which I respect, is that ripping apart a movie is easy; appreciating the good points of even not-so-great films takes more work. Since he began making his own films, Stuckmann has explicitly concentrated on films he likes (you can't control how good or bad a film will be when you watch it, but you can control which films you review). He has a way with words when it comes to describing what he likes about a given film, which is one of the reasons why I enjoy watching and listening to his YouTube reviews. Below is Stuckmann's rundown of what were, for him, the top ten films of 2022. I don't agree with much of his list, and I haven't seen many of the films on it, but I appreciate Stuckmann's earnestness and his powers of description. Enjoy.
Chris's honorable mentions (linked films are ones I reviewed): Hustle, The Black Phone, You Can Live Forever, Pearl, Triangle of Sadness, del Toro's Pinocchio, The Quiet Girl, Women Talking, Living, The Fabelmans, The Whale, Tár, and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.*
Chris's top ten for 2022:
9. Till
8. The Outfit
7. The Menu
6. Banshees of Inisherin
5. Thirteen Lives
4. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
3. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
2. The Batman
1. Top Gun: Maverick
As you can see, I have somehow missed a lot of movies. Some of the above are either on my queue and waiting to be viewed (e.g., Hustle, The Quiet Girl, The Whale, Puss in Boots, Till, The Outfit, The Menu, Banshees of Inisherin), or I question the movies' presence on this list. I'd definitely remove The Batman and Glass Onion—I don't agree at all with Chris about either of these movies. I'd also place RRR way higher in the rankings: as pure entertainment, it's hard to beat and a great introduction for newbies like me to the world of Bollywood film (or in this case, Tollywood, i.e., Bengali/Telugu-language cinema). But as I said, I appreciate Chris's earnestly articulate takes on these movies, and if nothing else, another person's top-ten list gives me a guide as to what I might see next. We can only hope that 2023 proves to be a good year for movies. We'll find out soon enough.
__________
*So as not to inundate you with quotation marks, I have reverted to italicizing movie titles. Just this once. (Technically, you should italicize the title of any completed work, but using quotation marks for movie titles is a common journalistic convention, and at this point, it's a habit for me—one that's hard to break.)
I've sometimes wondered what titles belong in quotation marks and when to italicize them. I guess consistency is what matters if neither way is wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe italicizing-titles issue is complicated. Should you italicize the title of a magazine or a newspaper? Some argue no because these are ongoing works, not completed, so they shouldn't be italicized. Others argue yes because you're referring to the whole enterprise at any given moment. I admit I'm not consistent in how I handle mags and papers. Should we capitalize the names of ships? Here, I think the predominant answer is yes, but there are plenty of sources that don't capitalize ship names. So it's often a matter of just picking a style and sticking with it.
ReplyDelete