2022 Movie Reviews

[Jondalar]

1. Scream (5), grade B+ = This is a good sequel, which is surprising because it's' number 5 in the franchise. It's bloodier and more woke than the other Scream movies. However, it's also more serious and less fun the other ones. I felt like this was more of a horror movie than a horror/comedy movie and I sort of liked that. Others may miss the comedy though. I also liked a lot of the murders because the setups were surprising and I liked the complicated ending. I didn't like the lead girl, Melissa Barrera, as much I wanted to. She is sort of boring and she is not as compelling as Neve Campbell. However, she is fine. The legacy cast is barely in the movie and I wanted Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox to have more screen time than they do.

Overall, good horror movie. Go see it.

[paleshadow]

Originally Posted by Jondalar

1. Scream (5), grade B+ = This is a good sequel, which is surprising because it's' number 5 in the franchise. It's bloodier and more woke than the other Scream movies. However, it's also more serious and less fun the other ones. I felt like this was more of a horror movie than a horror/comedy movie and I sort of liked that. Others may miss the comedy though. I also liked a lot of the murders because the setups were surprising and I liked the complicated ending. I didn't like the lead girl, Melissa Barrera, as much I wanted to. She is sort of boring and she is not as compelling as Neve Campbell. However, she is fine. The legacy cast is barely in the movie and I wanted Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox to have more screen time than they do.

Overall, good horror movie. Go see it.

I'd give it a C-. I didn't find it scary at all, and I knew who done it about 30 minutes into the movie. I guess I'm guilty of expecting too much out of sequels.

[Jondalar]

Originally Posted by paleshadow

I'd give it a C-. I didn't find it scary at all, and I knew who done it about 30 minutes into the movie. I guess I'm guilty of expecting too much out of sequels.

I totally disagree. None of them are really scary anymore but this one had interesting, surprising kills.

[TrueFaith77]

1.Redeeming Love (D.J. Caruso); grade: C - High-gloss Christian movie, low-rent Nicholas Sparks romance, it lacks the Western and Crime genre insights of S. Craig Zahler about the exploitation of women and the lengths men must go to protect them. Still, the two lead actors are very appealing, especially dreamy Tim Lewis who should become a big star.

[TrueFaith77]

2.Souers (Yamina Benguigui); grade: C+ - Just when I was thinking: “This is *too* Pirandello-esque,” a character complains to Isabelle Adjani: “I’m confused by your mise en abyme.” The director doesn’t have the visual imagination for this much narrative complexity but her actresses are superb—especially Adjani (my fav living actress) who fascinatingly continues her late-career exploration of her biracial identity without any sops to political fashion.

[TrueFaith77]

3.Rifkin’s Festival (Woody Allen); grade: C- -The concept has potential (former film prof’s marital woes seen through the lens of foreign art cinema past), but instead it just tests the limits of Allen’s wit—some one-liners still land tho—and of his wasted collab w/ cinematographer Vittorio Storaro who makes Persona, Jules and Jim, 8-1/2, Exterminating Angel all look Criterion gray and is undermined by Allen’s blocking. Mise en scene is the signature of the auteur, indeed…

[TrueFaith77]

4.Home Team (Charles Kinnane, Daniel Kinnane); grade: B - 1st good movie of 2022: #HomeTeam recovers rituals of father-son bonding + extends it to pop culture redemption (2012 flashback via “We Are Young”). Hence: “home team.” I laughed, I cried, I sang! Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, and Zack Snyder are the only auteurs fulfilling Hollywood’s mandate today. Relegated to streaming.

[Jondalar]

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

1.Redeeming Love (D.J. Caruso); grade: C - High-gloss Christian movie, low-rent Nicholas Sparks romance, it lacks the Western and Crime genre insights of S. Craig Zahler about the exploitation of women and the lengths men must go to protect them. Still, the two lead actors are very appealing, especially dreamy Tim Lewis who should become a big star.

I was thinking of seeing this but didn't. I'm glad I didn't.

[Jondalar]

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

3.Rifkin’s Festival (Woody Allen); grade: C - The concept has potential (former film prof’s marital woes seen through the lens of foreign art cinema past), but instead it just tests the limits of Allen’s wit—some one-liners still land tho—and of his wasted collab w/ cinematographer Vittorio Storaro who makes Persona, Jules and Jim, 8-1/2, Exterminating Angel all look Criterion gray and is undermined by Allen’s blocking. Mise en scene is the signature of the auteur, indeed…

I didn't Woody could get funding to make movies anymore. He's is huge favorite of mine.

[paleshadow]

Originally Posted by Jondalar

I totally disagree. None of them are really scary anymore but this one had interesting, surprising kills.

It's hard to compare thoughts without spoilers, but I am curious about what kills you thought were surprising? In terms of surprises, I thought there were people who were going to get killed that didn't. Also, one person that really pretty much was killed but at the end wasn't.

[TrueFaith77]

5.Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliche (Celeste Bell, Paul Sng); grade: B - Poly’s daughter Bell honors her mother’s legacy—a punk legend and lead singer of X-Ray Spex (think Sex Pistols meets Roxy Music meets Bowie)—by emphasizing her humanity. While the film establishes Poly’s startling youthful intelligence and artist’s sensitivity by chronicling her mental instability, it reconciles Bell to Poly as daughter-and-mother—a blessing. I wish the film had focused more on Poly’s art (the music, the image) and on her impact (grade Z interviewees ignore Poly’s influence on the Au Pairs and X and relationship to contemporaries like John Lydon). But when the film explores one of her most daring ideological stripteases (from Lyndon’s flat to an anti-racism rally) it recognizes semiotic revelation that must have inspired Morrissey.

[TrueFaith77]

6. Through My Window (Marçal Forès); grade: C+ - Gay YA filmmaker Fores’s #throughmywindow #ATravesDeMiVentana teases a more radical view of sexual discovery (and heartbreak), but turns into the usual hetero post-Twilight soft-core wish-fulfillment fan-fic fantasy … the two leads (Julio Peña + Clara Galle) are gorgeous and naked.

[TrueFaith77]

7. The Battle at Lake Changjin II (Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark, Dante Lam); grade: B-

The wacky—surprisingly moving!—propaganda film sequel The Battle at Lake Changjin II features ideologically abstracted CGI thru which camera, history, the collective (“brothers”) advance like a seamless robe and American might vaporizes like Dr. Manhattan in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen. Even the three directors meld into one hegemonic force—but I’m certain Chen Kaige directed the awesomely visualized and touching climax in which sentimentality gives way to tactile feeling in looming framings and poetic imagery.

[TrueFaith77]

8.I Want You Back (Jason Orley); grade: B-

Jenny Slate might be the best current film comedienne. Her characters start as overgrown children who mature by discovering purpose and building relationships (Obvious Child and Landline remain her best work). She makes her characters specific (sexy, ethnic) but recognizes in this arc a universal crisis. And in this film she and director Orley find a new expressive facet when Slate’s character plays Audrey in a hilariously impassioned junior high production of Little Shop of Horrors. I lol’d in every scene, and, though the two main characters don’t quite get the comeuppance they deserve, the film secures a moral foundation (Scott Eastwood warning: “Stay away from my wife. I’m not kidding” is his best acting yet).

[TrueFaith77]

9.Bigbug (Jean-Pierre Jeunet); grade: A

Jeunet long-dreamt an Eisenstein-inspired peek into the sexual secrets behind closed doors. Now, finally fulfilled, but through the sci-fi lens of covidpocalypse isolation. Each actor is lit with a ring light—as if evincing an individuating spark. By the time Jeunet penetrates into the psycho-spiritual essence of his characters’ exploitable desires, the film is revealed as a continuation of Spielberg’s devastations in A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Like Spielberg, Jeunet expands these insights into cultural awareness (quoting French literature and citing Sternberg-Dietrich’s iconic Blue Angel). Dizzy yet? When the characters debase themselves for the pleasure of their AI overlords, Jeunet fulfills the film’s De Palma-like existential immanence. This peak dystopian satire brings to our current totalitarian waking nightmare the clarity of dreaming. It’s the movie to beat: 2022.