#theaarons2022

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THE 2022 AARONS - Best Film

75 films released in 2022 are eligible for this year’s ceremony. That ties a low with the pandemic year of 2020, but my goal was to focus on quality over quantity. Well, at least that’s what I told myself until I opted to watch Disenchanted over Decision to Leave. I did watch a lot of good films last year though. Here are the Aarons for Best Film:

#10. Scream

Ready or Not directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett were the first people brave enough to take a stab at Scream since the passing of director Wes Craven. They slayed at becoming its stewards. The fifth film’s satire has bigger prey in mind than just the slasher subgenre, cutting through a whole culture obsessed with reliving an idealized past. It’s a scary, and pertinent, reminder of how easily infantilized fan-bases can be weaponized against human beings, told with a sly style that would have made Craven proud. While the film features plenty of familiar faces and Ghostfaces, it’s the new blood of current and soon-to-be horror icons like Dylan Minnette and Jenny Ortega that really made the horror-comedy a scream.

#9. The Black Phone

Based on the short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone recalls the best works of his father Stephen King. The 70s-set serial killer thriller grabs ahold of viewers with its supernatural hook - a phone that converses with the dead - but it’s the clever characters that will keep them captivated. Sinister director Scott Derickson slowly dials up the dread as young Finny Blake tries to escape the clutches of his kidnapper, with the looming specter of past victims making the cost of failure clear. The frightening film’s secret weapon is its resourcefulness, deftly deploying Ethan Hawke’s maniacal villain and eerie 8mm imagery as it lays the groundwork for an off-the-hook finale.

#8. The Batman

Since its debut, every comic book filmmaker has been riddled by the same dilemma: how to eclipse The Dark Knight. If director Matt Reeves, who sharpened his skill for thoughtful blockbusters on Planet of the Apes, didn’t solve the question, he at least gave a very good guess. Reeve’s reinvention pushed the envelope of superhero cinema by drawing inspiration from David Fincher, distinguishing itself in the competitive genre through grounded stakes and great spectacle. Abetted by Paul Dano’s riveting Riddler and Robert Pattison’s arresting, arrestedly-developed version of the vigilante, the twists and turns of the mystery noir keep viewers tightly-wound even after its dam breaks open. 

#7. TÁR

TÁR’s composition is unusual: it begins with a full set of production credits, shown in reverse of traditional order. The switch-up is the opening salvo of a film fully intent on upsetting power dynamics. The three-hour character piece plays with audiences’ sympathies as it chronicles the collapse of famous (fictional) symphony composer Lydia Tár. The nuanced tale of narcissism takes some cues from modern day ‘cancel culture,” but the tenor is a tragedy as classical as they come. To alleviate trepidation, it’s important to note that TÁR isn’t as stuffy as it may sound: the coda of this unusual composition is a rollicking punchline as appropriate as it is unpredictable.

#6. Pearl

Pearl is a gem. Filmed in secret alongside its predecessor (more on that shortly) and released a few months later, the prequel extrapolates X into a compelling study of its eponymous character. The wickedness of the Oz-inspired technicolor terror contrasts itself through its singular focus. Tracing the lead-up to Pearl’s first string of murders in 1918 as her fairy tale dreams turn into a deranged fervor, the film keeps the body count going but the spotlight fixed on the incontestable star power of Mia Goth. Goth’s devotion to the demented ending guarantees that, while X is extricating, Pearl will always linger in the back of one’s mind. 

#5. X

‘Elevated horror,’ the designation given to the recent trend of arthouse films, has routinely struggled to find the right balance between lofty thematic ambitions and expected genre titillation. X marks the spot. The trick was in fixating both on being unabashed about one’s nature. The thrust of Ti West’s throwback grindhouse flick, which documents a group of sexually-liberated filmmakers’ fateful encounter with an envious elderly couple, is a morality play about accepting mortality. The sexed-up slasher doesn’t skimp on penetrating flesh though, with gnarly gore effects designed by Wētā Workshop. It could have been objectifying and objectionable material, but West directs it all with a curious compassion; as a result, X multiplied wins for his films this year. 

#4. The Banshees of Inisherin 

Banshees is a lament of ghosting gone wrong. Martin McDonagh’s drama escalates an unconscientious uncoupling - truthful but tactless - between two life-long best friends to its most absurd and absurdly funny degree. Backdropped by the Irish Civil War, the boiling tension between the curiously incongruous but synchronously stubborn pairing of Brendan Gleeson’s ambitious Colm and Colin Farrell’s simplistic Pádraic highlights how quickly spite can erode one’s better angels. It’s a downbeat design yet Inisherin’s spirit lies in its impeccably witty dialogue. They may not be able to put their finger on whether it’s gaiety or grief, but audiences will be howling in response to Banshees for one reason or the other.

#3. Speak No Evil

Much has been said recently about horror’s use as a vehicle to process past trauma; Speak No Evil returns the conversation to the genre’s custom of cautionary tales. Danger lies ahead, not behind, of the film’s family when they accept an invitation to an idyllic weekend stay with a foreign couple. Evil preys on the unprepared; the insidious nature of its terror isn’t clear until its trap is already sprung. For the unassertive, the Danish film is uniquely devastating. The less said to prospective viewers, the better, though rest assured that Speak No Evil deserves every good word.

#2. The Fabelmans 

Steven Spielberg has spent a lifetime doing his dream work and capturing his audiences’ imagination along the way. Loosely based on his own childhood, The Fablemans brings that wide-ranging filmography into focus. The assortment of anecdotes is one of the director’s funniest films and undoubtedly his most vulnerable. While this semi-autobiographical story could have been a simple victory lap for the septuagenarian, Spielberg’s sentimentality has always been far wiser than critics claim. The sure to be sacred text to future generations of filmmakers is certainly a testament to the magic of movies. Yet, even as Spielberg reframes his past, the learned moral imparted by The Fabelmans is really about what cinema is unable to control. 

AND THE BEST FILM OF 2022 IS...

#1. Everything Everywhere All At Once

Movie multiverses may be inescapable at the moment, but no project encapsulates the concept’s infinite possibilities more than Everything Everywhere All at Once. The revolutionary martial-arts flick runs like The Matrix trading its estrogen for ecstasy as it awakens an under-audit laundromat owner to the larger worlds around her. The film’s directors, collectively credited as Daniels, learned the tools of the trade on the offbeat Swiss Army Man and apply that same sense of humor here: one that’s lewd, ludicrous, and incredibly life affirming.  Able to transform a universe of humans with hot dogs for fingers from joke to tearjerker and back again, the film is continually unexpected but everything one’s ever wanted all at once.

NEXT UP: THE 2022 AARONS FOR WORST FILM!

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THE AARONS 2022

It’s the Eighth Annual Aarons, celebrating the Best and Worst of Film and TV in 2022!

FIRST UP: THE 2022 AARONS FOR BEST FILM!

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THE 2022 AARONS - Worst Film

I could make a long, elaborate joke here about needlessly bad movies, but I’d rather get right to the category than Babylon. Here are The Aarons for Worst Film:

#10. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 

A Final Girl spends decades preparing for a rematch with the masked killer who murdered all her friends? You’d be forgiven for thinking you saw this film before. Billed (once again) as the one-true sequel to the seminal 1974 horror film, 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre (once again) butchers the franchise. Linking a lazy approximation of the ‘legacy-quel’ format popularized by 2018’s Halloween to generational trauma, gun culture, and gentrification, the film’s skin-deep themes are even more meaningless than the original’s nihilism. No amount of gore can mask the fact that this franchise has clearly run out of gas.

#9. Firestarter

With Stephen King setting movie-goers on fire in the wake of It, there was every reason to think returning to his other early works would yield similar results. The problem is that the 2022 adaptation of his 1980 novel doesn’t know where to start with updating the story to present day. Following a pyrokinetic girl and her father on the run from government forces, the movie makes no mention of modern expansions to the surveillance state, and its simplistic tale of gifted individuals feels helplessly quaint in a culture dominated by superhero cinema. The music, composed by the legendary John Carpenter, is admittedly straight fire, but the movie’s murky cinematography snuffs out any other remaining appeal.

#8. Choose or Die

Choose or Die has a clear survival instinct, opting to throw anything and everything at the screen to keep its thin premise alive. The only real winner in the film about a cursed 1980s video-game contest is horror icon Robert Englund, cashing in on his clout with a few minutes of voiceover work. Everyone else struggles to jump through the hoops of its inconsistent rule-set and inadequate budget (The on-the-fly filmmaking has all the visual-flair of the text-based adventures it’s inspired by). The prize for powering-through is the offer of a prospective franchise; Netflix browsers would be better off choosing any number of the streamer’s other options.

#7. Halloween Ends

Heavily promoted as the final confrontation between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, the thirteenth Halloween ends not with a bang but with a wimp named Corey Cunningham oddly hogging the spotlight. Spending the majority of its runtime on a coming-of-age Romeo-and-Juliet romance, the film’s shake-up of franchise formula is a smug trick on the audience that never turns into a treat. Hypothesizing on why evil endures, Ends is undone by an inability to express its ideas intelligibly, and by robbing agency from its most important character. Despite its definitive title, the latest installment will almost certainly not be the last, but it does leave the franchise in bad shape yet again.

#6. Margaux

Margaux is a smart house; Margaux is a dumb film. To be fair, even a regular brick-and-mortar building would seem intelligent compared to the group of college students lured into the titular deathtrap. Not even self-aware jokes at their expense can turn the characters, played by a collection of CW stars, into tolerable company. The only other expense not spared by Margaux is the budget for its nauseating white goo, the sickly sustenance of a house-wide 3-D printer, that swamps every frame of the film. The oozing substance is reflective of Margaux’s unsound foundation: an utterly illogical series of events is what brings down the house. 

#5. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone

It was always going to take an inspired touch to bring Mr. Harrigan’s Phone to life, and John Lee Hancock couldn’t answer the call. The Blind Side director delivers a dreadfully faithful adaptation of Steven King’s short story, a hodgepodge of the author’s familiar hang-ups including a decade-late technophobia around iPhone applications. The script does no service to stars Donald Sutherland and Jaeden Martell, both doing their best to sell an undying connection between a rich, cranky old man and the young boy who reads to him. In a clear-cut generational divide, King’s son undisputedly took the crown for phone-based horror last year; curious parties should just call up Joe Hill’s Black Phone instead.

#4. Umma

Umma isn’t the mother of all bad films but is highly-derivative of far better ones. The horror film manages to be only the third-best film from 2022 about an Asian-Immigrant mother overcoming generation trauma to become less overbearing to her daughter (The others being Aarons-Winner Everything Everywhere All at Once and Pixar’s Turning Red). This familiarity doesn’t stop at just one medium either: the mother’s self-induced electro-phobia also invites unfavorable comparisons to the TV show Better Call Saul. This all might be more forgivable if Umma wasn’t so neglectful of its jump scares, putting in only the minimal effort needed to raise the film up to feature length. 

#3. Grimcutty

The Hulu-Original horror film starts off looking especially grim but is ultimately a cut above those worse fears: the meme-based movie is merely incompetent, rather than incompetent and ignorant. Writer/director John Ross is well-aware that the bygone Momo Challenge his concept is based on was a hoax but that seems to be the extent of his comprehension, especially when it comes to the basics of filmmaking. His laughable script and languid pacing spread thin the legend of the Grimcutty, a lopsided monstrosity that’s meme-material for all the wrong reasons. The film is successful in at least one regard: it will unquestionably convince viewers that cutting back on screen-time isn’t always a bad thing.

#2. Morbius 

Yes, it’s Morbin’ time. The maladroit movie Morbius turns The Living Vampire into a lifeless vestigial entry in Sony’s speciously-named Spider-Man Universe. Despite decades of comic history to draw from and even more years of tragic movie monsters, the anti-hero’s origin offers viewers absolutely nothing to sink their teeth into. The dramatic tension is as hollow as the character’s bones, as the story constantly shies away from any moral complexities to receive a wide-appeal PG-13 rating (which didn’t stop the movie from bombing… twice). If there was any remaining doubt, the desperate post-credits scene makes it obvious: this is the work of vultures scavenging their IP for everything they can get.

AND THE WORST FILM OF 2022 IS...

#1. After Ever Happy

One after another, the adaptations of Anna Todd’s Wattpad novels have lowered the bar for romantic movies and romantic partners everywhere; the fourth film doesn’t break that cycle. Encompassing everything from arson to overdoses, After Ever Happy untethers the unceasing ups-and-downs of Tessa Young and Hardin Scott’s relationship from any semblance of structure. Starting with a sensible climax for the last entry and hanging up its hat without resolving any of its new plot threads, the franchise’s footage seems to now spill over from entry to entry with no rhyme or reason. As such, the fifth film is now mandatory viewing, if only because one can never be happy before confirming this story is over for good.

NEXT UP: THE 2022 AARON FOR BEST DIRECTOR!

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THE AARONS 2022 - Best Director

A leader is only as good as their underlings, a timeless lesson imparted this year by TÁR.

Ok, I lied. I learned it from Minions: The Rise of Gru.

Here is The Aaron for Best Director:

WINNER: Steven Spielberg - The Fabelmans

There are few names more synonymous with cinema than Steven Spielberg. It should therefore come as no surprise that his movie about movies has some of the finest filmmaking of his storied career. The director’s reflection on divorce is a story at war with itself. At times, The Fabelmans speaks to how cinema can turn men into gods and fear into fun; Spielberg subsequently shows he can practice what he preaches. At other times, it’s about cinema’s ability to reveal secret truths; the film’s most striking scene is shot practically like a conspiracy-theory thriller. Complicating the content, the camera is presented here as both liberator and imprisoner. Spielberg shrewdly resolves this conflict by showing that the secret is in finding the right angle for any given moment, even if it takes some time to realize what it is.  

HONORABLE MENTIONS: 

Daniels - Everything Everywhere All at Once

The duo described the indie film as being made for “Marvel’s catering budget”; their inventive approach made it seem like Everything had so much more. 

James Cameron - Avatar: The Way of Water

Cameron’s Water refreshed the theatrical experience for years to come with the high-frame-rate 3-D presentation of its awe-inspiring alien oceans.

Joseph Kosinski - Top Gun: Maverick

Viewers won’t feel a need for speed: Kosinski delivers it in spades through his in-camera aerial stunts.

Matt Reeves - The Batman

Reeves floods his new Gotham with inviting orange hues and seamless CGI, really making the city a character unto itself.

NEXT UP: THE 2022 AARON FOR BEST FILM PERFORMANCE!

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THE AARONS 2022 - Best Film Performance

Black Adam showed that sometimes you have to wait a decade for your dream role, and then you too can give a bad performance in a box office bomb that is immediately erased from continuity. Here is The Aaron for Best Film Performance:

WINNER: Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár - TÁR

Lydia Tár’s conduct is always intentional. Likewise, Cate Blanchett’s acting is always considered; every movement is precisely picked by the accomplished actor. The role of Tár is first revealed to audiences via a public New Yorker interview. As the show goes on, the layers are slowly peeled back on the conductor’s private life. Whether being seductive, sympathetic, scary, or just plain sad, Blanchett hits all the right notes to keep viewers guessing where exactly Tár’s performative style ends and her real person begins. The character may not know herself, but as the curtains fall and Lydia’s lavish life unravels, Blanchett is never less than perfectly composed.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: 

Mia Goth as Pearl - Pearl

Pearl is primed to kill in order to prove her star power. Goth need not go to such great lengths; it’s as plain as the smile on her face.

Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Wang - Everything Everywhere All at Once

Yeoh goes all in for All at Once, mastering the multitudinous demands of the movie while keeping her eyes fixed on its emotional center.

Austin Butler as Elvis Presley - Elvis

With his effortless cool and vital nimbleness, one can’t help falling in love with Butler’s embodiment of the popular singer.

Rebecca Hall as Margaret - Resurrection

It’s a show-stopping, stomach-churning, seven-minute monologue by Hall that enlivens Resurrection’s slow-burn.

NEXT UP: THE 2022 AARON FOR BEST SUPPORTING FILM PERFORMANCE!

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THE AARONS 2022 - Best Supporting Film Performance

But James Cameron, that’s my emotional support space whale! Here is The Aaron for Best Supporting Performance:

WINNER: Colin Farrell as The Penguin - The Batman

Turning the Riddler into a serial killer likely made fans question whether The Batman would have any sense of humor about itself. Then in slides The Penguin to put those fears on ice. Ferrell’s feral performance would be seen as transformative even without the extensive and expressive make-up job from artist Mike Marino and crew. The actor oozes an uneasy charm as the mobster, a demeanor always on the verge of slipping into frightening volatility. When that latent rage is finally unleashed though, it’s in a surprising, show-stealing scene of hysterical exasperation. Farrell finds laughs without forfeiting depth, suggesting that what he unveils of the Penguin here is only the tip of the iceberg.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: 

Ke Huy Quan as Waymond Wang - Everything Everywhere All at Once

Every bit as delightful on screen as he was decades ago, Quan reminds viewers of Everything why he’s a welcome presence anytime, anywhere.

Steven Yeun as Ricky Park - Nope

Park should have been Nope’s central character, and Yeun’s skill as the showman of sorrowful stubbornness affirms that opinion.

Ethan Hawke as The Grabber - The Black Phone

The tremendous terror of The Black Phone hangs on Hawke’s gripping performance as the masked murderer.

Sigourney Weaver as Kiri - Avatar: The Way of Water

The sprightly actress weaves a layered performance in The Way of Water, convincingly capturing a more youthful spirit.

NEXT UP: THE 2022 AARON FOR BEST SCREENPLAY!

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THE AARONS 2022 - Best Screenplay

My favorite line of movie dialogue ever is Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park: “Ah, now eventually you do plan to have giant locusts on your dinosaur tour, right?” Here is The Aaron for Best Screenplay:

WINNER: The Banshees of Inisherin by Martin McDonagh

Martin McDonagh loves to fiddle with audiences’ pity. Similar to his previous construction Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, McDonagh’s script for Inisherin sets up situations that are not what they first appear to be. His falling-out between former best friends, each set ablaze by resentment, doesn’t have easily labeled good guys or bad guys by the end. Though the story slowly ties a nauseating knot of regret, it offers release in the form of its uproarious dialogue. These punchlines are plentiful yet still blindside viewers like getting struck by an out-of-control bread van. Musician Colm Doherty may go to extreme measures to repel his prior companion, but McDonagh’s writing means the characters only ever bounce off each other effortlessly.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: 

Everything Everywhere All at Once by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Due to the Daniels, Everything includes no shortage of fresh ideas, riotous running jokes, and sanguine emotional beats.

Speak No Evil by Christian Tafdrup and Mads Tafdrup

Evil expertly escalates its red flags. The characters fail to say ‘no,’ but the script always finds the right words.

Scream by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick

Vanderbilt and Busick’s Scream kept the satire sharp, and did justice to its old generation while carving out fondness for the new.

Pearl by Ti West and Mia Goth

The script is well-rounded overall, but Pearl shines brightest during an unsettling seven minute monologue.

NEXT UP: THE 2022 AARON FOR BEST ORIGINAL SCORE!

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THE AARONS 2022 - Best Original Score

I don’t have a joke for this one. Please don’t count it against me. Here is The Aaron for Best Score:

WINNER: The Batman by Michael Giacchino

After decades of adaptations, it might seem like there’s no new musical approach to be had with the Caped Crusader. Leave it to prolific composer Michael Giacchino to unmask just that. His Batman begins with a simple four-note marching motif, foreboding the character’s imminent arrival. The track then unexpectedly rises into a much softer theme, a (Bat-)signal of the sweeping evolution this version of the hero will undergo. That’s just one tool in Giacchino’s utility belt, rounded out by a skittish Catwoman composition and the eerie emptiness of his Riddler refrain. This dynamism, dually within the score itself and among the character’s complete oeuvre, keeps The Batman out of the shadow of its predecessors. 

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever by Ludwig Göransson

From funeral dirges to revived Mayan music, Göransson’s multilayered soundtrack easily gets its claws into listeners. 

Halloween Ends by John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, Daniel Davies

If it’s the end for them, Carpenter and Co. go out on a high note. Their spine-chilling synths carve out emotional depths otherwise missing from the latest Halloween.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio by Alexandre Desplat

Using only wooden instruments, Desplat built a real buoyant score.  

Three Thousand Years of Longing by Junkie XL

It’s impossible to bottle up one’s emotions when within earshot of XL’s yearning lullabies. 

NEXT UP: THE 2022 AARON FOR BEST ORIGINAL SONG