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- CreatorVince GilliganPeter GouldStarsBob OdenkirkRhea SeehornJonathan BanksThe trials and tribulations of criminal lawyer Jimmy McGill in the years leading up to his fateful run-in with Walter White and Jesse Pinkman.I hit rock bottom in 2022, at least as a movie-goer. Either my workload kept me from going to see indispensable new films. Or I was too tired to risk another let-down – and preferred watching a mini-series at home.
Looking at the “Best of 2022”-lists of critics whose taste I trust – Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott for instance – I have to admit: I haven’t seen the half of it. (Not even eight tenths…)
Don’t get me wrong: I’m still eager to check on films like TRIANGLE OF SADNESS and THE WOMAN KING, ILLUSIONS PERDUES and THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN.
But until I do this will have to do.
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This list works like a countdown, so
the Best of 2022 is mentioned LAST.
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Ok (but in most cases just barely)
===================== - CreatorDarren StarStarsLily CollinsAshley ParkPhilippine Leroy-BeaulieuA young American woman from the Midwest is hired by a marketing firm in Paris to provide them with an American perspective on things.SEASON THREE:
Began horribly, but it got better just when we were close to skipping it – and when Kate Walsh exited the city and the series.
THE GRAY MAN (solid but monotonous)
THE ADAM PROJECT
SPIDERHEAD (ambitious but a tad flat)
THE CONTRACTOR
WILLOW #1 (episodes 1-4) *
BULLET TRAIN
UNCHARTED
SCREAM 5
THE WALKING DEAD #14 *
THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT * (Surprisingly high on the list, considering the lame episodes directed by Robert Rodriguez; but then they brought back the Mandalorian & The Child as key characters – which is a little strange when you look at the title.)
STRANGE WORLD
DEATH ON THE NILE
THE PATIENT *
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Good, but not as good as I
thought / hoped it would be:
================ - CreatorSteven KnightStarsCillian MurphyPaul AndersonSophie RundleA gangster family epic set in 1900s England, centering on a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps, and their fierce boss Tommy Shelby.SEASON SIX:
Future activities (a movie??) will tell whether this Season was just a fumble – or that one Season too many. (Polly was sorely missed!) - CreatorNick SantoraStarsAlan RitchsonMaria StenMalcolm GoodwinItinerant former military policeman Jack Reacher solves crimes and metes out his own brand of street justice. Based on the novels by Lee Child.FIRST SEASON:
Started good and funny and inventive, but lost with every episode – and had a very disappointing showdown.
THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER
FANTASTIC BEASTS III
GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE
BEING THE RICARDOS
BELFAST
NOPE
JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION (I'm just a sucker for Dino-romps)
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON (#1) *
KLEO (#1) *
AFTER LIFE (#3) *
THE SINNER (#4) *
INVENTING ANNA *
ALLE REDEN ÜBER DAS WETTER
THE FABELMANS
Starts fabulously, but as so often with the older Spielberg, it gets murky during the second half, and the air fizzles out like from a flat tire.
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GOOD:
===== - CreatorPeter MorganStarsClaire FoyOlivia ColmanImelda StauntonFollows the political rivalries and romances of Queen Elizabeth II's reign and the events that shaped Britain for the second half of the 20th century.SEASON FIVE:
Diverting, but nowhere near as riveting as the other seasons. The main reason for that is the casting problem: The casting for Season #4 was among the greatest ever. In contrast to that stroke of genius Imelda Staunton, Elizabeth Debicki (sorry, RTJ), even Dominic West seemed misplaced. Only Jonathan Pryce fit right in as Prince Philip. - DirectorDan TrachtenbergStarsAmber MidthunderDakota BeaversDane DiLiegroNaru, a skilled warrior of the Comanche Nation, fights to protect her tribe against one of the first highly-evolved Predators to land on Earth.PREY (Best B-movie of the year)
- DirectorJoel CrawfordJanuel MercadoStarsAntonio BanderasSalma HayekHarvey GuillénWhen Puss in Boots discovers that his passion for adventure has taken its toll and he has burned through eight of his nine lives, he launches an epic journey to restore them by finding the mythical Last Wish.Sweet, but it shoulda been better – and at times it came close to Part I. If only the filmmakers had realized that Puss (& Kitty) don’t need BIG baddies; they need teasing and elegance and fun. For someone who loved most of Part 1 and later to 100% the glorious short film THE THREE DIABLOS, this was almost a wasted opportunity, especially after waiting more than ten years.
- DirectorAaron NeeAdam NeeStarsSandra BullockChanning TatumDaniel RadcliffeA reclusive romance novelist on a book tour with her cover model gets swept up in a kidnapping attempt that lands them both in a cutthroat jungle adventure.Channing T. & Sandra B. were funny - but Brad Pitt was even better. That said, I dreaded the final scene with Pitt so much, it nearly ruined the whole film for me. He was so great at the beginning – why couldn’t he stay dead?
- DirectorRon HowardStarsViggo MortensenColin FarrellJoel EdgertonA rescue mission is assembled in Thailand where a group of young boys and their soccer coach are trapped in a system of underground caves that are flooding.Solid stuff from Ron Howard, who has done some of his best work in the last years.
- DirectorMatt ReevesStarsRobert PattinsonZoë KravitzJeffrey WrightWhen a sadistic serial killer begins murdering key political figures in Gotham, The Batman is forced to investigate the city's hidden corruption and question his family's involvement.Been there, seen that, but surprisingly enthralling nonetheless.
- CreatorBill DubuqueMark WilliamsStarsJason BatemanLaura LinneySofia HublitzA financial advisor drags his family from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks, where he must launder money to appease a drug boss.SEASON FOUR:
In January 2022 I wrote the following about Ozark:
Among the many images of the Netflix series "Ozark" that have etched onto the retina of viewers is that of Marty Byrde kneeling on the floor of a factory in the very first episode. To his left and right, friends and business colleagues have just been killed and put into acid barrels, whose existence-dissolving effect had become known through "Breaking Bad". The decent family man from Chicago, who is supposed to pay for the misconduct of his cocky partner, is the last to face death.
Now he stammers something about money laundering, about the Ozarks, a place in the Midwest of the USA that was kinda created for this kind of illegal business, and then Marty, in his supposedly last breath, mentions the sum of 500 million dollars. Even Del, the number two of the Navarro drug cartel, is alert. He knows how good Marty is as an accountant and gives him a shot. The Byrdes are moving, they are now living on probation, of which no one knows how long it will last.
Three seasons later, Del has long since abdicated, Marty and Wendy Byrde have more than paid their monetary obligations. But to do that, they had to create a building of lies that has grown bigger and bigger and could collapse at any time. For every crime needed to maintain the appearance of legality and eliminate competition, at least two more offenses became due. You don’t have to be an excellent bookmaker to estimate the fatal exponential growth of this curve. And it doesn't help that everything has been spread over several shoulders, that even the teenage children have learned to live with the lies and to develop a routine for cheating – so skillfully that they think about what would happen if something happened to the parents. The question of whether this might have to be helped haunts the room unanswered – proof of how skillfully the series manipulates its viewers.
The fourth and final season of Ozark begins a few minutes after the end of the third. Shortly after Marty and Wendy wash blood and more from their hair at Omar Navarro’s hacienda in Mexico, they are entrusted with their next crazy task: to whitewash the office-weary clan chief Omar. His unscrupulous pragmatism is: The Byrdes have reinvented themselves in the Ozarks and bought social respect with a pile of money – they could probably do the same for him. Of course, he hasn’t figured in the FBI, which is perhaps even less trustworthy than the gangsters.
This is the next punchline of this brutally funny satire on the more winding American paths to wealth and fame. In Mexico, the Byrdes meet Omar's potential successor Javi, and it doesn't take long before Marty (wonderfully dry: Jason Bateman) finds himself in the same situation as in the very first episode: He no longer talks on a factory floor, which sounds easier said than done, because lying on a carpet in an upper-class villa, he is kicked in the groin: Hot spur Javi holds a gun to the accountant’s head because he thinks Marty is deceiving the Navarro family.
This is still considered a core sin in "Ozark" – although we have long since witnessed how quickly someone can become an ex-family member here. As undertakers the Byrdes have their own crematorium to get rid of the corpses in the cellar; the fact that they have built a family mausoleum that serves as a storage place for their cash, is a brilliant metaphor. Ideas like these are the reason for the greatness of this series with its mean, but never cheap humor and the perfect little punchlines. The series pushes us to the limits of morality out of sympathy for the characters, which it has in common with the great stories of this genre.
A good half dozen family stories are at the core of Ozark, they pile up thanks to the Byrdes, Snells, Navarros, the mob from Kansas City, the pregnant FBI agent Maya; woodchucking Ruth (excellent: Julia Garner) is being pushed back and forth in a tsunami of contradictory emotions. Javi, for example – who, by the way, has astonishing parallels to the goosebump-inducing mob Hellodri Eladio from the similarly wacky series "Better Call Saul" – waves his gun around very quickly when he thinks he can solve something with a shot in the interests of his family. But if Uncle Omar (Felix Solis) were to make a mistake, Javi would love to grab the scepter immediately.
“Sangre Sobre Todo” – (family) blood above all, that is supposedly the catalyst of all involved; but the motto is based on very shaky foundations. Take Wendy Byrde (Laura Linney): In the meantime she has matured (or degenerated) into a schemer of Shakespearean dimensions. She launders nine-figure sums through foundations and triggers heart attacks with her smile: She actually believes it might be a fitting reminder for her rebellious son Jonah, who manipulates the books at the competition, to hand him over to the FBI and send him to prison. When Marty finds out, old wounds are ripped open. You can feel how fragile the Byrdes’ alliance of convenience has remained since the first fraud – and you are exposed as a naïve spectator if you have indulged in the old-fashioned idea that there might be a happy ending after all.
Netflix is holding back seven episodes until the end of April. It's completely open when the present will catch up with the future, whose beastly paw we saw in the first minutes of the fourth season. Only one thing is already certain, one way or another: In the Valhalla of the crime families, the Corleones and Sopranos got neighbors. Who would have thought that when Martin Byrde pocketed a flyer of the Ozarks four and a half years ago?
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Turns out I was a little too enthusiastic. The last seven episodes felt rushed, almost hectic at times – and therefore not fitting to the standard of this series, which was at its best when everything seemed to be calm; but we knew (or sensed) that a volcano was about to erupt. Of course it wouldn’t have been realistic if everybody had survived, but the choices of the showrunners are suboptimal. I didn’t feel closure. - CreatorAlfred GoughMiles MillarStarsJenna OrtegaHunter DoohanEmma MyersFollows Wednesday Addams' years as a student, when she attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a killing spree, and solve the mystery that embroiled her parents.Tim Burton’s best work in years, it really gets going as soon as Catherine Zeta-Jones leaves. Let’s watch Jenna Ortega closely.
- DirectorDon HallCarlos López EstradaPaul BriggsStarsKelly Marie TranAwkwafinaGemma ChanIn a realm known as Kumandra, a re-imagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization, a warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon.Nicely crafted.
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VERY GOOD
======= - DirectorJared BushByron HowardCharise Castro SmithStarsStephanie BeatrizMaría Cecilia BoteroJohn LeguizamoA Colombian teenage girl has to face the frustration of being the only member of her family without magical powers.Magical.
- DirectorMaria SchraderStarsZoe KazanCarey MulliganPatricia ClarksonJodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's quest to break the Harvey Weinstein scandal.Meticulous. And touching / infuriating.
- DirectorFatih AkinStarsEmilio SakrayaMona PirzadKardo RazzaziCapturing the life of German hip-hop rapper, entrepreneur, and ex-convict Giwar Hajabi.Fatih Akin strikes again!
- CreatorMichael Patrick KingDarren StarStarsSarah Jessica ParkerCynthia NixonKristin DavisThe series follows Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte as they navigate the journey from the complicated reality of life and friendship in their 30s to the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s.The last episodes of the first season were even better than the early ones.
- CreatorRobert SiegelStarsLily JamesSebastian StanSeth RogenFollows the story of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee's relationship, going back to their whirlwind romance that started with them marrying after only knowing each other for 96 hours in 1995.Now here’s something you don’t see every day… I didn’t care too much about the nakedness and the talking penis, but as soon as that was settled in episode 2, this miniseries becomes a poignant satire about the shadowy zones of America & capitalism, the whole shebang against the backdrop of new technology making all of it possible. Lily James manages to be funny, attractive, naïve AND clever at the same time.
- CreatorBrad IngelsbyStarsKate WinsletJulianne NicholsonJean SmartA detective in a small Pennsylvania town investigates a local murder while trying to keep her life from falling apart.One murder puts a whole small town into disarray. There’s a pivotal scene that’s really horrifying: Right when we realise who the murderer is, the camera exits the premises and leaves the Inspector (Kate Winslet) alone with the killer in his house – almost like Clarice Starling with Jame Gumb in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.
- DirectorCédric KlapischStarsMarion BarbeauHofesh ShechterDenis PodalydèsElise, a very promising classical dancer, is injured during a performance at 26 years old. Although she's told she will no longer be able to dance, she will try to find a new direction in contemporary dance.As universal as the story unfolds (young balletteuse has to come back after a career-endangering injury), at the core it is very French. In a good sense.
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No. 15: NIGHTMARE ALLEY
================= - DirectorGuillermo del ToroStarsBradley CooperCate BlanchettToni ColletteA grifter working his way up from low-ranking carnival worker to lauded psychic medium matches wits with a psychologist bent on exposing him.Guillermo Del Toro’s pitchblack and unsettling movie about circus, deceit and tricks that come back to haunt you, touches a raw nerve. I thought it was much better than his Oscar-winner THE SHAPE OF WATER, and Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett build a couple that reminded me of John Malkovich in DANGEROUS LIAISONS.
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No. 14: VERY GOOD
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__________________ - CreatorMichelle KingRobert KingPhil Alden RobinsonStarsChristine BaranskiSarah SteeleNyambi NyambiWhen Diane Lockhart's life savings are lost, she must start from scratch at a new firm.SEASON FIVE:
The public court scenes with Mandy Patinkin, original at first, become a little enervating close to the end. But the rest was almost as good as always, and the only real blemish is that this legal dramedy will rest its case after season #6.
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No. 13: ANDOR
========== - CreatorTony GilroyStarsDiego LunaKyle SollerStellan SkarsgårdPrequel series to Star Wars' 'Rogue One'. In an era filled with danger, deception and intrigue, Cassian will embark on the path that is destined to turn him into a Rebel hero.Holy Lucas! Just when I thought I would finally give up on STAR WARS etc., along came this series to the rescue. (Funny, considering the fact that one knows the later stages of the story from ROGUE ONE – a film I do not hold too high in my esteem.) And although some of the splendor of ANDOR has to do with money well spent, you only have to point to the expensive debacle that is OBI WAN KENOBI in order to realize that it is more about the brains of showrunner Tony Gilroy, his scripting and plotting and the vision behind ANDOR. (Which, ironically, doesn’t start that well but comes together in the third and fourth episode.) There’s a real interest in character development, including the baddies, and at the end of the season Gilroy even dares to face the challenge of creating setups in the spirit of Sergio L. & Ennio M.
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No. 12: IM WESTEN NICHTS NEUES
====================== - DirectorEdward BergerStarsFelix KammererAlbrecht SchuchAaron HilmerA young German soldier's terrifying experiences and distress on the western front during World War I.For years I’ve been insisting that some films should never be remade. Probably I would have named ALL QUIET ON WESTERN FRONT as a prime example for that argument. But then I saw the newest version of the WWI-classic, and quickly (and finally) did I understand why it is not enough to see those old movies. The Next Generation needs to dig deep in order to understand what man-to-man-combat means. Even my 18-year-old son, who normally never shies away from battle scenes, was shell-shocked. Really, if somebody wants to start a war after seeing this film, that person should be put in a looney bin.
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No. 11: ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING
========================== - CreatorJohn HoffmanSteve MartinStarsSteve MartinMartin ShortSelena GomezThree strangers - who live in the same New York City apartment building and share an obsession with true crime - suddenly find themselves embroiled in a murder.SEASON 1 & 2:
Swell & fast, this murdercomedy starring Steve Martin, Martin and the surprisingly witty Selena Gomez is currently shooting season #3. Let’s hope it will be as fresh as the existing two.
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No. 10: DOPESICK
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