Author’s note: if you understood the email subject’s reference without clicking this hyperlink, you are golden. I anticipate at least two of you will, and if you don’t — I will be slightly disappointed but understand and still like you all the same.
And just like that … 2022 is 2/3 of the way through. The fall months ahead will go a long way in determining the actual story of the year because, thus far, I can’t say it’s been a particularly strong one in film. I chalk that up to simply where this year falls in the production cycle: a lot of smaller pandemic projects without much in the way of large-scale films that weren’t backed up from before COVID.
I’d be surprised if any more than two of the films below made my top 10 for the year. That’s not a knock on their quality, mind you. But some films are just undeniable, and few to date have met this threshold. Still, these streamable selections below provide a sampling of some of the films that have provided fascinating, memorable watches well worth your time too.1
After Yang, Showtime Anytime
Director Kogonada got his start in video essays breaking apart the language of cinema, and I think that analytical lens resulted in something a little too precious (though undeniably impressive) in his 2017 debut Columbus. I think he’s really onto something special in After Yang, a poetic look at humanity and memory through the lens of a family mourning the loss of their AI child. Without straining for significance, he captures something unique about the very nature of our humanity.
Apples, rental
Christos Nikou’s offbeat Greek comedy Apples strikes a delicate tonal balance he referred to in our interview as the “melancholic smile tone.” In his words, “I love when a movie can create a cocktail of emotions, and somehow you can laugh and cry at the same time.” While this movie is about a pandemic of sorts with a population afflicted by waves of memory loss, it transcends the topical. Apples asks us if we’re defined by what we remember … or what we forget.
Cha Cha Real Smooth, Apple TV+
Thanks to a brutal NYT pan that I do not think was at all on the level, Cooper Raiff’s sophomore feature Cha Cha Real Smooth became a stand-in for a white male-made Sundance dramedy that many people wanted to serve as a punching bag. Judge it for what it is, though. This is a deeply sweet and sincere coming-of-age story that is smart enough to know the limits of its mid-twenties perspective. A wily, wise Dakota Johnson as a single mother has never been better, either. (Subscribers can read more of my thoughts on this film from my Sundance dispatch.)
Cow, rental
Andrea Arnold is one of my favorite narrative filmmakers (this is my contractually obligated plug for you to watch Fish Tank), and she’s still got those chops in the documentary space. Her film Cow is similar to 2020’s Gunda as it follows the life of a farm animal without trying to anthropomorphize it into a human. The tensions between the human realm and the natural world have always been a foreground in her fiction films, but Arnold gets a lot of mileage out of making them the subject in her brutal survey of the bovine world. I feel like I should warn you that the ending is deeply upsetting, as you might expect given the ultimate fate of factory-farmed cows, yet it still shook me to my core.
Crimes of the Future, rental
Of all the films in 2022, none have lingered in my mind quite like Crimes of the Future. At the very least, this is the one I’ve wanted to rewatch the most. Master filmmaker David Cronenberg’s body horror-adjacent drama of old sex, new flesh, and the yearning for evolved bodies and souls is the perfect mix of provocative and powerful. I think it’s the kind of film that will hold up to significant dissection and study. There’s a surprising tenderness underneath this tale of surgery and mutilation that’s really lingered long beyond the initial shock value.
Everything Everywhere All At Once, rental
“Are we absurdist romantic humanists?” posited director Daniel Scheinert in our interview about Everything Everywhere All At Once. The year’s biggest breakout box office sensation, defying gravity all spring, is a contradictory jumble of components that all coheres into something grand and profound about the unifying forces cutting through the universe’s clutter. And if you were just overwhelmed by the maximalism of it all or just struggled to keep up, I’d recommend revisiting to simply feel your way through rather than trying to understand it all in a conventional sense.
Great Freedom, MUBI
Franz Rogowski gives what is, for my money, the only great leading male performance of 2022 in Great Freedom. His story of a broken man persecuted for his sexuality across three decades in post-Nazi Germany is a marvel of physicality and psychology alike. “To be in a relationship with your surroundings in cinema means to be in a relationship with the sound, text, and physical action that your character is going through,” Rogowski told me earlier this year. “I’m very happy when you see the character being somewhere between those two poles of stillness and motion.” He’s always perfectly calibrated to the needs of the scene all the way to the emotional close.
Jackass Forever, Paramount+ (and rental)
Absolutely the hardest any movie has made me laugh in a very, very long time. If you think Jackass Forever is just juvenile humor, give it a chance to win you over (as I did). What emerges is a surprisingly earnest tale of friendship and camaraderie formed through a burlesquing of masculine one-upmanship. The film is doubly effective when it brings aging into the equation, reprising certain stunts in ways that reflect all the time that passed for the actors in between.
On the Count of Three, Hulu
A story about a suicide pact between two depressed childhood friends doesn’t exactly sound like a recipe for an uproarious comedy, I know. But believe it or not, On the Count of Three delivers on big laughs and thematic development alike. The film premiered at 2021’s virtual Sundance and languished for over a year before getting a wider release, and Jerrod Carmichael’s brainchild deserves better. If nothing else, more people need to experience the cinematic excellence that is the ever-talented Christopher Abbott belting out Papa Roach inside a car.
Spin Me Round, rental
There doesn’t seem to be too big of a space for name-brand comedy auteurs beyond Apatow, but I really dig the offbeat approach of director Jeff Baena. In films like Joshy and The Little Hours, he locates the pity and pathos swimming underneath the quiet desperation of people pretending like their lives are proceeding just fine. Spin Me Round is a modest but satisfying comedy about the dormant sadness of the average middle management worker as explored through the strange work trip of Alison Brie’s restaurant manager Amber. The film feels populated by recognizable people who can inspire chuckles and concern in equal measure with their odd antics. It’s low-key in scope yet major key in impact.
You can always keep up with my film-watching in real-time on the app Letterboxd. I’ve also compiled every movie I’ve ever recommended through this newsletter via a list on the platform as well.
These two long-form interviews were deeply moving and life-giving to listen to. Andrew Garfield in particular is magical when he asks a probing question about grief to Maron … and there’sh beauty in the silence as he gets choked up trying to answer eloquently.
I’m mere hours away from seeing TÁR in Venice and am very glad to see that the director Todd Field, who has not made a movie in sixteen years, gave a talk to The New York Times to explain why that is.
I had a great time interviewing Owen Kline, writer/director of the new film Funny Pages, which is now available in theaters and on VOD, for Slant Magazine. If you like a slightly queasy comedy with great characters, this is the thing for you.
Subscribers also got the latest edition of my HBO Max Syllabus last weekend! Also, to those who did receive it, my apologies for not linking out to the excellent Film Comment article about the “1962 … 1963 … 1964” series to which I was referring.
I’ll check in again briefly before Labor Day to try out Substack’s polling options — and roll out a new feature for subscribers!
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall
I’ve also saved some 2022 releases that I like but would rather feature in some other planned newsletters!