My Top 10 Favourite Movies of 2022

__It's the last day of 2022, which means two things. One: happy New Year's Eve.🙂 Two: it's time to look back on my favourite movies of the year, as has been a tradition of mine since 2011. You might have your own idea of what movies were released in 2022, so if you're not already familiar with the criteria I set for these lists, let me explain my own definition. I only count movies that were first released publicly (be it in cinemas or on streaming platforms) in the year in question, so no movies that haven't yet been seen outside of film festivals, and no movies that were released in another country in an earlier year.

__With that said, how was your year overall?🙂 For me, it was marked by two highlights, both at opposite ends of the fortune scale. On one hand, the PS5 been an extremely rare and high-demand item for two years, and this year I finally got one.🙂 By an incredible stroke of luck, too! (It's quite a story, but I'd rather keep the details private.) It was the same week as my birthday, so it was sort of an early present to myself.😀 On the other hand, at the beginning of October, after avoiding it for over two-and-a-half years, I tested positive for COVID-19.🙁 Thankfully, my symptoms were mild – if I hadn't tested myself, I would have thought it was just a regular cold – and I was negative again a week later. I suspect, had I not been fully vaccinated, it would have been so much worse. My prayers go out to anyone who wasn't so lucky.

__Now, going back to the subject of the movies this year offered, which is the main reason we're here… To tell you the truth, in terms of films overall, this was one of the most underwhelming years in recent memory. Just like 2020, there weren't even any movies that I liked enough to rate five stars; even the ones at the top of my list only scored an 8/10 from me, which means I'd describe them as very good but not great. This lack of anything exceptional took a heavy toll on my overall level of joy and excitement throughout the year. Other things in life may be contributing to that, but hardly any movies I saw this year did anything to help. In fact, it was so uninspiring that I started to wonder if it was even worth continuing these year-end lists. Then again, if I were still doing "top ten worst of the year" lists and actively seeking out films with a bad reputation, I think my outlook would have been far more actively bitter.

__Speaking of which, before we get to the actual list, I must give a special mention to the movie that fell shortest of the high expectations I had for it.

First Impressions Review Diary 28-Dec-2022

__I hope you had a good Christmas (or whichever holiday you celebrate), and enjoy the last few days of 2022 before the new year begins.🙂

__As I said in my last entry, I thought it best to publish my thoughts on the last few 2022 movies before the end of the year, so I'm doing one more of these "first impressions" posts, but in the middle of the week instead of on Saturday as per normal, because this Saturday happens to be New Year's Eve, which would normally be the day I publish my "top ten movies of the year" list. But to tell you the truth, I'm not entirely sure that's going to happen this year. I've narrowed down my choices for the top ten, but I just don't feel inclined to write hundred-word blurbs for them. Often, just writing these 280-character reviews for Twitter (or, in my case, Mastodon now) was tricky enough. Things might change before Saturday comes, but for now, my stance is that I'd rather put out no product at all than a half-baked one.

__Anyway, let's start talking about the last few movies I saw this year, beginning with my one trip to the cinema during December.

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

The CGI has taken huge strides (the water in particular looks amazing), but the story is little more than a retread of the first movie, the villains are one-dimensional, and it's so long that many scenes overstay their welcome.

My rating: 55%.

First Impressions Review Diary 3-Dec-2022

__Hello, and welcome to the last month of 2022.🙂 Whether or not you're looking forward to Christmas, I hope you enjoy yourself. In the meantime, this will be my last regular compilation of "first impressions" reviews this year. If this is your first time reading my blog, this is something I do on the first Saturday of every month, where I copy and paste the short reviews I've put up on Twitter, because I've now seen so many movies that I no longer have the mental energy to write full reviews for each one.

__I'm not sure what's going to happen with these going forward. As I said, these mini reviews come from my Twitter page, but now that Twitter's management has become a complete debacle, I'm starting to doubt I'll remain active on it for much longer, even if it doesn't completely collapse. I've heard of some alternative social media platforms, like Mastodon or Hive, so I might join one of them instead.

__But that's a concern for another day.🙂 For now, let's start with my thoughts on the three movies I've seen in the cinema since my last post four weeks ago.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

My favourite character from the first movie takes centre stage, and her mental state leads to some fascinating developments. It feels like they’re trying to make Namor a sympathetic villain, but don’t fully commit to it.

My rating: 65%.

The Menu (2022)

A delectable dark comedy. Not only does the tension steadily increase as events escalate, but it's also a biting satire of elitism and criticism in general; many of the characters' comments on food are just as applicable to any form of art.

My rating: 75%.

Strange World (2022)

The subterranean world is bursting with imagination; the creatures' creative designs take on a whole new meaning when the world's secret is revealed. Sadly, the characters are nothing special, therefore the narrative is also underwhelming.

My rating: 55%.

First Impressions Review Diary 5-Nov-2022

__Hello. I hope you had a good Halloween. This post is going up on November 5th, so if you happen to be reading this in the UK, happy Bonfire Night.🙂

__Today's collection of Twitter-length reviews is a long one, because I watched quite a lot of both movies and video game longplays in October. I'll get into more details later, but the short version is: to celebrate the Halloween season, I had two marathons of horror movies, one at each end of the month, and there were a lot of video games in between, many of which were short because they were retro Disney games that I wanted to check out. And to top it all off, one of those Disney games inspired me to write a full 250-word review, which I'll save for the end.

__The first movie marathon was rather fortunately timed, because I was incapacitated anyway. After avoiding it for over two-and-a-half years, and despite all my best efforts, I tested positive for COVID-19 on October 6th.🙁 I'm fully vaccinated, so thankfully it didn't hit me too hard. For the most part, it was nothing worse than a blocked nose; if I hadn't tested myself, I would have thought it was just a regular cold.

__The first day was definitely the worst. My stomach was complaining with a constant gassy feeling like I was about to puke but didn't, so I couldn't eat or drink much. But worse than that, because I'd got so little sleep the night before, I was drifting on and off all day, and my mind was a ceaseless flurry of nonsensical images, like I was in a perpetual dream. Dealing with that was unbearable! It was like trying to find order in a ten-square-mile landfill.

__Luckily, I recovered pretty smoothly. My diet was back to normal two days later, and I tested myself again after a full week, and it was negative.🙂 I guess I couldn't avoid COVID forever, but I'm glad my case was very mild. If you or anyone you know wasn't so lucky, you have my deepest sympathies.

__With that said, let's start talking about what I watched to get me through it, and throughout the rest of the month as well. So get comfortable, and let's begin.🙂

First Impressions Review Diary 1-Oct-2022

__Hello. My "first impressions" posts always go up on the first Saturday of the month, and this time that happens to be the first day of October.😀 Are you ready for the Halloween season?🙂

__Let's start today's collection of reviews with a few movies. Danny Boyle is one of my favourite directors, and I realised recently that there were only four movies of his that I hadn't seen, so I thought I might as well complete the set.🙂

__I also have an extra one after those four. Lately, I felt like rewatching Avatar (though not in its current cinema rerelease), but first I decided to check out one of the movies to which I've seen it commonly compared: Dances with Wolves.

Shallow Grave (1994)

I like what it was going for: the three friends' mounting paranoia and the temptation of the stolen money. But their exact thought process becomes rather vague as it progresses; I don't fully understand David's reason for isolating himself.

My rating: 65%.

A Life Less Ordinary (1997)

The leads' relationship certainly had comedic potential, but in practice, its rampant silliness comes off as more annoying than amusing. The angels' belief that a kidnapping situation is the ideal love story is highly questionable.

My rating: 40%.

Popular Movies I Haven't Seen

__Are there any movies that it seems you're the only person who hasn't seen? In my case, there are tons and tons. I've seen over 2,300 movies to date, but that doesn't mean I've seen all the ones you're likely to have heard of. I use my IMDb watchlist as a checklist of movies I want to see; there are currently over 1,200 titles on it, and many of them are very famous ones that you might be surprised I haven't got around to yet.

__So, inspired by a conversation with someone on Twitter a couple of days ago, I decided to compile a set of top ten lists of films on my watchlist from each decade, in terms of popularity and overall score. In other words, there'll be two lists for each decade, one being the ten films that have the highest number of votes, and the other the ten that have the highest IMDb rating – again, among the movies on my "want to see" list. Films that have the same score (like 8.2 out of ten or whatever) are then additionally sorted by number of votes; the more people contribute to that score, the higher it places.

__Naturally, there'll be quite a few instances of the same title appearing on both lists, and some pairs have more overlap than others.

__We'll start in the 1920s, because I only have two films on my watchlist from before that decade: A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Great Train Robbery (1903).

__So let's take a look at the most prominent movies spanning a hundred years on my "haven't seen yet" list, both the ones that IMDb indicates the most people have seen and the ones that its users have voted the best.🙂

First Impressions Review Diary 3-Sep-2022

__Hello. Well, the summer's over, students are returning to school to begin a new year, and it's time for me to give another report on what I've been watching (or playing, as the case may be) over the past month.

__It's worth mentioning that my writing method underwent a change this month. These brief reviews are always copied and pasted from my Twitter page, but now I've added an extra step, at least in terms of movie-related ones. I've recently started rating movies on Metacritic, and some movies require you to include a written review along with the rating. I've decided to make my reviews exactly fifty words – not too long, but with a little more effort than simply saying, "It's good," or whatever – and that's now the model I follow with all my remarks on movies: I'll start with the fifty-word review for use on Metacritic, then shorten it for Twitter so it fits into a single tweet. I'm torn on whether I should include the full versions on this blog, but for now, I'll keep things regular and use the Twitter versions, so at least the movies and video games will get the same treatment.

__With that said…

__Let's start with a few cinema releases, all of which I saw on the same day thanks to my Cineworld Unlimited card.