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.

First Impressions Review Diary 6-Aug-2022

__Hello.🙂 Today's list of "first impressions" Twitter-length reviews will be shorter than usual because I haven't really seen or played much over the past month. I'm still spending most of my time working on my top ten videos (I'm planning to release them all in quick succession, and working on twenty-two videos at once is taking quite a while), but that project has now hit a snag. One of the lists concerns the ending of Mass Effect 3, and I had planned to just play that section and record the gameplay footage, but somehow all my save data is gone, so I'm currently replaying the whole trilogy to re-establish it. Not that I'm complaining: it's one of my favourite trilogies ever!🙂 But it is putting my video editing work on hold and pushing the release date back even further.

__However, to make up for the lower number of reviews overall, there are a couple of full-length ones in this set.😀 About three weeks ago, working on the videos was getting mentally exhausting, so I felt like taking a break and playing the first two instalments in The Dark Pictures Anthology (I haven't yet bought the third one, House of Ashes) because I suspected they'd be a fairly short diversion. When it came to expanding on what I could fit into a tweet, I found I actually had quite a bit to say about them, so I gave them both the full 250-word treatment.

__But we'll save that for the end.🙂 First, let's go through the shorter reviews of the few movies I've seen, and the other games I've been watching as longplays.

First Impressions Review Diary 2-Jul-2022

__Hello again.🙂 We're halfway through the year; I hope it's going well for you so far.

__If you're new to this blog, I mostly post compilations of short reviews of movies I'm seeing for the first time. They're copied and pasted from my Twitter feed because the more movies I see, the harder I find it to write full 250-word reviews like I used to. For a while now, I've been focusing on video games instead of movies, going through all the ones I own but haven't played yet, in a list arranged by year. However, I said at the end of my last post on May 7th that I was taking a break from playing video games to focus on making video versions of the top ten lists I've written. Work is proceeding on those videos slowly but surely, but that hasn't stopped me from going to the cinema a few times.🙂

__Among the movies I've gone to see over the last two months, there were two recent releases that inspired me to write full reviews (partly because they both concern franchises that mean a great deal to me): Jurassic World Dominion and Lightyear. I did a word count on the Jurassic World Dominion review I wrote, and it totals 1,168 words! The last time I got passionate enough to write such a long review was for Artemis Fowl on my other blog, and that was about 1,500 words. My Lightyear review is far shorter, at 455 words, but still much longer than the aforementioned 250 that used to be my standard. I actually didn't think it would turn out that long, but once I started writing, I found I did have a lot to say. I guess Dominion got me on a roll!😀

__You know, it's just occurred to me that, in a way, today's review compilation will follow the same format as an old cinema programme: a few shorts, then the main feature, and a B-movie.🙂

__So, without further ado, let's start with the seven reviews I kept Twitter-length. As per something else I mentioned last time, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is among them.🙂

First Impressions Review Diary 7-May-2022

__Hello again.🙂

__Let's not beat around the bush. This month's set of mini reviews begins with a few movies I felt like watching. And no, I haven't seen Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness yet, so you'll have to wait until next time for my comments on it.

Turning Red (2022)

It's kind of like a teenage girl version of the Hulk.🙂 The transformation is a metaphor for her frustrations, mainly stemming from the pressure of putting other people's happiness before her own, which I myself find very relatable indeed.

My rating: 75%.

Another Round (2020)

A likeable drama that follows four teachers conducting an experiment to prove a theory about alcohol blood level. At first, it seems to benefit their work performance and social lives, but begins teetering closer and closer to alcoholism.

My rating: 75%.

Herself (2020)

A mother escapes her abusive husband and, failing to find proper housing, decides to build a home herself. The premise is enough to keep it engaging, and you feel the joy from her friends' aid and the frustration at the ex's continued presence.

My rating: 75%.

The Father (2020)

It cleverly simulates the effect of Alzheimer's on the father's mind in several ways, like playing events out of order due to his confusion about the passage of time, and replacing characters with other actors when he doesn't recognise them.

My rating: 75%.

Flash Gordon (1980)

This came out the same year as Empire Strikes Back and has a few noticeable similarities, like the swamp landing and the fall down the chute, which is ironic because Star Wars was heavily inspired by the original Flash Gordon serials.

My rating: 65%.

__Interestingly, those were the last few 2020 movies on my watchlist, so I've now seen everything I want to from that year! Except for the Demon Slayer movie, but that'll have to wait until I've seen the show anyway.

First Impressions Review Diary 2-Apr-2022

__Welcome back.🙂
__Today's compilation of mini reviews starts with The Batman. Like I said before, it just missed out on its chance to be in last month's entry, because I'd be going to see it mere hours after it was time for me to post that one. So finally, after all the hype and countless delays to the film's production, what did I think?

The Batman (2022)
It has some plot elements I've seen before and done better in other Batman stories, so it's far from the best Batman movie, but certainly the darkest and most downbeat. The highlight is the terrifically disturbing version of the Riddler.
My rating: 75%.

__And now on to the video games that continue to occupy the bulk of my time.🙂
__Over the past month, I reached the end of my games from 2004. I decided that would be a good time to post a list of all the games I'd covered so far, which you can check out here.

My Full Game List So Far

__If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll know that video games have been occupying almost all my time. I've compiled a list of every game I own, be it legitimately or as a ROM for an emulator, and I'm going through them in order from oldest to newest (or rather alphabetically within each year). I've mainly been focusing on the ones that I haven't played before, and whose rating on my list is therefore blank.

__Now, I never claimed to be a good gamer, so typically what happens is that I try playing the first few minutes of the game, and if it becomes clear that I can't progress quickly (whether it's because I can't see the way forward or I don't feel like putting in the necessary practice), I switch to watching a longplay on YouTube so I can at least see the rest. After all, I have so many games to get through that I don't want to get hung up on each one for days or weeks at a time. Still, there are exceptions where I have actually played the whole game myself, like Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger and Super Mario 64.

__I've been at this for over a year now. I first made the inventory and started playing some of the older games (or at least trying to) towards the end of 2020, but it wasn't until February the next year that I started writing reviews for them. And guess what. I'm still not even halfway through the list! That's partly because the schedule keeps getting interrupted by other games that I decide to preview to see if they're worth adding to my library. At the moment, the prime examples are the Sonic and Castlevania series, of which I'd only played a select few before, but now I've decided to catch up on all the rest.

__Anyway, now that I've finished with the games from 2004, I thought I'd write up a full list of all the games in my collection that I've covered up to this point. As I said, most of them are new to me (and you can check the backlog for my "first impressions" comments), but there are a few old favourites mixed in there, including some educational titles that were among the cornerstones of my childhood.

First Impressions Review Diary 5-Mar-2022

__Hello. I'm posting this the weekend after Shrove Tuesday. I hope everyone enjoyed their pancakes.🙂

__If this is your first time reading my blog, I always post on the first Saturday of the month, at noon on the dot, and my blog consists of very brief reviews of movies or video games I'm seeing/playing for the first time. They're compiled from my Twitter feed, which is always the first place I jot down my thoughts. I used to write much longer reviews, but I find that the more movies you see, the harder it becomes to think of things to say without repeating yourself. So I have the utmost respect for those who write long reviews on a regular basis!

__I'll be talking about both movies and video games this time. Obviously, the big release at the moment is The Batman, and I will actually be going to see it later today, but unfortunately just after this post's deadline, so you'll have to wait until next month to hear my thoughts. (This happened with a couple of cinematic releases last year as well.)

__The few movies I am reviewing this time are all sequels. You see, I usually watch a few TV show episodes in the evening (because I have a huge backlog of both video games and TV shows to get through), but I decided to spend March running through all the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to refresh my memory for the three being released this year, and I didn't have time to start another show before then. As there were six days left in February when I finished the last show (which was Mr Bean, by the way), I decided to fill in those evenings with three film series consisting of only two movies, watching the original one evening and the sequel the next. In all cases, I'd seen the original before (which is why they don't qualify for these reviews), but not for a long time.

__So let's comment on those three sequels first.

First Impressions Review Diary 5-Feb-2022

__Hello.🙂 How's your year going so far? I've been keeping my head down and sticking with my daily routine of going through all my unplayed video games (sorted by year) and, in the evening, watching a few episodes of TV shows I'm crossing off my watchlist. Welcome to my latest batch of brief Twitter-length reviews of what I've played/seen for the first time over the past month. (TV shows are exempt because I'm not quite sure how to review them.)

__Before we get into today's list of video games, let's start off with a movie. Among the shows I watched recently was Animaniacs, which did have a direct-to-video movie spin-off called Wakko's Wish. I remember seeing ads for it on Cartoon Network when I was young, but never saw the film itself until now.

Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish (1999)

It's kind of an animated version of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, with the whole cast racing to the wishing star. It feels a tad unfocused juggling all the characters, but I like how they're a chorus on almost every song.

My rating: 75%.

__I also watched the Flash Gordon serials for my latest evening viewing. Now, I group my DVDs by category – movies, TV shows and miscellaneous – but I wasn't sure where to place those serials. They are episodic, and I guess they were sort of the TV shows of their day, but IMDb and all other sources categorise them as movies. I've now decided to swap them from TV shows to miscellaneous. In the meantime, if you're curious, here's my brief thoughts on them:

First Impressions Review Diary 1-Jan-2022

__Happy New Year, everyone!😀

__I always put up my "first impressions" posts on the first Saturday of the month. But, by an amazing coincidence, this time that happens to be the first day of the month, and of the entire year as well! What a perfect way to ring in the new year!😀

__This is my recap of all the movies and video games I watched throughout the month of December. (If you're new here, that's how it is with games. I'm going through all the not-yet-played ones in my collection, sorted by year. I'll usually play them for a while, but if it becomes clear that I can't progress quickly, I'll start watching a longplay to see the rest.) Now, I already covered some of the movies in my "top ten favourites of the year" list, sometimes in slightly more detail, but everything deserves equal treatment here.

__Section one: cinema releases.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

It's kind of a live-action version of Into the Spider-Verse.🙂 It acknowledges the character's core philosophy, while also giving the other two Spider-Man film series one last hurrah. It has its faults, but still very enjoyable.

My rating: 85%.

The King's Man (2021)

Both the humour and creative camerawork of the original Kingsman are almost completely absent. This one takes itself entirely seriously, resulting in a lacklustre story rooted in an all-too-familiar overprotective father scenario.

My rating: 50%.