"I Didn't Think We Were Rowing," My Favorite Pop Culture of 2022
My Year In Movies
I didn’t need Nicole Kidman to remind me about the perfect, powerful magic of seeing movies on the big screen at the cinema. Mostly because I’m a Regal Unlimited guy in a Regal Cinemas neighborhood, so Kidman’s AMC ad campaign escaped me. Apparently, though, I managed to see 37 feature films via Regal Unlimited in 2022 — that works out to about $7.75 per flick. What a bargain! Especially since so many movies (outside of The Batman or the MCU releases) played to nearly empty houses, giving me plenty of safe social distancing.
Instead of a Top 10, I prefer to share with you my favorite films of the year. These movies stuck with me most, long after watching them, in only the happiest and most thought-provoking ways. Sure, some other films may have felt flashier, more fun or blockbustery, but ended up as forgettable as the popcorn I might’ve eaten while watching them. Some may have great technical merits, but left less of an impression in terms of plot and/or performances.
So here were my favorite feature films of 2022, in alphabetical order:
The Banshees of Inisherin — Get me back to Ireland, 100 years ago or now. What a year for Colin Farrell! What a scene-stealing performance by Barry Keoghan!
Barbarian — The guy from Whitest Kids U’ Know who starred in a couple of bland broadcast sitcoms of the past decade would write and direct one of the most refreshingly surprising horror films of this decade?!?
Everything Everywhere All At Once — Captivating, magical, all the things, with Michelle Yeoh at the core holding that everything bagel together, and the ultimate comeback story for Ke Huy Quan! They could’ve ended it on the rocks and still left me bawling happy tears.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery — I liked Knives Out ok and all, but Rian Johnson really outdid himself with this satire that felt as if it ripped today’s headlines, even though he wrote it a couple of years ago. I also love the theory that it’s really mocking Netflix most of all.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On — Perhaps because I knew Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp when they made the original short for YouTube, this long-awaited feature’s amazing adaptation and expansion of the MTSWSOUniverse tugged at my heartstrings and touched me even more. Well worth the wait.
The Menu — Another brilliant satire for our time. I thought I knew what to expect based on the trailer, and yet this film from Will Tracy and Seth Reiss (whom I knew back when he was part of Pangea 3000 for crying out loud) yes-chef-and’d quite the delicacy!
Nope — Jordan Peele catches us with the ultimate candid camera satire of our desire for fame and the money shot. That one scene still haunts me.
The Northman — A bonkers Viking movie that takes Norse mythology, starring Alexander Skarsgård as Amleth (as in, the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Hamlet), and ramps everything up all the notches. Loved it!
Prey — I honestly didn’t get into the Predator franchise until they went to another planet a few films ago, but this installment, going back in time to 1719 and starring Amber Midthunder as a Comanche warrior who outwit, outlasts and outplays without needing ChatGPT or any tech at all — this might be the most innovative, best take on the franchise yet!
TÁR — Cate Blanchett can do no wrong, even when she’s playing a famous yet fictional orchestra conductor who has gone oh so wrong. A spellbinding warped take on #MeToo and all of the usual trappings of power corrupting, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. And then it takes a drastic turn or two or three at the end. What a coda.
Honorable mentions for worthwhile viewing, especially on a big screen: The Batman; Beast; Bodies Bodies Bodies; Emily The Criminal; Lady Chatterly’s Lover; The Lost City; RRR; Top Gun: Maverick
I could appreciate what they were going for, even if they fell short in one respect or another: The Bob’s Burgers Movie; Bros; Bullet Train; Confess Fletch; Crush; Death on the Nile; Don’t Worry Darling; Elvis; The Fabelmans; I Love My Dad; Jurassic World: Dominion; Moonfall; The Phantom of the Open; Three Thousand Years of Longing; The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent; Uncharted; Vengeance
Big swings for big swings sake, or were they trolling us? Babylon; White Noise
Not so super, once you stop to think about them: Black Adam; Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness; Morbius; Thor: Love and Thunder
I mean, ???? Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (why so Mussolini?!)
NOTE: I’m still catching up on the year’s documentary slate, so I decided I’ll post about them separately at some point. Or not.
For reference purposes, here are the BoxOfficeMojo stats for domestic ticket sales at the cinema this year:
Meanwhile, here were the top streamed movies of 2022, according to JustWatch:
My Favorite Music
I made a playlist for the first time in a long time, on Spotify (yeah, yeah, I know, after all I’ve written and learned about how Spotify treats stand-up comedians even worse than musicians by not paying them for writing as well as performing). But for now, it remains the easiest way to share music with friends and strangers alike. So here we are. I call this Spotify playlist “2022-ish” since a few songs might have come out last year but remained in heavy rotation in my ear holes.
Represented on the playlist, in alphabetical order: The 1975, Brooke Alexx, Arcade Fire, beabadoobee, Beyonce, Big Thief, The Black Keys, Rainee Blake, Kate Bollinger, Phoebe Bridgers, Camila Cabello and Ed Sheeran, Brandi Carlile, Clairo, Doja Cat, Ducks Ltd., Essy, Father John Misty, Florence + The Machine, Fontaines D.C., Gayle, Halsey, Honeyyycrush, Ibeyi, Illuminati Hotties, Japanese Breakfast, Jax, Steve Lacy, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, Latto, Lawrence, The Linda Lindas, Lizzo, Lord Huron, Manchester Orchestra, MARIS, Megan Thee Stallion and Dua Lipa, Mitski, Maren Morris, MUNA, Kacey Musgraves, Oska, Panda Bear and Sonic Boom, Arlo Parks, Phoenix, Charlie Puth, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, Gretta Ray, Olivia Rodrigo, Rosalia, Rozzi, Sampa the Great with Angélique Kidjo, The Smile, Spoon, Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, SZA, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Tiffany Topol, Meghan Trainor, The War on Drugs, Jessie Ware, Faye Webster, Wet Leg, Weyes Blood, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Nicky Youre + dazy
I also made a shorter version of the playlist for Amazon Music, since I own an “Alexa” and through Prime use that ad-free platform subscription to connect my iPhone to the car when driving.
Turns out my year in music listening included some influences from Substack (thanks to Christian Finnegan's and Leo Mascaro's for emailing me great suggestions week-in, week-out. Thanks, too, to TikTok, which introduced me to some great pop and rock sounds from the likes of Essy, Honeyyycrush, MARIS, and Rozzi, among others. Thanks also to driving a car once again, and to my ex-girlfriend for that and for turning me on to WFUV-FM, Fordham's fabulous commercial-free eclectic rock station, I once again felt caught up with what the kids of all ages are listening to. Even my Amazon Echo (aka Alexa) sometimes threw me sonic curveballs thanks to the ability to ask it to play music for a particular mood.
My Year In Vinyl
But the thing that really returned me to the fold of avid music listeners and collectors? That’d be the turntable I received for my birthday last fall.
Somehow I managed to keep most of my original childhood LP collection (as well as my cassette tapes, and the CDs that I hadn’t purged when I moved to NYC in 2007) in storage all these years. But having a turntable in my life once again spurred a fascination bordering upon obsession with acquiring (or re-acquiring) the music I love in a forever physical media format. I bought albums to replace or supplement the CDs or cassettes from bands and musical acts to which I’ve maintained the biggest sentimental attachments over decades. I bought albums (and greatest hits collections) I’d always loved but somehow never owned previously in any medium. And then I bought new music. I think I counted 25 albums added to my collection this year just from 2021 and 2022 releases.
As the late great George Carlin echoes in my ears, I’m gonna need a place for all of my new stuff!
My Year In TV
Of shows that I managed to watch in part or whole in 2022, these tickled my fancy the most because I actually watched and enjoyed them enough to share in this list:
Abbott Elementary (ABC/Hulu)
The Afterparty (Apple TV+)
Andor (Disney+)
Atlanta (FX/Hulu)
Barry (HBO)
Better Call Saul (AMC)
The Boys (Amazon Prime)
George Carlin’s The American Dream (HBO)
The Dropout (Hulu)
Euphoria (HBO)
Flatbush Misdemeanors (Showtime)
Hacks (HBO Max)
The Kids In The Hall, documentary and new season (Amazon Prime)
Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)
Pam & Tommy (Hulu)
Peacemaker (HBO Max)
The Rehearsal (HBO)
Reservation Dogs (Hulu)
Severance (Apple TV+)
Somebody Somewhere (HBO)
This Fool (Hulu)
We Need To Talk About Cosby (Showtime)
Who Killed Santa? A Murderville Mystery (Netflix)
Yellowjackets (Showtime)
I also watched all of the MCU and other Star Wars Disney+ series, but how much did I love them in the end, versus how much did I feel I needed to keep up with the plot threads? Same sorta kinda went for Stranger Things and Ozark on Netflix, actually.
And yes, I’ve fallen too far behind on my FX on Hulu watching as evidenced by the buzzworthy series not on my list yet, but perhaps I’ll rectify that this weekend???
My Year In Reviewing Comedy
Whether or not you agree with many or any of my verdicts on comedy specials, I’m quite confident in typing that I watched AND reviewed more stand-up and sketch comedy than any professional critic in the United States. If not also globally.
And still I couldn’t keep up with the glut of stand-up “specials” in 2022. Thanks, YouTube and Amazon for making it so easy for anyone and everyone to upload their hours, and to the iPhones and increasingly inexpensive and accessible tech for comedians to film their headlining sets in the first place.
That said.
You can read more about my Top 10 Comedy Specials of 2022 on Decider.
Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel (HBO)
Jena Friedman: Ladykiller (Peacock)
Sheng Wang: Sweet & Juicy (Netflix)
Taylor Tomlinson: Look At You (Netflix)
Bill Burr: Live at Red Rocks (Netflix)
Lil Rel Howery: I Said It. Y'all Thinking It. (HBO)
Chris Redd: Why Am I Like This? (HBO Max)
Would It Kill You To Laugh? Starring Kate Berlant & John Early (Peacock)
Moses Storm: Trash White (HBO Max)
Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special (Netflix)
Honorable mentions: Next 10 on the board, in alphabetical order: Cristela Alonzo: Middle Classy (Netflix), Chad Daniels (Unprotected Sets on EPIX, now MGM+), Vir Das: Landing (Netflix), Chappelle’s Home Team — Earthquake: Legendary (Netflix), Alyssa Limperis: No Bad Days (Peacock), Sam Morril: Same Time Tomorrow (Netflix), Trevor Noah: I Wish You Would (Netflix), Atsuko Okatsuka: The Intruder (HBO), Matt Rogers: Have You Heard of Christmas? (Showtime), and Ali Siddiq: The Domino Effect (YouTube).
What did I miss out on in 2022, in your eyes and ears? Please let me know!
