Year in Review: 2022

Well, this was my Return of the Jedi/King year, but unfortunately, I'm probably going to franchise this thing until I die ...

Every year that I'm still putting stuff out is a banner year for me, but I don't want to undersell the effort I put into Films and Feelings during 2022. Arguably my biggest milestone this year was putting out my 100th post, commemorated as a list of my favorite movie each year for 100 years, but this was also a big year for essays.

My essay round-up this year:

-"My Crush on Sarah Conner is Hard to Explain" A summary of all the flagship and subtle ways that Sarah Conner of the "Terminator" franchise advanced female representation in action films.

-"The Belle Complex" A study of how the mania surrounding Disney's Belle as a pillar of righteousness contributed to the incoherency of the 2017 remake of Beauty and the Beast.

-"Meet in St. Louis: The Melancholy Window of Nostalgia" A reflection on how the social unrest of World War II informed the colorful optimism of Meet Me in St. Louis.

-"Some Much Needed Love for Megamind" A retrospective on Dreamworks' 2010 animated superhero parody, Megamind, with some reflection on the discourse around animated films in general.

-"Social Utopia in Raya and the Last Dragon" A deconstruction of Raya and the Last Dragon's thesis on achieving harmony in a socially divided world.

-"Main Character Syndrome" A study of how popular film can both exacerbate and comment on a viewer's self-affirming worldviews--the tendency see oneself as the "main character" of life.

-"The Case for Pre-Ragnarök Thor" An overview of Thor's transformation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe from beacon of chivalry to comedic action star.

-"You're Not Stupid for Loving Jurassic World" An advocacy piece for why the Jurassic World trilogy deserves more respect in the popular discourse.

-"Part of that World: Understanding Racebent Ariel" A rebuttal against the #NotMyAriel dialogue surrounding Halle Bailey's casting as Ariel in the live-action remake of Disney's The Little Mermaid.

-"Your Train to Busan Viewing Companion" An overview of various lenses through which Train to Busan can be read and understood, including genre and socio-cultural.

-"What's Up, Doc? Why Everyone Needs the Rom-Com" A study of the male fear of romance, as manifested in the casual dismissal of the rom-com genre, seen through the lens of What's Up, Doc?

-"Silver Linings Playbook: What are Happy Endings for Anyway?" A study of Silver Linings Playbook and its unique perspective on the universality of the search for happiness.

A recurring theme among this year's essays, one that I didn't necessarily anticipate, was that of "Main Character Syndrome." I dedicated an entire essay to this exact topic, but the foundations of said essay also reflected in some of the others, like my pieces for the "Beauty and the Beast" remake or Silver Linings Playbook. I guess this year I've just been thinking a lot about the consequences, good and bad, of trying to live like a main character.

I also want to single out my Main Character Syndrome essay as arguably the most significant from this year because it represented a creative jump for me. This saw me deviating from my usual method of writing about a single film, genre, or brand and following instead an idea across various films of different kinds. One aspect of film literacy is possessing knowledge not just of individual films, but also of finding connections across multiple kinds of film, and I'm really interested in pursuing more essays of this fashion.

Of course, heaven knows when I will put this goal into practice. This time last year, I also teased the possibility of me expanding my boundaries and spotlighting more obscure titles. I then proceeded to spend most of the year writing about Disney remakes and Marvel.

Well, I am trying to rectify that particular oversight. Currently I'm drafting an essay spotlighting an indie film that I really responded to. The film in question is Lamb, released in 2015 and directed by Ross Partridge. The film follows the unusual relationship between a grieving 47-year-old man and an emotionally neglected 11-year-old girl. Variety called the film, "a cautious, sensitive, admirably unresolved attempt to dramatize a relationship for which society makes no allowance and offers no definition." It's the kind of film that would stir a lot of pots, if only it had ever found an audience, and that's where platforms like mine have the potential to elevate fascinating stories that grow on the peripheries of the landscape.

By virtue of its obscurity, I doubt most of my readers have even heard of it, and this is why I want to give curious viewers the chance to find it before I debut my essay on the subject, some time in the first months of 2023. Stay tuned for more updates, and consider seeking it out in the meantime.

I will also probably remember 2022 as the year that I finally cashed in on many of the essays I'd been meaning to write since I started Films and Feelings. As a reference point, I was drafting a defense of the Jurassic World movies in the first few months of my blog (literally before pandemic), but I decided it was in the piece's best interest to wait until I had the chance to see "Dominion" before I signed my name to that franchise. This gave me an extra two years for my argument to cook, which I think made for a much stronger piece. Many of my essays I published this year were of a similar background.

An essay will also occasionally just come to me fully formed and I can get the whole thing written out in a week or two. My series on Pixar and critics and my retrospective on the Percy Jackson movies were both like this. But with most of my essays I'm figuring out the details of my argument as I'm putting words down on the document over the course of several weeks. I'll often assign myself topics and just wait to see where I go with it. I'm sure all my essays would be better if they had two years of researching and prewriting, or if they just fell into my brain and onto my keyboard, but if we only ever waited until the muses dragged us by the ear to go to work, how much art would go uncreated? How much learning would we miss out on?

I obviously can't anticipate how and when I will strike gold, but going forward I would like to cultivate an environment where my workload is more conducive to that other kind of writing. The kind where I am responding less to quotas and deadlines and more to the things that actually excite and inspire me. I can't say for sure whether this will mean more essays or less essays in the next year, but I hope at the very least it will result in better essays.

A unique irritation this year was, of course, my attempt to watch a movie I had not previously seen every day in 2022. This drink from a fire hydrant quickly became a chore, and I ended up bowing out of the challenge with barely over a month left. I documented my complete feelings on the challenge in my concluding piece a few days ago. The short of it, I am glad to have had this experience, and I absolutely recommend that no one attempt to follow my footsteps ...

Perhaps owing to this fool's errand, I went to the theater even more frequently than usual. Regretfully, I only put out 16 reviews this year (including a few for direct-to-streaming films and two for the new season of Stranger Things). This is about on par with my usual yearly count, but it doesn't quite reflect the amount of effort I put into seeing films in their proper context.

Good movies like Father Stu, The Bad Guys, and The Banshees of Inisherin all managed to escape me this year as I struggled to fit in the time to develop a review. Next year I don't plan on slowing down in my intake of new releases, so I'll have to rethink my process. Essays have always been the backbone of my work here. But greeting new films as they enter the arena of social discourse is also a special privilege for the cinephile, and it's one I don't want to neglect or squander.

I don't know if writing about film will ever become mundane or tedious to me, but I'm nowhere near there yet. I'm grateful to have the opportunities that I do, and I'm grateful for readers who are willing to indulge me.

We'll see you in the cinema.

--The Professor

Comments

Part of That World: Understanding Racebent Ariel

If I were to say that the discussion around the Disney live-action parade has been contentious, I would be roughly the 84,297th person to propose this. Historically, this sort of thing has just been the general opposition to Hollywood’s penchant for repackaged material, and how the Disney machine is specially equipped for this purpose. That's old hat. But something happens peculiar happens when the Disney machine shows a different face--when it looks like the parade might actually be leading the charge toward something like progress. When Disney announced on July 3, 2019 that the highly coveted role of Ariel, The Little Mermaid, would go to African-American actress, Halle Bailey, you saw a lot of excitement from crowds championing fair representation. You also saw a lot of outrage, most clear in the trending hashtag #NotMyAriel, revealing a face of social fury that ca...

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Do Clementine and Joel Stay Together or Not?

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Bright Young Women: The Legacy of Ariel and The Little Mermaid

I had an experience one summer at a church youth camp that I reflect on quite a bit. We were participating in a “Family Feud” style game between companies, and the question was on favorite Disney movies as voted on by participants in our camp. (No one asked for my input on this question. Yes, this still burns me.) I think the top spot was either for Tangled or The Lion King , but what struck me was that when someone proposed the answer of “The Little Mermaid,” the score revealed that not a single participant had listed it as their favorite Disney film. On the one hand, this doesn’t really surprise me. In all my years of Disney fandom, I’ve observed that The Little Mermaid occupies this this very particular space in pop culture: The Little Mermaid is in a lot of people’s top 5s, but very few people identify it as their absolute favorite Disney film. This film’s immediate successors in the Disne...

Finding Nemo: The Thing About Film Criticism ...

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REVIEW: The Super Mario Bros. Movie

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PROFESSOR'S PICKS: 25 Most Essential Movies of the Century

"Best." "Favorite." "Awesomest." I spent a while trying to land on which adjective best suited the purposes of this list. After all, the methods and criteria with which we measure goodness in film vary wildly. "Favorite" is different than "Best," but I would never put a movie under "Best" that I don't at least like. And any film critic will tell you that their favorite films are inevitably also the best films anyways ... But here at the quarter-century mark, I wanted to give some kind of space to reflect on which films are really deserving of celebration. Which films ought to be discussed as classics in the years ahead. So ... let's just say these are the films of the 21st century that I want future champions of the film world--critics and craftsmen--to be familiar with. Sian Hader directing the cast of CODA (2021) There are a billion or so ways to measure a film's merit--its technical perfectio...

Investigating Nostalgia - Featuring "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Pokemon: Detective Pikachu"

The 1700’s and the age of exploration saw a massive swell of people leaving their homelands for an extended period or even for life. From this explosion of displacement emerged a new medical phenomenon. Travelers were diagnosed with excessive irritability, loss of productivity, and even hallucinations. The common denominator among those afflicted was an overwhelming homesickness. Swiss physician Johannes Hofer gave a name to this condition. The name combines the Latin words algos , meaning “pain” or “distress,” and nostos , meaning “homecoming,” to create the word nostalgia . Appleton's Journal, 23 May 1874, describes the affliction: Sunset Boulevard (1950) “The nostalgic loses his gayety, his energy, and seeks isolation in order to give himself up to the one idea that pursues him, that of his country. He embellishes the memories attached to places where he was brought up, and creates an ideal world where his imagination revels with an obstinate persistence.” Contempora...

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The veneration of children as a reservoir of evergreen purity is a thread that informs much of modern storytelling, both in the entertainment arena as well as the political one. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) The media likes to cast children as vessels of uncompromised goodness that adults could only ever hope to emulate. This is interesting since most theories on children’s moral development actually posit that humans don’t internalize principles until they are in adulthood, if ever. Lawrence Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development traced out childhood as a time where individuals judge morality largely on reward vs punishment. Still, their purity forms the bedrock of the conversation. Because the future hinges upon their innocence, efforts to preserve their unblemished state can go to any length. You can justify any number of actions as long as you are doing it “for the children.” The incentive to ban the teaching of critical race theory and the histor...

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Westerns Riding off into the Sunset

In both my Les Miserables and Moulin Rouge! pieces, I made some comment about the musical as the genre that receives the least love in the modern era of film. I stand by that, but I acknowledge there is one other genre for which you could potentially make a similar case. I am referring of course to the western film. Musicals at least have Disney keeping them on life alert, and maybe one day we’ll get the Wicked movie Universal has been promising us for ten years [FUTURE EDIT: All good things, folks ]. But westerns don’t really have a place in the modern film world. Occasionally we’ll get a film like No Country for Old Men which use similar aesthetics and themes, but they are heavily modified from the gun-blazing-horseback-racing-wide-open-desert w esterns of old. Those died, oddly enough, around the same time musicals fell out of fashion. Professors Susan Kord and Elizabeth K...

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