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

REVIEW: HOPPERS

In the 1950s under the threat of nuclear warfare, Hollywood premiered such exercises as The Day the Earth Stood Still or War of the Worlds where an alien power would pass judgment on humankind, holding its fate in its hands. Here in the 2020s under the shadow of such threats as climate change, Hollywood sends to be our judge ... beavers. Let me back up ... Daniel Chong's new film from Pixar Animation, Hoppers , sees Mabel (Piper Curda), a college student whose self-appointed mission is to preserve the glade where she used to find sanctuary with her now deceased grandmother. Her biggest opponent is hometown boy and beloved mayor, Jerry (Jon Hamm), who has designs to plow over the glade in order to open his new freeway--estimated to save travelers four whole minutes of commuting. Mabel gets her golden opportunity when she uncovers secret technology pioneered by her professor which allows a human to rem...

The Official Story: When Oppression Hits Home

This last month, Wim Wenders, the director behind movies such as Wings of Desire (1987) and Perfect Days (2023), made a statement at the 76th Berlin Film Festival that’s been scratching at me. In his words, “Yes, movies can change the world. Not in a political way. No movie has really changed any politician’s idea, but … we can change the idea that people have of how they should live.” Wenders was speaking specifically on the subject of film festivals taking active stances on things such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, further describing, “Cinema has an incredible power of being compassionate and empathetic. The news is not empathetic. Politics is not empathetic, but movies are. And that’s our duty.” I think the dressing of this verdict was supposed to be optimistic, but the sentiment reminded me of something that actress Jennifer Lawrence said also very recently on why she’s pulled back from using her official platforms to speak out against the Trump Administrati...

Social Utopia in Raya and the Last Dragon

I think every filmmaker hopes that their film will change the world for the better, but how to measure that when the exact effects a film has on society are impossible to quantify? Did Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman instigate #MeToo, or were both just natural products of the shifting social dynamics that had been morphing for a long time? Maybe we're just kidding ourselves when we put our faith in movies to heal the wrongs of the world. After all, Kramer vs Kramer has been out for over forty years now, and some dads still struggle to prioritize love and attention for their kids. I'm also thinking of Raya and the Last Dragon. Disney's 59th animated film takes place in a fictional world known as Kumandra, a land that was once home to the benevolent and majestic dragons. In the film’s prologue we learn that the dragons disappeared thousands of years ago to seal away an ancient evil know...

Silver Linings Playbook: What are Happy Endings For Anyway?

Legendary film critic Roger Ebert gave the following words in July of 2005 at the dedication of his plaque outside the Chicago Theatre: Nights of Cabiria (1957) “For me, movies are like a machine that generates empathy. If it’s a great movie, it lets you understand a little bit more about what it’s like to be a different gender, a different race, a different age, a different economic class, a different nationality, a different profession, different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us. And that, to me, is the most noble thing that good movies can do and it’s a reason to encourage them and to support them and to go to them.” Ebert had been reviewing films for coming on forty years when he gave that assessment. I haven’t been doing it for a tenth as long. I don’t know if I’ve really earned the right to pontificate in this same manner. But film ...

An Earnest Defense of Passengers

I've heard a lot of back and forth over what the purpose of film is and what we should ask from it. Film as a social amenity kind of has a dual purpose. It's supposed to give the population common ground and find things that people of varying backgrounds and beliefs can unify around. On the other hand, film also creates this detached simulated reality through which we can explore complex and even testing ideas about the contradictions in human existence. In theory, a film can fulfill both functions, but movies exist in a turbulent landscape. It's very rare for a film to try to walk both lanes, and it's even rarer for a film to be embraced upon entry for attempting to do so. Let me explain by describing the premise of one of my favorite movies, Morten Tyldum's 2016 film, Passengers . A key piece of this film ’s plot revolves around the main character, Jim Preston, a passenger onboard a spaceship, who premat...

REVIEW: SCARLET

There isn't a story on the books that can't somehow trace its genealogy to the works of William Shakespeare. Such is the nature of inspiration and archetype. But the latest film from anime auteur, Mamoru Hosoda, is almost an adaptation of, rather than a homage to, Shakespeare's Hamlet , carrying over character names and even a few iconic lines. Yet it's not what Scarlet borrows from Shakespeare that gives the story its weight, but what it adds--and I'm not just talking about the giant thunder dragon in the sky. The Prince of Denmark in this story is reimagined as Princess Scarlet. This film sees her failing in her quest to avenge her father and being doomed to wander in some sort of desolate afterlife. Her only consolation is the idea that she might find her treacherous uncle somewhere in this wasteland and see her vengeance fulfilled in this world. But her quest sees her crossing paths with someone else, a medic from a ...

The Banshees of Inisherin: The Death Knell of Male Friendship

I’m going to go out on a limb today and put out the idea that our society is kind of obsessed with romance. In popular storytelling, t he topic has two whole genres to itself (romantic-comedy, romantic-drama), which gives it a huge slice of the media pie. Yet even in narratives where romance is not the focus, it still has this standing invitation to weave itself onto basically any kind of story. It’s almost more worth remarking upon when a story doesn’t feature some subplot with the main character getting the guy or the girl. Annie Hall (1977) And it’s also not just the romantic happy ending that we’re obsessed with. Some of the most cathartic stories of romance see the main couple breaking up or falling apart, and there’s something to be gained from seeing that playing out on screen as well. But what’s interesting is that it is assumed that a person has a singular “one and only” romantic partner. By contras...

REVIEW: Jurassic World - Rebirth

I had a mixed reaction to Jurassic World: Rebirth, but it did make for one of the most enjoyable theater experiences I've had in recent memory. I have to imagine that a part of this is because my most common theater appointments are matinee screenings, but I had the opportunity to see this one at a fairly well-attended midnight screening. And there's nary a film more tailored for surround-sound roaring and screens wide enough to contain these de-extinct creatures. ("Objects on the screen feel closer than they appear.") It was natural for me to cap the experience by applauding as the credits stared to roll, even if, as usual, I was the only one in the auditorium to do so. Yes, I am that kind of moviegoer; yes, I enjoyed the experience that much, and I imagine I will revisit it across time. That's not to imagine the movie is beyond reproach, but I suppose it bears mentioning that, generally , this i...

The Belle Complex

As Disney fandom increasingly moves toward the mainstream, the discussions and questions that travel around the community become increasingly nuanced and diverse. Is the true color of Aurora's dress blue or pink? Is it more fun to sit in the back or the front on Big Thunder Mountain? Is the company's continued emphasis on producing content for Disney+ negatively impacting not only their output but the landscape for theatrical release as a whole? However, on two things, the fandom is eternally united. First, Gargoyles was a masterpiece in television storytelling and should have experienced a much longer run than it did. Second, Belle's prom dress in the 2017 remake was just insulting. While overwhelmingly successful at the box office, the 2017 adaptation is also a bruise for many in the Disney community. Even right out the gate, the film came under fire for a myriad of factors: the auto-tuned soundtrack, Ewan McGregor's flimsy accent, the distracting plot ...

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...

Films and Feelings

Search This Blog