With 2022 coming to a close, it is time for us to choose what the best entertainment of the year was. And just as the Academy Awards have their "Oscars", so too the Catholic Skywalker Awards have their "Kal-El's"
I have gone through as many movies as possible this year. There were several that I missed and so was unable to place. Normally, I would only have theatrical films. But since COVID, I have been adding streaming movies to this list.. For that reason, as I did last year, I have included them in this list.
So of the movies I've seen this year, here are the winners:
(My appreciation and judgment of a film should not be taken as a recommendation. Choosing to watch any of these films is the reader's responsibility)
BEST PICTURE
Top Gun: Maverick
From my review:
This is a movie to see in the movie theaters. My wife and I made sure to see this on an IMAX screen so we could have the maximum picture and sound quality. From the opening shots that are almost exactly like the original until the final minutes, we were constantly blown back by the experience. The roar of the engines and the whipping movement of the camera made us feel like we were being hit with G-forces.
One of the movie's big selling points is that there is very little CGI. I am not someone who decries special effects. Even though I know that the original Death Star run in Star Wars was done with models, I felt completely invested because of the emotional connection I had with the characters. In this case, the emotion caused me to suspend my disbelief. That suspension is the essential quality you need to be drawn in. Anything that is an impediment to that suspension can be disastrous. For example, I think of the barrel chase from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The artificiality of that scene made me feel less viscerally invested because it made it more difficult to suspend my disbelief.
Top Gun: Maverick does everything it can to ground you in the reality of what is happening. When you see Maverick fly vertically between two jets, you get a thrill of danger that I don't think would be there if it was CGI. When you watch the actors react to the G-forces and sudden aerial shifts, it makes you buy into the danger that they are facing in the sky.
Because of that sense of danger, Top Gun: Maverick stands out from other movies of this era. I'm sure all of the stunts were done to the utmost safety measures, but it feels dangerous. It's the thrill of watching the trapeze artist do a triple-summersault in the air: even if there is a safety net, you feel the exhilaration of the stunt.
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But above being empty spectacle, the movie is entertaining in the primal sense. It tells a compelling and good story that makes you feel happy and satisfied by the entire experience. The movie grounds the action in the emotional relationships so that you are invested in everything that happens at every moment. It makes everything feel familiar and yet brand new. It was the best movie-going experience of the year.
RUNNERS UP
Father Stu
The Batman
Spirited
Vengeance
BEST DIRECTOR
Joseph Kosinski - Top Gun: MaverickI've written before about how I believe action movie directors are overlooked. Because dramatic films are more "serious," the action films are look at as overly frivolous or hyper technical. I think that is a horrible disservice to the directors of this genre. Action movies are pure cinema. Only a master of the visual craft can create a thrilling cinematic experience. Kosinski developed a way to draw you in completely into these real-world fight jets to put you in a vicarious passenger seat. He does not use jarring quick cuts when he doesn't need to. Besides this, he does not skimp on the look of the non-flying scenes. The entire film is gorgeous to look at. He has a sweeping romantic style when Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly are sailing, but he also uses simple, understated shots in the emotional scene with Val Kilmer. Kosinski deserves as much credit as Cruise for the success of this movie.
RUNNERS UP
Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert - Everything Everywhere All At Once
BJ Novak - Vengeance
Matt Reeves - The Batman
Sean Anders - Spirited
BEST ACTOR
Mark Wahlberg - Father Stu
Some actors are complete chameleons. What I mean by that is that they are able to change everything about their voice and body so that they can be unrecognizable from movie to movie. Actors like Gary Oldman and Johnny Depp are these types of actors. Some people think that this is the pinnacle of acting. But there are other types of actors called interpreters. These are actors who instead adapt the character to their own physicality. To my mind, the greatest actor of all time is an interpreter: Jimmy Stewart. In every movie he was in, he was clearly Jimmy Stewart, but he played every conceivable version of Jimmy Stewart intensely and believably.
I bring this up because we had a great chameleon performance this year with Austin Butler's Elvis. But the best performance of the year is actually Mark Wahlberg's Father Stuart Long. This is a transformative performance that takes a horrible man slowly bringing him to sanctification. It isn't simply that the subject matter resonates with me as a Catholic. What impresses me so much is how Wahlberg moves his Father Stu along his story arc in such a wonderfully organic way. He does not become a completely alien person to his original self. You can see his same personality, his strong, forceful, masculine strength as it is refined by his conversion and his suffering. Nothing feels false about his journey. The emotional depths that he finds is more than in any performance of his that I have seen. And it is the best performance of the year.
RUNNERS UP
Tom Cruise - Top Gun: Maverick
Robert Pattinson - The Batman
Austin Butler - Elvis
Daniel Radcliffe - Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
BEST ACTRESS
Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All At Once
Michelle Yeoh is someone who is able to integrate all of their skills as a performer into one cohesive performance. She made her career early on as an action star, but she proved her dramatic skills in movies like
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. With this movie, she is able to use every ounce of her talent to portray the infinite variety of characters of Evelyn Wang. She does this while never losing the emotional thru-line of the movie. Her character goes through movements of depression, to exhiliration, to despair, to enlightenment. Yeoh takes us on that journey while taking on all of the different skills and personality of her alternate reality selves. At no time did anything she do ring false, no matter how alien or strange. This may be a career high for her.
RUNNERS UP
Michelle Williams - The Fabelmans
Amy Adams - Disenchanted
Elizabeth Olson - Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Kaitlyn Dever - Rosaline
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Key Hu Kwan - Everything Everywhere All At Once
Kwan's performance might be the most delightful surprise of 2022. Largely MIA from big-budget films for the last thirty years, Kwan makes a fantastic return as Waymond, the hen-pecked husband to Evelyn. I was actually as shocked as Evelyn was by the sudden changes in Waymond's personality. Kwan jumps effortlessly from sheepish beta-male to dynamic alpha-male in a heartbeat. It reminded me of how Christopher Reeve transformed his posture and body language subtly but distinctly between Clark Kent and Superman. But even beyond that, Kwan does not simply make Waymond empty caricatures. Instead, he infuses even the seemingly insignificant main Waymond with deep emotion and an incredibly quiet dignity. I hope that this performance opens up all new doors for Kwan's career.
RUNNERS UP
Mel Gibson - Father Stu
Ryan Reynolds - Spirited
Ashton Kutcher - Vengeance
John Turturro - The Batman
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Teresa Ruiz - Father Stu
One of the pitfalls of play a character like Carmen as blandly virtuous: an empty vessel that simply projects goodness. Ruiz's performance is much better than that. Her Carmen is very devout about her faith, but she is not a saint. She struggles and stumbles. She is able to portray such painful vulnerability. It breaks my heart as she says "I debased myself before God for you." In a way, she has to play Carmen almost like a Dr. Frankenstein. She brings Stuart to spiritual life, but she has no control over the result. As Stuart begins to pass her by on his calling, Ruiz lets us feel all of her longing and guilt. And all the while Ruiz infuses Carmen with so much charm and charisma that you can see why Stuart fell in love with her in the first place.
RUNNERS UP
Saorsie Ronan - See How They Run
Stephanie Hsu - Everything Everywhere All At Once
Jennifer Connely - Top Gun: Maverick
Evan Rachel Wood - Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
BEST SCREENPLAY
BJ Novak – Vengeance
I think this horribly overlooked movie should be given a lot of credit for the writing. In the film, Novak stars as a New Yorker in rural Texas. What impressed me about most of the script is that it did not fall into the two extremes of portraying small town folk. Either they are soulful saints like they are in every Hallmark Channel movie or they are horribly backwards bigots. Instead, the people of the town are shown to be like all of us: some good, some bad. They have their own unique combinations of virtues and vices. And Novak's New Yorker does not escape lampooning. In fact, his own ignorance and presuppositions lead to him being humiliated in a very effective way.
But what really gets me about this movie is the ending. The last ten minutes involve a deep discussion about our modern world that really made me think. This is always a gamble, to end your movie with a lot of exposition. It could grind the entire film to a halt and turn into a lecture. Instead, it works wonderfully. It makes you recontextualize the entire journey of the main character and place it in the our own metacontext as an audience. Really provocative, maybe the most provocative script in a long time.
RUNNERS UP
The Greatest Beer Run Ever
Spirited
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers
BEST MAKEUP
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Unlike the original version from the 1980's the makeup here is not done to distract, but instead to enhance the reality of this fantastical world.
RUNNERS-UP
Spider-Man: No Way Home
The Suicide Squad
BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS
Despite my many problems with the movie itself, I cannot argue that James Cameron did an amazing job of visualizing his alien world. In 3D, the movie is completely immersive and that is due primarily to the special effects.
RUNNERS-UP
Thor: Love and Thunder
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Everything Everywhere All At Once
BEST SCORE
Alan Menken - Disenchanted
The movie is a decent followup to the original from last decade, but the music is light, charming and magical, which I would expect from the composer of some of Disney's most iconic songs.
RUNNERS-UP
Spirited
The Batman
BEST COSTUMES
The Batman
It is very difficult to root a comic book character in the real world, but Matt Reeves' movie does a fantastic job of making everything feel like they belong here. Christopher Nolan did something similar in his Dark Knight Trilogy, but in The Batman, there is a seedy, lived-in quality that grounds everything even more in something like reality.
RUNNERS-UP
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Thor: Love and Thunder
Everything Everywhere All At Once
BEST SONG
"Unredeemable" - Spirited
The music from this movie is still sticking with me, months after watching. But it is the climactic ballad that Will Ferrell sings that is the real show-stopper. This song is really about the nature of man grappling with his own sinfulness and wondering if the good can overcome the bad. On top of that, the song is wonderful composed and completely singable.
Below are the list of all the films of 2022 that I have seen, ranked in order of excellence:| Top Gun: Maverick |
| Father Stu |
| The Batman |
| Vengeance |
| Spirited |
| What is a Woman? |
| Bullet Train |
| Weird: The Al Yankovic Story |
| Rosaline |
| Black Adam |
| Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers |
| See How They Run |
| The Greatest Beer Run Ever |
| Jerry and Marge Go Large |
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness |
| Death on the Nile |
| Everything Everywhere All At Once |
| Uncharted |
| DC League of Super Pets |
| Gray Man |
| Hustle |
| The Lost City |
| The Adam Project |
| Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris |
| Ticket to Paradise |
| Avatar - The Way of Water |
| Disenchanted |
| Day Shift |
| Thor: Love and Thunder |
Beavis and Butt-head Do the Universe |
| Elvis |
| A Christmas Story Christmas |
| Emily the Criminal |
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore |
| Jurassic World: Dominon |
| Me Time |
| Honor Society |
| Easter Sunday |
| Senior Year |
| Noel Diary |
| The Fabelmans |
| The Bubble |
| Turning Red |
So that is my list and the conclusion of this year's Catholic Skywalker Awards.
Thoughts?
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