Logan’s Moving Pictures returns for a Year-End List as only Logan can do. We’ll let him explain it …
In the closing hours of 2022 Adam (ye-olde-EiC) shot me a text asking me if I had any interest in contributing a Top 10 (or Top 5 even) to the site’s year-end lists. After a few minutes, I shot him a response and told him to let me think about it because truthfully I couldn’t even come up with five movies I’d loved this year, or ten movies I’d even seen. Until Glass Onion there were maybe two 2022 films I’d seen that I would even consider very good, let alone excellent to the point of being among best/favorite consideration. So, I pulled up a list of films that were all released last year just to have an idea of what had even come out. Turns out I saw a lot more than I remembered…it’s just that most of them maybe aren’t worth remembering.
So, in lieu of a Top 10, and once again breaking the rules of my own column, I’ve decided to just write, briefly and personally, about the films I did see from 2022, ordered by the date of their release.
Scream
Calling it Scream was maybe the single worst thing about this film. I took Ryan’s daughter, Kaysi, to go see it and we both had an absolute blast. I’m not generally one for horror, but the Scream franchise will get my butt in a seat, and I’m glad she got to come along with me this time. Kaysi is a big fan of horror films, and like most fans, she doesn’t like 90% of them but watches them anyway. Scream was a series she discovered through Ryan, and they watched them all, including the TV show. It was bittersweet getting to take her, it always is, but this time doubly so. I know it’s something they would have rewatched and discussed and, after that trailer for Scream hit, they would have revisited the entire franchise and come up with all kinds of theories. Kaysi and I don’t have that, and that’s okay, that was something for them. I’m happy to just be the guy that buys the tickets and gets to go along for the ride.
The Batman
I said this in a previous column, but of all the films I’ve seen since Ryan passed, this was the one that truly made me angry that he wasn’t here to see it. He loved the character of Batman, and he would have adored this movie. It exceeded any expectation I had of it, and while I haven’t revisited it as a whole since it was released, I think about parts of it quite often. It’s not a perfect representation of the comic book Bats, but it does capture aspects of that character that have never been portrayed in live-action before. I lament the never-had conversations between my brother and I surrounding this movie. There would have been many.
Turning Red
I watched this Pixar effort in my sister, Kelly’s, living room surrounded by most of my nieces. I loved watching them watch it, and found a lot of joy in the movie for myself as well. But, it’s an amazing thing to watch a flm that wasn’t made for you with an audience it’s actually for. I know there are those out there who might say “well, every movie should be for everyone,” but they’re wrong. Because that’s how you get what you’ve always got. New and different and not for you is okay because artists create using their own (often negative) experiences, and if you can’t relate to those experiences, well, maybe that means you’re lucky. What you can do is sit back and appreciate that there are young girls out there with very complicated relationships with their mothers and grandmothers, who maybe have a lot of body confidence issues and who need to know they aren’t alone in that, and that it doesn’t mean it won’t still be okay in the end.
Morbius
What can I say about possibly the worst film of the year? Well, I desperately want to see the original version we would have gotten two years ago, just to compare them, and maybe it actually was a decent watch! I actually didn’t hate the film, at all, I just wish they’d leaned into the kitsch and camp of it and gone full-on crazy. Like so much of this list, I often think about the discussions my brother and I would have had post-screening. This one would surely have been a podcast full of loving mockery, which was the way we discussed the last Fantastic Four film from Fox. I believe this is on Netflix right now, and I’d bet money there’s a solid drinking game based around it somewhere on the internet.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
I missed this in theatres, the timing just never worked out, but having greatly enjoyed the first one I couldn’t wait to see what was next. It helps that two of my nephews, Jace and KJ, had become massive fans of the character. So, once again, we piled into my sister’s living room when it his streaming, made some Sonic-themed snacks and had the best time watching the latest adventure of our furry blue friend. It was a great time, and you can’t ask for more than that.
Logan’s Moving Pictures returns for a Year-End List as only Logan can do. We’ll let him explain it …
In the closing hours of 2022 Adam (ye-olde-EiC) shot me a text asking me if I had any interest in contributing a Top 10 (or Top 5 even) to the site’s year-end lists. After a few minutes, I shot him a response and told him to let me think about it because truthfully I couldn’t even come up with five movies I’d loved this year, or ten movies I’d even seen. Until Glass Onion there were maybe two 2022 films I’d seen that I would even consider very good, let alone excellent to the point of being among best/favorite consideration. So, I pulled up a list of films that were all released last year just to have an idea of what had even come out. Turns out I saw a lot more than I remembered…it’s just that most of them maybe aren’t worth remembering.
So, in lieu of a Top 10, and once again breaking the rules of my own column, I’ve decided to just write, briefly and personally, about the films I did see from 2022, ordered by the date of their release.
Scream
Calling it Scream was maybe the single worst thing about this film. I took Ryan’s daughter, Kaysi, to go see it and we both had an absolute blast. I’m not generally one for horror, but the Scream franchise will get my butt in a seat, and I’m glad she got to come along with me this time. Kaysi is a big fan of horror films, and like most fans, she doesn’t like 90% of them but watches them anyway. Scream was a series she discovered through Ryan, and they watched them all, including the TV show. It was bittersweet getting to take her, it always is, but this time doubly so. I know it’s something they would have rewatched and discussed and, after that trailer for Scream hit, they would have revisited the entire franchise and come up with all kinds of theories. Kaysi and I don’t have that, and that’s okay, that was something for them. I’m happy to just be the guy that buys the tickets and gets to go along for the ride.
The Batman
I said this in a previous column, but of all the films I’ve seen since Ryan passed, this was the one that truly made me angry that he wasn’t here to see it. He loved the character of Batman, and he would have adored this movie. It exceeded any expectation I had of it, and while I haven’t revisited it as a whole since it was released, I think about parts of it quite often. It’s not a perfect representation of the comic book Bats, but it does capture aspects of that character that have never been portrayed in live-action before. I lament the never-had conversations between my brother and I surrounding this movie. There would have been many.
Turning Red
I watched this Pixar effort in my sister, Kelly’s, living room surrounded by most of my nieces. I loved watching them watch it, and found a lot of joy in the movie for myself as well. But, it’s an amazing thing to watch a flm that wasn’t made for you with an audience it’s actually for. I know there are those out there who might say “well, every movie should be for everyone,” but they’re wrong. Because that’s how you get what you’ve always got. New and different and not for you is okay because artists create using their own (often negative) experiences, and if you can’t relate to those experiences, well, maybe that means you’re lucky. What you can do is sit back and appreciate that there are young girls out there with very complicated relationships with their mothers and grandmothers, who maybe have a lot of body confidence issues and who need to know they aren’t alone in that, and that it doesn’t mean it won’t still be okay in the end.
Morbius
What can I say about possibly the worst film of the year? Well, I desperately want to see the original version we would have gotten two years ago, just to compare them, and maybe it actually was a decent watch! I actually didn’t hate the film, at all, I just wish they’d leaned into the kitsch and camp of it and gone full-on crazy. Like so much of this list, I often think about the discussions my brother and I would have had post-screening. This one would surely have been a podcast full of loving mockery, which was the way we discussed the last Fantastic Four film from Fox. I believe this is on Netflix right now, and I’d bet money there’s a solid drinking game based around it somewhere on the internet.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
I missed this in theatres, the timing just never worked out, but having greatly enjoyed the first one I couldn’t wait to see what was next. It helps that two of my nephews, Jace and KJ, had become massive fans of the character. So, once again, we piled into my sister’s living room when it his streaming, made some Sonic-themed snacks and had the best time watching the latest adventure of our furry blue friend. It was a great time, and you can’t ask for more than that.
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