A Love Song (2022)

Faye is waiting. At a campsite on a lake, in the shadow of a mountain, she waits. She catches her meals from the lake, identifies birds, and spins the dial on her portable radio to hear the perfect song it's chosen for her. When childhood friend Lito finally arrives, they reminisce and swap stories of the partners who left them widowed and spend an awkward yet companionable afternoon and night together. Her wait over, Faye can move on.

There's not much to this, but there's also so much here. Quiet, lovely, hopeful and sad. And -- though I enjoyed the cowboy family -- their quirkiness was a bit out of place: like they'd wandered in from a Wes Anderson movie.

B

The Fallout (2022)

Tomboy Vada and hot girl Mia are the only ones in the bathroom when a shooter opens fire in their high school. They hide in a stall together and are joined by Quinton -- stained with his brother's blood -- just a few minutes later. In the days to come, the girls seek solace in each other despite having no relationship prior to the tragedy.

Though the subject is important, I never felt as though we got beneath the surface to the real "fallout." The responses of the girls' families were especially odd: Mia's parents don't even bother to come home from a trip abroad while Vada's family's way of dealing with things seemed to be simply looking worried. Weeks after the shooting, her mother asks "who's Mia??" when Vada tells her where she's been. Has she never asked her daughter about her experience during the shooting? How can she possibly not know the name of the girl who was trembling alongside her during the scariest moments of their lives?

I don't know... maybe that's supposed to be the point. Perhaps the takeaway is supposed to be that school shootings are almost a rite of passage now? That we're supposed to take a bit of time but then everyone needs to just get back to normal?

C

Infinite Storm (2022)

Despite storm warnings, seasoned hiker Pam sets off on a solo trek. Hours underway, she encounters footprints that eventually lead to a man woefully underdressed and too inexperienced to be out in the approaching storm. Lucky she's trained in search and rescue because they'd be dead otherwise.

Slow and frustrating -- there didn't seem to be near enough story for a movie. The screenplay worked hard to keep both characters a mystery to the viewers, which just meant that I wasn't at all invested in their survival. The denouement would've likely been frustrating if I felt like I'd gotten to know them at all.

C-

Argentina, 1985 (2022)

After coming through a brutal military dictatorship, Argentina's new government decides that those who were responsible during that time must be prosecuted. They select Julio Strassera, a competent but quiet prosecutor, who must then find a willing team to work with him despite threats of violence from those who prefer to leave the past unexamined. I admit that I was sometimes confused about who was who -- this entire subject was completely new to me -- but I didn't need to follow every beat to get it. 

It reminded me a bit of The Untouchables, in which Eliot Ness fought an unpopular war with a cobbled-together team of the untested. This, however, felt more rooted in reality, enabling me to easily envision the future in the United States in a decade or so. Hopefully our incoming government is more familiar with this chapter in history than I was and will take heed.

B-

7 Women and a Murder (2022)

It's Christmas and an adult daughter arrives to spend it with her parents. Also there are her aunt, sister, grandmother, a housekeeper and -- eventually -- a mistress. When they discover the patriarch of the family with a knife in his back, the women try to figure out who's to blame. As the tension ratchets up, so do the obstacles (cut phone lines, power outage, a padlocked exit).

This suffers from a case of mildness. None of the women ever seemed to be truly scared or even really concerned. The funny bits only got a slight smile from me while the crime seemed to be just a subplot. It could've been a fun Marple-type of whodunit, but with a cast of characters who didn't seem to mind that their husband/lover/father/in-law had been struck down, I couldn't muster much interest either. Inoffensive and forgettable.

C-

Cursed Friends (2022)

After receiving a "predict the future" activity book while trick-or-treating, four kids fill it out together. Twentyish years later, they all happen to be together on Halloween and discover the long-lost book -- and now the predictions are coming true.

This felt like one of those K-Mart kids' movie knock-offs: disappointing but also "off" enough to be weirdly watchable. The murder and orgy club subplots, however, make this resolutely inappropriate for children.

D

Here Before (2022)

Because Laura lost her own daughter Josie in a traffic accident years ago, she's naturally drawn to Megan, the daughter of the new neighbors. But there's a bit more to it than just "she reminds me of her" -- Megan seems to know things that only Josie would know. Though Laura understands it must just be coincidental fantasy on Megan's part, she can't help the feelings it stirs up.

I really got into this. Andrea Riseborough as Laura proves that her Oscar nomination a couple of years back was no fluke: I was right there with her, confused and hopeful while realizing that it can't be what it seems to be. Lovely work all around -- though the ending didn't quite explain everything the way it seemed to think it did.

B+

The Quiet Girl (2022)

A large Irish family ships one of their daughters off to relatives for the summer. Cait's used to being neglected and mocked for her bashfulness, but finds a different reality in the home of this older couple. As Cait begins to blossom, the couple's story also begins to reveal itself naturally.

I just loved the honest message here -- that the family you're born into isn't necessarily the family who will know you or love you best. What a hopeful heartbreaker.

A-

Matilda: The Musical (2022)

Matilda, a top-notch brain born to parents who simply don't see the point of her, is enrolled in a school run by a headmistress who doesn't see the point of children in general. It's a grey place with punishment around almost every corner, with the exception of Miss Honey, Matilda's sweet-natured teacher.

Truth be told, I've never read Matilda nor have I seen the earlier film, so I have no idea if there's a huge departure from the material. But I can say that the choreography is manic, the songs are unmemorable, and the caricatures of evil adults are so far over the top that there's barely any humanity there. I had a hard time seeing why this is an enduring story.

D+

The Takedown (2022)

Mismatched pair of cops have to work together despite their wildly different methods. It's both too light (infantile jokes and predictable storyline) and too adult (graphic content and violence) to be a hit with any audience. An absolute misfire that felt like a chore to finish.

D+

Harley & Katya (2022)

Harley (Australian) and Katya (Russian) each had trouble finding a skating partner good enough to keep up with them. So, despite being from across the world from each other and not sharing a language, they clicked immediately on the ice. It didn't take them long at all to start being a competition threat. But, in order to succeed, Katya -- just 16 when they met -- had to come to Australia to live and train. 

I am only a casual viewer of figure skating, so I had no idea where this story was going, but it wasn't hard to predict that it was not going to be to a happy place. Katya's without anything familiar, always struggling to decipher what's being said, and too young to have strong coping strategies in place. The money was tight, which forced her to live with her coaches, which should've been an obvious "no" to the adults making arrangements.

It's a weakens the story that we can't get deeper into Katya's side of the story here, though I realize the impossibility of that ask.

B-

Close (2022)

Leo and Remi are the type of best friends who spend every waking minute together. If they aren't spending the night their parents ask why, since it's unusual for them to be apart. Only when they begin junior high and their closeness is questioned does Leo begin to see the relationship through different eyes. Remi struggles to understand the new paradigm as Leo begins to place boundaries and forge a new path for himself.

This tore me up in a primal way. The topics are so natural and familiar -- even though I'm in my 50s, I can remember the all-encompassing hurt of a friendship coming apart. It's a marvelous and brutal film.

A+

Amsterdam (2022)

It's a murder mystery. No -- it's a war movie focusing on racism in the army. Hold up -- it's an expat throuple love story. Wait -- it's a political thriller. I mean... just when I'd get my bearings, this film shifted focus. Though it kept my interest, sometimes just for the "hey! look who it is!" star spottings, I was usually lost and feeling like I was being deliberately juked.

In short: a vibrant confusion.

C+

Confess, Fletch (2022)

"Jon Hamm is no Chevy Chase" is such a weird sentence, but it applies here. But, even if Hamm mugged convincingly enough to grab some laughs, the script is a mess. The jokes are lazy and the mystery's a bit too twisty to easily follow. A complete waste of time and film.

D

Spin Me Round (2022)

Amber, a manager at an Olive Garden-type chain, heads off to a company training in Florence with a half-dozen other managers from different locations. It winds up being a weirdly low-rent affair in both accommodation and content, so Amber is excited to accept an invitation to spend the day with the chain's owner, who seems quite smitten with her.

I'm making it sound like there's a story here, but there's really not. It feels like the writer's room was one of those "no idea is a bad idea" places and every single thought made it into the movie. It's somehow both too much and not nearly enough.

D+

The Pez Outlaw (2022)

Steve Glew has some great stories about traveling to Europe, somehow getting direct access to PEZ factories, loading up with tons of dispensers not sold in the states, and getting the haul through customs. You're on his side against the seemingly petty "Pezident" in charge of American sales. He's scrappily living the American dream and seems to have found an appealing way to get rich with very little capital.

But, eventually, Steve contracts with a factory to produce PEZ dispensers of his own design. Despite his attitude (seemingly shared by the trading community and the documentarians) that he's the little guy and PEZ should calm down, I was firmly NOT on his side. I mean... what if I took a Nike tennis shoe and had a factory copy it but in alternate color combos? That wouldn't be clever, it would be illegal and what Steve did was no different. Once he lost the moral high ground, I ceased to be interested in his story.

C+

Empire of Light (2022)

At work is just about the only place that a person can really spend time with people outside of their usual age group and social circle, e.g. the popular high school cheerleader's best work friend might be a white-haired grandfather trying to make ends meet. Somehow such a disparate group can become tight and share inside jokes and truly care about one another, which is the case at an old-school two-screen movie theater on the English coast in the early '80s.

Stephen, a young black man, is hired on and immediately becomes a staff favorite. He and the theater's manager Hilary hit it off and are soon romantically entangled, despite an age difference of a couple of decades. Other obstacles are that rampant, violent racism is a fact at this time in England and Hilary has stopped taking the lithium necessary to manage her mental health. Toss in a married boss who literally expects Hilary to bend over whenever the mood strikes and you know things will eventually blow.

And yet this manages to be a lovely film with many moments of quiet charm. The two leads can make your heart break with a glance.

B

Disenchanted (2022)

The idea of exploring what happens on the other side of "Happily Ever After" is a great one. But though Amy Adams as Giselle is still a delight, not much else works here. 

The brilliance of the original film was that a fairy tale princess remains herself even when removed from her original world. Somehow, this film forgets that formula entirely and has people from the "real" world transform when put into a different reality. What a shame.

C

Falling for Christmas (2022)

A rich and sheltered woman gets knocked on the head and can't remember who she is. The widower who finds her decides to put her up in his small ski lodge for the holidays, where she somehow fits right in despite her initial ignorance about any domestic duties. It's basically a Christmas update of Overboard with all bawdiness and sharp edges removed, and that's OK! 

Holiday movies get graded on a curve, so -- while this isn't going to make it into our Christmas movie rotation -- it was sweet and Lindsay Lohan was charming.

C+

Men (2022)

After a traumatic personal event, Harper decides to rent a house in the country for a solo retreat. It isn't long before she's weirded out by a nude man she encounters on a walk and then, later, the same man is in her yard. Subsequent encounters with males at the local church and pub leave her shaken.

The film had an effective aura about it -- especially in the early scenes -- but it then devolved into the fantastical and Harper becomes an unreliable narrator. Are we trapped in her nightmares? I'm not sure. But all of the men (and boys) in the village have the same face and damage to one damages them all. Flashbacks to her trauma make it clear that her experiences are derived from that experience. 

This reminded me strongly of an earlier film also starring Jessie Buckley: I'm Thinking of Ending Things. They probably both seemed like a cool ideas but, in practice, they were messy and nearly nonsensical.

C