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These days, it's a sign of the greatness of a movie when it draws us into our own retreats. Few movies hit the big box office this year
Let's not ignore the news that can attract more attention when aired at home after a short time in the theater. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is another entry this year, but boy did this one bring home a triumphant tour de force of stop-motion movies.
Without further ado, here are the movies editors picked as their best of 2022.
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) Full Movie became the first film ever to pass $2.9 billion at the all-time global box office with its latest re-release that provided audiences another chance to refresh their memories and ready themselves to welcome Pandora back again in December upon Way of Water's release. The film was made on a budget of $237 million with another $150 billion set aside for marketing. Compared to that, Way of Water's budget lies somewhere between $350-450 dollars with no official confirmation on the exact amount. Even if the official confirmation comes in, the actual amount of money that went into Way of Water will still remain a clouded figure considering the multiple delays the film has suffered over the years. While audiences who have witnessed the CGI and 3D marvel that Way of Water is will agree that the money behind the film was put to good use, the real question is whether Way of Water will prove that the project is an economically sustainable one or is it time for Cameron to put a limit to his ambitions? Watch Avatar: The Way of Water Online
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022)
Whitney Houston and Robyn Crawford's complex relationship spanned nearly 20 years, enduring secrecy, joys, and hardships. But when the two met as teenagers, Houston had yet to become a global phenomenon and Crawford had yet to become her lover-turned-best friend.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
Puss in Boots is finally back with another epic adventure full of battles against his fairytale foes. The sequel to the Shrek spin-off Puss In Boots comes eleven years after the first feline-fronted film, which was released in 2011 and starred Antonio Banderas as the voice of the wildly cute and fierce furry bandit.
One of the funniest jokes in "Scrooged," the sometimes uneven but vastly underrated 1988 Bill Murray riff on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, came right at the beginning with an artificial promotional trailer. Titled "The Night the Reindeer Died," it was a cheerfully cheesy bit of holiday carnage in which terrorists attempt to seize the North Pole until Lee Majors saves the day by gunning down the attackers while the guy in the red suit assures him he is being a good boy this year. As a distillation of the craven lengths that network television programmers go to attract viewers during the Yuletide season—in this case, by taking a made-for-TV knockoff of the typical Chuck Norris vehicle of that time and crudely slapping a thick seasonal glaze on the tip—it was admittedly a one-joke premise. But it happened to be a pretty funny joke, and since it only lasted for about two minutes, it was over before it could begin to wear out its welcome.
And that's how "Babylon" opens, introducing us to Manny Torres (Diego Calva), a Mexican American in the city of angels at the end of the silent film era. He's trying to get an elephant to an insane Hollywood party, the kind of drug- and sex-fueled affair that was only whispered about in the gossip rags of the time. Chazelle uses the orgiastic bacchanal to introduce his players, including an aspiring actress perfectly named Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), who catches Manny's eye just as her star is about to rise. We also meet the suave Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a silent film star about to leave his third wife and be struck by the fickle finger of fame as talkies come into the picture and the wheel turns to a new era of stars. There's a jazz trumpet player named Sidney (Jovan Adepo) and the underwritten role of a cabaret singer named Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li). Gossip journalist Elinor St. John (Jean Smart) writes about it all while recognizable faces like Lukas Haas, Olivia Wilde, Spike Jonze, Jeff Garlin, and even Flea flirt on the edges of the story.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
The second Knives Out film, directed by Rian Johnson, keeps its viewers guessing until the very end. On the surface, a group of wealthy friends are invited to the private island of tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton). He wants to have a murder mystery party, where they all solve his fictionalized murder, but, as is his expertise, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) solves it within seconds.
"The Whale" is an abhorrent film, but it also features excellent performances. It gawks at the grotesquerie of its central figure beneath the guise of sentimentality, but it also offers sharp exchanges between its characters that ring with bracing honesty. It's the kind of film you should probably see if only to have an informed, thoughtful discussion about it, but it's also one you probably won't want to watch.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever represents the end of Phase Four of the MCU, the thirtieth film in the largest franchise ever to grace the movie industry. It’s a phase of the MCU that has been divisive, as some have reveled in the dedication to diversity, as female directors and non-white protagonists abound.
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