The Best of Stuff I Watched in 2022!

Michael Abayomi did a bunch of top 10 lists on his blog and then I thought, "Hey, why didn't I do anything like that?"  So I went back through my "Stuff I Watched" entries covering last year to find some of the best things I watched for movies and TV.  Since I watched exactly 0 movies in the theater last year, all of these I watched on streaming in vague order and some might have been from 2021 but I watched them in 2022:

Movies:

Prey:  For some reason Disney chose to make this a Hulu exclusive instead of releasing it in theaters for a few weeks before putting it on streaming.  It's too bad because this is a great-looking movie and in some ways better than the original.  It focuses on a young Comanche woman who wants to be a hunter but is told to take more feminine jobs like gathering and healing.  Then she finds the Predator that's landed on 18th Century Earth and from there it's kind of Predator meets The Revenant. It's a great action movie with wonderful visuals, effects, and better acting than the original. (4/5) (Fun Fact:  The main character is played by Amber Midthunder, who was previously in FX's Legion.  You have to wonder if this starred a white male if it would have been shunted straight to streaming.)

The Outfit:  I'm pretty sure one of Donald Westlake's Parker novels had this title, but this is not that.  This is about an English tailor (Mark Rylance) who comes to Chicago in the 1950s and almost immediately his shop becomes a drop for one of the local mobs.  It's kind of similar then to The Drop with James Gandolfini and Tom Hardy, only not in modern day or in New York.  The head gangster's son is screwing the tailor's receptionist and then comes to the shop.  There's a tape (something pretty new at the time) that becomes like the McGuffin along with the son himself and people die.  Then there are twists and turns.  I thought maybe a couple more twists than were necessary, but the last couple help to explain why a simple tailor can do what he does.  Since everything takes place in the tailor's shop (or slightly outside) this really has the feel of a play more than a film, so you're not missing much if you didn't see it the week or so it might have been in theaters.  Still, it was tense and well-acted, and with the twists you never quite knew what was coming.  I watched it on Prime Video, but by now it might not be "free" there, though I'm sure it's streaming to rent other places.  (4/5) (Fun Fact:  in movies especially there's this "rule" about if you show a gun early you have to use it later.  When they early on talked about the tailor's shears, I knew they would be of use later--and they were.  So call them Chekhov's Shears.)

Everything Everywhere All At Once:  I was interested in watching this but it's one of those that was hard to see because it was expensive to rent and then it went to Showtime, which I didn't have.  Until there was a sale on Showtime so I signed up for a month to watch this.  

Basically it's about the multiverse and Michelle Yeoh and her daughter wage a battle with a lot of crazy shit going on like people with hot dog fingers or a universe where instead of Ratatouille there's Raccacoonie, which I would be into seeing a full movie of.  As entertaining as a lot of it is, it went on a little too long and there's no huge revelation.  Basically just love everyone and enjoy the moment and stuff like that.  I mean, I guess it could be worse:  you could have hot dogs for fingers or be a pinata or some fucked-up thing.  So that's something. (3.5/5) 

I am Vengeance!

The Batman:  I meant to get around to watching this for a while but I didn't finally do it until Boxing Day.  I had enough confidence that I bought it sight unseen for about $4 after credits.  I was (mostly) not disappointed.  It takes more cues from the Nolan movies than the Burton ones as it's a grittier, more realistic Gotham.  The story is like if you took Year One, Hush, and a few other comics stories and put them in a blender.  Like the Tom Holland Spider-Man, they dispensed with the origin, probably figuring we've seen that enough already.  So this is in Year Two, where Batman and Lt. Gordon are trying to fight crime.  But then a new villain called the Riddler starts killing prominent people and leaving clues to a deep, dark secret, one that might even implicate the Waynes.  In trying to track down the Riddler, Batman meets Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman--though again we never use that name--and they team up, which includes some kissing.  

While I liked it, I have a few criticisms.  First, I don't know what Batman's armor is made of, but there's no way anything in current existence could get shot the number of times it does and survive.  Second, the final act is kind of a letdown as it involves a manmade natural disaster and Batman facing a bunch of randos, which kind of diminishes the stakes; this also drags a bit.  Third, there's not a ton of development to Alfred or Gordon.  Still, it's not enough to really bring it down too much. (3.5/5) (Fun Facts:  Like the Nolan movies, this was partially shot in Chicago and heavily hints we'll see the Joker in the sequel.  Near the end Batman injects himself with something green to give him a boost; was this Venom and does this hint we could see Bane in a future movie?  And if we see Bane, might we get Azrael too?  Unlikely, but I can dream...)

The Northman:  The way I described this on Facebook was like if you mixed together Hamlet, Beowulf, Gladiator, and maybe a dash of The Lion King.  Like Hamlet you have a prince who wants revenge because his uncle killed his father, the king, and married his mother.  Like Beowulf it's set in and around Scandinavia of about the 9th Century.  Like Gladiator, our hero who was someone important is forced to become a slave for the guy he wants to get revenge on.  And like The Lion King the prince at the start is just a kid who loves his daddy, who is grooming him to one day be king when he dies and the kid goes on the run, only instead of a lovable warthog and annoying meerkat teaching him a catchy song, he joins a gang of raiders who mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children.  The grittiness, violence, and gore makes this less than a heroic saga.  Since he butchers numerous innocent people, our "hero" isn't really a hero and the uncle isn't as big of a jerk as he was in Hamlet, though admittedly I've only seen an old German TV version that was on MST3K.  But when the "hero"'s mom drops some truth bombs, it kind of dampens some of our enthusiasm for the prince to get his revenge.  Which I guess is true to that old adage about revenge and digging two graves; though in this movie you'd need a lot more than that. (3.5/5)

Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness:  I am not a Dr. Strange fan and while I own the first movie (I bought it used at Big Lots) I hadn't really watched it in a while.  That doesn't matter too much, as long as you remember the bare facts:  Stephen Strange was a surgeon who went out with Christine (Rachel MacAdams) for a while but he was a selfish jerk who wrecked his car, his hands, and his career all at once.  Then he went to Tibet or somewhere like that and learned magic and got the Time Stone that he gave to Thanos for...reasons.  So now a girl named America Chavez shows up being chased by a eyeball/tentacle monster that probably got a lot of guys in Japan excited.  After Strange rescues her, she says another Strange and her were trying to get some book to stop the evil that turns out to be the Scarlet Witch, which only makes sense if you watched or at least heard about WandaVision.  After a fight with the Witch, Strange and America end up in other dimensions before landing in 836, where their Strange is dead and the "Iluminati" are running everything, led by Patrick Stewart's Professor Xavier, Captain Peggy Carter, Black Bolt, Mordo, some other Captain Marvel, and Reed Richards.  In a particularly gruesome scene, the Witch kills all of them, but Strange has a few tricks up his sleeve.  Sam Raimi of the first Spider-Man movies takes over and does a decent job.  While I'm not a Strange fan, it was an OK popcorn movie and the cameos were neat, though there weren't really as many as I would have thought. Did they ever get that Book of Vishanti or whatever?  Maybe I tuned out but wasn't that supposed to be the McGuffin?  But then Strange uses the Darkhold instead.  Maybe I should watch this again sometime.  (3/5) (Fun Facts:  Being a Raimi movie we of course have Danny Elfman doing the soundtrack and the mandatory Bruce Campbell appearance; the cookie scene at the very end with Campbell breaking the fourth wall was pretty funny.  John Krasinski plays Reed Richards and was so good that I want a new Fantastic Four movie like right now.  Make it happen, Kevin Feige!)

Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers:  This Disney+ original movie trades on a lot of 80s/90s nostalgia.  Besides referencing the early 90s TV show, there are tons of other properties shown and mentioned from a lot of non-Disney properties:  Batman, ET, Looney Tunes, South Park, Beavis & Butt-Head, Peppa Pig, Gumby, He-Man, My Little Pony, Voltron, and most prominently the original version of CGI Sonic the Hedgehog, aka "Ugly Sonic."  Other than Paul Rudd there was a surprising lack of Marvel and not much for Star Wars either.  The story follows Chip and Dale as they reunite to find Monterrey Jack when he's kidnapped.  It was pretty funny even if the story was fairly cliché.  If you're Gen X or Millennial you'll probably like all the reference humor.  If you're a Boomer or Gen Z it'll probably go over your head. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  Besides voicing a weird CGI Viking, Seth Rogen reprises his role as Pumbaa, the same one I have on my couch; seeing that cameo in the trailer was the main reason I watched this.)

Free Guy:  I think this was one of those movies delayed by the pandemic that probably would have made more money if it had been released in a normal time.  Anyway, the premise is sort of like The Lego Movie where an ordinary boring character suddenly realizes there's a whole other big world out there.  In this case it's Ryan Reynolds as an NPC, one of those background guys in video games, who suddenly gains free will.  There's a girl with colorful hair just like The Lego Movie who helps Guy explore the world and becomes his love interest, though it's different in that she exists in the real world and he doesn't.  Taika Waititi is the bad guy who runs the software company and stole a lot of code from two small time programmers.  The company tries to destroy Guy but with the girl's help he fights back.  It drags on a little too long but there are some fun Easter eggs, especially in the end fight with "Dude," a buffer Ryan Reynolds.  These eggs show what happens when you own Marvel and Star Wars and Fox.  (3/5) (Fun Facts:  Ryan Reynolds and Taika Waititi were both in Green Lantern and both movies were produced by Greg Berlanti, a founder of the "Arrowverse."  Hugh Jackman, Deadpool's arch-enemy, voices an informant in an alley.  I watched the movie on Disney+ but it's also apparently on HBO Max.)

Beast:  I watched this when it was still streaming "free" on Peacock.  Idris Elba and his two daughters go to South Africa and while they're on a safari with an "anti-poacher" (Sharlto Copley) they're attacked by a lion.  A lion that had its pride wiped out by poachers and is really, really pissed off.  It's the sort of premise that could have been dumb, like that Liam Neeson wolf-punching movie,  but the script helps by not having Idris Elba's doctor/father character turn into Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator or something like that.  It's all kept pretty much realistic.  The end was a little predictable as it was a bit telegraphed.  Chekhov's Lions!  By the time this posts, I'm not sure where this will be streaming, but I'm sure you can rent it. (3/5)

Spider-Man No Way Home:  Since this was on Starz and not Disney+, it took me a while to watch it.  I had to actually sign up for Starz when it was 99 cents on Black Friday.  I've never really been a big fan of the Tom Holland MCU Spider-Man.  It never really felt like Spider-Man to me because of the half-assed way it all came together and him galivanting around with Iron Man and in space and all that.  Not until he was swinging around New York with MJ at the end of the second movie did it really start to feel like actual Spider-Man.

In that ending, Peter Parker's secret identity was revealed, which is the key issue of this movie.  To try to get people to forget, he goes to Dr. Strange, but the spell goes awry and villains from all the other movies are drawn into the MCU:  Norman Osborn (Green Goblin), Dr. Octopus, and Flint Marko from the Tobey Maguire movies and Lizard and Electro from the Andrew Garfield movies.  So we cover all the movies, especially when Maguire and Garfield show up.

The first 2/3 is amusing and "fun" in the Marvel way but again not really much of a Spider-Man movie.  It's the last third where Tom Holland's Peter really becomes Peter Parker when he loses all the MCU baggage--including his aunt.  Without the Avengers, the Stark tech, and all that, Peter Parker is actually Peter Parker:  a poor but brilliant high school kid with spider powers that he uses to fight evil because of the responsibility he feels.  It took almost 6 movies but they finally got this version of the franchise pretty much where the other two versions began.

I can't help thinking this movie could have worked better without all the multiverses and guest stars and pizazz.  Peter losing everything and rebuilding his life would have made a great movie on its own, but it might have been harder to sell it to casual fans. (3/5)

TV:

1. Lower Decks, Season 3: While the first episode was funny, it kind of annoyed me that the cliffhanger was resolved offscreen.  I get that the point is they aren't the big heroes and all that, but it still felt like Ocean's Twelve when there was all this stuff and then at the end they tell you they'd actually done the heist a long time ago.  But with that disposed of it got back to normal and then starts to introduce some plot/character developments.  The DS9 episode was brilliant as not only did they use the theme song to great comedic effect but it brought back Kira and Quark and was pretty consistent with their characterization.  I didn't think they needed a whole episode about a rogue ExoComp, but the episode about a holodeck movie was pretty awesome in mocking the Abrams movies, Star Trek V, and Generations.  And it had a cameo from Sulu, which was neat.  The twist of the penultimate(?) episode was pretty good and somewhat poignant as while everyone thought Mariner was the dumbass, she turns out to be the only one who wasn't.  A good season overall. (4/5)
2. Strange New Worlds: It was entertaining, but doesn't really live up to the title.  Other than one episode where an old flame of Pike's takes him to a planet where they sacrifice a child to keep their planet running, they didn't really go to any strange new worlds.  In fact about half the series they don't go to any "worlds" at all!  The one where the doctor's kid puts everyone into a story was cute and so was the one where they're on shore leave and Spock swaps bodies with T'Pring--even though Vulcans gender swapping is kind of pointless.  Una and La'an playing "Enterprise Bingo" seemed like a bit from Lower Decks but it was pretty funny.  The one where they go to rescue a crashed Starfleet ship felt like a ripoff of the Alien/Predator franchises only with Gorn as the xenomorphs.  I was disappointed they killed off Hemmer the engineer after only 9 episodes, probably so they can bring in Scotty next season.  Predictably with a prequel series, my bone to pick is using so many of the Original Series Enterprise crew in this.  Spock was in the original pilot so that's OK, but then you have Chapel and Uhura and probably Scotty now and they've already cast someone as James T Kirk so we'll probably see him again; you start to wonder why they don't just go ahead and do a rebooted Original Series.  The "cliffhanger" about Una seems like what they did with Bashir on DS9 over 20 years ago. (3/5)
3. Halo: I never really played the video game series, which maybe wasn't a bad thing?  There's less shooting and fighting than you'd probably expect since it's based on a shooter video game series.  It's mostly about John, the Master Chief, who finds an alien artifact and suddenly starts regaining the humanity he lost when he was abducted from home as a child.  So there's kind of a Robocop aspect as a guy who was forced into becoming a killing machine starts remembering things.  Meanwhile there's a lot about this planet called Madrigal that has some kind of importance.  Most of it was pretty good but the ending leaves a lot of questions for a Season 2 with no real closure to all the Madrigal stuff or the former soldier-turned-pirate. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  I have such a crush on Cortana.  Someone actually make a real version of that!)
4. Hit Monkey:  This Marvel animated series on Hulu teams a snow monkey in the mountains of Japan with the ghost of an assassin.  What follows is crazy, fun, foul-mouthed, sexy, and violent.  It's definitely not a PG-13 movie aimed at teenagers.  I'm hoping for a second season but I don't know if they will. (4/5) 
5. The Boys, Season 3: I liked that they finally got this more to where the comics started, where the Boys would take "Compound V" to get superpowers for a short time to fight bad supes.  The first two seasons they made the V like a steroid for supes so it was really hard for the Boys to fight the Supes.  But with the "temporary V," we can finally get some cool fights.  This season introduces "Soldier Boy," who's basically a combination of Captain America and Bucky--if they were dicks.  Soldier Boy is strong and has a shield, but then he's captured by the Soviets in 1984 and experimented on.  After the Boys rescue him, they join forces to try to take down Homelander, the psychotic Superman-type guy who's taking control of the Vought company that runs the supes.  I liked a lot of this better than the previous seasons, but it's marred by some immaturity that I suppose is going to happen when you have Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg as your executive producers.  Remember when all those people were talking about Ant-Man crawling up Thanos's ass to kill him?  The writers of this series seemed to take that as a challenge and said "hold my beer" as they have a shrinking supe crawl into some guy's dick to get him off--and then he accidentally goes back to normal size, killing the guy.  In my entry on the docuseries Slugfest I mentioned a costume party in Vermont that inspired the first unofficial Marvel/DC crossover.  The Boys has something similar, only the costume party is of course an orgy of supes.  If they toned down some of that immature, needless gross stuff, it'd be a better series. (2.5/5)
6. Dicktown:  Like Cougar Town, this is a funny comedy with a shitty name.  I mean you'd think with a name like that it'd be about porn stars or something.  Actually it's an animated comedy that's sort of like Mike Tyson Mysteries that I have repeatedly watched throughout the pandemic.  Only this is a little less Scooby Doo-inspired as comedian John Hodgman is John Hunchman, a cut-rate amateur detective who mostly solves mysteries for teenagers with a slacker friend.  A lot of it is really about the culture clash between Gen X and Gen Z.  The second season has a little more serialized format as there's someone from Hunchman's past who keeps sabotaging him, which ultimately leads to some revelations about a past case.  It's pretty funny and like Mike Tyson Mysteries, only about 10 minutes per episode on FX/Hulu, so it doesn't take long to watch. (4/5) (Fun Fact: Paul F Tompkins, Janet Varney, and Kristen Schaal guest voice characters and all three along with Hodgman were part of the 2013 Rifftrax Live show at Sketchfest in San Francisco.  The animation is from the same people as Archer and Sterling Archer himself, H Jon Benjamin, voices a villain in one episode.  The name "Dicktown" comes from the town being named "Richardsville."  It's still pretty lame; calling it John Hodgman Mysteries or Hunchman or Hunchman Mysteries would have been better.)
7. Mayor of Kingstown: This is a crime series on Paramount+ starring Jeremy Renner.  It's that familiar story of the guy who doesn't want to take over the kingdom/empire/criminal enterprise being forced to do that.  In this case there's a city in Michigan (somewhere) with a couple of prisons and Renner's dad and then his older brother made a living by being a liaison with prisoners and sort of being a go-between with the prisoners and guards.  But after his brother is killed in a robbery, Renner's character has to take over the family business to maintain the peace.  Except things start to fall apart until there's a full-scale riot.  Meanwhile an inmate named Milo is plotting to get money for...something and recruits a hooker named Iris to seduce Renner's character, but he resists until she's nearly killed.  I liked the show, though it leaves some questions at the end.  Like where's Milo?  And what's going to happen with all those dead bodies in the bus?  I was annoyed that no one took a few seconds to do a Google search and realize Michigan hasn't had a death penalty in a long, long time.  I mean before you set up this whole show, maybe you should have actually fact-checked that?  It literally would have taken less than a minute to ask Google or Siri or whatever.  I'm just saying. (4/5) (Fun Fact:  There are a couple of nods to the MCU like when Renner buys a bow and arrows to shoot at a bear rummaging around his cabin.  Iris is also referred to as a "Black Widow" when she auditions as a stripper.)
8. Tales of the Jedi:  While not officially under the banner of The Clone Wars, it's basically a way to continue that series by exploring different parts of the prequel mythology that the show didn't really cover.  The first episode features the birth of Ahsoka Tano, but then the next three are about Dooku's disillusionment with the Jedi and Republic that leads him to join Palpatine.  The last two go back to Ahsoka to show how Anakin's training helped her survive Order 66 and how she becomes Fulcrum, which was like a slimmed-down version of the Ahsoka novel I read a few years ago.  The Ahsoka parts made me wish they'd just make a movie that kind of summarizes her whole story while the Dooku parts really could have been a lot longer.  Still, if you're a fan of The Clone Wars, it helps to fill in some gaps.  It'd be interesting to see where the series would go in the future--maybe deeper into the past. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  The episode featuring a young Qui-Gon as Dooku's padawan, they did a good job of making him look like a young Liam Neeson and Dooku as a young Christopher Lee; the animators probably went back to older movies they appeared in for the models.)
9. Star Trek Discovery, Season 4: Season 4 has Michael Burnham in command of the USS Discovery and a new, Galactus-level threat facing the reborn Federation.  In broad strokes it sounds exciting and perhaps as a 2 1/2-hour movie it would be, but stretched into 13 episodes it's less so.  There are a few dull episodes, especially when they approach and enter the "Galactic Barrier," which is different though maybe no less silly than that Great Barrier in Star Trek V.  "Rosetta" particularly felt to me like vamping so they could have enough episodes for the full order.  (I suppose we could blame filming during the pandemic to excuse it.) "All In" was where they got to have the most fun, pulling off a hive of scum and villainy better than the recent Boba Fett show, which is saying something about both franchises.  The finale was disappointing to me.  I never felt any real tension that anyone would  die or anything like that.  Even when Book "died" and Tilly and Vance seemed doomed, I knew the 10-C aliens would have saved Book and stop the DMA in time.  Guess what?  They did.  They were pretty much a deus ex machina so that the only one to suffer any consequences was Tarka.  Like I said on Facebook, all we needed was them to spin the Earth backwards to turn back time like Superman.  I'm sure other people liked it better because it was all Happily Ever After.  Maybe instead of having a "big bad" to focus on all season (Klingons, Red Angel, "the Burn," DMA) they should try a more episodic approach next season.  But they probably won't. (2.5/5)
10. Only Murders in the Building, Seasons 1-2:  (Season 1) I probably should have watched the first season earlier because I've always liked Steve Martin.  He's pretty much a Renaissance Man as he's an actor, comedian, writer, director, and musician.  In this series he teams up with his Three Amigos co-star Martin Short and they team up with Selena Gomez as bumbling amateur detectives who make their own true crime podcast after there's a murder in their apartment building in New York.  There are twists and turns and red herrings and it's mostly pretty fun.  What's odd is the first scene of season 1 is actually the setup for season 2, not part of the crime they investigate in season 1. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  Ordinarily I wouldn't knock a character having an English bulldog, but Martin Short's character doesn't seem like the English bulldog type.  French bulldog would be more appropriate.  Or a poodle or something snooty like that.)  (Season 2):   The second season, like a lot of sequels, doesn't really live up to the original.  Selena Gomez is framed for the murder of Bunny, the former head of the co-op in the building.  But she doesn't go to jail so she's still free to try to find the real killer with Steve Martin and Martin Short.  There are other subplots like a lesbian artist who wants to glom onto Selena Gomez for attention and the secret origin of Martin Short's son--as if anyone cares.  And the secret origin of Steve Martin's dad and Steve Martin's daughter.  The killer from last season, the deaf son of Nathan Lane, and Amy Schumer all show up (the latter playing herself) for an episode or two without actually contributing much to the plot.  One episode there's a blackout and this whole B or C-plot about two gay guys hooking up and all that comes from it is one guy bumps the killer's shoulder so Selena Gomez can identify him; did we need this whole romantic subplot just for that?  Like a lot of sequels it throws more stuff at you but can't really replicate the magic of the first season.  I can see why Steve Martin said he was going to retire after this series because it does seem like Selena Gomez carries most of the load, but I suppose at 77 and with almost 60 years in the biz, Steve Martin deserves to be able to retire if he wants. Going back through it, it seemed like Selena Gomez could have solved all this on her own without the two old guys.  As for the ultimate solution, I'm not sure it really holds water if you work through it backwards.  Anyway, though it's not as good as the first season, it's still pretty watchable if you want a cozier-type mystery. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact:  The setup for Season 3 has Paul Rudd playing a famous actor who dies on stage in a play produced by Martin Short and co-starring Steve Marin.  So maybe they should change it to Only Murders Near the Building?  Or Only Murders Involving People Who Live In the Building?  Fun Speculation:  Was Selena Gomez pregnant when they filmed the first couple of episodes?  It looked like she was kind of fat and they were trying to cover it Voyager-style by having her wear jackets and sweaters and bulky stuff like that.)

I'd do music and books, but who would really care?  Who even cares about this?