Best Movies of 2022

2021 may have been the year we went back to the movies, but 2022 felt more like the year that movies were back. “Spectacle” seems to be the theme running concurrently through so many of this year’s releases. We got sprawling epics with meaty runtimes, starry casts, and vast set-pieces that demanded to be seen […]

Review: “Babylon”

“White elephants—the God of Hollywood wanted white elephants, and white elephants he got—eight of ‘em, plaster mammoths perched on mega-mushroom pedestals, lording it over the colossal court of Belshazzar, the pasteboard Babylon built beside the dusty tin-lizzie trail called Sunset Boulevard. …Belshazzar’s Feast beneath Egyptian blue skies, spread out under the blazing Southern California morning […]

Holiday Classics: “Christmas Eve” (1947)

“Christmas Eve” isn’t actually as Christmas-y of a movie as its title suggests, the holiday setting more serving as a catalyst to pull a few seemingly disparate stories together and only really becoming apparent in the final scene. The 1947 film, which was also released under the title “Sinner’s Holiday,” from director Edwin L. Marin […]

Holiday Classics: “Blast of Silence” (1961)

“Remember out of the black silence you were born in pain. You were born with hate and anger built in. Took a slap on the backside to blast out the scream. And then you knew you were alive.” Lionel Stander’s bitter opening narration to the 1961 noir “Blast of Silence” is backed by the sound […]

Holiday Classics: “Bundle of Joy” (1956)

Last week, I discussed what I referred to as a perfect romantic comedy, 1939’s “Bachelor Mother.” Today, I’m talking about its 1956 musical remake, “Bundle of Joy.” “Bundle of Joy,” also a product of RKO Studios, isn’t without its charms, but it never manages to step out of its predecessor’s shadow. The story is identical: […]

2022 OAFFC Nomination Ballot

I’ve been a member of the Online Association of Female Film Critics since its inception in 2017 and so have voted in the group’s annual awards every year since then, but for some reason I’ve never posted the ballot of nominees I come up with for each category every year. I’m not sure why; I […]

Online Association of Female Film Critics 2022 Awards – Nominees

Online Association of Female Film Critics 2022 Awards – Nominees Online Association of Female Film Critics 2022 Awards – Nominees

Review: “Avatar: The Way of Water”

If there are two things that James Cameron likes, it’s developing cutting-edge technology to deliver massive theatrical spectacles, and water. Frequently for the filmmaker, who got his start directing special effects on movies like “Piranha II: The Spawning,” those two things go hand in hand. Consider, for example, the 1997 drama “Titanic,” for which Cameron […]

Holiday Classics: “Bachelor Mother” (1939)

Some romantic comedies are funny but not very romantic. Others are romantic but not very funny. “Bachelor Mother” is both in spades. Released in 1939, the Garson Kanin-directed comedy— a remake of a 1935 Hungarian film titled “Little Mother”—is often overshadowed in a year that also included the likes of “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone […]

Holiday Classics: “Black Christmas” (1974)

Director Bob Clark is likely most remembered for helming the nostalgic 1983 comedy “A Christmas Story,” which has become an annual holiday staple, a tradition for families and the subject of a 24/7 television marathon. But in 1974, nearly a decade before adapting Jean Shepherd’s novel, Clark directed a very different kind of movie set […]