As the saying goes, I’m not mad at these movies as much as I expected much, much better from the artists involved. In alphabetical order:
Amsterdam
I’ve been onboard for David O. Russell’s wildest swings over the course of his career (Team “I Heart Huckabee’s” for life), and a story about a real-life attempted fascist coup in the United States certainly couldn’t be more timely. But boy, was this all-star tonal pile-up the hottest of messes that not all of the production design in the world could save.
Avatar: The Way of Water
Whatever script shortcomings the first movie had – and it had them – seeing the movie projected in 3D was an immersive experience that felt absolutely new. (The magic of Pandora remained stunning even in the 2022 reissue.) But with high-frame-rate and other visual choices reducing this sequel into pixelated cacophony, the movie’s one reason to exist, theatrical spectacle, was taken off the table.
Babylon
Damien Chazelle’s poison-pen valentine to early Hollywood was a ten-elephant pile-up of borrowed ideas and in-your-face exertions that amounted to not very much at all. Both “Amsterdam” and this one misuse the gifts of Margot Robbie, but I’ve got high hopes for her upcoming turn in “Barbie.”
Bones and All
The re-teaming of director Luca Guadagnino and actor Timothée Chalamet held real promise, but this cannibal road-picture love story came off like the collaboration between Terence Malick and George Romero that nobody requested. Like “Babylon,” it’s a divisive movie that spawned both fans and skeptics, so if you enjoyed them, good on you.
Don’t Worry Darling
Olivia Wilde turned in a stunning directorial debut with the funny and heartfelt “Booksmart,” but this warmed-over pastiche of “The Stepford Wives” went nowhere, despite a riveting lead performance from Florence Pugh and some breathtaking mid-century Palm Springs art direction.
Lightyear
The “Toy Story” movies have been one of the cinema’s most reliable series, but this adjunct tale – supposedly the movie that inspired the Buzz Lightyear action figure – is merely OK entertainment for children and easily-satisfied adults, with only a fraction of the humor and the heartache we’ve enjoyed in earlier entries.
The Menu
In a year full of media sticking it to the 0.1% — “Triangle of Sadness,” “Glass Onion,” “The White Lotus” – this dark comedy about revenge and restaurants bobbles its tone, dragging innocent bystanders in with people who deserve the antagonist’s wrath. Anya Taylor-Joy is, as always, mesmerizing, and Ralph Fiennes digs into drollery, but as stinging satires go, this is pretty weak tea.
Nope
Kudos to Jordan Peele for using his clout as a horror auteur to make very divisive movies. When it comes to “Us” and his latest effort, however, I remain firmly on the negative side of the divide.
Spoiler Alert
I haven’t read the Michael Ausiello memoir that’s the basis of this rom-com tear-jerker, but I have admired Ausiello’s work as a TV journalist for decades, and I find it hard to believe that he is the utterly alien collection of tics and quirks that comprise Jim Parsons’ performance as Ausiello in this movie that compelled me neither to laugh nor cry.
White Noise
Sometimes, when a novel has a reputation as “unfilmable,” that reputation is correct, as with Don DeLillo’s 1985 best-seller. If anyone might have overcome that unfilmability, it’s Noah Baumbach, coming off a very impressive streak of films including “Marriage Story,” “The Meyerowitz Stories,” “Mistress America,” “While We’re Young” and “Frances Ha.” Alas, despite game performances by Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, and the year’s best closing-credits sequence, Baumbach doesn’t quite crack the code.
