This was a bad, very bad, summer movie season.
If you had any doubt that mainstream American filmmaking is currently in the worst place imaginable, then summer 2022 should dissipate any doubts.
Where was the risk-taking? Where were the filmmakers willing to go for broke and be heard? Nowhere to be found. The “bottom line” is now the operating memo being sent by studio CEOs to producers, filmmakers and actors. Just ask David Zaslav.
If anything, now, more than ever, to find great movies you have to be adventurous and seek them out at the local arthouse theater. I found ten hidden gems from summer 2022 that if you blinked you may have missed out on, and not even realized existed: “Happening,” “Watcher,” “Crimes of the Future,” “Funny Pages,” “Vortex,” “Dinner in America,” “Resurrection,” “Pleasure,” “Fire of Love” and “Emily the Criminal.”
Next year’s crop of summer titles looks more promising with Christopher McQuarrie’s “Mission Impossible 7”, Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” James Mangold’s “Indians Jones 5”, Pixar’s “Elemental,” Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” and James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy 3” leading the charge.
Over the weekend, I emailed a few press friends and conducted a quick flash poll of 30 film critics. The task was simple, send over your five cinematic highlights of the summer movie season. The results were as follows:
Top Gun: Maverick (16 votes)
Elvis (12)
Crimes of the Future (10)
Nope (10)
Happening (8)
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (7)
Resurrection (6)
Three Minutes - A Lengthening (5)
A Love Song (4)
Watcher (4)
Thelma Adams (AARP), Edward Douglas (Below the Line), David Sterritt (Christian Science Monitor), Jeff Sneider (The Ankler), Alex Billington (First Showing), Harry Knowles (Aint it Cool), Marlowe Stern (The Daily Beast), Jared Mobarak (The Film Stage), David Ansen (Newsweek), Laura Frank Clifford (Reeling Reviews), Mara Reinstein (US Weekly), Barry Hertz (The Globe and Mail), Nick Clements (MUBI), Jordan Ruimy (World of Reel), Jeffrey Wells (Hollywood Elsewhere), Nicolas Bell (IONCINEMA), AA Dowd (The AV Club), David Sims (The Atlantic), Sara Stewart (New York Post), Phil De Semlyen (Time Out), Samuel Murrian (Parade), Chris Nashawaty (Esquire), Carlos Aguilar (IndieWire), Matt Hoffman (Film School Rejects), Jeffrey M. Anderson (SF Examiner), Ethan Alter (Yahoo Movies), Michael Atkinson (Village Voice), David Poland (The Hot Button), Johnny Oleksinski (New York Post), Rene Rodriguez (Miami Herald), Van Papadopoulos (Cannes Classics)