2022 was supposed to be the year that "the movies were back!" and it. . . kinda was. While there were still several movies pushed back and a few high profile cancellations (pour one out for Batgirl), the year saw the fruits of many a movie that had been pushed back either because of delays caused by the pandemic or by filming under COVID conditions. The resulting buffet led to some seriously good eating.
Well, a $200 million blockbuster wake sure is a hell of a thing to see.
With the fall season finally in swing and the advent of full-time Spooky Season, I thought I'd take one last look back over the summer's releases to give some love to a few gems that I don't feel got enough eyes on them on release. Some of these are theatrical releases, some of them went straight to streaming, but all of them are worth a watch and they're pretty easy to find even if you're only just now hearing about them.
And it's possible that more than a few of them will make good watching for Halloween prep.
If you've already seen writer-director S. S. Rajamouli's two-part mythic masterpiece Baahubali, you probably have some idea of what to expect from the filmmaker's take on two real-life revolutionaries in 1920's India. If you haven't, both movies are on Netflix and they absolutely shred.
RRR (Rise, Roar, Revolt) is very much in the same vein, and is about as much delightfully maximalist bang for your buck as you could possibly want from an historical epic drama where everything starts at "11" and goes up from there.
It happens to the best of us - you're getting good grades in school, home life seems chill, you and your friends' favorite boy band is coming to town - but then, shortly after your 13th birthday, you wake up to find you've turned into a giant panda.
Mondays, am I right?
2020 was an. . . interesting year (for just so many reasons), but one of the knock-on effects was the delay of so many big projects that were initially slated for release. As we found last year, there were still plenty of delectable cinematic offerings to be had - especially if you did a little digging - but there's an undeniable feeling of the floodgates having been opened this year.
Not only did I not get to everything I wanted to see, but even fitting all the films I loved into my very generous version of a "Top 10*" was even more difficult than usual. But I can think of worse problems.
(*pfft, yeah right)
