Maybe I can keep this brief. That has not been my strong suit in the past, but 2022 was a great year for movies, and I would rather let the movies speak for themselves. Some developments in my personal and professional life – mostly very positive developments – kept me out of theaters and away from this site more than I would have liked last year.
That said, I got back to writing reviews, an artform I love and had missed. Hopefully, there will be many more to come in the new year. Longform reviews are one of the main reasons I started this blog. I love thinking deeply about films and truly engaging with their themes and intent, and the few reviews published in 2022 were a great reminder of that for me.
We lost two more great movie theaters last year – The Landmark and the Laemmle Playhouse. Both were excellent places to see a movie, and two of my most frequented theaters in Los Angeles. We saw Alex Garland’s Men on the final night of screenings at The Landmark. The mood was somber and strange, like a wake for a friend still clinging to life.
The Landmark Theaters chain shortly thereafter announced it would take over the halls of the former Laemmle Playhouse. That space reopened at the end of December, and we attended a screening of Damien Chazelle’s Babylon. It will take time for that house to feel like a home, but at least it is there. Meanwhile, the Laemmle family will be forced to close theaters in North Hollywood and Claremont soon, making way for upscale apartments.
One wonders what all these new residents will do for recreation once anything remotely resembling local color is bulldozed to make way for still more residences. Have we learned nothing from Jonathan Kaplan’s masterpiece of teen rebellion, Over the Edge, in which the city planners put the interests of business over the interests of citizens to disastrous effect?
Maybe it is on my mind because we had the opportunity to attend a screening of the 1979 film at the Los Feliz 3 in November. Kaplan, co-writer Tim Hunter, and star Pamela Ludwig spoke afterward of the difficulties of making a low-budget film and the pain of watching their movie get bungled by the marketing department and nearly lost before an early ‘80s HBO revival turned it into a cult classic. That is where my father discovered what would become and remain to this day his favorite film of all time. I thought of him as I sat in the theater and was happy I could call him the next day to recap.
There were other wonderful theater experiences, such as catching Women Talking – a film you will read more about in this space over the next few days – at the American Film Institute Festival. The true wonder of 2022, however, resides in the films themselves. So, let’s get to those. As always, I hope to be in this space more this year than last and more next year than this one. For now, thanks for being here.
Check back next time for Part II of Last Cinema Standing’s Year in Review series as we name the Top 10 Films of 2022.
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