In 2022 it felt like moviegoing came (almost) all the way back (for the seemingly dwindling number of people who were willing to go into the theaters). As the year winds to a close, we’re sharing lists of our favorite films we’ve seen (so far).
Author: Tony Kay
Spider-Man Takes an Unmissable Journey Across the Spider-Verse
There’s a point (two, actually) to this rather involved setup: One, make a good enough movie and superhero burnout becomes irrelevant; and Two, Into the Spider-Verse’s brand-new follow-up, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, sustains its predecessor’s hat trick and then some. Simply put, I can’t imagine a better, more thoroughly satisfying mainstream movie emerging this year.
The Boogeyman: Scaring Up Another Stephen King Adaptation
The Boogeyman (2023 | USA | 98 minutes | Rob Savage) My introduction to Stephen King’s writing happened in junior high, when I …
SIFF 2023: Circus of the Scars Revisits Jim Rose’s crazed Circus Sideshow
For a few years in the ‘90s, The Seattle-born Jim Rose Circus Sideshow was everywhere. How this band of sideshow misfits scraped, lifted, regurgitated, and self-mutilated their way to international notoriety (for awhile, at least) is told with a veteran carnival barker’s rumpled, robust zing in Chickory Wees’ great documentary.
SIFF 2023: The Last Exit, Douglas Sirk, and Satan Wants You
Reviews of three films playing at the Seattle International Film Festival; all will stream on SIFF.tv next week.
You May Die Laughing During the Bonebat Comedy of Horrors Film Festival
The Bonebat Comedy of Horrors Film Festival is a local April tradition that may not be quite as inevitable as death or taxes, but it’s getting there. And it’s a helluva lot more fun.
Scream 6 brings back the satire and the scares
Scream 6 (2023 | USA | 123 minutes | Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett ) The original 1996 meta-horror classic Scream earned …
Tony’s Favorite Films of 2022
As per usual with years past, all my SunBreak co-conspirators saw a lot more new movies than I did this year, but …
Halloween Ends on a strange (and strangely hilarious) note
Since seeing Halloween Ends, purportedly the final chapter in director David Gordon Green’s reboot of the iconic slasher franchise, I’ve oscillated between dismissing it as entertainingly lousy, and viewing it as a work of operatically-pitched satiric genius. Truth be told, it kinda feels like both at once, and therein lies much of its cockeyed charm. Whether you succumb to that charm, however, is another story.
Expect a Pearl among Horror Prequels from the Follow-up to X
Pearl, the prequel to writer/director Ti West’s well-received shocker X, takes a character’s origin story—the kind usually dispensed as an afterthought in a couple of sentences of exposition or two minutes of black-and-white flashback footage—and turns it into an audacious, grandly operatic standalone experience.