Damien Chazelle’s latest movie is a staggeringly ambitious, multi-tiered melodrama that follows several disparate characters amidst Hollywood’s transition from silent movies to talkies. Very much interwoven with this huge technological shift is the extended high that was the late 1920s, followed by the Wall Street Crash that ushered in The Great Depression. Lest we make this sound too highbrow, it is a film that includes car chases, explosive elephant excrement, orgies, projectile vomit, freak shows, bloody injuries, and mountains upon mountains of hard drugs. And don’t forget the snake fight.

After a topsy-turvy couple of years in which big films tiptoed back into cinemas, Nope, the third feature from Jordan Peele lands in theaters this weekend. In a bombastic blockbuster season of big planes and superhero bloat, Peele’s cryptic tale of weird happenings in a lonely gulch of inland California might just be the best time you can have at a movie theater all summer. Chase and I saw a promo screening this week and couldn’t wait to talk about it.

Somehow we’re already halfway through 2022. Amid the fireworks and festivities of the long weekend, we took stock of our favorite movies of the year. We each separately compiled our individual lists and in a surprising bit of unanimity we all picked the DANIELS’ maximalist multiverse-spanning sci-fi saga Everything Everywhere All At Once as our favorite.

If you’re not already caught up on “awards fare”, the first couple months of the new year can be a prestige buffet. But it can also feel like a dumping ground before the “real” spring season of “actually good” movies picks up. Although it can be a wasteland, surely there are some gems to be found? So as we bid farewell to Dumpuary  … a SunBreak Survey: what’s the best thing you saw in the last month?