Best First Watches: January 2022
I’ve decided to spend 2022 only watching movies I haven’t seen before. Quite the endeavor, because my depression-coping mechanism is rewatching movies. (My 22 Booksmart rewatches in 2020 are a perfect example of that.) But 2022 is a new year! The third year of a pandemic! Maybe this year will be better! I am trying to be optimistic! Is it working!?
Each month I’ll go back through the movies I watched (thanks, Letterboxd) and recommend five to ten, depending on how much I liked them. Maybe it’ll be a movie that you already love because I am Very Behind on what a lot of people consider Classic™️ movies. Maybe it’ll be a movie you’ve seen when endlessly scrolling on some streaming platform. Maybe it’ll just be something bizarre that you’ve never even heard of. Who knows!
The Lost Daughter
netflix
In this home, we love and support Dakota Johnson and her (alleged) lime allergy. I worry that a lot of people let The Lost Daughter slip their radar because of its quiet release on Netflix. However, this movie has everything. Dakota Johnson with a bad dye job, Olivia Colman stealing a doll, Paul Mescal in short shorts, Jessie Buckley as a MILF, and orange peels.
The Nowhere Inn
IFC Films
Have you ever watched Mulholland Drive and thought to yourself, I wish this was good? Well, do I have just the movie for you! The Nowhere Inn got quietly dropped on Hulu a while ago to no fanfare. And I get it to an extent. It’s weird, a lot of people don’t know St. Vincent, and you have to be in the mood for a mockumentary. I knew of St. Vincent (because she dated Cara Delevingne), but I hadn’t heard any of her music. Despite going in blind, The Nowhere Inn is a BANGER. A quietly funny movie about identity and how people perform their personalities. Plus, Dakota Johnson as Dakota Johnson.
12 Angry Men
United Artists
Pro: A great adaptation of Veronica Mars season 2, episode 10.
Con: No Dakota Johnson.
Scream (1996)
dimension films
I know. I cannot believe it took me until the year of our lord 2022 to finally see the original Scream. In my defense, I thought I had seen it, but I had just seen the opening scene with Drew Barrymore. Anyway, I loved it. So much so that I watched 1 to 4 in the span of two days.
The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love
New Line Cinema
Sundance kicked off its festival with a free screening of The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love. It’s one of the LGBT movies I had always heard about, but was impossible to track down. Despite its 1995 release, it’s shockingly more modern than a lot of LGBT content that’s coming out now. Sure, some parts have not aged well (as is the case with most media from the ’90s), but it is so earnest and warm. I especially loved this quote that came on the screen as the movie faded to black: “For my First girlfriend may our relationship finally Rest In Peace.”
Body Heat
warner bros
Is Body Heat good? No ❤️. However, and I say this with the utmost respect, Kathleen Turner can like…get it.
Am I Ok?
Gloria Sanchez Productions, Picturestart, TeaTime Pictures, Something Fierce Productions
You ever see a movie that feels so aggressively made for you??? Am I Ok? was that for me. When I saw it at Sundance, I was in awe. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it is My Wheel. It may not be Your Wheel, but for those of us lost, anxious, lonely lesbians who shop at The Gap, this is for us.
Rope
warner bros
Y’all ever have so much unrequited lingering gay sexual tension with your old prep-school housemaster that you murder a man and throw a party to show off your perfect murder to impress said housemaster? Anyway, that’s Hitchcock’s Rope.
Honorable Mention: Marisa Tomei’s Witness Scene in My Cousin Vinny
20th century fox
The majority of My Cousin Vinny was a miss for me. It was charming and I love Joe Pesci, but I think it just didn’t age as well as I’d hoped. However, Marisa Tomei’s time on the witness stand is completely worth the rest of the runtime. This scene walked so the immonium thygocolate scene in Legally Blonde could run.
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