…mentioning the bizarre, inclusion-mandate, virtue-signaling casting issues in The Tender Bar, which I pointed out in my initial review and which no one else on the planet earth has brought up since. Otherwise the general consensus is that this Amazon period drama is a six.

World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy has rebooted his list of preferred films that should (and probably will) be released in 2022. I’ve boldfaced the ones I’m especially interested in, which come to 18.

I’ll tell you right now that the 2022 Best Picture Oscar choices are between Killers of the Flower Moon, Babylon, The Fablemans, Bardo, Avatar 2 and (if it manages to open in late ’22) Kitbag.

THE TOP TEN (one of these will win the Best Picture Oscar in March 2023):
“Killers of the Flower Moon” (Martin Scorsese)
“Babylon” (Damien Chazelle)
“Disappointment Blvd.” (Ari Aster)
“The Fablemans” (Steven Spielberg)
“Avatar 2” (James Cameron)
“White Noise” (Noah Baumbach)
“Bardo” (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
”Kitbag” (Ridley Scott — Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon Bonaparte — but will it be ready in time?)
“Elvis” (Baz Luhrmann)
“Canterbury Glass” (or whatever it’s called now) (David O’Russell)

The FOLLOWING EIGHT:
“The Killer” (David Fincher)
“The Northman” (Robert Eggers)
”Bones and All” (Luca Guadagnino)
“The Batman” (Matt Reeves)
“Blonde” (Andrew Dominik)
“Bullet Train” (David Leitch)
“The Way of the Wind” (Terrence Malick)
“R.M.N” (Cristian Mungiu)

___________________________________________________

THE THIRD GROUPING:
“The Master Gardener” (Paul Schrader)
“Armageddon Time” (James Gray)
“Asteroid City” (Wes Anderson)
”Poor Things” (Yorgios Lanthimos)
“The Banshees of Inseherin” (Martin McDonagh)
”Owl” (Kelly Reichardt)
“The Zone of Interest” (Jonathan Glazer)
“Crimes of the Future” (David Cronenberg)

THE FOURTH:
“The Whale” (Darren Aronofsky)
“Decision to Leave” (Park Chan-Wook)
“Fire” (Claire Denis)
“Tar” (Todd Field)
”Kimi” (Steven Soderbergh)
“Next Goal Wins” (Taika Waititi)
“Don’t Worry Darling” (Olivia Wilde)
“Nope” (Jordan Peele)

THE FIFTH:
”Men” (Alex Garland)
”Pinocchio” (Guillermo del Toro — stop-motion)
“The Son” (Florian Zeller)
“The Stars at Noon” (Claire Denis)
“The Bubble” (Judd Apatow)
“Women Talking” (Sarah Polley)
“3000 Years of Longing” (George Miller)
“Triangle of Sadness” (Ruben Ostlund)

THE REST:
“The Eternal Daughter” (Joanna Hogg)
“Tori et Lokita” (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
“Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Adventure” (Richard Linklater)
”Rebel Ridge” (Jeremy Saulnier)
“Deep Water” (Adrian Lyne)

I’m delighted to leave 2021 behind, of course. Was it as miserable and depressing as ‘20? No, but not for lack of trying. One of the only good or hopeful things is that a larger, disproportionate percentage of anti-vaxx bumblefucks are…uhm, being “culled.”