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2022 was an interesting year for film and music. Despite having more opportunities available to me than ever to see new movies now that I've made Chicago my home, I struggled to find many new films that I could really get behind as my favorites. Meanwhile, despite a once-favorite band succumbing to a #MeToo era scandal (RIP Arcade Fire), great albums seemed to roll in consistently throughout the year, many from artists I previously had not followed closely. With 2023 getting ready to be rung in as I finish this post, the following are the five new films and new albums that stood out most to me as my favorites from the last year.
Best New Film
5. Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood
At first glance, Richard Linklater's semi-autobiographical animated film about a boy's experience living in Houston during the events of the Apollo 11 moon landing may seem like little more than an indulgent montage of nostalgia-filled memories and day dreams. But, like many of Linklater's films, there's something richly resonant and philosophical lying beneath the meandering plot that only makes itself clear at the end of the film. In this case, it's an illumination of how we remember important historical events, both in terms of how the cultural impacts permeates our everyday lives and how we're made to feel like we're part of something much larger than ourselves.
4. Nope
In a time when sequels, prequels, and reboots still top the box office, Jordan Peele created an original summer blockbuster in the way only Jordan Peele could. Tense, wildly imaginative, and darkly funny, Nope tells of a brother and sister duo from a family of Black ranchers who try to capture footage of a UFO after their father is mysteriously killed from a random object that falls from the sky. There's something deeper there too, about humans' desire to tame and exploit other beings and the erasure of Black contributions to the history of cinema. It's a film of spectacle of the highest order, but importantly one with originality and substance.
3. Aftersun
Aftersun feels a bit like watching raw home video clips from a vacation taken by a family you've never met. You're left wandering who these people are when they're not trying to escape their everyday lives and what's underlying the unusual sense of unease that seems to surface in the quieter moments when they're not engaging in corny tourist activities. But in this drama about an eleven-year old girl who goes on a summer holiday in Turkey with her loving but troubled father, the small details that are given to you through richly captured moments of intimacy are so carefully and tenderly wrought that for a brief time you are transported into the father and daughter's universe in all its emotional complexity.
2. Everything Everywhere All at Once
The most aptly-titled film of the year, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a spellbinding trip across the multiverse that blends a host of genres including existentialist science fiction, absurdist comedy, family drama, and martial arts. You might expect nothing less from a story as wacky and layered as one about a Chinese-American laundromat owner experiencing a mid-life crisis who finds that she must jump between parallel versions of her life to save the multiverse and repair her relationships with her family members. Yet somehow the film combines its disparate elements to stick a deft landing as both a totally unique vision and a movie with as much heart as it has ambition.
1. The Territory
The deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest and its impacts on Indigenous Peoples is a necessary and urgent topic for a film by any standard. But The Territory, chronicling the fight of the forest-dwelling Uru-eu-wau-wau people to protect their lands from development by illegal settlers, goes beyond a traditional advocacy documentary by immersing the viewer within the impacted community through direct, observational filmmaking, including footage shot by the Uru-eu-wau-wau themselves when they closed their territory off to outsiders during the early days of the pandemic. The result is a powerful and often tense portrait that makes clear the precarity of an ecosystem and people under constant threat of encroachment. Yet, the spirit of the determined Uru-eu-wau-wau people ultimately shines through as they find ways to innovate and creatively resist, using surveillance technology to document illegal activity and carrying out arrests of trespassers on their land. It's a small but inspiring win in an ongoing war that's heavily stacked against Indigenous Peoples and the lands they steward throughout the world.
Best New Album
5. Will of the People - Muse
Described by frontman Matt Bellamy as a "greatest hits album – of new songs," Will of the People features the best of the veteran band's variations on its signature grandiose alternative rock sound. It also contains some of the bands most pointed political material thus far to reflect the turbulent times. Simultaneously a call for revolution and a recognition of the inevitability of social and ecological collapse, Will of the People presents dystopia with stark immediacy – but somehow also with a fair dose of humor and fun.
4. Spirituals - Santigold
As the title suggests, Santigold's Spirituals draws upon centuries of African American struggle to create songs of human resilience for the current era. Addressing hardships both personal and political, the artist found salvation crafting these songs during the pandemic when much around her felt dark. The album fuses an eclectic variety of genres to create an ominous but enlivened tone, eventually building towards a rousing three song conclusion that reaffirms the power of hope and engaging in collective struggle.
3. Renaissance - Beyoncé
A true summer blockbuster album, Beyoncé's Renaissance saw the artist continue to evolve musically while solidifying her status as a cultural icon. The album is structured like a DJ set with seamless transitions between tracks and boasts an impressive array of direct references, samples, and influences from the history of Black and queer dance music. Yet the sharp production and Beyoncé's modern interpretation of her inspirations give a feel of the future of popular music. But Renaissance's greatest asset may be the pure exuberance and unabashed self-confidence exuded by Beyoncé through her music and lyrics, a welcome relief coming out of two plus years of pandemic-fueled dark times.
2. American Gurl - Kilo Kish
Kilo Kish frames her experimental pop concept album American Gurl as a cheap arcade game, suggesting her status as an artist is as a commercialized enigma that people play and then abandon for their next entertainment. The rest of the album finds her trying to reveal the human beneath the consumer-oriented zeal of the modern musician, overworked and struggling with the expectations of being a Black woman artist. Though satirical and at times cynical, Kish also finds liberation in naming the difficulties of navigating the current system and unapologetically expressing her desire to be herself in spite of it all.
1. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You - Big Thief
Promoted as "a sprawling double-LP exploring the deepest elements and possibilities of Big Thief," Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You is the sound of a band at the top of its game, experimenting with a variety of styles with a newfound sense of fun and creative drive. But Adrianne Lenker maintains her deft, spiritually probing lyricism, finding meaning and magic in everyday happenings and natural phenomena. Notably, the album grapples with the fleeting nature of life, from small moments passing by, to relationships ending, to the ephemerality of human existence itself. On the opening track, "Change," Lenker poses the question "Would you live forever, never die/While everything around passes?" She eventually resolves on the exuberant closing track, "Blue Lightning," to accept change but live each moment to the fullest, singing, "I wanna live forever 'til I die." Fitting for a band that's willing to change its style on a dime, but sounds fully alive and present on each recording, always giving everything to their craft.