Dan's Top 30 New To Me Movies of 2022
Another year, another list of my first-time viewings! You’ll notice I didn’t call them “discoveries,” which I have sensed is having some push-back these days. I’ve always taken the “discovery” label as a personal one - this was the year that I discovered I liked this movie! - but it does seem to make less and less sense the more I think about it.
First-time viewings might not be as immediately catchy but hey, that’s what I’m going with. These are what they are, movies I saw for the first time in 2022 that I more than just liked, I loved ‘em!
Crime Killer (1985, George Pan Andreas)
Synopsis: The FBI enlists Zeus, a no-frills hard-nosed CIA man, as an undercover agent. Only this time, he is given free rein to use any and all methods at his disposal. Like a man possessed, Zeus throws his entire arsenal of wit, weaponry and vengeance into his job.
Written, directed, edited, starring and produced by George Pan-Andreas (an apparent ex-trapeze artist, though I've also seen them mentioned as being in real estate too).
Amazing dialogue in this movie, gotta be heard to be believed. It's all random crime cliche plotting but slightly weird in many ways. In the opening scene a bunch of punks pop out of cans for no reason. There's a scene with topless tennis players out of nowhere. An exploding watch owned by the president of the United States is introduced in the final minute of the movie.
Truly a WTF gem waiting to be discovered.
Kaito Ruby (1988, Makoto Wada)
Synopsis: Toru Hayashi is an unremarkable bachelor who lives with his mother, until one day a young woman named Rumi moves in in the apartment upstairs. Rumi is a self-proclaimed master thief, but she needs socially awkward Toru’s help to actually kickstart her so-called career.
Super charming rom-com with some light crime/con-artist elements that Carlo subtitled! I had been meaning to watch this for a while and when I finally did, I loved it! Especially the performances and the overall look of the film, which has this lightly comedic-by-way-of-fantasy kind of vibe to it that really works. You must seek this one out!
Clearcut (1991, Ryszard Bugajski)
Synopsis: A white lawyer finds his values shaken when he is paired with an angry Indigenous activist who insists on kidnapping the head of a logging company to teach him the price of his destruction.
Shudder got a month out of me this year once I saw they have a folk horror collection with this in it – not the complete collection as released by Severin on BluRay, but still. As a Canadian genre-movie fan, this is one I heard about for years but was always hoping some day it'd get a new restoration. I'm glad I waited because it's a beautiful and gnarly masterpiece. I hope some day this is available in a standalone BluRay, like what Severin did with Eyes of Fire.
Jack the Bear (1993, Marshall Herskovitz)
Synopsis: Story of the relationships between two sons and their father, who moves the family to California and becomes a tv horror show host after the death of his wife.
I went on a bit of a Danny DeVito kick this year. Jack the Bear has a really great and overlooked DeVito performance, as a television horror movie host slash struggling father.
It's an above average example of one of those "saw the tape in the rental store for years, had no idea what it was about, and never rented it" kind of dramas. It tackles too much and leaves a few threads hanging by the end (feels very much like a slightly compromised book adaptation in that way) but the performances pulled me through.
Breaking In (1989, Bill Forsyth)
Synopsis: Professional thief Ernie takes Mike on as an apprentice, but while Mike clearly has “larceny in his heart”, it will take him a long time to get as good as Ernie.
A Bill Forsyth and John Sayles team-up might be one of the most "up Dan Gorman's alley" thing that has ever existed. I'm honestly surprised I didn't leave this movie disappointed because my expectations were very high. I totally fell in love with this, and there's so many tiny touches that made me laugh really hard. Burt and Casey are great together, low key hilarious through and through. Essential!
Unico in the Island of Magic (1983, Moribi Murano)
Synopsis: Based on “Unico and the Kingdom of the Sun,” which was newly written as a theater version, this animated film features a battle between the wizard Kukuruku and Unico. Kukuruku builds a castle using dolls transformed from men as building parts.
I enjoyed 1981's The Fantastic Adventures of Unico quite a bit, but it had an episodic feel that made it seem longer than it really is. The sequel though, is more streamlined and defined a feature. The rock puppet dudes were subtly creepy in a cool way. I really liked the villain and the "end of the earth" backstory. It's nice that it picks up where the last one left off, but also does away with any need to have seen it in one sentence and can do its own thing as a result. Everybody wins!
In Heaven There Is No Beer? (1984, Les Blank & Maureen Gosling)
Synopsis: A joyous romp through the dance, food, music, friendship, and even religion of the Polka. The explosive energy and high spirits of the polka subculture are rendered with warmth and dedication to scholarship in this journey through Polish-American celebrations.
I'm always up for one of these documentaries that covers something so particularly niche (in this case, polka music culture) and just points the camera and lets you inside a world you wouldn't have stumbled upon otherwise. This is a short one – only 50 minutes – but there's so much to love here! I really hope that teen took a boom box in to their high school and cranked up some Polka as loud as they could.
Shaker Run (1985, Bruce Morrison)
Synopsis: A scientist hires a down on their luck stuntman and sidekick to transport a deadly formula created by the government.
Chases 'n' stunts 'n' synths abound!
Feels like two different movies for 20 to 30 minutes but once it gets going they pepper the chases at a good clip. The pace maybe holds this back, the non-stunt stuff could use a jolt of energy overall. Otherwise, really enjoyed myself with this! I will end this review with "BluRay when?!" in an attempt to will it into existence.
Drying Up the Streets (1978, Robin Spry)
Synopsis: An ex-junkie takes on seedy urban culture to try and locate his daughter.
If you ever thought "what if the CBC produced Schrader's Hardcore?" well here's your movie. Follows an ex-junkie going undercover in the drug, prostitution and child-pornography laden streets of Toronto to find his daughter. Quite bleak for a television movie for sure. A real shame the only way to see this is on a crusty, murky vhs.
Set It Off (1996, F. Gary Gray)
Synopsis: Four black women, all of whom have suffered for lack of money and at the hands of the majority, undertake to rob banks.
Long story short, in a just world we'd talk about this movie at least as much as we do Heat. Queen Latifah is so damn great in this. Would love it if F. Gary Gray made another mainstream exploitation thriller like this one.
Queen City Rocker (1986, Bruce Morrison)
Synopsis: In the turbulence of Auckland, a streetwise 19 year old "rescues" his sister from the high-class massage parlour where she works. When the owners retaliate and kill his friend they hijack a concert which incites the audience to riot.
New Zealand youth-in-revolt-esque thriller/drama about a teen named Ska (?!) who wants to rescue their sister from the massage parlour she works for. Pretty banging soundtrack. Has a slice of life vibe to it's pace, just as interested in the daily lives of these teens roaming the streets as the revenge-y plot it keeps on the back burner threatening to explode. I dug it.
The Loveless (1981, Kathryn Bigelow & Monty Montgomery)
Synopsis: Trouble ensues when a motorcycle gang stops in a small southern town while heading to the races at Daytona.
A real angry, distant sad simmer of a movie. You can kind of tell this is the work of people a couple years out of film school because of how the climax plays out, but I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way! It looks amazing too, you can also tell it's the work of someone who spent time in art school working in painting!
The Farmer (1977, David Berlatsky)
Synopsis: Soldier Kyle Martin (Gary Conway) returns to the family farm in Georgia and discovers that his father has recently died and the local bank is ready to foreclose on the property. Soon, his life is entangled with a local gangster, their thugs, and a local gambler’s dancer friend.
Has a great kind of convoluted revenge flick set-up: a Farmer returns home from war with a silver star but can't keep his farm afloat. He saves a gambler's life after a car crash, and soon gets wrapped up in helping get revenge on some mobsters.
It has a lot of moving parts to the set up, but it's effective and lands just this side of weirdo auteur-ism. It functions about as well as any standard 70s revenge flick but the nuts and bolts of what is going on are slightly skewed. Looks great on Blu too!
Where the Spirit Lives (1989, Bruce Pittman)
Synopsis: In 1937, a young First Nations (Canadian native) girl named Ashtecome is kidnapped along with several other children from a village as part of a deliberate Canadian policy to force First Nations children to abandon their culture in order to be assimilated into white Canadian/British society.
Fantastic Canadian drama about residential schools, even despite its softened approach to the topic. For 1989, I'd have to assume this was a lot of viewers' first experience hearing about what happened at these schools, so for that I feel it's an important piece of our cinematic history.
That the movie includes the well-intentioned white Christian teacher makes it feel wildly filtered through colonial eyes, though it's a small win that in the end she is never explicitly forgiven for her participation in such horrific events. Also, in hindsight the movie does feel like it brushes over some of the most awful details of these schools.
Still, it's powerfully acted by Michelle St. John, well directed by Bruce Pittman (Hello Mary Lou) and Buffy Sainte-Marie's original soundtrack is great.
Crimes of the Heart (1986, Bruce Beresford)
Synopsis: Three sisters try to come to grips with the meaning of their mother’s suicide.
I loved the performances in this, and also the direction hits a perfect balance of bringing a play to screen and heightening the visuals and underlining the locations without being too showy and overtaking the dialogue or performances. Just a true delight from start to finish; laughing because if they didn't, they'd be crying. Wonderful performances from Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, and Sissy Spacek!
Nobody’s Fool (1986, Evelyn Purcell)
Synopsis: Cassie, who seeks love and escape from her mundane ordinary life, meets a traveling Shakespeare troupe offering a community acting workshop.
One of those great, richly observed but quirky movies that makes sense to have fallen through the cracks to some degree, but also makes it very unfortunate because there's a lot in this that I just loved. Rosanna Arquette and Eric Roberts are wonderful, both putting in really funny and endearing performances while still sketching these people who are at their core quite fucked up emotionally and just trying to stumble their way to some kind of happiness.
Overall this was darker and sadder than I expected from the poster, and there's threads about mental health that are left hanging a bit – the movie leaves Ann Hearn's Linda in the rearview in a way that was a little disappointing. Still this seems wildly overlooked imo!
Future Cops (1993, Wong Jing)
Synopsis: In the year 2043, an evil crime lord (The General/M. Bison) is trying to take over the world. The Future Cops Lung (Ryu), Broom Man (Guile), Ti Man (Vega), and Ah-Sing (Dhalsim) hear of their evil plan and devise a plan of their own to travel back in time.
A live action cartoon cranked up to 150%, leaning into all of Wong Jing's sensibilities (as far as I can tell.) I could see someone watching this and being taken aback that at least two thirds of it is wacky ass high school slapstick comedy spoofery bookended by a couple amazing Street Fighter II fights, but I was all in on this from frame one. Holy shit!
Death Riders (1976, Jim Wilson)
Synopsis: Documentary filmmakers go on the road with state fair daredevils.
Documentary slash commercial (docmmercial?) about the touring Death Riders stunt show. My favourite of the stunts is when a guy just gets into a box with a stick of dynamite and then blows the box up. There's a lot of down-home country-boy music, narration about how much they like the local ladies in each city, and great star-wipes/transitions. If you come here for non-stop stunts you might be disappointed, but there's lots of good slo-mo footage of cars flipping and guys motorcycling through burning boards.
Loses a star for that one guy who swallowed a live goldfish. What'd that goldfish do to you, jerk!? Stick to blowing yerself up!!!!!
I’m Your Woman (2020, Julia Hart)
Synopsis: A woman is forced to go on the run after her husband betrays his partners, sending her and her baby on a dangerous journey.
Really sturdy neo-genre stuff that eschews immediate gratification for a steady slow burn, moment to moment approach. Could have used a few extra jolts of energy, but that seems like a my problem not the movie's. Marsha Stephanie Blake totally steals the show, and I really dug Julia Hart's direction. Maybe didn't need to clock in at two hours on the dot, but I also wasn't checking my watch the whole time either. My biggest gripe is the more it inches towards revealing the who/what/why of what's going down, the more it lands squarely in a place where you either are wishing for more, or even less. But still, lots of good here to dig into.
Night Angel (1990, Dominique Othenin-Girard)
Synopsis: A legendary she-demon, in the updated guise of a beautiful model, infiltrates the offices of a successful fashion magazine with the aim of corrupting the world via mass media.
I must have been in the right mood because this hit the spot despite many lower-skewing reviews on Letterboxd. Lots of great effects and the high late-80s cheese-factor helped the slightly uneven pace out when things started to drag.
There's she-demons spitting snakes, a carnival-ass Society-esque freak-out bar, heart rippings, a whoo-shh-shhh-shhh sound that you can play a drinking game to and Doug Jones doing an intense ground-hop floor-dance.... thing.... hey all said it was a good time.
Skip Tracer (1977, Zale Dalen)
Synopsis: An accomplished repo man from Vancouver takes a new hire under his wing, while their morals and limits are tested on the job.
A long, slow fuse that burns into a bleak pit. There's a glint of light at the end of the tunnel, but at what cost? Great stuff saved from total obscurity by Gold Ninja Video. Maple syrup Paul Schrader?
Strike! (1998, Sarah Kernochan)
Synopsis: In the 1960s, a group of friends at an all girls school learn that their school is going to be combined with a nearby all boys school. They concoct a plan to save their school while dealing with everyday problems along the way.
Kicking myself for waiting so long to finally see this! So so great, and what a wild cast. I somehow had no idea this was shot in Whitby? How has this only been released on DVD and digitally? The world needs a special edition of Strike.
Dick (1999, Andrew Fleming)
Synopsis: Two high school girls wander off during a class trip to the White House and meet President Richard Nixon. They become the official dog walkers for Nixon’s dog Checkers, and become his secret advisors during the Watergate scandal.
Really, really hilarious. The cast is unreal here, I knew there were a lot of names here but the volume of which still blew me away. Bruce McCulloch steals every single scene they appear in. Also, the art design and costuming??? Phenomenal. The kind of movie that ends and you're already looking forward to revisiting it.
A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story (1992, Dick Lowry)
Synopsis: After sixteen years of marriage and four children, Betty Broderick’s high-powered attorney husband decides to leave her for a younger woman with whom he’s been having an affair. Hurt by his betrayal and feeling helpless against his legal expertise, Betty begins a campaign of vandalism and verbal assault. Her rage consumes her and ultimately leads to a terrible and violent act.
This has such a great central performance from Meredith Baxter that it really sets this movie apart from your average ripped-from-the-headlines television movie. It edges so narrowly into over the top and camp melodrama without feeling gross (what with it being based on a real murder and all). The only thing that drags this one down is the fact that a real life monster plays the husband and that kind of sours it a bit.
The Kid Brother (1987, Claude Gagnon)
Synopsis: Going through life without legs, 12-year-old Kenny is active and enthusiastic, resisting the pressure to wear prosthetic limbs. He also finds himself the subject of a documentary made by a visiting French film crew. As the production unfolds, Kenny’s parents, brother, and absentee sister bring long-simmering tensions to the surface, shaking Kenny’s delicate sense of balance.
A really sweet hang-out coming of age vibe, with a meta layer of "documentary filmmakers come to town to do a television piece on Kenny and their condition" that was really amusing - the stuff with them having to do the same shots over and over again, etc. It has well sketched family drama and everyone in the movie gives super charming performances. Just a real delight.
There’s good bonus material on the Canadian International Pictures disc as well about how the movie came to the French-Canadian director, since it's co-produced by Bandai Entertainment Inc. and Toho.
Concrete Angels (1987, Carlo Liconti)
Synopsis: It’s 1964. The Beatles are coming to Toronto. To win a music competition, a young man forms a rock group with his friends.
"Do you wanna spend the rest of your life at St. Clair and Vaughan?"
Obscure downbeat Canadian drama about a group of teens who want to start a band so they can score a chance to open for The Beatles when they perform in Toronto. If you're here for breezy coming-of-age vibes with maybe some fun musical performance scenes you'll probably be let down but as a well-observed slice of feel-bad Canadiana, it's worth a look.
Director Carlo Linconti worked on My Secret Identity as a director (credited on IMDb for "unknown episodes") and followed Concrete Angels up with Brown Bread Sandwiches (aka Good Night, Michelangelo), a period piece about Italian immigrants in Toronto.
New-wave band Quasi Hands from Dundas, Ontario provides the requisite covers of The Beatles songs for the soundtrack.
Matewan (1987, John Sayles)
Synopsis: Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named “Few Clothes” Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan’s vested interests so that justice and workers’ rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.
I spent a bit of time in 2022 filling in some of my John Sayles blindspots. Watching Limbo for the first time kind of set me off on a bit of a Sayles journey, which I have been absolutely loving. It makes me so happy that Sayles went from writing fantastic scripts for B-horror movies like Pirahna, Howling, and Alligator and then one day was like "now I'm going to write and direct a series of masterpieces.” Absolute king shit.
The Dead Come Home (1989, James Riffel)
Synopsis: Eight friends go to fix up an old house that Mark has purchased. Upon arriving, they find the grave of “Abigail” in the back yard. Bob (one of Mark’s friends) smashes the headstone and awakens Abigail, which begins the carnage.
It was weird to see so many low ratings of this on Letterboxd when I went to log it. This starts as a vaguely satirical slasher and ultimately becomes a slight Evil Dead riff when all the dead characters start coming back and either talking to the main characters or trying to kill them too. A lot of time is spent trying to open doors and windows. The killer is someone in Jackass-style old person makeup.
The director of this made those VHS-era Night of the Living Dead re-dubs that I remember being pretty brutally unfunny. You can tell they are trying not to play their hand straight into outright comedy but it's still honestly pretty funny. Plus, there's solid gore and it nails that comfy slasher vibe even if the characters are mostly whatever. I liked it!!!
Thrilling Bloody Sword (1981, Chang Hsin-Yi)
Synopsis: The daughter of a queen and a comet is abandoned by her family. One day, she comes across a prince fighting a multi-headed dragon and falls in love with him. However, some wizards try everything to keep them apart.
You just love to see stuff like this saved from obscurity by people like Gold Ninja Video, who commissioned a 2K scan of a film print for their release. I was having a really good time with this, but then it turns into a series of ridiculous video game boss battles in the last third!!! Reader, I was overjoyed at this turn of events let me tell you. Essential BluRay release!!!
The Stranger Within (1990, Tom Holland)
Synopsis: A troubled young man mysteriously appears in a rural Minnesota town from which he claims he was abducted 16 years ago.
Another made-for-television movie that strikes that perfect balance of escalating in a way that keeps you hooked while still offering enough bursts of cranked to 11 melodrama that you crave. And then, it goes full thriller-horror mode at the end.
Ricky Schroder plays the son returned home from years of being missing perfectly with just the right amount of "that boy ain't right" and their freak outs are great. I guess it's not a stretch since they turned into a real life asshole. Also bonus re-teaming of director Tom Holland and Chris Sarandon.
