Category Archives: Special Features

Seasons of Seasons: Star Trek Season 1, “The Naked Time” & “The Enemy Within”

Before I started watching Star Trek I envisioned a show that would deal with aliens and new, exotic worlds on a weekly basis. So far, that hasn’t been the case. Instead, the show has mostly dealt with existential conundrums within its sci-fi trappings. Of course, the grounded concepts are probably the result of the show’s limited budget – this is a network TV show in the 60s, after all. The results have been mostly great so far, but it’s tempered my expectations going forward.

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Five Under-Appreciated Films to Look Forward to in 2023

Last year’s slate of films was one to be excited for as we emerged from the pandemic, with upcoming films from establishment names like Spielberg, Chazelle, McDonagh, Park, Cameron, Luhrmann, and more. But it also yielded plenty of great unheralded films from upcoming filmmakers that will put them on the radars of film lovers going forward. 2023 is looking to be an even bigger year for movies, with headline films from Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, M. Night Shyamalan, Taika Waititi, David Fincher, Wes Anderson, and Ari Aster (plus many more). 

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Top 10 Movies of 2022

2022 was the first full year that movies came back to movie theaters. And the result was a spectacular year for big-screen popcorn entertainment. Of course, the year still had its fair share of great smaller, independent films and streaming films. I don’t know if there’s any thematic subject that ties the films of 2022 together neatly, but if anything, it’s in its cohesion to give both casual moviegoers and hardcore cinephiles enough to be excited about.

I also changed the way I’ll do my Top 10 going forward; rather than a fully ranked list of the ten best films, I’ll simply share my “Movie of the Year”, along with an unranked, alphabetical list of the remaining nine. So without further ado, here are my ten favorite films of 2022.

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Top 10 TV Shows of 2022

First, a disclaimer: As usual, this list is missing some of the bigger television releases of the year because I simply haven’t watched them yet. Though I did better in my TV viewing this year, I still haven’t gotten around to shows like Succession, House of the Dragon, Better Call Saul, Abbott Elementary, The Boys, or Hacks. Judge the following list accordingly.

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The Five Worst Movies of 2022

Every year has its share of flops and misfires, but 2022’s worst films were less misguided pieces of auteur filmmaking (though there were certainly instances of that) and more studio algorithms passing as entertainment. It’s not that big budget filmmaking hit a new low this year – Top Gun: Maverick and Everything Everywhere All at Once and others reinvigorated the theater experience week after week! – but too many felt hollow and formulaic. Plenty of films passed muster as being merely forgettable, but nevertheless, here are the five worst films I saw in 2022.

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