Top 10 Movies of 2022

December 30, 2022 flawintheiris

Happy Holidays to you, FITI reader! I hope you're getting some downtime and seeing a few good films this season. Here's the official FLAW IN THE IRIS list of the best movies of 2022, arriving a little earlier than it usually does in the first or second week of January. That's partly due to my…Read More

Blonde and Babylon reviews — Two Tinseltown epics, but only one has the goods

December 29, 2022 flawintheiris

Empire of Light review — A flawed but gorgeous film

December 28, 2022 flawintheiris

Empire Of Light | Written and Directed by Sam Mendes | 119 min | ▲▲▲▲△ A version of this review appeared on FITI in September from the Toronto International Film Festival Here's another semi-autobiographical drama from a garlanded filmmaker, following Belfast and The Fabelmans, both of which were lovely and intimate, if not exactly world-changing…Read More

Aftersun review — Haunted memories of a Turkish holiday

December 28, 2022 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Charlotte Wells | 102 min | ▲▲▲△△ | Crave Hard to think of a more original debut recently from a new filmmaker, and how many movies have you seen that devote their entire running time to the relationship between a father and daughter? Aftersun is opaque and as such is a…Read More

Top 10 Under-The-Radar Films of 2022

December 25, 2022 flawintheiris

Happy holidays, FITI readers! I hope whatever your tradition you're getting time off this year to watch some engaging movies. Traditionally, as I assemble my list of the best films of the past 12 months I find I have a number of perhaps lesser-known pictures that don’t quite fit among the ones I most want…Read More

The Whale review — Brendan Fraser career best in stage-bound drama

December 23, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Darren Aronofsky | Written by Samuel D Hunter, from his play | 117 min | ▲▲▲△△ A version of this review appeared on FITI in September 2022 from the Toronto International Film Festival. It’s hard not to think of The Wrestler when watching this movie, how Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 film gave the role of…Read More

Avatar: The Way of Water review — Spectacular and stupid

December 22, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by James Cameron | Written by Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salerno | 192 min | ▲▲△△△ Rewatching the original Avatar last week I was reminded of Jim Cameron's incredible ambition, impressive technical wizardry, and cluelessness when it comes to reading the room, culturally speaking. The dude understands allegory and…Read More

New Christmas Movies chat on the CBC

December 21, 2022 flawintheiris

If you're a regular FITI reader you may have noticed I've been watching more than my fair share of Christmas movies this season, especially the new batch showing up in cinemas and on streaming services. https://halifaxbloggers.ca/holiday-movies/ I was on CBC Information Morning this week discussing a few of these Christmas movies with host Portia…Read More

RRR review — The year’s best superhero movie, and more

December 19, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by SS Rajamouli | Written by Rajamouli, Vijayendra Prasad, and Sai Madhav Burra | 187 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Netflix Apparently based on the lives of actual freedom fighters in pre-independence India, it's fair to say this picture has a delightfully loose relationship with historical accuracy — as well as physics. RRR is a…Read More

Top 10 New-To-Me Movies of 2022

December 18, 2022 flawintheiris

A few days ago on the hellscape we all know as Twitter, someone posted a list of the older films they'd discovered this year. Movies from the past they'd never had a chance to see before but had sought out or stumbled upon in the past 12 months and were glad they did. Since I'm…Read More