Johnny California: Moments Out of Time 2022

 by JB

This year’s crop o’ films featured great shots, lines, and sequences that will now live forever in my brain, rent free.

1. Our heroes are trapped in a completely dark room and made to believe that there is a venomous snake loose. (There is not.) The only way out is a corridor lined with frying pans hanging from ropes at exactly head height. Jackass Forever

2. The rich are different from you and me, Death on the Nile

3. Poirot’s moustache has an origin story, Death on the Nile

4. “That’s cashmere!” AmbuLAnce

5. Colin Farrell in a fat suit, The Batman

6. The red panda becomes a social media celebrity, Turning Red

7. A movie you watch only to remind yourself that, even with all its flaws, you love the Drew Barrymore version. Firestarter

8. Winner of this year’s “Wow! It Actually Went There!” Award, Men

9. A film with a single idea: Unite the casts of the original film and the reboot. Once united, the film has no idea what any of these actors should say or do. A better title would have been Jurassic World: Pointless Exercise in Empty Nostalgia. Jurassic World Dominion

10. The rich are different from you and me, Amsterdam

11. The big-budget film version of notes scribbled on a cocktail napkin, Thor: Love and Thunder

12. Gordy gazes into the eyes of a young Jupe, hiding under the table, Nope

13. Tom Hanks and Austin Butler in fat suits, Elvis

14. Emily goes back to the same store, Emily the Criminal

15. Tim Roth’s manipulations, Resurrection

16. The rich are different from you and me, Confess, Fletch

17. Marcia Gay Harden gives a masterclass in comedic acting. No, she is not trying to seduce you. Confess, Fletch

18. Herman and Lilly sing, “I Got You, Babe,” The Munsters

19. This town junkyard has a car crusher, so this film can have a finale worthy of an EC horror comic book, Halloween Ends

20. The rich are different from you and me, Tar

21. The hidden redhead, Tar

22. Brendan Fraser in a fat suit, The Whale

23. Brendan Gleeson makes good on his promise to Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inishirin

24. Boy, I’d forgotten how much high-school kids love the accordion, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

25. Yankovic’s college roommates are very supportive, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

26. If All the President’s Men were an ABC Afterschool Special, She Said

27. The rich are different from you and me, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

28. Benoit Blanc solves the mystery... prematurely, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

29. Jamie Lee Curtis NOT in a fat suit, Everything Everywhere All at Once

30. “Hot Dog Fingers,” Everything Everywhere All at Once

31. The sound of his 8mm camera soothes little Sammy, The Fabelmans

32. A western legend teaches young Sam Fableman a lesson about film, The Fabelmans