The Best Films of 2022

Hello, Spongey here.

We’re now firmly in 2023 which means it’s time for my tradition at looking back at the previous year in film. Can you believe I’ve been doing these for over 5 years now? Don’t read the first one though, it’s bad. Anyway, how was 2022 in film? …Fine.

It felt like a repeat of 2021, where we’re still recovering from 2020. We’re not done with COVID but we don’t need to put an asterisk next to a movie’s gross at this point. The landscape has changed so certain movies that may have done well before have struggled. But at least they are coming out. This isn’t a box office post  (that’s Mr. Coat’s job these days) but it is worth noting as we recover.

Like how Paramount rose to the top after years of failure. Almost every thing they did was a hit and they were more consistent than Disney, even. Back to the quality, it does feel like production got slower after the pandemic as there did seem to be a drought in places this year. You can copy/paste some of what I said about 2021 as I feel about the same.

I will say that the “pretty good” movies were typically better this time with some solid surprises. The lesser movies were about the same with some not as good as hoped stuff. And my least favorite, that being The Soccer Football Movie, is worse than anything from 2021. By the way, I’m not doing a worst list again. I think I’ll keep it that way if only because that’s just more work for me lol.

Just like the last couple years, there was less that I loved. Right now just four got the 4 star treatment, which is less than last year and even 2020 after I caught up on some. I watched my fair share of things in hopes that would go up but not quite. Now, my system and way of judging things has changed so there’s plenty of stuff from previous years I may have rated lower.

I’m not sure, but I do stand by my last few lists. So as has been the case lately, it’s more of a me thing for the most part. There’s something about me that changed from 2019 to 2020 for some reason. It’s worth noting I did a better job of watching things as they came out so I had a bunch watched even before having to do this. As of now I’m at over 130 which is a new record overall.

2022 was mixed but there was enough to like. There’s just something about me that made it so there is again less I truly loved. I do feel that the best was generally better than last year, if that means anything. As always there was plenty to celebrate even as we recover and the landscape shifts. As for what I haven’t seen, there’s less than usual as they’re making notable stuff available earlier these days.

I guess the biggest are The Whale and Women Talking. Outside of Oscar stuff, there’s Avatar 2 and while Babylon is not likely to make my favorites, I am very curious about it. (So much for Avatar being outside of Oscar stuff) Some stragglers aside, I’m happy with what I’ve seen and am ready to take this on. With all that said, what ended up being the stand outs of the year for me?

Let’s dive into all the insanity 2022 films had to offer.

This, is The Best Films of 2022

Goosebumps Series 2000-The Mummy Walks

Hello, Spongey here.

Welcome to 2023! It’s a New Year but the same me and the same old blog. This year should be interesting in a few ways for us. I figured we’d start out simple with only one post for this month. Don’t worry, there will be plenty coming soon.,

We’ll go ahead and start with our Stine review for the month, as we’ve done before at least once. We’re going back to Series 2000 for one I picked through a randomizer. I was so happy when this book came up as I’ve been wanting to cover it for a while. Infact, if you recall, this was an option on a poll I did last year. It came in last which is a shame. I assume no one knew the plot and based this vote on the cover as this had a less exciting one.

Well, now you get to see what you missed out on last time. It may be too early to give a poll loser another chance but eh, it’s been almost a year. That and I wanted to treat myself. With this we’ll be finally closing out the mummy books. We got a good one with The Dummy Meets the Mummy but how does Series 2000 fare? Oh, you’ll see.

Before we start, I must put a disclaimer: Everything I am about to recap is real. Everything I say does actually happen in a book published under the Goosebumps banner. You’ll see why this warning is warranted.

This, is The Mummy Walks

This cover is fine. It’s nothing great but it works. The mummy looks good enough and the cave makes for a fine background. A fair bit of foot focus though. The scene at least happens, kind of. Some decent details as well. Not a standout but it gets the job done.

2022 Blog Post Retrospective

Hello, Spongey here.

Well, 2022 is coming to an end. …Boy what a year hat was. Above all else, this year was pretty wild for the world. I couldn’t fit in everything but there was a lot of bad and just weird stuff. Highlights include: Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, inflation was big, Russia invaded Ukraine, Roe v Wade was overturned , Kayne went nuts, and David Zaslav aand Elon Musk entered a “running a company into the ground” contest. Both are losers.

Just a lot of stuff that piled up. We had the usual nobble deaths, including the queen of England herself. That’s not new but the ones we had were especially unexpected, from Gilbert Gottfried to Aaron Carter. Not to mention Kathryn Lance, more on tat later.

My personal life was more of the same. I’m basically the same, you shouldn’t expect many major changes for a while. There were some wild silly things I can’t mention, as well more poor technology hates me. I did have some low mental moments over dumb things again, it got weird on that front.

I noticed a trend where after a notably bad year, the next is better but the next is worse than that one. This kinda kept that up, I’m put 2022 as lesser than 2021. The world felt a bit worse at times. That said, I still we’re recovering from 2020 okay.

COVID was weird. It’s more under control, and movies are fully back. I’ll talk more about that in the Best films of 2202 thing. But it’s not gone and sometimes we get reminded witha variant named after a planet from Futurama. I had more people I know get it this year than at the height of 2020. We shouldn’t let out guard down, but things do feel more normal at this point. There was Monkey Pox though…

There was good stuff. Just recently Andrew Tate basically got hit it with the biggest ratio of all time. It does feel like we still had things like that to counteract some of the bad stuff. In the Internet world, it seemed to be the year of long deep dives on topics from the Disney Channel theme to a lost CatDog game. There were tons of lost media findings, from the Wicked Witch Sesame Street episode to American Sailor Moon.

As for the blog, it did pretty well. I did more big projects earlier in the year which made more room to be lax in the back half. I just had a fair few big ideas that ft better in the early parts of the year. I got to do some cool things, with some being ideas that I’ve had for ages,.

Nothing too crazy but I found a solid formula,. The views didn’t hit as high as last year, but a fair few posts did better than I expected. I had no idea you all wanted more Goosebumps Fanfic that badly. Speaking of Goosebumps, it celebrated 30 years of existing and I did plenty for it.

A bit more than Scholastic did but they tried. GB had its own lost media findings, most notably the Dad Dogs Still Fetch story. On the sad side, Blogger Beware’s domain finaly died, RIP. At least Goosebumps Reviewers as a whole keep popping up. I celebrated 10 years of scene by scene reviews, and hit all my major milestones. I’ve now been doing for 10 long years and I won’t stop until my body finally dies.

GB stuff still does the best, but at least the Andi Mack post did super well. The blog was good this year. So even with how much crap there was, there’s still plenty to like so the year isn’t too bad. Always return to my The Faith review when you want to complain about any year. It was a wild year but interesting.

I think that’s about it. It’s time to look back at what I posted over the last 12 months and how I feel about them now. 2022 had plenty that I did so let’s look back on it.

This, is the 2022 Blog Post Retrospective

More Random Christmas Episodes

https://spongey444.wordpress.com/2021/12/24/a-look-at-random-christmas-episodes/

Hello, Spongey here.

It’s time for our 2nd round of randomly picked Christmas episode. After doing into two Halloween ones, you know how this works. Last time we had a fair selection, so it’s time to see what the wheel picks up for us this year. The wheel is stuffed with options, so we’ll see what happens this time.

This, is More Random Christmas Episodes

General Review: Puss in Boots The Last Wish

Hello, Spongey here.

It’s time for our final general review of the year. Boy that went by fast. This is the last animated movie of the year and it’s one that has been a long time coming. To cut to the chase, this is the sequel to 2011’s Shrek spin off, Puss in Boots.

That movie seemed like a gamble, as giving a supporting character their own movie often is. But it paid off as not only did I quite like it, but it made a decent chunk of money. It wasn’t talked about a ton afterward but I find it holds up well, for reasons I have gone into.

The character lended himself nicely a movie and the nature of the adventure thing means it was ripe for more. A sequel was put into production soon after the first…and only now is it coming out. It wasn’t shut down per say, it just stayed on the back burner as some people kept assuring us they were still working on it, on and off.

At one point it was called “9 Lives and 40 Thieves”, showing at least part of the idea stayed the same. Eventually in 2019 it started to get into full motion, with Bob Persichetti set to direct. Then in 2021 the director was swapped, with Joel Crawford of Croods 2 taking his place. Here is where it finally crossed the finish line.

It’s worth noting that entered Croods 2 later on after it had its own troubles. So I guess if you need a DreamWorks movie to be done, you call him. Get this guy on Shrek 5, which is getting more likely. In between the movies, Puss had a Netdlix show which is likely getting ignored. I watched it and it was fine. That’s all.

From the trailers, this seems pretty neat so we’ll see if the wait was worth it. The writers are Paul Fisher and Tommy Swerdlow. The former was on Croods 2 and the latter has Little Giant, Snow Dogs, and Bushwacked. Yes.

Alright, does this wish pan out? Let’s see.

This, is Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Daring outlaw Puss in Boots discovers that his passion for peril and disregard for safety have taken their toll. Puss has burned through eight of his nine lives, though he lost count along the way. Getting those lives back will send Puss in Boots on his grandest quest yet.

A Look at Disney/Cartoon Network/Nick Christmas Episodes (2022)

(Plus two Adult Swim but I wanna keep the title short)

INDEX:

Smiling Friends-Charlie Dies and Doesn’t Come Back

Tig N Seek-Tiggy Saves Christmas

Spidey And His Amazing Friends-Merry Spidey Christmas

Firebuds-Hanukkah Hullabaloo ; The Christmas Car-Sled Race

Alice’s Wonderland Bakery-The Gingerbread Palace

Eureka-Jingle Bog Rock

Puppy Dog Pals-Fixing Santa’s Sleigh”

Villains of Valley View-How the Villains Stole Christmas

Bunk’d-Hauntin’ Around the Christmas Tree

Raven’s Home-A Country Cousin Christmas

Big City Greens-Virtually Christmas

Bugs Bunny Builders-Looneyburg Lights

Bathweels-Holidays on Ice

Teen Titans Go-The Great Holiday Escape

Rick and Morty-Ricktional Mortpoon’s Rickmas Mortcation

Monster High-Nightmare Nightmore

Hello, Spongey here.

It’s that time again! Time to look at the jolly side of this year’s holiday episodes. This is late because of Nick, we’ll get to that. Shortest intro ever again, let’s go.

This, is A Look at Disney/Cartoon Network/Nick Christmas Episodes (2022)

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Dickens has been outsold. Even though he’s in this movie, clearly.

Hello, Spongey here.

Merry Early Christmas! Welcome to this year’s main Christmas review. Of course like last year we got the random Christmas ones to go up around the actual day. This week is our scene by scene Christmas review, woo hoo. For this year, we got another of my favorites.

This brings us back to the Muppets. I covered the 2011 movie ages ago so now it’s time to go back to the classics. I don’t need to into detail on them so we can cut to the case. The first few Muppet movies were original stories starring the characters and a fair bit after Muippets Take Manhattan, they figured they;d start having them do classic stories.

The idea was pitched in 1990 and was at first was going to be a TV movie for ABC. But Disney came around and offered to buy the script to make as a theatrical film. This was they later just bought The Muppets wholesale, and also before they got ABC. Man they’ve always been buying things.

And that’s it for behind the scenes stuff that I wanted to mention. Don’t worry we’ll get to the other big thing. It eventually released in 1992 to okay box office and solid reviews. It didn’t do horrible as far as money goes despite Disney’s high exceptions, but it did face competition from Home Alone 2 which was still dominating. The international numbers are in the thousands so I assume it never came out anywhere else for some reason.

Regardless, it’s gone to be a loved classic, not just among Muppet movies but among Christmas Carol movies. Tackling this story was tricky as it’s been done a million times but this managed to be a defining version for a lot of people. As we go we’ll see how this became an especially good one.

I’m doing this at a good time as just recently they finally released the full extended version with a cut song added back on, which we’ll talk about when it comes up. Yes, I’m using that version. I saw this about once or twice back in the day but haven’t gotten into the habbit of watching it a lot until the past years.

It was only fitting that I cover it for this year so this can my viewing of it for the year. Crew wise, the writer is the late Jerry Juhl who was longtime Muppets writer in general, having worked on some of the other Muppets movies. Director is Brian Henson, son of Jim, who’d go to direct Muppet Treasure Island and The Happytime Murders. Lol remember that?

With that said, what makes this a standout at both the things it’s trying to be? Let’s take a look and find out.

This, The Muppet Christmas Carol

Fear Street-Silent Night 3

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https://broadwaycares.org/

Hello, Spongey here.

It’s that time again, folks. December time, which means Christmas! It also means Red Ribbon Reviewers shilling time. As usual the information you need is up there, as well as their charity for this time around. Also as usual I don’t have much to add to what Eli goes into in that promo.

This will be business as usual, more or less. Still some fun stuff but I like to keep October and December predictable these days to put more work into the rest of the year where I can do whatever. With that said, let’s get into our final R.L. Stine review for the year. Boy I was not looking forward to this one.

Fear Street’s Silent Night was a solid book. Far from perfect for many reasons but at its core was a well done story of rich bitch Reva Dalby tapping into her emotions again. Silent Night 2 was more mixed, putting Reva back to square one and focusing on criminals who were more likable. I have enough tolerance for Rev and the others for that one to be…fine for me. The problems are kind of overblown but if you’re less into alpha bitches, I can see it being more annoying.

And now we’re at what was the finale to this series. I haven’t heard the best things about this one. Some liked it a bit more but most really don’t like it. Granted some of those are the aforementioned folks who are less tolerant of Reva so I’m not gonna expect the worst per say. I’m not exactly hyped either though.

I just hope the damage won’t be too bad. There is one bad sign though. In a Q&A in Stine’s autobiography, he says some of his favorite Fear Street are Silent Night 1 and 2, with no mention of 3. I assume he just forgot about it, and after Halloween Night 2 being a similar case…oh no.

I don’t know a ton going in this time butI have an idea of what to expect and it doesn’t seem too pretty. But hey, maybe everyone is wrong and it’s on par with the 2nd one. The only way to find out is to jump in and get started.

This, is Silent Night 3

This cover is pretty good. Not as good as the 2nd one but still a solid image with these creepy mannequins. One having blood coming out of the mouth is a nice touch. Decent shocked Reva too. Overall, good work here.

A look at the other direct to video DC movies

INDEX:

Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero

Batman Beyond Return of the Joker

Batman Mystery of the Batwoman

The Batman vs Dracula

Superman Brainiac Attacks

Teen Titans Trouble in Tokyo

JLA Adventures Trapped in Time

Batman Unlimited Animal Instincts

Batman Unlimited Monster Mayhem

DC Superhero Girls Hero of the Year

Batman Unlimited Mechs vs Mutants

Batman Return of the Caped Crusaders

DC Superhero Girls Intergalactic Games

Batman vs Two Face

Scooby Doo and Batman the Brave and the Bold

Batman Ninja

DC Superhero Girls Legends of Atlantis

Constantine: City of Demons: The Movie

Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teen Titans Go vs Teen Titans

Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons

Teen Titans Go & DC Superhero Girls Mayhem in the Multiverse

Hello, Spongey here.

DC really has gone all in with animation over the years. They’ve had their fair share of cartoons even to this day, and they tend to be well liked. When you factor in these and movies, it feels like there’s no end to DC animation. That’s one big thing they have other Marvel but that’s another story.

I covered their theatrical movies in general and last year at their direct to video line. But I’ll never be done with comic book animation. It’s like a hydra, I cut one head, and more just pop up. Today we’re staying direct to video.

In that post, I explained the deal with the DC Universe Animated Movies. It’s an offical line that has a clear list of what counts, even if they weren’t all connected. DC makes plenty of direct to video movies that tended to just be under one umbrella.

Yet it turns out they are not all that way. This may have come more into play later when they decided to make these a connected universe. But even then they did off shots like Killing Joke so that makes it more confusing.

Now the difference is more clear but generally it can be confusing. I first thought some were part of it but nah, they weren’t. Outside of their main line, we have these oddballs. They’ve done a bunch that are made to be either off the beaten path, or into a TV show.

We’re talking about those today. If you don’t know what doesn’t count for the main line, you’ll learn today. What exactly did they do outside of those and are they any good? Let’s see.

This, is A Look At the other Direct to video DC Movies

General Review: Strange World

Hello, Spongey here.

It’s been too long since our last general review, eh? It was back in July. Yeah, we’ve had some animated movies but they’ve been on streaming. Such is the current landscape I suppose. But leave it to Disney to pull us back to theaters.

We have the latest Disney Animated Canon film on our hands. After last year’s hits, we got a different type here. Sort of. This one seeks to try to be a Jules Verne style adventure, which they have attempted before here and there like with Atlantis the Lost Empire. They got mixed reviews and flopped, but still live on in Twitter posts about them.

I think it’s a fun ides so I have been excited for it. That’s…really it so we can get into the crew. Our writer is Qui Nguyen who wrote Raya and the Last Dragon, so I already went over them. Same goes for director Don Hall, who did Raya as well as Big Hero 6 and Moana. He seems to be another ol’ reliable for them. I don’t mind them since these are all quite good and varied enough so for now I’ll accept him. Some of these had co-drectors/writers anyway.

So, does it deliver? Let’s see.

This, is Strange World