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Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

Posted on March 27, 2023 by LizLocke
Image credit: Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, 2021

I’ve spent the month talking about cruise movies, but now I’d like to switch gears and feature a variation on this theme- the land cruise. Inspired by a recent stopover at the Atlantis Bahamas resort, I couldn’t help but think about these giant hotels where everything is at your fingertips, and your only decisions for the day are: which pool, which cocktail, and which pair of culottes. If you want a taste of the luxury resort life, then check out this week’s film, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (Disc/Download).

A movie I found funny on first viewing, and absolutely hilarious on subsequent watches, Barb and Star will charm you with their Midwestern accents, their seashell bracelets, and their Talbots resort-casual wardrobes. I like to think of this one as Romy & Michelle for the Golden Girls crowd- not that there’s anything wrong with that! You see, I’ve long believed that if you ever want to put a little sparkle back in your life, a good place to start is a Florida vacation. The fictional Palm Vista Hotel featured in the movie is a magical pastel-hued Barbie Dream House full of seashell beds, ocean views, and friendly bartenders, and just watching BFFs Barb and Star (Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig) step into that lobby feels transporting. It also doesn’t hurt that there’s a lively Busby Berkeley-inspired musical number to welcome them, or that Jamie Dornan is there to add a funny romantic twist (along with a strange subplot involving killer mosquitos, but this post isn’t going to be long enough to go into all that). Ultimately, if you learn anything from Barb and Star it should be this: the best ships are friendships. And if Tommy Bahama should one day wander out of the swamp and offer you his calloused hand, take it.

One of my favorite parts of this movie is when Barb and Star drink a giant blue cocktail with their new pal Edgar (Dornan), and proceed to have a wild night of debauchery. I’m not sure exactly what goes into a “Buried Treasure” cocktail, but the Atlantis has a similar-hued drink that’ll give you those Palm Vista vibes. While watching Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, I recommend drinking a Blue Marlin.

Blue Marlin

1.5 oz Vodka

1 oz Blue Curaçao

1 oz Triple Sec

2 oz Pineapple Juice

1 oz Lemon Juice

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake to chill, then pour into a glass over fresh ice. Or- serve it in a seashell cup!

Seashell cup from PackedParty.com

The thing about land cruises is that you’re able to exist in a tiny self-contained world of pleasure, minus the possibility of sea sickness. You can enjoy the buffet without wondering if you’ll see it again later, and a walk on the beach can be a great way to cap off a perfect day of turtle stalking, shell shopping, and Banana Boat flapping. And if you’re lucky, you’ll even get to meet Trish! Now there’s a woman you can count on. Cheers!

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Now, Voyager

Posted on March 20, 2023 by LizLocke
Image credit: Now, Voyager 1942

Bette Davis, plus a cruise ship, plus some of the Casablanca cast? On the surface, Now, Voyager (Disc/Download) seems like a slam dunk for me. But as I would soon find out, there is such a thing as too much melodrama, and this movie crosses the invisible line.

Based on the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty, Now, Voyager opens with a classic “spinster aunt” character who has existed under her tyrannical mother’s thumb for far too long. Although Charlotte Vale (Davis) once had a scandalous tryst at sea with a lowly staff member (Titanic fans will probably enjoy the shared plot points here, even down to the backseat canoodling in a fancy car!), her mother made sure any happiness was short-lived. It isn’t until Charlotte’s sister-in-law steps in with the help of a psychiatrist that she finally manages to claw her way out from her mother’s talons and get back on the horse. Or the cruise ship, in this case. While on this voyage, she meets a lonely man trapped in a loveless marriage (Paul Henreid, still as dull as he was in Casablanca), and after their car crashes on a port excursion to Rio, they spend a few days ashore falling in love. After, he heads back to his terrible wife and very troubled daughter, while Charlotte brings her new glowed-up self back to Boston. From there, the script gets… messy. I won’t spoil anything, but let’s just say, she makes some truly weird decisions involving her lover’s daughter, and the whole thing gives me the impression this woman still doesn’t understand how to extricate herself from codependent relationships. The cruise scenes? Fantastic! Everything else? Cringe.

Although the characters in this movie choose to drink Old Fashioneds on their cruise, I prefer to mix a favorite Brazilian cocktail, the Caipirinha. I like to think this is a drink Charlotte Vale would have enjoyed while trysting in Rio. Also, she probably would have loved picturing her mother while pulverizing the lime.

Caipirinha

2 oz Cachaça

2 tsp Sugar

1 Lime, cut into wedges

In a rocks glass, muddle lime wedges with sugar. Fill the glass with ice and add the cachaça. Stir gently to combine.

Ultimately, Now, Voyager is an exhausting movie. However, maybe with enough Caipirinhas, you’ll laugh (as I did) at the collection of dead minks hanging from Bette’s shoulder. Doris Day sported something similar in Romance on the High Seas, and this makes me wonder—should I be visiting a furrier before my cruise? I think I’d rather just stick with jaunty sun hats. Cheers!

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Let Them All Talk

Posted on March 13, 2023 by LizLocke
Image credit: Let Them All Talk, 2020

I often lament that the years 2020 and 2021 were a movie desert. And I get it; we were in a pandemic, most of us were too scared to go to a theater, so naturally studios put everything decent on hold. But there was one incredible 2020 release that was my shining exception: Steven Soderbergh’s poignant, humorous, wonderfully female-centric film Let Them All Talk (Disc/Download).

I lament the pandemic years, but frankly, my problem with new releases started long before the word “coronavirus” entered our lexicon. For some time, I’ve felt like nobody’s making movies for me. Movies rich in storytelling and character development, low on special effects, featuring fascinating female characters. Thank heaven for Steven Soderbergh, Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, and Candice Bergen, who gave me just what I wanted in this tale about a literary icon crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2 with her college friends. Her nephew (Lucas Hedges) is also along for the trip, and though he’s certainly the odd man out in terms of gender and age, watching him interact with this group of complex mature women is a true joy. As these characters rehash old wounds and old times, trying to connect after decades of separation, their individual personalities create more drama than an explosion or gun fight ever could. It’s a travesty that Candice Bergen didn’t score an Oscar nom for her salty gold digger character Roberta, but frankly, Dianne and Meryl were robbed too. These women are all fantastic. I could watch them talk for hours, and the fact that they’re doing it on a beautiful cruise ship with elegant cocktail lounges and a library to die for? This is a movie for me.

Speaking of elegant cocktail lounges, a lot of champagne gets served on this ship. It definitely makes me want to enjoy a sparkling beverage while I watch, and why not celebrate my favorite feisty Texan Roberta with a margarita version of a French ’75? While watching Let Them All Talk, I recommend drinking a Champagne Margarita.

Champagne Margarita

1 ½ oz Tequila

¾ oz Orange Liqueur

¾ oz Lime Juice

4 oz Champagne

Coarse Salt

Lime Twist

Rub a lime wedge around the rim of a champagne flute. Dip the rim in salt, then set aside. In a shaker with ice, combine tequila, orange liqueur, and lime juice. Shake until chilled, then strain into prepared flute. Top with champagne. Garnish with lime twist.

Naturally, I love the literary aspect to this film, particularly the contrast between Meryl Streep’s Pulitzer Prize-winning character and a commercial mystery writer also on the ship. I can only dream of a future where people are so eager for my next manuscript my agent would tag along on an ocean voyage to spy on my progress, but you never know what the next thirty years will bring. Maybe I’ll be wrapped up in shawls and ego soon enough. Cheers!

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Romance on the High Seas

Posted on March 6, 2023 by LizLocke
Image credit: Romance on the High Seas, 1948

In a few week’s time, I’ll be packing my bags for an ocean voyage to the kiddie-filled sands of Castaway Cay. Not being an experienced cruiser, I decided to spend this month taking advice from the movies. What to pack? What to drink? What, exactly, is a Lido Deck? To get me started, I’m turning to my movie fairy godmother Doris Day. She tends to have the answers to most of life’s dilemmas, and I found a lot of great tips in her delightful debut role in Michael Curtiz’s Romance on the High Seas (Disc/Download).

Tip No. 1: Nobody dresses the first night out.

Apparently, cruisers wear business casual instead of formal on their first trip to the dining room. Poor Doris, posing as a rich society lady as part of this crazy woman’s attempt to catch her husband cheating, is excited to get doll’d up, and makes the major faux pas of wearing a GORGEOUS ice blue silk gown on her first night at sea. This would send anybody else running back to their stateroom, but not Doris. She just pastes on a smile and walks confidently up to the maître d’ because goddamn it, she looks great, and she’s hungry. Except… she missed her seating time. People might not dress in their finest, but they show up when they’re supposed to.

Tip No. 2: You can make a meal out of pretzels and potato chips.

Turns out, the bar is the place to be on a cruise ship. Not only is it quiet and practically empty during the dinner hour, but bartenders will bring you snacks. Lots and lots of snacks. And if you’re lucky, a nightclub singer with the voice of an angel will appear out of nowhere to sing a melancholy tune.

Tip No. 3: Always overtip

This is just a great rule no matter where you are, land or sea. The society woman who hired Doris might be suffering from an extreme case of paranoia, but she’s still a class act. She makes sure to provide Doris with plenty of cash to tip the boat crew; after all, she wouldn’t want word to spread that she’s cheap. The horror!

Tip No. 4: If you’re distressed, just walk into any bar and tell the server you want to get higher than a kite.

These are not words I ever expected to hear coming out of Doris Day’s mouth, but I applaud the way she advocates for herself. Pretending to be someone she’s not while falling in love with the private investigator hired to trap her is difficult enough, but then her bandleader beau from New York boards the ship at the next port of call! I really can’t blame her for wanting to check out for a night.

Speaking of ports of call, this ship visits some really exciting places. Cuba and Rio are great stops, but Trinidad looks like a lot of fun too! Let’s toast Doris’s Caribbean adventure with Giuseppe González’s recipe for a Trinidad Sour.

Trinidad Sour

1 1/2 oz Angostura Bitters

1/2 oz Rye Whiskey

3/4 oz Lemon Juice

1 oz Orgeat

Lemon Twist

Combine bitters, whiskey, lemon juice, and orgeat in a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled, then strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Although I’m not sure the Disney Wish will give me the same opportunities for cocktails and couture I’d find on other voyages, I can still take a page out of Doris’s book and make this trip something memorable. She doesn’t board the ship with intentions to find love or a gig in the lounge, but somehow she pulls off both. So I guess I’ll leave it here with Tip No. 5: Keep an open mind. Cheers!

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Before Sunrise

Posted on February 27, 2023 by LizLocke
Image credit: Before Sunrise, 1995

I have to apologize. There’s just no excuse for the bizarre oversight of excluding Before Sunrise (Disc/Download) from this blog for so many years. Sure, I’ve mentioned the trilogy as a whole. I’ve written about it in my favorite film zine Moviejawn. I’ve recorded a podcast episode about it (releasing in a few days from the folks who brought you Dazed and Confused 33 1/3!). I even wrote a novel inspired by the concept of two lovers meeting in a faraway place, never knowing how or when they’ll see each other again (Follow the Sun, coming out June 6th 2023 from Random House Canada). In short, I love this movie. I’m obsessed with this movie. And finally, at long last, I’m ready to talk about it over a cocktail!

In looking at the Before trilogy as a whole, my current favorite film out of the three is Before Sunset. I say “current” because I believe these films grow and change as their viewers do. That’s what’s so magical about them. Now that I’m smack dab in the middle of my life’s journey, some triumphs and setbacks under my belt, but still a vast unknown up ahead, it feels comforting to watch a film about a writer who’s still trying to make sense of the past while figuring out how he wants to move forward into the future. Boy, do I get that. But back when I was seventeen, watching Before Sunrise for the first time, there was no “past” to reckon with; there was only anticipation. It was all in front of me: love, career, passion, a home. Watching Jesse (Ethan Hawke) meet Céline (Julie Delpy) on a train to Vienna felt like the answer to life’s great puzzle. Connection was the root of happiness, even more so than love. We connect with cities and occupations just as we do with people. I connected with this movie because it conveyed so much of what I was feeling at the time, and I connect with it still because of the memories of what those “firsts” felt like. The first time you felt a mutual attraction. The first time you kissed someone new. The first time you understood how big a role fate and timing play in our lives. The first time you truly didn’t want the sun to rise after one perfect night. Maybe I’ll never have some of those “firsts” again, but this movie reminds me that I did, once. And I’ll have other ones, in time.

If you’re going to spend all night walking around a foreign city, talking about philosophical theories and encountering a random collection of poets, palm readers, and players (I still want to know how things ended up for Wilmington’s cow!), then you’re going to need some caffeine. While watching Before Sunrise, I recommend drinking the popular Viennese sipper, the Café Maria Theresia.

Café Maria Theresia

1 Tbsp. Sugar

3 Tbsp. Cointreau

8 oz Fresh-brewed Coffee

Whipped cream

Orange Zest

Combine sugar and Cointreau in a cup, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Add coffee and stir gently to combine. Top with whipped cream and orange zest.

If you’d asked me prior to 2004 whether Jesse and Céline really met up again in Vienna six months after they said goodbye, I would have said yes. Unequivocally, yes. You see, I believe in happily ever after’s, and I don’t want to live in a world where these two people can’t make it work. We may have come to the end of their onscreen journey with Before Midnight (unless Linklater decides to pull another rabbit out of his hat), but my views on this couple are unchanged. They may find themselves separated over and over again by fate and circumstance, but in my mind they will always make their way back to each other.

On that note, I’d like to give a quick plug once again for Follow the Sun because if you like the anticipation and romance of Before Sunrise, you’ll probably enjoy these elements in my book. To read an early copy, be sure and sign up to receive the Cinema Sips weekly posts via email before March 1st 2023 (you’ll find the sign-up field on the right-hand side of the screen on the Cinemasips.com desktop site, and if you’re a mobile user, scroll up/down until the “Follow” button appears at the bottom). My publisher has graciously agreed to send NetGalley links for an advance copy of the e-book to my loyal followers since so many of you have told me how excited you are to read it. Of course, if you’d rather wait and throw the final print version in your beach bag this summer, pre-orders are always an option, and deeply appreciated!! Cheers, and thanks to all my current and future readers for getting off the train with me 😊.

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From Here to Eternity

Posted on February 20, 2023 by LizLocke
Image credit: From Here to Eternity, 1953

We’ve all seen this shot. Deborah Kerr locked in a passionate embrace with Burt Lancaster on a Hawaiian beach, waves crashing around them as they kiss in the sand. You’d think this would be indicative of the romance in the movie as a whole, but if you’ve ever sat down and actually watched From Here to Eternity (Disc/Download), then you know- there are no happy endings to be found. I see the image, and I just want to scream: “False advertising!!!”

In fact, the love story subplots of this classic film only receive the bare minimum of screentime. This is a movie about military power trips, not trips down the aisle. I’d equate it more to Cool Hand Luke than Casablanca. Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, and Frank Sinatra are terrific in their roles as three conflicted army soldiers on the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack, while Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed are magnetic as their love interests. Where the plot drags and meanders, the actors soar. It’s funny to me that the famous beach scene gets vaulted as one of the most romantic movie images because the truth of that scene is far different. Burt Lancaster wants to see how far his boss’s wife will go with him, believing she’s already been “loose” with soldiers in the past. When he mentions her reputation, it’s like a needle scrape across the record. Suddenly, that beach gets very, very cold. It’s a great moment, and there’s certainly a lot of drama when she explains her situation, but… “romantic” it is not. I guess we were all too mesmerized by Burt’s muscles to notice. By “we”, I mean myself.

One thing these characters do frequently is drink. Clearly, the army is a very stressful environment, even in paradise. Legend has it, one of Frank Sinatra’s favorite cocktails was the Navy Grog, a delicious tiki concoction that’s fallen by the wayside due to its complicated preparation. The drink was meant to be garnished and sipped through an ice cone, which required a special mold to make, and… yeah. I’m not doing that. So let’s keep the drink recipe and alter the prep for the modern home bar enthusiast. While watching From Here to Eternity, I recommend drinking an Army Grog.

Army Grog

1 oz Dark Rum

1 oz Gold Rum

1 oz White Rum (I used Koloa Rum, in a nod to Hawaii!)

1 oz Honey Syrup (1:1 ratio honey to water)

¾ oz Club Soda

¾ oz Grapefruit Juice

¾ oz Lime Juice

Lime Wheel garnish

Combine rums, honey syrup, club soda, grapefruit, and lime juices in a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled, then strain into a glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with a lime wheel.

With a slew of Oscars to its credit (including one for Ol’ Blue Eyes), From Here to Eternity manages the tricky task of being a war picture with mass appeal. Maybe the key is that there’s very little actual war depicted. We all know it’s coming, which provides even more tension for the fate of these characters, but we’re not bogged down with fighter jets and explosions. So go ahead, call it a great movie. Just don’t call it a romance. Cheers!

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Atonement

Posted on February 13, 2023 by LizLocke
Image credit: Atonement, 2007

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the lovers (of cocktails and movies!) out there. This week, I’m honoring one of the great love affairs in cinema history: the one that exists between the infamous Jacqueline Durran-designed Green Dress, and my eyeballs. Grab the tissues and the chocolate bars for this week’s film Atonement (Disc/Download).

Based on the novel by Ian McEwan, Joe Wright’s adaptation is every bit as gorgeous as the source material. This story of young lovers separated by class difference and a fatal lie is gripping, haunting, and always leaves me feeling like I got hit by a truck. But the clothes- THE CLOTHES. I keep coming back to see Keira Knightley swan around like she’s on the cover of a 1930s issue of Vogue, in everything from evening gowns to slips to swimwear. Honestly, the saddest part of this movie isn’t the ending; it’s watching Cecilia trade her couture for a WWII British nurse’s uniform (although, I do enjoy a good wool cape). The cast of this film is a who’s who of British talent, such as James McAvoy, Juno Temple, Brenda Blethyn, Vanessa Redgrave, and Benedict Cumberbatch, but it’s a young Saoirse Ronan who really steals the show as imaginative, manipulative Briony. Such a devious villain in such innocent packaging! In the end, this entire story is Briony’s attempt at atonement, and the audience is left to decide whether she’s finally paid for the sin of being a fanciful, jealous girl. Perhaps, having the same boring haircut for sixty years is the real punishment.

As I mentioned earlier, chocolate plays a hefty supporting roll in this film. Benedict Cumberbatch’s character owns a chocolate factory, and he is more than happy to make everyone his signature sipper, the “Choc-tail”, which is described as rum and dark chocolate syrup over crushed ice.

However, his character is the creep to end all creeps, and I don’t feel like celebrating this perverted Willy Wonka. So let’s do our own “Choc-tail”, in the form of a Chocolate Rum Old Fashioned.

Chocolate Rum Old Fashioned

1 1/2 oz Dark Rum

1/4 oz Simple Syrup

1 dash of Angostura Bitters

1 dash of Chocolate Bitters

Grapefruit Peel

Grated dark chocolate

Combine rum, simple syrup, and bitters in a mixing tin with ice. Stir well, and strain into a glass filled with a large ice cube. Express the grapefruit peel over the drink, then drop in. Grate a dusting of dark chocolate over the top.

If you enjoy Downton Abbey, World War II epics like The English Patient and Dunkirk, and dinner parties where people get very dressed up, then Atonement is the movie for you. Passion, glamour, chocolate, and rum- sounds like a perfect Valentine’s Day to me. Cheers!

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McCabe & Mrs. Miller

Posted on January 31, 2023 by LizLocke
Image credit: McCabe & Mrs. Miller, 1971

How do you make a Western that a pink-loving, romance-obsessed millennial female like me will actually enjoy? Easy.

  1. Fill it with gorgeous Leonard Cohen songs.
  2. Cast two of the most beautiful humans alive in 1971: Warren Beatty and Julie Christie.
  3. Make bath time fun again.
  4. Tell the costume department to invest in a really big fur coat. I’m talking massive. Make him look like a very fancy bear.

This week on Cinema Sips, I’m featuring the Robert Altman classic, McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Disc/Download). You won’t find a lot of Westerns on Cinema Sips because I’ve never been a fan of dust and dirt and long, lonely vistas; however, there’s something about McCabe & Mrs. Miller that hooks me. The modern music is certainly part of it, but I think it’s also the way ordinary realities are depicted. The characters speak like normal people, instead of holdovers from the Victorian era. They talk about real issues, like same-sex attraction, and menstruation, and what it is that humans really want on the edge of a barren frontier. It’s not sex and it’s not religion (despite the proliferation of brothels and churches); it’s comfort. In many cases, power.

I’m going to warn you, McCabe has truly heinous cocktail preferences. He enjoys a double whiskey with a raw egg, and frankly, seeing that yolk drop into the glass makes me want to vomit. Let’s make a tastier egg-white version instead, adding a little marmalade in honor of Mrs. Miller’s cockney roots. While watching McCabe & Mrs. Miller, I recommend drinking a Marmalade Whiskey Sour.

Marmalade Whiskey Sour

2 oz Bourbon

1 oz Lemon Juice

½ oz Simple Syrup

½ oz Orange Marmalade

1 egg white

Combine ingredients in a shaker without ice first. Shake vigorously for thirty seconds, then add ice. Shake for another thirty seconds until chilled and frothy. Strain into a glass filled with fresh ice.

I’ll have to remember this movie when I’m sweltering through a Texas summer because one look at the snow-covered mining town makes the room feel ten degrees cooler. But even when the snow is falling outside, and the wind is howling, it’s still fun to snuggle up under a furry blanket, pour a drink, and contemplate whether any Western hero was ever as cool as John McCabe, before or since. Certainly, he was the best-dressed. Cheers!

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Escape from the Planet of the Apes

Posted on January 26, 2023 by LizLocke
Image credit: Escape from the Planet of the Apes, 1971

To quote Romy and Michele, “I just get really happy when they finally let her shop.”

The “her” in this case is Dr. Zira, one of the greatest heroines in cinema history, and star of my favorite chapter within the Planet of the Apes franchise, Escape from the Planet of the Apes (Disc/Download). I’ve written about my love of these films before, but this week I’d like to go into more detail about why I’m so darn crazy about this particular one. Let’s unpack.

In my mind, I’ve given all the Apes movies simple descriptors. #1 is “the Charlton Heston”, #2 is “the weird one”, #4 is “the prison one”, and #5 is “the one with all the battles”. But #3 is the best of all because it’s “the Rege-Bev-Wilsh one”. That’s right, just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, the Apes travel to Los Angeles, and somehow land themselves a cushy suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a limo, and a fabulous shopping spree. Was Garry Marshall a secret Dr. Zira fan?? We’ll never know. But I like to think Zira and Vivian are cosmically linked in a more general sense. Both are strong, smart, and independent. Both have incredible fashion sense. Both drink too much champagne and get a little giggly. And both of them know how to love fiercely, with their whole hearts. Indeed, it’s this fierce love that makes #3 the most emotionally poignant Apes film in the series. Having fled Future Earth with her husband Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) before a nuclear explosion destroys the planet, Zira arrives in the past having all the answers about what’s to come. And what’s to come is not good for humans. The biggest threat arrives in the form of the unborn child of Zira and Cornelius, who is destined to be the link between humans and intelligent apes. The US government wants to destroy that link to save their own species, and thus Zira and Cornelius must take drastic measures to protect her pregnancy. Throw in Ricardo Montalbán as a kindhearted circus owner, plus a switched-at-birth plotline, and you’ve got one riveting soap opera of a movie.

Before you go thinking of this movie as a Sci-Fi Shakespearean tragedy, let me reassure you- it’s definitely got its silly moments. Such as the ’70s sitcom music playing over shopping montages, or the time Zira goes to a cocktail party and gets drunk on “Grape Juice Plus” (aka, champagne). For some reason, the humans seem to think apes love oranges, so maybe that’s the “plus” they’re referring to? Let’s try it and see. While watching Escape from the Planet of the Apes, I recommend drinking Grape Juice Plus.

Grape Juice Plus

1 oz Cointreau

3 oz Champagne

Orange twist or dried orange for garnish

Build drink in a champagne flute. Garnish with an orange twist or wheel.

It’s become a bit of a tradition in my house to watch the Apes movies over a long weekend in January, and it almost feels like the New Year doesn’t officially start until Dr. Zira shows up in a pink cape like some sort of brilliant psychology superhero. I’ve had a lot on my plate the last month (such as finishing a major home renovation, plus editing and promoting my upcoming novel!), so taking the opportunity to relax with a glass of bubbly and a great movie feels almost decadent. Dr. Zira, let’s just go ahead and reserve next year’s stay at the Rege-Bev-Wilsh now. I’ll bring the grape juice. Cheers!

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Top Five Films of 2022

Posted on January 19, 2023 by LizLocke

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these end-of-year lists. Two years, to be exact; shortly before the pandemic took away all my cinema joy. During the period I refer to as “the time we couldn’t have nice things,” I used the hours I would have spent sitting in a theater to get caught up on all the classics I’d never had time to watch before. Let’s just say, there was a lot of Cary Grant. But looking back on the last twelve months, and all the great new releases I had the pleasure of watching, I think it’s safe to say: movies are BACK.

As with each of these lists I make, I’m going to throw this caveat out: I like what I like. It’s probably not what most film critics, or the Academy, or probably even most of my readers like, and that’s okay. I have very specific tastes, generally involving beautiful people in beautiful places wearing beautiful things, and for too long, this just didn’t exist within the cinema landscape. But over the past year, Hollywood got back to what it does best- making magic. Making our world look better than reality. So here they are, my Top Five Favorite Films of 2022:

1. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Like a pastel macaron, this pure-hearted confection of a movie feels almost too pretty to consume. Based on the novel by Paul Gallico, the film version sparkles like the beads on a 1950s Dior haute couture gown. With gorgeous production design showcasing 1950s Paris, and an earnest performance by Lesley Manville, this stylish, heartwarming movie makes me believe (for the first time in a long time) that everything’s going to be okay. It’ll all work out the way it’s supposed to.

2. The Lost City

I keep hearing how the rom-com genre is dead, or breathing its last gasp on streaming, but Sandra and Tatum are here to prove the haters wrong. They are perfection together, and this movie is the funniest thing I’ve seen in years. If any programmers decide to bring this adventure/comedy/romance back to the local cinema as a special event, with props and cocktails and cheese plates, I will buy a ticket in a hot second. And wear my sparkliest jumpsuit.

3. Confess, Fletch

2022 was the year I discovered the Fletch franchise, having no idea that a new iteration was already in production. Thus it was a happy surprise when I discovered that my favorite Mad Man would be trying the ole’ Lakers hat on for size, and gosh, what a great fit. Jon Hamm is full of snarky, brilliant one-liners, and obviously, pretty easy on the eyes. Plus, we’ve got cocktails and Italian scenery! Where is Fletch headed next? I can’t wait to find out.

4. Bullet Train

Featuring a terrific ensemble cast, Bullet Train is like a high-octane mash-up of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. But what sets it apart from those other directors’ films are its fight scenes. Rather than resorting to long, tedious shootouts, director David Leitch finds clever ways to choreograph deadly combat with very, very minimal gunfire. Honestly, with the rising threat of gun violence in our real lives, I’m totally over seeing bullets fly onscreen. Kudos to a movie that finds more creative methods to off its characters.

5. Three Thousand Years of Longing

George Miller’s latest special effects extravaganza seemed to come and go from the theaters quite quickly over the summer, which is a shame because it’s great! What I love most about this strange and wonderful tale about a scholar who discovers a magic Djinn in a bottle is its reverence for storytelling. Also, Tilda and Idris have terrific chemistry and look adorable in their fluffy white hotel bathrobes. Somebody- put these two in a rom-com!

Honorable Mentions: Elvis, Fire of Love, Marry Me, Fire Island, The Menu

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