My Top 10 of 2025

 

My top 10 films of 2025 (with honorable mentions for Companion, Frankenstein and Bob Trevino Likes It), in alphabetical order:

• Cover-Up
• Hamnet
• The House of Dynamite
• The Life of Chuck
• Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
• One Battle After Another
  
• Sinners
• Thunderbolts
• Train Dreams
• Weapons
  
  

Best movie of the year: 

• One Battle After Another

Worst movie of the year: 

• A Minecraft Movie

And my top 10 TV shows of the year, with Adolescence coming out on top:

• Adolescence
• Andor (Season 2) 
• Alien: Earth
• Monster: The Ed Gein Story
• Mr. Scorsese
• Pluribus
• Severance
• The Studio
• Task
• The White Lotus (Season 3)

It Was Just an Accident (2025)

 

Director: Jafar Panahi. Cast: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi. 103 min. Mystery/Comedy.

• You live in a dictatorship, and finally get your hands on a man who may have tortured you in prison for years. He is yours. You have full power over him. What will you do to him?
• This is the setting of Jafar Panahi's most recent political drama, who won the celebrated Palm d'Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. But how this film came into existence is a story on its own. Panahi was arrested in 2009 for participating in Iran's "Green Movement", and sentenced to a 20-year ban on filmmaking. That was no hindrance to the defiant Panahi, who kept devising ingenious methods to bypass his sentence and continue with his passion (the title of his farcical 2011 documentary, This is Not a Film, should give you an idea). Based on Panahi's own experiences in prison, IWJAA was secretly filmed in Tehran, and the film's actresses illegally performed without Iran's mandatory hijab. Towards the end of filming, the cast and crew were almost discovered and arrested. Eventually, the film was smuggled out of Iran and delivered to Cannes.
• The subject of "what to do with your ex-captor" has been discussed in several films, some of the most prominent being Roman Polasnki's Death and the Maiden (1994) and the Argentinian Oscar-winner, The Secret in their Eyes (2009). But Panahi's film takes a different approach: he presents his moral dilemma as ... a comedy. Because if you believe the cycle of violence must be broken and the response to torture is not revenge, then the cinematic translation of that notion is comedy - no? 
• That said, the film has its darker moments towards the end, and wisely leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether our protagonists made the right choice. Watch this thought-provoking movie with a group: it's a discussion-maker.

MoGo rating: 7/10

One Battle After Another (2025)

 

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson. Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti, Benicio Del Toro. 161 min. Thriller/Comedy.

• Paul Thomas Anderson has been one of the most influential directors of our time. His Boogie Nights (1997) was perfectly able to capture the '70s mood, and his There Will be Blood (2007), The Master (2012) and Phantom Thread (2017) were all among New York Times' recent list of "100 Best Movies of the 21st Century" (TWBB coming in at 3rd place). The curious point is that Oscar-wise, P.T. Anderson has always gone home empty-handed. With his new movie, that may change this year.
• The appropriately-timed One Battle After Another happens in a not-too-distant future, where in a caricature setting, extreme liberalism is coming into a final clash with extreme conservatism. Vigilante groups are no longer being silent towards systematic xenophobia, and secret ultra-right societies are mounting counter-attacks to squash the resistance. Leonardo DiCaprio is one anarchist, who with his daughter (newcomer Chase Infiniti) is on the run from Col. Steven Lockjaw (with an unforgettable performance by Sean Penn), who himself has questionable motives in his pursuit of the father-daughter pair. Saying anymore would dampen the fun of watching this strangely plotted but very fluid and engaging movie. 
• OBAA will be this year's major Oscar contender. While Anderson will finally break his spell in both Best Picture and Best Director categories, Penn as Lockjaw is also a lock-in (no pun intended) for his third Oscar, and surprise wins may go to Infiniti, DiCaprio, or Benicio Del Toro. This may sound like blasphemy, but this was the first time I "believed" in DiCaprio's performance; he felt like a real, unexaggerated character. And you'll find how powerful this movie's soundtrack is, especially after a second viewing, and especially during that incredibly-shot climactic car chase scene at the end. Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.    

MoGo's rating: 9/10

My Top 10 of 2024

 

My top 10 films of 2024 (with honorable mentions for The Apprentice, Deadpool vs. Wolverine, and Hit Man), in alphabetical order:

• Anora
• Civil War
• Dune: Part 2
• Evil Does Not Exist 
• Emilia Perez
• The Greatest Night in Pop
  
• Juror #2
• My Favorite Cake
• The Seed of the Sacred Fig
• The Substance
  
  

Best movie of the year: 

• The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Worst movie of the year: 

• Trap

And my top 10 TV shows of the year ( at least among the ones I've watched), with The Boys coming out on top:

• 3 Body Problem
• The Bear (Season 3) 
• The Boys (Season 4)
• The Diplomat (Season 2)
• The Penguin
• Presumed Innocent
• Shogun
• Squid Games (Season 2)
• True Detective: Night Country
• Under the Bridge

Evil Does Not Exist (Aku wa sonzai shinai) (2023)

Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi. Cast: Hitoshi Omika, Ryô Nishikawa, Ryûji Kosaka. 106 min. Drama.

• A widower and his smart young daughter live in the serenity of a small Japanese village, far from the commotion of urban life - until one day, an imposing tourist corporation invades their calm, offering to build a "glamping" (glamorous camping) site on the villagers' territory, and thereby threatening to irreversibly disrupt the natural habitat, and as a result their own way of life. But read the movie title again: are any of the corporate agents ... truly evil? Are any of the villagers who resist the invasion (some in strange ways), evil? Or are we just living in a constant struggle, each employing our own Darwinian skills to survive?
• The scenes juxtaposing the villagers' lives, and the city dwellers' views on their lives, are nothing short of fascinating. The corporate people look at the village as a lovely rural paradise where they might want to retire, and the villagers look at them as imbeciles who have no clue what living in such a place means. The contrast brews an ominous atmosphere, and you know something awful is bound to happen soon. 
• This is a slow movie. It is directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, who also directed the longer and slower 2021 Oscar-wining film, Drive My Car. But a movie's pacing should not be the reason to avoid one. You'll begin watching this, wondering: where are all these long tracking shots and haunting musical themes going? Until pieces start falling into place, and the surreal last scene is delivered with a smacking punch, leaving you in a daze to think what actually happened. 
• Watch this thought-provoking film in a group - you'll be discussing the ending (oh, that ending) for quite some time after it's done. And if you watch it alone, you'll be jumping all over the internet to understand the final scene. Just as I did.

MoGo's rating: 9/10

The Apprentice (2024)

Director Ali Abbasi. Cast: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova. Rated R. 122 min. Biography, Drama.

• This movie, about the early days of Donald J. Trump in the 70s and 80s, was widely released just a few weeks before the November 2024 election. So one would assume it's a piece a political propaganda to hurt Trump's chances of winning (and we all saw how well that went). For this reason, I intentionally postponed watching it to after the elections, to see if it contained any artistic merit regardless of the political atmosphere. To my surprise, it did.
• The Apprentice is directed by Ali Abbasi, a Swedish-based Persian director whose previous disconcerting film, Holy Spider (2022), was about the true story of a serial killer who committed crimes based on a blind ideology, and by the end of the movie, you're not sure if the criminal is driven by his own intent, or is merely a product of his environment - the same concept we see in The Apprentice. The young Trump tries to make his own under the condescending stare of his rich father, until he meets the lawyer Roy Kohn, who as IMDb puts it: "... personified the dark arts of American politics, turning empty vessels into dangerous demagogues - from Joseph McCarthy to his final project, Donald J. Trump."
• The ideology taught by Kohn (and later taken credit by Trump in his book, "The Art of the Deal") is clear: 1. Attack, attack, attack. 2. Admit nothing, deny everything. 3. Claim victory, and never admit defeat. The film shows how Trump thrived using these basic principles, and everything else became secondary. As very well symbolized in Trump getting a liposuction and scalp reconstructive surgery, this is a Frankenstein story - a creator creates the creature, and the creature later destroys the creator. Considering what we know now, the narrative does not sound too fictitious. 
• With grainy cinematography, flashy editing, and a musical score eerily reminiscent of none other than Brian DePalma's Scarface, the movie is incredible in establishing the feeling of 1970s Manhattan, and Sabastian Stan ("Winter Soldier" in the Marvel movies, and Tommy Lee in Hulu's Pamela Anderson biopic) is unbelievable at re-enacting the real life character's mannerisms, gestures and hand movements. Watch this actor - he will be flying high.

MoGo's rating: 8/10

My Top 10 of 2023

My top 10 films of 2022 (with honorable mentions for The Covenant, The Killer, The Sound of Freedom, and Wonka), in alphabetical order:

• The Creator
• Godzilla Minus One
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Napoleon
• Oppenheimer
• Past Lives
• Perfect Days
• Robot Dreams
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• Society of the Snow
  
  

Best movie of the year: 

• Killers of the Flower Moon

Worst movie of the year: 

• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Ant-Man 3)

And best TV shows of the year (again, among the ones I've watched), with The Last of Us coming out on top:

• Ahsoka
• Beckham 
• Blue Eye Samurai
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• The Last of Us
• One Piece
• Silo
• Ted Lasso

(Note: I stopped watching Beef after two episodes. Stressful and annoying.)

The Creator (2023)

Director: Gareth Edwards. Cast: John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Gemma Chan, Janney Allison, Ken Watanabe. Sci-fi/Adventure. 143 min.

• Ever since the Frankenstein monster killed Victor Frankenstein, ever since James Cameron's Terminator and numerous other revolting self-aware robots (2001: A Space Odyssey, The Matrix, I, Robot, Ex Machina, ...) became the defining narrative for A.I. in cinema, the idea has always been that the Creation will eventually destroy the Creator. That A.I. is the enemy. Now, for the first time, we have a brilliantly made film that invites us to accept artificial intelligence as a friend, as an entity that might not necessarily invoke the apocalypse, that can actually take care of us and each other ... that might even be better than us, and (should I say it?) deserving to take over the planet.
• John David Washington (Denzel's son) is a retired U.S special forces soldier, recruited to hunt down and kill "the Creator", who is rumored to have designed the ultimate A.I. weapon, only to realize: that weapon is an artificially intelligent child. I won't spoil the origins of this child, but let's just say by the end of the movie (one which I didn't check my watch even once during the entirety of its 2 hour-plus running time), you will sympathize that it would be unethical for the soldier to complete his mission. 
• Interestingly, the U.S. government here is the aggressor - the side of the battle that wants to blow A.I. communities into non-existence. And the Asian societies are on the opposing side, giving shelter to A.I. beings, and supporting their nurturing presence. I was charmed how well this reflects the current sociopolitical climate - the US being more traditionalist, and the Far East more accepting and forward-thinking. 
• Gareth Edwards, the director, is known as the maker of the only decent Star Wars spin-off, Rogue One. Here he borrows heavily from the Southeast Asia jungle helicopter scenes of Apocalypse Now, incorporates the atmospheric darkness of another A.I.-driven powerhouse, Blade Runner, and his robots are obviously plucked right out of the apartheid-inspired sci-fi masterpiece, District 9. But that's totally fine. You can steal others' ideas, as long as you do it well.
• The Creator was the first time a movie (or any medium, for that matter) made me understand that maybe ... A.I. is not a threat. Maybe by acknowledging it in a sym"bio"tic relationship, we can become better with A.I. This is a movie that doesn't shy away from starting a difficult yet important discussion.

MoGo's rating: 9/10

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Oppenheimer (2023)

Director: Christopher Nolan. Cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Alden Ehrenreich,  Jason Clarke, Tony Goldwyn, Kenneth Branagh, Matthew Modine, Rami Malek, Casey Affleck, Gary Oldman. Biography/History. 180 min.

• Christopher Nolan movies have a few recurring notions, but the most prominent (Memento, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Tenet) has always been the concept of time. In Oppenheimer, he visits it again with the countdown to Trinity - the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, the moment when the trajectory of human civilization forever changed. To emphasize the importance of that, he has a long tale to tell.
• Yes, Oppenheimer is long. The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer and what led this genius to invent such a monstrosity is dry, at times boring, and deservedly dark. And while Nolan makes every effort through the script's flashbacks and flash forwards and toggling between color and black-and-white to keep us engaged, there is a reason for this dreariness. Similar to some masterpieces in movie history (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, The Godfather: Part II, The Deer Hunter, Das Boot) where the longer the film, the more impactful the climactic ending, here the entire movie is a preamble to prepare us for the 20-minute Trinity Test scene. That scene is worth every minute you spent to get there. That scene is why we go to the movies. 
• There were a few moments which I found incompatible with the greatness of the rest of the film. Opening scenes showing subatomic particles whizzing past in a dark background to give an idea of how quantum physics works were somewhat ... cheesy. And Oppenheimer's hallucinations of charred human bodies as a sign of his feelings of guilt after Japan's nuclear bombing, were cliché and repetitious - I was expecting more creativity from Nolan. But other pieces of this large puzzle fit fine, including but not limited to Einstein's role in the story: not the main figure, but always watching from the sidelines. Very wise character development.
• If no other major contender shows up by the end of the year, especially how together with Barbie it brought post-Covid moviegoers back to the theaters in droves this past summer, Oppenheimer has the chance of becoming next year's main Oscar winner, including Best Picture award, long overdue Best Director and Best Screenplay awards for Nolan, and Best Acting awards. While Cillian Murphy's cachectic appearance as the guilt-ridden protagonist gives him an edge in the Best Leading Actor race, previously nominated self-reinvented success story Robert Downey Jr. as politician Lewis Strauss, the driving force behind controversial hearings to revoke Oppenheimer's security clearance, should be considered a shoe-in for the Best Supporting Actor prize. (Watch for Gary Oldman as President Truman towards the end of the movie.)
• If you still have the opportunity, watch Oppenheimer on the biggest screen possible. This is a movie that is meant to be seen in all it huge wonderous glory, in the theaters. Try not to watch it on a TV. And you should be prosecuted if you watch it on a smartphone.

MoGo's rating: 9/10

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Leila's Brothers (Baradaran-e Leila) (2022)

Director Saeed Roustayi. Cast: Taraneh Alidoosti, Saeed Poursamimi, Navid Mohammadzadeh, Payman Maadi. 165 min. Drama.

• What's ingenious about this absorbing, heart-breaking, emotional rollercoaster of a social drama, is how it predated and predicted the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement. An old godfather-wannabe is making every effort (even donating his life savings) to become his family's succeeding patriarch; his four sons (even the most pragmatic one) struggle to keep their abusive father happy and maintain the status quo; and his daughter, Leila, as the sole voice of logic, tries to keep the family's financial head above water by opposing every rotten element at core of this institution. Without spoiling anything, let's just say this clash of modernism and traditionalism shakes the film (and the world, by women) in the form of  ... a slap.
• Many have described this last year's Cannes Film Festival award winner as symbolic of Iran's current sociopolitical figures and groups, namely: the old father representing Iran's Supreme Leader; the brothers each representing the struggling middle class, the forever-doomed lower class, and the educated elite; and Leila, the female uprising, already upending the country's social and political strata. This metaphor is most beautifully pictured in an ending scene, with young girls entering a "birthday" party, the same time as another social class "dies".   
• Numerous memorable, thought-provoking quotes: "They just teach us to think, not how to think"; "I'm afraid of feeling happy"; "We're living based on dead people's decisions"; "Yes, Father, the [Trump] tweet was even more destructing than a bomb"; ... 
• Earth-shattering performances by Saeed Poursamimi (as the father), and of course, the great Taraneh Alidoosti (as Leila). This is a film whose characters, moments and concepts you'll be thinking about for days. Remember director Roustayi's name - you will hear it more in the future.

MoGo's rating: 9/10

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My Top 10 of 2022

My top 10 (actually 11, because two are pretty much one movie) films of 2022:

• Avatar: The Way of Water 
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• The Batman 
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Holy Spider
• The Menu
• Nope
• Prey
• Top Gun: Maverick 
• X, Pearl

Best movie of the year: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Worst movie of the year: Ambulance

And best TV shows of the year (at least among those I've seen), in no specific order, all definitely worthy of viewing, but Andor probably my favorite:

• Andor
• Better Call Saul
• The Crown
• The House of Dragons
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
• Moon Knight
• The Offer
• Ozark
• Rick and Morty
• Wednesday

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Director: Martin McDonagh. Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan. 114 min. Drama/Comedy.

• This is a very strange but piercing film. In a lovely re-pairing of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson since 2008's In Bruges, one person, for reasons unknown to us, makes another person an innocent request - and accompanies it with a threat to harm his own self if the request is not followed. The other person does not understand the gravity of the situation, and does not follow the request. So what starts out as an uncomfortable comedy, gradually metamorphoses into a dark, disturbing drama, and then even to horror - because people who do not understand a perfectly clear picture with glaring warning signs staring them in the face, are very common. 
• Martin McDonagh has made a few good films (In Brudges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), but none of them have made me think as much about the seemingly simple but severe problems the characters of Banshees are facing. Watch this movie in a group - you'll see McDonagh is onto a very prevalent but lesser recognized dilemma. Any other word here would be spoiling your post-movie discussion.

MoGo's rating: 8/10

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Director: Rian Johnson. Cast: Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Ethan Hawke, Hugh Grant, Stephen Sondheim, Natasha Lyonne, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Serena Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. 139 min. Crime/Mystery.

• Looks like the Knives Out films, inspired by Agatha Christie's style of whodunit mysteries, are going down the path of the two recent actual Christie's adaptations: Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile: great first movie, good but not as great second movie. When it came to Glass Onion, I was as engaged throughout as the first Knives Out, and the multitude of colorful characters, including Daniel Craig as sleuth Benoit Blanc with his Southern accent, and Edward Norton as a reckless Elon Musk type, make it a delicious murder mystery (like Nile, they even go to sea!); just that I didn't get the feeling of originality like the first Knives Out, and was able to predict a mid-movie twist (the one regarding a dead body on the stairs) - probably because I read too many Christie novels as a teenager.
• Fascinating cameo appearances. Just look at the list above, after Dave Bautista.
• Obsessions with glass on this one: the main setting of the story is a literal huge glass onion, there's a question of vodka glasses with poison being passed around, and a major climax with glass sculptures being smashed to pieces. Even a gong sound heard on the island is said in the movie to have been composed by famed composer Philip Glass. Very funny.
• Would I look forward to a third Knives Out movie? Of course I would. As long as Daniel Craig is there. And ... they bring back Ana de Armas from the first movie.
  

MoGo's rating: 7/10

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Holy Spider (2022)

Director: Ali Abbasi. Cast: Zar Amir-Ebrahimi, Mehdi Bajestani, Arash Ashtiani. 116 min. Crime/Thriller.

• Of course, on the heels of the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement in Iran, comes Holy Spider, based on the true story of a serial killer who in the '90s was targeting prostitutes in the holy city of Mashhad, and the female reporter who went to great lengths to expose him (I was in medical school at the time, when he was glamorized in the tabloids as the "Night Bat").
• While the Islamic Republic government of Iran is based in and thrives on misogyny, Holy Spider goes far deeper than that. It shows the struggles of merely being a woman in a theocracy, and how an act as simple as a lone female checking into a hotel is considered an act of defiance. How favorably a religious man is treated when he proves he's one of them ... but how even he cannot be sure of his fate when his acts ever so slightly undermine the system. How the simplest physical form of friendly affection (a kiss) is frowned upon, and how the act of sex becomes the direct antithesis of that other concept known as love. And surely, how the execution of violence by the self-righteous is supported, admired, and coveted by the religious community of a "holy" city, and that violence is passed onto next generations.
• Zar Amir-Ebrahimi won the Best Actress Award at this year's Cannes Film Festival, for her portrayal of the reporter. Amir-Ebrahimi, once an actress working in Iran, was banned from work and was forced to flee the country, after she was accused of appearing in a leaked sex tape (she denies the accusation). While at times difficult to keep your eyes on the screen during the protracted death scenes, watch this movie and come to believe her: she is a victim of the Holy Spider. 

MoGo's rating: 8/10

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Crimes of the Future (2022)

Director: David Cronenberg. Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart. 107 min. Sci-fi/Horror.

• Cronenberg is back to his 70s and 80s "body horror" origins, with all those gross, gooey, slimy body issues that are more grotesque than scary. This time it's in a future where physical pain no longer exists, and underground "mutated artist" groups put up shows of dissecting and harvesting newly created internal body organs ("artsy tumors"), either with an audience or live on camera. 
• While I was delighted to find Cronenberg back at his bizarre sense of horror (this time with some of the most attractive faces in the business), and while the main character's integration with machines to create new organs reminded of Cronenberg's own metal-fetish Crash (1996), or the recent Palm d'Or winner Titane (2021), the thought process behind repackaging and delivering his 80's style into our post-Covid times (when the concept of disease and "pain" could have far more connotations), was lost on me. Would've preferred to see Mortensen, Seydoux and Stewart in a plot as convoluted but less arthouse-like, in the able hands of David Cronenberg.

MoGo's rating: 6/10

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Tár (2022)

Director: Todd Field. Cast: Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Mark Strong. 158 min. Drama.

• You've most likely seen these people: elites who use their elitism as a shield, to say whatever they want and do whatever they want, and maybe even commit crimes, and then when confronted with their words or actions, intellectualize with some lengthy philosophical psychobabble that makes you wonder: What just happened?
• Cate Blanchette plays one of those elites. She's one of the greatest orchestra conductors of her time, and that shield has made her untouchable when to her own benefit, she abuses and ruins other people's lives. Don't want to spoil any further, but when you see her, you'll recognize: wow, she's so much like this or that highly-educated person I know - that person who looks very benign on the outside, but is a destructive force of nature; because of the smart ways they wiggle themselves out of the moral disgrace they advertise.
• The film has very long sequences of people sitting around talking, and that hurts the films pacing. But towards the end, you understand why the development of this character needed to be drawn out so much.

MoGo's rating: 7/10

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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Director: Ryan Coogler. Cast: Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira, Angela Bassett, Martin Freeman. 161 min. Fantasy/Action.

• Other than the small positive of having an interesting villain, the only major attribute I can assign this nth Marvel movie, is its beautiful send-off of its recently passed Black Panther role actor, Chadwick Bosman. And how do you make a sequel, when your main (beloved) actor is no longer with us? Simple: you respectfully don't include him, and as Persians might say, show how empty his spot is, because nothing can fill that spot. And that's exactly what Wakanda Forever perfectly does. Otherwise, no matter how hard Letitia Wright and Angela Bassett (as sister and mother of the deceased Black Panther) try, it's quite hard to keep this two and half hour plus movie (why are movies so long these days!!!) from getting boring. After all, the first time a superhero shows up, is almost almost two hours into the movie. Go figure.

MoGo's rating: 6/10

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Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Director: James Cameron. Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, Edie Falco. 192 min. Rated PG-13. Fantasy/Action.

• You can say James Cameron's (first) sequel to his epic 2009 movie is too long, you can say it's a reiteration of the original film combined with a Titanic ending, and you can say the multitude of new characters makes this episode slightly confusing. But you cannot doubt one thing: James Cameron is the grandmaster of his craft. The movie is long, but you can sit there watching those stunning underwater scenes with their mind-blowing fantasy creativity ... forever. 
• One criticism I've had for George Lucas' fantasy worlds, is that in a battle between two alien species (in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, for instance), you don't care much about the casualties of the good guy aliens. Here, in a movie where almost all characters are non-human, you cry for the death of one of them. Show me a scene where Lucas has ever made you shed a tear for a space alien.
• To top it all, rarely does anybody choreograph action sequences as good as Cameron does (remember Terminator 2, or Aliens?). Your eyes are glued to the screen for the entire last hour of this movie. In the era of easy, boring computerized action movies, that is a grand achievement. 
• But it's not all just razzle dazzle. There are some hidden messages: the first movie was a Dances with Wolves in space (one of ours joining them to become one of them), this one touches on the hardships of immigration, and the resulting xenophobia. And the environment-friendly vibes exude throughout.
• Avatar: The Way of Water is the ultimate movie entertainment experience. I dare you name a movie as visually stimulating as this one. Watch it on as big a screen as possible.
• (And Jim, we love your movies, but can you do it a little shorter next time?)

MoGo's rating: 8/10

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X (2022), Pearl (2022)

X: Director: Ti West. Cast: Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Brittany Snow. 105 min. Rated R. Horror.

Pearl: Director: Ti West. Cast: Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright. 103 min. Rated R. Horror.

• X is one of those films where from the very first Searchers-inspired frame (a dark room doorway opening to the horizon of a porch - in this case a blood-splattered porch), you know you're dealing with a great movie. After this introduction to the aftermath of a bloodbath in the house, with the chilling words of a priest preaching the Lord on TV in the background, we flash back to how this all happened, in 1979 - that most fun year in America. A group of young filmmakers embark in a van, under the sun, on a trip to a big house, owned by a creepy old couple, in a field in the middle of nowhere, with broken down cars in the vicinity (all obvious references to that other horror masterpiece, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), to film à la 70s vibes ... a porn movie. Although we know beforehand these youngsters will start getting killed off one by one in violent ways (like they used to in Camp Crystal Lake in Friday the 13th), it's the attention the movie pays to that old couple, particularly the old lady, whose name we're hinted to be Pearl, who longs the days she was young and pretty like these spoiled kids, that separates and elevates this from the usual gruesome horror genre of those years. And did I mention there are some truly scary moments here? Director Ti West shows that he knows (and loves) the medium, because X is that once-in-a-decade incredibly well-made horror movie.
• With Pearl, premiered this year a mere 6 months after the first movie, and set in 1918, we've already been primed that this will be the origin story of the old lady in X, that her husband is still fighting in one of those wars he was mentioned in X to survive from, and that she is waiting for her turn at acting superstardom. While not as scary as the first movie, the prequel continues X's simple love affair with cinema, this time in the form of bright colorful cinematography (as opposed to the dark gloom of X), multiple homages to the Golden Age of Hollywood, and Pearl's introduction to the hypnotism of watching something forbidden - on the screen. Not much of a surprise that legendary film director, historian and restoration artist, Martin Scorsese, has praised the movie. The shining light here is Mia Goth's portrayal as Pearl, with her long disturbing monologue towards the end revealing her descent into murderous insanity, and a final end-credits continuous close-up on her face, projecting a succession of contradictory emotions from a fractured mind.
• The third film of the trilogy, MaXXXine, is currently under development, and follows the story of Maxine from the first movie (played again by Mia Goth) and her acting career in the 80s.  

MoGo's rating (X): 9/10

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MoGo's rating (Pearl): 8/10

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The Menu (2022)

Director: Mark Mylod. Cast: Stars Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, John Leguizamo, Janet McTeer. 107 min. Thriller/Horror.

• A group of well-to-do people journey to a unique restaurant on a remote island to enjoy an exemplary dinner, hosted by a legendary chef. Their isolation from civilization creates the perfect setting for a horror movie, about the "obnoxious elitism" so accepted in the real world and so intentionally ignorant to the filth happening around them in the movie, you occasionally want to cheer at how these poor souls have sealed their fate by taking this luxurious trip. Nevertheless, some moments were so tense, I almost audibly gasped. Add to that Ralph Fiennes' villainous prowess, Anya Taylor-Joy's everlasting charm, and a subtle comedic touch, and you have an extremely watchable movie on your hands - even if it isn't able to maintain the thrilling tension it creates all the way till the end.

MoGo's rating: 8/10

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