The Golden Brainie Culture Awards of 2022

Honorable mentions:

Best argument for granting Miles Teller at least partial clemency: Top Gun: Maverick

Best streaming-only release that no one fucking saw except for me: Honor Society

Best jokes in what’s supposed to be a downer movie: Benediction1

Most annoying surrounding conversation but the movie was still pretty good: Billy Eichner’s tweets, Bros

Goodness gracious, greatest balls of fire: Top Gun: Maverick

Best retconning of season 1: Stranger Things

Most fun title to say in a Boston accent: Avatar: The Way of Water

Funniest situation requiring a celebrity apology: Matthew Perry apparently calling for Keanu Reeves’ death (?!)

Funniest historical cameo: Will Byers’ school poster, Stranger Things

Most interminable: Bachelor in Paradise

Dumbest gag that got me every time: The hourly DONNNGGGG, Glass Onion

Most thrilling needle drop: “Running Up That Hill,” Stranger Things 

Best left turn into a buddy movie: Top Gun: Maverick

Worst script from an Oscar-winning screenwriter: Thor: Love and Thunder

Weirdest little guy: Willem Dafoe, The Northman

Coziest sweaters: The Banshees of Inisherin

Best misallocation of the script editor budget into licensing “The Chain”: Our Flag Means Death

Everyone raved about it and it just wasn’t really for me, sorry: Nope

Best deadpan pun: "Thumb. Drive.", The Batman

Most plot-relevant bees: Bridgerton

Best rediscovered classic: Goncharov

Most unexpected Cate Blanchett cameo: Spazzatura, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Biggest disappointment: What We Do in the Shadows

Most schadenfreude enjoyed because I have not forgiven anyone involved with The Big Bang Theory: Jim Parsons getting bullied a lot in A Man of No Importance

Wettest: Stranger Things

Most recent addition to the “you can’t trust Barry Keoghan” canon: The Batman2

Best onstage fake blood: Macbeth

The most fun I had in a movie theater (at the expense of the Harry Styles fans sitting next to us): Don’t Worry Darling

Most inexplicably fancy glasses: The Riddler, The Batman

Horse girliest: Avatar: The Way of Water

Best mystery-solving ascots since Scooby-Doo: Benoit Blanc, Glass Onion3

Song that led to me catching the most heat when I said I hated it in a crowded room: “As It Was,” Harry’s House

The Bronco Henry award for best memes about an awardsy movie: Tár

Best movie: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Here’s what I knew about this movie before going in: Rocks with googly eyes. Hot dog fingers. Taxes. Ke Huy Quan, a fixture of my childhood from The Goonies back for the first time in decades. A butt plug trophy behind Jamie Lee Curtis.

Given all this, I expected that I would love it, and I absolutely did—I cannot remember the last time I laughed that hard in a theater. Taxes have never seemed so high-stakes, and this is coming from someone with an irrational fear of the IRS.4 And as someone who loves an intricately choreographed fight scene with unconventional materials, watching my childhood hero wreck house with just a fanny pack felt almost indulgent.

But for those same reasons, I was not expecting to be this close to having a breakdown in the lobby of the 34th street AMC after the movie ended. I really don’t cry in public all that much, and also there was a Chekhov’s butt plug. And yet, all of that just set me up for the sucker punches like these:

Praise the Bagel that this movie exists.

Runners up: The Banshees of Inisherin, Glass Onion, Fire Island, Top Gun: Maverick, After Yang,5 Avatar: The Way of Water 

Didn’t get to in time, may have made the list: Bones and All, Armageddon Time, Aftersun, The Woman King, The Inspection, Women Talking, Tár, The Fabelmans6 

Best TV show: Severance

It’s truly wild to think that TV in 2022 peaked in January, but my job here is to report the facts. There was—and never has been—anything like Severance on television. No other show could make John Turturro learning how to drive in the finale episode feel like The Fast and the Suburban. No other show could give me a more visceral dislike of waffles. No other show could get me as invested in the interpersonal mess as I was in just what the hell is going on in Lumon’s depths. A show this profoundly weird, suspenseful, and original should be treated as a goddamn national treasure.

Runner up—truly so, so close: Star Trek - Strange New Worlds

Started and still need to finish: The Patient, Interview With the Vampire, The White Lotus7 

Didn’t get to in time, may have made the list: Andor,8 Yellowjackets, This Is Going to Hurt, Barry, The Bear

Best music: MUNA

This one’s kind of a cheat because I’m also factoring in About U and Saves the World, neither of which were released this year. But along with MUNA’s self-titled release, this band ruled 2022 for me—and I don’t even like “Silk Chiffon.” I keep coming back to “What I Want,” “Runner’s High,” “Loose Garment,” and “Home By Now,” and that’s just off of MUNA. Other shoutouts from past albums include “Navy Blue,” “Pink Light,” “Never,” “Everything,” and “End of Desire.”

This is the lyric that sealed the deal, from “Kind of Girl”:

I went back to therapy this year after a while, and man this hit home.

Also notable:9 

• DAWN FM - The Weeknd

• “Lavender Haze” and "The Great War" - Taylor Swift

• The After - Ky Vöss

• “Billions” - Caroline Polachek10 

• “Valentine, Texas” and “Heat Lightning” - Mitski

• CAPRISONGS - FKA Twigs

• "Overdrive" and "Anywhere With You" - Maggie Rogers

• "CHURCH GIRL" and "ALL UP IN YOUR MIND" - Beyoncé

• Bleed Out - The Mountain Goats

• “Holy (Till You Let Me Go)" - Rina Sawayama

• “Sidelines,” Phoebe Bridgers

• “Talking to Yourself" - Carly Rae Jepsen

Best theater: Cyrano de Bergerac

Sometimes what pushes something to the top is just personal. I can praise the direction, blocking, and script, but I was lucky enough to see a lot of shows that can boast the same. Downstate had one of my favorite stage designs of the year, A Strange Loop redefined the 11 o’clock number, and I have not seen a crowd go as insane as they did for Into the Woods since the glory days of Hamilton. 

This is really why I can never be an actual critic—I truly have no idea what makes something objectively good or successful or not. But I can say this: nothing made me feel more alive than Cyrano de Bergerac. For an electrifying almost three hours I got to luxuriate in a world where duels are fought not with swords, but with verse and a microphone cord. I’ll crib a bit from the NYT’s review here:

I walked out of that theater halfway in a daze, so much so that it took me a second to realize my cheeks hurt from smiling so much.

Runners up: A Strange Loop, Downstate, Into the Woods, A Man of No Importance, As You Like It

Runner runner up: Macbeth11 

Didn’t get to in time, may have made the list: Hangmen, Kimberly Akimbo, Topdog/Underdog, The Skin of Our Teeth12