Best TV and movie scenes of 2022: 'The Bear,' Jenna Ortega's dance, Rusty Bowers and more

I saw some outstanding movies and TV shows in 2022.

Who didn’t? Every year starts off as if this is going to be when things fall apart, when there won’t be enough good choices to even cobble together a proper Top 10 list, and then suddenly it’s September and you already have too many choices.

The world is full of good stuff. Watching Car Seat Headrest perform “Drunk Drivers/KillerWhales” at the Van Buren in May was certainly one. Watching the way Marvel edited its opening credits to honor the late Chadwick Boseman in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” was another.

It was a jump-around kind of year. That’s why, instead of a traditional top 10 list (No. 1: “The Fabelmans,” by the way, followed by “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), I’m going with the 10 coolest things I saw in 2022.

The most anticipated TV series of 2023:From 'Agatha: Coven of Chaos' to 'Succession'

1. ‘The Bear’

I was late to the party. TV critic friends raved and said the Hulu show, about a formally trained chef (Jeremy Allen White, excellent) comes home to Chicago to take over his family’s sandwich shop after the death of his brother. It’s so intense that it’s hard to watch, they said. I didn’t believe it — till I watched. A perfect balance of the manic intensity of the restaurant business and dysfunctional family life.

2. Rusty Bowers testifying before the Jan. 6 committee

Every “episode” — I use that word knowingly — of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection was riveting. Bowers, the former Arizona House Speaker, describing how he stood firm against the lunatic pressure Donald Trump and his minions put on him to overturn results of the presidential election in Arizona, was a star witness. The hearings were presented like a TV show; the penultimate one even ended on a cliffhanger, when the committee voted to subpoena Trump. And, of course, the whole thing went out with a bang, referring Trump to the Department of Justice on at least four criminal charges. Sadly, the show won’t be renewed. Republicans won control of the House of Representatives and will shut the whole thing down.

3. Every second of Cate Blanchett’s performance in ‘TÁR’

Blanchett plays a famous, demanding and possibly delusional and abusive conductor Lydia Tár in Todd Field’s intense film. She commands every second of every frame. It’s one of the best performances I’ve seen by anyone, ever. People often say actors lose themselves in roles. This time it’s true. Just brilliant.

4. Every second of Amanda Seyfried’s performance in ‘The Dropout’

A different kind of intense performance. Much has been written about Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos who was convicted of fraud and is set to enter prison in 2023. (Arizona was a big part of the story.) With her Steve Jobs clothes and her husky voice, she was something of a mystery. Seyfried works at cracking that with a performance that was both empathetic and unforgiving. Standing ovation for when she works out how to modulate her voice, dropping it a register.

5. The last moment of the last scene of ‘The Fabelmans’

I won’t spoil this, but the best movie of the year ends with a shot that is surprisingly, wonderfully perfect, even for Steven Spielberg. The fictional version of the great director receives some advice; the real version shows that he’s still taking it. The film, about Spielberg growing up and becoming a filmmaker (including in Phoenix), is grittier than you might expect — and better for it.

6. Mia Goth’s song and dance in ‘Pearl’

It was a great year for Goth, the star of both “X” and its prequel, “Pearl.” In “X” she plays a budding porn star and an elderly villain. In “Pearl,” she portrays that villain as a young woman, and we learn where things went wrong for her. A key to that is an audition for a show on which she pins all of her hopes. Her desperation shows; the trip inside her mind is really something. Things do not go as she planned. And Goth expertly captures Pearl’s disintegration.

7. The dance scene in ‘Wednesday’

Speaking of unexpected dance scenes … Jenna Ortega is fantastic as Wednesday Addams in this Netflix series. Wednesday spends most of the show resisting friendship or social interaction — it’s part of her charm — but at a school dance she breaks out some truly bizarre moves as “Goo Goo Muck” by the Cramps plays. Ortega choreographed it herself. Outstanding.

8. The opening credits of ‘Pachinko’

One of the best series of the year also had the absolute best opening credits. The Apple TV+ show, based on Min Jin Lee’s novel, the show follows the fortunes and misfortunes of a Korean immigrant family over four generations. In the opening credits, which take place in a pachinko parlor, the actors — in character, despite the decades’ difference in costumes — dance to “Let’s Live for Today” by the Grass Roots. It’s incongruous, it’s odd and it is absolutely joyous.

9. Jon Stewart making Mark Brnovich squirm

Arizona was all over the place during the 2022 midterm election — and not just in traditional news reports. “Saturday Night Live” parodied Kari Lake — twice — Trevor Noah warned of the dangers of Lake’s election denialism on “The Daily Show” and Stewart brought his Apple TV+ show "The Problem" to the state. Stewart tried to get Mark Brnovich, the attorney general of Arizona, to simply say that the 2020 election was neither stolen nor fraudulent. Good luck with that. Brnovich can’t bring himself to do it. This stands in contrast to Brnovich’s appearance on “60 Minutes” in which he said, “I'm not like the clowns that throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks.” Geez, what a year.

10. The end credits for ‘Daddy Daughter Day Trip’

No, this isn’t like a Marvel movie, which often tease plot points of a future film. In the case of Rob Schneider’s truly awful film about a father trying to give his daughter the spring break of her dreams — which was shot in Arizona — it’s much simpler. The end credits let us know the movie is finally over.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

Subscribe to azcentral.com today. What are you waiting for?

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Coolest movie, TV scenes of 2022: 'Fabelmans,' 'Wednesday,' 'The Bear'