Song of the Day: Plus Ten Best Movies!

Dylan's the "Man" plus my films of 2022--now let's see your choices!

It’s always amazed me when Dylan’s Oh Mercy album does not show up among picks for his best post-’60s albums. For me it is only topped by Blood on the Tracks and Time Out of Mind. (I will note that Daniel Lanois producced Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind and none of Bob’s others.) It’s good from beginning to end, avoiding the outright clunkers that mar so many of his “later” albums, with particular favorites being “Most of the Time,” “Everything Is Broken,” “What Was It You Wanted,” “Shooting Star,” “Ring Them Bells” and this classic, below: “Man in the Long Black Coat.”

It also inspired one of the best Dylan covers, by young Joan Osborne, on her first album, no less.

Bob revived “What Was It You Wanted” in his fine smoky special two years ago. Willie Nelson also has done a terrific cover.

Ten Best Movies (More or Less)

I guess it's time, or overdue, for my Ten Best Movies list, since I do it every year. And I always do it in two parts, a preliminary in late-December or early-January— before I have seen several of the likely competitors—and then a "final" list a little later. No documentaries eligible, although there have been many fine ones, including on music greats Louis Armstrong and Leonard Cohen, etc.

So my "so far" list follows (ignoring all docs):

**5 for sure:

Banshees, Women Talking, Happening, Tar, Argentina 1985. The other five may well come from strong films I have not yet seen (see candidates below).

**Will still be in the running:

Petite Maman

A Hero

Drive My Car

Lingui, the Sacred Bonds

Lost Illusions

**Liked, but outside the Top Ten for sure:

She Said

Emily the Criminal

Aftersun

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom

Benediction

All Quiet on the Western Front

Murina

**Strong candidates for Top Ten once I see them:

EO

No Bears

Living

All That Breathes

Decision to Leave

The Quiet Girl

Saint Omer

**Yes, I did see Fabelmans and Armageddon Time and Menu and Everything Everywhere and many other critic or audience faves. Enough said.

Now: Your comments and picks!

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Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s atomic bomb movie twisted by the White House and Pentagon), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His 2021 film, Atomic Cover-up, drew extraordinary acclaim, and his current one, The First Attack Ads, aired over hundreds of PBS stations this past fall. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.