Last Year: 2023 Best/Worst

Nate’s Extremely Fashionably Late Recap of the Films of 2024

Welcome back, dear reader, for my once a year look at the best and worst and everything in between in the year of cinema. Apologies for the significant delay. As I’m writing this, there’s literally only a few months left for the 2025 calendar. This is by far the most delayed I’ve ever finished one of my year-end warp-ups, and I’ll just accept the blame with an understanding that having a baby and losing my father within months of each other really consumed much of my time and emotional space. I just forgot about putting together my end-of-the-year thoughts on 2024 cinema. I have definitely seen fewer movies, and yet counting them up, it’s close to 100, which is honestly more than I was expecting. So, dear reader, my endless apologies for the extra wait you’ve had to endure but my family had a lot going on. With that said, 2024 had some excellent and unique movies propelled by singular artistic visions. I feel like the films occupying my Top Ten for the year are a diverse blend of genres and filmmakers, and I doubt any other critic has the same exact mix of movies to celebrate. So strap in and explore a look back through 2024.

But before going into all that 2024 had to offer at the theater, let’s turn back the clocks once more as I take another crack at my top ten list from 2023.

10) Aporia (previously 9)

9) Dungeons & Dragons (previously 8)

8) Robot Dreams (previously unlisted)

7) John Wick: Chapter 4 (unchanged)

6) Rye Lane (previously 5)

5) Dream Scenario (previously 4)

4) Poor Things (unchanged)

3) Anatomy of a Fall (unchanged)

2) Barbie (unchanged)

1) Across the Spider-Verse (unchanged)

Now, ladies and gents, it’s on with the big show from the year 2024.

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PART ONE: BEST/WORST FILMS OF 2024

BEST FILMS

10) The Wild Robot

There must be something personally appealing when it concerns movies about hopeful robots that serve as change agents to new communities. WALL-E and The Iron Giant are two of my favorite films of all time, and while The Wild Robot won’t quite enter that all-hallowed echelon, it’s still a heartfelt and lovely movie that can appeal to anyone. The characters are kept pretty simple but that doesn’t mean their emotions are. The movie, based upon a popular children’s book series by Peter Brown, is refreshingly mature about nature’s life cycle, not treating death like a taboo subject too dark for children. The themes of parenting, being different, and finding an accepting home through compassion and courage are all resonant no matter your age, and I’m happy to report that I teared up at several points. The parent-child relationship between the damaged robot and orphaned gosling extends beyond them, inspiring other members of the island’s food chain to work together for common goals and sustainability. The movie doesn’t quite close as strongly as it opens, but writer/director Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon) knows innately how to execute at such a high level where even simple characters and familiar themes have fully developed stories with soaring emotions that arrive fully earned.

9) Hit Man 

Hit Man is a movie that is wonderfully hard to describe. The premise has an easy-to-grasp hook that promises fun and hijinks, but where it goes from there takes on as many transformations as its protagonist, Gary Johnson (Glen Powell). It transforms from a fun game of undercover conning with wigs and silly accents into an unexpected rom-com hinging upon mistaken identity, maintaining assumed appearances, and secrets that then transforms into full film noir without losing its unique identity and the stakes of the character relationships. If you’d expect any filmmaker to pull off that trick, writer/director Richard Linklater has to be one of the best to keep things running smoothly, and that he does, as Hit Man is a crowd-pleasing comedy with some unexpected directions to keep everyone guessing until it lands on its own morally gray terms. Here is a fun, likable, and surprising indie comedy with definite mass appeal buoyed by great performances, clever writing, and a tonally shifting narrative to keep things fresh. Hit Man is a good time with good people pretending to be bad, or is it bad people pretending to be good.

8) Smile 2

From the opening sequence, it’s clear that we’re in the hands of a filmmaker that knows exactly what they’re doing. There were multiple sequences where I kept muttering variations of , “No,” or, “I don’t like that at all,” enough so that my wife in the other room would inquire what was directing these responses. In a just world, Naomi Scott would be at the front of the pack in the discussion for the Best Actress Oscar. This woman is put through the proverbial wringer and she showcases every frayed nerve, every degenerating thought with such verve and command. It’s essentially a performance of a woman completely breaking down mentally, but Scott doesn’t just go for broke, putting every ounce of effort into inhabiting the breakdown, she creates a character that reveals herself through the breakdown. It’s not just screaming hysterics and histrionics; there are different levels to her dismantling psyche, and Scott portrays them beautifully. By its nightmarish conclusion, Smile 2 finds a fitting and satisfying end stop that promises a possible even bigger and more disturbing escalation for a Smile 3. Finn has established himself with two movies as a major horror filmmaker who can work within the mid-major studio system and still keep a perspective and integrity.

7) The Fall Guy

The Fall Guy, loosely based upon the 1980s TV series starring Lee Majors, is not the best action movie, nor the best dedication to the efforts of Hollywood stunt performers, but walking away, I cannot help but think it’s perhaps the most summer blockbuster-y movie I’ve ever seen, a celebration of the magic of movies, the escapism of blockbusters, and the unsung heroes of the stunt community that deserve recognition and maybe even their own Oscar category. This is the kind of movie that reawakens feelings of cinematic elation, of what blockbuster cinema can accomplish with the right creatives in alignment, leaving a smile plastered across your face and a spring in your step leaving the theater. First of all, this is the Ryan Gosling show. If you’re a fan of the actor, especially his cavalier charisma that almost comes across as so cocksure to be enviably casual, then The Fall Guy is going to be a dream come true. There’s a special appeal about summer blockbuster movies and The Fall Guy understands that lasting appeal. It delivers a movie whose mission is to remind us why we love these kinds of movies, big and stylish and thrilling and romantic and enchantingly entertaining. It’s a movie that’s only interested in being two hours of excellent escapism, not setting up a cinematic universe or the next sequel leading to the next sequel and spin-off. It’s only concerned with telling its lone story, which is booed by the magnetic power of its leads and their buzzy chemistry together. Gosling is chiefly in the zone and supremely charming and funny. The Fall Guy is a treat for fans of action and the professionals that make all the action so incredible.

6) Dune: Part Two

I wasn’t fully taken with the first Dune movie when it arrived in 2021. It was visually sweeping, with dense world building and careful development of characters and themes, but then it just hit the pause button without any certainty there would be a conclusion. Thankfully, director Denis Villanueur was able to complete his vision, and what a spectacular science fiction landscape this man has fashioned, visually resplendent but also with a story that deepens and improves on all the promise and setup from 2021. The triumphant of Paul (Timothee Chalamet) becoming a hero and avenging his father from their betrayors is tempered by the tragedy of Paul, becoming the false messiah that will bring about mass genocide. The movie doesn’t hold back in its criticisms of its hero while also providing complexity that makes us root for him but uneasily dread what might become. The narrative structure is easy to follow with Paul ingratiating himself with the native culture, rising to power and influence, and organizing a resistance against the well-funded imperial overlords of Arakis. This is the kind of sumptuous, big screen spectacle with intelligence that is so rare in the Hollywood system, and Villaneur once again shows his ability to perform artful blockbusters that put him in a rarefied class with hew others. After the first Dune, I was hopeful but a little wary. After the second Dune, I feel like all of my concerns were wiped away.

5) It’s What’s Inside

This sneaky little movie is exactly what I’ve been asking for from low-budget genre cinema, where creative ingenuity and imagination are the dominant forces to offset budget limitations. It’s What’s Inside is ostensibly a body swap movie between a group of friends stuck in a mansion overnight. A device allows eight people to swap into other hosts, and it plays as a silly party game early, before writer/director Greg Jardin increases the stakes. People pretend to be someone else and then explore that freedom, which usually means having affairs and getting a little too comfortable in other people’s bodies. Then there are… complications, and watching the characters frantically debate their new challenges and limitations with growing mistrust, exasperation, and betrayal makes for a delicious 90 minutes of surprises. Because there are multiple rounds of body-swapping, and eight starting characters, Jardin takes particular points to better clarify identities, from characters wearing Polaroids to a red-tinted sort of x-ray showing the real characters underneath the confusing physical surface. All of it helps, though I still had to ask who was really who quite often. I think watching it a second time would make it more coherent but also give me even more appreciation for Jardin’s slippery, shifting screenwriting. Here is a movie with rampant intrigue and imagination to spare, that maximizes its creativity to tap the body swap as an illuminating and destructive device to explore secret insecurities, desires, jealousies, and dissatisfaction in a friends group. It’s a wild trip, elevated by energetic and helpful editing, where the ideas are the main feature.

4) Sing Sing

An uplifting ode to the power of the arts, Sing Sing follows the men of a prison arts program and it’s easily one of the finest films of 2024. We follow the men of the New York prison of the title, lead by Divine G Whitfield (Colman Domingo), a thespian that relishes the dramatic spotlight and the deserved lead of every production. When the next show is suggested as a comedy, Divine G has to accept ceding the spotlight and mentoring a promising but struggling new member (Clarence Maclin) with talent and potential. It’s effectively a “let’s put on a show” formula of old, however, the setting and the weary reflections are what provide the movie its power. All of these men have made mistakes in their respective lives to wind up here, though Divine G maintains his innocence and is preparing his case for a parole board hearing. This program allows them an escape, an opportunity as one puts it to “become human again” While some may scoff at the acting games and costumes, this is sacred ground, a precious oasis for them to discover more about themselves. The sincerity of Sing Sing is wince-inducing. It is beautiful, tender, compassionate, and deeply personal while being very universal. The lived-in details are fantastic and give great authenticity to these men and their stories, wonderfully portrayed by several non-actors making the most of their own spotlights. Domingo  is amazing as the proud and generous leader who is ably trying to lift his fellow men up even higher. The film concludes with real footage from the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program, and it’s the fitting culmination for a movie that readily reminds us how restorative and needed the arts are for a fuller sense of who we are.

3) Wicked: Part One

I was wary about Part One being 150 minutes, the same length as the ENTIRE Wicked stage show, but having seen the finished product, and by “finished” I mean one half, I can safely say that Wicked is genuinely fabulous and deftly defies the gravity of expectations. Wicked Part One only covers the events of the show’s first act, and yet it feels complete and satisfying and, even most surprising, extremely well paced. It’s hard for me to fathom what could have been lost to get the running time down as each scene adds something valuable to our better understanding of these characters and their progression and the discovery of the larger world.  I was on the verge of tears at several points and my heart felt as full as a balloon throughout because of the emotional engagement and heartwarming camaraderie between our two leading ladies. With all its razzle dazzle, Wicked is a story of feminine friendship first and foremost and emotionally rewarding to experience, with the soaring music as a bonus. While born in the early 2000s War on Terror Bush era of politics, Wicked’s themes of anti-immigrant fear-mongering as scapegoats still bears striking resonance today, as do the emerging warnings of fascism in Oz. If you’re a fan of The Wizard of Oz, musical theater, or even just grandiose spectacle that doesn’t dilute grandiose feelings, then step into Wicked and you too will feel like you’re floating on air.

2) Hundreds of Beavers

If you’re a fan of inspired slapstick comedy, and especially the Golden Era of classic cartoons (1944-1964), then Hundreds of Beavers will be a celebratory experience that could boast hundreds of laughs. I was in sheer awe of how many different joke scenarios it could devise with this scant premise, and I was happily surprised, no, elated, when the filmmakers kept this level of silliness and invention going until the very end of the movie. I really want to celebrate just how whimsically silly this movie can be, with humor that ranges from clever to stupid to stupidly clever. Much of the humor resides around the death and mutilation of animals, which isn’t surprising considering our hero’s goal is to gain hundreds of pelts. It never stops being funny seeing people dressed in giant animal mascot costumes to represent the wildlife. I said before that there was once or twice, during the first half, that I questioned whether we needed a feature-length version of this kind of movie. Then it occurred to me how rare such a movie like this is, how singular its vision can be, and how instead of questioning its duration, I then chose to celebrate its cheerful existence, and every new joke was a new opportunity to produce smiles and laughter, and I anxiously waited for the next and the next, my smile only broadening. Hundreds of Beavers is one of the craziest movies you will see but it’s also, at its core, a celebration of comedy and collaboration and the special appeal of moviemaking and those with a passion for being silly.

And the best movie of 2024 is………

1) The Substance

A movie that utilizes sensationalism to sensational effect. It’s a movie that is far more than the sum of its Frankenstein-esque body horror parts. While The Substance might not have much to say about aging and Hollywood that hasn’t been said before, where the movie separates itself from the pack is through the power of its voice. This is a movie that announces itself at every turn; it is a loud, emphatic personality that can take your breath away one moment and leave you riotously laughing the next. The vision and filmmaking voice of this movie is unmistakable, and while we’re covering familiar thematic ground on its many subjects, the director is assuring us, “Yes, but you haven’t seen my version,” and after a few minutes, I wanted to see wherever Coralie Fargeat wanted to take me. This is a first-rate body horror parable with wonderfully surreal touches throughout. It’s a movie that evokes strong feelings, chief among them a compulsive need to continue watching. It’s more than a body horror movie but it’s also an excellent body horror movie. Fargeat has established herself, in two movies, as an exciting filmmaker choosing to work within genre storytelling, reusing the tools of others to claim as her own with a proto-feminist spin and an absurdist grin. The Substance is the kind of filmgoing experience so many of us crave: vivid and unforgettable.

Honorable mention: The Brutalist, Rebel Ridge, Last Stop in Yuma County

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WORST FILMS

10) Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2

I figured there could be nowhere to go but up with a sequel, and while Blood and Honey 2 is an improvement in just about every way, it’s still not enough to qualify as a fun or ironic treat. I was hoping for more unique kills, twisted takes related to the characters, like Pooh turning some poor soul’s head into a honeypot. The kills are just grizzly and extensive, favoring quantity over quality. There are plenty of decapitations, gougings, impalings, and other fraught and violent encounters, nearly all of them featuring squealing, terrified women. It’s always women that seem to get the worst in these movies, but of course this is a feature and not a bug of the genre back to its 80s heyday. It gets relentless but I suppose at least these girls aren’t having their tops mysteriously fall off while they’re being butchered. While the budget has increased tenfold, Blood and Honey 2 is still a scuzzy, sleazy slasher movie at heart. If you’re in the mood for a low-budget exploitation movie heavy with gore, there may be enough to qualify this sequel as moderately mediocre, which again is a marked improvement from what I declared the worst movie of 2023. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 is just bad, and for that it’s an improvement.

9) The Strangers: Part One

The most terrifying part of The Strangers: Chapter 1 is during its closing seconds, as text appears to inform all of us woeful viewers: “To be continued.” Oh no. Chapter 1 is intended to be the first in a new trilogy bringing back the essential concept of the 2008 home invasion thriller, that the masked attackers have no agenda, no motivation, and are being sadistic silent tormentors just because. You’re here for the scares, of which Chapter 1 has precious few because I think these are the most unimpressive and lackadaisical home invaders I’ve ever seen. I think the Wet Bandits might give these goons a run for their money (I’d watch Kevin take on The Strangers). Much of the movie is spent waiting, or checking places around the cabin, sometimes while one intruder plays the piano for ambience. One could make an argument they’re toying with their prey, but I would counter that I just don’t think they’re good at their whole enterprise. It doesn’t help that the main couple are so boring and undeveloped and I found it hard to fear for their well-being. As far as memorable scares or set-pieces or ingenious obstacles or overcoming said obstacles, it’s a big miss on all counts. A home invasion scenario can be exciting and terrifying, and it can be delicious fun to turn the tables on the attackers. This movie has so little that even the core ideas feel stretched beyond their breaking point. It’s hard to even feel much reverence for the original here, as The Strangers: Chapter 1 feels more like the steady, unrelenting squeezing of all IP for any possible drops of renewed audience interest. If this is what Chapter 1 has to offer, please spare us the rest.

8) Reagan

Reagan the movie is a disappointing and reductive trip through one man’s Wikipedia summation of a career. The cumulative problem with Reagan the movie is that it doesn’t really add to a deeper understanding of the man. With its streamlined narrative and pacing, the movie sticks to its Greatest Hits of Reagan, especially his speeches. There are several famous Reagan speeches littered throughout the last act of the movie, and it doesn’t do much for a better understanding of the man delivering those remarks as just hitting upon people’s memories of the man in public venues. The movie portrays Reagan the man more like Saint Regan, arguing if there are any presentable faults they should be readily forgiven because it was all in pursuit of morally impregnable goals (he remarks that the vicious right-wing contras remind him of George Washington and the early colonial army…. yeah, sure). But to reduce everything down to his overwhelming oratory powers of persuasion makes it seem like everyone in the world is falling prey to a linguistic cheat code they are unaware of. It’s the kind of deification that we might see in a North Korean movie extolling the powers of Kim Jong-Un (“He golfed a hole-in-one with every hole”). This is what a hagiography does rather than an honest biography, and that is why Reagan becomes a relatively useless dramatic enterprise except for those already predisposed to wanting to have their nostalgia tickled and their worldviews safely confirmed.

7) Borderlands

I’ve never played the popular looter-shooter video game that Borderlands is based upon, but I have to say that the fan base certainly deserved more than a low-rent combination of Guardians of the Galaxy merry pranksters with Mad Max freakazoid wasteland gangs. You can clearly tell the specific X-Meets-Y of the pitch, although apparently writer/director Eli Roth was auspiciously inspired one day by, literally, watching his dog squat over and poop and said, “This, this has to be in the movie.” So, from those noble creative origins comes a movie that labors so hard to be breezy and fun but feels so gassed and desperate. In this future sci-fi universe, there’s a special planet that is populated with different space crooks and gangs all fighting to discover a hidden vault of legend. That’s the thing about Borderlands: everyone is obnoxious or trying badly to be so indifferently cool. It doesn’t work. Cate Blanchett is not the right fit for the lead character of Lilith, a blase bounty hunter/for-hire killer that finds herself gathering a band of bickering bandits. The movie wants us to see them as a dysfunctional family of lovable losers, but each mediocre character is distilled to an underwhelming essence of quips, snark, and stylish killing. If there was a whiff of personality to be had with the different characters, their different and conflicting perspectives, this universe and its interesting locations for world building, even the unique weapons and fighting abilities, there might be even some fleeting entertainment to be had. Alas. It’s not funny. It’s not exciting. It’s not visually appealing. It’s not interesting. It’s not surprising. It’s just sort of loud with capital A-attitude and a forced sense of jocular PG-13 whimsy. It’s not… a lot of important things.

6) Harold and the Purple Crayon

As an elder Millennial, I’ll try and ignore my rising bile for what they did to my boy Harold here, and I’ll simply ask who was this movie for? The big screen adaptation of the classic 1955 children’s book that celebrates the power of imagination is a mishmash of mawkish feel-good family nonsense, fantasy power wish-fulfillment, and grating fish-out-of-water comedic antics. Increasingly missable actor Zachery Levi plays yet another glorified man-baby, this time as an “adult” Harold who ventures into the Real World to search for his narrator, essentially the god of his purple-hued universe. He befriends a lonely boy with a big imagination and the kid’s single mom (poor Zooey Desceanel) and life lessons are learned while “adult” Harold makes a mess of just about everything as he leaves behind chaos and disaster. Eventually Harold has a full-on wizard duel against a villainous librarian and wannabe published fantasy author played by Jermaine Clement. That’s right, Harold and the Purple Crayon transforms into a magic battle over the fate of the all-powerful ring, I mean crayon. Making matters worse is Levi’s hyperactive schtick that has been growing stale for years and is tiresome and annoying throughout the movie. It’s also quite ironic, and phony, that a movie expressly proclaiming the power of individuality and imagination is so thoroughly and depressingly generic. This should have been animated or left alone, period.

5) Tarot

In the long line of horror movies about dumb teenagers stumbling onto curses, Tarot might be one of the most ineffective and ridiculous. First off, tarot readings are so detailed and specific, while also being vague to most of us unfamiliar with what you can find on the playing cards. This means the movie must constantly remind the viewer what the fateful readings were as well as the spooky imagery. Also, being a PG-13 movie, means that the terror is kept more on a psychological bullying level, where the teens have to “face their fears” but they’re not terribly personalized. One girl finds herself in a magician’s performance for ghouls and literally hides in a box only to be sawed in half. What was the personal fear there? Stage magicians? One guy is in a subway station and comes across a newspaper with his face on it and the headline, “You Die Today” (who says print media is dead…. wait a second). This is one of those movies that suffers because the rules of the curse are sketchy at best. We don’t know the escalation or how the teens might beat it. However, I wanted to almost applaud in amazement when the script practically plays an Uno Reverse card on its angry spirit (“If she’s killing everyone because they got their horoscope read, what if WE read HER horoscope to HER, huh?!”). The entire enterprise feels transparently like some studio exec optioned the concept of a tarot deck and said, “You know, make it haunted or whatever.” Unless you’re desperate for some derisive entertainment chuckles, skip Tarot.

4) It Ends with Us

If you’re expecting a charming romantic drama about a young woman moving back home and finding new love and rekindling romance with a past love, then you might be better off scanning the Hallmark Channel. For those blissfully unfamiliar with author Colleen Hoover, It Ends With Us is her best-seller about domestic abuse. Perhaps Hoover and the filmmakers are trying to better place us in the position of the abused spouse, providing context that some might use to excuse toxic behavior and red flags, but if they wanted to set up more of a love triangle, they’ve done a poor job. It’s grandiose soap opera plotting for serious subject matter. Credit director/co-star Baldoni for not soft-pedaling the treacherous nature of his character’s control and insecurity. There’s a great deal of very uncomfortable and disturbing abuse sequences, including a rape, for a PG-13 movie. Domestic abuse, and growing up in the shadow of domestic abuse, makes for some very challenging viewing. If the movie was more insightful, or honest, or even nuanced, it might be worth enduring the discomfort of its two hours. It’s not. It’s just punishing.

3) Joker: Folie à Deux

A fascinating misfire that comes across as downright disdainful of its audience, its studio, and its very existence. Add the bizarre musical factor, and I don’t know how else to describe Joker 2 but as an alienating and miserable protracted exercise in self-immolating artistic hubris. It’s so rare to see this level of artistic clout used to proverbially stick a finger in the eye of every fan and studio exec who might have hoped there could be something of value here. There’s a good deal of repetition with this sequel, as much of the plot is restating the events of the first film; that’s essentially what the courtroom drama facilitates as it trots out all the previous characters to recap their roles and point an accusatory finger back at Arthur. Joker 2 has plenty of talented people involved in front of and behind the camera, but to what end? What are all their troubles adding up to? It practically feels like a very expensive practical joke, on the audience, on the studio, and that is genuinely fascinating. However, it doesn’t make the end product any better, and the film’s transparent contempt sours every minute of action. Even if you were a super fan of Joker or morbidly curious, steer clear of Folie a Deux, a folly on all of us.

2) Megalopolis

The man is 85 years old and put all his remaining artistic cache and wealth into guaranteeing that we live in a world with Megalopolis. After seeing his long-gestating opus, I cannot say we are better for the trouble. This is a $100-million-dollar movie created entirely for one person, and if you happen to be Francis Ford Corolla, then congratulations, you will understand and properly appreciate the artistic messages and bravado of Megalopolis. For the rest of us poor souls, we’ll be struggling for meaning and insight. It’s an ungainly mess, a protracted and self-indulgent litany of Coppola’s foibles and follies, and it’s practically impenetrable for an audience. I challenge anyone to seriously engage with this movie beyond rubbernecking. I cannot believe this movie cost $100 million dollars and for a passion project there’s so little that makes me wonder how someone would be so passionate about this. It’s not a good movie but it has its own ongoing fascination for cinephiles morbidly curious what Coppola had to make. These are the kinds of bold artistic swings we should cherish, where filmmakers with storied careers are willing to burn it all down for one more project that must be just so, like Kevin Costner’s four-part Horizon Western that we’ll probably never see completed. I wanted artists to test the waters, to chase their visions, to be ambitious. But that doesn’t mean the art is always worth it.

And the worst film of 2024 is……….

1) Rebel Moon: The Director’s Cut

What a rarity for a movie to potentially appear twice on my worst of the year list, and such is the destiny of Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon, originally released in 2023 and the first half of 2024, and now with added lengthier director’s cuts. So what do you get in the newest “Snyder cuts” besides fewer hours in your day? Let’s tackle the opening sequence demonstrating the power and villainy of our evil empire as they invade a crumbling city in resistance. Within short order we’ve witnessed: 1) female priestesses being forcefully disrobed and having their breasts branded, 2) an adorable little CGI pet become a literal suicide bomber, 3) a son brutally beating his father’s brains out of his skull to spare their family only for them all to be massacred anyway. Yikes. While there is a little more world-building absent from Snyder’s prior cuts, like a religious sect that turns the teeth of their conquered victims into a decorative washboard, even the extra time, and it is literally hours over the course of the two parts, feels strained and still poorly developed to better understand the world, the characters, the conflict, the history, anything that could make Snyder’s hopeful franchise its own universe. There’s now a giant metal goddess whose tears fuel space travel. All right then. One of the more interesting characters, the samurai-esque loner robot, is given more material but he’s still just as inscrutable. There’s plenty more cruelty here, slow-motion head shots painting the screen in sticky viscera. There’s also plenty more breathless and awkwardly extended sex scenes, but hey, at least those are consensual, so there’s that. I’m just stunned why Netflix would want different versions of these movies when they’re ultimately all housed under the same banner. It sure feels like the “Snyder cut” brand is now an expected marketing ploy to be exploited for added publicity. After all, why watch one long slightly bloody poorly written sci-fi space opera, when you could watch TWO versions, one of which being even bloodier and more miserable? Will there be an even Snyderier Snyder cut, adding more scenes of side characters suffering and even more festishized gore in even slower motion? Will the whole movie just be played in slow motion, now requiring nine hours? Where does it even end?

Dishonorable mention: Kraven the Hunter, Kinds of Kindness, Drive-Away Dolls, A Family Affair

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PART TWO: VARIOUS AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

Best titles of the year: Sometimes I Think About Dying, Lisa Frankenstein, Love Lies Bleeding, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Let’s Start a Cult

Worst titles of the year: The Beekeeper, Argylle, Air Force One Down, Daddio, Nightbitch, Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver, Rebel Moon: Chapter One Director’s Cut: The Chalice of Blood, Rebel Moon: Chapter Two Director’s Cut: The Curse of Forgiveness

Titles that could be confused with porn: Husband for Sale; Hundreds of Beavers; Stress Positions, Unfrosted; Mother, Couch; Hot Frosty

Biggest Disappointment of 2024: Alex Garland’s maddeningly centrist say-nothing “both sides” political commentary Civil War. Watching Civil War feels like I’m only watching 45% of a movie that will never be filled in. By that I don’t mean I need every point spoon-fed to my stupid plebeian brain, but I needed a movie where the time added up to something more substantial than “people do bad things during war.” I kept mentally going back to The Purge franchise, a concept that asked what people might do if they had a brief window of lawless freedom, and what that says about us as a society when the rules are put on hold. That is a franchise that embraces its genre roots and premise but finds ways to make its concept a reflection of our troubled times, and while it’s blunt commentary, when we have Nazis marching in the streets, maybe blunt times call for blunt commentary. Civil War feels so timid to say anything really that might be relevant to our current anxious and fractious political climate. Civil War was disappointing to the point that I was longing for the clarity and conviction of The Purge.

Runners-up: Riley’s deep dark secret isn’t that she’s bisexual/queer? Come on Pixar, you had the ultimate opportunity right there with Inside Out 2; it’s unfair but Furiosa too

The Best 10 Minutes of 2024: The corrupt cops finally realize who they’re up against in Rebel Ridge. With just his opening scene, writer/director Jeremy Saulnier and his actors have made me feel vivid emotions and given me an underdog who I’m pulling for, a man who will come to serve as an honorable wrecking ball to this small-town police force who think they are above the law as it suits them. Saulnier’s movie tackles pertinent social topics with great care, but it also delivers a masterful and satisfying action-thriller that knows how to entertain first and foremost rather than just incite. That’s why it’s so immensely satisfying when our hero has finally had enough and the bad cops realize they harassed the wrong man. It’s a resounding catharsis that has been beautifully built up.

Runners-up: comeuppance in Blink Twice; the war rig goes out and gets attacked, Furiosa; Heretic goes deep with Creep and board games; “Defying Gravity” from Wicked; the sudden pregnancy and trance from The First Omen – seriously that movie is way better than it has any right to be

The Uglies Truth: Even though Uglies is based upon a book series that hails back to 2005, it feels so much like it was developed in a vat subsisting on the runny discharge from other YA dystopian projects, finally settling into an unappealing mixture of familiar tropes. In this post-apocalyptic future world, society has rebuilt itself with a caste system that celebrates beauty. Teenagers undergo surgical operations and brainwashing to make themselves a member of the Pretties, the cool kids. Our heroine is called Squint because society seems to think her eyes need work. There’s another character named Nose for the same reason, meaning that upon birth, I guess the doctor just holds up your baby and starts verbally roasting them. Squint is played by Netflix staple Joey King and therein lies one of our central adaptation problems. The rules of Hollywood will not allow unattractive lead actors in movies like this, so the filmmakers give her brunette hair and less makeup, as if we’re supposed to find movie star Joey King to be naturally hideous. It’s the same with every actor in the movie. Now, if you were going to adapt this to a visual medium, maybe you lean into the visual contrasts in a more specific manner: all the “Uglies” are minorities and all the “Pretties” are lighter-skinned or white. That would bring an added colorism commentary but it would also be steering the movie into a more dangerous relevancy. The plot is all simplistic high school battle lines about individualism versus conformity, self-acceptance versus assimilation, though the optics of having a trans woman (Laverne Cox) being the evil head of education forcing surgery on teens and brainwashing them feels quite like a bad choice of optics.

Movies I Won’t Be Watching Anytime Soon (Because of the Subject Matter. See: Directly Above for Why): Tuesday, His Three Daughters

New Yearly Award – Movies I’m Convinced My Dad Would Have Loved: The Substance. He was always hungry for new experiences, to be wowed by something he felt like he hadn’t quite seen before, to be transported to another world. He was also a fan of dark humor, ridiculous plot twists, and over-the-top violence, and I can hear his guffawing in my head now, thinking about him watching The Substance in sustained rapturous entertainment.

Runners-up: Hundreds of Beavers, Conclave, Last Stop in Yuma County

We Have Mean Girls at Home Award: Mean Girls 2024

Best Time I Had in a Theater in 2024: The Wild Robot. This was the second-to-last movie I saw in theatres with my father before his death. It was shortly before that he learned his brain cancer had come back after his first significant chemotherapy treatment. Because of its aggressive response, and the heavy toll of the chemo, my father elected to decline further chemo treatment. It was at this point that the inevitable was settling in, and he wanted to be part of a family outing to see a movie he knew his grandkids had been looking forward to. The movie was great, hence its placement in my top ten, but I remember my father was just so moved by the film, especially its artistry. It felt like now that he knew his time was borrowed, he was taking in the splendor of the art of animation and storytelling, and it hit him so wonderfully and affected him so greatly. It made me wish to share more movies with him before he was taken from my family, but he only had one more theatrical experience with Wicked, which he felt was a bit incomplete. I reminded him it only covered the first half of the stage musical and a second part was coming out in a year. We never had to say it out loud but the knowledge that he would never see that concluding movie was there. I love you dad. I’m glad The Wild Robot filled your heart so fully.

Thanks for Blowing Up Your Personal Wealth for Your Dream Project: Francis Ford Coppola for the $100-plus million budget for Megalopolis, and Kevin Costner putting $60 million, and a lien on a property, to begin his four-part Western saga, Horizon: An American Saga, of which only two parts have been filmed, one part was released to middling response, and there’s no stated plan to release the second.

The Worst Dialogue of 2024 (By Far): Megalopolis. It’s staggering to believe that the man who wrote Patton and The Godfather is the same man who wrote such lines like, “You’re anal as hell whereas I am oral as hell,” as Plaza looks face-first at Driver’s crotch. The dialogue in this movie is tortured and feels like it was written by A.I., or by aliens who were trying to recreate human social interactions but whose only archive of study was the amazing catalogue of movies by Neil Breen and Tommy Wiseau. The “Entitles me?” conversation that repeats itself four times, the “riches of my Emersonian mind,” to “when we ask questions, that’s basically a utopia,” to what might be the most eye-rolling line of 2024, where a vindictive Voight hides a tiny bow and arrow under a sheet by his waist and literally says, “What do you think of this boner I’ve got here?” Yes, the man who gave us The Godfather has also now given us, “What do you think of this boner I’ve got here?” The movie is so preoccupied with the fall of empires and yet a line of dialogue like that is a sign of the decline of an empire.

Runner-up: “She died and I never saw her again,” Kraven The Hunter; “You’re supposed to say ‘Polo’!” Night Swim; and of course the atonally sung, “From penis to vaginaaaaaaa” in Emilia Perez

Best Jennifer Lopez Streaming Venture: Atlas, an unfairly maligned sci-fi buddy movie that is better than critics made it out to be.

Worst Jennifer Lopez Streaming Venture: The Greatest Love Story Never Told, a two-and-a-half hour documentary about her romantic reunion with former flame Ben Affleck. They divorced months later.

Most Gratuitous Moment of 2024: Resurrecting Ian Holm for what? When the characters stroll through the derelict company ship, they discover the upper torso of a discarded android, like Ash (Ian Holm) in the original Alien. Not just like Ash because for all intents and purposes it is Ash, as the filmmakers resurrect Holm (who passed away in 2020) and use Deepfake A.I. technology to clumsily animate the man. This isn’t the first instance of a deceased actor brought back to screen by a digital double, from Fred Astaire dancing with a mop to Peter Cushing having a significant post-death supporting role in 2016’s Rogue One. Here’s the thing with just about all of these performances: they could have just been a different actor. Why did it have to be Grand Moth Tarkin (Cushing) and not just any other obsequious Empire middle manager? With Alien: Romulus, why does it have to be this specific version of an android when it could have been anyone else in the world besides the dearly departed Holm? I just can’t comprehend why the filmmakers decided to bring back Holm in order to play A DIFFERENT android who isn’t Ash but might as well be since he’s also been torn in half. It’s just a distracting and unnecessary blunder, the inclusion of which can only be justified by trying to appeal to fans by saying, “Hey, remember this character? Even though he’s not that character. Well. Here.” We used to readily accept other actors playing the same character before the rise in technology. Nobody watching The Godfather Part II wondered why Robert DeNiro wasn’t a slimmed-down Marlon Brando.

Runners-up: the entire second half of Queer, which drove my wife insane

Most Unexpected January 6th Inclusion: Jerry Seinfeld’s goofy history of Pop Tarts movie, Unfrosted

Most Ridiculous Plot Element of 2024: Madame Web saved by Pepsi (the choice of a new generation of spider-people). I’m generally agnostic when it comes to product placement in movies. People got to eat and drink and drive cars, and as long as it’s not obnoxious, then so be it. However, the product placement needs to be mentioned in Madame Web for its narrative prominence. Ezekiel Sims is battling Cass and the Spider girls atop a large warehouse with a giant Pepsi sign built onto scaffolding. Then the engineer of Ezekiel’s doom is none other than the falling “S” from Pepsi. That’s right, the villain is dispatched through the help of Pepsi, as well as a literal sign falling from above (cue: eye-roll). Without the assistance from Pepsi (or “Pep_I”), these women might not have lived. You can’t expect that kind of divine intervention from any other cola company. Coke was probably secretly working with the villain, giving him aid and comfort from being parched (begun these Cola Wars have). Deus ex Pepsi. It’s just so egregious and in-your-face that I laughed out loud.

Runners-up: Giant Lady Metaphors (?) from Love Lies Bleeding; the ability to stop time and heal from injuries because of magic substances that aren’t ever really explored for being so significant, etc., Megalopolis; at one point Emilia Perez transforms into Mrs. Doubtfire

Best Onscreen Death: The gloriously splatterific conclusion to The Substance. Bring a poncho.

Runner-up: the demented conclusion to Smile 2 with smile monster nightmare fuel; the climactic sacrifice in A Quiet Place: Day One; yoga gets extra stretchy with In a Violent Nature

Best Villain of 2024: Hugh Grant as Mr. Reed in Heretic. Grant’s magnetic about-face turn as a snide villain. The same self-effacing charms he worked so well in the realm of rom-coms have a new eerie manipulative quality, luring his prey into his fiendish trap.

Runner’s-up: Nosferatu and his inimitable accent; Denzel Washington in Gladiator II; Dementus in Furiosa; President Reagan in Reagan (wait, did I read the movie wrong?)

Amy Winehouse’s Dad is the Real Hero: Back to Black isn’t so much Amy’s movie as it is her father Mitch’s response to earlier portrayals. He’s portrayed here as a doting and loving father who only wanted what was best for her. You see, his initial refusal to the demands to send his daughter to rehab was because he wanted her to kick this whole addiction thing on her own. She didn’t want it so he wasn’t going to push her. If anything, he’s the hero of this movie, the proud papa who was let down by his daughter’s duplicitous boyfriend-turned-husband, the man who took his little girl away and turned her to the dark side of drugs. When you analyze the approach, it all comes across as a little insidious, a little icky, and unworthy of recreating this woman’s life experiences to better glorify her father. Abela gives it her all, it’s just too little to be had with Back to Black, a shallow biopic treading upon distaste. I’d recommend skipping this movie entirely, unless you’re irreversibly curious, and watch the 2015 documentary Amy instead. You’ll get a much better sense of Amy Winehouse the singer, the star, the addict, and most importantly, the complicated person.

Favorite Line From a Review in 2024: “…You might see things the way [the director] does, and every lingering and exaggerated beauty shot might make you chuckle. It’s body horror on all fronts, showing the grotesquery not just in how bodies degrade but how we degrade others’ bodies.” –The Substance

Runner-up: “When you walk a mile, or more accurately several, in another (dead) man’s shoes, maybe you start to see the world in his weary, irritable perspective and want that big nap back. –In a Violent Nature

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PART THREE: OVERALL MOVIE GRADES

I have reviews and mini-reviews for almost all of the graded movies listed below.

A

—-

Hundreds of Beavers

Sing Sing

The Substance

Wicked: Part One

 

A-

—

The Fall Guy

Hit Man

It’s What’s Inside

Smile 2

The Wild Robot

 

B+

—

Blink Twice

The Brutalist

Conclave

The First Omen

Last Stop in Yuma County

Rebel Ridge

A Real Pain

Snack Shack

Turtles All the Way Down

A Quiet Place: Day One

 

B

—

Abigail

Alien: Romulus

Atlas

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Carry On

Challengers

Deadpool & Wolverine

A Different Man

Furiosa

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Heretic

The Idea of You

IF

The Imaginary

Inside Out 2

I Saw the TV Glow

Juror #2

Love Lies Bleeding

Nickel Boys

Nosferatu

September 5

Twisters

 

B-

—

Anora

Babes

The Bikeriders

Damsel

Didi

Flow

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Gladiator II

Late Night with the Devil

Mean Girls

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Scoop

Trap

 

C+

—

Argylle

The Beekeeper

Civil War

A Complete Unknown

Daddio

In a Violent Nature

Jackpot!

Longlegs

Saturday Night

Spaceman

We Live in Time

Wolfs

Woman of the Hour

 

C

—

Back in Black

The Crow

Don’t Move

Emilia Perez

Horizon: An American Saga – Part One

Imaginary

Immaculate

Kinds of Kindness

Lisa Frankenstein

Madame Web

MaXXXine

Moana 2

Nightbitch

Night Swim

Time Cut

The Watchers

Unfrosted

Venom: The Last Dance

Y2K

 

C-

—

Borderlands

Drive-Away Dolls

A Family Affair

Kraven the Hunter

Queer

Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver

Reagan

Uglies

 

D+

—

Harold and the Purple Crayon

The Strangers: Chapter 1

Tarot

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2

 

D

—

It Ends with Us

Joker: Folie a Deux

Megalopolis

Rebel Moon: Director’s Cut

 

F

—