The first film of 2024 I watched was a Werner Herzog documentary called “Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds”. It was good. I thought it would set the tone for the types of movies I’d watch this year. The next film? “Inspector Gadget”.
On the whole, I have watched 186 movies since my stint with Herzog. Of those, 61 I figured were Good- a solid 32.8% of all movies. That’s higher than I expected, but not completely unsurprising. Only 42, or 22.6% of those movies were considered wholly bad. The rest, 83 movies, 44.6%, were tagged as YMMV, or Your Mileage May Vary. That seems like a surprisingly low number. It’s not so low that I feel like I have to go back and make sure that each movie has been rated correctly.
With that in context, let’s see which films I personally considered the best. At this point, I don’t think they’ll be in any particular order. Just 5 of the best, 5 of the worst. I also explained myself for a select few YMMV movies at the end. And, before you get all up and arms, yes, I know, not all of the movies on this list were released in 2024, but I also opted not to talk about something too old.
The Good
The Whale
I didn’t publish a review for this film, because I figured it didn’t really need me to talk about it. Brendan Frasier and Sadie Sink deliver powerhouse performances. The soundtrack was stellar. The story was unique and touching and depressing and uplifting all at the same time. The characters had depth to them that left people wondering about their motives and their stories. The film was based on a play, and as a result, most of it took place in a single room, but even then the film never felt claustrophobic or tired. The direction was constricted by the roots of the play, but was innovative enough to keep things fresh. The Whale is a story’s story. It is a tale of people, of triumph, of victory, of loss, of growth. It’s a magnificent and touching journey that only spans a few days, and only needs to span that long. It’s a film that should be watched, but need only be watched once.
I can’t imagine who would dislike it. Probably losers. Yeah. Only losers would dislike it. Or people who resonate with the main character. Or mormons.
Skinamarink
For fans of pop horror, or really anyone who can only consume pop fiction, Skinamarink is probably not up their alley, which takes the wind out of the sails of my rating a bit. Hell, I imagine that even hardcore ‘cinephiles’ were exhausted by the film. That being said, I think that this movie is a necessary watch for anyone who wishes to properly understand the roots of horror films.
It combines the truest roots of the genre, in familial horror, the fear being the unknown, helplessness in the face of fear, fear of the uncertainty, a proper usage of jumpscares, a proper usage of atmosphere, of horror being wrought by the story, not by the camera. I wrote about it at length, and I don’t think there’s more to say, but the film is on this list and I urge anyone with the patience and interest to critically watch this film and then decide if it isn’t instructive, if not innovative, in the genre of horror.
When it comes to Skinamarink, I don’t think you’re a loser if you dislike it, but you probably are a mormon.
Another Round
For the supposed amount of mental disturbants that probably makes the rounds in Hollywood, I’m surprised more films aren’t made about the dangers of alcohol. There’s Leaving Las Vegas at the top of the spire, and then somewhere along the line there’s Anne Hathaway’s Colossal. Somewhere in the middle lies Mads Mikkelsen’s Another Round, which doesn’t really conform to traditional American story tropes or structures. It’s an episodic film that’s catapulted by a single hypothesis: “What if there’s a right amount of alcohol that we can maintain that will bring us success?”
Of course, science teaches us that no, alcohol cannot truly be moderated, and it’s a slippery slope into the chasms of addiction, and there’s danger and destruction for your life down the line. The film explores a middle-aged man’s desire for greatness, and how he takes whatever path ahead of him to break away from mediocrity. At the end of the day, in an effort to reclaim his youth and vigor, what is he willing to risk? What is he willing to break on the way? The ending is bittersweet and jubilant, but dark and confuddling. It’s a tragedy without the death.
Another Round is a Danish film, and as such, would require subtitles. I think that those two facts alone would dissuade many viewers. The film’s story isn’t particularly active, and trots along at a pace that is hard to perceive, but by the ending much has occurred. I expect this film requires a bit of patience to watch, but not nearly as much as Skinamarink. I’m sure the mormons would love this one.
Zombie Strippers
Speaking of movies mormons would love, let’s talk about Zombie Strippers. As the titles suggests, the film features undead exotic dancers. The film also includes a scene where a zombie stripper shoots pool balls out of her vagina. The film also includes discussions about the commodification of women and stripping as an offshoot of a feminist reclamation of sexuality. Whoever wrote this film knew what they were doing. They possessed an irrational amount of self awareness when making a movie about strippers, and a fairly rational amount of self awareness when they decided they wanted to make a movie about strippers.
The reason this film is on my list is because it’s a very low-budget indie film, but it still contains and incredible amount of film knowledge. Allusions, clever camera tricks, fantastic effects, candid and ironic dialogue, and over-the-top acting and characters. It’s an incredibly intentional film, and it would never have been made if someone didn’t shrug off societal sneers for the sheer sake of indulgence. I can’t imagine anything more pure when it comes to the love of filmmaking: wanting to make a silly, exploitation film, but knowing what you’re doing every step of the way.
Poor Things
I promise, no more mormon jokes.
If Barbie was ‘baby’s first feminism movie’, then Poor Things is ‘teenager’s first feminism movie’. It’s not an insult that it’s not ‘adult’s first feminism movie’, because in America, we’re all fucking illiterate, and Barbie probably was many adults’ first feminist movie.
The film is incredible in many, many aspects. The cinematography itself could have carried the film. The acting alone could have done it. The story could have been a triumph alone. The fact that Yorgos Lanthimos (I spelled and remembered his name correctly on the first try) managed to wrangle all of these elements together is an absolute moment of brilliance. Poor Things is such a fantastic film in so many ways. The only thing I feel that handicaps it is the pacing, but even then, I think that that’s less of a flaw and more of a consequence- it’s hard to tell a life story within the runtime of a single movie.
Along the lines of American idiocy comes the rise of American prudism. I think many people inwardly were offended by this film, for one reason or another. I don’t think that this film would draw accolades from every American demographic, and I think that that’s just the reality of things. But honestly, if you’re reading an ironic movie review blog that features the Megan Fox clip from Transformers in every other review, then you’re probably gonna be ok with Emma Stone hanging dong.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
As a bonus, I’m including Furiosa in my top-5 list. Furiosa was my most anticipated film of all time because it followed up on Fury Road, which is my favorite film of all time. I was in complete awe of the absolute perfection that was the latter film, and I couldn’t wait for more of that.
As we all know, Furiosa was a colossal, epic box office flop. No one saw it coming. I still don’t get it, honestly. Knowing Furiosa and Fury Road, I would have honestly expected that people would have flocked to the film the opening weekend, and then the drop off would have been considerable, followed by a long amount of time where a very excited, dedicated group of people would trickle in.
The reason I thought this would happen is because if Fury Road is Metallica, Furiosa is Tool. If Fury Road is a weekend typhoon, Furiosa is ten days of rain. If Fury Road is Megan Fox’s one scene from Transformers, Furiosa is Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut. Does that make sense?
It’s still good, but in a completely different way. There’s action, yes, but not as much. The cinematography really leans into the aesthetic of Fury Road, which, in my opinion, is a slight detriment. But that type of stylistic and overt color is very rare in films, and it was bold to make that choice. I can’t help but respect that. The story is structured quite uniquely, and is told by chapter, with each chapter walking through the story of Furiosa’s life. While the story itself isn’t that interesting, and arguable glosses over the most interesting parts, I don’t think that that’s a detriment either. Furiosa was meant to be a myth, similar to Robert Eggers’ The Northman. An over-the-top story of mystical greatness and mystery. An answer to the question, ‘why are things the way they are?’
I hadn’t anticipated this, but the film let me down. It wasn’t bad, and I don’t think I disliked it, and after reflection, I had no reason to hold a grudge against it. It had always been an unfair, impossible task to ask George Miller to do Fury Road again. He could have. He absolutely could have. But that’s not Miller. That’s not even the point of the Mad Max movies, really. They’re simply passion projects, playing around in this world. We were lucky to have Fury Road, but we’re also lucky to have Furiosa.
The Bad
Murder Manual
I disliked this movie a lot. It’s an anthology of horror shorts, which I typically enjoy, but only if the individual or the overarching story is worthwhile. I liked VHS and its sequels, because they had a coherent theme. Murder Manual simply shelled out for Emilia Clarke to look forlorn for 15 minutes, then conscripted a bunch of uninspired directors to conscript a bunch of uninspired actors to pump out a series of uninspired films. This film is so bad that there’s hardly even any discussion about it on reddit. I honestly think that this film was made solely off the fact that Emilia Clarke’s agent is absolute DOGSHIT and they wanted to slap her on the cover to trick suckers like me into watching it.
Do not waste your time.
Unless you’re a mormon.
I don’t even think that the people who made this movie realized that it’s a shit movie.
Madame Webb
This is the kind of movie that allows people to be bullies, and they’d be totally validated in doing so. Madame Webb is a butchered, disgusting mess of a film. It’s a travesty and an insult to the very word ‘movie’. It’s a shitstain on the filmography of everyone involved. I honestly have never seen a film that was put together worse than this one. It was a mess, and a convoluted, fart of a mess. All of the headlining protagonists were harangued and shanghaied into participating in this film. I’ve never seen a film more remorseless in its exploitation of its women than Madame Webb.
There is no action, no spider suits, no logic- hell, there’s not even a single, normal, establishing shot of the villain in his full costume. The film just… forgot. And when the titular character is expositioned her powers, we slam headfirst into the climax, and then the end. What a dumb, effortless, mess of a film. I loved it. The film does not give a shit that it’s a bad movie. They literally could not care if you liked it or not.
Spin me Round
See, this film is a complete confusion to me. The film almost makes fun of its audience, but also forgets to tie its plotlines and remain coherent. I was enamored with the premise and mystery, but fucking befuddled by its execution. I’m still left scratching my head over it. Spin Me Round features Alison Brie and Aubrey Plaza, but I think that the former has a horrible agent, and the latter’s role was edited to shit.
I don’t think that this movie would successfully entertain any demographic, but if you do feel like watching it, please explain it to me. Please. I beg of you.
This film feels like it thinks it’s a good movie, but doesn’t realize that it’s actually not.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
So this movie came out a while ago, but I only just got around to seeing it. So I know it’s kind of cheating to have it on a 2024 list, but I don’t really care about the constructs of time, and I only care about me and my life and perception and stuff.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is the type of bad movie that knows it’s a bad movie, and leans into its absurdity. It’s a shit film because of how bombastic and extravagant it is in its ridiculousness. I think it’s worth a watch if you want to shut your brain off and drool at your screen like a hypnotized monkey, or maybe cosplay a mormon who’s just seen his first titties.
I wish we had a whole series of these movies.
The Watchers
M. Night Shyamalan is a fucking character, and this film is a product of his year of nepotism. While Trap was actually pretty good, despite his daughter, The Watchers was pretty bad, because of his other daughter. He has three daughters. I think he has a son, too. Who cares.
The premise was interesting. The premise is actually really good. It carries so much potential. The twist? Excellent. Also a great layer to add on top of the initial premise of ‘people in a bubble being observed’. The execution? Fucking self-indulgent. Stupid. Uninteresting. Bad to watch. Boring.
I think that someone needed to be really harsh with lady Shyamalan and tell her that her ending sucked and needed fixing. I think someone needed to tell her that her character insert protagonist was lame, and needed more rounding out. I think that someone needed to tell her that you can’t exposition the entire mystery and then have a 45-minute long third act full of conveniences and coincidences. LAME.
The Iron Claw
Ok, so this is probably gonna be very controversial to have on this list, and it’s included as another bonus entry. I saw The Iron Claw with a friend of mine who is a professional wrestler, and he loved the movie. For context he’s also the guy who dragged me into seeing Black Adam at 10pm on a Thursday.
The reason I feel that The Iron Claw wasn’t good or even YMMV is because I think the movie failed at being what it was. It wasn’t a poorly shot, edited, scripted, or acted film. By most common metrics, it was a pretty decent movie. I think that the demographics it was intended for would love it. I just felt like the film relied far too heavily on its moments of depression to carry its emotion. I didn’t feel like the film did justice to what it wanted to be. I could see the effort, and I don’t think they outright failed, but I also don’t think the characters were relatable enough. It felt like an amalgamation of their lives, rather than a coherent story about what led to what.
This is a film that only some people, the snootiest and uptight butthole of people, would think is bad. It probably doesn’t belong on this list, but I felt like I needed to justify myself to my four readers.
The YMMV
Heretic
I saw Heretic while traveling in Australia, and didn’t really get a chance to sit down and write about this movie, but I had a lot of thoughts. Most of those I did get to explore during a lively post-film chat, but didn’t bother writing it all down. Part of the reason was that there really wasn’t any online chatter about this movie, but partly because after all my yip yap, the final conclusion I came to was that the movie was meh.
The film hopes to discuss religion and its fruitlessness, and how it can be easily manipulated into getting people to obey. Hugh Grant’s performance was pretty good, and the first half of the movie was pretty decent. The writing was sound, the atmosphere was creepy, the cinematography was decent, the mystery was entrancing. Then, the curtain is pulled back- literally- and the movie stops being clever and gets increasingly trope-ified and ludicrous. The climax fails to deliver any true, resounding thesis to its previous discussions, and the action is wholly unsatisfying. It was far too gratuitous in itself.
On a personal note, (and heads up, SPOILERS) I was really hoping that there would be some supernatural element in the film that would present itself, ala Cabin in the Woods that transcended the human points of interference. I think that Heretic had a perfect set up to be a true supernatural or cosmic horror film, but ended up being a faux-intellectual self-indulgent snoozefest. It felt like someone wanted to make a movie based on a single, halfway decent metaphor for religion using monopoly.
Chaos Walking
This film really tested my critical thinking skills. Chaos Walking features an all-star cast of Mads Mikkelsen, Daisy Ridley, and Tom Holland in a sci-fi western coming of age film. The movie, for a lack of better words, tasted like a young adult novel adaptation. Like Maze Runner or Divergent. The main character is simultaneously special and also not special, and is chosen to embark on a task that would pit him against the foundations of the post-apocalyptic society he lives in, which also means that he gets the cool, badass girl at the end.
There weren’t any glaring issues in the movie, though. The story was interesting, the acting was acceptable (as much as I feel that Ridley is a darling, the poor thing can’t really act), the action was good, the writing was sound. It just wasn’t very interesting, I think. That, too, despite the really interesting sci-fi idea of all mens’ thoughts being audible to the people close by, and of all women having disappeared. That, too, despite the relatively fresh idea of combining sci-fi and western elements. That, too, despite the cute dog.
A Quiet Place: Day One
In the theme of ‘I think you lost the plot’ movies, A Quiet Place: Day One sort of misses the point, by essentially remaking the point of the first film. Be quiet, be innovative, avoid the noise monsters, and then some twink sacrifices himself for a girl. Then you throw in some of the frankly illogical sequences, like when a dude climbs on some I-beams over a nest of noise aliens, and he isn’t heard at all? No noise? Not even a little? For a cat? I love cats, but that’s fucking insane- go home!
As great as Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn are on their own, I don’t think they had very good chemistry, despite the film making earnest efforts to help us resonate with their characters. Maybe the film was lost on me, maybe I’m wrong. I’m open to that possibility!
The Pod Generation
I’ve already written about 3400 words about movies, and it’s 12 hours until the new year, and I’ve made myself write about this fucking movie. I don’t want to. Go read the review. There’s not much more I can milk from this movie.
Reminiscence
I’ve already written about 3450 words about movies, and it’s 12 hours until the new year, and I’ve made myself write about this fucking movie. I don’t want to. Go read the review. There’s not much more I can milk from this movie.
So in Sum
Thanks for reading my reviews in 2024. I didn’t really stick to my little promise of writing a review for every movie I watched, but I tried. I certainly tried. I also didn’t see as many movies as I wanted to. Hell, I didn’t even hit Platinum on my Cinemark membership. I’m not sure where all my time went, and I cannot tell you how disappointed I am that I’m only fourteen movies away from hitting 1500 movies at the end of the year. I started 2024 with a nice, even 1300. I know I could fenagle the system a bit and toss on fourteen bollywood movies that aren’t on the list, but that feels like cheating, y’know?
Again, thanks for reading my reviews, and if you reached this sentence, then thanks for reaching this sentence. I’m interested in how you interact with what I write, and if what I say has any bearing on your opinions or decisions about what movies you watch. The idea behind this blog was twofold. The first was to give me some critical excuse for the absolute avalanche of TV I watch. It feels less shitty if I have to write a book report about what I’ve watched rather than just C O N S U M E. The second was to, hopefully, answer the question for people: should I watch this movie? I think my new rating system is really aligned with answering this question, but I’m sure it can be improved- but only with your feedback. What worked? What didn’t? What did you like? What didn’t you? Too many dick jokes? Not enough film lingo? Let me know!
Happy new year, friends.
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