Let’s Review

Was 2024 an amazing year for movies, games or TV? No, not really. I would say 2023 was stronger at the top in all categories but you can’t have a great year without some down ones.

Let’s start with films. Here’s a quick look at last year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Picture:

You’ve got comedy, you’ve got auteurs, box office smashes and indie darlings, domestic and international. Movies that people actual saw and talked about were represented.

Now let’s take a look at this year’s nominees:

You’ve got a bit of the same here but it’s a bit underwhelming as a total package. Emilia Perez just got the second most nominations of any film ever and I can’t name a single person who’s seen it or wants to. Dune: Part Two was a monster of a film but has been largely forgotten so far in the awards races. You haven’t seen The Brutalist or Nickel Boys or the I’m Still Here. Maybe you will but I’d be willing to be you’re not racing out to do so. Which is fine. Do these award races even matter at all? Not at all. The average Academy Awards voter came out west in covered wagons so we really shouldn’t use them or any other awards body as a barometer of a film’s quality. Sometimes they get it right, way more often they’re not even in the same ballpark. It’s always up to each person. So here’s everything I saw this year and what I thought of them.

Movies:

The Fine, The Forgettable, The Meh:

This is the worst thing a film can be. Give me awful and shitty any day over something that elicits just a meager shrug when someone asks you how it was. It doesn’t even mean the films in this section were bad, I just don’t feel much thinking back on them and won’t be returning to them anytime soon. I’ll keep this section brief cause I’m not writing paragraphs about movies that barely take up a crawlspace in my memory.

Argylle – It’s okay. Those who were promised a Henry Cavill spy thriller will get it in the first 10 minutes and there only. From there it descends into silly, twisty, C Grade Matthew Vaughn schleck, full of high octane action scenes that will have you checking your watch until the credits roll. Sam Rockwell is having a lot of fun and does his best to save this but it’s a plane movie through and through.

Drive-Away Dolls – The Coens should get back together. They’ve struck oil more times in their career than most of the other directors on this list put together. But this one’s just from Ethan and it feels like a script he had lying around the trunk of his car and put it to film to have something to do. Margaret Qualley is as charming as ever but this isn’t even the best lesbian crime drama this year. Skip it.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire – The new Godzilla x Kong movie isn’t an instant classic. You’re shocked, I know. I give it points for having Godzilla sleep in the Roman Coliseum like a curled up cat, Dan Stevens performing a skyscraper sized root canal and Kong using a baby chimp as a baseball bat but that’s about where the positives end.

Monkey Man – This got marketed as Indian John Wick and that’s not really what it is. Coming from star and first time director Dev Patel and produced Jordan Peele, I was prepared for balls to the wall fights and kills. And while you do get some great stuff in that department, it’s bogged down by a lot more political drama and flashback heavy soul searching. The action and handheld camera work is really fierce and fiendish when it’s actually happening, but that’s too little and a bit too late. I suspect this is due to the shoestring budget they were working on so I’ll give credit for what’s there, I just wanted more action in my action movie.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – Yeah this was a big disappointment. The previous 3 Planet of the Apes movies were way better than they had any right to be and form arguably the best and most consistent trilogy since The Lord of the Rings films. I think that’s in large part to Rise which set an excellent foundation and Matt Reeves who came in and worked magic with the next two. Kingdom on the other hand feels like a film that was only made because those movies were hits and they wanted to cash in again. At two and a half hours it’s way too bloated and the finale copies the homework of the previous film to the letter. If you don’t have a good script or a good story to tell, don’t make a movie. That’s exactly how Star Wars got where it is now.

The Watchers – Hey a new movie from a Shyamalan! It’s set in a high concept weird place and features a cast slowly going a bit crazy and with a twist near the end that’s not as smart as it thinks it is! Is it a good movie? No. Is it fine? Sure. The perfect Shyamalan film.

Twisters – No one wanted to like this movie more than me. I’m here for Glen Powell as one of our next big stars. I’m here for indie directors making the jump to bigger budgets instead of giving this to Roland Emmerich. I’m here for legacy sequels if there’s a good reason to return to them. This one just didn’t do it for me. The cast are all good and the idea to invert the scientists and rowdy storm chasers from the first film is a smart move. But I wanted more, I wanted better action, less CGI and a reason to separate it from its predecessor. As it stands that one’s still head and shoulders above this for me. I’ll return to it at some point and give it another chance.

A Real Pain – This isn’t a bad movie at all and I waffled on whether to put it in the good category but it’s a movie I don’t think I’ll ever return to. As an acting showcase it’s great and might win Keiran Culkin the Oscar for Supporting Actor which is dumb because he’s the lead but that’s award navigating for you. It’s a very showy performance where he gets to go big and small, revealing all the layers of pain within him that he can’t win against. If you’re anything like me you’ll watch half of this through cringing away from the next meltdown you know is coming. It’s killer for an acting reel but as a movie I’m gonna leave this one alone. Also makes me never want to go to Poland.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim – It has one cool scene. That’s my enduring memory from seeing this in theaters. One cool scene where Brian Cox brings out that Logan Roy rage once more and fucks people up. Which is still better than Rings of Power.

Gladiator II – Now THIS is a movie that defines this category. A legacy sequel to a film which won Best Picture and Best actor, filled with new and old movie stars and from the same great director Ridley Scott. It had everything going for it and yet it came and went like a fart in the wind. No one’s talking about it, it had zero cultural or awards impact, it barely registered. I walked out of the theater thinking “that was the most mid thing I’ve seen this year.” And nothing topped it. Congratulations to Gladiator II, the most meh film of the year.

The Bad:

Joker: Folie à Deux – I think we made it an hour before we turned it off. It’s the only movie on this list I I didn’t finish so take a bow Todd Phillips. I’m no fan of the first Joker film and don’t get what people like about it so I feel pretty vindicated that everyone and their grandma universally agrees that this one sucks donkey nuts. It’s boring, it’s full of musical covers that add nothing, I don’t know what it’s trying to say and I frankly don’t care whatsoever. Good riddance.

The Beekeeper – Holy shit this movie’s so stupid. Jason Statham plays, you guessed it, a beekeeper. But lo and behold, that has a double meaning. Because in addition to actually tending to his beehive, the Beekeepers are actually a group of highly-skilled special forces that operate independently from the law or government jurisdiction. It’s as dumb as it sounds. This is a movie where Jason Statham walks into a crowd of SWAT team members and defeats them all with punches because they forgot they were carrying guns. It also features iconic lines such as “I’m a Beekeeper. I protect the hive. Sometimes I use fire to smoke out hornets.” I felt myself actively sending brain cells off to live on a farm while watching it. It’s the worst thing I saw this year. David Ayer and Statham are re-teaming for another “regular guy with regular job is actually ex special forces and hurts people” film and it seems like a threat. But I’m going to watch it. No way I could pass up a shoe in contender for dumbest film of 2025.

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver – I know, the title sounds like it was written by an edgy teen who thinks slow motion kills are badass and the coolest people around all have six packs. And it was, that edgy teen’s name is Zack Snyder. I’ll give credit where it’s due. Zack Snyder, like J.J. Abrams, is a very talented visual director. I believe that. But neither of them should ever be allowed within 50 yards of a writer’s room ever again. We’ve seen the disastrous results it yields with movies like Justice League and the Rebel Moon films. Actually probably just the former, almost no one else I know has actually watched these films. Well I have. They’re long and they’re bad and they’re stupid and it’s the closest we’ll ever see to a child getting hundreds of millions of dollars to make bad Star Wars fan fiction. Netflix even doubled down and allowed him to put out his now-standard extended cut of both entries now so make sure to fire those up if your Ambien prescription just isn’t getting it done.

Madame Web – Yeah, Madame Web is really bad. I can’t believe this isn’t the film that shut down the ill-fated Sonyverse. The prestigious honor belongs to Kraven which I still need to see. So I can only speak for this one. It sucks. It has no reason to exist. There is no plot. Dakota Johnson plays a total prick who awakens to the ability to see the short term future, which plays out with her processing this revelation in badly acted disbelief the five or so times it happens over the course of the film. The other Spider girls are here too. Why? So they can put them in Spider costumes for one micro scene and put it in the trailers. There’s also a villain, technically. He’s the guy in the black spider man suit. What is his backstory and goal? I don’t know. All his lines are ADR’d. It’s one of those movies you can tell got duct taped together in the editing bay. No one outside of the Mensa members over at Sony knows why this actually got made. It’s like watching the world’s most expensive two hour car crash. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Moana 2 – I was a little inebriated seeing this one but that definitely goes for a lot of other films on the list and they aren’t half as forgettable as this one is. I can’t name you one song, one plot point, one new character. It was as if someone hit me with a neuralyzer as soon as I walked out of the theater. And I like the first one a lot so I certainly didn’t want this to suck. Apparently this was supposed to a be TV series that got scrapped and rolled into a theatrical sequel instead at the last minute and it shows. Anything to hit those margins on time Disney. You corporate, soulless fucks.

Red One – This one’s kind of funny in that I have no idea who the target audience is. Is it for kids? That’s what I assumed but it’s rated PG-13 and has a fair bit of cursing which seems totally out of place for this kind of thing. I’m pretty sure parents wouldn’t be thrilled if Buddy the Elf let out a “what the shit?” out of nowhere. So is it for adults? Maybe if they’re the arrested development Disney Adult kind who seek out movies where Santa Claus delivers all the presents just in time and saves Christmas to give themselves the warm and fuzzies. Is it for teenagers? I kind of doubt it. Teenagers want to see something cool and for adults, not something aimed at their demographic by shameless and out of touch studio execs. So I don’t know who this film is for. It doesn’t have a single original idea going for it and I feel bad for every actor in this who should be making something better.

The Good:

Loves Lies Bleeding – The other, better lesbian crime drama on this list. A bodybuilding drifter rolls into town and hits it off with the girl who runs the local gym, only to be caught up in a web of steroids, domestic violence, dirty cops and taking care of business in the New Mexican desert. Throw in some trippy visuals and some of the worst haircuts I’ve ever seen on screen and you’ve got yourself a really good time. Katy O’Brien, Kristen Stewart and Ed Harris are all having a lot of fun with the material and it’s just a unique premise and style of movie I haven’t seen before and I’ll always take weirdness and originality over something banal and tread to death. Great black comedy ending too, love those.

Road House – Did we need a Road House remake? Of course not. Why remake a movie if the original is already good? Let alone one where Patrick Swayze ends a fight by ripping a dude’s throat out. But we live in the era of dwindling original ideas and safe studio decision-making so if we’re gonna get remakes whether we want them or not, they might as well be good. And I think this one is. Set in the sun drenched Florida Keys, Jake Gyllenhall’s Dalton takes the job as a bouncer not because he wants to, but because he’s a disgraced UFC fighter living out of his car with no better options. Even if he’s not having fun, the movie is. It’s a movie that knows that this is not material to be taken seriously. This gets amplified when Connor McGregor’s joyfully psychotic enforcer joins the film near the midpoint. Doug Liman has made some of my favorite action films including Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Edge of Tomorrow, both of which know that you’re allowed to have a lot of fun with this type of material and this one is no different.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – Henry Cavill leads a merry band of lovable killers on a secret mission to sabotage the Axis U-Boat supply chain and murder a dick load of Nazis en route to their goal. This is the most charming and likable Cavill has ever been, finally being freed from a string of playing morose, reluctant do-gooders. He and his team take absolute pleasure in their mission and Guy Ritchie can direct something like this in his sleep by now. The standout is Alan Ritchson’s Anders Lassen, the Danish gladiator who looks like the Hulk every time he’s on screen tearing Nazis apart with knives, arrows and hatchets. I think we could all use a little more Nazi killing reverie these days and if you need a fun barn burner to watch on a Friday night, you could do a lot worse than this.

Abigail – Radio Silence, the writing-directing team behind this movie made one of my all time favorite films in Ready or Not a few years back so I was very much looking forward to another original film from them after they’d spent the intervening years making Scream 5 and 6, both of which are fine. It also stars Dan Stevens who’s my favorite actor working today so yeah I was in the bag for this. It’s not as good as Ready or Not but it gets the most out of its premise. I wish the “twist” had been kept out of the marketing entirely but when it’s basically what the entire movie is about, I get why they had to steer into it. If you don’t know what this movie’s about I implore you to go in as blind as possible, don’t even look at a poster. Just know it’s about a bunch of mismatched criminals stuck in a house on babysitting duty, slowly turning against one another as the body count piles up in typical horror movie fashion. Major props to Alisha Weir as the titular Abigail, turning in one of the best child actor performances I’ve seen in a while. And of course to Dan Stevens for one of the best line deliveries of the year.

Longlegs – It’s really creepy. A serial killer film not as cut and dry as conventional wisdom would allow us to think it is. Not the scariest film of the year but super dark and tense throughout. If you watched Oz Perkins’s previous films The Blackcoat’s Daughter and Gretel & Hansel, you know this guy likes to live inside dread and make you scan the edges of the frame for evil. Maika Monroe does her best Clarice Starling impression here, obsessed and too close to a case which will ultimately hit her where she lives. Nicolas Cage does Nicolas Cage things, enlivened by excellent makeup and prosthetic work he clearly enjoys melting into. I dare you to watch this film and not do a Longlegs imitation afterwards. Bet you can’t.

Conclave – Conclave is the kind of movie that would’ve put a younger version of myself to sleep. A film about the political war of the different cardinals vying to see who will become the next Pope as they’re sequestered inside a conclave until the election is concluded? Yawn. But this actually kept my interest pretty well. This is an elderly white guy smorgasbord. Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, all bringing it. I am certainly no fan or the Catholic church but peering into that world and how petty and political scheming is prevalent everywhere kept my interest until the end. I’ve heard that the movie’s ending “twist” comes a bit out of nowhere and turns some people off. While I can understand why they’d feel that way, I didn’t have an issue with it and I thought it was handled well. Not my favorite film this year but it’s well made, well acted, well written, well shot. A movie of exceeding competence.

Cuckoo – If Longlegs is the reserved and thinking man’s mediation on evil and satanism then Cuckoo is the eerie and batshit mediation on European horror fuckduckery. Set in a secluded resort in the Bavarian Alps, Hunter Schafer’s Gretchen has to contend with isolation and the grief of her mother’s passing as she acclimates to her new environment and cold shoulders of her father and stepmother. And since this is a European set horror movie, you know she’s not going to arrive at catharsis without some thoroughly messed up speed bumps along the way. This movie will give you puzzling questions and great payoffs before the credits roll on its tight 100 minute runtime. Schafer is excellent here, giving a real physical and emotional anguished performance as she runs, bikes and slashes her way towards the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s really weird and you know how I feel about really weird. Gimme more.

Transformers One – I’m not a Transformers fan. Didn’t watch the show growing up, didn’t have the toys and didn’t watch the Michael Bay films because I thought they looked like visual diarrhea. But I heard this was good and if I can confirm that in under two hours then I usually will give it a try. This is definitely super watchable at the very least. It’s still a bit too kiddie for my liking and the characters arcs are rushed to get where they want to end up by the end but I’d be willing to bet 7 year old Sam would’ve loved this. I can acknowledge a film is good even if it’s not really for me and that’s this one for sure.

Rebel Ridge – A Netflix film that doesn’t go straight to the forgettable list, what a treat. As a big fan of writer-director Jeremy Saulnier’s previous films Blue Ruin and Green Room, I was excited to get another grounded and gritty entry from him. And this one delivers. A marine veteran rides his bike into a sleepy Lousiana town to post a much-needed bail for his cousin but is roughed up and accosted by a couple local cops who ‘legally’ seize his bail money and leave him high and dry and desperate. When his attempts to plea with the sheriff and to go through the legal system fall flat, he stops playing nice and puts his marine training to work to take back what’s his. I’d never heard of Aaron Pierre before seeing this and now I’m very much looking forward to what he does next, especially after he got cast as Jon Stewart in the new Green Lanterns show. The British are gonna take all our best American roles if we’re not careful.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 – A better kid’s movie than Transformers in my opinion, I was surprised to learn after watching it that the film clocks in at 110 minutes. I was prepared to lavish it with praise for what I presumed was closer to 90 minutes but it moves briskly and each fun setpiece feeds right into the next one so it feels shorter than it is. It’s really amusing that Jim Carrey has all but retired from other acting roles but continues to give 110% in these films, there is not a hint of phoning it in in his performance(s) whatsoever. I thought the original Sonic film was just alright but this franchise has only gotten better with each installment and this is definitely the best yet. So sure, keep it going with Sonic 4. I’ll be there.

The Substance – This one had been hyped up for me a lot with talk of how wild and crazy it was. Did it live up to that billing? Oh yeah, it’s definitely a thoroughly fucked up ride. But I didn’t love it like I expected to. If you’re unfamiliar with the premise, Demi Moore’s aging fitness guru gets laid off by Dennis Quaid’s devoutly disgusting network executive but she’s offered a chance to become young again via an anonymous benefactor. By injecting herself with THE SUBSTANCE, she’ll be able to trade a week of herself for a week of a younger, hotter version of herself played by Margarett Qualley. Following the rules is very important she’s told, so naturally following the rules quickly goes by the wayside as the younger version craves more time as her fame grows and her older version pays the price. This is all a metaphor for how Hollywood chews up and spits out women and trades them in for prettier and younger models as soon as the old one has outlived its usefulness. But to even call it a metaphor is generous. Whereas most films try to outline and unveil such hypocrisies, The Substance bashes you across the face with it like a sledgehammer. This may be the least subtle film I’ve seen in a while, all fish eye lenses and ass shots to pound you over the head with “isn’t this gross!?” It’s maximalist film making and while it’s undoubtedly effective, I don’t think it’s as smart as it thinks it is. I enjoyed it and both actresses are fantastic in it but I would not call it a favorite this year.

The Fall Guy – Did anyone else see this? It looked poised to be one of the biggest hits of the summer but it seems like it kind of came and went without much fanfare. It had arguably the best action director working today in David Leitch, bonafide move stars in Ryan Gosling and Emily stars who actually have chemistry and an overqualified supporting cast. Fun premise too. But nope, seems like it lost the studio money and disappeared. For what it’s worth I thought it was pretty good. Not amazing, but pretty good. Between this and Blade Runner 2049 I guess some of Gosling’s big swings are just going to be misses for the general public but they’re good movies so I hope he doesn’t change. He’s being talked about for a role in a Star Wars movie right now which just sounds so incredibly mismatched. I won’t be upset if I’m proven wrong but again, weird and original beats safe and well tread every single time.

Saturday Night – A movie about the fraught final hours leading up to the first ever broadcast of Saturday Night Live in October 1975, up and coming producer Lorne Michaels is going crazy trying to balance cutting down sketches, managing his egotistical cast and host, placating the producers who would just as soon cancel the whole thing and trying not to let the weight of it all drag him down into a psychotic abyss. The best part of the movie is the ensemble cast, some of which really look like future stars John Belushi and Chevy Chase and some who don’t but are very game. It’s an amusing but albeit unrealistic portrait of the manic hours leading into what became a pop cultural phenomenon which has endured into it’s 50th anniversary this year. It’s a solid hangout movie if you want to spend some time at NBC studios and see a fictionalized account of how it got onto the air.

Smile 2 – I’ve spent my January racing to clear up at least some of my 2024 backlog before writing this post. I’d heard Smile 2 was one of the better horror films of this year so I suggested to my girlfriend that we watch Smile 1 and 2 back to back since we’d never seen either. What a fun ride. While the first film is a novel premise that’s a meditation on trauma and how it’s passed down, the sequel opts for the bigger, better, funner route. Instead of a therapist slowly losing her mind to a demon that opts to torture with jump scares and smiling people only she can see, this time we’ve got a pop star who unfortunately gets the curse passed to her after trying to score painkillers for a chronic injury. Nearing the start of a new tour and already cracking under the pressure, the added mental anguish the curse brings quickly unravels her into fits of shouting, crying and alienating those around her. While they all chalk it up to either stress or falling off the wagon again, Naomi’s Scott’s virtuoso performance sees her completely go insane and lash out as the demon tortures her and us with increasingly high concept jump scares. It’s a movie that’s having a blast with the more bombastic tone it’s going for this time around and I enjoyed it immensely from the start to its big finish that left me eager to see what’s next for the franchise.

The Top 10:

10. I Saw The TV Glow – I’d heard a lot of great buzz about I Saw The TV Glow coming off the festival circuit so I was eager to see what the fuss was about in the months waiting for it to reach a streaming platform. All I knew was that it was a psychological horror film that was also a metaphor for the trans experience from relatively new writer-director Jane Schoenbrun. When I finally did see it, I was a little underwhelmed. It’s not exactly plot heavy, instead focusing on a teenage boy who bonds with a classmate over their shared love of a young adult show, The Pink Opaque. Their mutual obsession with it seems like the only positive thing they have to latch on to, as they struggle to find joy in their unpleasant home lives. When the credits rolled, I could see why critics liked it but chalked it up to it just not being for me. And yet in the months since that viewing, so much of it is still stuck in my mind. The dreamlike atmosphere that the movie is bathed in. The incredibly well worn and creative world of The Pink Opaque, something I could definitely see myself staying up late for as a kid after everyone else had gone to bed. The feeling of not belonging, the isolation, the enduring hope that you will someday find that supernatural door out of this place and into a better world. The color palette and ethereal quality of this film completely left its mark. Something I thought was just okay at first has really endured for me and I wouldn’t feel right leaving it out of my top 10.

9. Juror #2 – Billed as probably Clint Eastwood’s final directed film, Warner Bros. decided to give the old man one final fuck you by burying this with a limited release and little to no marketing. This is the same inept studio that’s been axing completed films for tax write offs and pissed off Christopher Nolan so much with their handling of Tenet that he left for Universal so their idiotic decision here is just par for the course. But I just can’t fathom why they left this out to dry. It’s the best courtroom drama I’ve seen in years. Nicholas Hoult plays the eponymous Juror #2 who suffers a crisis of conscience after realizing the case he’s been selected for might actually have more to do with him than he could’ve ever anticipated. It’s one of those movies where the central moral dilemma is so good, you’ll go back and forth in your mind about what you would do in this situation a dozen times. It’s a movie about how our legal systems are fallible and what the cost of doing the right thing is. It definitely deserved more than what WB gave it so yeah, check this one out.

8. Nosferatu – It’s nice to see Robert Eggers get a bonafide box office hit. The indie darling who debuted with the incredibly creepy The Witch and followed it up with the gonzo masterpiece The Lighthouse had a bit of a stumble when The Northman did not get the same love or box office numbers that was expected with the higher budget of that film. But now with Nosferatu, Eggers is seeing his brand of pain-staking gothic horror reach new audiences unfamiliar with his period piece proclivities. Set in the early 1800s, a young woman is marked for doom when her pleas for an answer to her loneliness is answered by a vampiric parasite who forges a psychic obsession with her and vows to make her his own. There are sequences and shots in this film that are absolutely breathtaking. The carriage scene and ride to the Translyvanian Castle is a wordless bravura piece of hauntingly beautiful in-camera filmmaking. Nicholas Hoult does some of the finest acting of his career when he first meets Orlok, his eyes conveying the immense terror he’s feeling more than any vocal communication could. The vampire’s clawed shadow, growing and reaching out over the town, is a shot that will stick with me for a while. Eggers was interviewed recently and said he’ll never make a modern day movie and if his films of old world dread are going to continue to be this good, I’m completely in favor of that.

7. The Order – Our third straight Nicholas Hoult film, take a bow sir. What a year for this guy. For those unfamiliar with The Order, Hoult plays the charismatic leader of a group of white supremacists who have splintered off from the main branch after being tired of talking about revolution and are now ready to start one. In order to do that they’ll need funding which means knocking over banks, armored cars, anything they hit with precision and escape before the cops arrive. While the local cops can’t do much to stop them, Jude Law’s hard drinking and hard smoking FBI agent shows up in town ready to trade blows, looking like he just crawled out of a True Detective pilot. The movie gets the most out of its 1980s Pacific Northwest setting as the two leads play cat and mouse with one another as the plot thickens over several months before reaching its inevitable boiling point. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

6. Oddity – There were a lot of great horror films this year and I did my best to see all of them. I saw a trailer for this before Longlegs and didn’t think much of it. When I finally did sit down to see it with a couple friends, we were all shocked at how good it was. The opening sequence had me the most scared of anything I’ve seen in a while. I was ON EDGE. The rest of the film has the tough job of following this scene up but it delivers. This is a movie that earns its frights, jump scares and otherwise. It’s smart, it’s well shot, the ending is awesome. Get ready to be scared.

5. Hit Man – What a pleasant surprise. Re-teaming with Richard Linklater after their excellent work in Everybody Wants Some!!, Glenn Powell goes from charming handsome guy to full blown movie star in this stellar dark comedy based on a true story of a college professor turned pretend hitman. This is played out over a series of fake assassin-client meet ups where Powell is having a blast getting them to incriminate themselves as he puts on increasingly silly disguises and characters. While that’s an amusing premise and getting to see his glow up from jorts-wearing dork to leather jacket lothario is beat for beat on point, the movie kicks into high gear when he begins his tryst with Adria Arjona’s Madison after she attempts to hire one of his alter egos to kill her abusive husband. From there it’s a balancing act of trying to continue to woo her as the would-be assassin she knows him as, and not letting the police force he’s working with know that he’s keeping up his acting charade after hours. As you can imagine, shit eventually goes sideways. This culminates in my favorite scene of any movie this year which I won’t spoil here but you’ll know it when it’s happening. It’s also far and away the sexiest film of the year. If you didn’t get around to seeing this one yet, add it to your list.

4. Deadpool & Wolverine – I know, only one MCU film came out this year and I put it this high on the list. What a Marvel shill I must be. But no, this is here because it was the best time I had at the movies this year. I saw it multiple times there. It just worked for me. The jokes landed, the song choices landed, the cameos were actually used smartly and I had a smile on my face the whole time. It’s certainly not perfect but I’m not here expecting a Deadpool film to be Citizen Kane. All I needed from this film was just to have a good time at the theater, laughing and enjoying my night. And it delivered that in spades. The MCU is definitely on the downswing the last few years and it feels like the lights are going to turn off soon but I’m glad we got one more really good time before it wraps up.

3. Alien: Romulus – I have one major, major complaint about this movie so I’m just going to get it out of the way now. We really need to stop bringing actors back from the dead using creepy CGI face technology. It’s in poor taste, it looks like shit and it completely breaks immersion and takes me out of whatever I’m watching every single time. Stop doing it. Just re-cast at that point or use a different character. It’s that simple. That way one of my favorite films of the year wouldn’t have a giant flashing asterisk next to it every time I watch it. And I do love this one. There’s so much else to like here. The set design and recreation of the retro-futurism look of the original Alien is wonderful. This world looks grimy, lived in and a horrible place to be stuck in. The slow build up is used to great effect here, I don’t think we even have an action scene for the first 40 or so minutes. The film takes its times to setup the world, the stakes and the characters before tossing them into hell with a ticking clock to propel them forward. It all looks and sounds fantastic, with an emphasis on practical effects that works like gangbusters. But you know a movie’s great when an audience makes audible gasps the way they did in my theater during the film’s final act. THAT is why I go to the movies. I wish I could bottle that feeling. I still wish they hadn’t gone the CGI resurrection route I spoke of before but it’s not nearly enough to overcome everything else this film does so right. I loved it.

2. Dune: Part Two – Dune: Part Two is the best film from this year. Why that’s been forgotten by awards voters just because it came out 11 months ago is simply beyond me. It has not gotten any worse since it came out, in fact it may be getting better still. While Part One had to do a lot of the heavy lifting of introducing this cold universe and the rules and characters who inhabit it, Part Two gets to hit the ground running and deliver amazing moment after amazing moment, all under the careful guiding hand of an elite director, cinematographer and composer. That’s to say nothing of the cast, which might be the most stacked of any blockbuster ever. Chalamet devours his transition of Paul from a desperate and out of place exile into the monstrous conqueror of Arrakis. This is juxtaposed by Zendaya’s Chani who turns from his loyal paramour into the glaring anti-zealot as everyone else around her falls into his planet-crushing orbit. I can’t believe how good some of these scenes are. The attack on the spice harvester, Paul’s initiation into sandworm riding, the Coliseum fight on Giedi Prime in inverted black and white. You watch something like that and realize we’re still capable of putting things on screen no one’s ever seem before and that’s exhilarating. From top to bottom, Dune: Part Two stands tall as the best film of the year.

1. Challengers – But it’s not my favorite, this one is. Zendaya sure can pick ’em. If only her characters’ could too. Presented in non linear fashion, Challengers tells the story of a tennis obsessed triumvirate who fall in love and fall apart from one another. This plays out via the framing device of a Challenger event where two former best friends play each other in the final match, while the girl who came between the watches from the stands. As we flash back and learn more about the characters, the film keeps returning to this final match which plays out over the course of the film. It’s an ingenious framing device, if not an entirely original one for a sports movie. But I don’t care. This movie has the juice. Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist are two actors I was totally unfamiliar with before this movie but they both inhabit their yin-yang characters so incredibly well and their chemistry with each other is absolutely essential, the movie doesn’t work at all without it. To that end, you can totally see why Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan would be the girl to drive a wedge between them. She’s ruthless in all aspects of her life and plays the friends against each other, making sure to get what she wants from each one as long as they’re useful to her. It’s this interplay between the three of them which gives the movie it’s beating heart. That and the absolutely sick propulsive score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that tears through this movie like a tornado. I’ve never heard a score used in a movie like this and it’s the soundtrack of the year hands down. Throw in some of the coolest camera work I’ve ever seen in a sports movie and this is just the total package. I feel like an absolute dunce for not seeing this in theaters but I will absolutely rectify that if it ever comes back. What a movie.

TV Shows

I didn’t watch a ton of TV this year. With so much new content constantly being vomited out by the streamers to try and push ahead of each other for your interest, it feels like there’s only so much bandwidth a person has and I personally prefer movies and videogames as my primary forms of entertainment consumption. Still, I did make sure to watch at least some of the good stuff even if I never could make myself sit down and watch Shōgun. Here’s what I watched instead:

Landman – Watch Landman. If there’s only one recommendation you actually follow through on from this section it should be this one. It’s created by Taylor Sheridan who transitioned from writing screenplays like Sicario and Hell or High Water to becoming a Paramount powerhouse by developing Yellowstone (and its spinoffs), Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King and Lioness. The guy must’ve taken the Limitless pill or something, there’s no other way to explain how you’re churning out a new show every year and writing and directing for all of them. But hey, it’s working. Landman might be his best yet. Starring Billy Bob Thornton as beleaguered oil company manager Tommy Norris, the show follows his daily juggling act of babysitting oil crews, trading threats with the cartel, sweeping lawsuits under the rug and balancing the most fucked up family life this side of the Lannisters. Thornton can probably play this role in his sleep by now, still looking like the pissed off, world weary, beat to shit alcoholic he’s mastered since his time as a Bad Santa and coach of the Bad News Bears. And there’s no one else I’d rather see do it. He gets some of the best monologues on TV and always makes a meal out of it. Ali Larter plays his jack rabbit ex wife who comes home to roost midway through the season and she’s having an absolute blast as the psychotic firecracker constantly throwing his world in and out of chaos. The rest of the cast are all very game for this material as well, even if some get the spotlight much more than others. Demi Moore has about six lines through that many episodes but is set up for a bigger role in season 2, and a bigger paycheck if she strikes Oscar gold for The Substance. This is a show that more than any other recognizes the need to be entertaining first and foremost, even and sometimes purposefully at the risk of losing the realism. Has it been a couple episodes since something blew up? Time to correct that. No one’s gone to the hospital in a minute? Welp, now they have. This show might be funner with some army guys now that I think of it. Great, they’ll be here next episode. And don’t get me started on the old folks strip club arc. Every person I recommended this show to got completely absorbed in it and I’ve gone through it twice already. I don’t even give a flying fuck about oil & gas and the idea of living in Midland makes me want to pop my kneecap off with a crowbar. But it sure is a fun place to visit.

X-Men ’97 – The only other show on this list I will unequivocally ride for, X-Men ’97 is a legacy sequel series to the X-Men animated show that played on Saturday mornings when I was a kid. If you’re like me and only caught a handful of those episodes or none at all, you don’t need to worry about being familiar with it in order to enjoy this modern update. Sure an overall knowledge of the X-Men and Marvel characters in general will only add to your enjoyment of it, but this is a perfect place for newcomers to start. Me and my friend started this on a Sunday afternoon expecting to watch just a couple episodes and ending up burning through the whole thing in one sitting. There’s a lot of praise to heap on this. It does an excellent job of balancing and swapping characters in and out, something a show with as large of a cast as the X-Men needs to do well. The core characters all go through some form of character development over the course of the 10 episodes, even if some storylines and character arcs are rushed to be able to fit everything in. The animation style which blends 2D and 3D animation, is one of the most gorgeous and colorful I’ve ever seen in an animated show. It’s just nice to actually have a superhero show that really pushes color to the forefront and not try to look muted or saturated in the vain pursuit of being grounded. Which this is not at all. It’s pure, pulpy comic book zaniness. Cloning, time travel, intergalactic politics, telepathic romance, it’s all here. And the show is better for it. Like most people who saw it, I’m eagerly awaiting season 2 even if I am a bit worried after the showrunner for the first season was axed due to alleged workplace misconduct. But even if the future seasons don’t live up to this one, it’s still a near perfect single season of television that is far better than most of the superhero content that’s come out over the last decade.

The Penguin – Your mileage for the Penguin may depend on how much superhero stuff you need in your superhero adjacent companion show to The Batman. Because there’s none here. This show has much more in common with the Sopranos than it does something like Loki. It’s all moody, gangster noir here. Colin Farrell is unrecognizable in makeup and in accent here, completely disappearing into the oily, odious, backstabbing Oz Cobb who would sell out anyone and everyone to make it just one inch closer to the top. He’s an utter scumbag who only looks out for himself and yet he’s so nakedly honest about his ambitions I couldn’t help but root for him. On the opposite side is Sofia Falcone, played with deranged abandon by Cristin Milioti, turning in career best work here as the prodigal mafiosa daughter whose back in Gotham and ready to make a (new) name for herself. Her wide, icy eyes consume every scene she’s in and she almost walks away with the show just by herself. If you’re someone who likes gangster shows and enjoyed The Batman, I think you’ll find a lot to like here.

Ted – I liked the Ted movie when it came out like everyone else. And I grew up on Family Guy and American Dad so I’m indebted to Seth McFarlane for tailoring my sense of humor. Naturally I had to at least see why he was compelled to keep this character going in the form of a sitcom style prequel series set in the 90s. And I’m so happy I did. The show is warmer and funnier than anything in the Ted movies. Max Burkholder is stellar as the younger version of Mark Wahlberg’s John Bennett and he and McFarlane as the voice of Ted have a real winning chemistry. There’s times where your brain will forget that the CGI bear isn’t real because of how good the interplay these two have is. At only 7 episodes, this feels like a side project Peacock was willing to take a chance on given McFarlane’s track record but also as a favor to him given his love of the character. But since then it’s become their most watched orignal program and the second season has already wrapped filming. This is the funniest pure comedy show I saw last year and I can recommend it to anyone and everyone.

Creature Commandos – The official first installment in the brand new DCU ahead of Superman coming in July, Creature Commandos is basically grungier Suicide Squad but with monsters instead of humans. Entirely written by James Gunn, the show follows a covert group of commandos tasked with the usual comic book motivations he’s been employing since the Guardians of the Galaxy. Gunn clearly loves playing with his broken toys, with every character getting a tragic backstory folded into the back panel of each episode. Clocking in at only 7 episodes and under half an hour each, you can knock this out in an afternoon like I did. Gunn excels at writing loveable misfits placed into impossible situations and its more of the same here. Watch his 2021 The Suicide Squad before foraying into this, it will help you understand the world and characters better.

True Detective: Night Country – As the 4th season of the ongoing series, it doesn’t nearly come close to the immaculate first season of the show, which is still a high water mark for any television show ever. Still, this is the first season since that debut to really keep my interest from week to week, following the interconnected mysteries at the center of a remote Alaskan town. The show uses its setting to great effect, showing the day to day lives of its characters who are now without days, only one long, everlasting night. It kept me guessing until the final episode, weaving in supernatural elements and twists along its jagged edges. It’s a perfect winter show so catch up now before it warms up.

House of the Dragon – I don’t think there’s much to say here. At this point you’re either fed up with the Game of Thrones HBO experience or are eagerly awaiting more. I’m in the latter camp but it does suck that with a lot of these shows we have to wait years between seasons. House of the Dragon so far has not lived up to the highs of the early seasons of Game of Thrones but thankfully it’s certainly much better than the lows of those later seasons. It sounds like they’ve sketched this show out to be about 4 or 5 seasons and the story is all known well ahead of time, thankfully. At this point it seems like George RR Martin will definitely be dead from a twinkie overdoes long before we finishes the final two books of the mainline series but as long as this show can land the plane on a storyline that’s already established, it will have done a better job than the original show by staying at a high level of quality throughout. Even if we do need to watch a YouTube recap every few years just to remember what happened.

Video Games:

2024 wasn’t an amazing year for gaming in my opinion. The AAA lineup just wasn’t there, evidenced by The Game of the Year nominees coming down to a card game, a DLC and a 10-15 hour platformer. I spent a lot of the year replaying old games I’ve beaten several times before including The Last of Us 2, Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and Ace Combat 7, not to mention the hundreds of hours I continued to sink into Hades, FTL and Rocket League. There were only a handful of new things I played this year that are worth discussing and some of them aren’t even from this year. But nowadays I play new games based on what comes on game pass or what goes on sale. The entry point for new games is just a much higher price point than seeing new movies, which will all find their way to an available streaming service much sooner than later. With that being said, here’s the new stuff I played this year:

Persona 3: Reload – A full top-to-bottom super stylish remake of Persona 3 with the Persona 5 approach and quality of life improvements in mind, Reload is the perfect place for anyone new to the series to start with. The game oozes polish, from the re-recorded excellent soundtrack to the gorgeous art style and graphics. This is a game that will have you happily spending time in its menus, given how joyous they look and sound. I can’t say that for many other games, if any at all. With that being said, I was looking forward to a shorter adventure this time around compared to Persona 5 and this one still had me clocking in at well over a hundred hours by the time I completed it which is simply going to be too much of a time sink for some people and I get that. Persona 5 is still the high water mark for the series for me given the music, the story, the personalized palaces and it being my first entry in the series but there’s so much to love here and this may well be my favorite cast of characters in the franchise. JRPGs can be a tough genre for a lot of western audiences to get into but I hope some people take a chance on them if they’ve never tried before.

Cyberpunk 2077 – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is my single favorite video game of all time so whatever game Polish studio CD Projekt Red decided to put out next, I was going to buy without hesitation. When it was announced that their next game was going to be a futuristic Cyberpunk open world game that looked like nothing we’d seen before, expectations were through the roof and future E3 presentations only fueled the hype train even more. Thanks Keanu. True to my word, I bought the title the day it came out for my Xbox One back in 2020. And it was a buggy, unfinished mess. Made for both the newer and older console generations at the time, Xbox One and Playstation 4 owners were left with a basically unplayable game, complete with pop in, a depleted frame rate and ugly, unloadable graphics. I returned the game almost immediately for a full refund and vowed to play it again when I upgraded to a next gen console and a few years down the line so that the developers could have time to fix all the issues with it. It’s sad that this is the state of gaming these days. Developer puts out broken game, everyone derides it, the developer fixes the game down the line through patches. It shouldn’t be this way but it is. After waiting several years playing other things, the studio had been patching the game routinely and winning back fans to its game which was slowly looking more and more like the original game that was promised. When they announced they’d be putting out one final patch in conjunction their Phantom Liberty DLC which would add a whole new wealth of content, it felt like the perfect time for me to jump back in and give the game another try. And boy was I right. This game dominated months of my time. I completed every side quest, every piece of content, upgraded my character to the max, basically devoured every piece of content this game made available. Which isn’t unusual for me to do in an RPG since I want to get the most out of it but still, I’ll only pour in that kind of investment if the game is worth doing so for. And this one definitely is. Playing the main game and Phantom Liberty back to back, my final playthrough clocked in at around 150 hours. It’s one of those games you just don’t want to put down and features an excellent main story, memorable characters, fantastic, fluid gameplay and a totally unique world worth losing time in. I’m so happy I enjoyed it as much as I did, and I know one day I’ll come back for another tour of Night City.

The Hitman Trilogy – I never really played any of the Hitman games until this year. I tried one when I was a kid but since it wasn’t Splinter Cell style gameplay like I was used to and I couldn’t understand how to engage with its systems, I quickly gave up on it. Well I tried the latest trilogy of games that have been put out the last few years and I had an absolute blast. The story is not much to speak of. Shadow agencies, corporate espionage, mysterious pasts, blah blah blah. It’s very by the numbers. The gameplay is the star here. Each mission sets you in a unique locale in a different part of the world. A fashion show in Paris, a snowy spa retreat in Hokkaido, a wine vineyard in Argentina, a skyscraper in Dubai. Every mission drops you in a wonderfully realized sandbox with a single goal: kill your target by any means necessary. Some missions add side objectives or task you with taking down multiple targets but the game is called Hitman for a reason. Find your mark and take them out. How you do that is completely up to you. Sure you could walk into their mansion and shoot them in the head and try escaping before you’re gunned down by their security detail but where’s the fun in that? The real fun of the game lies in getting close to the victim and taking them down without anyone knowing you were even there. Disguise yourself as their personal chef and poison their meal. Sabotage their automated surgical procedure and let them machine dice them up. Loosen the screws on their F1 car before they take off for their next lap and let them expire in a fireball on the track. The choices are completely up to you and that makes these missions endlessly replayble. Toss in a scoring system and a boatload of DLC and you can be murdering CEOs like Luigi for hours on end. Happy hunting.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC – It’s just DLC but everyone else is treating it like a full game and it’s certainly the length of one so sure I’ll add it here. Not much to really say about it though. Do you like Elden Ring? Well then you’ll like this. If you’re on the fence about playing Elden Ring then go ahead and take the plunge, I don’t know what you’re waiting for.

Helldivers 2 – Helldivers 2 is a blast and the closest thing we have to a Starship Troopers game. Jump online and join up with your sqaud as you blast your way through hordes of bugs and automatons across the galaxy as you spread democracy with pulse rifles and precision airstrikes. Definitely a game that’s better with friends so I’d recommend enlisting if you know other people to play with.

Balatro – Balatro is the kind of game that comes along every couple years that seems like such an amazing, slam dunk idea that you can’t believe no one thought of it sooner. A deck-building roguelite that will have you staying up til 3am trying to win another run, the game relies on you playing different poker hands to beat increasingly higher score thresholds in order to move on, improve your build and make it to the end of 24 rounds in order to win. Along the way you’ll improve your run by adding Jokers, colorful modifier cards which will be the difference between success and failure. How you approach each run is up to you. Will you go for the high risk, high rewards of trying to play straights? The less lucrative but more abundant flushes? The ever-safe two pair? Or go in without a hand in mind and see what the game gives you? Everything is on the table every time you start a new run. I bought this for my Switch because it seemed like a good game to be able to play handheld and boy was I more right than I ever could’ve imagined. I’ll play Balatro when I’m watching sports, Youtube, laying in bed, wherever. My friends got it too and there are times where the 3 of us will be chilling on the couch, all playing it on our different devices. I’ve declined to purchase it for my phone because I already spend enough time on it and I don’t want a digital crack pipe in my pocket everywhere I go. If you do buy it and even have a passing knowledge of poker, be prepared to lose hours and hours of your life to it. It’s a phenomenal game, one I can see myself playing over and over again for years to come and becoming the Solitaire for a new generation.

That’s all for 2024. I’m currently playing through Metaphor: Re Fantazio which is just fantasy Persona and getting my shit pushed in by Ninja Gaiden Black 2 which just dropped. The former I can recommend if you like JRPGs and the latter I can recommend if you have too many controllers lying around and need to break some. On the TV front I’m watching Severance season 2 with my girlfriend and I’m enjoying it, even if I found getting through the first season last month a bit of a slog. On the movie front we’ve got a couple cool horror flicks coming out soon with Companion and The Monkey from the creators of Barbarian and Longlegs respectively if those were up your alley. I hope you all enjoy an excellent 2025 watching and playing awesome stuff amidst your other hobbies. Have a great year everyone!