Top Ten of 2024

This is my least favorite post each year. First off, it’s impossible to watch everything, so I always feel like I’m missing something when I make my list. Second, I feel like I need to justify my list, even though hardly anyone reads it anyway. With that in mind, I decided to change things up a little this year. I’ll still have my completely subjective Top Ten, but my reasoning will be blissfully short for each film. And for the ton of other movies I want to acknowledge beyond a simple “Honorable Mention,” I have created a handful of other categories explaining what kept them from my top films this year. Some will have a little blurb added, and some will simply be listed. I’m just going with my gut this year because none of this matters, but I watched a bunch of movies in a very short time last year, and I need to document that. So here you go:

1. A Complete Unknown

I’m a Bob Dylan fan, and this captured what I love about his music. Of all the films released this year, this is the only one I can imagine rewatching and/or putting on in the background for years to come just to be in the world of the movie for a bit.

2. Nosferatu

Robert Eggers is my kind of filmmaker. The sequence at Orlock’s castle is an all-timer.

3. The Substance

Such a fun, wild ride. I thought a rewatch would diminish it, especially the ending, but I enjoyed it even more the second time around.

4. The Brutalist

I have a bad feeling that Brody is going to swoop in and steal the Oscar from Chalamet just like he did from Day-Lewis over twenty years ago. Still, I can’t deny how much this movie stuck with me. The score put it over the top for me; the reveal of the upside down Statue of Liberty coupled with the bombastic score is one of my favorite cinematic moments of the year.

5. Thelma

The surprise of the year for me. It had me crying, then laughing less than a minute later. This is one of those movies I cannot imagine anyone having a negative opinion of. Sure, some, like me, will like it more than others, but I can’t understand anyone hating it. I can’t say that about any other film in this post…

6. Civil War

…which brings me to Civil War. Yup, this one worked for me simply as a film about documenting modern warfare. Upon a rewatch, I still found many moments incredibly tense. Add some nice needle drops and beautiful destruction, and I’m all in.

7. Nickel Boys

At first glance, I thought this was just going to be one of those “serious” films about some terrible stuff that’s good, but not effective. I couldn’t be more wrong. Some dislike the POV style, but that’s precisely what made this film work for me. Because of that style, there are multiple haunting moments that have stayed with me weeks after first watching this.

8. In a Violent Nature

A few years ago, this wouldn’t have hit me all that hard. But recently I’ve embraced the slasher genre, and this felt like the perfect love letter to fans without getting gimmicky or too goofy.

9. Saturday Night

I usually hate this type of movie: a story told in hectic real time while too many impossibly chaotic and witty things happen to be believable. But, much like SNL itself, it somehow came together. And I don’t even hold those first years in high regard beyond respecting what they started. It made me laugh, and I never rolled my eyes.

10. The Bikeriders

Every year there’s a movie that is just a hang out movie for me that I want to put on to just be around the characters for a couple hours, and this it it.

Movies I need to watch again:

The Fall Guy

Longlegs

Deadpool and Wolverine

Love Lies Bleeding

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

I liked all of these movies, and there’s a good chance that if I revisited this year…uh…years from now, some or all of these could supplant other films. But something hasn’t clicked yet with these. Either I need some more time with it (Fall Guy), or I need to confirm the insanity was great (Bleeding), or I need to see if the fun survives another rewatch (Deadpool and Wolverine), or I need to feel the actual desire to watch it all the way through again (Furiosa), or maybe the greatness of it somehow missed me (Longlegs). Whatever the reason, these haven’t hit me yet.

Movies I liked, but wished I loved:

Gladiator II

Dune: Part Two

Anora

Hundreds of Beavers

Kinds of Kindness

Alien: Romulus

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Late Night with the Devil

This is the saddest category. In general, I want to love what I watch. I’ve never been someone who watches movies just to shit on them. I want my time to be enjoyable. And these films were enjoyable (some more than others), but I wanted to be consumed by them. Dune: Part Two probably came the closest, but I think I just want that to be one really long movie. Godzilla was fun, especially since my son is into it, but compared to Minus One, it just seems a little too insignificant. Horizon’s ridiculous title is everything that is wrong with that one, but I still want to see everything Costner has planned. Alien was just too into the past, though it’s still an amazing experience. You get the idea. 

Movies that are great, but I don’t plan on watching ever again:

Memoir of a Snail

Aattam

Mars Express

Sing Sing

A Real Pain

Conclave

A Different Man

His Three Daughters

I Saw the TV Glow

Rebel Ridge

Inside Out 2

Challengers

Sasquatch Sunset

These are the movies that make me hate making a list. It’s hard for me to come up with anything wrong with any of them, but being able to enjoy a film over and over again is important to me, and while all of these were special in their own way, I don’t want to experience them a second time. Although not watching at least part of Inside Out 2 again in my house is probably an impossibility.

Movies that everyone seemed to hate, but I thought were okay:

Joker: Folie á Duex

Borderlands

Here (The Zemeckis One)

Transformers One

This is my favorite category because of my aforementioned wish to love everything I watch. To be fair, I didn’t love any of these movies, but I was pleasantly surprised by all of them. With Joker, I wasn’t a big fan of the first one, so I kind of dug the direction it took; it’s still an unnecessary film, but I certainly found it more interesting than the first one. Borderlands is more of a missed opportunity choice. I enjoyed the wacky sci-fi world created for the film, but the rest of it, from the casting to the action, fell a bit flat. I think Roth might’ve had a very entertaining movie in his head at some point, but it got twisted into what it is now through studio meddling. Here is Zemeckis and Hanks trying to recreate the sappiness of Forrest Gump through de-aging and nostalgia. While the de-aging stuff bugs me, I’m a sucker for the nostalgia stuff, especially watching a family through the years as I raise my own children and watch how things change over time. It’s nothing special, but I do think people are too quick to shit on Zemeckis films these days. And finally, Transformers One. This is just here because my son liked it enough that he wanted to watch it a second time instead of seeing a new movie this past fall. As for me, it was all right, but I prefer the live action Transformers movies, even when they get all batshit crazy. 

So that’s that: proof that I watched a bunch of shit last year, and I plan on doing it again this year. Thanks for reading.

A Complete Unknown - Blow in the Wind: The Bobby Dylan Story

In theory, fuck this movie. It looks like the kind of typical music biopic shit that Walk Hard spoofed (and made by the guy who partially inspired the spoof in James Mangold). You have Dylan dressed like his album covers and literally shooting the pictures for his album covers, muttering lyrics, rushing into his apartment to get parts of songs down, etc. It all just appears too plain and unnecessary. Not to mention Dylan himself has always been aloof and downright deceptive about his origin to the point that films about him have been more about how he’s a different person at times (I’m Not There) or his inclusion in a film has to be fictionalized (Hayden Christensen’s underappreciated performance in Factory Girl). In fact, this movie in many ways looks like the film within a film in I’m Not There. Other filmmakers have looked at this idea and thought, “The only way to tell this story is to be meta or complete fiction.” But it works, and works amazingly well. Yes, the cliche moments are all there, but this isn’t trying to explain how Dylan became Dylan (the most you get in that department is that he is shown to always be listening to sounds on the street for inspiration); it’s a snapshot of a few years of his career. And everything here, especially how he handles his relationships, shows who he is more than any scenes from his childhood could.

But more than anything this is a film about music. I suppose it’s a musical, to a certain degree, which made me finally realize that I don’t dislike traditional musicals, I just don’t like show tunes. When I like the music, as I do here, then I’m on board. 

Beyond simply recreating many classic songs, A Complete Unknown is about Dylan’s emergence in the folk scene up to his “betrayal” by going electric in 1965. If I wasn’t already versed in this era, then I might watch this and think, “Who gives a fuck?” But the film does a great job of showing how monumental this was in the music world, and the real world, too. The culture shifted from peace and love to something a bit angrier. 

The culture isn’t the focus, of course. It’s about Bob Dylan, and how he cannot be defined beyond his claim early in the film of simply being a “musician.” He coasts in the world, going wherever it takes him, musically. This may seem like a Dylan fanboy thing to write, but he has written songs that sounded like they always existed and were just waiting for him to come along and reveal them. 

I suppose this is a good time to admit that I am a massive Bob Dylan fan (as if it wasn’t clear already, but for further evidence, I’ve included a picture below of the Bob Dylan-themed hot sauce I made). It’s hard for me to judge this movie on its own because of this fandom. I’m not sure I would care for this movie much at all if it wasn’t about the music of Dylan, Joan Baez, and Johnny Cash (among others). But I am a fan, and I can’t separate that part of me while watching this movie. So I understand why some people will shrug at this movie, and others, like me, will proclaim it the best film of the year. 

Being a fan of the music helped make this film emotionally powerful. I got chills during nearly every performance, and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” scene is possibly my favorite cinematic moment of the year. Once again, if I wasn’t such a fan of the source material, I don’t know if that scene does much for me. (Okay, I’m done apologizing for being a fan; but I did want to make that qualifier clear.)

Of course, this film hinges almost entirely on Timothée Chalamet’s performance. The singing is great, but what made it work the most were the small quirks: the mumbling, the little “yeah”s and “okay”s. A Dylan performance is tricky because he’s like Christopher Walken in that the goofy impression is more famous than the actual way the person talks and acts. Some of it’s unavoidable, but overall Chalamet’s Dylan felt like a person, not a caricature or impression. 

The rest of the cast is solid, as well. Monica Barbaro as Baez deserves plenty of credit, and Elle Fanning as a renamed (at Dylan's insistence, supposedly) Suze Rotolo is great as Sylvie. Her performance is most powerful when she’s just watching Dylan, and she has these perfectly sad eyes that convey everything that cannot be said. Boyd Holbrook continues to impress me this year as Johnny Cash (with this and The Bikeriders I no longer see him as the go-to redneck villain in movies). And Edward Norton is a great calming presence trying to keep folk from being swallowed by rock’n’roll.  

A Complete Unknown is a good movie all around that, depending on your fan status, is possibly an amazing experience. As a Dylan fan, I plan on putting this on in the future to just live in the world for a bit, even though there’s plenty of actual footage and recording of Dylan (and he’s still touring). This condensed version of a few years takes me to a place I just want to hang out in for a couple hours. I can watch old footage of Dylan all day from classic performances, but since I wasn’t there, it’s a bit removed. With Mangold’s staging of some of these performances (even if they never actually happed [Dylan didn't play "The Times They Are A-Changin'" at Newport in 1964, for example]), it made me feel like part of the audience, and it helped me experience something I miss when just watching old videos or listening to records. So yeah, in theory, fuck this movie; but in practice, for me, this was the most exhilarating movie of the year.

Random Thoughts

I'm a big believer in the idea that movies based on real events are still "just movies," but I still like to know what got changed and omitted. This article does a great job in that regard.

As soon as I get a chance, I need to watch Inside Llewyn Davis and this back to back.

Nice touch for the protester outside Seeger’s trial to have a sign with a grammatical error: “Better Dead Then Red.”

Awesome that they had James Austin Johnson in this; his Dylan through the eras impression is hilarious.

I’ve seen it a hundred times: a woman goes off on a school trip and her boyfriend starts banging Joan Baez while she’s gone.

“You want me to make sense 100% of the time?”

“Did you teach yourself to make coffee?” is such a funny line not just because it shows how close he was to being caught cheating, but also that he’s such a dipshit with normal life things that his girlfriend would say something like that as if he were a dog that learned how to make coffee.

Elle Fanning deserves a nomination just for her face during “The Times They Are A-Changin’.”

“It’s not a request-type concert. If you want to do that, go see, go see uh, Donovan. But here, we’re going to play new songs.” This is still accurate for Dylan concerts, for the most part.  

Dan Fogler’s “What…the…fffffffuck?” when Dylan calls him out at the concert is great.

A highlight for me was a high Johnny Cash offering Dylan a Bugle. The corn snack, not the instrument.

I know this is covered territory for Mangold, but I would really like him to make another Cash movie, but with Boyd Holbrook and it’s just the pill years. Maybe recreate that eating cake in the bushes picture.

It was a nice touch to have Seeger’s wife, Toshi, step in like historical accuracy personified and stop him from grabbing an axe.

Why were there multiple axes there, by the way?

I know Dylan insisted on at least one historical inaccuracy (though there were already plenty). I hope it was the inclusion of the “Judas!” / “I don’t believe you.” moment, which happened in England, not in Newport. I just don’t like it shoe-horned into that moment.

Holbrook’s Cash sounds a little like Bill Paxton when he gets excited. 

Norton is perfect as the sad, out-of-touch dad-type.