What Happened to Me in the Dark
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
Another in a series of tumultuous years, 2024 brought big changes both personally and politically, and while the future is uncertain, I still consider myself lucky. The movie year seemed to reflect this tumult and uncertainty. The onslaught of movies — seemingly more than ever before — came from every angle, and, due to my personal life (I'm attending graduate school), I saw less of them than I usually did. But I saw enough to feel confident to make my annual list. And here it is, with various little bonuses to follow (runners-up, horror films, the worst, etc.).
- The Top Ten -
10. Wicked
As I said in my review, I wasn't terribly excited to see Wicked, but
when I did, it was an uplifting experience. The film opens with a brief
birds-eye view of Dorothy, the Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow, and
I was reminded of all the times I saw The Wizard of Oz on TV as a kid,
twice on the big screen as an adult, and countless times on Blu-ray with
my young daughter, and of how much the characters meant. I was quickly
won over by how funny and charming and complex the new characters were,
and by the vibrant, crisp choreography and design (I usually detest
Broadway musicals adapted to the big screen). But it was, in the weeks
following the devastating results of the election, the depiction of hate
and racism — and themes of tolerance and acceptance — that struck me as
most profound and most necessary.
9. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
The only problem with Furiosa is that it was the follow-up to a movie
that, if we're being honest, was the best movie of its year, and perhaps
one of the greatest films ever made, the stuff of legend. Anything
compared to that will come up short. That, plus the puzzling box-office
fizzle of Furiosa left it in the dust. But it was still the summer's
most jaw-dropping thrill ride, a movie with so many incredible,
inventive moments, and such a grasp of space, speed, and feeling, that
it cements George Miller's status as a master.
8. Late Night with the Devil
Horror, long considered the outcast second-cousin of cinema, was the
genre most allowed to push the envelope in 2024. This is my horror movie
of the year, and the one I kept thinking about the most… I'm sure my
eyes lit up every time I talked about it. It's an incredible use of
found-footage and production design, re-creating a fictional late-night
television broadcast from Halloween, 1977, so authentic that it feels as
if the scares are happening organically, rather than something
engineered. It's anchored by a masterful performance by David
Dastmalchian as host Jack Delroy, a cunning showman determined to try
anything for ratings. If there were any justice, he'd get an Oscar
nomination.
7. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
My reaction to Radu Jude's previous movie Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
was, more or less, "the actual f--k did I just watch?" But the darn
thing wormed its way into my brain, and not in an unpleasant way. I
could feel that happening with this new one, a three-hour, Romanian
experimental comedy, made partly in black-and-white, partly with Tik-Tok
videos, and partly with archival footage from the early 1980s. It has a
lot to say while seeming to drift along aimlessly, and it's weird humor
sneaks up on you. Best of all is Ilinca Manolache as the overworked,
exhausted, but still plucky and puckish production assistant who spends
most of the movie in her car. If there were any justice, she'd get an
Oscar nomination.
6. Hard Truths
Another master, Mike Leigh, returns with his most acid character study
since Naked, a portrait of a woman so miserable that she's constantly
railing about the rudeness and stupidity of everyone around her. She's
Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a woman depressed but with no grasp of
this condition, or why she feels the way she does. She has no choice but
to rage, rage, rage. The men in her life have become timid shells,
quivering and cracking at her tirades. Yet the strange thing about this
film is how compulsively watchable it is. Pansy is so beautifully-drawn
and performed that she generates a kind of empathy; we can see who she
is even if she can't.
5. Sing Sing
This is another movie that generates empathy where there might otherwise
be none, inside a prison. It's based on three sources, a nonfiction
book, the crazy play written by Brent Buell, and the tales told by
real-life formerly incarcerated men Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin and
John "Divine G" Whitfield, who both receive story credit. Professional
performers like Oscar-nominees Colman Domingo and Paul Raci, and Bay
Area theater veteran Sean San José appear onscreen alongside
non-professionals. And yet this disparate tapestry comes together with
the utmost tenderness. Conversations seem to flow organically out of
thin air. Moments can be terrifying, hilarious, or deeply touching.
These characters are vulnerable, and their work in the theater helps
them become more trusting, in a way that is truly beautiful.
4. Evil Does Not Exist
The Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi returns with another complex,
novelistic — yet cinematic — film that suggests he might be a
much-needed young master. It's set in an idyllic eden-like village in
the woods, whose residents help each other out and share clean drinking
water from the ground. This is threatened when corporate interests
intend to build a "glamping" ground nearby, the results of which will
contaminate the water. Through fascinating character interactions,
characters demonstrate not what you'd call pure evil, but rather the
gray areas that can lead to evil actions, and the interlocked network of
good and evil that conspires against one another.
3. Juror #2
A man who needs no introduction, Clint Eastwood, made this at age 94,
and it's a better, more professional, more classical film than almost
all other American releases this year. Based on a brilliant screenplay
by Jonathan Abrams (in what appears to be his debut), the movie cooks up
a knotty situation in which a juror, Justin (Nicholas Hoult), realizes
that he's responsible for the accidental death of a woman, whose
boyfriend is now on trial for murder. It moves expertly, confidently,
rich in dialogue and situation and making perfect use of flashbacks. The
cast is uniformly great, but Toni Collette as the prosecuting attorney,
J.K. Simmons as a mystery juror, and Zoey Deutch as Justin's cheerful
(but worried) partner, deserve special notice. If there were any
justice, they'd get Oscar nominations.
2. Nickel Boys
The American film of the year, though it's a polarizing one. I applaud
director RaMell Ross, whose previous film was the experimental
documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, for applying his
uncommercial signature style to what otherwise would have been a stodgy
Awards Season Adaptation of an Important Novel meant to be suffered
through. He makes Colson Whitehead's story his own, telling the story of
an inhumane reform school for Blacks in the 1960s from the literal POV
of the two characters, as well as allowing the camera's gaze to wander,
finding the beauties, wonders, and horrors of the world in a way that
seems natural, and even poetic.
1. Close Your Eyes
I'm sure I did a double-take when I received a press release with
information about a new movie by Spanish filmmaker Victor Erice (The
Spirit of the Beehive), his first since 1992. Now age 84, he wasn't even
on my radar as someone who was still around to even make films, let
alone as someone who could actually get a film made after that much time
away. But the movie gods smiled upon us, and not only does this film
exist, but it's a masterpiece, and the finest film of the year. It's
about an unfinished film and the search for a lost actor, and it's about
cinema, memory, identity, community, and life. It's a film that takes
its time, lingering, ruminating, without ever feeling rushed or too
long. It feels like having a beer with an old friend on a porch
somewhere, and unpacking the mysteries of existence.
15 Runners-Up
Favorite Horor Films
Physical Media
(Note: I haven't made the jump to 4K just yet, so these are all Blu-ray releases)
The Year's Worst Films
Thanks for reading. I appreciate you all. May the future bring peace and joy to each and every one of you. -- JMA
