The Films of 2024

[Matt]

CNN's documentaries are often mediocre, tepid affairs, but the newish documentary about Luther Vandross, Luther: Never Too Much, is really good. It's probably 60-70% performance clips, all the way from his work as a backup singer for Bowie and Chic to his eventual death. I consider myself a Luther fan and had no idea about his "real" debut album as leader of a vocal group called Luther (which has just been reissued); the number of TV commercials he provided vocals for (Löwenbräu ?!?); or the extent of his writing, arrangement, and production credits for other major artists (Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Teddy Pendergrass, Diana Ross, Whitney Houston). Truly a magnificent talent. Now I'm off to produce my biopic about his rise to fame starring Titus Burgess...

[thirtyframesasecond]

OK, well what I didn't know was that Vandross, Philip Bailey and Syreeta Wright sang those ad-libbed vocals in Stevie Wonder's 'Part Time Lover'. Luther had a terrific voice, absolutely effortless, and writing and recording 'Never Too Much' is more than what 99.9% of musicians will ever accomplish.

[nicolas]

The Director's Cut of Napoleon is a revelation. It's a completely different movie that focuses on his relationship with Josephine. Everything in the theatrical cut (e.g. battles/campaigns) is asides. How Ridley Scott doesn't have final cut at this point is a complete mystery to me. I hated the theatrical cut.

I also recently watched the entire DC and had a similar reaction compared to the terrible theatrical cut. The DC is the one to go as it feels like that cut was the original vision compared to the other. The 195 minutes of film actually flew by quite quickly. I still wouldn’t call the DC a masterpiece but a very well made, solid overview of Napoleon with a good Joaquin Phoenix performance and a number of stunning set pieces.

[Shanzam]

These days I'm watching a lot of film/TV adaptations of plays (Long Day's Journey into Night, Streetcar Named Desire), refreshing but a bit overwhelming to keep up with that much dialogue and indoor scenes, as for the films of 2024, I've watched The War of the Rohirrim and Mufasa (both among my favorite childhood stories) planning to watch Gladiator and Almodovar's recent film.

[beamish14]

These days I'm watching a lot of film/TV adaptations of plays (Long Day's Journey into Night, Streetcar Named Desire), refreshing but a bit overwhelming to keep up with that much dialogue and indoor scenes, as for the films of 2024, I've watched The War of the Rohirrim and Mufasa (both among my favorite childhood stories) planning to watch Gladiator and Almodovar's recent film.

Funny, I’ve been watching many O’Neill adaptations as well. I love the 1996 Canadian Long Day’s Journey Into Night. A new adaptation is supposed to be released this year

[Shanzam]

These days I'm watching a lot of film/TV adaptations of plays (Long Day's Journey into Night, Streetcar Named Desire), refreshing but a bit overwhelming to keep up with that much dialogue and indoor scenes, as for the films of 2024, I've watched The War of the Rohirrim and Mufasa (both among my favorite childhood stories) planning to watch Gladiator and Almodovar's recent film.

Funny, I’ve been watching many O’Neill adaptations as well. I love the 1996 Canadian Long Day’s Journey Into Night. A new adaptation is supposed to be released this year

This is the 1987 version directed by Jonathan Miller, I still have few scenes to watch.

[knives]

It’s not a surprise that there has been no discussion of Maria here as it’s such a weak film it doesn’t even accomplish the excitement of going to the well once too often. It’s a radically different experience from the other two great women films because there doesn’t seem to be a single perspective of Callas with the film just slowly revealing her whole life. Even the artistic conceit of this largely taking place in her mind doesn’t do anything to make Callas a compelling part of her own story.

[Matt]

It’s not a surprise that there has been no discussion of Maria here as it’s such a weak film it doesn’t even accomplish the excitement of going to the well once too often. It’s a radically different experience from the other two great women films because there doesn’t seem to be a single perspective of Callas with the film just slowly revealing her whole life. Even the artistic conceit of this largely taking place in her mind doesn’t do anything to make Callas a compelling part of her own story.

It’s no surprise that it looks fantastic thanks to Ed Lachmann and the production/costume design. Angie is just not up to the task, however. It’s an extremely restrained, mannered performance, and you can instantly see where she went wrong when footage of the lively real Callas rolls during the end credits. It always seems like a really bad idea to end a biopic with footage of the real subject, yet so many do it.

There is one scene (Maria in the cafe with her sister) where the brittle facade crumbles and some real emotion comes out, and I thought it was perfect. Otherwise, the shots of her walking alone around Paris are the best parts of the movie.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I don't think A Real Pain had much discussion, but I thought it was an incredibly assured directorial debut by Jesse Eisenberg, a comedy-drama that struck a good balance in tones. Strong performances all round and Kieran Culkin will really deserve that Oscar.

[therewillbeblus]

His debut was actually When You Finish Saving the World, also produced by Fruit Tree

[knives]

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium) – Daunting, encyclopaedic found-footage account of the rise and fall of Patrice Lumumba and its international repercussions, all footnoted to within an inch of its life. Grimonprez’s unlikely thesis is that this scandal has intimate ties with American jazz, but he finds enough evidence to back it up, and it means that the film has perhaps the most awesome soundtrack ever assembled.

The board is really sleeping on this film which is the best Adam Curtis film ever. A huge part of the fun to the film is seeing if Grimonprez can keep up things as it dazzles visually and aurally with a dense conspiracy which he sees the recompressions of to this day. The film is often painfully disruptive especially with the intrusion of modern ads, but never to the detriment of the narrative which is maintained in painful crystal clarity.

[hearthesilence]

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium) – Daunting, encyclopaedic found-footage account of the rise and fall of Patrice Lumumba and its international repercussions, all footnoted to within an inch of its life. Grimonprez’s unlikely thesis is that this scandal has intimate ties with American jazz, but he finds enough evidence to back it up, and it means that the film has perhaps the most awesome soundtrack ever assembled.

The board is really sleeping on this film which is the best Adam Curtis film ever. A huge part of the fun to the film is seeing if Grimonprez can keep up things as it dazzles visually and aurally with a dense conspiracy which he sees the recompressions of to this day. The film is often painfully disruptive especially with the intrusion of modern ads, but never to the detriment of the narrative which is maintained in painful crystal clarity.

I've been meaning to catch it - I've seen everyone from Jim Hoberman to John Waters to Marshall Crenshaw raving about it.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Conclave was a pleasant couple of hours - and why wouldn't it be when it's all about the intrigue and dirty tricks that occur during the election of a new Pope? There are favourites of course, from different ideological wings of Catholicism, but gradually they take each other out and well.....if you know the novel you know the twist. If you don't, you probably won't guess and might find it bit of a "whuuuuuuut?" moment. A strong cast (Fiennes, Tucci, Lithgow et al) delivers very solid performances, and the script is tight and looks nailed on for Adapted Screenplay. It whizzed by, and I liked Polanski's 'The Ghostwriter' so despite not having read Harris's novels, there's clearly something very filmic about them.

[The Curious Sofa]

I really enjoyed Conclave while watching it and cheered the ending (not having read the novel) and then I had forgotten all about it the next day

[Altair]

Emmanuelle (Audrey Diwan)
Imagine remaking the original softcore Emmanuelle as a critique of the empty materialism of luxury capitalism, with the digital sheen of a late Wong Kar-wai film. Sounds like a riot, right? Such a huge miss that it's quite staggering. It's politics are so obvious that you keep thinking there has to be more than Noémie Merlant wandering around a 5 star Hong Kong hotel. In fact, there is not. Apparently it was partly shot in Hong Kong, but they could've save the cost of an aeroplane ticket, because the hotel looks the same as any other resort, i.e. extremely boring. It's a relief when she finally leaves the hotel in the last twenty minutes and even then it's so it can imitate Chungking Express. Astonishingly, it makes Just Jaeckin a more interesting director in retrospect.

[colinr0380]

The David Ehrlich musical countdown of 2024

[bearcuborg]

I caught up with Mike Leigh's latest, Hard Truths, a week ago. It could have easily been called Bleak Moments if that title wasn't taken. The piercing Imelda Stauton cameo in Another Year is a good jumping off point for the lead performance for Marianne Jean Baptiste's magnificent return to the Leigh world. There are call backs to the sister relationship from Life is Sweet and this is sort of a sister film to Happy Go Lucky. Without spoiling anything, the entire Mother’s Day stretch between the cemetery and them returning home to see the flowers was a real knockout - it's as emotional as anything I've ever seen in a film. Mike has a real knack for finding humor in depression, but at the same time capturing unconditional love. This is a movie Roger Ebert would have loved.

[Murdoch]

The Smile movies haven't been mentioned much on the forum but I find it a kind of modern day variant of Final Destination in taking the utter inevitability of that franchise and twisting it into this kind of funhouse mirror. It follows the usual beats of hushed creepy voices and, especially in the sequel, a reliance on over-the-top monster voices, but it is such a relentlessly grim spectacle that I can't help but be fascinated by it.

For those unfamiliar with its premise, each movie (of which there are two but a third is being shot) begins with the lead witnessing a horrific self-induced death where the person bares a wide grin when they off themselves, and then pass on a demonic presence to that witness, who will repeat the cycle in seven days' time.

I think the sequel suffers from essentially being the first movie repeated with a different lead, as well as some of the more goofy visuals (one of the smile demons bulging their eyes out like Wile E. Coyote). But the overall thrust of the first movie is there - a woman suffering from trauma (in the first, from her mother's struggles with mental health, in this the lead's substance abuse), is forced to question her reality and distrust everyone around her until she submits to the same fate as everyone that preceded her. I don't think everything works as there is an over-reliance in both movies, as mentioned above, on horror tropes when it feels like the writers ran out of ideas of what a demon that haunts its victims with creepy smiles can even do. However, it unsettled me enough to post about it! Mainly in how the demon not only dooms the lead, but also in how it destroys the lives of its victims before they fall prey to it, and how the writers really offer no escape from this fate except if they kill themselves. And also how widely embraced these films seem to be in spite of (or because of) what may be the most pessimistic American movie series of the past ten years.

[spectre]

I caught up with Mike Leigh's latest, Hard Truths, a week ago. It could have easily been called Bleak Moments if that title wasn't taken. The piercing Imelda Stauton cameo in Another Year is a good jumping off point for the lead performance for Marianne Jean Baptiste's magnificent return to the Leigh world. There are call backs to the sister relationship from Life is Sweet and this is sort of a sister film to Happy Go Lucky. Without spoiling anything, the entire Mother’s Day stretch between the cemetery and them returning home to see the flowers was a real knockout - it's as emotional as anything I've ever seen in a film. Mike has a real knack for finding humor in depression, but at the same time capturing unconditional love. This is a movie Roger Ebert would have loved.

Totally agree! I think it's an essentially humanist text, in that it offers us a central character who is, in every aspect, unbearable to be around (crossing the line at times from entertainingly curmudgeonly to plain grating) and even emotionally abusive, yet still remains sympathetic and a somewhat tragic figure. This feels increasingly refreshing at a time when notions of people being "good" or "bad" (and if the latter, to be viewed without sympathy) seem to be becoming more and more in vogue in general discourse.

Pansy is a familiar persona in Leigh's filmography (Naked's David Thewlis and Happy Go Lucky's Eddie Marsan are playing to a similar affect), but Jean-Baptiste's character is still unique and complex in her own right. It's a really great film.

[Mr Sausage]

The Smile movies haven't been mentioned much on the forum but I find it a kind of modern day variant of Final Destination in taking the utter inevitability of that franchise and twisting it into this kind of funhouse mirror. It follows the usual beats of hushed creepy voices and, especially in the sequel, a reliance on over-the-top monster voices, but it is such a relentlessly grim spectacle that I can't help but be fascinated by it.

For those unfamiliar with its premise, each movie (of which there are two but a third is being shot) begins with the lead witnessing a horrific self-induced death where the person bares a wide grin when they off themselves, and then pass on a demonic presence to that witness, who will repeat the cycle in seven days' time.

I think the sequel suffers from essentially being the first movie repeated with a different lead, as well as some of the more goofy visuals (one of the smile demons bulging their eyes out like Wile E. Coyote). But the overall thrust of the first movie is there - a woman suffering from trauma (in the first, from her mother's struggles with mental health, in this the lead's substance abuse), is forced to question her reality and distrust everyone around her until she submits to the same fate as everyone that preceded her. I don't think everything works as there is an over-reliance in both movies, as mentioned above, on horror tropes when it feels like the writers ran out of ideas of what a demon that haunts its victims with creepy smiles can even do. However, it unsettled me enough to post about it! Mainly in how the demon not only dooms the lead, but also in how it destroys the lives of its victims before they fall prey to it, and how the writers really offer no escape from this fate except if they kill themselves. And also how widely embraced these films seem to be in spite of (or because of) what may be the most pessimistic American movie series of the past ten years.

I thought Smile was an effective horror movie; I have no special criticisms to make of it; but it's hard for me to be enthusiastic when It Follows and Ari Aster's first two films already exist. It's hard to deny that Smile's solid, that it works, but no less hard to deny that it's a part of a familiar trend: the internalization of genre horror (to adapt a phrase from Harold Bloom), where well-known horror tropes are explicitly made into a structure that can convey or represent mental processes, usually mental illness. I appreciate that Smile embraced the fatalism that many sufferers of mental illness have felt at one time or another, but I also felt these deeper issues were lightly held.

Still might check out the sequel.

[Murdoch]

It Follows is a good reference point as Smile cribs a lot from it, and Aster certainly outdoes it in terms of internalized trauma reflected through his films' folklore and the characters' attempts at coping when confronted by such horrors.

Smile does not reach Aster's levels, however the sequel's ending sets up an intriguing premise which may destroy what I enjoy so much about the films (the self-destruction of these characters seeking to overcome their past trauma in the face of an internalized, controlling force)

SpoilerShow

whereby the pop star lead mutilates herself before an audience of thousands, thus setting up a widespread infection that shifts the franchise from being one of an individual succumbing to their demons to a kind of pandemic of murderous trauma.

The franchise relies far too heavily on rather mundane jump scares and creepy voices, but I'm intrigued to see what it's building toward and if it can sustain its fatalistic tone.

[brundlefly]

I was iffy on the first Smile as its Ring/It Follows path was so familiar and its ending floundered meaning with big dumb effects. Also, after the first victim (Claire from Please LIke Me!) few of the smiles are creepy! Like it didn't know where to focus its CGI efforts and, more generally, how much to show.

But I liked Smile 2 a lot, to the extent it warmed me to the first one. The idea of shifting the tone of the movie for each protagonist is a great one, and if the first worked Sosie Bacon's depressive wallow, moving to big-scale pop paranoia reaps showy benefits. It does feel like a filmmaker learning as he goes, and after a rough start, the sequel managed my plot objections fairly well. Found the absolute right ending. Crawling into the lead's head paves over the predictability of its reliance on shocks and mock-twists. I'm not sure how this all finds expression in Smile 3 given the outcome here, but it feels like Parker Finn is working his premise out of real interest and not just because he happened on a hit.

[hearthesilence]

I caught up with Mike Leigh's latest, Hard Truths, a week ago. It could have easily been called Bleak Moments if that title wasn't taken. The piercing Imelda Stauton cameo in Another Year is a good jumping off point for the lead performance for Marianne Jean Baptiste's magnificent return to the Leigh world. There are call backs to the sister relationship from Life is Sweet and this is sort of a sister film to Happy Go Lucky. Without spoiling anything, the entire Mother’s Day stretch between the cemetery and them returning home to see the flowers was a real knockout - it's as emotional as anything I've ever seen in a film.

I would extend that peak to the very end, beyond the flowers.

SpoilerShow

I've always liked Secrets and Lies and its strengths are undeniable, but the ending always seemed too expedient as a resolution. It's a credit to Leigh and his amazing cast that the last act gets over convincingly - it's only when the credits roll that my reservations really surface.

With Hard Truths, it looked like it could have reached a similar conclusion, except it keeps going further and further, and every step of the way it feels more honest and more knowing about what it's like to be in a family with people like this. It's true Leigh finds something genuinely sympathetic about people like Pansy, and it does feel really tragic, but by the same measure, it's undercut by the unavoidable fact that such people can want and demand all the sympathy in the world while offering none in return. Her uncharitable and unforgiving reaction to her husband's moment of unresponsive numbness at the party betrays a refusal to accept her responsibility in it - that his behavior was emotionally beaten into him by her own toxic behavior and I would add it even pales in comparison to her general unpleasantness. Not surprisingly, when he sees the flowers, he tosses it without hesitation - no human being is without their limits, and it's inevitable he would have at least a moment where he plainly hates her guts. It may not even be a moment - it could very well prove to be how he feels about his wife - but then he hurts his back and finds himself in a position where he needs help, and of course there is no one else, it can only be his spouse. And that pretty much sums up too many marriages out there. It's sad and tragic, but it's no surprise to me that Leigh has been approached by so many people who recognize the same dynamics and the same personalities within their own families. And ultimately such situations may have no resolution - in many cases, it simply goes on.

[Matt]

Oh-kay, A24 gave up on Queer (and bought the Corbet) because it is not much of a marketable awards season film, which is hardly a demerit against the film - or the one I'd apply to it first! Much of Guadagnino's recent work (Challengers exempted) has been characterized by an ellipticality that comes with the director's expressive if shy attitude towards fleeting, sensual pleasures, but it is rare to find a conventional film that so forcefully jettisons narrative and relies so completely on a twitching, id-controlled lead performance to carry a film as Queer. Its first hour is formless, which works in the moody, needle-drop-scored early scenes of Daniel Craig wandering around the streets, but quickly that pump-up energy is lost as the movie descends into a repetitive blend of bar visits, dreams, and chance encounters. (That said, even if he isn't given much more to do than complain about ex-partners, Jason Schwartzman kills during his limited screen time in said repetitive bar visits). Thankfully, Craig is completely magnetic and displays a withering, self-contemptuous charisma opposed to the conventional hero roles found his recent film work. His gusto imbues the quadtych of sex scenes with an energy that their relatively conventional staging (and their over-editing, a problem that the movie is burdened with more generally - exactly one sexual act, performed on Craig and communicated through his intensifying facial expression, is captured in a single long take, and that scene is far superior to all the others) would not otherwise provide, and connects his high sex drive with his addictive tendencies in a surprisingly sour fashion. By so effectively being a frayed wire, he sells the film's many and unexpected jaunts better than the story itself deserves, culminating in a truly confusing trip to Lesley-Manville-in-freakish-hag-makeup in the jungle that resolves with some of the strangest uses of visual effects that filmgoers will see outside of Megalopolis.

Much more so than Cronenberg's Naked Lunch (a film that both towers over and casts long shadows all across Queer), Queer closely mimics its source novel: it's unfocused, disjointed, jumpy and jittery, borderline incoherent, often tedious, occasionally striking, way too long, and very much up its own ass. Drew Starkey is very attractive and game, but his character (just like in the novel) is essentially a blank—the focus of Bill Lee's intense desire but no more substantial or consequential than a puff of smoke. Lesley Manville and Jason Schwartzman were obviously having a lot of fun under their prosthetics. Drew Droege, famous mostly for his Chloë Sevigny impression, has a couple of fun moments. No one else makes any impact at all.

And then there's Daniel Craig, who is definitely giving his all here, but I'm not sure in service to what. I really don't know what more to say about his performance than that.

The anachronistic needle drops are chosen with good taste but inexplicable purpose. They just seem to fill up space. But one thing is certain: Guadagnino always knows how to end a movie. No matter what came before it, the last 10 minutes of any Guadagnino film are usually its finest moments. The ending here is unexpectedly moving, recalling a small moment from earlier in the film and magnifying it into great importance. But just like Burroughs' novel, this film seems destined always to be stamped as a minor work. I think it would make a fine double feature with Love is the Devil, with Daniel Craig swapping places from aloof muse to obsessed substance-addled artist. The films share a similar queasy tone and closed-off world.

[Altair]

Parthenope (Paolo Sorrentino)
Dreadful farrago - has there been a greater drop off in quality for a mid-career director than Sorrentino? Il Divo, La grande bellezza, and Loro had a satirical, jaundiced eye with eviscerated the hypocrisies of contemporary Italian life, but now he has slid into sentimentality, the emptiness of beauty, and inexplicable magical realism. The film tells the audience, over and over, that Celeste Dalla Porta is very beautiful - and she is. Yet its insight is as deep as a pool of water after a spring shower: dully repetitive, full of clichés (Gary Oldman as the alcoholic, gay writer), and unable to say anything original about Neapolitan society.