Favourites of 2024

 

2024 saw me seeing a whole lot of new movies, including a fair number of good ones. Here's ten from the year in alphabetical order that I really dug and a few words on why.

All of us Strangers - It's a beautiful story of personal connections, about the past and the present interacting and about love and loss and how they intertwine. Enshrined Andrew Scott as an All Timer, made me mad that Jamie Bell is not in more things, made me watch more things with Paul Mescal in them, though not Gladiator 2, cause that film has Wait For Film Group written all over it. (Streaming on Disney Plus, available for purchase on Amazon, itunes, microsoft and Fetch)

Anatomy of a Fall - I'd always been told that the French Inquisitorial system was different to the UK-based  prosecutorial system, but this is a great vigorous demonstration of how it is different and how this approach works on individuals - powerfully performed and put together, tight and tense.(streaming on Stan, available for purchase or rental on Amazon, itunes, microsoft and fetch)

Anora - a rollercoaster that moves from innocent romance to something much more complex, with Mikey Madison's performance launching a force of nature onto the screen with rage and determination - it's a film where I could watch seven different movies about various characters in the film all on their own, but I'm glad to be seeing this one where they're all in it together (in cinemas now). 

A Different Man - A wonderfully twisted film about self-perception and identity - Stan glowers delightfully and Adam Pearson manages to be exactly as charming as the film wants you to think he is. (rentable on itunes, fetch, microsoft and amazon)

Dune Part Two - A rich beautful complex take on a sci-fi classic that dug a little deeper than the conventional heroic narrative, richly cast, visually stunning, an action blockbuster that leaves things to talk about afterwards. (on netflix and Binge, rentable on microsoft, fetch, itunes and amazon)

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - No, it's not as tight as Fury Road, but it's big and broad and entertaining as hell and so deeeply, deeply Australian in all the ugliest ways that make me happy. (buy or rent on microsoft, fetch, amazon and itunes)

Kill - Action overload, with brutal efficiency as our heroes and villians are confined together on a train with nothing to do but take repeated deadly revenge against one another. Has best placemetn of a title card in quite some time. (streams on binge, buy or rent itunes, amazon, microsoft and fetch)

Monkey Man - Combines Indian Myth and History into a violent epic that's as personal as it is epic and badass. (streaming on binge, rent or buy on microsoft, itunes or amazon)

Robot Dreams - A dialogue-less charmer about a dog and a robot, about complex friendships and with the most earwormy use of a 70s pop hit ever in charming and melancholic ways. (streams on Stan, rent or buy on itunes, amazon, or microsoft)

The Wild Robot - Beautifully painterly backgrounds and a deeply humane story up front, with some great voice casting and a glorious sweet power. (still in some cinemas, otherwise rentable or buyable on amazon, itunes or microsoft)

Supplemental films which I also rate highly but don't quite live in my top 10: Bookworm, Challengers, Ghostlight, I Saw the TV glow, Late Night With the Devil, Mad About the boy: The Noel Coward Story, A Real Pain, Strange Darling, The Substance 

Films that do not release in Australia until 2025 so therefore may be under consideration for that year on my list : Babygirl, The Brutalist. Conclave, Emilia Perez,  The Last Showgirl, Maria, Nosferatu, Paddington In Peru, Queer, September 5, We Live in Time  

Film I'm probably going to skip which is going to get Academy Award nominations anyway but based on the advanced hype is not for me: A Complete Unknown. 

Favourite films seen for the first time this year that were made in earlier years: Cool Hand Luke, The Old Dark House, Repo Man. 

Ongoing letterboxd whch tracks these things is at: https://letterboxd.com/simbot/

Complete ranking of everything in Australian cinemas in 2024 is at: https://letterboxd.com/simbot/list/ranking-of-2024-theatrical-releases-in-australia/

Favourite of 2023

Just to note, I only include films that had a theatrical release in Australia during the period (whether or not I saw them in theatrical release). So, for instance, because "Are you there god, it's Me Margaret" did not get a theatrical release (though I saw it on a plane this year and really liked it) it could not be considered in this top 10. Also, films like "The Holdovers", "Anatomy of a Fall", "All of us Strangers" and "May December" don't come out in Australia until 2024 so they can't be considered until then.

And now, in alphabetical order come my 10 favourite films from 2023 and the reasons why (plus where you can see them):

"Godzilla Minus One"(still in cinemas) - a giant monster movie that does the human being stuff as well as it does the giant monster stuff - and it does the giant monster stuff damn well indeed. 

"Linoleum" (binge) - This one I saw on a plane and it had me weeping uncontrollably near the end. It starts as a simple and slightly absurd premise, and ends with a lot more depth than you're expecting. Damn powerful stuff. 

"Living" (Prime Video and Binge) - British stiff-upper-lip drama par excellence, with Bill Nighy showing that he's a master of conveying vast depths behind the eyes. 

"Marcel the Shell with Shoes On"(streaming on Netflix and Binge) - Charming and sweet and achieves a vast emotional effect through a simple pull-back-and-reveal. It's cute, silly, and made me grin and weep in about equal amounts.

"The Old Oak" (Still in cinemas) - A Ken Loach that is realistic and powerful without being overwhelmingly depressing or unnecessarily brutalising its characters, thank goodness. About how communities are built and maintained and about how tough it can be to do that. 

"Past Lives" (currently only rentable and buyable) - A film about messy complex emotional situations dealt with in an adult, humane way. 

"Poor Things" (still in cinemas) - Absurd, horny, adventurous, beautiful cinema. Among the various cast members who are all delightful (including Defoe actnig through a huge chunk of putty on his face in a way that still conveys everything, Stone delightfully odd, Ruffalo relishing a chance to play a 19th century cad and Youssef being exceptionally loveable), glorious cinematography and production design, and a script that's witty and insightful about no less a topic than the nature of human development, this is something to behold.

"Saltburn" (Prime Video, also still in cinemas) - Yes, I'm aware that the ending has twists for the sake of twists, and that it's provocative in ways that make some people uncomfortable. But I loved the riff on "Bridehead Revisited" with the homoeroticism and the class-envy turned WAAY up, the stinger at the end and the chilling moment of karaoke in the middle.  

"Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse"(Prime Video and Binge) - Thrilling, beautiful, dense-but-character-focussed-and-knows-how-to-maintain-that-focus-all-the-way-through. It's the kinda film you want to rewatch bits of constantly the second you come out of the cinema. 

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" (currently only rentable and buyable) - Fast-paced and funny, with a smart plot that knows exactly who the real monsters are. 

And the one that had to go to position 11 when I remembered to add "Saltburn" to the list (having seen it at a festival and then not added it to my yearly list on letterboxd when it got a cinema release):

"Broker" (Sbs on demand) - A sweet and heartbreaking story of two guys involved in the black market baby trade and how they end up entwined with the mother of one of the babies and the two cops chasing them. Pure charm. 

If you want to know what I thought of anything else you saw, you can check out my letterboxd here, or ask me in the comments and I'll give you a response. 

Favourite of 2022

Ok, took me til today to watch the 99 films released this year that qualify for my favourite 10 films released this year in Australia. So in alphabetical order ... 

DRIVE MY CAR - A beautiful study of grief, art, love, and creation as a semi-blind director and his driver bond as he directs a production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima. It's a very gradual film, and on the long side, but this pays off when the emotional floodgates open up and we see what's lying inside our lead characters. It's a great journey with great lead performances from Nisijiama and Watari

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE -Uses everything Michelle Yeoh is capable of and is a free-wheeling creative delight, every bit of apparent absurdity is there for a purpose and it's a film that loves its characters as much as its creative conceits.

GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE - A great acting showcase for the two leads, largely the only characters on screen. McCormack keeps pace with Thompson well, and Brand's script deals with the topic of opening up sexual taboos and finding your own level of honesty with wit and generosity. It's not necessarily particularly surprising, though it's expertly played. It's very much the Emma-Thompson-Hires-A-Sex-worker film you can take your grandma to, carefully not-too-confrontational, and very much a delight to watch.

LANGUAGE LESSONS - A really likable zoom movie, Natalie Morales gives herself a good vehicle to play a reasonable range of emotions. A sweet explosion of happiness at the ending

MOONAGE DAYDREAM - A triumphant distillation of Bowie, ignoring the normal talking heads approach in favour of using Bowies own interviews to underscore a collage of his work and philosophies. Having spent five decades being deliberately hard to pin down you wouldn't think he would come through as clearly as he does, but the selection of imagery, thoughts, and music is triumphant

THE NORTHMAN - A true Norse epic, brutal and intense, finds some moments of transcendence in among the gloom, while making very little secret of its obvious inspiration and no regrets in breaking out from it when it wants to

RED ROCKET - Only loses half a star because they never show where the kolaches are in the donut shop and as someone who is about two years away from his last visit to a Texas donut shop I needed the visual hit. But otherwise, this is an excellent study of a sociopath, after Sean Baker's last two films spent time with impoverished sex workers in LA and Orlando we get a fast-talking, similarly impoverished sex worker in Texas City Texas, constantly about three seconds away from dooming everyone around him to disaster. Fortunately, this is largely a comedy so the radius of the disaster largely just hits himself, with only one other victim.

RRR - This is simultaneously ridiculous and delightful, swapping genres from high drama to musical frivolity to romantic comedy to engaging action regularly, with two heroes who you get deeply engaged with even as they appear at odds. Even under suboptimal circumstances (on streaming, dubbed into Hindi rather than the original Telegu) this is fun, engaging, and wildly pleasurable.

TURNING RED - A cute coming-of-age romp looking at adolescence through a personal lens that is fun, modern, and very slightly ridiculous. The panda is super adorable, the teen angst is super relatable and the emotions are real and heartfelt.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY - A trio of short stories about complicated connections, with a clever set of twists and turns in each.  The short story format with no links beyond thematic should frustrate but instead, it's delightful as all have great stuff for actors to play through a long key conversation in the centre of each

The complete list in a ranked order is on leterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/.../ranking-of-2022-releases-in.../

And my ongoing profile including writeups of all 207 films I saw this year is at https://letterboxd.com/simbot/

Nightmare Alley

A solidly twisty turny noir that does feel a little bit self indulgent both in runtime and in pushing the gore a little. There's some great carnival design and the ending is appropriately nasty but it doesn't quite transfer from interesting to watch to engrossing to watch

Parallel mothers

 An enjoyable Almodovar melodrama with romantic complications, historical implications and a few surprises along with the gorgeous décor and design

Licorice Pizza

 A kinda sorta 70s romance between a 15 year old hustler and a 25 year old woman not quite sure where she's going, this meanders a lot (none of the big three guest stars, Penn, Waits or Cooper are essential to the plot, they're all diversions), and wins a lot of points on the ugliness of Gary's shirts and the capturing of a sense of how relationships between men and women were perceived in its period compared to now. I do wish it had just a little more narrative drive and focus but then it wouldn't be the enjoyable wallow that it is

One Second

 Part Road Runner, part Cinema Paradiso, part Melodrama, this is a surprisingly effective story of two characters drawn together over a reel of film where each have separate stakes in it, and how their relationship plays out is the prime pleasure in the film, along with some gorgeous desert photography and emotional engagement