Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello. Hello. My name is Dustin and I like movies. Welcome to our 2024 recap episode. The 2025 year is upon us and I want to take a quick look back at some of the movies I saw in 2024. I counted and I think it was 77 movies that I ended up seeing last year. Not nearly as much as I want to have seen, but like, I'll see more in 2025. I didn't totally take advantage of my Regal Unlimited and AMC A list passes until way too late in the year. There was a bunch of movies that I just didn't see, didn't know about, what have you. So next year should be a bit more robust. But I thought it would be fun with the Golden Globes the other night to actually go through and kind of look at some different categories of things and give my opinions on it, give my picks on it. And then stick around to the end of the podcast where I give my top 10 movies of 2024, which I'm pretty excited for. So you can reach out to me on YouTube. YouTube. At Twitter. Yeah, that. Dustin, if you want to react to my list or tell me yours, that would be really cool. So do not be afraid to do that. And without further ado, let's get into some of the categories here. So I have. What was it? I think it ended up being 20 categories that I wanted to talk about and hopefully it won't be too long and I won't drone on and on and on about these, but we'll get started with favorite male leading performance. Now, I have to admit, this was the year of women and film for me. The leading female performance was much harder to figure out who the winner was. For me. The male leading performance was actually harder to find nominees for. But all these categories will have five nominees. And the five for favorite male leading performance was Timothee Chalamet in Dune 2, Kyle Gallner in Strange Darling, Chris Hemsworth and Furiosa, Jude Law in the Order, and Justice Smith in I Saw the TV Glow. Now, I thought all these guys obviously did a tremendous job in this field. I thought all these movies were fantastic and all their performances was great. The more nuanced performances were the ones that I kind of was drawn more towards. And so my top two was Chris Hemsworth and Furiosa. What an absolutely fun role. He had added so much to that movie and I thought he did such a good job. But I have to give the nod to Justice Smith. His performance and I Saw the TV Glow is such a haunting Reminder of guilt and of not being the person you. You are and want to be. And conforming and lost time and just that quiet sadness that he exerts throughout that entire movie was so moving and something I thought about a lot ever since I saw that back in, what, the spring, early summer, whenever that movie came out. So I'll give the nod to Justice Smith next. Like I said, favorite female leading performance. Unbelievably stacked this year. I really going back and looking through the movies that I ended up seeing, I was blown away at how many fantastic performances there were, but by women in pretty much every single film that I saw, it felt like anyway. But my five nominees are Naomi Aki in Blink Twice, Lily Rose Depp in Nosferatu, Nell Tiger Free in First Omen, Mikey Madison in Anora, and Micah Monroe in Long Legs. And any of these could have won. I really went back and forth about a lot of it, but at the end of the day, and maybe it's recency bias, I'm gonna go with Lily Rose Depp in Nosferatu. That possession scene, you know, where she's standing up and starts shaking. What she does with her body in some of those scenes I don't think I've ever seen in a film before.
[00:04:14] And the way she goes from being just a nice housewife who's worried to being in the throes in the shadow of Nosferatu, I thought was really, really impressive. So I will give the nod to Ms. Depp. Next up is favorite male supporting performance.
[00:04:33] The nominees are Jim Carrey in Sonic 3, Kevin Durand in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Easily could have been in Abigail as well, but we didn't go there. David Johnson in Alien, Romulus, Dan Stevens in Abigail, and Channing Tatum in Blink Twice. I thought this was really interesting. Jim Carrey absolutely stole the show in a Sonic 3 movie that is much, much better than it had any right to be. Kevin Durant, I had no idea that was him as CE Caesar and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. And Dan Stevens I saw in a couple of films this year. I thought he was great in everything. Channing Tatum, absolutely on what's the word?
[00:05:14] Underappreciated in Blink Twice, especially towards the end of the movie. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. But I'm gonna go with David Johnson and Alien. Romulus. The way he went from being a person to an Android and the amount of emotional range he had in that film I thought was incredible. And the relationship between he and Cailee Spaeny kept that plot moving in an Alien film that I thought was terrific. I loved Romulus. I thought it was really, really good. Great return to form. As much as I love like Prometheus, I thought this was a really cool step in the right direction for at least part of the Alien franchise. I love the kind of what the earlier films as far as the timeline is considered, but I thought David Johnson as the AI in that was fantastic. Reminded me of some of the scary androids that were in Alien isolation which came out a little over 10 years ago now. So I will give it to David Johnson. Favorite female supporting performance. Again, a lot of great people in this. I mean I'm. It's really hard to not just continue to gush about how fantastic I thought women were in film. Like usually it's either a male dominated thing or kind of an even split because you know, typically there's as many men in film as women I would guess for some reason. I don't know if it's just the films I chose to watch or the impact they had, but women just absolutely dominated this year in film for me. And my five nominees for female supporting performance were Morena Bracchio, Brash Basho. I never been able to say her name. I apologize. In Elevation, Elle Fanning in A Complete Unknown, Ariana Grande and Wicked, Cailee Spaeny in Civil War and Alicia Weir in Abigail. She was the girl that played Abigail. I thought all five of these performances were great obviously, but I'm actually going to go with Ariana Grande in Wicked. Kind of an upset, I think for me, I'm not a big musical guy but she felt like the lead. Like, I mean they're kind of co leads in a way, but she felt like the lead. Like she felt like especially early on in that film that she was kind of leading the film. Right. It felt like even though it was following Elphaba, I don't know, something about Ariana Grande's performance just was. It just was great to me. A really close second place was Elle Fanning in A Complete Unknown. I do want to give an extra special shout out to her. I thought she was the best actor in that film. I thought she was the most impressive to me in that film. But I will give Ariana Grande the nod here. Next category is favorite cinematography Slash art direction. Those are two different things, but I'm too dumb to know them. Also, art direction could help include animated films in this. It didn't this year, but it could in the future if I do this.
[00:08:16] As far as cinematography, I'm just talking about the way it looks, the way it's shot, the way it feels. And I kind of think those two things, art direction and cinematography, were tied in together, so I put them in here. And the five categories are. Furiosa, Horizon, An American Saga, Chapter One, I Saw the TV Glow, Late Night with the Devil, and the Substance. A lot of really cool, sleekly shot films came out this past year. These five stood out above the rest for me.
[00:08:48] Some of it is a little cheating. Like Horizon, you have the American west, which is so beautiful and so cinematography, great.
[00:08:58] Not a word. But, you know, it's cheating a little bit. But, man, some of those sweeping landscapes that they had in that movie were great. I saw the TV glow. I don't know if I've ever seen a movie that looked like that. Same with the substance. And Late Night with the Devil, with the whole, you know, this is a VHS copy of what that program looked like. I thought that was really cool. But at the end of the day, I have to give it to Frank Miller and Furiosa. Just the way it was shot, the design of everything, the saturation, the colors, the speed at which it was shot. They also had incredible landscapes in the background. So I'll give the nod to Furiosa. Next category is a little interesting Favorite Editing. Now, I am not an editor. I was actually dreading cutting out some of the parts of this podcast that I don't speak or I say the wrong thing. I hate editing. And it's very rare that I watch a movie and immediately go like, oh, editing, right? So this is something I had to actually kind of think about when I decided to make this one of the categories. The five nominees are Blink Twice, Challengers, Conclave, Nosferatu, and the Substance.
[00:10:13] These movies just jumped out at me as movies that I remember how the scenes flowed together. I remember the way that, you know, the, the voiceovers were done or the way the music was mixed in with this, with the scenes. And I really, for a while here, probably would have picked challengers, I thought, especially the tennis scenes. I don't care about tennis. I don't care. I, I. When I was told to watch this movie and it was a love triangle involving tennis, it took me, like about a month to actually watch it, because I did not care. And boy, was I wrong. And I think that is due in large part to, obviously, the actors and the story and all that. But the editing absolutely kept me in it, as well as the music by Trent Reznor which he just won a Golden Globe for. But I'm actually going to give the nod here to blink twice. When the movie was over. I remember sitting in the theater and waiting for the name of the editor to pop up and Googling the Ed. I have never done that before. That's the only time I've ever looked for the editor. This was Zoe Kravitz's directorial debut. I thought it was fantastic. I thought not nearly enough people were talking about it. And the editing in that, as you go from day to night, from day to night, as the main character starts to lose track of time and lose track of what's going on, the editing just feeds into that and makes you really feel like you're right there with her losing her mind. So I thought the editing for that was fantastic and it gets my votes.
[00:11:57] Next up. Not a category I particularly love doing here, but it is most disappointing.
[00:12:04] Not Worst. Technically, I don't believe in rewarding a Razzie for worst movie. It's not what I'm trying to do here on this channel. But most disappointing I do think is fair, whether it is the expectation I had going in and whether it didn't meet it or what have you. The five nominees on this one are Blitz, the Front Room, Juror Number Two, the Strangers, Part One, and the Watchers. To be honest with you, Blitz isn't really here for any reason. I needed a fifth one to fill for the five nominees. I thought Blitz was a perfectly decent, great, well rounded movie, but, you know, I feel like it could have let Saoirse Ronan, you know, stretch her wings a little bit more in the acting department. The Front Room was not quite the movie I expected it to be. Juror Number Two. I don't understand the main characters problem at all. I thought it was one of the most weirdly written characters ever. Nicholas Hall's character just, you know, you want to confess to a crime you may not have committed and to spare your guilt. Kind of dumb to me as a. As a probably morally bad person. And then the Watchers, I just wanted it to be more than what it was. But I have to give the nod to The Strangers, Part 1. The Strangers. I've said for a lot of my life that it is my favorite horror movie of all time. It's the only horror movie I've ever watched that I thought about later and, and I don't get scared during horror movies, even though it's my favorite genre. But, you know, after watching the movie, I'm. I'm very Afraid of random violence, of being the wrong place at the wrong time and the strangers, that's the whole point. And so when I found out that we were getting a strangers a three part stranger movie, I was like, okay, I don't really need know if we need that. And then when I found out that we were going to get the origin story of the strangers, I also was like, dude, we don't need that. But I'll check it out because I love the original movie so much. I thought, thought the second one, Pray at Night was pretty good so I figured I would check it out. And I love Madeline Pash, but man, you want to. It's I.
[00:14:24] My big fear going into it was I hope this is not a shot for shot remake of the original one. And damn me if it wasn't. 90 felt like a shot for shot remake of the original one. Like it, you know, to the point where you have a couple in a cabin in the woods, they're arguing, you have like a friend that shows up to check on them and gets killed. Like it, it felt so much like the original movie. And you can explain it away, I guess and say that the reason that happened in the original movie is because of this. But either way I, I was unimpressed and I definitely expected more from that film. Up next, we have the most unique film of the year. Now this is kind of an interesting category and I'm, I'm kind of trying to challenge the way I view and group movies together with some of these most unique. I, I kind of goes without saying, like movies that I don't know if I'd ever really seen something like that before.
[00:15:26] I've watched a lot of movies in my life. Could be wrong, you could think they're not unique at all. But my five nominees here are, here we Tom Hanks and Robin Wright film I Saw the TV Glow, Megalopolis Memoir of a Snail and Saturday Night.
[00:15:45] So with here you had a film set basically in one location the entire time and you see it develop throughout time and throughout people and it bounces back and forth across time. You know, Ben Franklin all the way to the Challenger disaster, to the Beatles, coming to whatever, right? So I thought that was interesting. I Saw the TV Glow dealing with, you know, the trans issue, dealing with regrets, dealing with being in a small town, dealing with nostalgia and the way it was shot. I had never really seen a movie quite like that before. Megalopolis.
[00:16:22] I, boy, I don't really know what to say about that movie. I've definitely never seen a Movie like that before Memoir of a Snail, the Claymation animated movie was really interesting. I never knew what was going to happen next with that. And Saturday Night, the hour and a half in real time, quote unquote, leading up to the beginning of the first episode, Saturday Night Live, the idea of having one movie, even though it's not, it feels at times like it's one long shot. You have all of these incredible actors moving around and doing different things as you kind of follow Lorne Michaels through it.
[00:17:00] But my pick for this is actually Memoir of a Snail. When I saw it was a Clay Stop Nation rated R movie, I was sold. And I watching this, you. You feel like this was a real person. It felt like, you know, their obsession with snails, getting heartbreak, getting swindled, the relationship with her brother, with her father, with, with. With Blinky or Pinky. Pinky.
[00:17:30] Yeah. I thought that movie was really moving, really heartfelt, and was the most unique of anything I'd seen this year. Not just because it was Clay Stop animation, but because of the message and the way it was told. And to have a movie like that keep me engaged is pretty rare considering the style it was. And yeah, that's my pick for most unique.
[00:17:57] Next up, you have favorite plot twist. So not going to go too deep into this, just in case you haven't seen it, but my five nominees here are Blink Twice, First, Omen, Getaway, I Saw the TV Glow, and Strange Darling, I Saw the TV Glow. Maybe shouldn't exist here, kind of telegraphs itself more upon a second watch, but watching in the theaters for the first time with my brother, that ending sequence, I was like, whoa.
[00:18:29] Did not know that was gonna happen. And chasing down the whole TV show the whole time, I thought was really interesting. Strange Darling, the way that it was shot and the sequences it was told in, I thought did such a clever and good job of unveiling the story slowly, to us, get away. The entire point of the movie is a plot twist, I believe. First omen, the last 20 minutes of that mov, when everything kind of comes together and you realize what's going on, even though it's kind of implied in the name of the movie and what franchise it's in, you don't exactly know, but once you do, holy God, is it kind of mortifying. But I'm actually going to go with Blink Twice. The reason I chose Blink Twice for this is it actually has two plot twists, at least to me it did. The first is what's going on on the islands, why they're there. What's happening? And then the second one that I really was not ready for was what Naomi Ackee's character and her relationship to Channing Tatum and to the island. Once that gets revealed, I really was like on my ass. I was like, this is crazy. So that is actually my favorite plot twist of the the year. It's actually two plot twists in one. I think that kind of means it has to win. Next up is favorite action movie. I didn't watch a whole lot of action movies this year. I'm actually not a big action movie guy. Like thinking back to, you know, even 80s and 90s action movies, I was never really the biggest fan of them. So some of these might not technically be action movies, but I tried to see movies that you know or try to list movies here that had action in them even though they might not technically be an action movie. My five nominees are Alien, Romulus, Azrael, Azrael, Challengers, Civil War and the Fall Guy. The only movie in here that I would actually consider a true action movie would be the Fall Guy. It's literally a movie about stuntmen and Hollywood and then it turns into like a real life version of that as they look for Ryan Gosling. But all these movies had action in them. Challenger is more of a sports than action. But for the purposes of this, I'll put it in there, Asriel. They're just like hunting people down.
[00:20:50] I will actually pick Alien Romulus for this. It's the action horror with the Alien franchise getting back to its roots here. Parts of it a little bit fan servicey, but I still thought the movie was fantastic and I will pick it as my favorite action movie of the year. Next up, favorite animated movie. Saw quite a few of them this year. Actually more than I expected when I was looking through my list. I do not count animated movies in this. I will not count like Sonic 3 because it's animated, but there's live action parts of it like Sonic and Tails and Team Sonic are animated into the film. So I'm not counting that. So my five nominees here are Flo, Memoir of a Snail, Moana two, My Hero, Academia, you're next. And the Wild Robot. All these movies I thought obviously were excellent. Memoir of a Snail I've already talked about Moana 2. I saw Thanksgiving Night, thought it was good. Not as good as the first one, but I did really like it. My hero Academia, your next. My favorite anime that I saw this year as far as movies go and the Wild Robots, definitely great. I saw it when my power was out from a hurricane and I drove two hours to watch movies all day and I watched the Wild Robot. So I'll always remember that for that. But I'm actually going to go with Flow as my favorite animated movie. A movie about five animals, more who don't speak. There's not a single line of dialogue because these are animals. They are not anthro, anthropomorphic, you know, things talking as they survive a flood. And I thought it was beautiful. I thought it was greatly shot. Like I thought there are scenes in there with like sunsets that look incredible and the story it told about this cat as it tries to figure out what's going on and stay alive and stay curious and not get, you know, eaten by dogs and stuff. So I pick Flow as my favorite animated movie of the year. Next up is favorite comedy.
[00:22:53] Kind of hard to pick. I didn't watch a whole lot of like straight up comedies. Those don't really exist anymore. You know, the old Will Ferrell, like Judd Apatow comedy movies just they. They're not here anymore. So my five nominees are Deadpool and Wolverine, Anora, My Old Ass Saturday night and Y2K.
[00:23:15] Little issue. You know, I don't really consider Anora a comedy. Mikey Madison was up for best comedy at the Golden Globes, which I thought was interesting, but it does. The middle, like 30 or 45 minutes of that movie is probably like the funniest thing I've seen all year, which is interesting. But the ending of the movie and the message of the movie and the plot of a lot of the movie doesn't indicate comedy to me. I thought My Old Ass very much in the same vein as a coming of age tale. Definitely had some laughs in that one. Saturday Night I thought was funny. I didn't find it as hilariously funny as I've seen. Other people talk about Y2K. Exactly the same thing. I actually thought that one was a little funnier than I've seen other people give it credit for. But I'm gonna go with Deadpool and Wolverine. I laughed a lot throughout that movie. It's exactly the movie I wanted it to be. It's dumb, it's fun.
[00:24:12] It had references that I thought were great. And watching Wolverine and Deadpool fight each other is going to be one of those scenes. I just remember forever them in the car. So very funny. And watching it in a packed theater was super nice. And hearing all those people laugh at the same time also added to that. For this, for me, the exact opposite end of the spectrum. We have favorite drama film. My five nominees were Conclave, I Saw the TV Glow, the Outrun, the Return, and We Live In Time. So two Ralph Fiennes movies on this list. I don't really know what technically constitutes a drama. So I tried to find the movies for nomination that I just didn't think there was a whole lot of humor in, and I figured that was probably a pretty.
[00:25:04] Pretty clean way to go. You know, there's not a lot of laughs in these five films.
[00:25:12] I thought all these were great. I shouldn't even say that for this. That's why I nominated them. But I thought all five of these were great. But the one that really stood above the others for me was the Outrun. It's my surprise movie of the year. I thought it was great. Saoirse Ronan is obviously incredible, but watching her journey from treatment to go to this remote, you know, Irish village on this random ass island out in the northern banks or wherever it was, and watch her start to, like, piece her life together, deal with her mom and her religion, deal with her dad and his bipolar.
[00:25:55] I don't know, I just. I really love that film and I. It's based on a memoir, which I think would be pretty cool to read.
[00:26:03] So I actually think the Outrun was my favorite of these five. Now for another tough category for me, my favorite horror film of the year. Horror is my favorite category, as I said earlier. And, man, there were some absolute bangers this year. A couple of films people were talking about as horror that I don't quite consider horror. I think of them more as thrillers.
[00:26:29] You know, I could do a top 10 list. I could do a top 20 list, really, on this. And, you know, I'm gonna try to do that around Halloween this year to talk about the top 10 horror movies of 2025 so far.
[00:26:41] I love talking about horror films. Could do it for a long time. My five nominations for this in alphabetical order as they all are. Late Night with the Devil, Long Legs, Smile two, the Substance and Terrifier three. So you got a lot of different types of horror here.
[00:27:01] I really almost pulled the trigger on Late Night with the Devil for this, but I. I just. I can't put it above the substance.
[00:27:09] I thought what Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley did in this film, this body horror film. I am not a squeamish guy. I really am not especially watching films, but, man, some of those scenes where they're, like, crawling out of each other, I was like, oh.
[00:27:25] Oh, my God. The. The fear of growing older you know, all the stuff with the. The zoom in of Dennis Quaid eating shrimp and disgustingly eating and then the last 15 minutes, which I didn't totally jive with. But as far as body horror goes, it's hard to outperform this. This is exactly what that genre should be about. Has a message, it has a plot, it's well acted, the music is great, it leaves some mystery there.
[00:27:59] I. I loved the substance and I think it was my favorite horror movie of the year. Next up, kind of an interesting category here, but I am an American and I watch a lot of films that are set, are produced, are filmed, are starred by Americans, and I thought it would be interesting to try to highlight some non American films. Kind of complicated because a lot of these have ties to America in some way or the other, but for the most part, I think these are five solid picks here. My nominees are Asriel, which has strong ties to Estonia, Blitz from the uk, Flow, kind of a combination of Latvia, Belgium and France. Getaway from the uk and the Outrun from the uk.
[00:28:45] I am actually going to choose the Outrun. I did love it probably more than all these other movies here. I thought it was incredibly shot, but also it really helped highlight and showcase the uk.
[00:29:04] So there's flashback scenes from when Saoirse Ronan's character is living in London. There's incredible, genuinely incredible wildlife scenes of seals and birds and fish and like random wildlife shots that I don't actually know how they got. There's one. I can't remember what it is now. It's been a couple months since I've seen the film, but there's one where they get a. A wildlife shot and then pan out a little bit and Saoirse Ronan is just there. So it almost felt planned, but it was like a seal in the ocean somewhere, very wild.
[00:29:39] But, you know, it makes sure to highlight some of the. That ritual that they do on her last day there, where she meets the boy, all that stuff. So I thought as far as actually capturing what the film, you know, non American is about, I thought it did such a great job in capturing that, highlighting that and featuring that. So I went with the Outrun. Next up is favorite Sci Fi, again, kind of like comedy. Earlier, there wasn't really a whole lot of true, quote unquote, sci fi films this year, or at least that I saw this year, because when I think of science fiction, I think of, you know, my winner here.
[00:30:22] But I. Let me go through the nominees and I'll. I'll kind of show What I mean here. So my five nominees are Alien, Romulus, Cuckoo, Elevation, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Slingshot.
[00:30:36] I chose for the nominees. I chose Cuckoo because of the premise of the film, where it's based, you have a German scientist and what ends up going on when you find out. That felt very sci fi to me. Elevation, it's kind of a dystopian film where these things have taken over and you have to figure out why. And once you find out why that ties into this genre, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, you know, it's not exactly what I would consider science fiction, but it is like if you think about where Caesar came from and what started all of this and then what they're going through, as well as some of the stuff that happens towards the end of the film as well. I don't really know if that counts as science fiction. Inside the Bunker or whatever, but.
[00:31:23] And then Slingshot. So I think Slingshot's pretty science fiction right there in the future, traveling out past Saturn, I believe is where they were going. But I'm actually going to go with Alien Romulus for this one. I thought it is the best sci fi movie I saw this year. It is my definition of sci fi, sci fi, horror, action. It's like all those things in one. But when I think of science fiction, I think of like being on a spaceship running from a monster using high tech weapons. There's a robot, like there's androids in it. It's just. It's exactly what I think of when I think of sci fi. So I'll take Alien, Romulus. Interesting category. Here we have favorite sequel. So it doesn't have to be the first sequel, as you'll see. But my nominees are Deadpool and Wolverine, Dune Part 2, Gladiator 2, Smile 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. So again, it doesn't have to be exactly a sequel per se. Sonic the Hedgehog is the third movie and Deadpool, Wolverine is also the third movie. All these, I thought built upon the original or the previous very well and just kept adding to it. Kept the same spirit. I do want to give a special shout out to Gladiator 2 just because of the amount of time between the first one and the second one talking what, 20, 25 years, 24 years, whatever. Was so very cool to see that continue the way it was. But I'm gonna give the nod to Dune Part 2. I did not particularly love the first movie. I thought it was solid, I thought it was good. I remember seeing in theaters, but Man, I thought the second movie was incredible. I loved Dune Part 2 and it made me go back and rewatch Dune Part one. And then I saw Dune Part two in theaters again. So I thought it was fantastic. And it definitely is my favorite sequel of the year.
[00:33:20] Next category. The last real category here, and you'll see what I mean when I get to the final two categories. But the last real category is favorite thriller. So thriller, again, it goes real hand in hand with other genres, specifically horror. You know, I don't really know what I define as a horror movie, which makes it hard to define what a thriller movie is. But I kind of think it's a Venn diagram, right? And these, all five of these movies really could be in that diagram. You could call them a horror movie as well. I typically think of these more as thrillers. My five nominees are Asriel, Cuckoo, Cuckoo, Heretic, Speak no Evil, and Strange Darling. Again, you could easily put all five of these in the horror genre and a lot of people would not blink their eye. I think there's a slight difference between what these are and what is traditional horror. I really wanted to put long legs here, but the last 20 minutes of that movie made it more of a horror movie than it was leading up to it. I. Before this year, I'd never thought of Silence of the Lambs as a horror movie. I had no idea other people did as well. I always thought of it as a crime thriller, but definitely based on what happens in Long Legs. It definitely fits more into the horror genre than a thriller, in my opinion. But my five categories here, I thought all these were pretty. I had no idea what was going to happen in all five of these movies, but one stood out ahead of the others for me. And that was Strange Darling. I thought this movie. I saw this in Blink Twice the same night, which is pretty insane.
[00:35:05] I thought this movie was so underrated this year. I thought it was so well done. And again, the way they move around the timeline in the chapters and how they choose to show us the story only adds to it. I don't actually know if this film could possibly have worked if it had just been from A to Z. If it showed us everything in, you know, sequential order, the way the plot would have actually flowed had you watched it in real time. I don't know if it would have actually worked that way. So incredible movie. I love the performances by Kyle Garner and Willow Fitzgerald. I thought they were unbelievable in this role as well as, like, the. The two parents that they, like, stumble across. The two cops I just, I thought everything was great.
[00:35:57] Had that weird. We don't know what's going on about it. I don't know. I thought it was great. Kept me on the edge of my seat. Didn't know what was going to happen. And it gets the nod for me. So when I say the last two categories aren't real categories, here's what I mean. The first one, five films to define 2024. So 10, 15 years from now, when we look back at movies, what movies will we immediately know that came out in 2024? Like, you know, there are some movies like Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, they all came out in 94. Like, I just, I just know that A Goodfellas came out in 1990. I just know that some films for some reason just that the year they release just stick in my head.
[00:36:47] Maybe that's just me. I don't know if other people actually think like that. But you know, the Departed came out in 06. Like, I just know that.
[00:36:55] And so those, those films, because of the year they came out, kind of define them. And I was trying to think of what five films I thought would probably do that here. What movies, you know, 10, 20, 30 years from now will we go, when did that movie come out? And a large percentage of the movie fan base will just know. 2024, the five that I nominated for this, and there's no winner. I think it's all five of these is Challengers, Dune Part 2, Nosferatu, the Substance and Wicked. I think these five movies are going to be the five most talked about movies going into the next 10, 15 years. Could be wrong. You know, something else could have snuck in there. But, but I think these movies all launched careers. I think they solidified careers. I think they really are going to influence other movies coming out. I think Challengers is going to change the way people can view how sports movies can be told, how romances can be told. I think Dune Part 2 is going to be a really interesting way to see what impact it has on kind of epic movies, on these long Star wars esque tales of triumph and heroes and villains and, you know, battles. I think Dune Part 2 will have an impact on that. I think Nosferatu and Robert Eggers and the way he tells stories, which he's getting some backlash for it, but you know, character design and historical accuracy and mood and setting and the way that, that you can. I think he's perfected vibes like the way you feel when you watch a movie, the substance, it's going to change the way people do body horror, probably the way it's shot, the, the music track, by the way the music is influenced the story it's trying to tell about Hollywood. I just think that's going to make a lasting impact.
[00:39:04] It by far is the biggest surprise I had this year. Not just that I watched, but from people just online talking about it. It doesn't seem like a movie. Five years ago, if this movie came out, it wouldn't have gotten nearly the amount of buzz that it did this year. And I think that speaks to the impact it's going to have going forward. And Wicked, the best musical I've seen in a really long time.
[00:39:28] I think it's going to.
[00:39:31] They create a discussion about female leads, about importing Broadway movies or Broadway plays into movies. Certainly I've already seen a lot of discourse online about color correction and color palettes. Some for the positive, some for the negative with this and lighting.
[00:39:51] So, you know, but I, I definitely think these will be the five movies that will end up defining this year. And the last category I want to talk about before I get to my top 10 movies of the year are my five most anticipated movies of 2025. Now, this is a little different because you don't know what's coming. There will be movies that just get announced in 2025, that release in 2025, movies that surprise me that I didn't expect to be good. And some of these movies may not even be that good. I may not like them when they actually come out, but I can only judge based on what I know is coming and what I'm the most excited for. So in chronological order, it is the Monkey coming out on February 21st. This is Osgood's, you know, follow up to Long Legs. Long Legs got re released in theaters in October and me and my brother went and saw it and we actually got a sneak peek of the monkey. And I think it'll be interesting, more humorous than I was expecting or maybe even wanting, but I'm definitely interested in seeing it. Only have a little over a month now, month and a half before it comes out. Mickey 17, the movie starring Robert Pattinson, Naomi Acke, Steven Yoon. It looks Mark Ruffalo. It looks incredible. I'm really excited to see it. This is of course by the same director of Parasite. Very different movie from Parasite, so we'll see how that's handled. But man, it looks so funny and interesting and thought provoking. That comes out March 7th centers the new movie from Michael B. Jordan and his team. The ones behind you know, Creed and Black Panther. I mean, not his team, but it's the same director that comes out April 18th. Be interesting. Seems like a new kind of view of horror. Maybe like a New Orleans, 1920s kind of horror film. That should be pretty interesting 28 years later coming out June 20th. So crazy to think it's been. When did 28 days later come? I was at 22002, something like that. I mean, we are 20 something years after the release of that film. And that haunting trailer with her reciting that poem over shots of the film looks unbelievably incredible. Very excited for that. And if you knew me, you would think this was the most surprising thing of all time. July 11th. Superman. James Gunn, Superman. I'm really interested and excited to see it. I traditionally, throughout my life, have pretty much hated Superman. I don't find him very interesting or engaging.
[00:42:42] He's literally God. So I don't really know how you make that interesting, how you make him a character that people feel sorry for. But the trailer is promising and, you know, you can probably do a lot of things through Clark Kent. So we will see what that ends up being. I'm really excited about that. All right, so Those are the 20 categories I had for my 2024 end of the year list. Let me know your thoughts on all that on Twitt at. Yeah, that. Dustin. But I want to give kind of briefly my top ten films of the year, because I've talked about, I think, all of these already.
[00:43:22] The ordering was really weird. Really hard to do. I thought this was such a great year for movies. Again, I just like movies, so it's really hard for me to strike some from the top here. I did have to shuffle around a little bit.
[00:43:38] And we'll just get started with one that I did not talk about at all in this. Well, it's not true, but. Horizon, An American Saga, Chapter one.
[00:43:48] I'm not a big western fan, at least traditionally. I think as I'm getting older, I'm just straight white guy. I just. I think it's. That's just what ends up happening is you end up. You just end up watching westerns. My dad loves westerns. He's the king of westerns. He's seen every single one that's ever happened. He's. He reads westerns like he is Clint Eastwood's number one fan. Like he is Mr. Western. So going in August to see this movie with him was really cool and something I'm really glad I got to do. I thought it was great and It's. There's four of these things. They're supposed to be four of these things. But it didn't sell well enough, so they postponed the second one and might not even release the third and the fourth. I think that is a fucking shame because the first one is incredible. It's three hours long, but, man, it really is an epic of the American west and how it was settled. Incredibly acted. There's definitely the. The western tropes are there, you know, but, I don't know. Just beautifully shot. It doesn't make the Native Americans the bad guys, which is so easy to do in Westerns. It doesn't make the U.S. army or the settlers the good guys. It's very morally complex about what is going to happen, what should happen, how it was with some sprinkle of fiction. And I think it was incredibly well done. And I really, really, really hope they can figure out a way to market it and get to the fourth film, because I really think this could be one of the greatest.
[00:45:34] Not trilogies. What? Quad. Not quad tetralogies, whatever it is, of film history. I really think it has that potential and I would really like to see that. So. Horizon, An American Saga, chapter one is my number 10 movie. At number nine is the Outrun. Talked about it earlier. Saoirse Ronan, probably my favorite actress in the world right now, working. I think everything she does is great. It's why Blitz was on my most disappointing films. Not because it was a bad film, but because I wanted more of her. I just think everything she does and touches turns to gold. I think she is lightning in a bottle when it comes to actors. And just. It's the same way I feel when I watch, you know, like Leonardo DiCaprio on. On film. He just. It becomes like a different person with every film role. I think she's incredible and I think she knocked it out of the park with this. More of a biopic, I guess, based on a memoir. A lot more personal. Personal storytelling, but also personal acting. And I thought she absolutely nailed it in a wide range of emotions. At number eight, you have Civil War, one of the few films from this year I saw in theaters. Twice I saw it and then I went back and watched it again with my brother.
[00:47:01] The premise is a little hacky. The premise is not something I thought would work as well as it did because the movie isn't really about the Civil War. It's about war journalism and war photography and seeing Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny on that journey and what it means to be a journalist, award journalist and war correspondent, and to have it happen in your country when you are used to going overseas to do it.
[00:47:33] I thought that was a really interesting story to tell and not at all what I thought that film was going to be about.
[00:47:40] So civil war at number 8, number 7 is Anora. This is a film I thought I had pegged going in. I thought I knew exactly what it was going to be. I thought it was going to be a movie about this stripper that meets this Russian oligarch and, you know, they end up falling for each other and then they run away and escape. And that is not what that film was. Well, I mean, the first half I nailed because that's literally what the preview was. The last half or so of the movie. The last two, actually.
[00:48:15] No clue. Had no clue what was going to happen. Didn't know what was going on. Mikey Madison is incredible.
[00:48:22] Absolutely put her stamp on being a leading actress in Hollywood with this film. Sexy as hell, charismatic, strong, confident. I just. I thought she was so good in this role and the story it told, especially with that kind of heartbreaking, crushing ending at the end that literally left our entire theater just.
[00:48:46] I mean, there wasn't. There was like eight of us in there, but just completely silent where it was like, whoa, what the hell?
[00:48:53] Yeah, I don't know. Anora was number seven.
[00:48:57] Number six. Was Furiosa. A Mad Max story or saga?
[00:49:03] Another movie. I absolutely went under the radar this year. I remember when it was out seeing people on Twitter and TikTok be like, go see this movie. We need more movies like this. I've never watched the older Mad Max movies. I will eventually. Knowing their Mel Gibson vehicles does not exactly give me the biggest rush to go watch them. Not a huge fan of the guy, personally, so that does tend to drag it a little bit, but I need to get around and watch them. But I can tell you from watching Mad Max.
[00:49:37] Oh, my God. What was it? The. The movie. The. About nine years or I guess ten years ago now. Oh, my God. Hold on, I gotta look this up. Mad Max Fury Road. Yep. Mad Max Fury Road, Absolutely.
[00:49:51] I love that movie. I thought it was so great. And to have this prequel with Chris Hemsworth as my favorite antagonist of the year. I thought he did such a good job. I thought Anya Taylor Joy did such a good job. Even limited speaking lines, an epic story that I really, really loved the shot. I think it was my favorite cinematography slash art direction of the year. Absolutely sleek and cool and, yeah, everything. I wanted that movie to Be and more. At number five, I have Long Legs. So this was a movie that I was initially a bit disappointed in. When you have your marketing team saying that this is the scariest movie ever and that Mike and Monroe had a heart monitor on and it was like 130 beats per minute when she saw Long Legs for the first time, you know, you start setting expectations a little higher than they should have. This was not a scary film to me. I. I mean, none of them are, but I don't really know how you'd be scared of this movie.
[00:51:00] But it is very atmospheric, it is very well shot, very well acted.
[00:51:05] I loved this movie. Went and saw it a second time and loved it even more. Again, the ending didn't really work for me, 100%.
[00:51:16] I definitely think it's more of a thriller than a straight up horror movie. But, yeah, I don't know, I just. I've thought about it off and on all year long since I watched it back in July or whenever it came out. So I am going to say Long Legs is my number five movie of the year, only slightly beaten out by the substance. And number four, talked about it earlier. Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley did such a good job in this film talking about women aging out of Hollywood and, you know, she's still beautiful, but they've already decided to move on. And the body horror aspect of it, the music, the mystery behind what this company was, that never gets resolved, which I'm fine with.
[00:51:58] Yeah, I thought this movie was unbelievably great.
[00:52:02] The. The biggest surprise as far as what I saw on social media from a movie this year. And it's really cool that the movies like this can still be made, can still be watched, and still be loved.
[00:52:16] At number three, I have challengers mentioned earlier.
[00:52:21] I did not care about Tennis. I don't care about dude on dude kissing.
[00:52:27] But the movie is great. The. The love triangle, how it's pushed forward, really, it's a love rectangle because you had the two guys and Zendaya, they are all in love with each other. But also Tennis is literally a fourth character in this movie and the four of them are all in love with each other. And it depends. They all collide there at the very end in a. The final like 15 minutes of that movie feel like a anime. That's how I've described it to everyone this year who's talked about it or asked about it.
[00:52:56] The ending of that movie is insane. And it's the most exhilarating feeling, like I don't Know what's going to happen. That I felt in sports movie for a really long time now. So challengers is number three for me. Number two is blink twice. Again, you had the double plot twist at the end. I thought the premise, you just have this, this feeling the entire time where everything is so beautiful and they're living the life of luxury and this entire time you just feel the rot behind or like right underneath the plot. I didn't mean for that to rhyme, but like you have the natives there and you have these like snakes and you don't really know what's going on, but you know it's super shady. And once the reveal comes, you're like, oh God. Like it's, it's, it's worse than you picture. Or at least I did.
[00:53:56] But edited beautifully, shot beautifully.
[00:54:00] The big, big set pieces there at the end where things start coming to a head.
[00:54:08] I really, I had no idea how this movie was going to end. So. Zoe Kravitz, direct debut, hats off to her. Fantastic movie. I loved it and at number one already talked about it earlier, but Dune Part two, it's my favorite movie of the year. It is what I would pretty much say is a complete movie. I don't think it lacks anything. Star power, check. Action, check.
[00:54:36] Weird, check. Epicness, check. Music, check. Message, check.
[00:54:43] Adaptation, check. Like it, it really.
[00:54:49] I don't really know what else to say. It's been out about 10 months, 11 months now. So people have talked about it to death, I'm sure. But really interesting. I think it was the first movie I saw in theaters this year, so kind of saw. Started the year with Timothee Chalamet in Dune Part 2. Ended it with a complete unknown.
[00:55:08] But yeah, just I thought his performance in that him and Zendaya's chemistry is. They have that slow burn relationship. Him conquering the sandworm, like his decision at the end of the movie. I don't know, I just. It all worked for me in a way that part one did not. And I am really, really excited for Dune Messiah to see what in the hell they end up doing. You know, I've never read the books, so very excited for that. So that is it. That is my 2024 podcast review. Meant to have this out a couple of days ago, but I'm gonna be completely honest with you. Anxiety and nerves stop me from doing that. It's really hard to start something when nobody knows you, nobody cares about you, and you don't like. I don't know why anyone listens to me about anything. But if you have made it to the end of this podcast, likely a while from the time this podcast actually came out, I just want to say thank you so much. I had a blast watching movies in 2024. I'm going to watch a hell of a lot more in 2025, and now that I have this platform, I will be able to share that with you. So hopefully videos or videos podcasts will be coming out every Monday morning, so be on the lookout for that and I will see you then.
[00:56:26] Have some movies coming out this weekend that I'm excited to talk about. I just watched the Damned, which is my first film of 2025. We also have Den of Thieves 2, Pantera, the Last Showgirl, and I cannot believe I'm saying this, A better man with the fucking Robbie Williams movie. I'm gonna see it. I keep hearing good things, like surprisingly good things. So excited to check that out this week.
[00:56:53] And I think there's a movie streaming that I need to look up too. So, you know, a lot to get started off with the beginning of this year. I hope you had a very happy new year. Wish you nothing but the best in 2025. And I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening. And yeah, again, if you want to reach out to me, I'm at. Yeah, that Dustin on Twitter and Instagram. So come say hello and give me your thoughts on any or all of this here in your top five or whatever of 2024.
[00:57:26] So I will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening. Goodbye.
