We're making progress!
I've got kind of a reputation for being way behind on movies and shows, a reputation well-earned. Even with this year's prolific performance, I still haven't seen Titanic or Avatar (despite having no personal beef with James Cameron). But I do like movies. A really good movie can stick in your mind for days and weeks, and as a sometimes D&D GM, I love taking a movie idea and using it as a premise for an adventure. I ran a game set in the cursed mansion of the characters from Beauty and the Beast a couple years ago, and I loved it.
This year, I watched several highly-recommended movies (as well as several that were appropriately not recommended, but I had to know!). And I've started to learn more about my personal movie tastes as well. Historically I haven't been much of a horror film fan, this year's #1 film and a handful of other enjoyable experiences drew from that genre. I'm still not big on jump scares, but I've discovered that I can enjoy a psychological thriller or a slasher as much as anybody.
So, as is my wish, all the time, I've put together a list of every movie I saw for the first time in 2024. I've included blurbs as well, especially for movies that didn't end up getting an individual blog post.
Away we go!
- Get Out - Five stars. Tremendous.
- The Fall Guy - Action, romance, comedy, I found myself delighted in all three spheres. Such a fun watch, and such a Joe movie.
- Dune: Part Two - I thought this movie really hummed, even better than the original. Though, I haven't started watching Dune: Prophecy yet, so maybe when I say I want to spend more time in the world, I'm all talk.
- Knives Out - Clue, but less cheesy.
- Clue - Clue.
- Renfield - Not exactly a horror film, but I mean, Dracula is Dracula. The action/comedy was on point here, I had an amazing time watching this movie.
- Interstellar - Really cool movie, like if 2001: A Space Odyssey wanted to not be a piece of trash, it would be this movie.
- Dredd - Is there anything Karl Urban can't do? No, I mean, obviously there's lots of stuff he can't do. But damn does he kill it (and everybody) in this movie.
- Deadpool & Wolverine - The plot is kind of a mess, but the movie is so fun that you forget about that...mostly.
- Safe House - I watched a bunch of Denzel movies this year. This was the cream of the crop for my money, where Denzel was at his most Denzelness. Goddamn that man is an actor.
- Free Guy - Three straight Ryan Reynolds movies? Jeez Joe, get a room. But seriously, kind of a more cheesy version of The Fall Guy, focusing more on the laughs than the romance. Basically the swapping of Ryans has the effect you would expect.
- Conclave - This was a movie that, if I told you what it was about (picking a new pope), it probably wouldn't seem particularly interesting. But it was riveting. I feel like that's how you know a movie was well-acted.
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - After more than a decade of hearing people talk down about this movie, I finally sat down and watched it. And I gotta tell you, it's just an Indiana Jones movie. The ending is a little wonky, but it's good, it's fun.
- A Nightmare on Elm Street - I'm only just scratching the surface of the 'classic slasher' list, but so far, so good.
- Captain Phillips - I've finally seen where the meme comes from. The dramatic tension of this movie was really good, Tom Hanks is and has always been one of the great American actors.
- Annihilation - This was a really interesting watch. I don't normally get up for the more dramatic, intense, dare I say artsy type films. But this one felt like a sci fi mystery, and I really enjoyed it.
- Network - One of those classic movies that I finally got around to watching. It's interesting to compare dialogue back then (which felt very stagey but was performed well) to dialogue now (usually more natural language, but rigid and scripted). Most importantly, I now know firsthand where the beginning of the Unleash the Fury video comes from.
- Everything Everywhere All at Once - I can understand why other people like this movie so much; it's good. There's quirky, high-octane action and there are emotional beats. But I'll always have trouble finding empathy for villains, no matter how relatable their struggles are. Took me like ten years to give Loki a chance.
- Murder on the Orient Express (2017) - I think I liked the idea of this movie more than the movie itself. It was still solid, just wasn't the riveting mystery masterpiece that I was hoping for. The original is in my queue!
- Mad Max: Fury Road - The action was great, but I had a hard time getting into the story. You'd think any sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland would be plenty for me, but apparently I'm more picky than that.
- The Big Short - Another Ryan Gosling film, though it's an ensemble cast here. It's a decent film, but I kept kind of waiting for it to hit another gear, and it just didn't.
- Sleepy Hollow - Johnny Depp is always eminently watchable, and he did a good job in this role. I was sort of hoping that the story would end up not being supernatural, but it was still pretty fun.
- Philadelphia - And here we are with another Denzel Washington movie. He was great, and I enjoyed the courtroom scenes. My only qualm really is that it felt like it was a movie that really really wanted to win awards, instead of having a story it wanted to tell.
- 300 - I finally watched the infamous Zack Snyder film. It was entertaining, but I had a hard time empathizing with the Spartans. The whole, "raise child soldiers and throw them in the wild and hope they survive" thing just isn't a Joey vibe.
- The Flash - This movie had some of the worst CGI I've ever seen. The fact that it's here in the middle of this list is a testament to some pretty solid story-telling and entertaining acting. But holy god, the CGI, terrible.
- Pitch Perfect 2 - Look, the movie doesn't break any new ground. But it's entertaining in most of the same ways that the original was, and, hey, I'm a red-blooded man. Throwing a bunch of pretty girls on screen isn't the worst way to grab my attention.
- The Iron Claw - I would love for there to be more wrestling-focused movies. I think there are a ton of interesting stories about wrestlers, promoters, events, etc., with all sorts of angles. This particular one is tragic... no, that doesn't capture it. This is like the saddest movie I've ever seen. It's pain and tragedy all the way down. It's good, but holy shit it's a tough watch.
- Barbie - It was kind of all over the place, and I still don't really get why everybody was so head-over-heels for Gosling in this movie. But Margot Robbie looked amazing, and there were enough effective jokes that I enjoyed myself.
- Oppenheimer - Kind of like Philadelphia, it felt like a movie that was supposed to be big, and executed that well. But I didn't feel much in watching it. And the fact that Robert Downey Jr. got an Oscar for sitting in a room and chatting with an assistant is mind-boggling.
- The Equalizer - More Denzel! This one was good too, though for some reason this Taken clone didn't resonate for me. Spoiler alert for 2025 though: I've watched The Equalizer 2, and it was even better.
- Escape from New York - Totally cheesy 80s action movie, but it was fun. One of the all-time scenes when Snake first arrives and finds the homeless guy saying, "I'm the president!"
- Ready Player One - I wanted to like this movie more than I did. Anything gaming-related I try to be open to, because that's sort of "my realm," and like wrestling, I'd like for more movies delving into that world. It was fun enough, but the protagonist sort of fell flat for me.
- Civil War - I was expecting something more like Jericho, a story about a town or a group in a war-torn United States. This was okay, the whole photojournalism angle, but left me wanting for an emotional connection.
- Glengarry Glen Ross - A movie you could tell was adapted from a stage play, both from the limited settings and the style of dialogue. It was fine, Al Pacino was great in it though. Earned a whole extra half-star all on his own, as a secondary character.
- Invictus - I don't know enough about rugby to appreciate the nuances of whether or not the rugby is done well in this movie. And the Mandela side of things, while well-acted, seems insufficiently fleshed out.
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - While Johnny Depp is very watchable, I found this movie kind of wanting. I don't normally seek out musicals, and this one did nothing to make me reconsider that point of view.
- The Shining - A 'classic' horror movie, but one about which I still have questions. Allegedly this sequel Doctor Sleep will shed some light on things, so that's in my 2025 queue.
- Looper - I'm not normally wild about time travel as a movie premise. After watching this movie... I remain not wild about time travel as a movie premise.
- Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore - I enjoy the Harry Potter world, and I liked the original series of movies (and especially books) quite a bit. The first Fantastic Beasts movie was good, but these other two, phew, kind of a mess. This one at least had some cool big monsters.
- Death on the Nile (2022) - Another Hercule Poirot remake with Kenneth Branagh, this one really just never got moving for me. It seems like in these movies the second-biggest actor is the murder victim, which is fine, except you're losing some starpower and screen presence for the second half of the film.
- John Wick 2 - I liked the original John Wick well enough. It was a sort of mindless action movie, lots of guns and fights and what not. John Wick 2 was just mindless.
- Darkman - Liam Neeson doing a quasi-superhero movie with a unique premise? My interest was piqued. But the execution is really shaky, particularly the dialogue. I can abide outdated set pieces, but without riveting conversation, a movie is just a photograph.
- Unbreakable - It was a cool idea, and when it actually moved, there was some compelling content in there. But it was so slow, and so flat. Bruce Willis looked like he got told that his character doesn't care about anything, and to play that up.
- Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald - There were some interesting scenes, but overall this movie was the worst of the Fantastic Beasts series, which is already not that great a series. I think I rate it lower because I was starkly disappointed.
- Public Enemies - The story was surprisingly dull to me; I loved Goodfellas, but this was a gangster movie without any sort of heart or soul. Also, I really grated against some of the video choices they made, specifically the egregious use of sepia filters. What is this, every photograph I've ever taken?
- Gremlins - You can see some of the glimmers of movie-making talent in the film, but for the most part it's not compelling or interesting, the effects are really low-end, and the dialogue is abysmal. Apparently Gremlins 2 is much better, but I'm in no rush to find out.
- Anaconda - All time, epically bad. The only redeeming factor about this movie was that Kari Wuhrer was in it, and she's dreamy.
And that's it for 2024! My goal for 2025 is 50+ movies, which shouldn't be too hard, that's one movie per week. And there are three or four Marvel movies coming out in 2025, so we should be well on our way.
If you'd like to keep up with my movie-watching on a more regular basis, I use Letterboxd to track my watchlist, rate movies, write little reviews, etc. You can see my profile here.
Stay tuned for my 2024 in shows and games!
