Year in Review: 2024

Let me start this party by admitting ... I really dropped the ball on reviews this year, folks. Not counting my Percy Jackson response, which in practice plays more like one of my essays anyways, there was a six-month gap between reviews with Wish last November and The Fall Guy this May.

More than once during that drought, I took my notebook to the theater and came back with a page full of notes, but for various reasons I was unable to piece together anything. It didn't help also that deliveries this year were comparatively sparse, what with the strikes strangling the production line ... I will try to do better this year. (For those curious, I am also going to try to review the final season of Stranger Things, like I did with the 4th season, when it drops sometime this year. That will all depend on a lot of things, including the method by which Netflix chooses to release these episodes.)

My reviews didn't particularly favor many of the box office hits this year--you'll all have to wait before you hear my opinion on Twisters, I guess--but I do try to remain at least plugged into the pop culture discourse. After all, aside from the "Percy Jackson" show response, my biggest review was for the Wicked film adaptation.

No surprise. I had a lot invested in the success of this movie, not just as a fan of the property, but as a champion of the musical genre. My musical survey essay nearly two years ago was largely in anticipation of this film, which I knew would be a turning point for studios deciding whether or not they were going to keep throwing money at this trickiest of genres. The financial and critical success of this project, then, gives me hope that musicals might live to fight another day, and I eagerly look forward to reviewing Wicked's concluding installment this Thanksgiving.

The essay round-up this year includes:

-Reveling in the Mixed Messages of Miss Congeniality - A thematic dissection of Miss Congeniality and its seemingly contradictory representation of gender dynamics.

-The Banshees of Inisherin: The Death Knell of Male Friendship - A look at The Banshees of Inisherin as a reflection the complexities in maintaining adult male friendship.

-Finding Nemo: The Thing About Film Criticism ... - A deep-dive into the mechanics of Pixar masterpiece, Finding Nemo, and what it means for the critical attitudes toward film as a whole and animation specifically.

-Nights of Cabiria: What IS Cinema? - A meditation on the function and purpose of the cinematic form as reflected in the 1957 Italian film, Nights of Cabiria.

-The Other Woman: Empathy isn't Easy - An exercise in understanding character likeability as seen in the 2009 independent film, The Other Woman with Natalie Portman.

-We Did Not Deserve The Lion King - A history of the production of Disney's The Lion King and a look at its unusual place within the Disney canon.

-How Guardians of the Galaxy Tricks You into Feeling Things - A retrospective of the intricate emotional dialogue underpinning James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy.

-The Power of the Dog doesn't (want to) Understand Toxic Masculinity: A History and Deconstruction of the Toxic Cowboy - ... this one's pretty self-explanatory.

-A Patch of Blue: Sidney Poitier, Representation, and the Virtue of Choice - A tribute to actor and activist, Sidney Poitier, seen through the lens of his best film, A Patch of Blue.

-Children of a Lesser God: Between Sound and Silence - A look at the landmark film in deaf representation, including its historic win for Best Leading Actress from deaf performer, Marlee Matlin.

-My Best Friend's Wedding: Deconstructing the Deconstructive Rom-Com - An exploration of the post-modern attitudes toward the rom-com genre at work in My Best Friend's Wedding.

Identifying which movies are going to earn the spotlight this time around is always half the battle, not because I am lacking for movies I feel strongly about, but because I'm always trying to decide how best to distribute my promotion across branches of the film tree that deserve it most. I'm trying to make it a regular feature to rope in discussion on movies that don't have a lot of coverage. Ideally, indie-films that didn't receive any Oscar noms.

Scarlet Street (1945)

As always, I also try to make regular forays into the world of old Hollywood and give my readers ample opportunity to engage with cinema's long legacy. There have been some developments that have given me more hope for the future of classical cinema (my discovery of TUBI, mostly), but I still feel a significant call to generate more discussion on older films, so expect more of those to come.

Additionally, I'm becoming more interested in discussing films that I think are interesting but not necessarily masterworks. Somewhere between a rave and a rant. Something like my Clash of the Titans essay a few years back. There's tremendous catharsis in writing about something on either end of the spectrum, but to do away with extremes and dial in on the intricacies of a film's delivery, that demands a very refined analytical ability. Learning to deal in the gray, in the nuance, is a key to vivid discourse. Moreover, the film discussion doesn't just live or die on the highest and lowest points. Lots of films deserve discussion.

I call it a battle to identify viable candidates, but that's generally describing the amount of brain power demanded, not the timeline by which it occurs: by mid-January of last year, I had already figured out almost every single essay I was going to write in 2024.

I had a lot of time to prep my "Thor" essay

This ... is not so uncommon. Nor have I found it to be a significant stumbling block in my creative process. I like to leave some surprises for myself, but I'm also learning not to necessarily resist this part of how I work.

I have historically, for example, been very coy about promoting my work too far in advance in order to sidestep any awkwardness that might come up if I end up having to drop a piece in production (that has happened before) that I have already publicly committed to. But this kind of thing has been very rare, which has me wondering if this practice has been so useful after all and has also inspired me to try something new this year.

Knowing that, help yourself to this peek at some highly classified information.

This year's suspects

This is also a year I've given extra thought to what a critic's job even is.

As best as I can put it, a critic ought to be someone who opens your eyes. This should be someone with a good knowledge of the medium's history and linguistics--someone who can actually tell you whether or not what a film is trying to do is novel or even noteworthy. Films are a reflection of life and the cornucopia of worldviews and perspectives that can find their way onscreen, and so ideally your critic knows a thing or two about that as well.

And the goal of criticism isn't necessarily consensus. We all bring our own values and perspective to the game. As a result, two equally qualified critics can have two conflicting reads of the same piece of media--that's part of the fun. The secret of criticism is that you don't actually have to convince anyone to change their colors. You just have to get them see new ones. I really respect film critics who pull that off.

Modern Criticism ...

These things are, of course, hard to measure, hard for writing outlets to anticipate. And so, they reward critics who are not necessarily the best thinkers, but the best at harvesting eyeballs. And so, the ecosystem ends up platforming critics who tell us what we already want to hear. This leads to incurious criticism--dialogue that does not seek to understand the text of the film, but the appetites of the people consuming it. The trouble is, this kind of criticism does not actually serve the audience, nor even the film it is examining, but rather the critic themselves.

Advances like Rotten Tomatoes scores and IMDb's rating system have also shaped the landscape. The goal of the critic becomes to anticipate where the movie's going to land and tailor your review in advance so you're not caught on the wrong end of the YouTube comments. I'm not here to bag on those sites--I especially find a lot of IMDb's features useful for both assembling my writing and my own personal uses as a casual film fan. I just think it's worth reflecting on how the ability to immediately assign a film a numerical value impacts the way films are discussed, and also whether or not there's anything proactive film lovers can do to keep audiences on their toes.

The challenges that face thoughtful film discussion have maybe never been easy, but I also don't think that contemporary film lovers ought to take that as an excuse to shirk from our responsibility to keep the conversation not just alive, but healthy as well.

--The Professor

Kolya (1996)

Comments

The Earthling: Some Observations on "Natural Masculinity"

I’ve talked quite a bit about “toxic masculinity” across his blog, but I want to talk for a moment about a companion subject–“natural masculinity.” I’ve heard several other names and labels assigned to the idea, but the general concept is this idea that men are disposed to behave a certain way and that sOciETy forces them to subjugate this part of themselves. Maybe some of us were raised by someone, or currently live with someone, who buys into these attitudes. Maybe they’re perfectly fine most of the time, but once they meet up with Brian from sophomore year and go out into the mountains for a “weekend with the guys,” a sort of metamorphosis takes place. Jokes that were unacceptable to them become hilarious. Certain transgressions lose their penalty. Gentle Joe kinda mutates into a jerk. This is all propelled and reinforced by the idea that this is how men just are , and that entitles them to certain actions. And who are these women to infringe upon that God-given right? Gladiator (2...

Professor's Picks: 10 Disappearing Movies Still on My Watchlist

Let me introduce this piece by discussing one of my favorite movies, 1938's Le Quai des Brumes , "Port of Shadows." This ancestor to noir film sees a despondent military deserter drifting to the foggy banks of Le Havre. There, he comes across a 17-year-old runaway pursued by several malicious parties. Their chance meeting teases a new and brighter future for these two drifters, forcing even the most nihilistic of us to consider the meaning of love and purpose in a meaningless world. I saw the film for the first time for Media Arts History I, and I was absolutely transported. In a semester that offered some of the most dry, challenging films I had to watch for any class, this film was just a breath of fresh air. E verything you imagine when you think of a "French movie," even if you only know them by pop culture parodies, this was all of that. The moodiness, the melodrama, the romance, it's all there, and to such great eff...

An Earnest Defense of Passengers

Recall with me, if you will, the scene in Hollywood December 2016. We were less than a year away from #MeToo, and the internet was keenly aware of Hollywood’s suffocating influence on women on and off screen but not yet sure what to do about it. Enter Morten Tyldum’s film Passengers , a movie which, despite featuring the two hottest stars in Hollywood at the apex of their fame, was mangled by internet critics immediately after take-off. A key piece of Passengers ’ plot revolves around the main character, Jim Preston, a passenger onboard a spaceship, who prematurely awakens from a century-long hibernation and faces a lifetime of solitude adrift in outer space; rather than suffer through a life of loneliness, he eventually decides to deliberately awaken another passenger, Aurora Lane, condemning her to his same fate. So this is obviously a film with a moral dilemma at its center. Morten Tyldum, director of...

REVIEW: Don't Look Up

The premise of Netflix's new film, "Don't Look Up," is simple: two scientists discover a giant comet that is absolutely going to collide into earth, and the people of the world need to be warned. Telling people that the world is going to end is the easy part. The hard part is getting them to take it seriously. The media circus surrounding the end of the world is made only more hilarious seen through the eyes of our main characters: soft-spoken Professor Randall Mindy (Leonardo Dicaprio) and slightly disaffected grad student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence). It says a lot about the writing of this movie that even with the apocalypse just on the horizon, our protagonists with their complex inner lives keep us anchored in the conflict, never distracting us from it. But despite the writing and performances, t he film still can't escape the flaw inherent in its design. While most of the film's targets (politicians, clickbait editorials, ...

REVIEW: Jurassic World - Rebirth

I had a mixed reaction to Jurassic World: Rebirth, but it did make for one of the most enjoyable theater experiences I've had in recent memory. I have to imagine that a part of this is because my most common theater appointments are matinee screenings, but I had the opportunity to see this one at a fairly well-attended midnight screening. And there's nary a film more tailored for surround-sound roaring and screens wide enough to contain these de-extinct creatures. ("Objects on the screen feel closer than they appear.") It was natural for me to cap the experience by applauding as the credits stared to roll, even if, as usual, I was the only one in the auditorium to do so. Yes, I am that kind of moviegoer; yes, I enjoyed the experience that much, and I imagine I will revisit it across time. That's not to imagine the movie is beyond reproach, but I suppose it bears mentioning that, generally , this i...

My Criminal Father Surrogate: Masculinity in A Perfect World

I've been wanting to tackle the subject of "masculinity" in film for quite some time now, but I hadn't quite known how best to do that. There's a certain buzzword, "toxic masculinity," that especially elicits a lot of strong feelings from a lot of different angles. While a post-#MeToo world has exposed some very disturbing truths about the way masculinity has historically performed, I'm not here to roast 50% of the world population. Actually, I really want to talk about a man's capacity for good. Ted Lasso (2020) There’s certainly a lot of discussion to be had for newer media celebrating men for possessing attributes not historically coded as "manly." But what's even more fascinating to me are the attempts to bridge the gap between traditional masculinity and new age expectations--to reframe an older vision of manhood within our modern context. Which brings me to Clint Eastwood’s 1993 film, A Perfect World. ...

REVIEW: In The Heights

I can pinpoint the exact moment in the theater I was certain I was going to like In the Heights after all. There's a specific shot in the opening number, I believe it even features in one of the trailers, that has lead character Usnavi staring out the window of his shop observing the folks of his hometown carried away in dance. The reflection of this display of kinetic dreaming is imposed on the window over Usnavi's own yearnful expression as he admires from behind the glass plane. He's at once a part of the magic, yet totally separate from it. The effect has an oddly fantastical feel to it, yet it's achieved through the most rudimentary of filming tricks. This is but one of many instances in which director Jon M. Chu finds music and light in the most mundane of corners. The film is anchored in the life of storeowner, Usnavi, as he comes to a crossroads. For as long as he's run his bodega, Usnavi's guiding dream has been to return to his parent's co...

REVIEW: Encanto

It was around Disney's 50th animated feature, Tangled , that this critic first came into film discourse. A lot has changed within the House of Mouse in the years since, and we now find ourselves the recipient of the Disney canon's 60th feature film, Encanto , directed by Jared Bush, Byron Howard, and Charise Castro Smith. What does this latest entry contribute to the library? Turns out, quite a bit. Nestled in their enchanted house, Casita, the Madrigal family dazzles their community with their fantastical gifts. Elegant Isabella makes flowers grow in her footsteps, young Antonio chats it up with the local wildlife, and Mirabel ... wishes she had a gift like the rest of her family. It's hard to feel important when you're the only one in your family without a superpower, especially with your grandmother constantly shoving you into the corner. But all is not right in paradise. The magic is fading from Casita, and Mirabel is the only one who can keep her f...

"When Did Disney Get So Woke?!" pt. 1 The Disney of Your Childhood

So, I’m going to put out a somewhat controversial idea here today: The Walt Disney Company has had a tremendous amount of influence in the pop culture landscape, both in recent times and across film history. Further controversy: a lot of people really resent Disney for this. I’ve spent a greater part of this blog’s lifetime tracking this kind of thing. I have only a dozen or so pieces deconstructing the mechanics of these arguments and exposing how baseless these claims tend to be. This sort of thing is never that far from my mind. But my general thoughts on the stigmatization of the Disney fandom have taken a very specific turn in recent times against recent headlines. The Walt Disney Company has had some rather embarrassing box office flops in the last two or three years, and a lot of voices have been eager to link Disney’s recent financial woes to certain choices. Specifically, this idea that Disney has all the sudden “gone woke.” Now,...

REVIEW: The Fantastic 4 - First Steps

I'm going on the record to say that, even with the devastation wrought upon Wanda's character in "Multiverse of Madness," WandaVision is one of the best things we've gotten from any stage of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And that has to be the main reason why Marvel enlisted Matt Shakman to pilot their premiere Fantastic 4 film (stealing him away from Star Trek 4 ...), the film that was going to rescue the studio from their post-"Endgame" stupor. There are probably all sorts of soundbites about this being the first real version of the story to get the machine to work, and I wouldn't disagree. But in the context of Marvel's larger rehabilitation, The Fantastic 4: First Steps reads less like the great MCU reset and more like an elaborate gymnastics routine, an attempt to splice Marvel's Thanos era with its Not-Iron-Man era. Graciously, this works better than it sounds on paper, but it does kind of purchase this at the expense of ...

Films and Feelings

Search This Blog