BEST OF 2024

Like every year, I contribute my best of the year movie lists to various blogs & podcasts. In addition to the links & videos below, I made a point to write about almost every movie this year on my list (Hard Truths being the one exception), so make sure to explore and click around within the 2024 tab (on the right) to keep with with everything I watched last year...

THE BRUTALIST *UPDATED*

With the exception of one particular scene that I thought was really on the nose & unnecessary but also strangely important to the story, I thought The Brutalist was very good. It deals with a few things that are directly attached to my life. Now…there’s nothing I hate more than when someone makes personal relatability to a movie the determining factor as to whether it’s good or not, but architecture & design has been an integral part of the majority of my life. In addition to having an unhealthy obsession with cinema, I’m also an architectural draftsman. I’ve worked as an interior designer, furniture specifier, architectural assistant and a CAD operator but at the end of the day it all comes back to drafting (it’s also just easier to tell people that I'm a draftsman as there are a lot of parts to my job/career that are long-winded and unnecessarily complicated). I say all that to say there’s an additional layer of understanding I think I might have over the average viewer. Not to sound too gatekeep-y, but it would be odd if I didn’t mention my background in architecture & design.

It’s also sometimes incredibly frustrating reading about architecture & design from the perspective of people that don’t know what they’re talking about. Specifically modern architecture and practical add-ons. Anyone can have an opinion on whether they feel a building is ugly or not. But sometimes their opinions are a little uninformed. I come from the practical side of architecture & design so it’s difficult to listen to some people wax poetic about how they would have made the Barclay’s center better when they haven’t taken a class on space planning or city planning (although in fairness - I’m not a fan of the Barclay’s design myself).

Modern architecture is vilified now more than ever. Anything new or sleek-looking that doesn't have a thousand little gothic details is always associated with something evil or bad. Whenever something isn’t a dusty cluttered Brooklyn brownstone it’s considered an eyesore or ugly. People have no clue that the reason a large (sometimes out of place) HVAC unit is attached to the side of a building is partially to blame on the original design and there’s no other choice but to put a large blue metal unit on the exterior because it’s the only way to provide heat to a school...

The Brutalist does sometimes have an outsider’s surface-level romanization of what architecture & design can be, but I’ve come to the realization that’s always going to be the case and it’s just unavoidable. It is what it is. People want to see beautiful buildings and someone hunched over a drafting board with beautiful sketches and deep contemplative thoughts. No one wants to sit through a 3-1/2 movie about code violations, drafting techniques and failed inspections. I do acknowledge this criticism is kind of unfair. I know most folks don’t want to see a boring procedural movie about anything. People want to see the pretty final product. Totally understandable.  

The film’s lead character studied at the Bauhaus institute and we see a good amount of Mies Van Der Rohe-style furniture designs in the first section of the story (van der Rohe was a former director at the Bauhaus).

Brady Corbet recently made a visit to the Criterion closet and namedropped Larisa Shepitko. Perhaps she had an influence on some of the shots in The Brutalist...

Wings / The Brutalist

Corbet also mentions Visconti as a source of inspiration

Visconti, very important filmmaker for me and has had an extraordinary influence on all of my work - Brady Corbert

Death In Venice / The Brutalist

I know I’m being overly nitpicky towards the architectural side of the story because this is the closest I get to feeling authoritative towards something. But keep in mind I’m not even a licensed architect and I have a lot of personal resentment towards the career path I’ve chosen. Truth be told, I came in to this movie with preconceived notions ready to hate but I was pleasantly surprised). Try to remember that I led with calling this film very good. And to be fair, the film dedicates a good amount of the story to the sketching, planning & red tape that comes along with the construction process (it does take two decades for the film’s main architectural project to reach completion). There are a few scenes where our lead architect throws a fit because of a code-related change to his original design. Adrien Bordy's Laszlo Toth is a complicated man. One minute he's an egomaniac and the next minute he's a helpless child. 

Architecture & design aside, this movie is kind of a one-sided twisted made up love story that’s all in the mind of the film’s antagonist. Without spoiling too much, Laszlo Toth isn’t “The Brutalist”. It’s Guy Pierce’s Harrison Van Buren. Like I eluded to earlier, the character of Van Buren is very on the nose and the relationship between he & Laszlo is an almost elementary school level metaphor on the relationship between America and how they treat immigrants (it’s also very clear that Van Buren is weirdly in love with Toth but expresses it in a very…brutal way).

Brady Corbett’s story of an immigrant coming to America in hopes of a better life is nothing new. Only his approach. I’m also in shock that this thing was made for only six million dollars. It has the same grandiose scale of a Christopher Nolan film but with a bit more “soul”.

This film certainly passes the look test. A movie like The Brutalist has to be at least visually pleasing. Thankfully it is and then some. A good chunk of the the movie feels like an architectural exhibit and I’m honestly not mad at that (the movie does end with a literal architectural exhibit dedicated to Toth's work). No matter how naive I feel the film’s approach towards architecture & design can sometimes be - it’s clear Brady Corbet has a genuine love & respect for the craft. This is probably the best modern film dealing with design since Peter Greenaway’s The Belly Of An Architect.

MILK & SERIAL

Found footage horror movies can be insufferable and often times dumb, but every few years or so a new film comes along and manages to do something slightly new within the genre that I like. Nothing groundbreaking or “genre reinventing”. Just fun and entertaining. At this point, a big part of making a watchable/somewhat believable found footage movie is finding a new-yet-logical explanation as to why someone keeps the camera rolling during the chaos. Today, everyone is always filming & posting themselves on all forms of social media so that part of the story is kind of easy to pull off. Someone is streaming and/or going live at any given moment. There’s also an even bigger uptick in youtube/Instagram/tik-tok prank videos which, staged or not, are usually mean-spirited & cruel. And they only get more & more cruel because each prankster wants to outdo and one-up the last person. Everyone wants to go viral. I’m kind of surprised more modern horror films haven’t capitalized on this subject matter instead of all the easter egg/symbol-heavy grief-porn horror films that currently plague the genre. 

I know this sounds preachy on my part but folks are incredibly desensitized and have a warped sense of reality now more than ever. Likes, followers, and going viral are equal currency to some folks. Curry Barker’s Milk & Serial touches on all the mean-spirited online pranks and the desensitization of young people without being too preachy and finger wagging...

A Clockwork Orange / Milk & Serial

This is bound to be compared to the cinema of Quentin Tarantino due to it’s non-linear format, but this reminded me of a really good hour-long Mr Show sketch where the twist has an additional twist (the film centers around a prank inside of a prank that goes too far between a group of friends). Curry Barker is a young cinephile so the usual unavoidable suspects like; Tarantino and a base-level understanding of the violent side of Kubrick are all within the DNA of this movie but it would be unfair to stop there (it also shouldn't even need to be said but Quentin Tarantino didn't invent non-linear storytelling). There’s more to this movie than non-linear storytelling and visual homages to classic cinema. Young creatives aren’t always given the credit they deserve. Older folks like to sometimes underestimate the creativity of younger people because there’s this unwritten rule that anyone younger than you doesn’t know anything. But in my opinion, Milk & Serial is way more mature than you’d expect (especially considering it was made by someone in their early 20s). The music, the tone, the ambiance, everything. This is the kind of film that could be a gateway to stuff like early Haneke. Milk & Serial certainly has the same mean-spiritedness of something like Benny’s Video or Funny Games… 

Benny's Video / Milk & Serial

After a recent re-watch I'm really starting to suspect Barker might be a fan of Haneke's late period stuff as well...

Benny's Video / Milk & Serial

A coincidental callback to possibly the most popular found-footage movie ever...

The Blair Witch Project / Milk & Serial

The final moments are also similar to the final moments of the pre-found footage classic; Man Bites Dog

Man Bites Dog / Milk & Serial

This is an hour-long youtube movie so I completely understand why it didn’t get the same hype as something like Cuckoo, Late Night With The Devil, Longlegs or even In A Violent Nature, but if you’re looking for an alternative to all the disappointing horror films from this year (sorry but almost everything that’s been hyped up this year was a letdown for me personally), Milk & Serial is easy to access.

A FEW WORDS ON PERFECT DAYS *UPDATED*

Wim Wenders’ latest is one of those films that’ll be miscategorized as “simple”, “light” or even “boring” to those that watch it casually or on a surface level. But beyond the time-filling hobbies and Jeanne Dielman-esque day to day routines of the film’s main character lies a heavy story about regret and making peace with the past.

Putting aside the excess baggage and semi-ambiguous family drama of the film’s main character, I find myself wanting to live the life of someone like Hirayama. He’s a simple man that takes pride in his job, loves music on cassette and spends his free time taking photographs of trees. Having outlets & serious hobbies other than your job/work/career is incredibly important to one’s sanity. I can personally attest to this. My obsession with digging for things like music & movies keeps me sane. Hirayama’s love of photography, trees, physical media and cozy local bars keeps him sane. If he didn’t have those things he would be left alone with his thoughts of loneliness and the strained relationship with his family (it should be noted that his niece does make an effort to have some kind of a relationship with him).

Under a different director, the character of Hirayama would be a cartoonish iteration of Robert Crumb or Harvey Pekar. A curmudgeon that hates his own hobbies and prefers to be alone due to his hatred of most people. But Wim Wenders shows the positive side of niche hobbies and spending time alone. 

Interestingly enough, Perfect Days is a film that plays in to my personal hobbies and healthy obsessions. On one hand, this is very much Wenders’ own movie but it also serves as a love letter to one Yasujiro Ozu. There’s lots of visual comparisons to be made form this film.

Autumn Afternoon / Perfect Days

Autumn Afternoon / Perfect Days

of course Ozu's Spirit looms largely over the movie - Wim Wenders, Tiff.net

Tokyo Story / Perfect Days

I saw TOKYO STORY, and I stayed for the next three shows [of Ozu's films] that day until I stumbled out of the theatre late at night. I'd never seen anything that had so much shaken my world - Wim Wenders, AnOtherMagazine

Late Spring / Perfect Days

Late Spring / Perfect Days

A Story Of Floating Weeds / Perfect Days

Late Spring / Perfect Days

Equinox Flower / Perfect Days

Late Spring / Perfect Days

Good Morning / Perfect Days

Late Spring / Perfect Days

Tokyo Chorus / Perfect Days

Late Spring / Perfect Days

Good Morning / Perfect Days

Good Morning / Perfect Days

Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family / Perfect Days

Tokyo Story / Perfect Days

I’ve never taken Wenders for a Tarkovsky guy, but this particular moment from Perfect Days (on the right) feels like an homage to the highway scene from Solaris (also shot in Japan).

Solaris / Perfect Days

There’s even a coincidental connection to Wenders’ former mentee Jim Jarmusch (I like to imagine these two guys exist in the same universe)

Paterson / Perfect Days

 

Perfect Days feels timeless with tons of replay value and is slowly becoming my go-to movie to put on when I can’t think of anything else to watch.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING

I went in to this with low expectations and came out pleasantly satisfied. Rose Glass’ sophomore feature didn’t break any new ground but it’s certainly a solid popcorn movie. I think some people are eager to make this out to be something more than it is due to the sexuality within the film but at the end of the day it’s nothing more than a fun crime story. And that’s totally fine. Contrary to what a lot of critics try to push nowadays, some movies exist for entertainment and/or a momentary escape. Everything isn’t some radical or political statement. On a surface level, Love Lies Bleeding rests somewhere between the cinema of Nicolas Winding Refn and a more polished/mimicked iteration of early Gregg Araki. I was eager to compare this to stuff like Wild at Heart & Thelma & Lousie but Glass herself made a point to avoid tapping in to those films. Also, making that kind of comparison is like calling something that’s slightly weird; “Lynchian”. It’s cheap. 

Speaking of cheap and things being incorrectly labeled as “Lynchian” – there is a shot of a dark road at night in Love Lies Bleeding so I’m sure some critics jumped at the chance to compare it to Lost Highway.

Because so much of the DNA and ingredients of [Love Lies Bleeding] is so easily connectable to so many other films — Wild at Heart, Thelma and Louise, True Romance, anything with two lovers with guns and murder in extremity — I was wary about not wanting it to [revisit them] – Rose Glass, Hollywood Reporter

At this point, a movie like Thelma & Louise is so popular that you can’t avoid some type of subconscious influence but there’s no unique connection between the two films outside of the desert and two women kind of on the run…

I've never seen Thelma and Louise but that's so famous that even if you haven't seen it, you sort of feel like you have, so I'm sure it has an influence somewhere – Rose Glass, Theskinny.co.uk

Again – this feels like it was birthed from someone trying to pay homage to Gregg Araki with way more budget and a bit less grit. That may sound a little harsh but even with criticisms like that, I really did enjoy Love Lies Bleeding overall. I couldn’t find any interviews where Glass name-drops Araki as a source of inspiration but some of the similarities in the movie, intentional or not, are undeniable…

Doom Generation / Love Lies Bleeding

Doom Generation / Love Lies Bleeding

While the basic romance/crime story has been done before to some degree, Glass throws in things like female bodybuilding and random moments of surreality to try and stand out from other sweaty cigarette stenched crime capers (if you’re looking for a more direct comparison, Love Lies Bleeding is definitely a first cousin to something like Bound). There are a handful of scenes in this movie that seem a little random for the sake of being random but I’m honestly not mad at that.

This story is set in the 80’s and for someone not even born in that decade, Glass does an excellent job of not falling in to the trap of dressing all the characters up in neon windbreakers & rayban sunglasses. It seems like whenever a filmmaker wants to set a film in the 80s, the first thing they do is make everything neon & cheesy. The 80’s was not all MTV, Boy George & Madonna. I was born in 1981. My memory of the 80’s was a lot of cigarette smoke, ugly carpets (that trapped in all the cigarette smoke) and the color palettes were often browns & oranges as apposed to neon pinks & yellows. Again – Love Lies Bleeding has a bit too much sheen for a seedy 1980’s Reno, Nevada crime story, but there is a genuine attempt at trying to capture the 80s. The smells, the ashtrays, the faded jeans, etc…

The small handful of cinematic references that Glass openly pulls from are also a bit outside of the box. Instead of the aforementioned Thelma & Louise or Wild At Heart, Glass pulls from sources like Paul Verhoeven and 1960s B-movies. These influences are even more interesting to me because her first film, Saint Maud, pulled from folks like Bergman & Polanski (a lot of people claimed there was Tarkovsky in Saint Maud but according to Glass, she wasn’t very familiar with his work at the time).

Showgirls was just one of those films that I remember watching when I was probably too young to watch it quite late one night on TV - Rose Glass, The Hollywood Reporter

Showgirls / Love Lies Bleeding

Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman / Love Lies Bleeding

Contrary to what one might assume, the Refn similarities lie in the music and the random spurts of violence and not the fascination with trying to replicate the 80’s as some sort of Andy Warhol/David Lachapelle/pop art fever dream.

A FEW WORDS ON JANET PLANET *UPDATED*

For those that don’t know - I’m not only from western Massachusetts but I’m a former classmate of Janet Planet director Annie Baker (not trying to name-drop. I just think it would be odd to not mention that). I don’t think my opinion on this movie holds more weight than anyone else who’s seen it, but I think I know the basic material more than the average person. Not the deeper coming of age story of an 11 year old girl and the close relationship with her quietly eccentric mother. But all the ancillary elements are very near & dear to my heart. It’s impossible for me to not feel nostalgic watching this. The first time I saw it I spent half the time pointing out to all the very real places I grew up in & around. Amherst is a very unique place. I know everyone with some kind of hometown pride always says that about wherever they’re from but people that aren’t even from Amherst that have spent time there have confirmed that it’s unlike anywhere else. It’s incredibly liberal (sometimes laughably liberal when compared to the rest of the world) and sometimes pretentious but well-meaning at the end of the day. I couldn’t imagine growing up anywhere else. Amherst is where I learned about weird movies and music which is a huge part of who I am today. I can confirm that this movie captures the vibe of early 90’s Western, Mass. The wooded areas, the architecture, the clothes, the aging hippies — all of it. 

It’s just nice to see specific landmarks that you grew up with in a movie directed by someone that’s actually from where the story takes place. If you’re from places like Toronto, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago or New York City - it’s fairly common to see familiar landmarks show up in movies. That’s not the case when you’re from Western Massachusetts. We’re usually an afterthought or incorrectly attached to the other side of the state. So much of our personality is based on telling non-new England folks that we aren’t from Boston or that we’re different from Boston people. …At least that’s how it was for me post-high school (to be clear - we are very different from the people on the eastern side of the state in that we’re less aggressive and aren’t as angry).

Mount Pollox Conservation Area, Amherst Massachusetts

The parking lot of the Hampshire Mall, Hadley Massachusetts

Tobacco barn in Hadley

Masonic Street Mural, Northampton Massachusetts 

A huge chunk of this movie's personality is the result of watching & appreciating a wide range of cinema and paying homage to it. I mean that in a good way. There’s lots of visual references in this. It wouldn’t be out of line to program Janet Planet on a double bill with something like Fanny and Alexander or Welcome To The Dollhouse (a film that co-stars Amherst alumni; Eric Mabius). Annie Baker subconsciously borrowed from movies in that lane. That’s actually what I liked most about her film. If you’re familiar with this blog then this shouldn't come as a surprise. That's all I seem to care about with movies these days. This is very much her own unique vision but she’s been very open about her cinematic inspirations. I caught some immediately without having to do any research. Others I learned about through reading interviews and listening to Q&As.
Some of the comparisons below might seem a little forced or vague, but I think I captured the ones that are most key/important:

Watching it gets you in touch with all the times you've felt horribly depressed and also overwhelmed by the beauty and color of everything around you - Janet Planet, Criterion

Documenteur / Janet Planet

I’ve seen this movie [Fanny and Alexander] more times than I can count. I think it’s the best movie about being a kid ever made. It’s a fairy tale and a nightmare and a totally believable portrayal of a Swedish family in Uppsala at the turn of the twentieth century, all at the same time. It has always reminded me of one of my favorite novels, Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. It’s also a movie about the weird magic of theater . . . Both the opening sequence and the reading from Strindberg at the end kill me. And the way Bergman shoots inanimate objects . . . The statues and the toy angels and the clocks and the puppets and the lamps . . . They’re all watching Alexander, the whole movie - Annie Baker, Criterion

Fanny and Alexander / Janet IPlanet

Fanny and Alexander / Janet IPlanet

Fanny and Alexander / Janet Planet

I saw this when I was twenty-five or twenty-six and really confused about my work. I was so discouraged and had stopped writing, and this movie made me excited to start working again. Akerman was doing something with pace and composition and time that I'd always wanted to do but had been too chicken to acknowledge or go toward. Watching this made me realize that you should make the kind of art you want to see, which sounds kind of obvious but was a big revelation to me at the time - Annie Baker, criterion

Jeanne Dielman... / Janet Planet

Jeanne Dielman... / Janet Planet

growing up in Amherst, Mass., in the '80s and '90s, you see a lot of political puppet theater - Annie Baker, The New York Times

The Meadows Green / Janet Planet

The Meadows Green / Janet Planet

Dead Man Rises / Janet Planet

The filmmaker I would say my D.P. and my editor and I discussed the most was Maurice Pialat, especially his film "L'Enfance Nue." Another movie that is very important to me is [Victor] Erice's "Spirit of the Beehive." We also talked about [Abbas Kiarostami's films about children, and my sound designer Paul and I talked a lot about [Apichatpong] Weerasethakul, and went to see "Tropical Malady" together - Annie Baker, The New Yorker

The Spirit Of The Beehive / Janet Planet

The Spirit Of The Beehive / Janet Planet

Uncle Boonmee / Janet Planet

Uncle Boonmee / Janet Planet

Uncle Boonmee / Janet Planet

L'enfance Nue / Janet Planet

Ten / Janet Planet

Tropical Malady / Janet Planet

Uncle Boonmee / Janet Planet