I’ve been blessed with Spanish and English. Some Members of the Goodies & Doodies List: The Best and Worst Films of 2024 (MGDL from now on) cursed me with a forked tongue and Swearhili.
Tame your expectations about the usual suspects; we’re operating differently this year. ’Tis the year of the double feature. Too many times in 2024 thanks to a shite surplus; thus, the next step seemed logical: smear it all on the walls of the last twelve months of existential dread.
It’s going to be fun; I promise. Hollywood is heading downhill, but we can still have a joyfully sarcastic ride to doom. A schadenfreude buffet if you will. Beware: mild to severe cussing and perhaps spoilers ahead.
As for the films of 2024, let’s begin with these Dual Doodies.
UGLIES & BORDERLANDS
Adaptations are always a crapshoot, but these two are pure crap that missed the mark. Birthed from a book written for 11-year-olds, Uglies takes the young-adult route to fuck it all up. Why bother with a compelling coming-of-age story when you can poop pretty people and a love triangle instead? Afraid of using not necessarily “ugly” but average-looking actors, Netflix grabs stunners as main characters. Sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but if you need to smack a stupid social media filter on your protagonists to make them “pretty,” you’re already screwing the pooch.
Since I never read the book(s), I don’t know if Uglies is a good adaptation. I can speak about the movie, though. We all enjoy now and then a movie with zero plot and nice people to look at; I concede that. Still, brainless beauty can be boring after a while. In this movie, that means five minutes.
THE FIRST MGDL FEELS LIKE SOMEONE’S CHILD READ THE BOOK WHEN IT CAME OUT IN 2005 AND THEN FORCED THEIR PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/STUDIO OWNER PARENT TO MAKE IT, BUT REMEMBERING IT AS HUNGER GAMES (2012)/DIVERGENT (2014) REMIX WITH ALL THE WORST CHARACTERISTICS OF BOTH MOVIES.
Still, Uglies is among the many streaming films of 2024. You paid for a subscription, and, if you aren’t entertained, you can simply click and find something else– anything else. In the case of Borderlands, you had to put on clothes and leave your house to endure it. Ten years too fukken late to matter, some asshole at Lionsgate said, “Let’s ride that videogame adaptation donkey, pendejos!”
First, they found a casting director who throws darts at an in-need-of-money board instead of interviewing actors. Second, hired special effects slave owners on the cheap, and you can still hear the echoes of the whippings. And third, they created a development hell so toxic that Chornobyl would be considered a blooming park in spring. Take those three ingredients, mix them well, then dump them into a big bowl of cinemas at the worst possible time; no cooking required, even if fire would’ve been the best to happen to this sci-fi (?) train wreck.
There has to be an advantage when enjoyment cannot be impaired by knowledge of the source material, right? Ignorance is bliss, they say. I’m not a gamer, so I’m engaging Borderlands as is, and it’s awful. Perhaps, an interesting story lurks here somewhere, but as with its doodie twin, Uglies, it’s buried under tired clichés, bad quippy dialog, shoddy CGI, and uninspired acting. No one is giving their all, fuck, they’re barely giving 10% of anything. Even Kevin Hart, who’s usually loud and obnoxious, delivers his one-trick acting in the most boring way possible.
THIS MGDL GAVE US JACK BLACK HAUNTING A METAL BOX AFTER A COCAINE BINGE, AND CATE BLANCHETT AND JAMIE LEE CURTIS AS GRANNIES IN SPACE. THAT MOMMY COMBO SHOULD HAVE BEEN A LOT BETTER HAD IT COME FROM ONLY-GRANS.
Uglies and Borderlands tied for five robotic middle fingers and a blast canon arm. You do the math.
ATLAS & DAMSEL
Well, well, well. The subvert-your-expectations strong-female-protagonist twinsies from Netflix came to receive their been-there-done-that diploma. These two pieces of content are a time-traveler’s dream. Set at opposite ends of fake history, both are equally repetitive and insidious in their ignorance. Our fictional time-traveler should’ve gone Jean Claude Schwarzenegger in both films. Where is Marvel’s fucking TVA when you need it?
Age before beauty, right? And Atlas was the dude holding some heavy shit, so Mrs. Lopez Noa-Judd-Anthony-Affleck should be able to take it. She never married A-rod so we cannot attach his last name to Jenny from the Block. Atlas is the story of an office worker who saves Earth by kicking ass with an exoskeleton on a remote planet. Ninety-nine plot holes and this byotch of a movie still ain’t fun. Dang it. Wrong rapper ex-lover. Shrug. I’m gonna leave it anyway.
The problem with Atlas is that it’s more than bad, it’s one of the stupidest films of 2024. Our protagonist is a linchpin, girl boss, savior, and million-killer. We drown in the morally questionable words of Monica Rambeau in WandaVision, “They’ll never know what you sacrificed for them.” AKA as long as you have a vagina in a movie, you can unleash unspeakable things and you won’t be held accountable.
The film’s universe should have gone the way of Frank Herbert’s Dune Saga after the AI uprising. Nah. Logic ain’t a thing here, and everything still revolves around software and techno-bullshit three decades after the catastrophe. The future, according to Hollywood, has to be as fukken dumb as the present, including AI stating their pronouns.
THE ONLY THING THIS FUTURISTIC MGDL SHIT SHOW HAS GOING ON FOR IT IS THAT THE BAD GUYS ARE DIVERSE. AND WE KNOW ATLAS’S MOM WAS USING THAT BIG HUNK OF METAL AS A SEX TOY. #CHANGEMYMIND
In the same vein (or should I say vee-jay-jay) of doing bad things because girl + plot hole means modern, Damsel stumbles on stage. When was the last time a movie “opening with a protagonist telling you what the film isn’t” was good? This fukkeri of a trope subversion doesn’t even have the balls to be so bad’s great to make fun of; it’s just a sad excuse to peddler another girl boss princess as if we haven’t had a gazillions of those already. What is it with Hollywood recycling shit that was already tired in 2014?
Potential is a strong word for whatever the fuck Millie Bobby Brown thought this garbage had. Her “falling in love with the script” only confirms what a lot already knew: zero acting range. Her claim to fame is a socially awkward almost robotic teen with superpowers. In Damsel, she’s less robotic, a teensy bit less awkward, and her superpower is epic plot armor. Fuck me, that plot armor is stronger than adamantium and vibranium combined, can repel lightsabers, and give her stamina points. That fukken kingdom invented the super soldier serum and then leased it to Kevin Feige. And those fukkers still had to arrange a marriage to save themselves.
THIS MGDL TRIES TO BE THE STORY OF A SMART PRINCESS FIGHTING A CURSE WITH ONLY HER WITS. IT’S ANYTHING BUT THAT. NOT EVEN AWARD WINNER ANGELA BASSETT CAN SAVE THIS THING AS ITS MOST PROMINENT DIVERSITY HIRE.
We have a dragon duped one drop of blood at a time over centuries. It snaps out of it when this random princess shows up, only to get beaten by said rando. Later this pathetic excuse of a mighty beast burns down the kingdom because the script (never the plot) demands it. Guess the gender of this monster eating innocent girls because one idiot King killed its offspring generations ago. I bet you guessed wrong because this is a female dragon empowered by another strong female to take her vengeance over those men who did her dirty. Utter trash.
We know doodie twinsies Jennifer Lopez and Millie Bobby Brown from stuff; that doesn’t mean they should go around wasting our time with projects that “don’t save lives.” Atlas and Damsel try to gaslight us into accepting that as long as you’re a woman you can do no wrong. Bunkum and balderdash. Three thick time-traveling middle fingers and zero mood rings rule their fictional realms.
ARGYLLE & RED ONE
Promoted by “star power,” these two yahoos lied hard to the consumers. Talk about false advertisement. Argylle gyrated Cavill, Cena, and Dualipa in our faces harder than a dancer in a titty bar with an all-you-can-eat buffet. These three can obviously put the hook in “hook up,” but fuck me with that fake-ass profile. They not only used a 20-year-old picture but cringe-ly enhanced their endowments.
Conversely, Red One populated our thirsty apps with profile pictures inspired by the French Revolution: all-pecs-no-heads. You wouldn’t use all your fingers to count the amount of brain cells used to create this snow mess. And, still, they fibbed. They promised one of the very few Christmas films of 2024 and gave us a misshapen sleight cosplaying as an action/comedy; a broken cart pulled by one-note acting and enough plot holes to sink the North Pole.
MORE ENTWINED IN THEIR LIES THAN ANY OTHER MGDL, THESE TWO SHOULD GO STRAIGHT TO JAIL WITHOUT COLLECTING 200 DOLLARS, SIGNED COPIES OF ANY SPY NOVEL, OR A SINGLE FUKKEN CANDY CANE.
Nothing happens in either Argylle or Red One. Both think they’re telling some groundbreaking story while actually breaking our brains and faith in studio content. Argylle even had the balls to imply it happens in the same universe as the Kingsman movies! Using actors whose characters died in the Kingsman movies! Fuck. I need a t-shirt with MULTIVERSE AVERSE in Chiller font.
What bothers me the most about Argylle is its framing device. Henry Cavill is Dallas Bryce Howard’s spy muse; she’s our protagonist/writer, living her stories in real-time, and yet from the get-go plot holes abound. She gave Cavill her role in her stories, which are in reality memories of past exploits. The hero of her stories doesn’t have a partner, and yet when she meets her former partner, he’s interchangeable with Cavill. Nope. Also, there’s a level of clairvoyance to her stories that makes no sense whatsoever. This movie was put together with contrivances and cheap typewriter ribbons.
Its festive counterpart, Red One, has an even less believable framing device: tired law enforcer’s last day before retirement. Dwayne Johnson can only play (with) himself, and it’s no different in this sleight crash. The only comedic moments this so-called action comedy has are when Chris Evans is an asshole. We’re really close to getting tired of that trick from him, though. It’s becoming his acting persona, and we know he can do better than that.
Both Argylle and Red One get to share a sackful of reindeer-licked, peppermint-flavored middle fingers.
KUNG FU PANDA 4 & THE CROW 2024
THESE MGDL WITH ANIMAL-INSPIRED TITLES BRING NOTHING NEW TO THE TABLE, YET POOP ON EVERYTHING THAT CAME BEFORE THEM.
In a year full of unmanageable regurgitated waste, these fukkers tie at the summit. Sadly, one made so much money– Dreamworks is certainly planning to bend us over a desk again in a year or two. The other was so flaccid not even Skarsgård looking like a snack could take us to the finish line. I mean, they covered said snack in tattoos resembling graffiti around a gloryhole in a filthy rest stop; yet, lights off is always an option.
What demonic greed possessed those fukkers to unleash Kung Fu Panda 4 into the world? The franchise already has a bunch of streaming shows, but it ain’t Paw Patrol. Haven’t we suffered Awkwafina enough already? Funny enough, I liked Awkwafina before she started doing movies… and voice acting. At least, she doesn’t have an opinion on everything like other “stars.” Dreamworks had a 9/10 perfect trilogy and had diarrhea all over it. And for what, twenty million more than the last one after spending fifty million more on a budget? Great. Fucking. Job.
One thing most of these sequels, prequels, reimaginings, and reboots do is pummel their source material to the ground. And to add insult to injury, bait-and-switch the fuck out of us with a third-grade protagonist stealing the mantle of the originals. Kung Fu Panda 4 gives us a lame reason for the journey; it turns the Panda of the title into a joke to elevate an intruder when it already has five perfectly logical successors. Even the praying mantis would’ve made more sense than whatever the fuck animal Awkwafina is voicing. Sure, they didn’t want to pay for five A-lister’s voices. I get that; just throw a motherfukkin dart to choose one and run with it.
ONE OF THE BEST THINGS ABOUT THIS MGDL ANIMATED FRANCHISE HAS ALWAYS BEEN ITS VILLAINS. THIS TIME, THAT ANTAGONIST IS A LACKLUSTER VOID OF NOTHINGNESS ONCE AGAIN POWERED BY ABSURD GENDER/IMAGE CONFLICT.
It’s a shame this stupid petting zoo looks like it made a lot of money; it closed the year in the box office top ten. And you know Hollywood: more looks than brains. Guess what didn’t look great or make any money? The other abomination of this beast-nightmare doodie combo.
Gonna make a disclaimer here. The original The Crow (1994) or its descendants were never a thing for me. Therefore, learning that they were doing some 2020s bullshit with that title wasn’t offensive, until I watched the outcome. Being boring is the worst sin a movie can commit. Never mind the false advertisement of a moody dark action flick.
I’m 83.64% sure whoever edited this pigeon smeared in tar lurks on BookTok. Said asshole thought it’d be cute to take the current dark romance trend and slap it on a thing that should have never been made. There’s no other explanation for such an amount of pseudo-darkness bullshit shoved into a bloated runtime. Like many of the films of 2024, The Crow 2024 ain’t a homage to a better movie but 2020’s fart-enjoying delusion.
Another money-losing endeavor from Lionsgate is on this list. Was it a bet? Whoever helmed this tedious piece of content was either blackmailed or committed such heinous crimes in a previous life that needed to be extra humbled in this one. Can’t be the second one, though. These Hollywood mofos keep shitting the bed and still fall upwards.
I’VE SEEN CATS FIGHTING IN AN ALLEY WITH MORE CHEMISTRY THAN THE ROMANTIC LEADS OF THIS MGDL. HECK, I’VE SEEN CROWS HAVE MORE CHEMISTRY WITH COWS IN A FUCKING FIELD.
Kung Fu Panda 4 and The Crow 2024 get a box of tarred and feathered middle fingers to go with a side of manure.
MADAME WEB & KRAVEN THE HUNTER
These two idiots are meant to be Spiderman villains or antagonists at minimum. For some reason Sony and whoever the fuck did a mushroom enema before that meeting decided to make them sympathetic; nevertheless, you can’t write sympathetically without pathetic, and the studio took that shit to heart. Madame Web dethroned her older brother Morbius (2022) as Meme Queen Extraordinaire. Wittle baby Kraven stood there, staring blankly into the green-screen African savanna, punching CGI beasts, and spraying digital blood; and of all films of 2024, no one cared.
We have a saying in the old country, “Dos tetas jalan mas que diez carretas.” It roughly translates to “A set of tits gets things done.” Madame Web had eight pairs and still accomplished nothing. Story: shit. Visuals: poop. Villain: crap. Them tits: not even perky. I cannot say I was bored because the amount of nonsensical shenanigans jumping on the screen kept me enthralled. This doesn’t make it good or even decent. We rubberneck car crashes. Consume news of bombings and massacres. Quantity of attention does not equate to quality of intention.
Every single thing in this meandering web of contrivances happens because the plot demands it; nothing is organic or logical. Can Dakota Johnson act? Probably, I liked her in Persuasion (2022). But that’s one against Madame Web and the Fifty Skid Marks of Grey trilogy. Odds ain’t in her favor.
THIS MEME FACTORY OF A MGDL HAS FOUR SCRIPTWRITERS, AND ONE HAPPENS TO BE ITS DIRECTOR. PATTY JENKINS, TAIKA WAITITI, AND MY BOY ZACK SNYDER ALREADY PROVED NOT EVERY DIRECTOR CAN WRITE A SUPERHERO MOVIE. STOP TRYING.
Aunty Web misses the point but entertains in the worst way possible; Kraven the Hunter, on the other hand, is a snooze fest of the highest caliber. The first’s a stolen NYC cab crash; the second’s a muscle car diving off a cliff.
The studio released Kraven the Hunter’s eight-minute intro a couple of weeks before its debut in theaters. Confident move or a desperate Hail Mary? Honestly, I was excited after those 8 minutes; it was a kind of cheese throwback to 90s action movies with bad accents and implausible stunts. Fun. You put outside clothes, drive to the cinema, and interact with other horrible human beings for what? It’s a 30-minute asinine flashback that could have been an email after those initial 480 seconds of possibilities.
Let’s get out of the way the fact that Aaron Taylor-Johnson trained hard for this role. He looks like a fukken beast that could give Chris Hemsworth’s Thor a run for his money. That being said, why bother with that if you gonna make him look goofy as fuck? We know the dude can act. Why force him into this ridiculous stoic attitude limited to two facial expressions? You can’t even say he was phoning it in like Russell Crowe. It was all the director’s myopic vision.
And don’t get me started on those Three Stooges who wrote the script. Dumping a ludicrous thing on our laps and then bringing it up later ain’t a fuckity-fuck payoff. Then they thought, “Let’s kill a bunch of birds with one stone.” Enters Oscar winner Ariana DeBose to be romantic interest (?), diversity hire, and witchy/magical surrogate. Also a lawyer, archer, chemist, and American expat in London. All that, and is still the most boring character in the whole expired shebang.
IT’S A FEAT ON ITS OWN THE WAY SONY CLINGS TO THE EARLY 2000S STYLE OF MOVIE-MAKING. THESE TWO MGDL ARE THE PERFECT EXAMPLE OF THOSE DEFUNCT VISUALS, POOR STORYTELLING, AND WOODEN CHARACTER INTERPRETATION. GET ON WITH THE TIMES.
Well, they kept one thing of these stupid current times; a multifaceted strong woman saves the dude protagonist not once but twice for no fucking reason whatsoever. Web and Kraven the Hunter share one Spiderman middle finger. Nah. Too little. Let’s add two more middle fingers from any 1990s action hero of your choice. And a stern fatherly look at both Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Bill Skarsgård: y’all need to fire them agents. Shit. The films of 2024 were a clusterfuck.
Dishonorable mentions entitle the recipients to a bouquet of middle fingers: The American Society of Magical Negroes, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Megalopolis, Venom 3, Gladiator 2, and Road House
Done with the trash, let’s get some good ties. Welcome, Genial Goodies
DUNE 2 & DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
In a year full of follow-ups, these two Ds nailed the assignment. Now, the difference between a part two and a sequel should be clear; yet, by looking at most films of 2024, Hollywood seems unable to grasp how that works.
As much as I enjoy Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Saga, the first didn’t do much for me. I mean, we know the movie would’ve improved exponentially if Oscar Isaac had stuck around longer. Nevertheless, it ends up abruptly without many resolutions and with a cliffhanger– more coat-hanger than a cliff. Still, we ain’t here to talk about a visually stunning movie that didn’t climax but finished with a grunt; we’re here for Dune 2. Fuck me– this is a cool movie. All shortcomings of part one are forgiven and forgotten.
THIS INTERGALACTIC MGDL STICKS THE LANDING FLAWLESSLY, LEAVING THE DOOR AJAR IN CASE GREED DECIDES IT’S WORTH INVESTING IN A THIRD INSTALLMENT. THE SOURCE MATERIAL IS MESSY, SO LET’S SEE HOW THAT GOES.
I don’t want to sound like the mainstream critics talking about visuals and sound; nevertheless, why would you avoid mentioning a pivotal part of a great job? Isn’t it better when the movie, beyond fun, is also awesome to look at? One thing both Villeneuve’s adaptations of the Dune Saga do effortlessly is bring you into the story; even if you’ve never heard about it before, you won’t need a complicated diagram to understand what’s happening.
Dune 2 escalates in action and drama as the film moves forward; it takes us on a journey of empowerment even if it’s to make the hero turn into a villain. As much as the source material is frankly dense and convoluted, here we get the cliff notes with enough substance to forget its complicated origins.
Conversely, after Villenueve’s placer mining to give us gold, Deadpool & Wolverine only needed not to fuck with the fans. Just be respectful enough of our knowledge of the characters without adding the shit they’ve been using to stir the media lately. Zero race/gender swaps BS. None of that character deconstruction shenanigans. They didn’t even need the most cohesive plot. We just wanna have fun. And, boy, it was fun.
Some yahoos out there were like, “But the fights are meaningless because they can’t really hurt each other.” Well, duh. Professional Wrestling is the same fukken thing and those same assholes still enjoy it. Are we really watching violent sports expecting people to die?
THIS MCU/FOX-FAREWELL MGDL OPENED A DOOR. NOW, WHETHER DISNEY USES THAT DOOR TO LET IN THE RIGHT THING OR NOT– IT’S A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORY. ’CAUSE THEY DUMB.
As a self-professed normie, I don’t need to know if the costumes match or the powers align; neither if Wolverine admitted he was lactose intolerant on issue number fucktwelven. Just give me a bombastic distraction. These two mofos Yin/Yang energy brings solid entertainment to the table. Add two– not groundbreaking but interesting villains. Also, all those cameos put to shame the last two phases of cameos in the MCU easily. I might not have been its biggest supporter when it came out, but time has been kind to it; I enjoyed it even more as I worked on this re-examination.
Were Deadpool & Wolverine supposed to save a franchise mismanaged within an inch of its life? Fuck no. Even if copium flowed harder than spice around its release, most of us knew; the Merc with the Mouth and that Hairy Mutant Daddy didn’t come to save us, only to give us momentary satisfaction. Dune 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine share 5 mutant-spiced thumbs up. Check out my full review of Deadpool & Wolverine here!
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL & SATURDAY NIGHT
Believe it or not, not that long ago, we didn’t have 24/7 entertainment. TV stations closed for the night, and usually the last thing to watch was some adult-inclined spectacle. Late Night with the Devil and Saturday Night transport us to those ancient times, but from very different angles.
ENTRENCHED IN THE 1970S’ EXUBERANT AESTHETICS AND POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS, THESE TWO MGDL SERVE AS A TIME CAPSULE– TO REMIND US THAT WE USED TO BE LESS FRAGILE.
A former magician turned paranormal debunker; one medium known by a single name; a psychologist trying to help a cult survivor. These are the ingredients conjured on Halloween to save a low-ratings show in Late Night with the Devil. David Dastmalchian (Polka-dot Man in 2021’s The Suicide Squad) plays our charismatic host. Mix broadcast tapes and behind-the-scenes footage, enhance it with a dash of documentary visuals, and we get our framing device.
Most of the “Easter Eggs” go over the heads of anyone under 30; nevertheless, it’s the uncomfortable atmosphere amid the jokes and clearly sketchy characters that keeps you invested. Usually taped, this night the show is going live to cash in on the unpredictable. And everything that could go wrong goes tits up in the most unforeseeable and yet unstoppable way possible. Con artists turn out to be the real deal, while the real deal turns out to be a nightmare. Deals of the past come a-calling.
AT A TIME WHEN MOST CINEMATIC HORROR IS GORE AND JUMP SCARES, THIS MGDL KEEPS IT TIGHT WITH SPARSE BUT SURPRISING MOMENTS OF BLOOD AND MAYHEM WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT THEM.
On another October night of a different 1970s year, we land 90 minutes before the premiere of SNL. Whether you like the current iteration of the show or not, the chaotic details of its birth are worth telling. Saturday Night follows its creator and producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel Labelle) as he fights the establishment to bring his dream to life. He wrangles, coaxes, and even inspires a group with no business together at a dinner party much less on TV. Many don’t like each other. Some ain’t ready to trust these people they just met. Lorne navigates the human vagaries while trying to organize an uncertain production.
One distracting thing here (but in the best way possible) is how fucking hot everyone is. The actors brought to incarnate the original cast aren’t necessarily unknowns; and, yet, you’d be like “I know that guy from that thing, but I can’t remember the name.” And that’s okay. Their performances here will lead you to seek them out in other projects. Trust me. Nevertheless, we have celluloid behemoths like Willem Dafoe and J.K. Simmons; both doing what they do best: being absolute assholes!
Saturday Night is full of memorable moments. From a guy burning sage around the stage to the Muppets being hinted as sex toys; we still manage to get one of the most memorable quotes I heard in the last few years. “You can’t expect people to recognize something they’ve never seen before.”
WE’VE BITCHED ABOUT CURRENT HOLLYWOOD’S LACK OF ORIGINALITY, AND THIS MGDL COULD BE (TECHNICALLY) CONSIDERED AN ORIGIN STORY. STILL, I CAN’T SEE THEM FINDING A WAY TO PUSH A FUKKEN SEQUEL OUT OF THIS ONE.
This pair of TV tits, sorry, goodie sis are more than meet the eye; the two give us the same earnest hunger for success, but from opposite needs. Late Night with the Devil and Saturday Night share three The Tonight Show Thumbs Up from Johnny Carson.
TRAP & SALEM’S LOT
I came to Trap by force and with my expectations at the tectonic plate level. Most of us are usually oblivious to who’s directing a movie and barely aware of the actors in it; nonetheless, there are some names that we all know. M. Night Shyamalan is one of those– even if I have to copy/paste it every time I need to write it. Dude had a golden era, and he still coasts on it, burdening us with more misses than hits.
The fact that Shyamalan’s daughter was the second lead, basically pushing a singing career with this movie didn’t help matters. So, I sat there expecting the worst with not even a little hope for the best. The joke’s on me because Trap spanked me hard, and I panted greedily, “Yes. Gimme more.” What a fucking ride.
Generic pop songs with Taylor Swift’s levels of angst for 13-year-old beings are nothing but a mirage; each expertly used to contrast the epic levels of tension rising with every second of the movie. You feel, well, trapped– with the asshole trying to avoid getting caught; all with a ticking clock on two different fronts. Never mind the fact that Josh Harnett portrays the main character as a cunning smooth talker; a fucker that could sell you a beachfront property in the middle of the Sahara desert. Each reveal is more unsettling than the previous until that final What-The-Fuck? wrapping everything up in a perfect bow.
ONE WOULD WISH THIS MGDL IS A RETURN TO FORM FOR SHYAMALAN, BUT THE TWIST HERE IS: YOU’LL NEVER KNOW IF I’M CROSSING MY FINGERS OR MY TOES HOPING FOR THE FUTURE.
Sure, we’ve seen Bumfuck, Middle of Nowhere, USA overrun by creatures before. After all, there’s nothing new under the sun– or when the sun goes down. Nevertheless, it’s not the overused ingredients in Salem’s Lot, but the execution of those tropes and clichés. Effing chef kiss. The trailer intrigued me, waited for it to be available, and– fun. I learned after the fact that it has been done before in one way or another. Did that make me go looking for the previous ones? Fuck no.
Could they be better? Don’t care; it’s a blessing and a curse that I’m not going around looking for seconds after a good meal. Those little tweaks of old images Salem’s Lot give us are proof that you can find new ways to bring familiar classics back. There’s no openly forced message here, only people being stupid in a monster flick; like they usually are. Still waiting for a creature movie where you get infected after getting bitten in the ass. We’ll get there. Also, there’s nothing better than a Cword getting run over by a child driving a Cadillac. Comeuppance and Schadenfreude make a mighty tasty cocktail.
THE SO-CALLED “MODERN AUDIENCE” IS NOTHING BUT A MYTHICAL BEAST. THIS MGDL TEACHES US THAT KNOWN STORIES CAN BE MADE FOR A “NEW GENERATION.” A MORE TANGIBLE MONSTER.
Now, from Salem’s Lot, there’s only one name you need to remember: Jordan Preston Carter. Badass nerd and final boy. The kid can act his ass off, and I hope he has a long and successful carrier. Trap and Salem’s Lot share two thumbs up from a sniper priest.
FALL GUY & TRANSFORMERS ONE
This list pays no heed to box office numbers or critics ratings. That being said; it’s sad when a fun movie doesn’t make the highest numbers. Call it bad timing, obtuse marketing, or putting it in theaters instead of streaming; these two dude movies failed basically because the public wasn’t sure what the fuck they were about. Sounds like the films of 2024 in a nutshell, yeah?
Fall Guy is meant to be a love letter to stunt doubles’ hard work. Then it became a rom-com. After that an action movie. Somehow it morphed into a Hollywood parody. Nevertheless, multiple personalities aside, I have fun with it; the thing that fukken matters for the purpose of this exploration.
Perhaps it’s Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling’s charming personalities that have nothing to do with romance and more with the homoerotic tension of a buddy cop movie. I didn’t need to buy they were lovers at some point; even if they try to make it the core of the movie for some eye-rolling reason. Nah, I enjoyed the explosions and fights and stupid quips. Do Emily and Ryan make Fall Guy special? Perhaps. Nonetheless, this flick could’ve worked with two guys, two gals, or even a couple of non-binary individuals in their roles; just for the shit and giggles of the double meta-commentary.
SOMEONE HAD A GREAT IDEA FOR A BARBECUE RIBS FOOD TRUCK AND THEN THEIR BOSS MADE THEM PARK IT IN THE MIDDLE OF A VEGETARIAN NEIGHBORHOOD DURING WINTER. THAT’S THE WASTED POTENTIAL OF THIS MGDL. SIGH.
The misconception that animation somehow means “children” remains a major roadblock for many movies to succeed in the Western Market. Transformers One marketing people took that misconception and ramp it up to obnoxious levels of late-stage MCU quippy fuckery. Yup, the same quippy-ness I enjoyed in Fall Guy does this Transformers origin story zero favors. Especially when you get “actors” to do “voice acting,” and the fuckers don’t even try to sound different than themselves. You’re not hearing Fuck One, you’re hearing Thor, and still not getting asses in seats.
Imagine if The Hunger Games (2012) had been joke after joke after joke instead of a dark social commentary? Transformers One is about a lie that broke a planet and destroyed a friendship. About how people can turn to the dark side; especially when those supposed to guide them are only capable of snuffing others’ light. Too fucking close to home today if you ask me. Fall Guy should have been R-rated; Transformers One not so much, but it shouldn’t have been marketed like it was Paw Patrol-adjacent.
Interestingly, when you look at any animated Transformers content from the 1980s, it has the same tags as Transformers One. Action, Adventure, Animation, Family, Sci-Fi– only adding “Fantasy” for some unfathomable reason. With the themes of betrayal and only giving a fuck about yourself, a PG-13 rating would’ve done the job properly. Sending a clear message; something you can enjoy as a grown-up, but could also share with your teenage kids.
AN MGDL FULL OF DARK AND PROFOUND THEMES IGNORED BECAUSE IT WAS WRAPPED IN TALKING CAR-ROBOTS COLORFUL IMAGES. ANOTHER PROOF THAT WESTERN AUDIENCES HAVE NOT EMBRACED THE POWER OF ANIMATION.
Fall Guy and Transformers One share three mechanical thumbs up that morph into middle fingers when the Marketing Dept. looks at them.
BLINK TWICE & A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE
Now these Scream Queens were the revelation of the year for me. I came to them late in the year, and by (as per usual) shallow reasons. According to my own bias, Blink Twice, reeked of nepotism. Oh, Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut. Sarcastic Yay. I like Zoe as a person, but always want to smack the shit out of her characters. I think that means she’s doing a great job, or she deals with shitty writing a lot. It’s probably the shitty writing, ain’t it? Nevertheless, I went there for Channing Tatum. Yup.
After an abundance of Wattpad abduction fantasies and a deluge of BookTok dark romantacies, I sat to watch Blink Twice un-enthused; narrowed-eyed with skepticism and a beer. Because Blink Twice sounds like a lot of fanfiction garbage: minimum wage worker swept of her feet by hunky millionaire. And that shit is on purpose. It’s a mystery thriller journey, but it begins so innocuously, you giggle into that jet– full of champagne and canapes. Then your friend gets bitten by a snake and shit goes south.
I’ve crossed country lines for sexual rendezvous. The inherent possibility that I might not return was never lost to me; that’s part of the adrenaline rush, even if unconsciously. Exactly why Blink Twice is brilliant; most have done something absolutely aware it could end really fucking bad, but we still cross ’em fingers and dive.
SPRINKLING THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF CLUES AS THE MOVIE UNFOLDS, THIS MGDL TRAVELS AT A MASTERFUL PACE. IT ALSO LETS US KNOW WHY THE RICH LOOK MORE AND MORE APPETIZING WITH EACH PASSING DAY.
A Quiet Place: Day One takes us from human monsters to outer-worldly monsters. Do you know how frigging hard it is to find a movie with actual character development in the 2020s? Born from a franchise– that’s a rarity in itself, we get a movie where we see a woman evolve! She didn’t start the film telling the patriarchy to fuck off, not even empowered. We sail to darkness with a terminal patient frustrated with life; heck, with the fucking universe.
Lupita Nyong’o is a goddess. That heavenly being comes to Earth in this film to inhabit a human character at its lowest point. I cannot explain to you how mesmerized I was the whole time. And she has a fukken cat! Then you bring effing Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) from Stranger Things season four! Come on! A Quiet Place: Day One checks all the boxes for the right reasons, not with a gosh-darned agenda.
I’ve faced the A Quiet Place franchise in bits and pieces, never engaging directly with the whole thing. Perhaps it’s the whole being quiet shtick. I’m not even really a fan of disaster movies, but this one called me; it didn’t disappoint. We usually see alien invasions from the perspective of the military, the scientists, the heroes. Rarely from the point of view of those among the ruins– afraid and/or injured. Never how the choices of the “heroes” affect those on the ground. We go through that in A Quiet Place: Day One, and it’s heartbreaking and amazing.
A PREQUEL THAT ELEVATES THE MOVIES THAT CAME BEFORE IT, OUR LAST MGDL SPREADS HOPE. NOT JUST IN BETTER SCRIPT WRITING, BUT IN HUMANITY AT LARGE BECAUSE MOST OF US WRITE WHAT WE KNOW.
Blink Twice and A Quiet Place: Day One gets all the thumbs up accompanied by a 21-gun salute; for letting us know there’s light at the end of the current uncreative tunnel.
Goodies shout out with thumbs-up stickers to Alien Romulus, The Wild Robot, Abigail, The Beekeeper, and Monkey Man.
If you’re wondering why Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu isn’t around, it’s because that blood-sucking fever dream might get an individual review. Fangs crossed. And let’s hope 2025 is a better year for movies, and we don’t end up needing three ways. Well…
If you enjoyed my perspective on the films of 2024, please check out my monthly reviews of classic, Oscar-winning films with OLD ACADEMY ANEW.