*Fergie voice* “Can you meet me halfway? / Right in early July / Is where I’m gonna write to you”
As you folks know, the passage of time is a corrosive force that eats away at our bodies and minds, and death — the only true certainly in life — gets closer to us every day. It’s sobering to recognize that time only seems to speed up the longer we’re alive, becoming more fleeting the more we realize how precious it is… but hey, the good news is that it’s already time for us look back and reflect on the first half of 2024! While I usually discuss drama and developments in the film business, I thought I’d take a moment to actually remind you all what you should be paying attention to when it comes to the art of cinema. Let this serve as a checkpoint for all of you to write down on paper (or in your Notes App, if you’re a little screen-addicted gremlin) which movies from this year you should have seen by now. The trailers to each film will be linked, as well. Are these simply my personal favorites of 2024 so far, or the objective best? The answer, of course, is both! Let’s begin.
Dune: Part Two. Honestly, if you haven’t seen Parts One or Two of Denis Villeneuve’s revitalization of the Dune franchise, there’s probably no saving you. The Lisan al-Gaib will not lead you to the Green Paradise, and your body will be left to the desert. However, if a coconut fell on your head in mid-2021 and you just arose from a tragic three-year coma, congratulations: you now have the chance to introduce yourself to the biggest sci-fi saga this side of the pandemic! Dune: Part Two takes everything fantastic about Part One and cranks it up to 11. The world is more complex. The villains are scarier. The fights are more intense. There’s more worm-riding, more spiritualism, more eugenicist shenanigans, and more of that damn lady screaming in the soundtrack! It’s just about everything you could want from a big-budget spectacle, and you can see every single dollar that went into it on-screen. Hell, it’s my favorite film of the year so far! Don’t just walk to see this thing — sand-walk to see it, cautiously, so that Shai Hulud does not sense you.
Challengers. A rare instance in which Film Twitter’s hype for a movie translated perfectly to quality, Luca Guadagnino’s tennis threesome movie Challengers utilizes nearly every aspect of cinema to its fullest. The performances are all distinct and engrossing. The camerawork is incessantly creative, with immense effort put into practically every shot. The editing is unique and bold. The screenplay is well-paced and filled with juicy, investing drama. The score, by synth daddies Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, is pulse-pounding with its EDM-inspired beats. It’s such a fucking fun movie to watch that it’ll trick you into thinking that tennis might actually be an interesting sport to watch! If you want to watch the coolest movie of the year, as well as witness surprisingly tasteful Dunkin’ Donuts product placement, check this one out.
The Beast. FUCK YOU GUYS, I’M COUNTING THIS AS A 2024 RELEASE!! I DON’T CARE IF IT PLAYED FOR PEOPLE IN LATE 2023 — IT HAD A LIMITED RELEASE IN THE UNITED STATES IN EARLY 2024, AND THAT’S WHEN I SAW IT, SO THAT’S WHEN I’M COUNTING IT!! Anyway, The Beast is a special film that is a must-see despite its more off-putting elements. Sure, it’s long, it’s unconventional in structure, and — worst of all — it’s French. But having seen The Beast twice now, it is without question one of my favorites of the decade so far. Without giving much away, it explores a very tragic flaw in the way humans interact with each other, doing so through multiple time periods, each of which the two lead actors play different (but ultimately parallel) roles in. That sounds like a lot to grasp, and it is, but you just have to trust me. There’s a tone shift at around the halfway point so intentionally hilarious that it made me laugh out loud the first time I saw it. If you want to know what the wife of an 1800s doll manufacturer, a microchipped man from the future & modern incels have in common, put The Beast on your radar.
Love Lies Bleeding. As one of four people who watched Rose Glass’s 2020 horror flick Saint Maud, I was very interested to see what she did next. Sure enough, with Love Lies Bleeding she surpassed her previous film in both intensity and eroticism, and given that those are my two most prominent character traits, I couldn't not love this thing. In addition to a wonderfully sweaty and grimy ‘80s Texas aesthetic, there’s so many fun performances in this thing. Kristen Stewart being nervous and stuttering… Katy O’Brian being jacked and having brown-ass eyes… Ed Harris being an awesomely freakish cartel leader that eats bugs and has the weirdest hair of all time… Anna Baryshnikov stealing the show with her flirty methhead persona… Dave Franco having a pervert mustache… what’s not to love?
Hundreds of Beavers. What the fuck is Hundreds of Beavers? I’m glad you asked, hypothetical reader! This movie is the definition of the phrase “four dollars and a dream” — a near-masterpiece of slapstick and visual effects achieved on a shoestring budget. The story is simple: a man in the 1800s is banished from his town and must hunt beavers and other wild animals for food and money. What makes it so special? For one, the film is in black-and-white and presented as a Charlie Chaplin-style silent comedy, complete with film grain and text cards instead of verbal dialogue. Also, all of the beavers are actually just one guy in a shitty Party City beaver costume duplicated in the frame. That probably sounds stupid to you, and it is, but it’s also fucking hilarious. There are so many galaxy-brained visual gags and ridiculously elaborate sequences that it almost makes you feel like the filmmaker is a demigod sent to Earth to make every mid-budget comedy coming out nowadays look like a steaming pile of beaver shit in comparison. (I’m looking at you, Anyone But You.) If you fancy a nice laugh, seek this out!
Furiosa. George Miller was smart enough to realize that topping his masterpiece of blood & gasoline, 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, was impossible, and instead opted to make the first prequel film in seemingly forever that actually feels like a worthy addition to its respective franchise. There’s plenty of action in Furiosa — the highlight being a long, elaborate “stowaway” sequence on a highway — but there’s also a fair amount of rich world-building, as well as an intense final scene of dialogue between two characters that feels like an all-timer in the Revenge Movie Hall of Fame. Anya Taylor-Joy may have too elegant of a cheekbone structure to pull off Dystopia Face, but she does sound very much like Charlize Theron, and Chris Hemsworth goes all out for what is easily, in my opinion, his best performance by a mile. If you’re a fan of Fury Road (hint: you should be), dive right into this expansion of Miller’s Aussie Apocalypse as soon as possible.
Kinds of Kindness. Yorgos Lanthimos is a real-ass motherfucker for following up his Oscar-winning film Poor Things with an abrasive two-hour-and-forty-minute anthology film that feels designed to weed out all the fake fans who he garnered in 2023. As someone who’s been on the Yorgos train since The Lobster, however, I could not have been more delighted by Kinds of Kindness. This film certainly leaves a lot to chew on, with each of the three stories contained within it touching on themes of toxic codependency and rumination on different, fucked-up kinds of love. The ensemble cast (who stars in each of the three chapters) is incredibly fun to watch, but the real star of this thing is Jesse Plemons, who more than earned his Best Actor win at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Even if I found there to be some pacing issues here and there, Kinds of Kindness couldn’t be more in line with Lanthimos’ deadpan style of writing, and the look of the film is crisp as all hell. It’s a recommendation from me!
Monkey Man. I was afraid that the underdog story of how difficult it was for leading-man-and-director Dev Patel to get this movie made, but rest assured, it’s worth the hype. Monkey Man is incredibly ambitious, and while it is certainly not perfect, there’s a kind of grit and young, scrappy energy in the writing and filmmaking that you truly cannot ignore. Despite being an action-revenge film, almost the entire first half of this movie does not contain action, and yet I still found myself on board, thanks to the constant raising of stakes and well-paced scenes. And then, when the action does finally explode, it’s incredibly satisfying and at points totally outrageous in the best way. Everybody say “thank you, Jordan Peele” for saving this movie from getting dumped onto Netflix!
Problemista. Julio Torres may have a niche sense of humor, but boy oh boy does it hit if you fall within that niche! If you were a fan of the way Everything Everywhere All At Once uses fantastical scenarios to heighten incredibly relatable observations about everyday life, then you’re guaranteed to get a kick out of Problemista — doubly so if you’re a degenerate New Yorker. Torres stars as an immigrant and aspiring toy maker who winds up as the personal assistant to an eccentric, maniacal artist, who is played to performance by Tilda Swinton. I’m not joking… she gives the funniest performance of the entire year in this film, hands-down. There are so many details to her character that make me grin just thinking about them — fuck it, I don’t want to spoil anything. Just go in prepared to be taken on an uncomfortably honesty odyssey through the city that never sleeps, written and directed by the guy who wrote the “Papyrus” SNL sketch.
La Chimera. Are you a fan of contemporary Italian cinema? Do you like movies with patient pacing, beautiful scenery, subtle, moving performances? Did you realize midway through watching Challengers that you might be sexually attracted to Josh O’Connor? If your answer to any of those questions was “yes”, you’ve got to watch La Chimera. The new film from Alice Rohrwacher is about a grumpy archaeologist-turned-looter who reunites with his old gang of grave-robbing buddies, and it’s without question one of the most interesting and satisfying movies of the year. Dipping its toes into elements of drama, adventure, comedy, and magical realism, the movie defies genre and serves as a unique little tale about love and grief. It also stars Isabella Rossellini, which means you are legally required to see it. I don’t make the rules.