Now I need to know if there was some Zorro-Dread Pirate Roberts costume loop going on officially or if it was more of a coincidental overlap.
The secrets aren't even unusual by RL political standards until the last one, but there's three I can think of off the top of my head that a lesser writer would have gone with to show that this is An Edgy Adult Drama, and the fact that none of them were used is just as refreshing as the fact of how things actually played out.
Reasons to just sell the damn place and live somewhere else.
This was goofy and fun and I approve of every addition to the inked up Santa canon.
The great universal constants of "we need to cut all this stuff from the original story if we want a reasonable runtime", "fuck it, change all the names to something more local", and fake paper graphics. Anyway, I'm finally watching this for probably the same reason as everybody else right now, and I feel like my brain is ready!
Praying that Kevin Bacon of the Sacred Timeline never meets a Magneto from any universe in the neighborhood of the X-Men movies, for his own safety.
This was on TV when I arrived for family obligations and my main feelings at the moment are just thank god it wasn't Harry Potter or any of the laundry list of popular Christmas movies I don't care about. Genuinely still love that final showdown though.
I'm sure there have been plenty of discussions and dissections over the years about the differences between the musical and the book, probably even some (or at least one) that hit on my precise combination of what I would've liked to see included and what I'm happy to live without, but that's not what's important right now! What's important right now is that I cried at least twice watching it and I'll probably do it again.
This review may contain spoilers.
I feel like if someone had told me this is just magical viking Hamlet I would've watched it sooner, but I also know my own brain well enough to recognize that this is a lie. The point remains that it is magical viking Hamlet, however, with the kind of magical realism where everything could be written off as hallucination and coincidence but can't be conclusively established as such.
Also the soundtrack is kinda sick.
this was a good and faithful companion through the end of my week-long cleaning binge, but also you can tell I'm getting old because I loaded the extended edition up, saw anew that it's four and a half hours long, and had a brief moment of "goddamn, that's too long".
the memes have tainted me irrevocably and I would like to congratulate latecomer "you have four bears?" for being as firmly fixed in my head as "they're taking the hobbits to Isengard-gard-gard-gard" and "this forest is old. very old. old as balls."
I'm so fuckin tired, you guys.
comfort watches r us
Despite my not anticipating it, the main twist was utterly unsurprising in a really satisfying way. Just like "yes, yes, exactly". Thank you for the food.
This review may contain spoilers.
This movie is extremely rough, but in the end it didn't matter because they built up some decent tension and I'm a huge sucker for "magic must defeat magic". Not sure past me's decision to buy it outright and get to it eventually was the wisest, but I think I'll live.
Wolfmen who act suspiciously doggy in their human forms is one of my favorite things, I'm afraid.
This is the kind of movie you watch because League of Extraordinary Gentleman didn't have enough monsters in it.
There was not an ounce of mystery in this movie. The visuals were mostly okay, but there was at least one point where even I thought they should've just used practical effects, and Barlow just straight up looked like bald Marilyn Manson.
They really whipped out the Three Stooges vibes here.
I appreciate a movie that knows who the real problems are in this world! I appreciate even more a movie that makes sure those problems die.
Pamela was actually a top-tier movie mom, and I suspect Ginger might've had some gender identity issues beyond "ugh, other female animals don't have to deal with this shit". Also just a good werewolf movie, with good tension for most of it and solid spins on the usual lore, although I'll always be partial to my werewolves being a little hairier...
This review may contain spoilers.
Johnny knew exactly what he was doing with that fake-ass red glove.
Danny and Nicholas are married now and I will not be told otherwise.
It's actually really fun to watch Ash develop from the relatively sweet baby of the first movie to the old scumbag of the TV series, and this one more than Evil Dead showcases the other reason we all (okay, I) love Sam Raimi: he's not afraid to get goofy as shit in the middle of all the monsters and dismemberment.
it's very Guy Ritchie and Henry Cavill's American newscaster accent is adorable, but I forgot how much I cannot fucking stand a spy movie played straight
Everything that's already been said about why this movie is great is 100% true, but also the whole prologue sequence is so specifically old-fashioned that I really dig it.
This was cute as fuck, actually. Might make a good double feature with Only Lovers Left Alive.
Horror: what if there was an evil ghost in the house?
Comedy: what if there was an evil ghost in the house and also he was a sleazeball with well-founded concerns about sandworms?
The Octoboss's glider-parachute thingy flying through the sky like an eldritch abomination that got its genres confused was truly magnificent.
An hour and forty minutes on the benefits of touching grass.
I'm sorry but I'm exactly the target audience for all of this bullshit and I'm not ashamed! My heart is full of the power of friendship and second chances (and first chances), and my diary on here is probably about to get Marvel-bombed.
They set the shipper bait and I took it without hesitation...
Hugh Jackman was always with us, even if only in spirit...
People like to go on about David Bowie's Bulge but for me it's always been the serenading. "I move the stars for no one," and yet here we are...
the soundtrack is about 80% not my bag but there is always something to be said for teamwork, love, and a story that just lets magic be magic.
kind of expected the marrying part to happen a little earlier in the movie
This review may contain spoilers.
Mostly a pretty solid little miniseries, but that To Be Continued-ass ending was wildly unsatisfying.
honestly this movie is just fun as hell and I'm glad I finally gave it another try as an adult a few years ago
After Army of Darkness, Ash vs. Evil Dead, and general pop culture osmosis, it was wild to see a version of Ash who isn't a colossal asshole. The influence on the 2013 remake is frequently obvious, but I think the difference between this and when I watched The Omen is that most of my exposure to The Evil Dead is directly related works rather than parodies and references--it feels more like going back to watch the first season of a show you got into late in its run than a rehashing of things it in fact did first.
Also this movie is grody as hell, even for a Sam Raimi flick, and I deeply respect that even as I hate to see it.
I feel like the Real BBC Programming conceit made it harder for me to engage rather than easier, but once it got going it was pretty solid on the vibes front! Maybe could've done without the late-game transphobia though.
This review may contain spoilers.
me when, at the end of the movie, Anastasia didn't get whammied further back in time to become the prince's mother: ?????
I've read The Haunting of Hill House a couple of times since I last saw this, so it's easy to see its influence now, but I just straight up don't have a problem with that. Some women form undying symbiotic relationships with the houses that were born bad, and that's okay!
This review may contain spoilers.
Obviously after watching The First Omen I had to check this one out too. Unfortunately for everyone involved, "there's nothing (or almost nothing) supernatural here, just humans being horrible because that's what they do sometimes" is boring as shit to me. Yes, yes, people can be monsters. And bears shit in the woods!
Immaculate isn't a bad movie, but "born-again Christian geneticist with no respect for bodily autonomy genuinely thinks he's ushering in the second coming, possibly creates Antichrist instead" just doesn't hit as hard as "secret sect of religious extremists literally start the apocalypse to own the libs", and the cinematography felt more like I was watching a Very Serious Drama where someone was eventually going to lose their job or get cancer or something and have to have hard conversations about life. If that's what you're into, more power to you! Watch Immaculate with my blessing! I, meanwhile, will be over there with the ghost nuns and the demons.
Baz Luhrmann, rattling the bars of his cage: I NEED A BIGGER MUSIC BUDGET
Anyway, this is a wonderful movie if you're into Luhrmann's whole thing about love and art and being true to yourself no matter the cost. The major differences are that it's on a much smaller, more intimate-feeling scale than his later work, and also nobody dies! (And also, if it got made today, he could probably afford actual Cyndi Lauper.)
As an aficionado of weird shit, it was delightful to see how much this movie drew on the real paranormal scene for the foundation of troubles both demonic and mundane. If they'd set aside a microscopic portion of their budget to pay a real, human artist for the title cards, it might even be a nearly perfect movie, but unfortunately we live in a period where the big huckster money is in tech rather than convincing people you're psychic. So it goes!
okay so were they selling that coat at a discount in the student union bookstore or what
This review may contain spoilers.
This movie played me like a fucking fiddle. The extremely timely political framing! The orchestrators of the whole antichrist thing being not some sort of Satanic cancer within the church but, worse, devout Catholics who think they can wield dispensational premillennialism as a weapon against the unfaithful! Psychic powers! Demon dog dick! Daddy Cool!
Also, this like completely reframes all the supernatural murders in the first movie. Presumably they were able to summon and restrain this jackal thing with magic, so it stands to reason that every perfectly timed horrific accident--and the deaths of Father Harris and Paolo here--were really the magicians of Project Antichrist being careful to tie up loose ends, rather than Satan or even God interfering to ensure the divine plan played out.
All that aside, the imagery was fantastic, the acting was freaky, and you must never trust Bill Nighy playing a figure of authority. Excellent movie, can't wait to find out what Damien's twin sister is supposed to do.
The writing isn't as phenomenal as it seemed to various younger versions of me, but it still hits those emotional satisfaction buttons pretty consistently, and honestly it does so many things that have been popular in fantasy media in the past 10-15 years that I'm surprised it doesn't get more attention.
This is not by any means a bad movie, but there's a certain gleefulness that's missing, I think? The gore isn't quite as over-the-top and ruthless as I'd expect, the demons' crudeness is watered down, the book's redesign feels ironically toothless, there's not enough genuine assholery to make any of the deaths feel earned...
I will say I appreciate that they set it up such that this version could plausibly exist in one of the previous Evil Dead universes, and that they dealt with the main demon in a suitably gruesome way. Mia is still my number one Ash successor, though!
I felt very proud of myself twenty-ish years ago for finally finding out why da Vinci was the fairy godmother and now I pay attention to Gustave and find myself wondering: two fairy godmothers...?
I didn't get to see all the movies released in 2024 that I actually wanted to see, so this list will be for those catch-ups. For the movies I did get to, see Best of 2024 - Released This Year.
These are movies (and only movies) I watched for the first time in 2024, regardless of when they actually came out. For now, ties will be sorted in the order I watched them, but later in the year I may rearrange them as my feelings settle.
I'm using US theater release dates, and ties are sorted by the order I watched them.
Like it says in the title, these are movies (and only movies) I watched for the first time in 2024, regardless of when they actually came out. For now, ties will be sorted in the order I watched them, but later in the year I may rearrange them as my feelings settle.
Many horror fans are already nerds, but this list is for the super nerds.
Nerdy shit: language, the preservation of folklore and culture
Nerdy shit: core concepts from alchemy and The Divine Comedy