No one cares about what I have to say about movies, so I'm gonna say it.

Kicking off the new year by doing something I always said I would do.

Personally, I find new year's resolutions to be kind of inane. I usually don’t follow through on any of the new promises I make (workout 4x a week, no sugar month, less screen time, etc.) and I end up feeling guilty when I inevitably fall off. My heart just isn’t in it. The only resolution I have ever seemed to keep are my movie watching goals.

I love movies. It is a pillar of my identity; an Inside Out-esque personality island, if you will. It’s been over 15 years of loving movies, and one of my favorite things about loving movies is that I still have so much to see. I’m not a professional critic, I don’t work in the business, and I’m not famous on film twitter, but I am entering a new decade of life (30s!) and I have thoughts worth sharing! So that’s what my 2025 resolution will be – writing about movies for no one other than myself, articulating the random little thoughts in my head into something tangible.

Alright here it goes!

In 2024, I watched 200 movies – excluding rewatches. A lot of big items were checked off the list this year, like Lawrence of Arabia (1962) so I figured writing about some of my favorites is a good place to start.

Here’s my favorite first-time watches for 2024:

Barry Lyndon (1975)

Source: Film Grab

I am not joking when I say that the fancam edit of Barry Lyndon set to 21 Savage’s “A Lot” should be entered into the Library of Congress National Film Registry. It is single handedly the reason I decided to buy the Barry Lyndon Criterion during the semi-annual Barnes and Noble 50% off sale.

That, and I read “Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat and Tears” by Michael Schulman in 2023. One of my favorite chapters detailed the Best Picture race for 1975: Barry Lyndon, Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nashville, and Dog Day Afternoon. Amazing year!

This movie is awesome. Kubrick took 300 days over two years to shoot this film and since the movie is lit only by candle and natural light, every frame looks like an oil painting. Shot across countless historical palaces and castles, Barry Lyndon is a supremely avant-garde dark comedy about a guy who wants to marry his cousin and then fails upwards to find himself amongst Europe’s aristocracy. And boy does he not belong there!

Usually when people think of a Kubrick movie they think of The Shining or 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I’m glad Barry Lyndon is growing in popularity because so far it is my favorite of Kubrick’s works. Will definitely try to catch this at a rep theater if I can.

Stop Making Sense (1984)

Source: Film Grab

One night I was feeling really down because – well, life! And I needed a pick-me-up. I am a moderate Talking Heads fan and Stop Making Sense was finally on streaming so I decided to put it on. It was just what I needed.

This is nonstop pure joy for 90 minutes and I moved my coffee table so I could have a private dance party with David Byrne in my living room. The direction by Demme is astounding and I can only imagine how electrifying it must have been to be in the audience at the Pantages Theater watching it live.

Under the Skin (2013)

Source: Film Grab

In preparation for The Zone of Interest, I needed to watch some Jonathan Glazer movies.

I honestly hated this movie at first. I found it so disturbing and strange, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Over a week later, I was still thinking about it. And now I recommend it to almost everyone looking for something new to watch.

Without spoiling anything, ScarJo plays an alien sent to Earth to… catfish some men in Scotland. Glazer has a documentarian style to his movies and a lot of Under the Skin is just ScarJo driving a van around Edinburgh and asking normal, non-actor dudes to get into the car with her. Turns out it was pretty easy to get them to agree. After all, what man wouldn’t want to get in a car with an A-list actress? It’s what happens afterwards that I find INSANE that they agreed to be in the movie.

2024 was the year of AI taking over. It seems no matter where you look, there’s some sort of AI integration into a feature that no one asked for or wanted. Consistently, for whatever reason, society is trying to remove the human element out of anything to the point where eventually we’re going to be devoid of any feeling at all. There have been plenty of movies about robots having feelings (AI: Artificial Intelligence, I, Robot) but what I came to love about Under the Skin is that ScarJo is an advanced extra terrestrial who is deprived of any emotion or feeling at first, but then develops empathy the more time she spends on Earth. She becomes aware of the consequences of her actions, she learns that humans aren’t just masses of meat, and she learns how vulnerable one can become when you let your guard down and choose to live as an empathetic person.

There’s a lot this movie can be about: immigration, gender norms, feminism, sexuality, sexual assault. But honestly it’s just a movie about humanity and how we all just want to be seen.

The only reason this doesn’t get 5 stars from me is because of the scene with the dog and the baby. You’ll know which one.

Amadeus (1984)

Source: Orion Pictures

Have you ever met someone who is so annoying but for whatever reason, they’re also really talented?

This is a movie for the haters. Not fake haters who get guilty and apologize… Real haters!!!

Malcolm X (1992)

Source: Film Grab

February 2024 I watched a ton of movies because I traveled from the US to Singapore and back, which meant I got to cosplay an iPad baby on the plane.

There’s nothing like checking off something that’s been on your watchlist forever and that was Macolm X for me. I knew it was going to be good because – duh! Spike Lee! Denzel! An-gel-a Bass-ett did the thing! But I wasn’t prepared for how this was going to move me 35,000 feet in the air.

This needs to be the blueprint for every biopic. I know everyone is a whiny brat about runtimes these days, but sometimes you just need more time to let the director really cook. Malcolm X is a 3 hr 22 min movie that feels like 90 minutes. It is expertly written, directed, edited, and acted. The message of the film is strong and enough to radicalize anyone.

Roger Ebert (the GOAT) wrote about one of my favorite scenes in the movie, where a nice white girl goes up to X and asks him what she can do to help his cause and he responds, “nothing.” That is a serious burn… like this would do numbers on Twitter. But it’s not depicted that way on screen.

Ebert writes:

“Lee’s films always have an underlying fairness, an objectivity that is sometimes overlooked. A revealing scene in “Malcolm X” shows Malcolm on the campus of Columbia University, where a young white girl tells him that her heart is in the right place and that she supports his struggle. “What can I do to help?” she asks. “Nothing,” Malcolm says coldly, and walks on. His single word could have been the punch line for the scene, but Lee sees more deeply, and ends the scene with the hurt on the young woman’s face. There will be a time, later in Malcolm’s life, when he will have a different answer to her question.”

Everyone can learn from Spike Lee’s movies, so go watch them!

High and Low (1963)

Another “journey to Singapore” watch. This is getting a remake this year with Spike Lee directing and Denzel starring, but before that news even came out I decided to watch this on the Dallas → Tokyo leg of my trip.

Akira Kurosawa is obviously one of those singular all-timer directors and because of that, I keep wanting to save his movies for a theatrical re-release despite not living in a city where that is likely to happen and then watching High and Low on an iPad in the sky. Lol… anyways.

If you don’t know what this movie is about, a rich businessman in Japan, Gondo, wants to buy a shoe company and then someone kidnaps his son – or at least they think they did. Instead, his driver’s son was mistaken for his son and kidnapped. Gondo refuses to pay the ransom and madness ensues. It’s a clever movie about class, morality, and redemption that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

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Maybe I’ll write more about these as award season continues, but here are my favorite 2024 movies:

Dune: Part Two

The Substance

Challengers

Furiosa

Conclave

Kneecap

Anora