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You can listen to the episode here (or wherever you listen to podcasts) or read the transcript below:
Nick (00:01.58)
Welcome everyone, it's great to be back in the studio. The studio being the office in front of my laptop on a chair, as opposed to in our cozy couches. I'm gonna be starting this off, this seems like it's gonna be my third season of the podcast, as far as how I'm gonna be numbering things. First season was everything beforehand, second season was the hallmark stuff, and now we're starting season three. I think that kinda makes sense thematically on how we wanna do this.
So guess we can call this 301 season-wise and I'm gonna start it off by reviewing my top 10 films of 2024. Now, of course, this is very Hallmark heavy because I did see a lot of Hallmark movies. But all in all, I ended up finishing the year at a hundred and forty three films that I saw that were released this year. There's a couple of movies I didn't get to.
that really wanted to see but they weren't playing anywhere near me so I wasn't able to pull it off and get them to be represented on my list. Those movies, I guess specifically for the ones that I figure will be Academy Award nominated might be Gladiator 2, Nickel Boys, The Brutalist, those are the big ones that I do wish I was able to see. But I still did get a lot done. A lot of garbage movies but a lot of great movies in there too. So...
I guess chronologically the first movie I saw this year was Self-Reliance, which I believe was Jake Johnson's directorial debut. And the most recent movie was yesterday around noon I saw A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic. Some of the movies I wanted to call out that did not make my top 10 list. Let's say I'll start off by
Calling out the funniest movie of the year, that was Drive Away Dolls. Really sweet road trip movie about a couple of lesbians, one who's a bit more reserved, one who just wants to fuck everything. It was a great movie. Cinematography Award, I'm gonna give to Red Rooms, which I just saw a couple days ago. It is a French-Canadian film. Amazing camera work as it's floating around this courtroom.
Nick (02:21.422)
obsessively focusing on the the witnesses who are talking the lawyers who are lawyering and the defendant who is creepy as hell. My biggest surprise of the year was probably Mean Girls the musical. I did not expect to enjoy the song so much. I did not expect the movie to have enough different things in it that it was worth existing. So shout out to that.
the best Hallmark movie of the year. I wish it had made it to my top 10, but it did not. It was still well above all of the reviews of the other Hallmark movies, and that is The Five Year Christmas Party. Shout out to that. I also want to shout out Arcadian, a horror movie that was very low budget. It had the coolest monsters I've ever seen, so that gets the best monster award. And there were a lot of horrors I saw this year, and that one had some of the coolest creature design. It was weird as hell.
The Dead Baby Award goes to the movie The Coffee Table, if you know, know. And the Something I Haven't Seen Before Award goes to the horror film Stop Motion on Shudder. That has some really crazy, gross horror effects. Like stop motion creatures animated out of body parts and stuff. It was really cool, really weird. And another great movie to shout out.
I want to also shout out the worst written award and that is going to a garbage horror film called Tarot, which is on my bottom three. think was it my worst rated movie? It's tied for the worst. Might as well call out the ones that are the worst. So whenever I see a movie, I rate it on a scale of one to 10 for writing, acting and directing. And then I average those together. The four worst movies that all have a total average of three.
is Tarot, Debbie McCombers Joyful Miss Miracle, is a Hallmark movie, Confessions of a Christmas Letter, also a Hallmark movie, and Craven the Hunter. Just some of the worst writing in that thing. So, my worst written award though does go to Tarot, particularly for a moment where they find all these mystical Tarot cards and they're like, that is a magical deck that was Hungarian from the 16th century, yet all the cards are written in English. So, all right.
Nick (04:47.918)
So that was that. So let's get into my top 10. Starting at number 10. Let's see. Actually, I didn't rank my spreadsheet. So let me just do some quick counting. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. OK. Starting at number 10 in my top 10 is a delightful little film of the name Nosferatu.
So Nosferatu was gorgeous. I love Robert Eggers. He really builds a world like no other director does. I was a little disappointed that everyone was speaking English instead of 18th or 19th century German, which is kind of what you would expect him to do. He's always so accurate with the world building in the language, but this is a fictional world that they visit, more or less. And so I guess some of the more fiction, it's probably also the more, it's the only one of his movies has been based on like a known.
entity a known property, unlike The Lighthouse or The Witch. So this one does have more of a broader marketing appeal than any of his other films, so it made sense that he would want to make it in English, or at least the producers would want him to make it in English. But that being said, it is slow, melodic, it's gorgeous. I went into it expecting the best acting to be Willem Dafoe, and I was surprised to say that the best acting was Lily Rose Depp.
and that gave us a 10 for acting. Willem Dafoe is fun, but I feel like he's in a completely different movie. Everyone else is speaking more naturally, organic, and he is out there like, orating like a Shakespearean actor. So I was kind of disappointed with what Willem Dafoe brought to the table, which is weird to say. But Nosferatu is fantastic. I can't wait to watch it again when it's on streaming with the wife. Coming up in ninth place.
is a film that I had heard great things from on the the slash film podcast and the film cast and so I was told to just watch it without knowing what it's about and that's what I did it's an HBO Max original and that is Caddo Lake. Caddo Lake is a crazy movie it starts as a as a small family drama of these people living on the edge of a lake who get around by boat a lot
Nick (07:15.742)
And it very slowly introduces you into these crazy sci-fi elements that you just didn't expect. And the writing is so incredible. The way everything ties together, every small insignificant thing becomes a clue to something that happens later on. And the movie just barely keeps you up to date or barely keeps you with what's going on, I guess you could say. I don't know.
Like, you're never ahead of the movie. The movie's always just a little bit ahead of you. And it was fantastic. So for that, I gave it a 10 for writing. Acting and directing were both also impeccable. So an 8, not a 10. But the writing is really what shined in Caddo Lake. So definitely check that out as a Max Original.
Number 8 on my list is a little film by the name of... I should have numbered these, it'll be easier for me to look at. 8 on the list is a little film by the name of Dune 2. Now if you haven't seen Dune 1 or Dune 2 or anything like that, they're incredible. Dune really blew my mind as far as the world building and setting the stage for everything. Dune 2 didn't have that same...
amazingness to it. Kind of like, I guess, if you were to see the Fellowship of the Rings and compare that to the two towers, like the Fellowship of the Ring builds so much and everything else just extends on it. Kind of feels the same way. You're not introduced to new worlds as much. mean, although you do get to see the Harkonnen planet, which is incredible. The idea that they filmed that whole thing in infrared because their sun only glows in the infrared spectrum. Amazing. So the cinematography is amazing. The action is amazing.
Plot-wise, didn't blow me away as much, so I gave that a 7 for writing, acting, and directing 1010. Fantastic. Dune II was a really great film. Next on the list, which will be my 7th place, is One Life. I saw this super... Actually, sorry, play the trailer. I saw this super early in the year. One Life was my 13th movie of the year.
Nick (09:30.766)
and I didn't see any trailers for it or anything. I was just, I had time to kill. There was a movie theater nearby and I saw that it was playing. So I went in and watched it. It is starring, it's a Holocaust movie starring Anthony Hopkins. So it's like, okay, you kind of have to mentally put yourself into a place for a drama heavy film. And what was really fascinating about it too, and I guess I didn't realize until I saw the movie is that
Kind of inspired by this video that has gone viral online forever ago of something that happened on British TV in the 60s. This old guy is at the live taping of some talk show in England. This is a true thing. in it, the host starts talking about little stories from World War II. And one thing he brings up was that there was a person who managed to dozens and dozens of children in Eastern Europe.
and that man happens to be in the crowd so everyone applauds for him and he had no idea that that the show he went to go watch the taste being of was going to be about him and then the host says by the way take a look at the person to your left and the person to your right and then take a look at everyone around you those are all the children you saved during the war and they all stand up and give him an applause and he starts crying it's amazing beautiful scene this movie is telling two storylines
The storyline of Anthony Hopkins playing that old guy, of him, I guess kind of like the contemporaneous version of him getting approached by the producers of that show and them doing research on him and then like, you know, him showing up to the show and them reenacting all that stuff. Edited in there is scenes of a younger person playing him, doing all of that saving of children.
How he started in England, was writing like letters and stuff and decided he has to be more hands on so he flies out to Eastern Europe. I don't totally recall what country this was. It was not Poland or anything. I think it was Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia at the time. And so it's him going there and doing all the grunt work of getting those children out and meeting all the children and the people he worked with, the organization he put together that helped them get to England. So gorgeous movie. Impossible not to cry during.
Nick (11:54.208)
Number six on my list is kind of funny how I went from the 13th movie I saw in the year to number six, which is my 138th movie. I just saw this last week and that is an Irish film called Kneecap. So I'd heard this was really funny and it kind of and it was like got that Danny Boyle energy and it absolutely has that. It is really funny. It is a very sweet movie. I cried the following day. I listened to the soundtrack and cried again.
It is basically telling the story through very fun, energetic comedy of these two young kids who, young kids, I guess they're in their 20s, these two guys in their 20s, they're drug dealers in Ireland, and they speak Irish to each other, not English, the Gaelic-Irish language, and they rap in that language, and it is them basically becoming popular.
and inspiring other people to learn more about their Irish roots and speak the Irish language too. It is them kind of shredding the influence of the oppressors and sticking up for Irish heritage in a beautiful way. And the songs are all about drugs and having sex and stuff and like people who try to make the Irish language more respectable or mad at them for kind of not putting it in a better light. But they're making the kids speak a language that the older
Elder people have been trying to get kids to speak forever. It was beautiful, the songs were really fun, and I highly recommend Kneecap. That one I gave a 10 for directing, 9 for writing, and an 8 for acting.
Number five on the list is a movie that I guess I didn't really want to see because the subject matter seemed kind of boring to me, but I ended up absolutely adoring it and that is Conclave. Conclave came for me at a perfect time. I gave this a nine for writing, nine for acting, nine for directing, almost perfect all the way through, but it really came at a perfect time for me because I saw this right around the
Nick (13:58.632)
weekend that the election coverage was happening, or the week that the election was happening in the United States. And the movie is about an election. It is about the pope dies unexpectedly, all the cardinals get locked and sequestered into the Vatican, and they have to constantly vote to see who becomes the new pope. And there are a lot of in-fightings, a lot of like Game of Thrones style drama as people backstab and try and
Pushed their way into the front of the line and it was incredibly acted. You got Ray Fiennes in there. You've got Harry and the Hendersons, I can't remember his name right now but it it was really really fun and one thing I really loved about Conclave is I Don't want to spoil it but in the end you get a result that's more akin to what I was hoping for in the American election
So it was kind of fun living out that fantasy through this movie.
Coming up fourth on my list with a 9 for writing, 9 for acting, and 10 for directing is a movie that is from one of the greatest directors of all time, Furiosa. George Miller is unparalleled when it comes to creating action scenes that tell stories, and Furiosa is no different. It felt less like a cinematic experience.
than Mad Max Fury Road did, but it felt more like a world building experience. The roleplay gamer in me adored how it introduces a location and then magically shares history of that location. You see why all the war boys wear white. You see why all these different characters from Fury Road look the way they do and how they ended up in those situations. It's amazing. And then also just...
Nick (16:00.526)
The main characters are fantastic. The acting, the setting, the effects, it's so different from Fury Road, because Fury Road was just like one big moment. Like the whole thing takes place maybe over 24 hour period. This covers a storyline of years. It is way more linear and longitudinal than short and fast like Fury Road was. And it was wonderful seeing two movies
whose storylines are so completely differently approached, taking place in the same universe.
Number three on my list, gave us a 10 for writing, nine for acting, and 10 for directing, is Alien Romulus. Now, in the lead up to this, I had a feeling this was gonna be good, because it was directed by Fede Alvarez, who also gave us the... Was it not? The... Dead... A dead... Living dead... my god. Can't remember right now.
The Army of Darkness is based on Evil Dead. There you go, the Evil Dead remake. Fede Alvarez did the Evil Dead remake, which was incredible. And he's a master of horror. And I knew this was going to be good. Alien returning to its horror roots. And I've never been the biggest fan of the Alien series. I did watch one and two in preparation of leading up to this because this takes place between one and two. And it's so fun. We see real spooky.
stuff. see great world building on like what it's like to be the grunts living in this world that is just a future world that is completely taken over by corporations that have full control over every aspect of your life and what it's like to try and do whatever it takes to get out of this world and you put yourself in the most violent of situations because these corporations just want to keep experimenting and pushing the boundaries.
Nick (18:00.448)
and you do what you can to survive. This shows us some incredible moments that I've never seen in any sci-fi thing with some of the most amazing CG ever. The ending was a little insane, but I kind of like that and I kind of expect that out of an Alien movie. So this is one that I was able to get my wife to watch too. So shout out to Alien Romulus. All right, number two on my list, 10 for writing, 10 for acting, 10 for directing.
Solid 10 now both one and two are all solid tens across so I had to kind of finagle Which one would be in first place? Which would be in second place? The one I have in second place is a movie that I would love to watch over and over again I've already seen it twice this year once in the theater and once with my wife and I want to watch it again And that is Civil War Alex Garland is such an incredible writer. I will watch anything he's attached to men from last year
or the year before was in my top 10, even though tons of people hated it. This movie is the next, his follow up to that is an 824 movie. I think it's the most expensive 824 movie ever made. Civil War has a kind of a misleading title. Yes, there's a civil war, but that's really the backdrop of the real storyline that's happening, which is photojournalism. It covers the life of photojournalists who just happen to be capturing stories and images from a civil war that's happening in the United States. So
Who is fighting who isn't as important as it is just them trying to survive as they get from point A to point B. It feels very much like The Last of Us, but it has those nice little moments of humanity and it's weird seeing how things like this would occur. Like in The Last of Us, everything is shot, everything is hard to survive, there's hardly any safe places in America.
Here, it's like some states are involved in the war, some are not. So going from point A to point B can be dangerous moments surrounded by normal moments. So it's really fascinating seeing that dichotomy as they go from state to state, entering war zones, leaving war zones, et cetera. And of all movies, this one probably has the most oppressive sound design in a good way. It's not like amazing, like...
Nick (20:20.692)
Sci-fi sound design like well, what is going on like you get out of dune 2 it's more like when a gunshot goes off It hurts more accurate to probably what it would be like in the real world in a gun in in a war zone It's not just tons of guns and you're like running around. Nobody's going deaf It every you feel and hear every gunshot in your body when you see it in the theater So that was one of the reasons why I loved Civil War
Alright, coming up on my number one movie of the year. A movie that I got my friends to watch and I got my wife to watch last week. A little movie called Strange Darling. So just like Caddo Lake, I knew nothing going into this except that it was great. I had heard Giovanni Ribisi, the actor we all know and love from Gone In 60 Seconds and the other sister, was the cinematographer in this. I was like, I haven't seen him acting in a while. I wonder what he's been up to. Maybe this is good.
Cinematography is incredible in this movie. Good work, Giovanni Ribisi. This is a movie that, the only thing I want to give away is it's about serial killers, and you see that in the first title card. The movie's split into six chapters, and they're told out of order. And it leads to an incredible experience where someone you love in chapter one you believe is the enemy in chapter two, and you don't know who you're rooting for.
but you're constantly on the edge of your seat trying to figure out, do I want this person to survive? Do I want this person to not survive? I don't know. I just want to keep watching and find out what happens. You're really along for the ride and it is a hell of a ride. It is so fun. It has got this great seventies dirty aesthetic, little moments of comedy that keeps the pacing dynamic. And Strange Darling was incredible. It's like the kind of movie that
makes me love movies because it does things so differently but keeps them so fun. So that was my top 10 movies of the year. I'll probably share a link to this full list somewhere online and as far as movies that are coming up next year that I'm excited about Wolfman's gonna be fun. I saw Magazine Dreams is actually coming out so I'm interested in seeing that one. One of them days looks pretty good. Good to see SZA acting.
Nick (22:47.038)
Companion looks nice and spooky from the creators of Barbarian. But overall, 2024 was some great stuff came out this year. Some really weird stuff. Lisa Frankenstein was one of my favorites. Just barely fell off the top 10. Mads, an incredible French zombie film, shot all in one take. Just barely fell off my top 10. Dee Dee was an emotional roller coaster. Barely fell off my top 10. So shout out to all of those.
Wonderful year of movies and it's been a lot of fun So let's get back into our regular scheduled podcast. I'll start doing some more episodes with artists coming up I'm gonna be doing probably just like a video of you watching me edit photos You can see kind of what my process looks like and I can get feedback from all of you on Maybe better ways more efficient ways to do stuff. But And I'm gonna try and bring my wife in here some more
Thank you all so much for listening. I hope you have a wonderful day.
