The final episode of What If…? dropped on Disney + and I would say that it was fine. It seemed as if it fit with the entire third season, which, to me, was fine. It was not great. It was not terrible. It was passing. Overall, probably somewhere around a C.
This started with the Watcher the prisoner of The Eminence and was going to have to face punishment for his breaking of the vow to never intervene with those he watched. They brought Peggy Carter in too, also captured. As we saw last episode, this is when Infinity Ultron arrived along with the Exiles (Storm, Byrdie, Kahhori) and broke out the Watcher and Peggy, leading to a huge superpower fight between the Eminence and the Exiles.
Sadly, this fight was a little dull. I’ve seen it before.
What I was hoping was going to happen was that The Eminence would put the Watcher on trial, and then they would bring in many witnesses from the three seasons to testify, leading to some drama and not just a big super hero fight. I remember in the comics when Reed Richards was put on trial in a galactic setting after he saved Galactus. That felt like something they could have used as a road map for this and really end What If…? on a theological high. Instead, we got the power bolts and such.
There were plenty of flashes of characters throughout Marvel during the episode, but they went so fast it was difficult to keep up with it. I need New Rockstars to do a break down video to show them all.
I loved the daily release schedule of What If…? the last two years. It gave me something to look forward to every day over the Christmas break. I hope they find another animated series to fill that bill in the future.
What If…? has been solid, if not spectacular. The seasons for me are ranked 2nd, 1st, 3rd.
Final Rankings forSeason Three
E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?
E7 What If the Watcher Disappeared?
E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier?
The Batman and Robin Award for Rottenness are the annual look at films that just were not good. Some even bad. Yes, I know that it is very difficult to make a movie, and it is something that I have never done. Nobody sets out to make a bad movie (probably) and I have all respect for the men and women who do this job.
Still there are times when the film is just rotten. These awards look at those times. They receive the coveted Batman and Robin.
Worst Movie: See the list at the end of the year. Honestly, there are about six movies competing for this title yet.
Worst Actor: Scott Chambers, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2. Not much anyone can do when this is your script.
Worst Actress: Sofia Boutella, Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver. She never had a chance. This was worse than the last one.
Worst Director: Eli Roth, Borderlands. He clearly had no idea about this video game. This film is easily one of the worst of the year and Roth had a great cast that he did nothing with.
Worst Sequel: Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver. If only we got to see the Director’s edition first. I’m joking. I do not want to watch a longer version of this.
Worst CGI: Madame Web. There was not much about Madame Web that was good. CGI was no exception.
Favorite Rotten Movie: If. Ryan Reynolds’ first hit of the year wound up with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 50% making it rotten. It is a much better film than that. I liked it. I’d even recommend it.
Worst Movie I did not see: Megalopolis. It’s on the list for 2025 June Swoon.
Cashing a Paycheck: Russell Crowe, Kraven the Hunter. Fun little accent he was playing with. Not sure where he was suppsoed to be from. This guy won an Oscar.
Worst Reboot/Remake: The Crow. Why would you do this? The Crow did not need to be rebooted, and this movie did the original dirty.
Most Successful Bad Movie: Despicable Me 4. This made a ton of money dumbing down the youth of our country even more.
Worst Movie Based on a TV Show/Video Game: Borderlands. One of the worst films of the year, setting back video game adaptations just as they were making some progress.
Worst Superhero Movie: Madame Web. Why Sony why? Madame Web is, at best, a C or D level hero in the Spider-Man universe, and that is when she is with Spdier-Man.
Worst Trailer: Transformers One. Already mentioned this in the Logan “Hurt” Award. Almost made me not see the movie.
WTF: Kinds of Kindness. In risk of offending that guy on X who called me names after my review of this movie, I found this a mess.
Worst Performance by an Oscar Winner: Ariana DeBose, Kraven the Hunter. She was truly terrible in that movie after being brilliant in West Side Story.
Worst ADR: Madame Web. The villain in this movie barely moved his mouth. The voice over is noticeably bad and that should never happen.
Worst TV Show that I Watched: American Horror Story: Delicate. The second half of this season is some of the worst TV I have seen. I couldn’t wait for this one to be done.
Worst TV Finale: Grotesquerie. The final episode of this show for its first season was a jumbled mess and was simply unsatisfying.
The first two episodes of the season were character beats, setting up the characters we would be following in the Squid Game and developing them some. I found those episodes to be of great importance because we jump full into the games in episodes 3, 4, & 5.
The games themselves are always the most intense, stressful parts of this show. Even the Red Light, Green Light, which we saw in the first season and we know what to expect, was just insanity when it comes to execution. The show did a great job of giving us something different for us to stress over. In this case, Gi-hun taking the lead and almost directing traffic, despite several of the contestants not believing him or wanting to follow what he said. When Gi-hun ran back out to save the guy who had been shot in the leg, we saw what a heroic figure he had become from his days of season one.
The other characters all elicited some emotion from us as viewers, both positively and negatively. I hate Thanos, even if he does some funny things. I love Geum-ja. She is the ultimate mother figure in the games and she must be protected. There will be a time, I am sure, that the show will want to rip out hearts out and it will kill her. I do not want that to happen.
Player 001 turned out to be In-ho aka the Front Man (Captain). Much like last season, number 001 is a traitor, a man from behind the scenes inserting himself into the game. In this case, we are aware of the treachery unlike last year. In this case, In-ho is also a former winner of the Squid Game and his presence is curious. He sure seemed as if he was working with the group during the six-legged pentathlon.
By the way, that six-legged pentathlon was both the most invigorating and exciting game and the most stressful and horrendous game played. Watching the group of five try to make it through five children’s games in five minutes was unbelievably tense and suspenseful. It was also hard for the second game.
The show has done a tremendous job of building mood during the two votes we have had to try and end the games. The first vote coming down to the final player, 001, who voted to continue, and the second vote being more weighed toward the stay and do one more game.
I am afraid a bunch of the characters whom stated that they will play one more game and then leave are going to find their votes a tragic mistake.
I really thought doing a second season of this show was going to be a mistake, especially since the creators of the show had not intended on continuing the show past season one. However, this has been exceptional so far and it has taken an extra step in its exploration into human nature. It does not feel like a repeat of what happened in season one, and even when something similar happens, it is done in a totally different manner. The writing has been great so far as they have created a bunch of characters that I really want to see survive, even though I know they will not.
There are only two episodes left in this season, which I have heard ends in a cliffhanger, so I am excited about wrapping it up.
Well, here is the last EYG Comic Cavalcade for 2024. It was a year where my collection really took off. It got organized, rebagged and reboarded, and listed on CLZ. The Comic Cavalcade was right there for the entire thing, recording the books that I added to my collection.
Before I forget, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope that 2025 is the best year yet. As for the Comic Cavalcade, I plan to continue to do this on a weekly basis as new comics continue to be released and as long as eBay keeps up the source for back issues.
Books this week:
X-Men #9. “Raid on Graymalkin” Part 3. Written by Jed Mackay and penciled by Federico Vicentini & Ryan Stegman. Cover art by Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, and Marte Gracia (Bronze Medalist). The crossover between X-Men and Uncanny X-Men continues as the two teams fight with one another at Graymalkin, the prison for mutants that was once the X-Mansion. The shadow off Charles Xavier is all over the place….
Exceptional X-Men #4. Written by Eve L. Ewing and art by Carmen Carnero. Cover art was by Carnero & Nolan Woodward. Iceman is here as the book keeps looking at Kitty Pryde and her past issues with her teammates and her own actions while trying to do something good.
Hellhunters #1. Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and art by Adam Gorham. Jonas Scharf & Alex Guimarães. World War II Ghost Rider teams up with Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos for some World War II action.
Iron Man #3. “Organized Crime.” Written by Spencer Ackerman and art by Julius Ohta with Jethro Morales. Tony Stark uses his clever mind to finish off the Stark takeover attempt by AIM and Roxxon. I am glad that this arc does not seem to be moving forward as we just had a corporate takeover storyline recently. Guest starring the demon Belasco.
West Coast Avengers #2. Written by Gerry Duggan and art by Danny Kim. Ben Harvey did the art for the cover. Apparently, the Ultron we saw at the end of the first issue was not the same Ultron who is a member of the West Coast Avengers. That was a bit of a surprise.
Amazing Spider-Man #64. “King of Pain” Written by Justina Ireland and art by Gleb Melnikov. Ed McGuinness & Marco Menyz did the cover art. The 8 Deaths of Spider-Man marches on as Peter has to face off with one of the Twins. Peter is also attempting to find a way to win against some of these Scions without actually dying. I like this so far as the villains seem to be underestimating Spidey and are learning their lessons. You don’t see that much any more and it feels a touch old school.
Redcoat #8. Geoff Johns and Bryan Hitch are the creators and cover B art was done by Brad Walker (Gold Medalist). A stand alone issue of the Redcoat that sees Simon take on a family of serial killers in 1873. The Northerner returned at the very end to set up the new story arc for 2025.
Metamorpho #1. “Mister 3, the Triple-State Man” Written by Al Ewing and art by Steve Lieber. Steve Lieber & Lee Loughridge did the cover art. This was a lot of fun. It had a very old school type flavor to the issue, perhaps because of the art stylings of Steve Lieber. It definitely feels as if they are trying to build nostalgia for the character prior to his appearance in the 2025 Superman movie. I have always liked Metamorpho-Meta-morph-o (there is an allusion for ya) and this is an enjoyable book. It does worry me that I am buying more and more DC books. I am concerned that I already buy more books a month than in any time in my life, and I shouldn’t be adding more DC to the list.
Black Canary: Best of the Best #2. “Round Two” Written by Tom King and art and cover art by Ryan Sook. My point about the DC books. There are a bunch now. And Black Canary is awesome. I love this story as they intersperse the flashback of Dinah as a younger girl with the fights she is having with lady Shiva. I do love Tom King as a writer and Metamorpho was written by another favorite of mine, Al Ewing. Maybe it is the writing talent that has attracted me to DC. This one is great so far.
Justice League Unlimited #2. Written by Mark Waid and art and cover art by Dan Mora. Another DC book and another great writer in Mark Waid. When I was young, I was a fan of the JLA, but I moved away from it, being more of a Marvel stan. I do like the idea of the Justice League being all the heroes around and I did like seeing Indiana Jones on page 5. He turned out to be Dr. Richard Occult, but that first shot of him was Indy all the way. I did like the mystery of what was happening to J’onn J’ones as well. Oh DC… what are you doing to me?
Absolute Wonder Woman #3. “The Last Amazon Part 3” Written by Kelly Thompson and art by Hayden Sherman. Cover art by Hayden Sherman & Jordie Bellaire (Silver Medalist). Yet another DC book, but this one is the Absolute line. Diana is very intriguing in this new take on her and I have been enjoying these new variations on the Trinity so far. Kelly Thompson is yet another awesome writer working with DC. Can’t argue with quality.
Uncanny Valley #7. Written by Tony Fleecs and art and cover art by Dave Wachter. Finally out of DC and into Boom! Studios. Oliver finds himself in a new and strange world. The world of his grandfather, Pecos Peet. Meanwhile his mom and Peet are in search for him. Uncanny Valley has been a consistently engaging book with one of the most creative ideas in a long time.
Blade Red Band #3. Written by Bryan Hill and art by Federica Mancin & C.F. Villa. C.F. Villa and Federico Blee did the cover art. As Blade is in search of Pontius, he has to question the loyalty of his current partner and vampire hunter Elena. This has been a very fascinating book full of betrayals and uncertainty. I’m not sure it needs the red band logo, but it has been a good story so far.
Sam and Twitch Case Files #9. Script by Todd McFarlane & Jordan Barel with art by Thomas Nachlik. Thaddeus Robeck did the cover art. A new story arc kicks off with Sam and Twitch as Twitch is in pursuit of a suspect and he shoots him. He was aiming for his shoulder, but the bullet went through his head/eye, killing him. I loved this issue because, despite how normal this felt, there is more under the surface. Good start for the next story arc.
Timeslide #1. Written by Steve Foxe and art by Ivan Fiorelli. Kael Ngu did the cover art. Cable and Bishop team up to go through time to try and prevent time from fraying. It seemed as if this book was used to show hints at what is coming in the future of Marvel Comics. It went as far as to provide a checklist about halfway through including titles of upcoming events. How many actually happen will be intriguing. Meanwhile, this book was okay, but nothing to write home about.
Kidpool/Spider-Boy#1. Written by Christopher Yost and penciled by Nathan Stockman, Jed Dougherty & Chris Campana. Humberto Ramos & Edgar Delgado did the cover art. Spider-Boy faces his most dangerous and annoying threat yet… a young, female Deadpool variant who likes him. But does she like him like him? Might they hold hands? Or will their relationship be broken up by Stegron?
Mystique #3. “Sentinels” Written, drawn and cover art by Declan Shalvey. This is a different POV from Sentinels#3 where we think we see them fighting Magneto. Thanks to this issue, we know it is not Magneto that the Sentinels are fighting. It is Mystique. But how does she have the magnetism of Magneto? More questions here, and a lot of mutant fun.
Ultimate Black Panther #11. Written by Bryan Hill and guest artist Carlos Nieto. Cover art was by Stefano Caselli & David Curiel. This was actually my favorite issue of Ultimate Black Panther since the very beginning of the series. I liked how they prepared to set up the one on one battle between T’Challa and the Ultimate Moon Knight, and how all of T’Challa’s allies and friends wanted to keep him from it. Builds some solid stakes and tension for the throwdown next issue (I assume).
Geiger #9. Written by Geoff Johns and art by Paul Pelletier and Gary Frank. Cover art was by Gary Frank & Brad Anderson. Mr. Geiger turned on Nate as he lost control of himself. If not for Barney, things would have been very problematic. Geiger wants to change. The most intriguing part of this issue was the prologue where we see Simon Pure from Redcoat, Junkyard Joe, and what looked like the Northerner. Is it the Ghost Machine crossover we have been waiting for?
Spider-Boy #14. “Know Your Enemy” Written by Dan Slott and art by Paco Medina & Humberto Ramos. Cover art by Paco Medina & Edgar Delgado. The Dragon’s Challenge tournament begins with Daredevil and Spider-Boy teaming up to try and prevent Bullseye & Spider-Girl from winning. We get a Spider-Girl origin and Hulkette is hanging around until Spider-Boy loses so she can get her own revenge.
Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #3. “Pathfinder” Written by Jed MacKay and art by Domenico Carbone. Davide Paratore did the cover art. The Midnight Mission is killed in this issue. What? The house died? This sends Moon Knight into an anger, but it feels very odd having killed off the Midnight Mission. Not sure why this was done as it felt like a great setting. I guess we’ll have to see.
Sabretooth: The Dead Don’t Talk #1. Written by Frank Tieri and art by Michael Sta. Maria. Adam Kubert and Laura Martin did the cover art. A flashback story about Sabretooth and the Ravencroft asylum. Bloody and violent, this is an interesting mini series.
Other books this week: Ultraman x Avengers #3, Lawful #6, Hello Darkness #6, Void Rivals #15, and The Creeping Below #2.
The penultimate episode of the series What If aired this morning on Disney + and it took a step back to the first season.
Captain Carter returned to the series that she had been a major part of during the first two seasons and she brought with her a group that was called The Exiles. This was not a group of Exiles like in the comics, but a group that was from the run of What If…?. The group featured Peggy, Kahhori, Byrdie the Duck and Goddess of Thunder Storm.
First off, Byrdie the Duck was the grown daughter of Howard and Marcy the Duck from episode four. Voiced by Natasha Lyonne, this is a whole on original character from What If… and then they teamed Byrdie up with the other major original character from season two of What If…?, Kahhori.
Storm’s arrival was also extremely exciting and well done. Voiced by Alison Sealy-Smith, the fan favorite voice of Storm from the X-Men’97 and animated series, Storm was hauling around Mjolnir and showing herself to be one big time badass. Having Storm in the show, and giving us a Storm that felt just like the Storm that we know was a wonderful treat.
The show’s beginning let us know that something was wrong as it was not the Watcher’s voice doing the narration over the opening credits. Instead, it was the voice of The Eminence who have taken Uatu prisoner, ready to punish him for his breaking of the Watcher Oath.
Peggy realized that the Watcher was in trouble and she decided that The Exiles needed to go to the Fifth Dimension to help the Watcher, but she did not know how they would do it.
Bring in… Infinity Ultron. The one individual ever able to go to the Fifth Dimension on his own. This is how the show returned to the first season, as Infinity Ultron was the big bad of that season.
I did like the fact that this Infinity Ultron had succeeded in his quest and, because of that, had an existential crisis. He realized, way too late, that destroying all life would not bring peace, that in order to have peace there must be life and to have life, you must have conflict.
This was a first part of a two-part finale for the series as the Exiles went to the Fifth Dimension to try and save their friends.
One more episode tomorrow for the series.
E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?
E7 What If the Watcher Disappeared?
E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier?
2025 kicks off with our third annual Genre-ary. We started with Sci-Fi movies. Then we did Musicals. This year, we will be doing Documentaries.
Again, this will be documentaries that are movies or shorts. There will be no doc series such as the Jinx. Of course, it is a DailyView which means I will be watching a movie every day in the month of January that I have never seen before.
I have compiled a list of documentaries from over the years that I have not seen before. Some will be well known ones, some will be ones we have never heard of before. I will be including some 2024 films instead of waiting for the June Swoon.
I will keep the tally of the Genre-ary on this page.
2025 Genre-ary: Documentaries
Wednesday, January 1: The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (2024)
Thursday, January 2: The Amazing Jonathan Documentary(2019)
Friday, January 3: The Turnaround (2024)
Saturday, January 4: An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Sunday, January 5: Remembering Gene Wilder (2023)
Monday, January 6: ReMastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black(2018)
Tuesday, January 7: The Blue Angels (2024)
Wednesday, January 8: In-spi-ra-tion(2023)
Thursday, January 9: Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show (2017)
Friday, January 10: ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke (2019)
Saturday, January 11: Nature Boy: 30 on 30 (2017)
Sunday, January 12: Hoop Dreams (1994)
Monday, January 13: Will & Harper (2024)
Tuesday, January 14: Have You Seen Andy (2007)
Wednesday, January 15: The Rocket on the Roof (2016)
Thursday, January 16: Bigfoot: Fear in the Woods (2020)
Friday, January 17: 65 Roses (2019)
Saturday, January 18: Daughters (2024)
Sunday, January 19: Amy (2015)
Monday, January 20: MLK/FBI (2020)
Tuesday, January 21: The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Wednesday, January 22: MoviePass, MovieCrash (2024)
Thursday, January 23: Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (2016)
Friday, January 24: American Tragedy (2019)
Saturday, January 25: Whitney (2018)
Sunday, January 26: Misha and the Wolves (2021)
Monday, January 27: Last Breath (2019)
Tuesday, January 28: There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane (2011)
Wednesday, January 29: Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
Thursday, January 30: Invasion on Chestnut Ridge (2017)
I do enjoy a good documentary. I am going to have a list of top ten documentaries for the year. Nine of them are movie format and one is a weekly series. There were a lot of weekly series that intrigued me, but it is harder to fit those into the schedule than straight movies.
I am also going to officially announce here that in January, for the annual Genre-ary DailyView, where I watch a movie that I have not seen in a certain genre every day for the whole month. This is the third year for the Genre-ary (we have had sci-fi and musicals) and in 2025, the topic for Genre-ary is Documentaries. This starts on Wednesday, January 1st.
Best Documentary
Previous Winners: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, My Scientology Movie, Tickled, Finding Neverland, Tiger King, The Beatles: Get Back, Lights & Magic, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
Here are the top 10 docs of 2024.
#10. Elton John: Never Too Late. A look at Elton John’s life and his music. Found on Disney +.
#9. Blink. An emotional story of a family who had 3 out of 4 of their children who had a genetic disorder that would eventual lead them to lose their sight. Their family went on a trip across the planet to give the kids experiences they could always remember.
#8. Brats. I saw this on Hulu this year and it was all about the group of young actors from the 1980s called the Brat Pack and how that nomenclature affected their careers.
#7. Music by John Williams. Another Disney + doc on a famous figure, looking at the life of the iconic composer John Williams and all his amazing movie music.
#6. Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal. The WWE documentary on Bray Wyatt, who just passed away. The emotional doc spoke to his friends and his family, including brother Bo Dallas.
#5. Beatles ’64. Another Disney + doc, this time looking at the Beatles from 1964, the year they arrived in the United States.
#4. The Greatest Night in Pop. A Netflix doc that details the events of the night where the song “We Are the World” was recorded. Amazing footage from the actual night.
#3. The Jinx: Part Two. The one series on this list, and one that I considered to make the winner. I enjoyed this weekly series on MAX that followed the rest of the story of killer Robert Durst.
#2. Jim Henson Idea Man. This is the fifth doc from Disney + on this list. Ron Howard directed this documentary on the Muppet creator Jim Henson. Very emotional and a great look on one of the most creative men in entertainment.
#1. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. The doc on Christopher Reeve is powerful, emotional, and shows us what a hero Chris Reeve was, before and after he played Superman.
I have really enjoyed the start of season two as the show has not even made it to the games yet. They have taken some time to dive into more of the story of the characters, and not just Gi-hun.
We have spent time over the first two episodes with Kang No-eul, who was a refugee from North Korea who is continuing to try and get her daughter back from the North as well. She worked at an amusement park as a mascot and we saw her relating to a little sick girl. We thought she was going to join the games, but, instead, she turns out to be one of the pink guards instead, which was a cool surprise.
Gi-hun and Jun-ho meet up after the Russian Roulette game and have the initial misunderstanding as you would expect. They team up to try and stop the games. We get to see how much Gi-hun has been preparing for this over the last couple of years.
The scene where Gi-hun is having one of his teeth pulled in order to put a tracker in a fake tooth is a wild one and showed you what Gi-hun has become. The scene with Gi-hun showing all of his money piled up on his bed was shocking and again gave us an insight into the character of Gi-hun and what was important to him.
Gi-hun is back in the games and they will most likely get started next episode.
After season one was a massive, worldwide success on Netflix, Squid Game returned with season two dropping on the streamer. The initial season of Squid Game was designed to be a one-off season and there were no intentions on bringing a second season to screen. Then, it became one of the biggest shows on Netflix and the demand for more games became too overpowering.
So, I watched episode one of Squid Game and it was full of tension and drama, but a little different than what we had become used to in the first season.
Seong Gi-hun returned to the show after winning the games last season. It is three years later and Seong has become obsessed with finding the games once again. He hired an army of men to scour train stations in search of the man who recruited him into the games.
Meanwhile, Hwang Jun-ho had survived his gunshot wound and fall from the cliff and he was struggling with his own obsessions. He remembered being shot by his brother and he is trying to find the island where he had fallen.
Both men feel as if they are co-leads in this first episode as things are slowly working to bring them together.
The whole Russian Roulette scenes were really tense and difficult to watch. The mood these scenes built really give us an idea of what this season is going to be like, even if we have not yet arrived in the games. I think it is smart to focus on Seong and Jun-ho as the main protagonists of the season so far.
Animation has had a big year. However, it seems as if I did not see as many animated movies as I should have. I was starting to look at the list of films from 2024 that would be in the June Swoon in 2025 and there were several animated movies that I had not seen.
Still, I have five animated films for the best and three for the worst. We’ll do this one as a list.
Best Animated Movies of 2024
#5. Kung Fu Panda 4. This one was nowhere near as good as the other films in this franchise, but was still an enjoyable watch. Jack Black is always fun as Po.
#4. Robot Dreams. Watched this during the 4F and it was decent. It received Oscar award nomination last year, but I counted it this year.
#3. Transformers One. A film that I really loved and a film that I almost skipped because of a trailer. This worked so much better than I thought it would.
#2. The Wild Robot. A beautiful story of a robot and a baby goose. Many believe this is the current favorite to win an Oscar this year. Could be, and it would be well deserving.
#1.
Inside Out 2
Pixar’s huge hit this year, Inside Out 2 may be just a step behind the original, but it was every bit as great of a story. Great CGI. Greta emotional storytelling. Great characterization. Inside Out 2 was the highest grossing movie of 2024. It is a massive success and I loved this movie.
Worst Animated Movie of 2024
#3. Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 3. Such a classic comic event turned into a dull and flat animated movie. Part 2 was just about as bad.
#2. Despicable Me 4. Minions and their adventures. Boring. This one is not for adults in any way.
#1.
The Garfield Movie
This movie went ahead and took the character of Garfield and made him an action star. Forget about the choice of having Chris Pratt voicing Garfield, this film did not have any idea of what the character of Garfield was and that is the biggest sin you could have.
Unlike sci-fi, there has been a ton of horror movies. There are plenty to choose from for the best and worst this year.
Best Horror Movie
Previous Winners: A Quiet Place, It, Don’t Breathe, It Follows, The Conjuring, As Above So Below, Cabin in the Woods, Doctor Sleep, Black Box, Fear Street trilogy, The Menu, A Haunting in Venice
Best Horror Movie of 2024
Runners-Up: There are some great horror movies and several of these are going to wind up in the top 10 of the Best Movies list coming soon. I was hoping to give this award to a couple of these along the way. Such as Abigail, which when I first saw it, I figured this was the winner of this award. Heck, for awhile, this had a shot to be at #1 overall on the year (Spoiler alert: It will not be). I had loved Late Night with the Devil with David Dastmalchian. I found that to be completely original and reengaged the old found footage subgenre. I placed Alien: Romulus in this category instead of Sci-Fi and it was one of my favorites of the year. Another surprise film was Heretic with Hugh Grant. That movie was another huge hit and one that I loved.
However, I just recently saw the film that needed to win this award. It will be somewhere in the top 5 of the year on the final list.
Nosferatu
This vampire movie was such an amazing feat. It was basically the story of Count Dracula, but with Count Orlok in his place. And it was beautifully shot, acted and presented. It was creepy and scary as could be. A master class of visual storytelling as well as creation of a mood.
Worst Horror Movie of 2024
Runners-Up: There were an excess of poor horror films this year. The year kicked off with one of the worst with Night Swim. Imaginary I saw plenty of trailers for, but it was terrible. Dumb bear. Tarot is in contention for one of the worst films of the year, not just horror-wise. The Strangers Ch. 1 was a unnecessary reboot that ruined the franchise immediately. The Watchers… honestly I do not remember anything about that one. The Exorcism was one more bad movie starring Russell Crowe. Not his best year ever. Immaculate was another flopper among these horror flicks.
The worst horror movie of 2024 is from the same franchise that had the worst horror movie of 2023… a sequel!
Winner: Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2
This one fooled me. I went in thinking this would be better. I had seen a couple of positive reviews and I thought it would be good campy fun. Nope. Just the same horrendous acting, violence for no reason and just lackluster storytelling. The worst horror film back to back years… has to be a record!
I have not seen much science fiction this year. That made this award very easy.
In this category, even though I could, i do not include any sort of superhero movie. I eliminate those from this category. They have their own award. I also decided that Alien: Romulus would not be in consideration for this because it is more of a monster movie than anything else. Same would go for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
After that, there just was not much remaining.
Best Horror Movie
Previous Winners: A Quiet Place, It, Don’t Breathe, It Follows, The Conjuring, As Above So Below, Cabin in the Woods, Doctor Sleep, Black Box, Fear Street trilogy, The Menu, A Haunting in Venice
Best Sci-Fi Movie of 2024
Runners-Up: Spaceman, Code 8: Part II, The Substance
Winner:
Dune: Part II.
I liked this more than the first one, and the special effects are absolutely killing it. It is also one of the most sci-fi-ish movies of the year.
Worst Sci-Fi Movie of the 2024
Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver
Scargiver took the really bad Rebel Moon and made it even worse. Who could have guessed? I suppose we just have to wait for the four hour director’s cut…
Trailers are so important to spread the word about movies to the public, specifically the people who may not be as tied in to movie news as some may be. So this year we are instituting a new award for the best and worst in trailers from 2024.
Best Trailer: Superman. This was a tough choice, but this teaser trailer made me excited to see Superman next year, and that is the job of a trailer.
Worst Trailer: Transformers One. I’ve said this before, but I hated this trailer and it nearly caused me to not want to go see the movie. It highlighted all of the humor that simply did not work in isolation. In context, it was much funnier, but in this way, it was horrible. For such a great movie, this trailer was an epic fail.
Best TV trailer: X-Men ’97. Yeah, baby. The mutants were back and this trailer gave us a glimpse into the brilliance that we would get in X-Men’97. How did this become such an amazing show?
Why show that Award: Deadpool & Wolverine reveal of Laura. It was in the final trailer, like a week before the movie released and the trailer spoiled the appearance of Daphne Keen as X-23, aka Laura from Logan. Why? There is no way that her appearance was going to encourage someone else to go see the film at this point. It was just a waste of a spoiler and a poor choice.
Creepiest Trailer: 28 Years Later. This is legit scary. I was totally creeped out when I first saw this trailer and every time I have seen it since, I have had an uneasy feel. Great use of atmosphere and tension to promote the movie.
Most Unexpected Trailer: Karate Kid Legends. Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio? Weird. The trailer does give us an idea of what the film will be like. How does Cobra Kai play into this, if at all?
Shang Chi and Kate Bishop make their returns to the MCU in this cool Western story as they chase after The Hood, a character that the MCU has not yet introduced (although he is coming in Ironheart next year).
The pairing of Shang Chi and Kate Bishop worked for me as they pursued the Hood for their own reasons. The show did keep the characters at a surface level, depending on your enjoyment of the previous uses of the character to pull you in. For me, that worked.
The action of the episode was top notch with some awesome animated martial arts fights. The opening scene featuring John Walker, voiced once again by Wyatt Russell, was a neat set up for what we were going to get.
Shang Chi in search of his sister, who he had believed had been taken by the Hood works as well. Having her be the Hood in the end was a nice twist that I did not expect.
Walter Goggins reprised his role as Sonny Burch from Ant Man and the Wasp. Here he was a very sinister second hand man to the Hood. To be honest, he was much more memorable here in What If that he was in Ant Man and the Wasp. I like that they brought him in for this role.
1872 was a limited Marvel Comics series that placed Marvel characters in the Old West. Steve Rogers was the sheriff of the town and Wilson Fisk was the big, bad businessman. Fisk wound up feeding Steve Rogers to the pigs in a scene that stuck with me since I read it. I do not remember much else about 1872, except for that moment. This What If…? episode did not include those characters but I could see it being something going on in another location in this world.
There are only two more What If…? episodes left. With the final scene being the other Watchers confronting Uatu, and his interference will be a major arc to wrap up the series. The Watchers have sworn an oath to only watch and to not interfere, but we have seen our Watcher interfere several times over the three seasons. I am curious to see how this will all wrap up. I know the trailer had Captain Carter and Kahhori in it, so I expect to see them during some kind of conflict with the Watchers.
E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?
E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 