Tag Archives: movies

2024 Year in Review: TV

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2024 saw me watch a lot of TV. Not only did I watch the active shows, I was doing rewatches or first time watches of classics such as The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, Bates Motel, The Greatest American Hero, Moonlighting, Yellowjackets, and Picket Fences.

But we are not looking at those series. These are lists of the best series of the year. I decided to split them into four categories: Drama, Comedy, Genre, Animated.

Some of the categories were really difficult to rank and, of course, only feature those series that I watch. There is so much on TV these days that it is impossible to watch everything.

Let’s kick it off with:

Drama.

Drama had a top six list and featured some of the best shows of the year.

6. Bodkin (Netflix)

5. True Detective: Night Country (MAX)

4. Baby Reindeer (Netflix)

3. Squid Game 2 (Netflix)

2. The Penguin (MAX)

  1. Shogun (Hulu)

Shogun was so good that it just out distanced The Penguin, which had an amazing run on HBO Max. I just finished Squid Game 2 in time for this list.

Comedy

4. The Bear (Hulu)

3. Shrinking (Apple TV +)

2. Agatha All Along (Disney +)

  1. Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

This was probably the hardest one to judge. When I split these categories apart, I thought that Agatha All Along would be a shoo-in for Comedy winner, because I loved that show so much. However, Looking over the list of comedies, Only Murders in the Building jumped out at me and regulated Agatha into the second slot. This was an outstanding season of OMitB too with Steve Martin doing some excellent work with his grief over the death of his friend and stunt double Sazz. Number three is Shrinking and that is a genius show too. Harrison Ford is perhaps the biggest scene stealer on this list. The Bear is here because the Emmys list it as a comedy, but it is a stretch to call it that in my opinion.

Genre

#6. Walking Dead: The Ones Who Lived (AMC +)

#5. Echo (Disney +)

#4. Silo (Apple TV +)

#3. Fallout (Prime)

#2. Skeleton Crew (Disney +)

#1. The Boys (Prime)

The Boys had another great season with Butcher on the edge of death, Homelander in full revenge mode and everyone else trying to survive. Skeleton Crew has been extremely fun so far giving us some of the best Star Wars TV we have had in years. Fallout was a fantastic video game adaptation and Silo is top notch sci-fi on Apple TV +. Echo was better than a lot of people gave it credit for and it was nice seeing Rick and Michonne reunite.

Animated

#5. Masters of the Universe: Revolution (Netflix)

#4. Creature Commandos (MAX)

#3. What If…? (Disney +)

#2. Batman: Caped Crusader (Prime)

#1. X-Men’97 (Disney +)

X-Men ’97 was an amazing surprise. It had no right to be as good as it was. The old X-Men series was okay, but this took everything great about it and mixed it with amazing characterization and storytelling. And “Remember It” is one of the best episodes of TV this year, not just animated TV. Batman: Caped Crusader was another great series on Amazon with a new take on Batman and his rogue’s gallery. What If was a bit of a step down but still fairly entertaining and had a great Agatha/Kingo episode. Creature Commandos has been okay for me as some of the humor does not work for me. Masters was a good follow up from Kevin Smith.

2024 Year in Review: “All Right, Mr. Deville, I am Ready for my Close Up” Award for Best Director

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“All Right, Mr. Deville, I am Ready for my Close Up” Award for Best Director

Previous Winners:  A.G. Inarritu (Birdman), Tim McCarthy (Spotlight), Damien Chazelle (La La Land), Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman), Alfonso Cuarón (Roma), Anthony and Joe Russo (Avengers: Endgame), Spike Lee (Da 5 Bloods), Jon Watt (Spider-Man: No Way Home), Ryan Coogler (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)

The role of the director is a vital one in any movie. I have chosen the top ten directors of 2024 to present here. Some of these will be considered for Oscars, others on my list will have to settle for recognition from EYG as I will look at the genre films with a fairer view than Academy voters.

“All Right, Mr. Deville, I am Ready for my Close Up” Award for Best Director Top Ten

#10. Francis Galluppi, The Last Stop in Yuma County. This was an outstanding independent film that I found on Vudu and was completely enthralled by. This was Galluppi’s first feature film.

#9. Coraline Fargeat, The Substance. What a tremendous job done by Fargeat on The Substance, the shocking, body-horror film that brought Demi Moore back into conversation for Oscar.

#8. Jess Eisenberg, A Real Pain. Eisenberg wrote and directed this film about two cousins on a Holocaust tour. Jesse is the only director on this list who also starred in the film which has to make this even more challenging.

#7. Fede Alvarez, Alien: Romulus. Alvarez brought the Alien franchise back to its roots with this outstanding film. It was tense and frightening and beautifully shot.

#6. Sean Baker, Anora. The way this film was shot really highlighted the strengths of each of the characters and switched paths about half way through. Baker is exceptional.

#5. Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two. A gigantic sci-fi epic is not going to be easy to direct and Villeneuve does it spotlessly. His work with the CGI is some of the best you will ever see.

#4. James Mangold, A Complete Unknown. This Bob Dylan biopic was such a great film, with the use of music being front and center, Mangold has had a career of cranking out some excellent movies and this was one more.

#3. Shawn Levy, Deadpool and Wolverine. Shawn Levy has a real bond with Ryan Reynolds and you have to be able to manage that to give us one of the biggest hits of the year. He deserves more credit than he receives for this movie.

#2. Jon M. Chu, Wicked. Another epic film, this time an adaptation of the iconic stage musical. It was a rousing success and Chu’s handiwork is one of the main reasons why.

And the #1 Director and winner of the “All Right, Mr. Deville, I am Ready for my Close Up” Award…

Robert Eggers, Nosferatu

One of the great young directors in the horror genre released his most recent film Nosferatu at Christmas this year and it is completely stylish and gorgeously shot. He is able to get amazing performances from his cast and his visual storytelling is on par with the bests around. Nosferatu is a stunning movie and he deserves this award.

2024 Year in Review: The Batman and Robin Award for Rottenness

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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.

2024 Year in Review: Best Documentary

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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.

2024 Year in Review: EYG Frame Award- Best and Worst Animation

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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.

2024 Year in Review: Best and Worst Horror Movies of 2024

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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!

2024 Year in Review: The Logan/”Hurt” Trailer of the Year and other things

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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?

What If…? S3 E6

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Spoilers

“What If…1872?”

What If in the Old West.

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

E6 What If 1872?

E5 What If the Emergence Destroyed the Earth?

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

E4 What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched?

Getting Lost

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What a treat.

I think I had a knowledge in the back of my mind that there was a documentary in the works for LOST, but I had not gone looking for it. Then, I was on social media (I do not remember if I was on X or Facebook or Bluesky to be honest) and I found someone talking about the documentary being available on Prime for rental. I rushed over to Prime immediately to see if I could find it. And there it was.

I have to explain this. I have never been as connected to a TV program as I was with LOST. It was at the very heart of my being. When it ended, I felt like I had a hole in my heart that I just could not fill. It was a physical gap that had an emptiness about it. All these years later, I still think back on the show with so much love.

I was excited to watch this documentary and it immediately grabbed my attention. It had interviews with nearly everyone in the cast, producers, writers, fans and they were talking about all of the major aspects about LOST, from the cultural significance to the influential impact on TV to the importance of the show on people’s lives.

They talked about the pilot and how they were making the pilot without any expectation that it would ever be picked up. They talked about the Tailies, “The Constant,” Not Penny’s Boat, Charlie’s Death, “We have to go back,” Walt, the finale etc.

The documentary did not shy away from controversy either. They addressed how the finale is a divisive episode that split the community apart. They talked about the report a few years ago stating that the LOST writer’s room was filled with bullying, racism and sexism (which I had not heard about before this) and they asked Damon Lindelof about it. Matthew Fox did not appear via an interview for the doc and there was an ending moment where J.J. Abrams asked if they did not get an interview with anybody and the voice off camera said Matthew Fox. Abrams said, “Seriously? You never got Foxy? Come on, really?” and then said “That’s too bad. His loss.” I wonder if there was something contentious going on there. Dominic Monaghan apparently also declined an invitation to talk.

Filmmaker Taylor Morden included some specific details about the LOST fan community, including the podcasts that sprung up and also some of the charitable work done by the LOST community, especially dealing with cancer. There were some famous fans that were interviewed such as Samm Levine and Bobby Moynihan.

I loved this documentary. I may not be the most unbiased when it comes to my thoughts on it, but I do think that they went out of their way to include everything about the series, even the bad things.

AND IT WAS NOT PURGATORY! THEY WERE NOT DEAD ALL THE TIME!

Um.. sorry about that.

I Saw the TV Glow

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The other film I rented off Fandango at Home/Vudu was entitled I Saw the TV Glow, and Zi had heard plenty of buzz about this, in both positive and negative ways. I thought this would be a good film to give a try.

I have to say that this was very surreal, dream-like and metaphoric. It was a difficult movie to follow and so much of it was shot intentionally to create that feeling of confusion or interpretive.

According to IMDB, “Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.”

One of the film’s main themes deal with reality and identity… who they were on the inside. I do believe that this was a metaphor showing the way some people can deny whom they are, pretending that they are something else. I have a feeling that this movie will reverberate with some people considerably more because of that theme.

I also believe that there are several ways that this movie could be interpreted and that no one way is exact. Since this narrative is not one with straight-forward situations and answers, the audience member brings a lot of what they infer with them centered around their own personal knowledge and background. That makes this material quite rich.

The film was trippy and psychedelic in the best ways. Some people are going to look upon this movie with disdain for any number of reasons, but I was fascinated with it and I was intrigued with what was happening with these characters. I’m not sure how many times I would watch this movie on rewatches, but the first time experience was worthwhile of my time.

3.6 stars

2024 Year in Review: The Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year Award

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In honor of those movies that feature large casts without a clear protagonist, it is time for the Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year Award. This has been around since 2019 and has had a strong list of movies win, as seen below.

The Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year Award

Previous Winners:  Avengers: Endgame (2019), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), In the Heights (2021), Mass (2021), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022), Oppenheimer (2023)

Runners-Up: I considered giving this award to the movie I saw today, A Complete Unknown, but I decided that there is too much of a lead character in Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, despite the fact that the cast surrounding him was excellent. Another Chalamet film this year was Dune: Part Two that could have been a winner in this category. Another potential Oscar film was in consideration for this category with Conclave, the story of choosing a new pope. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever had a great cast, especially of young actors that deserve recognition in this category. I loved Wicked, but again, that film is more of a two person lead and may not be right for the ensemble award. Alien: Romulus was a fantastic movie with an ensemble that wound up as fodder for the Xenomorphs. Civil War was a strong film earlier in the year and its cast had a tough story to delve into. Emilia Perez had a strong ensemble as did The Piano Lesson, both on Netflix.

Winner of the Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year is…

Saturday Night

The film focuses on the opening night for SNL, as a group of performers running around unsure if they were actually going to get on the air. There are some great performances among the cast and the roles are beautifully cast. There may be some weaknesses in the script, but the cast itself is impeccable.

A Different Man

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As the year is coming to an end, I went to Fandango At Home to see if I could find several films that I missed during 2024. I picked up a few rentals to watch over the next couple of days. The first one I watched was A Different Man, an A24 film starring Sebastian Stan and directed by Aaron Schimberg.

According to IMDB, “Aspiring actor Edward (Sebastian Stan) undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance, but his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.“

There are many A24 films that are like this one, though different. There are wild, bizarre situations that seem to be taken in a normal, typical way. In this case, there is a sci-fi technique that led to Edward, who had Neurofibromatosis- a genetic condition that sees tumors grow on the body, to fixing his face, and it just was a way to change his appearance in the film.

Stan was excellent as the twitchy, malformed Edward. His change of facial appearance did not truly change him at all. It just opened some areas up to Edward, but he was just as uncertain and shaky as he ever was.

Adam Pearson played Oswald, another misshapen man, who brought himself into the play Edward was working in and kind of took over the stage. Pearson was amazing in the role and he had a complex character who seemed to be trying to take over the play while still being extremely likable.

Renate Reinsve played Ingrid, the playwright who had lived next door to Edward, gave a fantastic performance. She was very compelling with her relationship with Edward and Oswald.

I thought this was a very interesting film that was difficult to watch at times. The scenes where the tumors were being peeled off Edward’s face was horrific. Still, it is interesting that the film clearly is saying that the looks were not going to make everything better and that Edward regretted his decision in the end. Sebastian Stan did a great job in this role.

3.75 stars

What If…? S3 E3

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Spoilers

“What If The Red Guardian Stopped The Winter Soldier”

One of the strength of the What If show is taking characters who would not usually work together or you may not expect to be together. Episode one had Sam Wilson and Bruce Banner. Episode two was Agatha and Kingo. Now, we get Red Guardian and Winter Soldier.

David Harbour is a gem. His work as the Red Guardian is so silly and over the top that it works, especially when paired with the stoic, more quiet Winter Soldier. This is clearly a “buddy cop” style of episode with the two main protagonists being pursued by Bill Foster, aka Goliath, once again voiced by Laurence Fishburne.

The pairing kicks off when Red Guardian prevents the Winter Soldier from killing Howard Stark and his wife as we see in Captain America: Civil War, and then they wind up thrust together into Las Vegas.

This was the episode from where they dropped a clip after last year’s season two, hinting to us that season three was closer than we thought.

They had some nice moments between Red Guardian and Bucky too, as the episode was more than just a bunch of action strung together. The scene where Red Guardian helps Bucky remember about Coney Island was very sweet, and it was obviously important to Bucky.

I found it odd that Oscar nominated America Ferrara did a voice of a secondary side character, Ranger Morales who teamed up with Bill Foster to chase after Red Guardian and Winter Soldier. That seemed to be a huge casting for such a minor character who, as far as I know, has no connection in Marvel Comics (After some research, I discovered there was an Agent Morales who worked for SHIELD that perhaps this character was based upon).

I love how What If…? has been using different styles to tell their stories. First episode was a Kaiju/monster story, episode two was Old Hollywood and this is a buddy cop tale. It shows the variety that the show can present effectively.

Season Three Episodes So Far

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E3 What If The Red Guardian Stopped The Winter Soldier

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

2024 Year in Review: The Gomers for the Biggest Surprise

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2024 had plenty of films that fell into the middle of the range between good and bad. Honestly, however, it had a bunch of films that were surprises too. Thus, we have this year’s Gomer Award being quite a challenge to present. There are so many potential choices.

The Gomer for the Biggest Surprise

Previous Gomer Award Winners:  The Gift, Ferdinand, Edge of Tomorrow, We’re the Millers, The Campaign, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Bumblebee, Crawl, Greenland, Free Guy, Deadstream, Totally Killer

Here are the runners-up:

First off, Late Night with the Devil from David Dastmalchian was a huge surprise because it just was something that I had not heard much from. I did hear Kevin Smith mention it on an episode of Fatman Beyond, but still. for it to be one of the best of the year, who saw that coming? Then, since I disliked the original film, who would have guessed that a new version of Roadhouse starring Jake Gyllenhaal that went immediately to streaming would be any good. It was and I couldn’t believe it. Another one that was a reboot of sort from a movie that I did not like was Twisters. No way that was a film I was going to enjoy and yet I did. Abigail was a surprise until I realized that Alishia Weir was the star. I knew it was going great after that. Hit Man was another I saw on streaming that had no right to be as good as it was. It’s the second film on the list from Glen Powell. Sharks in Paris? No way that was anything other than a member of the worst movies of the year list, right? Wrong. Under Paris was a lot of fun and way better than it should have been. Longlegs provided one of those shocking moments in the theater when you discover that Nicolas Cage was going to go over the top and still be awesome. I spoke about how much I was surprised that I enjoyed The Best Christmas Pageant Ever as I was trying to find an award for Best X-Mas Movie. Skincare? Another one that had no appeal to me that turned out to be fully entertaining. Strange Darling was weird, but really wonderfully constructed and engaging.

Yet after all of this, one film was the biggest surprise of the year. Spoiler for an upcoming Batman and Robin Award for Rottenness winner, this film one of the worst trailers of all time and nearly caused me to skip the film. Little did I know that this is probably a top 10 film of the year (certainly in consideration, at least).

Transformers One

This was an amazing movie and was one of the best animated films of the year. I never thought making Optimus and Megatron friends when they were younger would work. They weren’t Charles Xavier and Magneto, and yet this was done so well that everything made perfect sense. After so many years of utterly hating Transformers films, loving this one, especially after that horrendous trailer, was totally unexpected… and thus a Gomer winner.

PS: Interestingly enough, this is the second Transformers movie to win this award, with Bumblebee being the other. The original Transformers movies brought the bar so far down that I have trouble seeing them as a positive thing.

Mufasa: The Lion King

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When the 2019 Lion King “live-action” remake broke the billion dollar club at the box office, you should have known that we were getting something more. My guess is that Mufasa: The Lion King will not be the same kind of demand.

Mufasa: The Lion King from Disney came out this weekend. The film was directed by Barry Jenkins and featured a “live-action” cast of CGI animals in a CGI generated African land. How this could be considered a “live-action” film is up for an argument.

Unfortunately, I did not like the 2019 remake of the Lion King and I am not a huge fan of this new film either. I do think that this film is better than the 2019 version. Specifically because this film does a better job of avoiding the uncanny valley of the 2019 film. Those lion characters in 2019 did not show us any emotion on their faces at all, lacking any ability to emote, making them all seem very distant from the audience. That is considerably better with this movie.

In fact, the strength of Mufasa: The Lion King is easily the CGI. This film looks absolutely gorgeous and it has some of the most realistic artwork that you are ever going to see in a film. In fact, I could see people claiming that some of these animals were real and not contrived on an artist’s board.

I did have some major issues with Mufasa: The Lion King, most notably that there was not much new in the story. It was basically the origin story of Mufasa and Scar as the two lions went on an adventure and met other characters from the original Lion King. Not much else.

There was a devise used to tell the story with Rafiki (John Kani) telling the story to Simba’s daughter Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter), Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogan) which was a total waste of time. Nothing that happened in this framing device was funny or worth taking away from the main story.

I also thought that the sound mixing was horrendous. Perhaps this is the theater I was in, but I had trouble hearing a lot of the dialogue because the music in the background was playing so loudly or dominating the moment of the scene. Speaking of the music, I did not find any of the songs interesting or song that I would remember later. Even the songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda were unremarkable. They were fine when watching it, but there is not one song that I can recall as of this minute.

Mufasa: The Lion King had its moments for sure. It is a stunning accomplishment of visual arts, but there just seems to be little else that makes this an important story to tell. While it is not a waste of time, it is anything but a great movie.

2.8 stars