POINT ZERO WORLD

Hello there it’s Christa ! Not your usual host here at pointzeroworld, but Charlyze (Lunaticharlie) graciously lent me her platform for this article.

With this new year starting, I’d like to go back and go over what 2024 offered us cinematically. Let me invite you to my 2024 favorite movies list. If you’re a fan of movies like me, it must mean that you’re a fan of stories and on that front, this past year has been bountiful. Good stories, sad stories, bad stories, I’ve watched a lot, so it’s a lot to unpack. Which is why I’ve reduced it to a list of 10 (yes 10) of my favorite movies that I’ve watched last year. Now just so we’re clear, this is a list of films I’ve WATCHED last year so not all of these came out in 2024. I must admit that the past year didn’t punch me in the face like the last couple of years did. Despite the many pictures I’ve watched, the choice wasn’t as hard as choosing between Into the Spider-Verse, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent or The Whale. But still, I have movies to write about.

The ones that left me teary eyed

The first movie I watched that made me sad last year was Sometimes I Think About Dying. It’s based on a play, which I believe shows through the dialogue and the directing. Here, Daisy Ridley (Star Wars) plays young Fran, a deeply lonely woman who routinely thinks about the different ways she’s going to die. Her world changes when a new colleague arrives and she starts getting closer to him and tries to put herself out there, but in the end doesn’t manage to free herself from her mind completely. What saddened me most about Fran‘s story was her unability to move past herself and what she could accomplish. She was trying to move on by getting help from all the wrong places, which ultimately made her stand still.

Next up, we have what I think was one of my most pleasant time at the theater last year. Directed by German director Wim Wenders, Perfect Days follows the daily life of a man living in Tokyo, who cleans public bathrooms for a living. He settles for this routine he put in place and follows rigorously, until one day his estranged niece comes live with him after running away from home. Like the previous movie, it touches on a feeling of loneliness. Both characters are presented as background characters in their own life, but although Fran was deeply unhappy with her condition, Hirayama seems content and fulfilled. Both of them are challenged by the arrival of another character disrupting their way of life, for Hirayama, the result is a bit more conclusive than for Fran.

The saddest movie, or at least the one I found the saddest, was All of us Strangers. The British movie, labeled as a drama and a romance is a tale of loneliness, love and loss. Starring Andrew Scott (Fleabag) and Paul Mescal (Normal People), All of Us Strangers did manage to make me believe in this story and in the rehabilitation of these two lonely souls, right before crushing all of the hopes I had. The lesson I got from this movie was that if I think my dead parents are alive again, I’m probably not very well.

The ones that made me laugh

I started 2024 by laughing at a Christmas comedy starring Paul Giamatti (American Splendid), Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Dolemite is my Name) and Dominic Sessa. Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers is a brilliantly written dramatic comedy which leaves you feeling like you’ve received a big hug. Have you ever felt like the whole world was against you and you wanted to take your revenge on it, feeling both angry and sad ? Well that’s how Angus felt when he ended up being the only student left behind at his boarding school during winter break. The trainwreck of a holiday ends up being a great tale on human connections, teenage angst and of course, Christmas !

A great movie that you probably missed last year is Polite Society. It follows Ria, a young girl who practices martial arts and whose older sister Lena is about to get married to a man who might be too good to be true. Ria is convinced that she must save her sister from this marriage before it is too late. Now this seems like a pretty regular movie , doesn’t it ? Well it’s not. Director Nida Manzoor (We  Are Lady Parts) manages to keep you in the story and make you root for a character that seems pretty unreasonable at times, just to flip the script and deliver incredible fight scenes throughout the second half of the movie. Manzoor is definitely a writer capable of developing complex and empowering female characters.

Completely messed up

This category is pretty self explanatory, it groups two movies I’ve watched last year that left me speechless.

The first one is Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!. Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, Mother! tells the story of a couple who moves to a secluded house. The husband is a famous writer trying to write his new masterpiece while the wife keeps on renovating their house. She is disturbed when another couple invades their sanctuary with her husband’s blessing. Unable to keep her house and her newborn safe from the strangers that keep appearing, she struggles alone in this big house. Watching this movie felt like a fever dream. It is both a representation of christianity and a study of what humans are, or can be, with no moral compass. This is Jennifer Lawrence‘s best performance to me. Don’t watch this if you’re sensitive!

I think this second movie is an obvious choice for a favorite messed up movie of 2024. Coralie Fargeat‘s second feature film The Substance is a masterpiece in body horror. It follows a washed up tv star who falls victim to a product that should allow her to lead a second life as a younger, hotter person. As an avid web comics reader, this movie left me with the question: What if Lookism met Beauty Water? If you’re not familiar with these I suggest you do some research about both, but they are both lighter, korean version of this movie (in a whole other different world). After watching The Substance, I left the theater feeling very weirded out but in the best way possible. Although it didn’t exactly end well for our heroine, all the choices she made throughout the movie forced me to face a reality about what it meant to be woman and a victim of the very natural consequences of age. In spite of her bad choices, I kept rooting for Elisabeth, which is a testament to Demi Moore‘s impeccable interpretation.

Great movies

Now here I have two movies I wanted to highlight, because I believe they are objectively great and if you watched them and didn’t like them then you have a problem. The first one is The Monk and the Gun. I found this to be a surprising feel-good movie. It’s about an American man, trying to buy an antique gun in Bhutan in 2006, while the country is in the middle of democratization after the abdication of their king. I had no warning on the chaos that would unfold and the humourous yet satisfying watch this was going to be.

I could not finish this article without mentioning Luca Guadagnino‘s Challengers. Loved, loved this movie. Its brilliant casting and great directing made it one of the best thing I’ve seen in theater last year. This is, of course, my completely biased opinion as a lover of Guadagnino‘s way of bringing a story to life, but the tension, back and forth and the phenomenal last act of the movie left me with goosebumps when leaving the theater. Am i exaggerating? Maybe. But what I loved about this movie is what I love about cinema. Being able to completely submerge myself in a story with no desire to look at the clock, despite the 2 hour runtime. If you haven’t yet, you should watch Challengers and its years long love triangle.

Last but not least

The last movie of this long list was my favorite watch of the year. I think it might be because it encapsulates all of the aformentionned categories, making it a category of its own. Led by Jack Haven (Atypical) and Justice Smith (The Get Down), I Saw the TV Glow is a coming of age psychological drama that follows teenagers Maddy and Owen, who are bought together by their love for a fantasy TV show. Their friendship slowly starts to blur the line between fiction and reality after the series gets cancelled and Maddy‘s sudden disappearence. It’s a great story on what it feels like not to belong, creating your own reality as a means to exist, and how you can trap yourself in that. I don’t think this movie is for everyone, but if you come to it with an open mind, it can move you to your core and allow you to discover how others hurt, like it did me.

What I got from my last cinematic year is that they don’t make enough great romcoms, as you can note their absence from this list. I also think that 2024 didn’t give us animated or comic movies as good as the last few years did with Mars Express or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem in 2023. I should also mention that last year I did not watch as many movies as I’m used to because of lack of time. But still, each movie good or bad, is a great experience.

If you’ve made it this far thank you and I hope to see you soon for more movie talk 🙂