Kinds of Kindness

Yorgos Lanthimos has followed up his brilliant masterpiece, "Poor Things" with, "Kinds of Kindness." Emma Stone, Margaret Qualley, and Willem Dafoe have come along for the ride. Jesse Plemons has joined in Lanthimos's brand of fun - let me tell you, it's a squirting sulphuric-acid, clown-flower brand of fun. "Kinds of Kindness" tells three separate tales with the same cast playing different characters. The first story revolves around a man, Robert (Plemons) in the employment of his controlling employer Raymond (Dafoe). Every action Robert makes, from what he wears, to when he should fuck, is dictated by Raymond. Then Robert is let go and the real fun begins. The second tale revolves around an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" type scenario between a married couple (Stone and Plemons); a "Twilight Zone" gross out. The third installment might be the most interesting and completely weird. A couple from a bizarre water cult are looking for a twin who has the power to raise the dead. This one felt like Lanthimos was invoking the powers of David Lynch - Emma Stone driving like a maniac in a purple sports car and performing a wild and wacky dance. It's bananas. I can understand how some people might see the whole film as pretentious and strange without purpose. I will say this: the film is close to three hours and I was never bored for a minute - time flew by. It is likely to be the most interesting film you will see this year. Catch this one now in theatres.     

Bugonia

Yorgos Lanthimos is quickly becoming a director I love. I confess I didn't care for The Lobster. However, as my friend Edward likes to say, maybe I watched it wrong. The Killing of a Sacred Deer I was riveted by. Poor Things made my Top Ten List of 2023, and Kinds of Kindness made my 2024 list. Bugonia marks Emma Stone's third straight appearance in Lanthimos films. There must be a kind of weird they both enjoy. Yorgos Lanthimos makes weird films; strange, arty, and very beautiful. I'm grateful for them. Jesse Plemons is back again too from Kinds of Kindness, a three-story film, the middle one being about a man who believes his wife to be an alien. Bugonia is almost this same story, with the exact same actors. Bugonia is actually based on the 2003 Korean film by Jang Joon-hwan, Save the Green Planet. I saw it at TIFF with my friend Jeff but have little recollection of it until he brought it up. Thank you Jeff! So what's it all about? Teddy (Plemons) believes Michelle (Stone) is an alien and he would like to meet the high-ranking alien overlord to negotiate Earth's release from captivity. That's all I'm giving you. It's strange, compelling, and funny. The ending of the film actually made me love it more - often films struggle to land the ending, this one is the opposite. Catch it in theatres now or go get it from Movies 'N Stuff when available. 

The Best Films of 2024

Top 15 Films of 2024

2024 was the year of sequels: Beetlejuice 2, Alien 9, Despicable Me 4, The Omen 5, Ghostbusters 4, Twister 2, Rebel Moon part 2, A Quiet Place 3, Beverly Hills Cop 4, Bad Boys 4, Dune 2, Planet of the Apes 4, Kung Fu Panda 4, Gladiator 2, Joker 2, Moana 2, Smile 2, Venom 3, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, etc.. Thankfully there were some original films. Here are my top 15 and everything else which made the blog (it's got to be at least an A- to make it). Followed by blog-worthy films from last year I only got to watching this year. Then you get blog worthy films from further in the past. Then we have honourable mentions and guilty pleasures of 2024. Finally the worst of and most disappointing films of 2024. 

There are a lot of big movies I haven't seen yet, "The Brutalist" for example. It could very well be in my top 15, top 10 - who knows? I can only comment on what I've seen.

Letterboxd tells  me I watched 284 films this year to bring you this list. 

Enjoy!      

These are the best 15 films of 2024

1.The Substance  

2. Anora

3. Bird

4. Civil War

5. His Three Daughters

6. Red Rooms 🍁 - Released only international this year, it gets its proper place on the top 15. 

7. Caligula The Ultimate Cut

8. Kinds of Kindness

9. Saturday Night 

10. Hundreds of Beavers

11. The Promised Land

12. Strange Darling

13. Late Night with the Devil

14. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

15. Love Lies Bleeding 

And here is everything else (in no order) that made the blog for 2024 - all worthy of your time. 

16. Dogman

17. American Star

18. Land of Bad

19. Seven Veils

20. Immaculate

21. Knox Goes Away

22. Arcadian

23. Monkey Man

24. The Movie Man 🍁

25. In a Violent Nature 🍁

26. The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed 

27. The King Tide 🍁

28. Trap

29. Cuckoo

30. Rebel Ridge

31. Speak No Evil

32. Mother, Couch

33. The Idea of You

34. Thelma

35. Woman of the Hour

36. The Deliverance

37. Smile 2

38. Ghostlight

39. The Bikeriders

40. Challengers  

41. Memoir of a Snail

42. Babygirl

Great Films of 2023 I only watched in 2024

1. Society of the Snow

2. Memory

3. Perfect Days

4. Red Rooms 🍁 (released only in Canada in 2023)

5. Origin

Other great films I watched this year from previous years

1. The King

2. Jojo Rabbit

3. The Empty Man

4. Fish Tank

5. Nocturama

6. Le Trou (The Hole)

7. We Need to Talk About Kevin

8. Stalker

9. The Rover

10. Cure

11. Mikey and Nicky

12. Coraline

13. A Pure Formality

14. Rat Race

Guilty Pleasures/Honourable Mentions of 2024

Dramas

The Old Oak - Ken Loach's last film about a small town coming to grips with foreigners 

Silver Haze - Another gritty British drama reminiscent of something by Andrea Arnold 

Seagrass 🍁 - A Japanese-Canadian woman and her husband go to B.C. for couples' therapy during the 1980s along with their two kids. Full of moments of honesty and sadness. 

Wicked Little Letters - Olivia Colman is receiving nasty letters she believes is coming from her next door neighbour  

My Old Ass  🍁- A touching and comedic Canadian coming-of-age romance involving psychedelic mushrooms, sci-fi communication with a future-self, and cranberry farming. 

The Apprentice - Sebastian Stan as Trump is fabulous and this film as a portrait of a young, hungry, capitalist-monster on the rise just missed getting a full entry on the Marquee. 

A Real Pain - Jesse Eisenberg wrote, directed, and stars alongside Kieran Culkin in a film about two cousins who go to Poland on a holocaust guided tour trip. It's funny, heartfelt, and I found it far more moving than "The Zone of Interest."

Small Things like These - Cillian Murphy give a great performance in a film about bad nuns running a laundry sweatshop in 1980s Ireland. 

Nightbitch - Amy Adams plays a visual artist who has given up her life and identity to raise her son. And she is also turning into a dog. This one has some funny bite to it. 

Animated

Flow - Post climate disaster, a cat finds its way with other creatures when a tsunami like flood occurs. Kind of like "The Impossible" but with animated animals. 

Thrillers

The Last Stop in Yuma County - A fun Tarantino style stop at a gas station. Try the rhubarb pie, it's to die for. 

The Order - Jude Law plays an FBI investigator hunting down white supremacists who are also bank robbers - "Skin" meets "Hell or High Water."

Sci-Fi

The End We Start From - Mass Flooding hits the U.K. and we follow a woman and her new baby through this imagined environmental disaster. A visually gorgeous film. Think "28 Days Later" but replace the zombies with water and add starvation into the mix.   

Documentaries

Enter the Clones of Bruce - about the Brue Lee exploitation craze which occurred after he tragically passed away. Staring Bruce Le, Bruce Li, Bruce Lo, The Black Dragon and many more. Over 200 Kung-Fu Bruce Lee style films were made! 

Faye - Faye Dunaway, iconic American actor is interviewed about her film roles and her challenges with mental illness. Famous for her roles in Chinatown, Network, Bonnie and Clyde, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Mommie Dearest and many more. If you are a fan, it's must viewing.

Will & Harper - Will Ferrell and his close friend of 30 years, a writer from SNL go on a cross America road trip once he transitions to become a woman. It touching, heartfelt, and worth a your time.  

Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare - Netflix doc about a woman in an online relationship for nine years with somebody who wasn't who she thought. It's completely bananas. Up there with Baby Reindeer. 

Horrors

Suitable Flesh - It's actually a 2023 film, but I didn't want it missed. From the folks who gave us "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond."

Abigail - it's a bloody good vampire movie

I Saw the TV Glow - two teenagers have an unhealthy relationship with a TV show. This small film almost got a full entry on the blog. If you are looking for something different, seek this one out. It's something right from the Twilight Zone.

Heretic - Hugh Grant gives a great performance and I LOVED the first half of this film. Unfortunately I lost my faith in the second half. Still, it gets an honourable mention here on the Marquee.   

Worst Films of 2024

1. Night Swim - as much fun as drying yourself off with your spouse's soggy towel and about as scary too. 

2. The Beekeeper - as fun as a kicking a hornet's nest naked

3. Madame Web - don't get caught in this web of boredom

4. The Watchers - Unwatchable

5. Wildcat - Ethan Hawke directed this movie and it's a boring mess

6. Janet, Planent - A pretentious and boring planet; do not visit. 

7. A Family Affair - awful, how Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron ended up in this Hallmark like puke is beyond me 

8. Humane - you will want to kill yourself

9. Mother's Instinct - A film critic's instinct - don't watch it.

10. Rumours - Guy Madden gives us a giant brain without much thought, plot, or characters. Rumoured to be awful. 

11. Emilia Pérez - A Mexican Scareface musical about a trans cartel boss is one of the most tonality bizarre things I've ever witnessed and makes awful musicals look great. 

12. Here - Go anywhere but here. 

Biggest Disappointments of 2024

1. Dune Part 2 - It lost its way in the desert. The guy down my seat-row was snoring. 

2. Bob Marley: One Love - The Music is great, the rest is weak weed

3. The Fall Guy - a stunt gone wrong

4. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - The banana has blackened and turned to a mushy Pablum not even fit for apes or banana bread. 

5. Brats - A boring self indulgent documentary about brats which isn't even worth being an extra on a blu ray of "Pretty in Pink."

6. Longlegs - I was hoping to love it and didn't. Nic Cage does give a great performance but the film is surprisingly dull.

7. MaXXXine - the end of the "X" trilogy and it was a letdown. If it were made in the 80s it would have been released directly on VHS.

8. A Quiet Place Day One - After the first two were so good, this one landed without making any noise (see what I did there)

9. Alien Romulus - In space, nobody can hear you yawn. Fan service quickly moves from fun to tedious, eventually birthing out a cobbled Alien monster composed of the better films that came before it. 

10. Joker: Folie à Deux - To quote Fleck himself at the end of a boring and pointless film, "Stop signing and just talk to me."

11. Gladiator II - CGI monkeys, rhinos, tigers, and sharks, oh my. There was no fight left in it. 

The Substance

Bananas! This film is a sci-fi body-horror-comedy which gives nods to 80s horror films ("Dead Ringers," "The Thing," "Carrie," "From Beyond") and it's the wildest ride you will take this year, maybe this decade. What's it all about? Demi Moore plays an aging Hollywood star, Elisabeth Sparkle. We start with Ms. Sparkle doing a 20-Minute workout style class on TV, something out of Jane Fonda's playbook. The studio head, Harvey, played to perfection by Dennis Quaid, shitcans her. She's out. Then a mysterious opportunity arrives, a way to get her beautiful youthful body back. Her youthful self, who becomes known as Sue, is played by Margaret Qualley (who is also in the other strangest film this year, "Kinds of Kindness"). "The Substance" is a movie is about society's obsession with youth, and particularly Hollywood's obsession with it. Demi Moore, although she remains a beautiful woman, she is now 61 and for the last two decades has done mostly TV. Maybe it has to do with raising three kids. Or maybe it's because Hollywood has said she is too old? Watching Ms. Moore, it felt like she brought 20 years worth of fuck-you to the role - a powerhouse performance. A bold choice considering she had to do half the film nude. Remarkable. This is one of my favourite films this year. Catch this now in theatres. 

Footnote: This was directed by Coralie Fargeat, who directed one of my favourite films of 2018, "Revenge." It appeared in my very first movie blog post here: McPherson's Movie Marquee: Top Films of 2018 (mcphersonsmoviemarquee.blogspot.com)