Mike’s Top Ten of 2024
I’m not sure we’ll fully know what 2024 was for a long time. At the very least, it’s a year affected by the labor strikes of 2023. Sure, we got some films that were pushed into this year because they couldn’t promote them in 2023, but more so we got a lot of films that got pushed out of 2024 because they couldn’t finish them in time. A lot of those films were big ‘anchor’ films that help define a year. And a year without those anchors becomes a year without an identity.
2024 feels like a year without an identity. Movies came out, some were good, some were fine. We ebbed back from 2023. Theaters were not as robust as they were, and it looks like we continued sliding down the path of streaming and limited theatrical windows becoming the norm, with an increasing likelihood that, unless people actively pay attention to what comes out and seek specific films to watch, a lot of films are going to get buried and not get the audiences they deserve.
I think that’s my main takeaway from 2024 — because most people couldn’t be bothered to go see good movies (especially with a lot of stuff that’s being pushed for them being super expensive, studio-driven, dog-shit films with ‘very long shelf lives’ and ‘multiple verticals’… you know… ‘content’) and because a lot of people probably don’t know about a lot of the good films that came out, I want to, more than most years, want to showcase the cool stuff so people can find it.
Most of the time this list is just something I do to wrap up a year. Increasingly it’s starting to feel like an important service to show people that there’s more than just ‘content’ that comes out each year. One phrase you’re gonna see me say a lot throughout this list is hidden gem — there are a lot of hidden gems this year and I’m so interested in seeing how time does to them. (more…)
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