This year, I thought the best way to approach the Top Ten was to consider: which movies so excited and moved me that I wanted to go out and make one of my own? Which movies made me feel that anything was possible? Which movies sparked the same wonder and amazement I first felt as a budding cinephile? Which movies sent me off on such a high that I wanted, at the very least, to rollerskate after?
With that in mind, and with a tip o' the cap to honorable mentions Cabrini, Gladiator II, Hundreds of Beavers, Lisa Frankenstein, Megalopolis, The Substance, Wicked, and The Wild Robot...my Top Ten:
The Brutalist
dir: Brady Corbet
pr: Brady Corbet / Nick Gordon / D.J. Gugengeim / Andrew Lauren / Trevor Matthews / Andrew Morrison / Brian Young
scr: Brady Corbet + Mona Fastvold
cin: Lol Crawley
Post-WWII, a Jewish-Hungarian architect arrives in the United States and is eventually given a chance to ply his trade...though the price may be more than he realizes. As a look at America in the mid-20th century, what we see is a land of opportunity - you just have to muzzle your faith and ethnicity to fit in, leave yourself and your family at the mercy of your “benefactors”, and never raise objections for fear of seeming ungrateful. László Toth is forced to wander for almost 40 years, never finding his “place”, always at the mercy of others’ tempers and prejudices, hailed as a genius only when the work has not yet started and when it has been finished for so long that others can project their own interpretations onto it. A difficult, multi-layered film, beautifully brought to life by the creatives behind and before the camera, a Great American Masterpiece.
Conclave
dir: Edward Berger
pr: Juliette Howell / Michael A. Jackman / Tessa Ross
scr: Peter Straughan
cin: Stéphane Fontaine
The College of Cardinals gathers in Vatican City to elect a new Pope, but of course, their own secrets and scandals make the process...tricky. If you're very online, you know that Conclave was the surprise meme queen of awards season - and all it had to be was relevant and entertaining! Relevant because it's about what we value and what we compromise when we elect a leader to represent us and our institutions: do we hold out for the perfect embodiment of all that we desire, or do we settle for a lesser evil...or, God forbid, a "dull" choice...to keep the other side from winning? Relevant because it's about unexpected alliances, finding common ground with someone whose views are mostly abhorrent, finding a way to see each other not as enemies but as people. And entertaining because, hello, it is delicious fun to see the backbiting dirty politics of anything, much less a bunch of holy men running about in their scarlet and purple robes, devoted to God but still petty, jealous, and plotting. That's just being human; that's entertainment!
Hard Truths
dir/scr: Mike Leigh
pr: Georgina Lowe
cin: Dick Pope
A character study of modern living, seen mostly through the experiences of cantankerous Pansy.
One can only be in awe of what Mike Leigh and Marianne Jean-Baptiste have created in Pansy, whose orneriness plays as hilarious, so specific, so much time she commits to her diatribes. And then you realize this is too much, this is a woman who is hurting, who sees no beauty or hope in the world, only threats to her health and conspiracies against common sense; she literally wakes up screaming. Contrast that with her sister Chantelle and her daughters, working, laughing, supporting each other, trying to reach out and show Pansy someone cares, but the stone wall of grief and anger is unbreachable. When Pansy opens up just enough to actually talk to Chantelle at their mother's gravesite, I shuddered. I can't think of another film so empathetic towards severe anger, depression, and anxiety and its effect not just on one's family but on oneself: the knee-jerk pessimism becomes a trap with no exit in sight. I loved this movie.
I Saw the TV Glow
dir/scr: Jane Schoenbrun
pr: Ali Herting / Luca Intili / Dave McCary / Emma Stone / Sarah Winshall
cin: Eric Yue
A TV show bonds two teens together but also has them questioning reality. The best thing I can say is that I've yet to have the same conversation about it. With multiple friends, I have discussed: the film as queer allegory and the feeling of playing a part you're expected to while having to tamp down your true self; the narrative mechanics and how it plays with reality, what's to be taken at face value vs. what's symbolism, and, ultimately, what's really going on; seeing in the characters' obsessions our own youthful pop culture obsessions, the disappointment of revisiting them in adulthood, and the friendships formed exclusively through fandom; and how awesome the soundtrack is. Speaking of youthful pop culture obsessions: it did remind me of the first time I saw Donnie Darko, how it felt like a complete mental reset for me, so much so that I couldn't even say for sure whether or not I liked it until I realized I'd spent two weeks reading about it, talking about it, and listening to the album. It's the only 2024 film I've watched more than once.
Nosferatu
dir/scr: Robert Eggers
pr: Chris Columbus / Eleanor Columbus / Robert Eggers
cin: Jarin Blaschke
A remake of the 1922 silent film Nosferatu, which itself was a rip-off of the novel Dracula. A remake of a ripoff? Whatever works, honey, and this one does; it's the film that made me want to go rollerskating after seeing it, just to continue the high. The performances: Bill Skarsgård's death rattle voice, Lily-Rose Depp's debilitating convulsions and contortions, Willem Dafoe's eccentric expertise, Ralph Ineson as comic relief because he plays it so straight, Simon McBurney methodically chewing the scenery. The cinematography: the orange haziness of barely-ventilated rooms, the supernatural glide that brings Huller up and inside Orlok's carriage, that hand stretching out across Germany to spread the vampyr's plague. The makeup: Orlok's rotting, maggot-infested flesh. The sound: the gruesomeness of the deep, thirst-quenching gulps of a vampire's feeding. The terror: is there something in that corner, what's hiding in that shadow, did I really just hear that? Every element came together on this one, it's another win for Robert Eggers.
Queer
dir: Luca Guadagnino
pr: Luca Guadagnino / Lorenzo Mieli
scr: Justin Kuritzkes
cin: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
A painful movie to watch. Daniel Craig plays Lee, one of a community of gay expats in Mexico City who somehow manages to be known and live outside that community: he's crude, a self-satisfied boor, and could probably hold his liquor if he didn't drink so much of it. He is drawn to Drew Starkey's much younger blank slate of a question mark, a canvas for older men to project onto - is he using Lee, is he experimenting, is he genuinely drawn to him? It's all Lee's POV, so whatever confusion we feel may be because it's through the haze of tequila and heroin: this is a man who needs a fix in whatever form it takes, anything to numb the pain of loneliness, of being alive. I don't love all Guadagnino's films, but everything clicked for me with this one. Maybe you have to have been through an unhealthy, alcohol-fueled, one-sided romance to get it?
September 5
dir: Tim Fehlbaum
pr: Tim Fehlbaum / Mark Nolting / John Ira Palmer / Sean Penn / Philipp Trauer / John Wildermuth / Thomas Wöbke
scr: Moritz Binder and Tim Fehlbaum with Alex David
cin: Markus Förderer
True story of the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, when the militant group Black September took the eleven members of the Israeli team hostage for almost 20 hours, as seen through the eyes (and lenses) of the ABC Sports crew. A sobering examination of the, sometimes necessary?, ruthlessness of journalism. We rarely leave the claustrophobic confines of the control room, all decisions of what to cover and how to cover it must be made on the fly, there's no time to consider the political contexts or the ethics of your coverage, there's no time to consider your own feelings, you must be impersonal to tell a human story. And there's no denying that this was real news, the public had a demand and a right to know more...but at what point is journalistic responsibility a cover for showmanship and personal ambition? Tragedy as opportunity, but these people aren't monsters, they're doing their job. I can see this becoming a standard text for Ethics in Journalism courses.
She is Conann
dir/scr: Bertrand Mandico
pr: Avi Amar / Gilles Chanial / Emmanuel Chaumét
cin: Nicolas Eveilleau
Somehow how I convinced friends to catch this on my birthday, only knowing that it was supposed to be a queer feminist take on Conan the Barbarian. Multiple actresses play the titular role as she moves from age to age, from the Dark Ages all the way to the afterlife and beyond, with stops in fascist dystopias and the Bronx in the 90s on the way. I love a movie that offers all-caps SETS, COSTUMES, and MAKEUP, distorting reality so that the players exist in manipulatable dreamscapes, the beauty of the crafts and faces butting up against the brutality of the bloodshed. It indulges and subverts our predilection for violent imagery - when it's men, it's the Oscar buzz-y Gladiator II, when it's women, it's a midnight movie arthouse flick - culminating in the ultimate depiction of indulged violence. Sexy, cheeky, gross, awesome, the first great high of 2024 cinema.
Sing Sing
dir: Greg Kwedar
pr: Clint Bentley / Greg Kwedar / Monique Walton
scr: Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar, story by Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar & Clarence Maclin & John Divine G Whitfield
cin: Pat Scola
I'm still a theatre kid at heart, so you better believe this dramatization of the real-life theatre program at Sing Sing prison, featuring alumni of the program playing versions of themselves, struck right at my heart. These hardened criminals suddenly have a place where they can become someone else, empathize with another's experiences, and have an outlet where they can acknowledge, access, and discuss their feelings. It's art as therapy as actual rehabilitation, something in the system that actually works despite the best efforts of the system. When you see the performances of the alumni, you see the program works: they're out and they're all great performers! Beautiful film, the kind they used to call "a triumph of the human spirit" because, dammit, it is!
Soundtrack to a Coup d'État
dir: Johan Grimonprez
pr: Rémi Grellety / Daan Milius
scr: Johan Grimonprez, dramaturgy by Daan Milius
cin: Jonathan Wannyn
A look at the events leading up to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba as backed and sanctioned by the US and European powers. Meticulously researched: at times, a single title card of information will cite three separate sources, leaning not just on the hindsight of historians but on contemporaneous news accounts and declassified documents and the diaries and memoirs of those directly involved. Intercut throughout: performances by such greats as Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, so entertaining one hates having to return to world politics...which is the point, of course, as the United States used these "music ambassadors" on world tours as cover for their own CIA intrigue. Outrageous, infuriating - riveting, entertaining! The closest emotional experience I've had was Costa-Gavras' Z. If Allen Dulles pish-poshing the idea of CIA involvement in toppling governments without blinking doesn't make the bile rise in your throat, I can only assume you've given up or are too numb.
Sunday, the nominees for the 2024 Hollmann Awards!
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