SuperStuff

Welcome to the FOURTEENTH Annual Skinny!

Hello to all 3 of my readers!

It is time to take a look at 2024, henceforth known as “A year that was pretty damn good!”

The purpose of this blog is to review the films I see in the theater, as well as some tv stuff. I do this in the form of a skinny: very short blurbs, on each subject. Every year I do a recap, which is why you are here today. This is the “skinny” of 2024. I also use every five years as an opportunity to do a status check on the decade. What is the best/worst film so far. That will be at the end of this post.

Before we get started, I have provided links to all 593 films I have seen in theaters by the end of 2024. It took quite a while to compile this list, referencing lists of movie releases and cross referencing it against my old journals and ticket stubs. This represents 38 years of film-going, and I am honored to share it with you.

• Part 1 (1987-1997)
• Part 2 (1998-1999)
• Part 3 (2000-2004)
• Part 4 (2005-2009)
• Part 5 (2010-2014)
• Part 6 (2015-2019)
• Part 7 (2020-2024)

Disclaimer: This is the place where I mention that I have not seen everything. I am not a professional reviewer and am only able to see a very small fraction of the major releases, never mind every indie movie that is the darling of film festivals. This is also not a list of the BEST films of the year. This is a subjective list of my personal favorites. My biases will influence my choices. Judge me accordingly.

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I am happy to say that 2024 was a damn good year, possibly one of the best of my life. Let’s recap:

I returned to Boston for three days of PAX East! It was an excellent show and yes, I shall be returning in May for the 2025 show!

April saw me spend 10 days Alberta, Canada visiting my friend June! We hit the Calgary Expo (comic-con), saw Edmonton and visited fellow streamer Possiblyfae, and stayed in the mountains of Banff!

In May I travelled to upstate NY to visit the Star Trek Original series tour in Ticonderoga and then headed west to spend Memorial Day with streamer Roseykitten798!

June and early July saw me hit Boston Comic-Con, Cthulhu: The Musical, Alanis Morrisette, and Paranormal Cirque! Then late July arrived…

First stop was Pheonix, AZ to visit my friend/streamer Jaxytaytay! We spent a few days enjoying the Arizona heat and all the delicious ice cream/cake/milkshakes they had to offer! I am returning in 2025!

SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON! I arrived, conned, drank and partied all night, every night, got Covid, but survived! Yes, I am returning in 2025 for my 25th anniversary show!

The rest of summer saw me attend the Cthulhu prayer breakfast at Necronomi-con 2024 and finally catch Rob Zombie!

My last adventure was a drive to New Haven to eat at Sally’s Apizza, and then New York City! I was there for New York Comic-Con, my 3rd time at that show. This place has grown into a true competitor to San Diego. I am seriously considering making this my main con after 2025.

I know, that was a hell of a year! Truly one of my best ever. Now, on to the good stuff: what did I watch in 2024?

2024 Television

With twitch being a thing, I’m honestly not watching that many tv shows anymore, but I did watch some.

Disney had some decent stuff again this year. Star Wars, being my oldest love, did pretty well with the emotionally satisfying final season of Bad Batch, The Acolyte (which was ok. not great or terrible) and the FANTASTIC Skeleton Crew! There are still a few episodes left, but this is amazing. Star Wars meets Goonies.

Disney also delivered on other fronts with Echo, which I thought was excellent and Agatha All Along, which might be the best show they’ve done yet. Rounding it out for them was Doctor Who! Ncuti Gatwa is an AMAZING Doctor!

I finished The Crown this year with season 6, the finale. It was a good season and I liked how it ended. Great final scene.

A few other great streaming shows gave me a season 1 this year. I watched the first seasons of Reacher and The Boys. Both were actually quite good. I’ll be finishing those this year. I also checked out the first, and currently only available seasons of The Last of Us and Batman: Caped Crusader. Last of us is excellent. Emotional and well made. Batman, of which I saw the first episode at San Diego, was a return to form from the team that made Batman: TAS back in the 90’s.

God help me, but I was bombarded by peer pressure to watch Yellowstone. Did I like it? Well….I watched all 5 seasons and both spin offs over 3 weeks. This is a superior show, but not my favorite of the year.

Wow. That’s all I can say. My pal June and I watched the show TWICE when I visited Canada. Fallout was the tv event of the year. They need to make season 2 immediately!

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2024 Movies

I watched 41 movies in 2024. FORTY-ONE MOVIES. This is a new record. Let’s look at them.

The “OK”

These movies weren’t bad, but they weren’t my favorites. They were just OK. In order from highest rated to lowest:

• Twisters – A fine stand alone sequel, better than it should have been. (Review)
• American Fiction – Jeffrey Wright stars in this comedy about life, race, and art. (Review)
• Alien Romulus – A terrific new film in the Alien franchise (Review)
• Heretic – Excellent thriller about faith vs skepticism. (Review)
• Wonka – A delightful musical origin story for Willy Wonka (Review)
• Drive-Away Dolls – Ethan Cohen’s lesbian road trip heist. Excellent. (Review)
• Love Lies Bleeding – Lesbian weightlifter drama. Awesome performances (Review)
• Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire – Surprisingly decent follow up (Review)
• Monkey Man – Outstanding action film from Dev Patel (Review)
• Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – Guy Ritchie’s WW2 spy movie. Loved it (Review)
• The Fall Guy – Gosling’s fun take on the 80’s tv show. (Review)
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – I enjoyed it, but far from the heights that preceded it (Review)
• Thelma – Best senior citizen action film of the year (Review)
• Deadpool & Wolverine – Everything I wanted it to be. I wish the script was tighter though (Review)
• Saturday Night – A snapshot of SNL’s opening night chaos (Review)
• Conclave – A great cast tells the tale of a dramatic Papal conclave (Review)
• Moana 2 – A fun follow up to the original classic (Review)
• The Iron Claw – Well acted, depressing, look at the Von Erich family (Review)
• Lisa Frankenstein – I loved this 80’s horror comedy! (Review)
• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – 20 years too late, but still a welcome sequel (Review)
• Gladiator II – Meh. The action was good. (Review)
• Argylle – An entertaining spy comedy starring Bryce Dallas Howard (Review)
• The Beekeeper – Jason Statham is THE BEEKEEPER! lol (Review)
• Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire – Time to hang up the proton packs (Review)
• Venom: The Last Dance – Time to hang up the symbiote suit (Review)

Honorable Mention

• Dune Part 1 – Imax rewatch of part one! Great movie. (Review)
• Dune (1984) – Yeah, I saw the original in theaters. Tough comparison to the new (Review)
• DS: To the Hashira Training – Not really a movie, but fun! (Review)
• The Phantom Menace – 25 Years… How?!! (Review)

Top 10

Here we go, the top 10! We finally got a top 10 again!

10: I Saw the TV Glow – Powerful take on the trans/queer experience via the lens of 1990’s tv shows like Buffy. Excellent movie. (Review)

9: Furiosa – George Miller returns to the Mad Max well to tell the story of Imperator Furiosa! Anya Taylor Joy steps into Theron’s shoes and dominated. Hemsworth was a joy to behold. Loved it. (Review)

8: The Bikeriders – A look at a 1960’s Motorcyle gang with POWERHOUSE performances by Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, and Tom Hardy. (Review)

7: Abigail – Almost my favorite horror movie of the year! Fantastic gore and a Ballerina child vampire! Excellent! (Review)

6: Civil War – Powerful, heartbreaking, stunningly tense. A look at America in a 2nd civil war. So well done. I hate it, lol. (Review)

5: Poor Things – A must see movie. MUST See. Emma Stone delivers a career best (for now) performance. (Review)

4: Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story – Outstanding. This documentary covers his heroic acting career and his tragic horse riding accident; an accident that led to him becoming a TRUE hero. (Review)

3: Dune Part 2 – Denis Villenueve finishes the story of the first novel with this epic tale of Maud’dib’s Jihad against the Imperium. (Review)

If you had asked me what my #1 would be, I would have said Dune. I was happily surprised to be wrong! Like last year, there were two films that were perfect tens for me. It was a close call to decide the winner, but we got there. But first, it is my sad duty to discuss the WORST films I saw in 2024

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Craptastic: The Absolute worst

Joker: Folie a Deux – Almost the worst. So close to being the worst, but it didn’t quite make it. This thing was a misfire on almost every level. (Review)

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis: A Fable – Amazingly bad. Stunningly bad. HILARIOUSLY bad! Now that a little space has opened since its release, I can see this being one of those “party” movies like “The Room” where you sit around, drunk, and laugh your ass off at the spectacle unfolding. I will say this though: Shia LaBeouf did a fantastic job. So get down to “the clerb” and check out this “boner”! (Review)

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The best movie of 2024?

2: The Substance – The best horror film of the year. Amazingly well made. The performances were pitch perfect and the finished product is perhaps the finest reflection of Hollywood, Celebrity, fitness, Ozempic, perfection culture ever committed to film. Demi Moore KILLED! I left that theater overjoyed that I had seen the best movie of 2024… (Review)

The BEST Movie of 2024

1: Wicked – There was no doubt. As I walked into that theater, a noob to the ways of Wicked (aside from reading the novel) I did not know what to expect, just that it was well reviewed. I walked out of that theater, soon to close by the way (RIP Showcase Seekonk), changed. I was thrumming with excitement, literally vibrating! I realized that The Substance has been dethroned.

Alone of the 2024 releases, this is the only one I saw twice in the theater. I am tempted to go again this week! It is very hard to execute a near perfect film, but this one has done it. The cast was perfect. The cinematography was lush and beautiful. The MUSIC! My god, I am listening to it as I type. This was the “Barbie”, the pop culture movie of 2024 and it was clearly the best. This is your old school big budget musical, of the type that dominated cinemas in decades past. Maybe it is time for that to return. Wicked is the BEST Movie of 2024. (Review)

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Well, another year has passed and it is time to welcome a new one. 2025 is shaping up to be a decent year for me personally. My weight loss continues, as does my travels to conventions and friends all over. I look forward to seeing where we are this time next year, but we have one more bit of business to attend to…

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Mid-Decade check in!

Every five years we evaluate the decade and see what is the best and worst. We crown the winner/loser on the “nines”, but on the “fours” we see where things stand. We do this by evaluating the best worst so far. This is a little different due to the pandemic, but we shall do our best. I saw so few movies, and avoided the obvious stinkers…

Worst of the Twenties

• 2020: Wonder Woman 1984
• 2021: None
• 2022: Black Adam
• 2023: Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom
• 2024: Megalopolis

2021 aside, Megalopolis is the clear leader here. WW84 gave it a run, but as of right now that is the winner. I am a bit shocked that of the worst movies, 3/4 are comic book related. A sign of things to come?

Best of the Twenties

• 2020: Knives Out
• 2021: Dune: Part One
• 2022: The Batman
• 2023: The Holdovers
• 2024: Wicked

Yeah, 2024 wins again. I am sorry to say that this isn’t even close at the moment. I LOVED all of those films, but Wicked stands tall, for now. It being the freshest of these five, there is a chance that the shine will wear off. This will become apparent in five years when I crown the decade’s winner.

I also take this opportunity to reflect on the previous decade (for the reasons before mentioned due to proximity). My worst of the teens was Movie 43. That one is safe. Easily the worst. The best was Blade Runner 2049. That also holds up. I remember it being close between that, Joker, and The Nice Guys. Ah well, this is the end! See you all next year!