Halfway Honors: The Gold Digger's 2024 Mid-Year Awards Have Been Announced!

by Nick Taylor

DUNE: PART TWO leads with 16 nominations, though CHALLENGERS is swaggering right behind it into that sauna with 15

As some of you may remember from last year, guest contributor Patrick Gratton has been spearheading a group known as the Gold Diggers Awards since 2018. Comprised of critics, cinephiles, festival circuit regulars and trusted besties around the globe, the organization is once again back with their Mid-Year Awards slate. As is tradition, these nominations are solely cultivated from films that received a US release in the first half of 2024. Also in keeping with tradition, these lineups are an eccentric mix of mainstream, arthouse, underground, and international cinema. Where else will you see Dune: Part Two duke it out with the likes of The People's Joker for Best Effects, or held up against Lea Seydoux's other sci-fi thrill The Beast? I love these nominations, and not just cuz I'm a member.

For the best of the best in 24 categories, follow me below the cut . . . .

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Second Opinion: "Evil Does Not Exist" is the Scariest Wiseman Film You'll Ever See

by Nick Taylor

First, let me say that I enjoyed reading Ben Miller’s less enthusiastic but deeply engaged review of Evil Does Not Exist. I would never have thought to compare this with Aronofsky’s mother!, though as he points out, both films are quite skilled at accumulating tension despite or even because of their unpredictability. He’s also right about the resonance of the ending, which takes the film’s main themes about survival, self-defense, and man’s different awareness of their place in nature and heightens that allegory dramatically. Pondering the finale has made it feel less inscrutable, but that hasn’t dulled its impact in the slightest. 

Rather than editorializing on Ben’s review by saying “umactuallyilikedthatpart” for a few hundred words, I’m going to go deep on one key sequence, talk about why I liked it, and how it exemplifies what I love about Evil Does Not Exist...

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Review: Nature (and the Audience) is Out of Balance in “Evil Does Not Exist”

By Ben Miller

Following the release of Darren Aronofsky’s divisive 2017 film mother!, most of the viewers who saw it didn’t know what was going on. It was only until it was explained that it made any sort of sense, and then it almost made too much sense. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist lives on that same plane, with significantly more subtlety.

Not that this is the time or place to spoil the film by breaking it down scene by scene, but those places exist and can be found relatively easily. That doesn’t exactly bode well for the film. It’s one thing for a filmmaker to make you think, it’s another to send you on a search for answers you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. On the flipside, the answers make so much sense, it enhances the film long after the credits have rolled...

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The Fifties: 2024 Edition

by Cláudio Alves 

DUNE: PART TWO is the nomination leader, with eight individual citations.

Some time ago, Nick Davis used to have an annual tradition on his blog, commemorating the landmark of fifty new releases watched with an awards roster of sorts. Going through different Oscar-y categories, it felt like a way to celebrate the year in cinema before all the buzzy releases took over the conversation. As a reader, I loved those lists, using them as recommendations and insight into a fantastic writer's taste. Moreover, between that and Nathaniel's Halfway Mark honors, I grew inspired. Thus, a personal tradition came to be, with me taking tally of my own imaginary ballots around the same period. This year, having reached the goal of fifty 2024 feature releases, I've decided to share my "fifties" with you.

Consider it a love letter to the films I've loved so far in the year. It's also my homage to two writers I've long admired and whose influence over my cinephilia is impossible to quantify…

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AFI Fest: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s ‘Evil Does Not Exist’

By Abe Friedtanzer 

Following Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Oscar nomination for Best Director for Drive My Car two years ago and his win in the Best International Feature category, it’s fair to assume most foreign-language cinephiles will be seeking out his work if they weren’t already. I had the chance to see Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, his other 2021 film, which was very different but just as interesting in its own way. Now, Hamaguchi’s latest, Evil Does Not Exist, is touring the festival circuit, with previous stops at Venice, Toronto, and New York, among others, before the currently running AFI Fest…

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