Ten Times 2024 Movies Should Have Leaned Harder into "Movie Musical" Genre

by Nathaniel R

I’m back! Well, not quite but working towards it. We're going to do an 80s theme in early November, okay? But let’s start with a question and a list to prove that I have actually been watching movies (and am alive) though I’ve rarely been writing and miss it terribly.

Has it been a good, bad, or ugly year for the always threatened Movie Musical genre? 

 The greatest of all movie genres is always threatened with extinction but it's also resilient and still with us almost a century after its debut.  The year isn't over so the initial bolded question is premature. Mean Girls was a dud early in the year and the highly anticipated Joker Folie A Deux is currently flopping which serves it right for sidelining Lady Gaga (of all people) and being so uncomfortable about calling itself a musical. But we've still got one famous stage adaptation (Wicked), two experiments (The End, Emilia Perez),  one animated adventure (Moana ), and three musician biopics (A Complete Unknown, Maria, and A Better Man) arriving before year's end so there's still hope.

Here are ten movies from 2024 that could have been musicals with a few tweaks or even more insanity from their auteurs. Consider...

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Nathaniel's Top 19 of 2019

by Nathaniel

Better late than never. And since we're of the calendar-denying opinion that each film year doesn't really end until Oscar night, we're not too late. (Rationalization is a useful skill, isn't it?). Still what is a calendar? What is a year? Distributors and filmmakers can't seem to stay on schedule either. Of this year's top nineteen, five are out-of-time, with four premiering at festivals way back in 2018 and one still waiting around to show its captivating face (though its here due to its qualifying release). However you define 2019 is up to you. These 19 pictures are how I define it.

If you see them, which I hope you will, they'll take you from ramshackle abodes in the mountains of Macedonia and cave-homes in Spain to an architectural wonder in Seoul and even past the rings of Jupiter. They'll trap you, tripping, in an empty school with house music throbbing or drop you in Dakar where the ocean is ever roaring with its promise and its ghosts. Socioeconomic anxiety permeated the cinema this past year, which is no surprise given the world we're living in. Though many of the top 19 spoke directly to the now, they weren't always "modern" in the literal sense. Our cinematic time travelling stretched from third century China through the Civil War era in New England to Hollywood in the summer of '69 and  the stubbornly vague "near future" of science fiction...

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John Waters and other list-makers. "Freak out, baby, freak out"

by Nathaniel R

Climax is #1... according to John Waters

It’s top ten time of year (lots of them after the jump) and the great unofficial kick-off is the always delicious and on-brand John Waters lists for ArtForum. His lists are on brand because some of the films you can totally see why America’s most famous cult director would love them (his #1 fits that bill splendidly “Frenzied dance numbers combined with LSD, mental breakdowns, and childhood trauma turn this nutcase drama into The Red Shoes meets Hallucination Generation. Freak out, baby, freak out!”)  and one or two because you’ve never heard of them (obscure  indies!) and generally one or two that you weren’t even remotely expecting for its mainstream-appeal reasons. 

1. Climax (Gaspar Noe)

2. Joan or Arc (Bruno Dumont)

3. Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)...

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Best of the "Whodunnit?" Genre (Part One)

by Eurocheese

Rian Johnson’s upcoming Knives Out is a thrill ride of a whodunnit, toying with one of the most enjoyable film genres. To celebrate, I'm sharing my all time list of favorite murder mysteries. Feel free to add your own in the comments – we could all use some good discoveries from any era or country.

Before we begin some whodunnit qualifiers to narrow down this list. The films must have: 

1. A set group of suspects, who we get to know through the film (disqualifies movies like Se7en)
2. An unknown culprit (knocks out most of Hitchcock)
3. Evidence, so the audience has some chance of guessing the final answer
4. ...And the identity of the culprit being revealed late in the film, either by a detective or the movie itself.

This should go without saying, but a whodunnit isn’t as fun when the answer is spoiled, so no spoilers in the comments (about any of these or Knives Out)!

TEN FAVOURITE WHODUNNITS...

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Top Ten: Greatest Supporting Actors of the Decade Who Weren't Oscar Nominated

A truth. Year after year, Best Supporting Actor is the category with which we have the most disagreement with Oscar. Before our hearts are broken anew this impending season we wanted to celebrate the decade that's nearly behind us. We tend to view it Best Supporting Actor as the category wherein the Academy acting branch is at their absolute laziest each year, though we've never quite figured out why so much of their laziness funnels into this category ("whoever's in a best picture! YOU")

Today, for fun, a grumpy what-coulda-been list celebrating ten performances that rank among the best supporting work this decade...

10 BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR PERFORMANCES OF THE '10s
THAT WERE NOT OSCAR NOMINATED

10 Tracy Letts, Lady Bird
Oscar nominees he was superior to that year: All but Willem Dafoe in The Florida Project

Want to buy him all the "World's Greatest Dad" mugs for this performance. This kind of warm performance easily finds a home in Supporting Actress but "Supportive" fathers are a no go for voters for reasons we've never been able to ascertain apart from basic toxic masculinity... and that being supportive is just not considered an interesting or valuable thing in a male role... 

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