Favorites of 2024

I've really slacked in getting my favorites out there for the past few years, so this year I was determined to get them in. I'm pulling it in just under the wire. The Oscars start in minutes. These are my favorite movies, albums, and soundtracks for the year of 2024. They aren't presented in any particular order. There are ten in each category and there were many others of each category that I loved, but didn't make the cut this time. It could always change tomorrow.

Favorite films 2024

The Brutalist

Nickel Boys

Wicked

Conclave

Your Monster

Saturday Night

My Old Ass

Sing Sing

Ghostlight

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Favorite albums 2024

Rosali - Bite Down

Michael Kiwanuka - Small Changes

Trace Mountains - Into the Burning Blue

Arooj Aftab - Night Reign

Adeline Hotel - Whodunnit

MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

Yasmin Williams - Arcadia

Faye Webster - Undressed at the Symphony

Jessica Pratt - Here in the Pitch

Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven

Favorite Soundtracks 2024

Hans Zimmer - Dune, Part 2

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - Challengers

Justin Fendrix w/ various artists - Kinds of Kindness

Bryce Dessner - Sing Sing

Jon Batiste - Saturday Night

Volker Bertlemann - Conclave

Robin Carolan - Nosferatu

John Lurie - Painting with John

Timothée Chalamet, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Edward Norton - A Complete Unknown

Kneecap w/ various artists - Kneecap

My Favorite Movies of 2017

-->

Just a few observations before my very late list this year. As I was compiling all the information for these films, I was struck by how many of the directors of these movies wrote their own screenplays. I believe we have entered the second age of the cinema auteur and I believe this observation supports that theory.

This would also explain why my list is so long this year. As I usually do, I originally placed these films in order from my favorite to my least favorite of… well… all the movies I gave four stars to this year, which always seemed like a strange practice because I think they’re all great. I realized this as I started to write about Get Out and noticed it had somehow fallen all the way back to number 9 on the list. I moved it back up to the top three, because somehow the top three are my top three, but really none of the films on this list are really in any particular order because they are all incredible movies. I don’t think I ever felt the movies I honored on this list each year were all on such equal ground before.

Here are my favorite films of 2017:

Oscar 2015 Predictions

Each year I struggle with the notion of even doing a predictions list. It’s true that the Academy Awards is one of the most predictable awards show out there, mostly due to the fact that it comes at the very end of awards season, after everybody else has already handed out their awards, including some entities that make up the majority of the 6000+ voting membership of the Academy. With the Screen Actor’s Guild, the Producer’s Guild, the Writer’s Guild, the Director’s Guild and the British Academy of Film all posting their favorites of the year in the week’s leading up to the Academy’s award ceremony, it becomes pretty clear who will win what when all is said and done.

The Academy spends a good deal of time trying to fight its own predictability by changing their awards dates and their voting dates, and frequently changing voting rules and even employing such convoluted rules that most of the Academy voting membership don’t necessarily know how it all works; but as long as they insist on being the last of the bunch, this is a problem they will likely never resolve. That being said there are often a couple of surprises to be had here and there. Those who are good at this are good at identifying where the loop holes in the voting rules and good at ignoring some of the trusted patterns. I am not good at this. I pretty much stick with what I’ve seen throughout the awards process. So… what’s the point for me? To go on record with my understanding of the industry, I guess. So, with mere hours to go before the ceremony, here are my two cents, which are probably worth just about that much.

Penny Thoughts ‘15—And the Oscar Goes To… (2014) ***

TV-MA, 95 min.

Directors: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman

Writers: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman, Sharron Wood

Featuring: Ben Burtt, Annette Benning, Ellen Burstyn, Cher, George Clooney, Billy Crystal, Benicio del Toro, Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Hanks, Jennifer Hudson, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Janusz Kaminski, Kathleen Kennedy, Ben Kingsley, Liza Minnelli, Helen Mirren, Ve Neill, Robert Osborne, Jason Reitman, Phil Alden Robinson, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Vilanch, Jon Voight

Narrator: Anjelica Huston

Oscar fever is starting to catch for me. I feel like I’m a dying breed, however, as more and more of my peers seem to have grown bitter and critical of the Oscars. And yet, somehow each of them will find themselves tweeting their snide comments live during the Oscar ceremony this Sunday night.

Favorite Films of 2014

I find I’m having trouble putting 2014 away and moving on to 2015. That’s one of the reasons my Top Ten list of movies for the release year is coming so late. It was the best year for movies I can remember since I’ve been doing this. Plus, there are so many movies I’ve yet to get to—most notably the Oscar nominated “Selma”, “The Theory of Everything”, “Whiplash” and “Foxcatcher”. There are so many others I missed, but there were oh so many great ones I didn’t.

It also seemed to me to be one of the most diverse years in movies, where the mainstream seemed to move away from the mainstream. Yes, there were some great mainstream returns, like “Guardians of the Galaxy” returning to the sci-fi space adventure movement. But even some of the biggest successes of this year, like “The LEGO Movie”, would’ve seemed inconceivable—both in execution and content—before this year. True, the box office was way down, most likely as a result of the diversity. And, someone predicted that this would be the least watched Oscars ceremony in ages. That is probably true—again due to the very independent nature of this year’s nominees—however the specialty market box office had a banner year with film after film breaking art house records.

I’m very happy for the diverse and truly original content in this year’s nominees and the entire market in general. Comic books are still dominating the mainstream box office, but I think it is their influence that has lead the rest of the market toward more original programming. Expanding the minds of audiences is catching. I do fear that 2015 will be a let down with its sequel-heavy schedule; but in general, my outlook on where cinema is heading has done a 180 over the past year, and I can’t wait for the future.

Here are my 10 Favorite Films of 2014…

American Sniper / *** (R)

Chris Kyle: Bradley Cooper

Taya: Sienna Miller

Dauber: Kevin Lacz

Biggles: Jake McDorman

Dandridge: Cory Hardict

Marc Lee: Luke Grimes

Goat-Winston: Kyle Gallner

Jeff Kyle: Keir O’Donnell

Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Jason Hall. Based on the memoir by Chris Kyle and Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice. Running time: 132 min. Rated R (for strong and disturbing war violence, and language throughout including some sexual references).

I find myself approaching my review of Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper” in much the same way I think the filmmakers approached the material themselves—vey carefully. “American Sniper” has been a runaway hit with audiences and grabbed a surprise 6 Oscar nominations after an awards season where it barely made an impression elsewhere. It tells the story of real life U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, who is credited as the deadliest American sniper in history. It is based on his own memoir of the same name. A veteran he was trying to help killed Kyle on a shooting range in 2013.

The Imitation Game / **** (PG-13)

Alan Turing: Benedict Cumberbatch

Joan Clarke: Keira Knightley

Hugh Alexander: Matthew Goode

Detective Robert Nock: Rory Kinnear

John Craincross: Allen Leech

Commander Denniston: Charles Dance

Stewart Menzies: Mark Strong

The Weinstein Company presents a film directed by Morten Tyldum. Written by Graham Moore. Based on the book “Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges. Running time: 114 min. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual references, mature thematic material and historical smoking).

There is a certain type of movie that has historically been a favorite of the voting body of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. The Academy has always liked true stories with historical value about a real person. Movies about World War II and undermining the Nazis get some favor. They also seem to have a soft spot for topical issues, like homosexuality. While the more extravagant—and less typical—films “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Birdman: or (The Exquisite Virtue of Ignorance)” were busy racking up 9 nominations each for this year’s Oscars, the Weinstein Brothers quietly brought home 8 nominations for the more typical Oscar fare “The Imitation Game”. Always in the talk of the best movies of the year, but never really stirring up much passion from critics, “The Imitation Game” is a glowing example of the formula for bringing in Oscar nods. It tells an amazing story about a somewhat unknown figure who had a profound impact on the outcome of WWII and modern technology as we know it, and it tells it with layers of commentary more typical of genre films than your standard Oscar drama fare.

Inherent Vice / **** (R)

Larry “Doc” Sportello: Joaquin Phoenix

Lt. Det. Christian F. “Bigfoot” Bjornsen: Josh Brolin

Shasta Fay Hepworth: Katherine Waterston

Coy Harlingen: Owen Wilson

Deputy D.A. Penny Kimball: Reese Witherspoon

Saunxho Smilax, Esq: Benicio del Toro

Hope Harlingen: Jena Malone

Jade: Hong Chau

Sortilége: Joanna Newsom

Dr. Rudy Blatnoyd, D.D.S.: Martin Short

Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon. Running time: 148 min. Rated R (for drug use throughout, sexual content, graphic nudity, language and some violence).

There is a misconception going around about Paul Thomas Anderson’s new movie “Inherent Vice” that it is somehow similar to The Coen Brothers’ “The Big Lebowski”. While both comedies center on a drug-addled character caught up in a noir plot the runs vastly out of their control, this is where the similarities between the two end. A better comparison for “Inherent Vice” might be to watching Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” as if you the audience were heavily sedated on barbiturates.

Oscar Nominations 2015

I’ve always found it confusing that it’s the year after the release year being honored for the Oscars, but the 2015 Oscar nominations were announced this morning for the 2014 cinematic release year. As is often the case with the Oscar—bowing at the end of the awards season—there was more predictability with this year’s nominees than surprises. The Academy never seems to get away with no surprises, however, and there are some notable omissions and inclusions in this year’s batch.

Announced as usual very early in the morning in Los Angeles by directors J.J. Abrams and Alfonso Cuarón and actor Chris Pine and AMPAS President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, this year marked the first time ever that every category was included in the live announcement. This detail might seem insignificant to some, but it shows that the Academy has a little more respect than they’ve showed in the past for those categories that aren’t considered the major awards. The announcement was split into two parts, with the second installment certainly focusing more on the major nominations. The only categories that have been included in past live announcements to make it in the first section of nominations were Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and Original Song.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—The Towering Inferno (1974) ***

PG, 165 min.

Director: John Guillerman

Writers: Stirling Silliphant, Richard Martin Stern (novel “The Tower”), Thomas N. Scortia (novel “The Glass Inferno”), Frank M. Robinson (novel “The Glass Inferno”)

Starring: Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakley, Richard Chamberlain, Jennifer Jones, O.J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Sheila Mathews, Normann Burton, Jack Collins, Don Gordon, Felton Perry, Gregory Sierra, Ernie Orsatti, Dabney Coleman, Mike Lookinland

I think “The Towering Inferno” was the first movie for which I ever developed an obsession. It was a major score for the major networks—back in the day when they were the only three channels to choose from—to get this film on their “Movie of the Week”. I’m not sure which one had it first, but when it aired, it was a two-night event.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Ida (2014) ****

PG-13, 82 min.

Director: Pawel Pawlikowski

Writers: Pawel Pawlikowski, Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Starring: Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza, Dawid Ogrodnik

If you haven’t heard of the Polish film “Ida”, then you will if you pay any attention to the Foreign Film categories at the Golden Globes and Oscars. Considering how well it did on almost every top ten list at the end of this year, it will most likely take home the golden statues from them. It deserves the attention it’s getting. It is one of those simple, beautiful films that allow you appreciate life for what it is while reflecting on its greatest horrors.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Me and My Moulton (2014) ****

NR, 14 min.

Director/Writer: Torill Kove

Narrator: Andrea Bræn Hovig

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences narrowed its list of possible nominees for Best Animated Short Film to 10 about a month ago. This category that is usually a key to winning the Oscar pool. The reason is that it is often difficult for the general public to see the nominees before the awards ceremony without going to a special art house screening of all the nominees.

Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) / **** (R)

Riggan: Michael Keaton

Sam: Emma Stone

Mike: Edward Norton

Lesley: Naomi Watts

Jake: Zach Galifianakis

Laura: Andrea Riseborough

Sylvia: Amy Ryan

Tabitha: Lindsay Duncan

Fox Searchlight presents a film directed by Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu. Written by Iñárritu and Nicolás Giacobone and Alexander Dinelaris and Armando Bo. Running time: 119 min. Rated R (for language throughout, some sexual content and brief violence).

I think I was about 8 years old when I determined that most people are assholes. Don’t read that the wrong way. I didn’t think at such a young age that there was no good in the world or that it was useless to make friends. I included myself in that group of maybe 99 percent of people that are essentially selfish pricks. It is just part of being human. Even for those of us who want to be good to and for others, we spend most of our time struggling to find our way through it all to benefit ourselves as much as possible. Although, that group who desires to benefit other includes a much smaller amount of people. This concept of our human nature seems to be at the heart of the remarkably entertaining movie “Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)”.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) ***

PG, 114 min.

Director: Ben Stiller

Writers: Steve Conrad, James Thurber (short story)

Starring: Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Shirley MacLaine, Kathryn Hahn, Adrian Martinez, Patton Oswalt, Sean Penn

The Hollywood process is broken in some major places and a film like “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a perfect example of the effects of the failings of the Hollywood system. Ben Stiller’s dramedy, based on the James Thurber short story, was released during the ridiculously busy Christmas awards season last year. On any given Christmas Day each year there are 7 to 8 major releases that find their way into the metroplex. That’s more major releases than on any other weekend of the year. In a system that is do or die on that opening weekend, that doesn’t give a movie much of a chance.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Sophie’s Choice (1982) ****

R, 150 min.

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Writers: Alan J. Pakula, William Styron (novel)

Starring: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol

I saw Alan J. Pakula’s “Sophie’s Choice” as a child. It may have been my first real experience with The Holocaust. I don’t think I even saw the entire movie. Certainly if I did, the whole love triangle stuff between Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Peter MacNicol flew far above my innocent mind. But, the choice Sophie had to make in the concentration camp. Well, that stuck with me. I was devastated that such a thing could be asked of a person.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Ernest & Celestine (2014) ****

PG, 80 min.

Directors: Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, Benjamin Renner

Writers: Daniel Pennac, Gabrielle Vincent (book)

Voices: Forest Whitaker, Mackenzie Foy, Lauren Bacall, Paul Giamatti, William H. Macy, Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Jeffery Wright

Here’s a word of advice. When you see the list of Oscar nominees for best animated feature each year, find the movie you’ve never heard of on it and that will be one of the best movies you’ve ever seen. Perhaps this year’s nominees aren’t the best exampl, because “Frozen” was the winner and in many ways deserved it. Also nominated this year was Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Wind Rises”, so far unseen by me, but undoubtedly filled with his signature genius. With the fantastic French-Belgian anime “Ernest & Celestine”, this year brought three amazing candidates for the sometimes pointless prize.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—The Tree of Life (2011) ****

PG-13, 139 min.

Director/Writer: Terrence Malick

Starring: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler, Tye Sheridan, Fiona Shaw

With the Summer Solstice upon us, my thoughts have drifted back to Terrence Malick’s 2011 film “The Tree of Life”. While certainly encompassing a larger scope than just the season in which many of its events are set, the film is a remarkably summer movie. When it was set for a summer release date, I questioned it. Malick hardly makes summer blockbusters. Even though it most certainly wasn’t a blockbuster, summer was most definitely the right time to release the movie.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Saving Mr. Banks (2013) ***½

PG-13, 125 min.

Director: John Lee Hancock

Writers: Kelly Marcel, Sue Smith

Starring: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Annie Rose Buckley, Ruth Wilson, Paul Giamatti, Bradley Whitford, B.J. Novak, Jason Schwartzman, Lily Bingham, Kathy Baker, Melanie Paxon, Andy McPhee, Rachel Griffiths, Ronan Vibert

Going in to “Saving Mr. Banks” I expected to see a nice insider drama. Nothing groundbreaking. Nothing offensive. Nothing risky. I suppose it isn’t any of those things, but it was more than I expected.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—The Fisher King (1991) ****

R, 137 min.

Director: Terry Gilliam

Writer: Richard LaGravenese

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams, Mercedes Reuhl, Amanda Plummer, Michael Jeter, David Hyde Pierce

“The Fisher King” contains one of the single most astounding bits of acting I’ve seen. It isn’t performed by the Oscar-nominated Robin Williams for his role. No, this piece of acting is provided by the equally talented, but overlooked for this performance, Jeff Bridges, who plays the actual lead of the film. Yes, Bridges, as Hollywood royalty, has had the industry’s heart for quite a while and has gained more nominations than Williams and was finally honored by the Academy with his award winning role as a country singer in “Crazy Heart” in 2010, but at the time it was Williams who was the bigger name despite the fact that Bridges carries the story. What Bridges pulls off in the first five minutes of this film, however, is nothing short of remarkable for any actor.

Ebert Thoughts ‘14—Born on the Fourth of July (1989) ***

R, 145 min.

Director: Oliver Stone

Writers: Ron Kovic (also memoir), Oliver Stone

Starring: Tom Cruise, Raymond J. Barry, Caroline Kava, Josh Evans, Samantha Larkin, Tom Berenger, Frank Whaley, Jerry Levine, Stephen Baldwin, Kyra Sedgwick, Karen Newman, Willem Dafoe, Tom Sizemore, Michael Wincott, Ed Lauter, Dale Dye, Oliver Stone, Bryan Larkin, John Getz, Willie Minor, Rocky Carroll, Billie Neal, Richard Poe, Bob Gunton, Lili Taylor

It’s interesting that “Do the Right Thing” and “Born on the Fourth of July” were invited to Ebertfest the same year. They were each released the same year. Both had Oscar implications. ’89 was one of the first years that I made a point to see the Oscar nominees. I was disappointed with both “Do the Right Thing” and “Born on the Fourth of July” at that time. I later watch them each again and totally changed my opinion of “Do the Right Thing”. I liked “Born on the Fourth of July” better upon a second screening as well, but I still never thought it was Oscar-level, especially considering Oliver Stone’s other Oscar-nominated films.