The FAT Website est. 1999
Can I tell you a secret?
None of the ten titles below are actually the best film of 2024. It’s all posturing to make people think I like artsy cultured stuff.
My favourite film experience of 2024 was in July when I booked a ticket to see Twisters in a 4DX screening at Event Cinemas Chermside.
4DX is amazing. You sit in this seat that is rigged with hydraulic pumps that vibrate and vigorously slams your body up and down in time with the action scenes on the screen. They allow you to bring popcorn and snacks into the screening because it looks hilarious seeing it fly everywhere when the movie starts popping off.
Twisters is the quintessential 4DX movie experience. It will never be topped. Clearly it was written by someone who looked at the original Twister movie and thought there was too much storyline and not enough twisters. Twisters has a 120 minute run time and I’m pretty sure the movie has ten tornado scenes that run for about 8-10 minutes each.
The beauty of Twisters is its simplicity. There’s no romance. No plot twists. It’s like a ten year old boy wrote the screenplay. In the session I attended I saw a kid drop his popcorn everywhere within the first five minutes and this one lady ambitiously trying to take a sip of water before she gave up because she was spilling it all over herself.
If you didn’t see Twisters 4DX I’m telling you, you missed the movie event of 2024.
Anyway, here’s my other ten favourite films of the year.
La Chimera
“You’re not meant to be seen by human eyes”
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Writer: Alice Rohrwacher
Arthur, a British archaeologist, returns to Italy after completing his prison sentence. He visits a small town and the family home of his ex-girlfriend Beniamina who has disappeared a long time ago. Her mother holds out hope for her return but the rest of the family are convinced she is gone for good.
Arthur himself is distant, soft-spoken and never seems entirely present within his surroundings. We learn that he has a gift – using his ‘chimera’ and a dowsing rod – to unearth ancient burial grounds that house valuable artefacts. He and a local gang of tomb raiders exploit his talent to plunder and sell goods to a local collector named Spartaco.
Although La Chimera has an unusual premise, there is something quite captivating about Alice Rohrwacher’s film which has an other-worldly ‘magical realism’ quality to it. It has the feel of a modern fable to it.
On paper it sounds like La Chimera could be a crime caper of sorts and yet we sense that despite his actions and surroundings, Arthur is mostly preoccupied with reuniting with Beniamina, even when it comes at the cost of a promising new relationship or risking arrest with his gang of small-time crooks.
La Chimera is an enigmatic and beguiling work that explores the nature of grieving and how it can consume us. One of the years best.
Longlegs
“This is a cruel world, especially for the little things.”
Director: Osgood Perkins
Writer: Osgood Perkins
Longlegs is a police procedural about a psychic FBI agent Lee Harker tracking down an elusive serial killer known as Longlegs who may or may not have some sort of supernatural abilities that causes fathers to lose their minds and commit familicide.
Structurally, you can draw some comparisons to Silence of the Lambs but you should know it’s a film with Nicolas Cage doing a Nicolas Cage™ performance.
There’s a lot of films on this list that play fast and loose with their structure and leave large chunks of the narrative open to interpretation. Longlegs is the opposite. It reveals itself to be a quite meticulously crafted story with very particular motives from the killer leading to a very specific outcome.
Everything comes together very tidily in Longlegs. The off-kilter performances that leave you on edge. The oppressive and unnerving score that chips away at you. The twisting narrative that wrong-foots you at various turns and leaves you disoriented.
It all builds to an intense and brutal crescendo that doesn’t disappoint.
Love Lives Bleeding
“Don’t ever fall in love, OK? It hurts.”
Director: Rose Glass
Writers: Rose Glass and Weronika Tofilska
Love Lies Bleeding is a stylish romantic thriller set against the backdrop of the Californian bodybuilding scene in the Eighties. A whirlwind romance between a gym manager and an aspiring bodybuilder quickly turns into a bloody revenge story involving a ruthless crime family connected to the gym.
This a sweaty, bruising and pulsating film. Every larger than life character in Love Lives Bleeding has big hair, big muscles and highly strung emotions fuelled by love, anger and steroids.
Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian are fabulous as the lovers at the centre of the story but I especially enjoyed Ed Harris as the slimebag mob boss patriarch.
Love Lies Bleeding feels like a spiritual successor to the early films of Tarantino and Rodriguez. This is raw, energetic film-making elevated by a sublime cast delivering scenery chewing performances across the board. I loved it.
Dune: Part Two
“Lisan al-Gaib!”
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writer: Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts
Sometimes I forget how lucky we are to even have these Dune films. Frank Herbert’s sci-fi series was always a risky proposition for a big budget adaptation at the best of times but its even crazier when you think back to the first instalment getting a theatrical release at the height of the pandemic. Thankfully it made its money back and then some and now here we are with the sequel.
Part Two is an absorbing middle chapter that charts the messianic rise of Paul Atreides as he fulfills the Fremen prophecy to become ruler of Arrakis.
The modern blockbuster movie landscape is filled with a plethora of bland and risk-averse franchises that handles its audience with kid gloves. Set against its contemporaries, Villeneuve’s Dune films are refreshingly mature, thematically rich and despite the enormous scale, feel like they have the guiding hand of an auteur who is passionate about his creation.
I also appreciate Villeneuve and the distributors prioritizing the theatrical experience and resisting the urge fast-track the film’s release on streaming platforms. Dune: Part Two is best enjoyed in a packed theatre with a booming sound system and the biggest screen possible.
The Substance
“The balance must be respected.”
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Writer: Coralie Fargeat
Elisabeth Sparkle, a fifty year old movie star, accidentally overhears her producer making plans to replace her because of her age. When she gets fired, she drives home distraught and gets into a car crash when she is distracted by the sight of her billboard getting taken down.
At the hospital, a nurse discreetly passes her the details to acquire a black market serum that transforms you into a “younger, more perfect” version of yourself. Only its not exactly a direct transformation. Instead your body sort of births a fully formed twenty year old version of yourself. Elisabeth’s younger self rebrands herself as Sue.
Kind of like a Mogwai, there are rules for dabbling with the substance. You have to swap consciousness every seven days with your other self. You also need to inject yourself with a stabilizer daily and ensure there is enough intravenous food available to keep your other self alive. Breaking these rules begins to cause more severe and permanent transformations to your other self (guess what happens!).
The Substance is a gloriously grotesque and twisted body horror satire. It has the unhinged spirit of a Stephen King or Roald Dahl short story. Much has been written about Demi Moore’s performance in this film and rightly so. She is sensational and the role requires an incredible level of comfort and vulnerability which Moore duly delivers.
You need to watch The Substance twice. Once for yourself and then a second time when you trick a friend into watching it and you tell them nothing beforehand about whats going to happen.
Hit Man
“All pie is good pie.”
Director: Richard Linklater
Writers: Richard Linklater and Glen Powell
In an alternate timeline where middle budget films didn’t become extinct at the box office, I could imagine Hit Man becoming the type of film that gets plenty of positive reviews and word of mouth and goes on to have an extended run at your local multiplex. It’s the kind of film that, back in the days when it was affordable to go the cinema on a whim and then pick the film to watch when you get there, turns out to be a delight and you tell your friends about it afterwards.
Instead it debuted on streaming services to little fanfare and I only found out about it from a Rolling Stone article three months later.
Hit Man is a fantastical retelling of the bizarre real life story of a college professor in New Orleans, Gary Johnson, who becomes enlisted by the police to become a fake hitman who must solicit and entrap people who want to pursue a murder-for-hire scheme. Johnson excels at his job but then one case threatens to bring him undone when he falls in love with an unhappily married woman who wants her abusive husband killed.
Hit Man is a classic romantic comedy crime caper that feels like it could be from another era. Think A Fish Called Wanda, Raising Arizona, Grosse Point Blank and films of that ilk. Glen Powell is a classic leading man and Adria Arjona is more than a match as his love interest. They are a very likeable pair of leads and are served ably by Linklater and his knack for shooting this sort of genre piece.
Consistently funny and charming, Hit Man moves along at a breezy clip and was one of the most pleasant movies I watched this year.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
“Whatever you do, however long it takes, promise me you’ll find your way home.”
Director: George Miller
Writers: George Miller and Nick Lathouris
I’m still mad that movie audiences did Furiosa dirty and didn’t turn up in numbers for this long awaited sequel to Fury Road.
Fury Road remains one of my favourite films of the past decade and I think Miller wisely understands you can’t capture lightning in a bottle twice and he doesn’t attempt to spin the same formula a second time. This origin story of Furiosa begins when she is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers but spans years and even decades as she is caught up in the conflict between Immortan Joe and Dementus, a new warlord character played by Chris Hemsworth who looks like he’s having the time of his life trading in his Himbo Thor routine for an unhinged psychopath role.
As the first act of Furiosa unfolded, I found myself adjusting to the different (slower) pacing and ultimately, I was happy to find that virtually all the qualities that I admired about Fury Road (imaginative world building, visceral action sequences and distinctly Australian idiosyncrasies) have all come across intact.
I Saw the TV Glow
“This isn’t the Midnight Realm, Maddy. It’s just the suburbs.”
Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Writer: Jane Schoenbrun
Is there a genre in modern cinema that is flourishing as much as horror? Not only does it feel like we are treated to banger after banger each year, I’m always pleased at the breadth of different sub-genres of horror that are getting produced and finding an audience.
We are spoiled for choice regardless of whether your preference is creature feature, psychological horror, folk horror, slasher flicks or in the case of I Saw The TV Glow, coming-of-age teen horror.
I suspect any child of the Nineties will easily vibe with this story of two misfit kids, Owen and Maddy, who bond over a mutual love of a tv show called The Pink Opaque, a Buffy-esque fantasy series about two teenagers fighting a supervillain named Mr Melancholy.
The way Owen and Maddy obsess over the show and build their own fan-theories around it reminded me of what tv show fandom was like in a pre-social media age. We’re living in a time where we see more and more modern films and tv shows portray the Nineties and although most are superficially accurate in terms of fashion and music, I think I Saw The TV Glow is one of the most authentic representations of pop culture consumption in that era.
The Wild Robot
“Eating the task is not the same as completing the task.”
Director: Chris Sanders
Writer: Chris Sanders and Peter Brown
The Wild Robot tells the story of a robot named Roz who washes ashore on an island after a storm. Once Roz activates and comes to life, she is attacked by animals who are startled by her presence. One accident leads to another and soon she finds herself the primary carer of an orphaned gosling named Brightbill.
Being a robot, Roz struggles to understand the motives and actions of the sentient beings around her but over time she develops a bond with Brightbill who must learn to fly so he can migrate for winter.
It’s no Iron Giant but you know what, Dreamworks’ The Wild Robot gets a lot closer to its quality than I expected. The Wild Robot is a beautifully animated production with arresting visuals and fantastic voice work from the cast with Lupita Nyong’o a highlight.
Although the film has a few rough edges, its heart is in the right place and I’ll always be happy to champion a story that encourages kindness, environmentalism and pacifism while turning its nose up at corporate greed. A modern day Fern Gully for the kids.
Perfect Days
Film of the Year
“Next time is next time. Now is now.”
Director: Wim Wenders
Writers: Wim Wenders and Takuma Takasaki
When the world feels as bleak as it does in 2024, there is something particularly therapeutic and nourishing for the soul about Wim Wender’s slice of life drama Perfect Days about a janitor who has a cheerful disposition and an admirably simple, uncomplicated life.
Perfect Days is slow-paced and repetitive in the best way. We follow the daily routine of Hirayama, an employee of The Tokyo Toilet company. Hirayama is single, barely utters a word and lives a modest life in Shibuya, Tokyo. Hirayama enjoys playing cassette tapes in his van and listening to Western pop music from the sixties and seventies. He has a love of nature and carries with him an analogue camera for photographing nature. Each night before bed he reads a paperback – William Faulkner, Patricia Highsmith and others.
This is a beautiful film. I started watching it at home after a long day when I was half asleep and despite the film’s ambling pace and largely plotless structure, it easily held my attention. There is a Miyazaki-like quality to how Perfect Days stops and lingers on the small pleasures in life. A nice hot meal after a long day of work. Making eye contact with a stranger in a park and giving a little nod of approval at their companionship. Winding down a quiet evening and enjoying a good book. That sort of thing.
The final act of Perfect Days takes a turn and provides some context to Hirayama’s life and fills in some of the details that lead him to where he is. Honestly he’s much like the rest of us, doing what he can to get by and doing his best to slow down and smell the roses.
Perfect Days is one of Wim Wenders best and feels like the perfect movie for the times we live in. There’s something so admirable and uplifting about the unpretentious way it encourages you to look at life and appreciate little, everyday blessings. Give all the awards to Koji Yakusho for the performance of a lifetime.
