10. The Almost-a-Message Movie
What’s it about: Underappreciated attorney Rita Mora Castro, working in Mexico City, is approached through admittedly sus methods to assist a local drug cartel leader in her desired gender transition surgeries* and flight from the country. Years later, the former drug lord (now called Emilia Pérez) re-contacts Rita with a new request: bring her ex-wife and kids back to Mexico to be with Emilia, whose former identity is not shared. But upon being confronted with the human cost of cartel violence, Emilia uses her massive hoard of drug and murder money to… find and identify the corpses of people killed by the cartels, mostly hers. I mean, closure is nice and all, as other movies on this list will say, but I feel there’s a bigger issue here, Emilia.
*Surgeries plural, there’s a whole song about this, it is infamously bad
It’s Always Sunny:
Rita: “The system here is so corrupt, everyone’s just taking cartel drug money to avoid justice.”
Short version: this is a story about Mexican drug violence and the transwoman experience made by a cismale French filmmaker who did no research, and even to my white Canadian cismale ass it shows.
The crusade to provide closure to families of people killed by cartels instead of, I don’t know, doing something, anything, to try to curb said disappearances that Emilia herself actively participated in and profited from is played as this huge, noble enterprise, despite being at best a band-aid applied to a gaping wound. Not unlike how Dear Evan Hansen’s Connor Project claimed to be saving the lives of depressed teens but was only tidying up a fucking orchard.
And the songs are weak. Even in the kinda okay ones like Best Song nominee “El Mal,” where Zoe Saldaña surely dances the heck out of it, everyone singing feels embarrassed to be singing, or afraid they’re going to wake up their roommates. Say what you will about Wonka but Timothée Chalamet never mumbled, and the songs all felt like songs and not autotuned conversations.
It’s not the best musical of the year (that’s coming up), it’s not the best trans narrative of the year (probably either Will Ferrell’s documentary or I Saw the TV Glow but frankly even Monkey Man did it better), and while I am not familiar with the films of Mexico, I just, I just, I just have to believe there was a better take on cartel violence last year. It feels like it’s doing so well on the awards circuit because of the Crash effect: it seems like it’s saying something important, like Crash almost said something about racism or Dear Evan Hansen almost had something to say about mental illness, and that’s all voters needed.
It addresses big topics with no understanding of them. In the words of Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night, it does a big thing badly, and other than the two lead actresses (one of which is running as supporting despite having the majority of the screen time and both good songs), I’d sooner see Oscars handed to Megalopolis or Godzilla X Kong.
That was mean, I like Godzilla X Kong.
Films of 2024: #40/41, under Netflix’s other girlboss movie Damsel, but unlike Maestro last year, not dead last! You say “thank you” to The Crow, Emilia Peréz.
Best Pictures: way way down in the “What’s insulting is you thought this was a profound statement” district at #91, under The Lost Weekend but over Crash. It has better songs than Crash at least. Not Lost Weekend, that song about how the protagonist was a worthless drunk purse thief was a banger for being made up on the spot.
What got snubbed? Neither Denis Villeneuve nor John Chu got nominated for their visually stunning, elaborately crafted blockbuster best picture nominees, much like Greta Gerwig last year, and in trying to puzzle out how this happens when fellow directors are the ones doing the nominating, I came to “Academy voters don’t think spectacle takes skill.” Quiet moments of introspection are seen as just more artistic than the visual marvels that are Wicked, Dune, or indeed Moulin Rouge and Barbie. We gotta grapple with this idea that some emotions are just more artistic than others, and why we’ve chosen the ones we have.
9. The Shawshank Reform School
What’s it about: Teenaged would-be civil rights crusader Elwood accepts a ride to school from the most wrong car, ends up wrongfully convicted of car theft and sent to Nickel Academy Reform School, which has exactly as many mass graves as you were dreading it would have. There he befriends Turner, on his second sentence here. Turner wants to simply endure Nickel Academy, Elwood wants to change the system, if you wonder how that goes, google reform or residential schools and see how many wardens/headmasters faced prison time over what happened in them.
It’s Always Sunny:
Elwood: “The system is corrupt, we have to make a stand to change it!”
Okay so, cards on the table, I can’t really do wrongful imprisonment stories. Can’t tell you why. Of all the injustices inflicted on all the people of the world, disproportionally BIPOC people, being locked into cruel and backwards prison institutions because the justice system failed you gets the most under my skin and is difficult to enjoy, to the point where I can’t even really rewatch the Brooklyn 99 episodes where Jake and Rosa go to prison. And Caleb the Cannibal is in those! He’s so funny!
That said, the message of this movie actively demands discomfort over what’s happening to the kids of Nickel Academy, detained by guards and wardens who never got over slavery ending, but the filmmaking is often a barrier rather than an aid. The movie is shot in first-person perspective, through the eyes of either Elwood or Turner… except when it isn’t, as there are frequent non-diegetic cuts to current events footage or flash-forwards that, for reasons I still haven’t fully grasped, are filmed a foot back from first person, the camera right before the adult character’s head. Between that and some moments where it’s tricky to tell if we’re following Turner or Elwood, the technique is pulling me out of the movie more often than connecting me more directly to it.
Also the pacing is glacial. It’s not the longest nominee by a wide margin, but it felt longer than its already substantial 140 minutes. Zone of Interest understood that if you’re going to be this stone-cold of a bummer, get in, make your point, get out.
Films of 2024: It is currently at #35, under our next nominee and over Megalopolis because unlike Coppola, this movie knows what its message is (a microcosm of racial injustice in the US) and sticks to it.
Best Pictures: It would be neat if this were at 62, next to fellow unrepentant bummer Million Dollar Baby, but no, it’s 64, under Grand Hotel and over Marty. My apologies to everyone who deeply connected to and was moved by Nickel Boys, I am simply not among you. Aristotle said art must entertain in order to instruct, and this one didn’t.
What Got Snubbed: I understand why maybe “It was never actually about reform” was deemed more Oscar-y than “Finding hope and new life inside prison,” but Sing Sing is also based on real events and maybe I’d rather have watched that. Maybe I wouldn’t have saved it for last like this one. Maybe joy and inspiration are just as artistic as sadness.
8. Bob Dylan Existed: the Motion Picture
What’s it about: young Bobby Dylan rolls into New York looking to pay tribute to his idol, Woody Guthrie, now laid up in the hospital in the late stages of Huntington’s disease. Dylan impresses both Woody and his best pal Pete Seeger, the latter of whom helps Dylan break into the folk music scene. Years later, now a big star, Dylan is broken up with his girlfriend Sylvie, feuding with his other girlfriend Joan Baez, and yearning to break out of the acoustic folk mold the label and Pete’s big folk music festival want to keep him in, but that nogoodnik Johnny Cash encourages him to escape.
It’s Always Sunny:
Bob Dylan: “Nobody wants to hear what I want to play.”
Johnny Cash: “I want to hear it.”
If you want to understand why exactly Dylan going electric damn near caused a riot, this is your movie. If that feels less worthy of a biopic than Martin Luther King’s march on Selma or Lincoln ending slavery I cannot help you. It avoids most of the biopic clichés, but Better Man apparently hits all of them and still works, so that’s not saving Complete Unknown. It feels like the theme is “He may have been a jerk to everyone around him some or a lot of the time, but he made some great music so that’s okay,” and I don’t love that as a theme.
I will say, Chalamet did nail it. There are a lot of categories where the other Timothée Chalamet movie should have been nominated instead, but this likely isn’t one of them. The supporting cast is also good, but Edward Norton, Scoot McNairy, Elle Fanning, and Boyd Holbrook being good isn’t exactly surprising.
(I don’t really know Monica Barbaro, maybe she’s usually good too)
I’ll give it this: I did leave the theatre with increased appreciation for Bob Dylan’s music. That’s more than I can say for King Richard, an attempt at an aggressively flattering biopic that regardless made me loathe its subject.
It’s pretty okay. But like so many biopics, maybe it should only be in the acting categories.
Films of 2024: #34, under The Beekeeper, which also doesn’t have much to say but sure is fun while not saying it, and over Nickel Boys, which could have made its point 40 minutes faster.
Best Pictures: I’d have this one up at #73, under fellow “The lead’s a dick but the songs are neat” entry An American in Paris, and over fellow “I’m not sure it’s actually saying anything but it’s an okay hangout movie with a good cast” entry Driving Miss Daisy.
Who got snubbed? A Real Pain was too simple and too personal to ever make the shortlist (even if Past Lives managed it last year) but dang I loved it. Brilliant movie and not a huge commitment in terms of length.
And we’re done the dregs, folks! Three films down, seven I actually quite enjoyed to go!
7. The Graboid Rebellion
Yes, I am aware I said it was snubbed for Best Director but still have it all the way down here at number seven, I cannot help that it was 70% a strong year.
What’s it about: Paul Atreides, his noble house betrayed and slaughtered by the galactic emperor and the cruel House Harkonnen, continues his crusade for justice/vengeance, but to gain it, he will have to convince the native people of Arrakis that he is their prophesized saviour Muad’Dib, as well as convince the power-behind-the-throne order of space witches the Bene Gesserit (who engineered the Muad’Dib story so that’s a whole Thing) that he’s their planned messiah the Kwisatz Haderach, and is plagued by visions that to do all of this, he will have to plunge the galaxy into a holy war. Decisions, decisions.
It’s Always Sunny:
Paul: “I don’t know, I have visions that unifying the Fremen could lead to millions of deaths across the galaxy.”
Paul’s Mom: “Just be their messiah, what’s the worst that could happen?”
This remains one of the most stunningly crafted sci-fi epics in years, a sandier version of what Avatar could be if it had more story and didn’t coast on vibes. The cast has only gotten more impressive, no easy feat considering who didn’t make it out of part one, but it’s a murderers row of talent doing great work making all of these weird space words and concepts sound natural and important. And while we’re still not at the end of the story (how could we be, the books weren’t done at this point either), we reach a more natural stopping point than Fast X, Across the Spider-Verse, or indeed the previous Dune. The first Dune may have been entirely set-up, but Dune Part 2 manages to be 80% payoff and pretty cool payoff at that.
I mean you have to work pretty hard to make riding the giant desert worms into battle not cool but I appreciate not taking that for granted.
This one took me from “Part two better be good to justify this cliffhanger” to “Part two was good, I sure hope they make another one to keep the ride going.”
Films of 2024: This one’s currently 12th, under fellow desert epic Furiosa and over fellow “Someone made some choices and now the whole empire’s falling apart” flick Civil War, which I dread referring to as “A little naïve about how it was going to go” in two years.
Best Pictures: #31, under the more grounded “War makes good men into monsters” movie Platoon, and over fellow “star-crossed romance vs political marriage” movie Shakespeare in Love.
Who got snubbed? Biopics get a lot of award love for acting because, I have heard it theorized, figuring out who did the best acting is actually really difficult, but “He sure does sound like Bob Dylan” gives you a benchmark, which is sad because frankly Dune Part 2 had the better ensemble. I’d have gone Austin Butler over Edward Norton, and Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, or Florence Pugh over Monica Barbaro. Maybe I just don’t know enough about Pete Seeger or Joan Baez to appreciate what they did, but still.
6. Note the Lack of Plural
What’s it about: Based on a true story, Eunice and Rubens Paiva and their five (!) children live a content if sometimes tense life in Brazil, 1970, under the military dictatorship, until one day men come to “ask Rubens some questions,” whisking him off into the day never to be seen again. Eunice, having survived a week and change of questioning herself, tries to provide her family a sense of normality while still trying to get the military to admit that her husband was taken at all, let alone if they’ll ever give him back.
It’s Always Sunny:
Rubens: “They just want to ask me some questions, I’ll be back tonight.”
This one is very quietly powerful, as Eunice tries her best to find some scrap of justice without creating such a stir that the army comes back for more “questions,” something that maybe Elwood from Nickel Boys could have benefited from. Fernanda Torres does exceptionally in the lead role, and I can see why people are in support of her taking the Oscar, but it’s a very “less is more” performance, and the Oscars have a history of a) leaning towards legacy and people who feel “owed,” such as Demi Moore, and b) thinking that if less is more, imagine how much more more must be.
It’s also sadly relevant, detailing the human cost of living under a brutal dictatorship more concerned with its own power than any recognizable rule of law. That options to receive justice are few, and the results will be minimal. And that victims can’t simply be asked to “get over it” in the aftermath, as the damage of these crimes stretches over decades.
Sadly this last point is a little overdone, as this film suffers from too much epilogue. There are two different time jumps towards the end, one to Eunice finally getting the death certificate in the mid-90s while Brazil begins to deal with what the dictatorship did, and one in the 2010s where… honestly not sure what this one was adding. I guess they wanted the whole family together for a scene, but there are multiple cousins that we hadn’t met earlier and while I could keep the four daughters separate in the main story, I had no chance of parsing who was who forty-something years later. Two epilogues just felt like gilding the lily.
Films of 2024: I have it tenth, under our next nominee and over a similarly unsuccessful attempt to reunite a family, Furiosa.
Best Pictures: I’d put it at 21, under the likewise fascinatingly bleak No Country For Old Men and over The Sting.
What Got Snubbed: Naomi Scott was a live wire of stress and panic throughout Smile 2, riveting to watch, and if the Academy weren’t convinced that some genres simply aren’t High Art, she’d be in the Best Actress conversation.
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