Space Invader: Honourable Mentions for 2024
The movies that almost made it to the top.
The Tip Sheet has spun off. Introducing Space Invaders, a newsletter about movies and pop culture that invades this space on Saturday. Arrives irregularly during this pilot phase.
So it’s the last Saturday of 2024 and you’re probably expecting to see the Top 10 of the year. Not so fast because I didn’t want to jump the gun. You see, the next episode of End Credits on January 1 is the Top 5 of the Year episode, and in the interest of not giving away any spoilers, the revelation of the complete Top 10 will have to wait until next weekend.
In the meantime, presented for your consideration, are 10 honourable mentions for 2024. Under different circumstances these movies might have made the Top 10, but for various reasons they fell a little short on points to make the final cut. Still, these are all solid movies, and well worth your time if you’re looking for a little holiday distraction, so presented here, in no particular order, are some of the very good movies from 2024…
Conclave – dir. Edward Berger
They don’t make them like these anymore…? Conventional wisdom says that there’s no interest in a grown-up movie about grown-ups talking about grown-up things, especially a movie based on a best seller about cardinals stepping on each other’s ambitions to choose a new pope. Conclave is less a movie about faith than a movie about practicalities, the ultimate election movie for the ultimate election year and featuring a trio of great performances between Stanley Tucci as the liberal, John Lithgow as the conservative, and Ralph Fiennes as the pragmatist caught in the middle, plus there’s Isabella Rossellini walking around the outside of the movie for the first hour as the head nun ready to deliver five minutes of ownage when the plot calls for it. There’s not much action, but damned if you’re not entertained with all the in-fighting and back-biting at the top floor of the Catholic Church.
Conclave is still playing in theatres and is available to rent on PVOD.
I Saw the TV Glow – dir. Jane Schoenbrun
As with their first film, We're All Going to the World's Fair, Schoenbrun crafted a story that leaves you wondering about the effects of technology and culture on our ability to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. The metaphor goes deeper in Glow as two teens, obsessed with what is supposedly a supernatural kids show, question themselves, their reality, and whether they’re brave enough to try and live a life where they will be happy. Obviously, the entire film plays as an allegory for the trans experience, and Schoenbrun masterfully translates all the confusion, curiosity, fear of alienation, and exaltation in finding allyship into a narrative that resonates completely for everyone in the audience. In the years to come, we will hear about how many trans youths became comfortable in their own bodies because of I Saw the TV Glow.
I Saw the TV Glow is streaming on Crave and Hoopla.
Twisters – dir. Lee Isaac Chung
Pure crowd-pleasing, summer matinee filmmaking is not anti-art. In fact, there is a fine degree of craft needed to make something that didn’t just feel like a cash grab by exploiting a movie title that was popular 30 years ago. Chung didn’t worry himself with Easter Eggs and instead leaned hard on a simple idea: What worked in 1996 will work in 2024! The stars are the tornadoes, but Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar Jones are pretty capable as the humans trying to wrangle them, leading their teams in a classic battle of slobs versus snobs, each filled with a multitalented slate of future stars, including the next Superman. It gets everything the first Twister got right, and it also got a little darker with a higher body count in the first five minutes than the whole of that ’96 movie.
Twisters is streaming on Prime Video.
Civil War – dir. Alex Garland
Everyone expected the polemic of our time, but what Garland delivered is something more. The point of Civil War is not about the political incentives that lead a country to civil war, it’s about what a civil war does to a population living in lawless times where you can’t trust your fellow countrymen, and what it does to the journalists covering it when the death of a colleague is just another thing you have to document. It’s deeply cynical, but it’s also deeply human; if we’re going to be our worst selves we might as well document the whole thing so that someone might learn better of it.
Civil War is streaming on Prime Video.
Late Night with the Devil – dir. Colin and Cameron Cairnes
Just when you thought there was nothing else that could be done with the “little girl possessed” subgenre comes this small independent that got released by the horror streamer Shudder with a pretty heft theatrical release. What made Late Night so compelling? I mean, we’ve done found footage and demonic possession before, right? It’s perhaps in the way the Cairnes Brothers balance the baked cheese of 70s show business with some truly disturbing psychodrama about what people will do for fame and fortune. Oh, and there’s a little girl possessed by the Devil too. The film lulls you into a false sense of security and then hits you hard with the horror, and a lot of that credit goes to David Dastmalchian, too long a rep player in the companies of Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve, finally getting a chance to prove his leading man chops!
Late Night with the Devil is streaming on Shudder and AMC+.
Thelma – dir. Josh Margolin
Who would have guessed that one of the biggest bad ass heroes of 2024 would be 95-year-old June Squibb? There were two films this year about street justice for phishing scammers, but Thelma is not so much about payback as it is about independence. The titular Thelma is surrounded by a loving family – or perhaps that should be “smothering” family – and when she becomes prey to an online scam, she decides to prove that she’s not so senile that she can’t get her own money back. A wonderful supporting cast including Parker Posey, Fred Hechinger, Clark Gregg, Malcolm McDowell and the late great Richard Roundtree help Margolin craft a delightful local adventure that shows you’re never too old to stand up for yourself, and to never underestimate someone based on their age.
Thelma is streaming on Paramount+ and Hoopla.
Woman of the Hour – dir. Anna Kendrick
Before seeing Woman of the Year you never would have guessed that the quirky girl from the Pitch Perfect trilogy had within her one of the darkest movies of the year. You just never know with some people, I suppose. That’s kind of the point with this based on a true story where Kendrick plays an aspiring actress who’s 1978 appearance on The Dating Game was memorable for the fact that one of the bachelors ended up being a prolific serial killer. Kendrick smartly uses this piece of true crime pop trivia to talk about what life looks from the point of view of women, whether we’re talking about the male gaze or outright violent misogyny, and Kendrick does her part by making you understand just how quickly and easily a woman can fall prey to a predator. An immersive and disturbing debut.
Woman of the Hour is streaming on Hoopla.
Rebel Ridge – dir. Jeremy Saulnier
The story is pretty well known: Black man stopped by the police unjustly in a small American town, he’s treated badly and has his civil liberties violated, and all the while the cops themselves are the real bad guys. Saulnier’s latest is perhaps his most hot button yet (which coming from the director of Green Room is really saying something), but his gift is not giving you the movie you’re expecting. Aaron Pierre, in a star-making role, plays a Marine veteran who does everything he can to not have to use his particular set of skills to get justice for himself and his brother, and Saulnier puts you on the edge of your seat as the cops keep pushing, and Pierre’s Marine keeps restraining himself. When we say Rebel Ridge is the anti-Rambo, that’s not a critique, that’s a compliment!
Rebel Ridge is streaming on Netflix.
Hit Man – dir. Richard Linklater
You didn’t think the big screen rom-com was dead, did you? Linklater teams with Glen Powell, now a certified movie star since his appearance in Linklater’s Fast Food Nation was only his third credit, to tackle the story of psychology prof Gary Johnson who finds meaning by pretending to be a hit man for hire and finds love by talking a woman out of hiring him to kill her abusive husband. Yes, it is a comedy. The inherent silliness of the plot is matched only by the sizzling chemistry between Powell and Adria Arjona, who find romantic and sexual fulfillment in the lie until, inevitably, it all starts to fall apart. Kooky, heartfelt, sexy, and occasionally violent, Hit Man proves that the movies can still make you believe in love, even if they take the most roundabout ways to get to a happy ending.
Hit Man is streaming on Netflix and Hoopla.
The Apprentice – dir. Ali Abbasi
The greatest trick that Sebastian Stan pulled this year was making Donald Trump human, and almost pitiable. A new Trump presidency will likely dampen the willingness of most people to check out Abbasi’s origin story for “Teflon Don”, and there’s probably not a lot here that’s new to the well-informed, but by some miracle the film manages to make Trump less of a caricature. It should come as no surprise that Jeremy Strong slays as Roy Cohn, the proverbial master to The Apprentice, but the standout is Stan who gradually transforms from a nervous young executive trying to fit into Manhattan high society and then turns into something more closely resembling the bluster factory of non sequiturs that we’ve come to accept as Trump. The Apprentice is the essential prequel to tomorrow’s headlines.
You can rent The Apprentice on VOD.
Finally, feel free to reach out to me by email at adamadonaldson [at] gmail [dot] com, or find me on Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, GuelphPolitico.ca.