Sean’s Top 10 Movies of 2024

It’s only been a few days but it’s become abundantly clear that our disorienting four-year weird period is definitely over and we’re back in the shit. I don’t know how I’ll remember 2024 in the years to come, but right now it’s the little things I treasure. Thinking back to John and I laughing at the title card reveal at the end of the trailer for AfrAId. An undeserved accusing look from Nancy during Dune: Part 2 because I definitely was not asleep. Being called a fucking asshole by an old man for sneaking back into Cinerama to look for something my dad dropped after a screening of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Overdosing on the Babes-inspired Sour Patch Kids popcorn at Nosferatu with Colin. These are the experiences that make life worth living.

All I know is that no one can take those memories away from me. And if you’re feeling down, at times like these, I am reminded of the immortal words of Stacker Pentecost:

Today. Today, at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other. Today there is not a man nor woman in here that shall stand alone. Not today. Today we face the monsters that are at our door and bring the fight to them! Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!

In conclusion, I guess I have to pick an audience to represent? Because John said he fights for the freaks and perverts and then Colin wrote he’s here for the thoughtful misfits. Does that leave for me the normies? The good-time Charlies? The kind of person M. Emmet Walsh would call a “typical bastard”? Maybe, except those nut jobs loved Deadpool 3 and that shit gives me a migraine just thinkin’ about it.

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The Pick: Three Thousand Years of Longing

Your wish is our command! Assuming your wish was for us to record a somewhat delayed review of an 8-month-old movie that not enough people saw in theaters. This week we’re talking about George Miller’s strange and sultry follow-up to Mad Max: Fury Road while also providing a brief history of djinns as well as our own answers to what our three wishes would be. We also follow up our last episode on the 90s Super Mario Bros. movie by talking about the new Super Mario Bros. Movie, which seems to be just a hair better than that prior notorious adaptation. Continue reading →

Colin’s Top Ten Movies of 2022

I had a good time at the movies in 2022. Not sure if this was the first year since 2019 where I saw more new movies in theaters than I did at home, but it more or less felt like it. There was plenty of good stuff to see in the indie sphere, which I did a decent job of keeping on top of, but there were also a surprising amount of blockbusters that had me questioning why we can’t just try a little harder in crafting our big-budget entertainment. Also, I can’t speak for all parts of the country, but this year I was pleasantly surprised that for once, just about all the movies that I felt like I absolutely needed to see before list-making time were actually available in theaters or on streaming. Though that doesn’t mean I necessarily saw all of them. Continue reading →

Oscar Fortnight Day 14: The Blind Side

The Blind Side (2009)

The 82nd Academy Awards (2010)
Nominations: 2
Wins: 1

I, like John, got very much into the Oscars around 2006 as well as the idea of seeing every Best Picture nominee each year. This culminated in one of my absolute wildest nights in college when I went all alone to go see the extremely forgettable Kate Winslet vehicle The Reader. However, 2009 was the year where that longterm plan came to a screeching halt, almost entirely because of The Blind Side. I saw every other Best Picture nominee in 2009, but I had so little interest in seeing this movie that I just couldn’t pay money to see it. This, of course, was a result of The Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences changing their cap of 5 Best Picture winners each year to a maximum of ten, ushering in a breadth of Best Picture nominees that hadn’t been seen since the early ’40s. Continue reading →

Criterion Month Day 11: Woman in the Dunes

Woman in the Dunes (1964)

Last month I wrote a list of my “Top 50 Favorite Horror Movies of the 2010s”. Something I noticed when reevaluating my favorite horror films of the last decade was the recent surge in “Transcendental Horror.” Movies like The Lighthouse and Midsommar that aren’t built on scares, rather existential dread. Movies that make you question your existence and if anything matters. The feeling of being trapped in life. I figured this was a recent phenomenon in cinema. Little did I know Hiroshi Teshigahara was making Transcendental Horror over fifty years ago.

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John’s Top Ten Movies of the 2010s

We’ve been writing “Top Ten Movies of the Year” posts on this blog for over a decade. With that in mind, you’d think it would be easy to write a “Top Ten Movies of the 2010s” list. All I have to do is look back at all my past lists and crunch the numbers. I didn’t do that. My reason? I am very bad at calculations.

My other reason is that feelings change. Opinions shift. Different movies mean different things to me as the years go by. Even my favorite films I come to appreciate for different reasons. That being said this list can only reflect how I feel RIGHT NOW. I could change my mind next week. Some of these picks aren’t even consistent with my “Top Ten Movies of 2019” list I did a few weeks ago. That’s what’s great about art. If it’s good it can evolve. Let’s take a look at their current evolutions.

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Sean’s Top 10 Movies of the 2010s

Something about making top 10 movie lists feels more serious than the other three. I guess it’s partly because it feels like it’s the medium where John, Colin, and I are closest to being on a level playing field. Like, there’s only so much music and TV all three of us have in common, and we don’t really talk about video games at all. But film, I mean, we have a whole weekly podcast dedicated to that! I think this phenomenon is even bigger than this blog, as tough as that might be to believe. The Oscars feel more important than the Grammys, you know? I guess it might have to do with how big theatrical releases are about as close as we get to shared culture these days. I wonder how that will change in the next 10 years?

Anyway, I made my list free of any pretension. I didn’t look at any critic’s top movies of the decade lists, and since I’m going first, I don’t even know what John and Colin are going to include on their lists. This is just me sorting through the movies I love the most right now. So know this: I could easily do a top 100 as there’s a helluva lot of great movies I would rate highly that didn’t make this list. Similarly, I have a shitload of movies in my backlog I still need to catch up with that could very well change this top 10 if I were to do it again. Which, hopefully, I will get the chance to do someday. I’d hate to have to try to defend this these picks for the rest of my life.

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