The Top 10 films list for 2024 you never knew you needed to know
and my favourite film of the year is…….
Hello and welcome to the third annual “Blackford Film Club” (drum roll please…) Top 10 film list for 2024. Relax! Put your feet up! Help yourself to the chocolate biscuits on the table in the corner of the room. It’s nearly “curtain up” on my favourite films of the year but first, a little scene setting and the ground rules as per usual:
Conservatively (and very conservatively) I’ve watched in excess of 150 films this year but as my alter-ego has been busying himself with the self-publishing of four books that won’t and don’t sell, he and I have been rather busy in other areas of a life we constantly distract ourselves from with other distractions and so, rather than the usual 60–70 film reviews written I (or that other weirdo who lives inside my head) have only written 33 film reviews in this calendar year and that’s the one and only rule really:
The only films available for inclusion in this list were released in the UK in the year 2024 and I’ve actually penned my ramblings thoughts on the movie. Of the approximate 120 others I’ve watched, the vast majority were films released in this year (but I felt no reason whatsoever to write about them) and a tiny fraction were classics of yesteryear I felt compelled to rewatch.
So without further ado, and in reverse order, here are my top 10 recommended films of the year with a brief snippet of my original review coupled with a link to the fuller appreciation posted here this year.
This Top 10 will differ greatly from your own, but that’s OK as we’re all friends here and as such, please dive into the chocolate biscuits.
Number 10
Joker: Folie à Deux
Love story for the ages from an upside down world
For the first time in this short scene the camera angle now changes to a wider shot of the two lovers separated by the prison glass within the confines of their dull yellow/green surroundings. The close-up angles resume quickly, a man forever looking downward and only up toward his lover for his brief, stilted and almost whisper-like questions, an angel opposite in mirrored reflection or full close-up now turning the questions back on the smoking man, of his lawyer and a larger outside world laughing at him, but not in the way he so desires. He’s being played for a fool by others she exclaims, not her, not this angel who yearns for the man opposite her and the life she’s preparing for him in the outside world.
“I’m pregnant” she deadpans, lighting a cigarette.
As the man opposite struggles to comprehend the simple statement he’s just heard, beats pass but not the angle of the camera as he remains front and centre as the angel opposite begins singing (They Long to Be) Close to You by The Carpenters. Seen first again in the reflection of the prison glass, the singing angel is now in close-up as the song builds before the repeating pattern of camera angles throughout the scene continues but now, with the camera on full close-up of the man he is seen faintly smiling before a full close-up on his angel shows her responding to his warmth, her singing louder and through beaming smiles. She tilts her head slightly and lovingly at her man as she ends the first verse with “They long to be, close to you”.
He stumbles a question “Really?” as to her pregnancy but his angel ignores him and in full close up and for the man she adores:
“On the day that you were born, the Angels got together. And decided to make a dream come true. So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold, and starlight in your eyes of blue”
An ever broadening smile appears on the man as the camera angle changes for a third major time and now a wider shot of the two lovers as the angel rises to her feet triumphantly in line with the song, and a second verse whereby the man gently, again almost in a whisper, sings along with the golden haired songbird opposite him. Resuming her seat, the angel draws a smile with her lipstick on the glass separating them before the man places his face against the red line, the broadest smile of all now in line with the lipstick mark before him.
We cut to the man dancing in his prison cell, cigarette smoke drifting upward as he twists and contorts his skeletal frame in the dance of the Joker, mournful strings now replacing the singing of an angel.
Number 9
Small Things Like These
Remarkable real life tale of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries
The routine of Bill’s day continues as with Eileen watching television in the lounge, the lights of the Christmas tree illuminating the room, and his girls still sat at the kitchen table completing their school homework, he awkwardly and slowly undresses from his dirty work clothes in the bedroom through loud sighs and forever looking downward. We cut to Eileen asleep in bed yet Bill is wide awake and soon seen making a cup of tea in the kitchen before drawing back the curtains on a yellow tinged outside world and settling into an armchair, staring at the hubbub of the passersby in the street. This is first framed from behind before a second angle frames Bill closer from behind and then a third angle from the front with one side of his face in shadow as the other is illuminated by the yellow colour of the outside world. He’s downcast, again, lost in his own thoughts.
He lets out a huge sigh.
An unseen black crow caws.
That’s the opening 15 minutes of a film I can’t possibly recommend highly enough to you, and here is the film’s final frame in full:
“Dedicated to the more than 56,000 young women who were sent to Magdalene institutions for “penance and rehabilitation” between the years 1922 and 1998.
And the children who were taken from them”
In between?
You have a masterclass from Cillian Murphy as he portrays a hard working family man forever lost in his own melancholic thoughts, haunted by recollections of the past and a desperate desire to help others less fortunate in his present. He has the weight of the world on his sloping shoulders, a quiet stoical demeanour of a man lost in his past and trying to rise above the quiet of a local community aware of the scandal surrounding them but preferring to look the other way for fear of what their neighbours and others might think of them. Supported brilliantly by Eileen Walsh as his loving and concerned wife and a cameo of cold callousness from Emily Watson as the Mother Superior of the local convent, this is Tim Mielants fifth big screen outing as a director following several stints on TV series’ including the Cillian Murphy starring Peaky Blinders and, it should be noted, based upon the 2021 novel by Claire Keegan, written here for the screen by Irish playwright Enda Walsh and produced by Cillian Murphy, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
A film that shines a light on the despicable and horrifying scandal of the Magdalene Laundries wrapped around a “soft hearted” man lost in his own grief and only wanting the very best for everyone around him. A film of compassion and empathy for others, of speaking out and acting on your human conscience and cinematically: a film bathed in duality and shadows so expertly conveyed as Bill watches life continue without him late at night in the streets bathed in a yellow hue, from inside the coal shed at the convent or the sinister, skin crawling scene as he sits beside a roaring fire with a Mother Superior at home in a home unfit to be a home, and a place of slavery where there should have been sanctuary.
Small Things Like These is as grim and darkly black as Irish coal, but I cannot recommend this highly enough.
Number 8
Spaceman
“I go where you go. OK spaceman?”
I’ll start as I mean to go on by dividing the hardy souls who read my film reviews by stating that Adam Sandler is far, far better in “serious” or dramatic roles than he is in any of his more comedic films. Now that I’ve raised the hackles on some of you and hopefully received a nod or two of approval from the renegades among you, let me present to you the evidence of two bona fide masterful dramatic performances in the Paul Thomas Anderson directed masterpiece “Punch Drunk Love” from 2002 (which is essential viewing) as is the 2019 crime drama directed by the Safdie Brothers, “Uncut Gems”. Two further performances in the Noah Baumbach directed “The Meyerowitz Stories” in 2017 and Jeremiah Zagar’s “Hustle” from 2022 should also be entered into evidence for Sandler’s incredible versatility in more dramatic movies and now here in “Spaceman” we have a fifth.
Directed by Swedish all around music, television and cinema artist Johan Renck in his second all-time big screen outing and based upon the 2017 novel “Spaceman of Bohemia” by Jaroslav Kalfař, the simple premise for an incredibly difficult to fully pinpoint and comprehend film is:
“Jakub Procházka” (Adam Sandler) is 6 months into a year long space mission to collect samples from a purple/reddish coloured cloud known as “Chopra” which blights the earthly sky back home where he’s a national and world hero yet adrift from his heavily pregnant wife Lenka Procházka (Carey Mulligan). Now just 7 days away from reaching this cloud we quickly see that the fresh faced Czech astronaut in his launch photo pinned on a noticeboard inside his ship is anything but and in his place is a “skinny human” and a bearded, tired and haggard looking man unable to sleep, suffering nightmares when he does and when awake, hallucinations follow him everywhere within his David Bowie “tin can”.
During a live broadcast to the world as he approaches the cloud a school child asks if he’s the “loneliest man in the world” to which Jakub responds that he isn’t and fortified by regular communications with his wife and “Peter” (Kunal Nayyar) at Czech Mission Control, he’s excitedly approaching the end of his mission before the 6 month journey home.
Number 7
Poor Things
Fancy a Frankenstein Sci-Fi Comedy?
How about this for a cryptic, spoiler free setup:
A Frankenstein tale of unrequited love between a badly disfigured creator and his childlike creation, watched from near and far by a foppish surgeon’s assistant akin to the eager student figure experimenting with Alex Garland’s AI creation in “Ex Machina” and framed through the surrealist, picture-book lens of Wes Anderson. You have a “God” and very definitely a “Monster” (though not perhaps the character unfairly titled so), a human “experiment” with a fresh clean slate and outlook on life writing their own destiny. A changing colour palette from dirty black and white through to outlandishly colourful and all wrapped within a hilariously awkward and brutally honest tale of, in the director’s own words, “the awkwardness of human interaction” that so brilliantly pervade all of his films.
The “Monster” and indeed “God” of our Tony McNamara written and Yorgos Lanthimos directed twistedly funny tale is “Dr Godwin Baxter” (Willem Dafoe) a horribly scarred eccentric and speaker in tongues inventive surgeon who cares and nurtures his greatest creation “Bella Baxter” (Emma Stone). A child in an adult’s body, Bella is a human “experiment” under the watchful loving gaze of “Max McCandles” (Ramy Youssef) before being whisked on a picture postcard tour of Europe by “Duncan Wedderburn” (Mark Ruffalo) in the hopes of winning her hand in marriage and in place of the dastardly well spoken and head over heels in love Max McCandles.
Missing the created and forever unrequited love of his life, the monster needs a new creation.
Number 6
Kinds of Kindness
Horribly brilliant ménage à trois from Yorgos Lanthimos
We cut to a high shot looking down upon a tall office building before dissolving into a shot of Robert standing awkwardly in the corner triangle of a glassed in office looking down on the world below. A deadpan narration begins with Robert describing a diary of sorts: what time to awaken, his business attire for the day, “hamburgers and milkshake” for lunch before a rather more opulent sounding evening meal. We now see this not so much a diary but a set of instructions, continuing “11pm, one glass of whiskey” and “Read “Anna Karenina” until 23.30. No sexual intercourse. Have a nice day, R”. This postcard of instructions is now shredded.
An immediate cut sees Robert taking a telephone call and despite attempting everything and anything to excuse himself he reluctantly agrees to a meeting at 3pm and quickly we follow Robert through a maze of glassed in offices and corridors full of shadows and reflections. An awkward silence ensues as Robert awaits his appointment before a secretary shows him a picture of her son. Responding to a question regarding his and Sarah’s plans for children he deadpans “she has a problem with her ovaries” before staring downward, silent, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.
Ten minutes have now passed and we are introduced to “Raymond” (Willem Dafoe) for the first time after hearing his name throughout the opening minutes. Sitting behind a huge glass desk he immediately and awkwardly implores Robert to grow his hair longer and he flatly refuses to believe he has gained any weight. Food will become a through line of the film among many more but here not one but two references are made quickly, first “Skinny men are the most ridiculous thing there is” before a bullying (another through line of the film) follows with Raymond tersely stating “We’ll take a look at your eating plan for the week”. Raymond is horribly in control of the situation and conversation (more through lines of the film) peppering Robert with questions as to his reading of Anna Karenina and whether he would like a drink. Robert requests a vodka. Raymond returns with a whiskey but not before Robert stumbles over his thoughts on an impending work trip to Munich, Sarah will come too “if that’s OK with you?”, before thanking Raymond for his “gift” of the tennis racquet. Raymond responds with a smile that soon dissolves into an aggressive snarl that sees Robert immediately begin apologising for the accident last night as Raymond, silently, appears to check his inside coat for a “wire”. Satisfied he isn’t wearing one, Raymond asks for a breakdown of Robert’s day: “7.20am, shower, didn’t wash my hair…drank orange juice”. Raymond immediately responds with an aggressive sounding “Did you and Sarah fuck this morning?”.
Yes Robert responds “At 8.30am, right after breakfast”.
Robert now awkwardly continues with more thanks for the gift and his appreciation above and beyond even that for a bloodied racing helmet of Ayrton Senna. Yet more cold, awkward half smiles return before Robert quickly dissolves into yet another apology for the car crash last evening. He states again that “I should have been hospitalised” but Raymond pounces on this immediately and coldly dismisses this with overt scorn and contempt. He warms only when stating that Robert has to repeat the car crash in two days time amid the return once more of ominous and jarring piano sounds. The car crash will be at the same place and same time two days from today and amid an ashen face full of dread, Robert listens as Raymond insists that he must repeat the crash and at a far higher speed. Robert repeatedly states he can’t do it but Raymond insists he can, he will even, and at a far greater speed before setting up the conclusion of their conversation with an angry “I don’t have time for this”. He ends their cold and awkward conversation by suggesting Robert go to a bar, order a non-alcoholic drink and consider his position before in two hours time meeting Raymond at his house with a definitive answer.
Yet more ominous piano sounds return as Robert orders a double whiskey at a luxurious bar yet the barman doesn’t move or respond until Robert laughs that he’s “kidding” and he only wants a non-alcoholic drink which the barman fetches and returns in an instant. Taking a sip, Robert looks down and indeed downcast before gently removing the small plaster covering the tiny scratch on his forehead, which is now barely visible.
Number 5
The Holdovers
Paul Giamatti and Alexander Payne strike gold again
Nobody does a gruff, cantankerous, tetchy, irascible misunderstood misanthrope quite like Paul Giamatti!
A classics teacher of Ancient Civilizations at an expensive and opulent boarding school for the privileged and “rich and dumb” as the Christmas of 1970 tiptoes into a brand new year, Paul Hunham draws the short straw of looking after and being responsible for five titular “holdovers” and children of varying ages all of whom Paul describes brilliantly as “reprobates” but of whom he has to guide through a two week Christmas and New Year period confined within a restricted section of the school and “pretend to be a human being”. The two youngest holdovers “Alex Ollerman” (Ian Dolley) and “Ye-Joon Park” (Jim Kaplan) are homesick fishes out of water desperate to return to their families whilst “Jason Smith” (Michael Provost) is the school’s star football quarterback awaiting rescue from a rich father while “Teddy Kountze” (Brady Hepner) is variously described as a “sociopath” and again brilliantly “The Crown Prince of Little Assholes”.
Rounding off the gang of five is a stellar breakout performance from Dominic Sessa as serial drop-out “Angus Tully” the oldest of the boys staying behind and main antagonist and somewhat sunshine to the dark sarcastic showers of his teacher. Paul has his heart set upon a quiet Christmas of reading in a building and within a life he’s become rather institutionalised and cosseted away from a world he doesn’t participate in and a world away from the idle dreams of travelling to the classical destinations of his textbooks. Angus meanwhile has been left behind in every sense: By his parents and from life, as well as a dreaded future he cannot face and, desperate for a means of escape from his enforced Christmas “prison”, he’ll do any and everything to secure his release.
Whilst reserving special praise for a brilliant Oscar and BAFTA winning performance from Da’Vine Joy Randolph as the school’s restaurant manager “Mary Lamb” who battles her own horrific demons with a smile and grace that lights up the film, it’s Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa who dominate this bittersweet coming of age tale with performances eerily similar to Paul’s heart breaking portrayal in “Sideways” two decades ago. Different films, performances and circumstances but the ghosts from 2004 are here. Whereas Paul Giamatti had Thomas Hayden Church as his childlike sidekick in “Sideways” and the bright ray of sunshine to his dark cloud of depression, here he has Dominic Sessa trying to round off his awkward corners, get beneath his tough and impenetrable exterior and maybe, just maybe, they’ll escape the prison that holds each of them back.
Number 4
The Outrun
“I can’t be happy sober”
Amid loud electronic dance music we cut once more to Rona rolling a cigarette before with over sized headphones atop a sea green woolly hat, she tends to the animals on the family farm before an abrupt cut sees Rona now in pitch black darkness, her flashlight finally settling on a mother and her newborn lamb before another loud cut introduces us to another day on the farm: the making of a cup for a bearded farmer, taking the family dog for a morning walk, the branding of new born lambs. The scene ends with the bearded farmer smoking, seen only through a gap in a wooden fence or outhouse.
“How’s Dad?”
Rona responds that he’s “fine” to the as yet unseen poser of the question but an older lady is quickly established at the far end of a warm and welcoming kitchen. A small painting of a boat hangs just above Rona as she eats from a bowl, the older lady now joining her at the table. A local job prospect is eagerly suggested by the older lady. Rona responds coldly that she has a life to return to elsewhere. The older lady says she’ll pray for her.
A frustrated Rona asks that she doesn’t.
A quick cut now sees a downbeat Rona sitting alone in a small room in the upstairs of a house, a small painting of a lamb or possibly a small dog hangs on the wall to her right. The older lady asks if she’d like some tea to which Rona responds that she’ll return downstairs shortly. A whistling sound now merges with the siren sound of the police or emergency services as we cut from a lost looking Rona to a singing, drinking, and far, far happier young lady. Sucking on a pencil and playfully singing “I’m really bored — Are you bored too?” to the young black man she was last seen kissing underwater at the beginning of the film, the angles and close up shots here excel: focussing on the love exuding between these two playful university lovers, often shown from yet more awkward and acute angles or just their fingers or mouths or in the case of Rona her eyes, her bright and sparkling eyes. Rona fondly runs her fingers along the bottle of alcohol she’s holding as she asks her beau what it was like for him to grow up in London. Focussing again on the man’s mouth, the close-in angle from the director perfectly captures a slowly mouthed and cryptic “there is always low key something” in response before he calls the countryside “so quiet” as the scene and setting abruptly changes to Rona sitting alone at a cafe, idly thumbing through photos of the man on her phone.
After scrolling through a rejection email for a job application and the beginnings of another one, Rona retreats outside the cafe for a cigarette. Unable to light it she asks a passer by for help before they fall into an awkward conversation that veers dramatically from the smiles of a young lady complimented on her choice of hat to a broken lady desperate for the friendship and familiarity of somewhere she used to call home. As the passer by makes a desperate and awkward retreat, Rona is close to tears.
A quick cut returns us once more to the bleak darkness of a night on the farm, only the tip of her lighted cigarette and a brightly lit caravan in the distance pierce the night time blackness. Another quick cut and the brutal reality of life on a farm as Rona forcibly handles a sheep into a birthing position before helping with the birth of a lamb. As a fellow new born, covered in straw, takes its uncertain first steps, Rona tries unsuccessfully to rouse the latest new born into life before a quick cut later sees her loudly dumping the dead lamb into a dustbin. Walking towards the edge of the farm and the clifftop overhanging the sea, we now find Rona with headphones atop her head listening to dance music once more, staring out to sea. Framed brilliantly at a distance and all alone atop a jagged rock face high above the sea, the narration returns:
“Sometimes you can feel a vibration in Orkney. A low rumble. A tremor. It takes over the whole island and every part of your body. But, of course…it could all just be in your head”
Cutting to a 4:3 ratio of black and white real life stock footage of yesteryear:
“Some people say it’s the sound of underwater military experiments. Others say it’s the waves caught in the caves deep below the land. But the one that brought me nightmares when I was little is the oldest theory”.
Another cut before the narration resumes, now of a very young girl before a brief animation tells the tale of…
“A ginormous monster called the Mester Muckle Stoorworm, who was so big his tail would wrap around the whole world. And he was defeated by a young lad called Assipattle. He killed the Stoorworm with a burning peat. Fire burned inside its body. And it was in such pain that its neck reached nine times to the moon and back. And then its teeth fell out, and formed the Orkney Islands. The liver is still burning today.
And we feel that as the tremors”.
Number 3
Monkey Man
Magnificent directorial debut from Dev Patel
“My Goodness. I think I’ve just seen my latest favourite film of the year so far. Magnificent. Bloodily, Brutally Blooming Magnificent”.
So I posted to the madhouse formerly known as Twitter immediately after watching “Monkey Man” last night and considering the magnificent films I’ve watched in this calendar year hence far (“All Of Us Strangers”, “Spaceman”, “The Zone of Interest”, “The Holdovers”, “Poor Things”, “Dune Part 2”, “Anatomy of a Fall”, “Society of the Snow”) please consider this as very high praise indeed and particularly so considering this is Dev Patel’s bow in the cinematic director’s chair.
For those aware of the English actor and now film director, well you’ve never seen him like this before! I’ve followed Patel’s television and film career for over 17 years since his debut in the slowly building mega TV hit “Skins” (2007–2008) and before focussing entirely on the big screen of the cinema can I heartily recommend to you the cruelly cut short TV show “The Newsroom” (2012–2014) which should have run and run and with far more than merely 3 seasons. I’d like to believe this show hit a nerve within the Establishment as it sailed rather close to the wind in its depictions of real life news events and this may have contributed to its early demise, but I’m a dreamer, and I’m not the only one. Patel was an integral if junior member of the newsroom team headed by a spectacular performance of distanced irritation from a Don Quixote quoting Jeff Daniels but alas, “The Newsroom” bit the dust far, far too early.
With perfect numerical symmetry, Patel has 16 big screen acting credits to his name across his 16 year acting career to date which commenced in 2008 in the multi, multi Oscar winning Danny Boyle directed “Slumdog Millionaire” before two separate trips to “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, appearances in three films notable as being the filmmaker’s directorial debut, the third of which “Lion” in 2016 broke my damn heart at the cinema and on every subsequent re-watch since, and before breaking his directorial duck here has worked with cinema luminaries such as M Night Shyamalan (“The Last Airbender”), John Madden (“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”), Neill Blomkamp (“Chappie), Michael Winterbottom (“The Wedding Guest”) as well as a particular favourite director of mine Wes Anderson on his short film “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” last year.
So I settled down last evening knowing next to nothing about “Monkey Man” having seen zero trailers or read any in depth reviews and as I hope my rather grand pronouncement to Twitter conveys, I was blown away.
Number 2
All Of Us Strangers
Ripped my heart out and threw it onto a broken table
Director Andrew Haigh’s fifth cinematic offering has long been on my “can’t wait to watch” list and so I knew what to expect last evening as I turned out the lights, made not a single note in my trusty journal and as the sub-title of this article makes rather plain, I had my heart ripped out and thrown onto an already broken table. Something happens on 50 minutes that broke me. Ten minutes later another *something* happens that is so incredibly beautifully innocent yet it ripped me into pieces and quite frankly by the ending credits and the first strains of “The Power of Love” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, I was an inconsolable mess.
Blimey.
I was expecting the love affair and the quirky innocence (I may not have made any notes last evening but the theme of innocence and being innocent kept running through my mind) and of a “Back to the Future” style time shift, but I saw echoes of Duncan Jones’ “Source Code”, a brilliantly off-putting fragment from David Fincher’s “Fight Club” and more than a ghost like presence from M Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense” too. Spoilers prevent my fuller explanation but another sheer beauty of this film is the many tangential webs you can weave as you interpret the tale being told, the memories it jogs, the smiles it induces, the remembrance of a death of a loved one, those last conversations never had, the desperate desire and longing to be with someone, if only for one, final time.
Blimey.
I was also expecting the every day ordinariness of a shattered ghost like figure of a man entering a realm of other ghosts after catching the Duncan Jones/Robert Zemeckis train ride back in time. But then another *something* happens and you really have to pull yourself together now as the film still has 20 minutes to go before “The Power of Love” and if you’re not in pieces by now you will be come the film’s inversion, note not a reveal but an inversion: of a broken man seeking peace bestowing that very human desire upon the ghosts of a past, present, and a back to the future.
I just wasn’t expecting this beautiful ghost story to hit home as hard as it did.
Number 1 (and only just pipping All Of Us Strangers…)
The Substance
“Please give me a better version of myself”
The Substance is The Fly meets The Elephant Man in the Overlook Hotel as we all eat ourselves to death in pursuit of the fame we can’t fully appreciate à la Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige
I posted the above somewhat pithy brief review to my Twitter channel in the immediate aftermath of watching this incredible body horror shocker from French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat and director of 2017’s Revenge. I also began and concluded my brief take with the words “My Goodness” as well as wishing any readers of my post a cheery “Good Luck!” if they intended to watch this film as, well, they’re going to need it!
My son certainly did as he joined me for my second viewing of the film in less than 24 hours and a film that whilst I could not be more effusive with my praise, my beautiful son could not hide his bashful and shy nature at the prolonged scenes of full on nudity before, with fully 30 minutes still remaining of this 141 minute film, shouted playfully:
“OH PLEASE MAKE IT STOP. I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!”
When you reach the film’s denouement, perhaps you’ll have a similar reaction but trust me, you still haven’t seen anything yet! Which is of course a huge compliment to director Coralie Fargeat and should this film take off and find the huge audience it deserves, expect a slew of awards coming the way of the director (also credited for the screenplay as well as both editor and producer) British composer Raffertie for his spine shaking musical score, Benjamin Kracun for his pin sharp cinematography, the vast teams within both production and set design and particularly the sound department because whomever is credited with the sound design of this film deserves enormous, enormous kudos.
Even before we begin with what I hope will be an enticement to watch a film my son couldn’t wait to end…I don’t make the comparisons to Cronenberg’s The Fly or David Lynch’s Elephant Man lightly, nor the orange walled corridors of Kubrick’s The Shining, but I do hope I’m somewhat singularly on my own with an assertion that Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige plays a part here too with a creator unable to fully enjoy or appreciate their own creation. It’s a stretch but a good one I feel, as are the individual scenes that reminded me of a certain panic filled segment of Pulp Fiction, there’s also the repetitive nature of Groundhog Day and particularly the jolting close up use of an eyeball that conjured Darren Aronofsky’s depressingly beautiful masterpiece Requiem for a Dream. There’s also a short segment mid-film that reminded me of Aronofsky’s film from a quarter of a century ago. I noted too the obvious comparisons: to Alien, Jekyll and Hyde, Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Thing and Frankenstein. There are many, many more way in excess of my film and cinema knowledge.
All I’ll add further before we finally begin is The Substance has been on my mind since a very early morning first viewing, an eagerly awaited second viewing hours later with my horror film loving son, and it may well have usurped Dev Patel’s Monkey Man as my favourite film released and watched in this calendar year to date.
The Substance is in exalted company, even if my son couldn’t wait for it to end!
So there we have my Top 10 films for the year 2024. I hope I’ve enticed you to watch a film or three that’s been on your mind or individual “watch list” for some time, and I hope you enjoyed the chocolate biscuits.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my two self-published books during December 2024. Both are free to read if you subscribe to Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” or reasonably priced in both paperback and hardback. Go on, treat yourself or a loved one and help out an Indie Author! Buy the books if you’re financially able to.
We HAVE to keep the spirit of reading books alive and well.
Thanks.
"My Ironbridge Summer" - link to Amazon
"still life, with gooseberry" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.