I’m not exactly sure why but I watched a lot less movies this year than I have in past years. I find I don’t really care though as I am no longer as concerned now about quantity as I have been. I have a lot of things I like to do on the weekends and only one of them is movie watching so perhaps I spent more time catching up on the records I’ve purchased this year, I dunno. Whatever. Lookit April, though; I watched only 9 movies that month and only 10 in July. What the heck? The total number this year looks to be about 225, down some 60 from last year.

I got to the theatre 10 times this year, one up from last year. And again this year, the results varied. By some margin, the highpoint was A Complete Unknown, seen in the waning moments of the year. I feel like Butler as Presley has raised the stakes on icon portrayal and it is no surprise that the excellent Timothée Chalamet worked with the same team of vocal and movement coaches Butler did with similarly pleasing results. On the other end of the music biopic spectrum was Bob Marley: One Love, a film that seemingly serves as a metaphor for ganja; it was limp, languid and lifeless and made me want to eat chips (kidding on the last one). I saw The Fall Guy and while I like Canadian boy Ryan Gosling he ain’t no Lee Majors and the film was too concerned with love. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and The Bikeriders were much better and M. Night Shyamalan righted the ship after Knock at the Cabin with Trap shot right here in Toronto – although the final act could’ve been better. Joker: Folie a Deux and Megalopolis were blah but “big entertainment” but great compared to maybe the biggest lowlight of the year. More on that later.

I re-watched Death Hunt and first-time watched Action Jackson (1988) in the wake of the death of Carl Weathers and I re-watched Gidget Goes Hawaiian (first time on Blu-ray) and first-time watched Venus in Furs (Tubi) after James Darren passed. I dug into a large Jerry Lewis set I bought awhile back at a garage sale. I thought Jerry was too goofy for me but I enjoyed the two I watched – The Delicate Delinquent and The Bellboy – and for now Jerry may be my new New Year’s Day viewing taking over from Matt Helm.

I was happy to finally add articles on three more of my favourite films, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz for it’s 50th anniversary, Big Wednesday (1978) and Valentino Returns (1989). The plan is to get all my faves documented here at Vintage Leisure. I also dished on the European adventures of Tony King, James Garner and little Deb Paget in our Once Upon a Time series. There’ll be more fun film talk in the new year.

I made it through 20 movies of my Cinema 74 Film Festival and these, too, ran the gamut from great to lousy, there were some highlights and some lowlights. I enjoyed Airport 1975, Newman’s Law with George Peppard and Gold starring Roger Moore. Billy Two Hats, a western starring Gregory Peck and Desi Arnaz, Jr. was pretty good as was Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (what an ending!) and I was pleasantly surprised by Claudine featuring beautiful Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones like I’ve never seen him. No doubt you’ve read my Book Logs: 2024 article already in which I talk about finally allowing myself to pull the plug on a book I’m not enjoying. Well, that extended to movies this year, as well. Once, at least. For Cinema 74 I started watching Dark Star but couldn’t bear it. John Carpenter’s directorial debut, it had been recommended to me by The Video Archives Podcast and was available on Tubi but dang it was terrible. I’m all about the bonkers 70s but…

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SoulRide Picks

Nyad (2023) — Odd for me to have this brand new film as a favourite of the year. On my friend’s recommendation, I watched this on Netflix (shocker; they had something I wanted to watch) only weeks after it had been released. This is the story of Diana Nyad who made multiple attempts to swim the Florida Straits while in her 60s. I was open to watching mostly due to my admiration of stars Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, both of whom were nominated for Academy Awards for their work. It was not only a compelling story with fine performances but the film had a bright glow to it that looked even more so to my black-and-white-watching eyes. I watched this one early – January 11th – and it held its exalted position all year.

The Razor’s Edge (1946) — Sometimes I feel bad, a bit like a traitor. I sometimes wish I watched more film from the Forties. It’s easy for me to forget that the 40s is where I came in with classic movies and sometimes I get to missing discovering unwatched films from that decade. There on my Yet to Be Watched Shelf sat the DVD of The Razor’s Edge and one night in February I pulled it down. I got a good, old fashioned 1940s Movie Night out of it but much more than that. Somerset Maugham’s story of a man searching is dense with great performances and is a sprawling and compelling look at what can happen when one looks out over the horizon. Larry Darrell’s journey had much impact on me and Tyrone Power – perhaps classic Hollywood’s most handsome man – rose in my estimation.

Dream Lover (1993) — This year I spent many weeks watching Twin Peaks – I bought the whole series at a garage sale for a quarter; that’s twenty-five cents! – and I became smitten with Mädchen Amick. Looking her up, I came across this title available to me through the magic of Tubi. Elia’s boy, Nicholas Kazan, wrote and directed this erotic thriller that starred Amick and James Spader. Aside from views of the leading lady, I had little expectations and so I was pleasantly surprised by a tight, psychological thrill ride. I was invested in Spader’s plight and could feel his pain and the path the film would take was not always clear which is a sign of a well-realized script. I do so love to find these diamonds where you least expect them.

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Other highlights include: I feel like I need to bring back the western to my regular viewing rotation and Randolph Scott’s Comanche Station reminded me of this. Scott’s films with Budd Boetticher are great; bright, brief and brilliant. I was a year late getting to 1973’s The Seven-Ups but it was thrilling with a harrowing car chase orchestrated by the guy who raced with McQueen in Bullitt and then I followed Ty Power’s Larry Darrell on something of a journey myself. In the spring – when the land opens up, as Kerouac would say – I finally watched Sean Penn’s Into the Wild. It was good and it fed my desire to explore – even if it is just through film and other media – the “other side” or the road less traveled or alternate ways of living. Or simply just the massive appeal of escaping. Searching for similar films, I came across The Way, a movie directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his father, Martin Sheen. Depicting those who walk the Camino de Santiago, a network of pilgrimages that lead to a shrine in Spain, this is an interesting film that again shows a certain form of escapism but adds the spiritual need one will sometimes feel to take such a journey. Or any journey. The film – another brought to me by Tubi – has a depth while maintaining a sense of humour amid life’s challenges.

I finally saw No Country for Old Men and liked it, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the 1988 miniseries version of The Bourne Identity on VHS and another surprise was an unknown film starring Jack Lemmon. I took a flyer and bought the soundtrack to The April Fools on vinyl – weird ’cause I had never even heard of the film – and so then I sought out the movie. It was cleverly scripted to legitimately depict a couple leaving their spouses for each other. Marty Scorsese’s Silence had been on my list and when I found it on DVD I thought I was meant to view it – though it took some bravery to tackle this film with it’s subject matter and length, Sail a Crooked Ship (1961) I watched due to it’s sterling cast and as a bonus I got a real charge out of its zany comedy, the same month I was enchanted by pixie Goldie Hawn in the film version of the play Butterflies Are Free (1972), Halloween provided some chills with the surprisingly excellent Black Christmas (Cinema 74) and the first half-hour of Carol Kane in When a Stranger Calls blew my mind, sneaky-good and well-made was the early Christian film Time to Run (1973) and I was captivated by the doc Jay Sebring….Cutting to the Truth which I watched on Tubi twice in a couple days’ time. I went on a film-watching binge during the last week of the year and was thrilled by a proper first-time viewing of How the West Was Won and by the startling The Truman Show, a film that said much to me about the desire to burst forth from the constraints of life. It – and those listed below – earned 4 stars or more on Letterboxd.

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Other Highly Rated First-Time Watches of 2024

• Island in the Sky (1953)
• Inception (2010)
• Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010)
• The Conversation (1974)
• Bad Influence (1990)
• Midnight Cowboy (1969)
• On the Beach (1959)
• The Everly Brothers: Harmonies From Heaven (2016)
• Twin Peaks (pilot, 1989)
• Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
• The Rock (1996)
• Bat*21 (1988)

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Walk-Out Worthy

Maestro (2023) — I like Bradley Cooper – though I’m not sure why anymore. He has directed two films now and both have made me want to throw myself out the window. The narrative trajectory of the first three-quarters of this film seemed so broken that I barely could keep my head around what was happening. Maybe I’m too old school to understand the current state of film but this just seemed wrong to me. A stellar and harrowing performance by Carey Mulligan in the final acts saved this from being a total bust.

The Lords of Flatbush (1974) — Last year I spoke of being ashamed to have never seen Miller’s Crossing and of how disappointed I was with the film. This year for Cinema 74 I finally saw on VHS this movie I should’ve seen years ago. With Stallone and Henry Winkler in leather jackets, this was the missing piece of Fifties resurgence from the 70s I had yet to see and it was directed by Martin Davidson, the man who gave me Eddie and the Cruisers. All the indications were there and yet this was terrible. There are films about nothing that I love, sure, but ya gotta give me something. Maybe now I will learn to never feel bad having not seen a film I think I should have.

Here (2024) — Asteroid City. Killers of the Flower Moon. And now this. Apparently I need to be very careful going to the theatre in this day and age. This one seemed a no-brainer and I saw it out of respect for the team that blessed me with Forrest Gump. It was a cool feeling early on when I said to myself “ahhh, the camera is not gonna move”; fun to not know that going in. But then, sadly, the movie continued. Here’s my beef and I’ll call on my Letterboxed review. This film is infected with a deadly poison. The problem stems from the fact that you cannot watch this film as an uninvolved bystander. The movie is designed to draw you in to its relatable depiction of life and so therefore it is meant to be viewed with your heart and soul. You have no choice but to be invested here because it is about life. So, now that the film has got you, it proceeds to pummel you, leaving you bereft of one important thing we all need – hope. “Nobody really wins. This is a tale about the rewards of life being far outweighed by the sacrifices and the struggles” This film offers no joy. Life is depicted as “relentless, stark, bleak”. I was frankly shocked by this film that I called unsympathetic, vicious and cruel.

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Other lowlights include: Carl Weathers was ill-served by the cartoonish Action Jackson, One Love took an interesting life and made it boring, Spring Break (1983) was stupid in the extreme as was the ridiculous though daring Zardoz (Cinema 74) featuring an underdressed Sean Connery, I’m still wanting to see all the Clints but True Crime on VHS was a real disappointment, I didn’t expect much from The Philadelphia Experiment even with my man Michael Paré and, sure enough, I got a very poor movie but the bigger letdown was Wolfs. The much-heralded re-teaming of Clooney and Pitt just didn’t have anything to say or to show me – aside from the two stars looking spectacular. Barely any story and zero action. Could’ve been great. Action Jackson and Savage Island (1985) were the lowest-rated films of the year, barely registering at half-a-star.

Lowest Rated First-Time Watches of 2024

• Action Jackson (1988)
• The Lords of Flatbush (1974)
• Cannibal Apocalypse (1980)
• Spring Break (1983)
• Zardoz (1974)
• Savage Island (1985)
• Over the Top (1987)
• The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)
• The Evil That Men Do (1984)
• Bora Bora (1968)
• The Haunted House of Horror (1969)
• The Union (2024)
• Here (2024)