That Time of Year

Year-end lists are proliferating. Click bait explodes so that we can re-experience the best new restaurants, most impactful technological breakthroughs or the craziest Housewife moments of the last 12 months (had to be the lunchtime brawl in New Jersey). Who am I to buck this trend? So here goes.

Best Movies Watched in 2024:

10. Infernal Affairs/L.A. Confidential – Two diverse films from different countries that show how much drama, tension and creativity can still be wrought from within the over-done world of the police.

9. Godzilla Minus One/Tetsuo the Iron Man – Divergent Japanese takes on the Monster genre. One affirming that you can make a Godzilla film where you actually care about the people as much as you do about the big lizard. The other going off the surrealistic deep end to show what a monster man can be. Both great fun.

8. Carnival of Souls – Somehow, I had never seen this small, unsettling horror gem. Now that I have it will be hard to get out of my mind.  

7. Playtime – Jacques Tati is unmatched in wringing comedic chaos out of the modern world, and he never did it better than in this film.

6. The Host/Memories of Murder – Early films of Bong Joon-ho that demonstrate what a master he is in creating memorable characters. I cannot wait for his new film.

5. Speed Racer/Heat – These should really be termed Best Movie Theater Experiences. Speed Racer is not a movie I would recommend you watch at home on TV. However, if you get to see it on the Big Screen in a packed theater do not hesitate. The non-stop buzz is visceral. Heat is a much better movie, and well worth seeing in any setting, but in a crowded theater you can feel the tension both on the screen and in those around you.

4. Conclave/Dune: Part 2 – These were the best of the 2024 mainstream movies that I saw this year. Both should generate Oscar buzz. Both deserve it.

3. Certified Copy/Seed of the Sacred Fig – I continue to be amazed by the vibrant movies emerging from Iran. Over the last few years, I have seen film after film from that troubled country that are as powerful as any. Certified Copy is an older one, while Seed of the Sacred Fig is as topical as it could be. Unfortunately, it also sent the Director into exile.

2. Portrait of a Lady on Fire – There is a reason that this movie was ranked so high in the recent Sight and Sound 100 (no. 30). It is beautiful both cinematically and thematically.

1. David Lynch – When I looked at the movies I watched in 2024 (thank you Letterboxd) I realized that it has been a Lynchian year. I saw 7 of his films (Inland Empire, Lost Highway, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Elephant Man, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Twin Peaks: The Return). Most I had seen before, but each had so much to offer that it was like seeing them for the first time.

Best Non-Fiction Read in 2024:

10. An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler (Fritzsche) – By focusing on individuals who find themselves subject to a venal regime, Fritzche illuminates how we cope, or don’t, when the world around us has gone mad.

9. House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution (Slezkine) – Fed my never-ending fascination with the Russian Revolution by going beyond the well-known leaders to illuminate how the apparatchiks who made the revolution lived and what they believed.

8. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies (Russo) – Amazing what lay just below the surface of Golden-Age Hollywood for all to see if you just looked.

7. Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association/Why We Love Baseball: a History in 50 Moments (Pluto/Posnanski) – I read a fair amount of sports books this past year. These were the two best. The insane story of the ABA, which had no right to exist as long as it did, and a paean to Baseball that brings out the essence of the game in vignettes, some well know, some obscure.

6. The Library at Midnight/Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times/Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books (Manguel/Nafisi/Parks) – I am a sucker for books about books.

5. Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Riot of 1971 and It’s Legacy (Thompson) – I love when books reveal the relevance of something that happened a while ago and it makes you so angry you want to scream, though it’s not necessarily good for my blood pressure.

4. The Blood of Emmett Till (Tyson) – See last comment.

3. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (Keefe) – See last two comments.

2. Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel (Ephron) – A good argument can be made that the last real chance of peace in the Middle East died with Rabin and this book makes it well.

1. Time’s Echo: Music, Memory and the Second World War (Eichler) – The intersection of art and tragedy resonate in this exploration of post-WWII works by four very different composers from very different backgrounds – Strauss, Schoenberg, Britton and Shostakovich. The result is breathtaking.

Best Fiction Read in 2024:

10. Children of Time/Ancillary Justice (Tchaikovsky/Leckie) – This was a year for Science Fiction. These two stood out. As with all great Sci Fi, both created a unique world and incorporated themes that went beyond that world into ours.

9. The Three Body Problem (Liu) – There is a reason this book was embraced. It was thoughtful and unique, though it’s strongest asset might have been its setting in Communist China.

8. The Neon Rain (Burke) – Nothing like a taut thriller that with an interesting lead Detective battling corruption and many levels of crime.

7. My Brilliant Friend (Ferrante) – While this is not my normal genre, the characters and cultural setting made this a wonderful read.

6. Life: A User’s Manual (Perec) – A sharp veer into modernism that was challenging in so many ways but rewarding in just as many.

5.  Zorba the Greek (Kazantzakis) – Few books celebrate life as much as this one does by presenting a lead character that is wholly unforgettable.

4. Circe (Miller) – Focusing on a side character in a familiar story seems to be a trend. It is especially perilous to do so by drawing on an epoch like the Odyssey, but Miller makes it work.

3. Nobody Walks (Herron) – Any fan of the Slow Horses series knows that Herron can create an engrossing set of characters and place them in compelling situations with numerous twists. He doesn’t disappoint here.

2. The Glass Bees (Junger) – Almost prescient in its depiction of a future where the technological dwarves and perverts the human.

1. Cloud Cuckoo Land (Doerr) – Pulls off the difficult task of blending three stories from different times, without losing the intensity of each, eventually drawing them together. A captivating read.