For the last few years, I have been predicting that change has been on the horizon for Hollywood, due to the marshalling of a range of factors – AI, streaming wars, lean economic times, social upheaval, ever reducing box office returns and a lack of new ideas – but the sweeping change I keep hinting at has not come. I finished my summary of film in 2023 saying that 2024 looks likely to be similar to 2023 and that prediction turned out to be largely accurate. Certainly, there is nothing on the horizon that heralds a sea change in cinema.
My year in the cinema began poorly, with seeing the embarrassingly mediocre Next Goal Wins on New Year’s Day. Taika Waititi’s charm didn’t light up the screen this time, and even a strong performance from Michael Fassbender couldn’t save this film. Later in the year, a series of high-profile films at the BFI London Film Festival received bad reviews, from a new Elton John documentary to Amy Adams’s Nightbitch, further adding a feeling of cinema malaise.
One crucial difference in 2024 was fewer superhero blockbusters. This added to the feeling of the year being a cinematic non-event. Marvel were on a break, following lacklustre box office in 2023. Their only release, Deadpool and Wolverine, was a big commercial success and managed to take the postmodern humour of Deadpool to new heights; with Ryan Renyolds delivering a looney tunes-esque comedic performance, perfectly offset by Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine as straight man. It was very funny, but this is the end of the road for this zany, meta style of humour and to make more of these films would result in rapidly diminishing returns.
This fortnight, time for another of Nick and Alastair’s famously non-festive Christmas specials as they cover Arcane season 2 and Blitz!
This fortnight, Nick and Alastair investigate two keenly-anticipated follow-ups with Gladiator II and The Diplomat season 2!
Lastly, following a mere one year’s wait, it’s The Diplomat season 2 (27:45), to further investigate whether this truly is the West Wing of the 2020s.
This fortnight, Nick and Alastair explore another comic book supervillain origin in The Penguin, and encounter a more grounded yet also more horrific villain in Heretic.
But they fully predicted the sadness involved in Heretic (32:30), a new horror movie starring Hugh Grant in another great villainous turn.
At long last, Nick and Alastair bring you our Marvel villain/antihero spinoff special – it’s Agatha All Along and Venom: The Last Dance!
Lastly, it’s time to end an epic saga of gooey romance with Venom: The Last Dance (40:45). Can it possibly live up to the sheer stupidity of Let There Be Carnage?
This fortnight, Nick and Alastair take on the fourth season of their beloved Slow Horses and new British indie scifi movie Timestalker.
This fortnight, Nick and Alastair take on two recent movies: Joker: Folie a Deux and Rebel Ridge . One has been extremely well received, the other has not.
And last of all, they watch recent Netflix action movie Rebel Ridge (43:10), from Green Room director Jeremy Saulnier. Can this movie finally make bureaucracy exciting?
This fortnight, Nick and Alastair go hungry with Starve Acre, before tucking in at trendy restaurant The Bear.
Last of all, a few months late thanks to Nick’s busy schedule, it’s The Bear season 3 (36:52) as the titular bistro finally opens and our unsuspecting cast face the full horror of Carmy enacting his dreams.
This fortnight, it’s a weird world as Nick and Alastair watch The Umbrella Academy season 4 and Cuckoo.
And last of all, it’s Cuckoo (33:56), a new movie auditioning for the hotly contested role of this year’s Get Out.
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