3. Love Lies Bleeding, Rose Glass
"Love Lies Bleeding" is a Coens-esque aural and visual subversion of the ‘80s and early ‘90s muscle worship fad that takes the face of objectification and launches it into an intense and sexual every-shot-counts experience not felt since Gosling and Refn vibed and stomped to Kavinsky in 2011. Meanwhile perennial contender Ed Harris completes his “Creepshow” journey from “Dammit Janet” Brad-type to a Cryptkeeper-like primed to ask for his cake, and the instantly eye-catching beefbabe Katy O’Brian plays Adora to the ever-captivating Kristen Stewart’s Catra. A must for anyone harboring fond memories of oiled triceps on bottom-shelf VHS covers.
In the form of a paranormal intrigue piece, “Presence” is a rawly naturalistic family drama about how tightly or loosely we hold on as we parent our children. Ingeniously utilizing the point-of-view gimmick in this form renders our perspective itself an emotionally piercing character and incidentally removes much of our usual awareness that what we’re watching is contrived. This shows through the marriage of story and execution that after more than a century of scripted narrative in film, cinema can still provide revelation if you’re curious enough to discover and deliver it.
After Fox' take-'em-or-leave-'em "Deadpool" movies, Disney has folded in the property like World Wrestling Entertainment welcoming back Cody Rhodes - with free rein to be purely itself undeterred by the otherwise stringent guidelines for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Gift to the fans "Deadpool & Wolverine" does so much a major franchise installment should not, and delivers such a clamorously good time breaking rules it raises the question as to whether it is but a one-off novelty. The threequel truly wins, however, by never breaking its own rule of focusing on characters strong enough they manage to generate bittersweet nostalgia for the freakin' "X-Men" movies. Though Marvel isn't in nearly as much trouble right now as the seemingly infinite clickbait links would have you believe, new life has now been breathed into its near-future potential. I have geek diabetes now.
If you’ve enjoyed momentarily engrossing yet ultimately boiled-down drama like “The Cooler” and “The Clearing”, or even Woody Allen murder mysteries like “Match Point” and “Cassandra’s Dream” - so, basically, prestige aughts intrigue just indie enough to be considered indie - “Knox Goes Away” is explicitly for you. Nothin’ fancy, just plain good storytelling. Keaton holds it together solid as a goddamned rock.
It's practically upsetting how good at this whole moviemaking thing Baker is. "Anora" makes for one hell of a meet-cute as it keeps us dreading a looming dark turn before it veers into charming screwball comedy territory instead. Mikey Madison is a star. And so is the Baker regular who played Toros, honestly.
"In a Violent Nature" is the “Friday the 13th Part 2” that wasn’t. The same year the cruel gonzo of Art the Clown entered the vogue, Nash shows that what makes 1980s slashers endure to this day is still understood. While the core conceit flips our perspective, the classic archetypes are solidly in place with their spatial logistics played with just enough to tickle. Only seldom misstepping from their thick environmental ambience and voiceover-facilitated story-building to employ distracting digital image stabilization and a couple instances of unnecessary flashback, the filmmakers deliver the same sort of fun and occasionally adorable hilarity the legitimate Jason Voorhees specialized in.
Complete 2024 rankings on Letterboxd (subject to change).
