After a week off to craft a spooky story for the NYC Midnight Short Story Competition, it’s time for the final installment of my look back at the year just past and highlight some of my favorite, or just most interesting, media I consumed (not necessarily new, but new to me). It’s time to talk about some movies  . . .

I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

You remember that episode of The Pink Opaque where . . .. No, of course you don’t, but if you’re any kind of genre fan, you’ve started a conversation that way about Babylon 5 or Buffy or whatever. This movie taps into that shared obsession, with two characters bonding over their love of the fictional The Pink Opaque (long ago in the past where a printed episode guide plays a role). What spools out though goes far beyond a TV show to deal with issues of self, identity, and shared experiences. It also has some scenes that completely freaked me out in the best way (including a superlong monologue that shouldn’t work, but really does). Do I understand it on all the levels other people do? Almost certainly not. Still one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time.

Rebel Ridge (2024)

“Semi-action movie about civil asset forfeiture” is a hell of an elevator pitch. It’s down to stars Aaron Pierre and Don Johnson (you heard right) that it works so well. Pierre plays a man who comes to a small Alabama town to pay his brother’s bond – in cash. It’s seized by the cops who classify it as drug proceeds. This is a real thing. The frustrations Pierre experiences pretty well match reality, before things get thrillier the closer to the end we get. There’s some violence, but it’s doled out well and this isn’t a pure-bred action movie. Stay away if you just want to see Pierre kick ass; watch it if you want a pretty clever interrogation of a problematic practice that, somehow, manages to even make the cops pretty well rounded in the end.

The Zone of Interest (2023)

It’s hard to imagine a more somber, only-watch-it-once kind of film. A slice of life about a German family who happen to live across the wall from Auschwitz (in the titular “zone of interest”). Dad’s the commandant. The bold choice of director Jonathan Glazer is that what goes on over the wall is never directly shown, but the sound designed is punctuated with sounds of terror and cruelty that make it unmistakable. What does it say about the commandant and family that this appears to be their dream home? Nothing good, of course. A harrowing watch, but worth it one time.

Blow Out (1981)

If you ever wanted a movie that showed you how people had to edit sound recordings in the pre-digital era, this is it. John Travolta plays a sound guy for low-budget horror films who, while out one night trying to get some good sounds, accidentally records the murder of a sitting governor and presidential hopeful in a car crash. There’s a damsel in distress and a lot of leg work that goes into putting together the pieces, all of which zings with energy and down-to-earth competence. That Travolta winds up right where he started just makes it all the more perfect.

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

I’m a sucker for a courtroom drama – so how about one set in a courtroom that is so foreign to my common-law system experience that it was like science fiction? I mean, that’s not the only great thing about this movie, a clever did-she-do-it (there’s no doubt it was either her or an accident) that spends just as much time in the home where the death happens as it does in the French courtroom. Some of it – particularly the round-table out-of-sequence questioning of the defendant – is so odd that I had to do some reading afterwards to see how realistic it was (pretty accurate, within the bounds of dramatic license, or so I read). Did she do it? I’m not sure anybody knows (the lead actress, if I recall correctly, said she didn’t know!).