This is it: The Top Ten First Watches of 2024!

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Moving forward, reviews will be exclusively on YouTube but I will be working on what I will do on the feed, possibly a weekly podcast rounding up what I reviewed and other things I'd like to talk about.

Thank you again for listening and I hope you have a great 2025!

Wiz RECOMMENDS Holiday Inn...But It's Not A Christmas Movie

I came into Holiday Inn under the pretense of "I watched White Christmas last year and liked it...and this is a remake of Holiday Inn...so I'll watch Holiday Inn to compare the two!"

Well...there's a few problems with this mode of thinking.

FIrst: White Christmas is a loose remake of Holiday Inn...and loose is the key word here.

The only things that both films have in common are Bing Crosby and it's set in a country inn. That's it.

In fact, even though it's considered a holiday classic...Holiday Inn is not a Christmas movie. Hell, scenes during Christmas is only in the beginning and end of the film.

This essentially means that comparing the two films to each other is kind of pointless. So, yeah, making this the final review of the year before Christmas feels like a mistake. Whoops.

Anyway, Holiday Inn is a cute film that has some great aspects to it.

Firstly, the dancing with Fred Astaire is really good.

Yeah...I know, Fred Astaire, good dancer...who knew right?

But seeing him and Marjorie Reynolds go at it in some of the dancing scenes (especially the drunken party scene) are really fun and astounding to watch.

Another good aspect of the film is Bing Crosby's singing. Yes...I know, Bing Crosby is a good singer...stop the presses.

Though not all of the singing numbers are good (the Lincoln's Birthday one is not great...even when considering it as a "sign of the times"), some of them are enjoyable, especially "White Christmas" and the beginning number.

So the primary things are pretty damn solid for a musical to work: great dancing, good music.

But the film isn't a cavalcade of singing and dance numbers, there's actually a story there.

And honestly, the story is okay at best.

The competitiveness of the two main male leads is kind of weird considering one really hates the other (for good reason), so when he returns to go after his love interest for the film, it still seems kind of odd he will let him be there.

But on top of that, neither character is all that likable. Both are manipulative and conniving which makes it pretty hard to sympathize with Crosby's character when he's doing all this stuff to jeopardize Reynolds' character's career.

But taking those aspects away from the romance, the chemistry between Reynolds and Crosby is kind of average at best.

This has more to do with Crosby than Reynolds but it's clear the actors were hired for their dancing and musical talents then their acting abilities.

This doesn't lead to an unenjoyable film; it just leads to an average one when the music and dancing isn't on screen.

And I guess that is what makes this film disappointingly enjoyable when compared to the great time I had last year with White Christmas: it's a fun movie that I wouldn't object to watching again...but it's an enjoyable time waster at best.

Zero and Wiz RECOMMEND Three Days of the Condor

Sometimes you watch a movie and you just enjoy it even though there are glaring issues with the finished product.

This was my exact feeling finishing Three Days of the Condor, Sydney Pollack's paranoia thriller about a CIA reader (Robert Redford) who comes back from lunch finding his entire team assassinated.

The movie is actually entertaining: it's a twisty thriller that makes you wonder whether the main character will make it out alive.

The plot goes along at a decent clip hitting beats of the plot and providing new information as the film moves forward.

The mystery aspects, along with the governmental spook plotline, makes it enjoyable...though I can't really say I was excited or enthralled by what I was watching.

As for performances, Max von Sydow's quiet and clever performance as a freelance assassin. He plays him as elusive, somewhat creepy and seasoned and Sydow is easily the most interesting of the characters in the film.

But there was one element of the film that made me almost not recommend it and that's everything to do with the character played by Faye Dunaway.

Essentially, Dunaway plays a character that is kidnapped by the main character, tied up and gagged at some point...then becomes romantically interested in him soon after.

It's actually rather appalling to watch one minute where she is scared and was tied up in the bathroom with him barking orders....only to then minutes later be in a sex scene that is portrayed as loving and romantic with a soft camera look.

And then...for some god awful reason....she decides to help him!

Maybe this is me injecting "modern values" in a film but it seems incredibly strange that someone who was terrified for her life one day...is falling for her captor the next day.

And before you ask, the film isn't that deep to be portraying her as someone going through Stockholm Syndrome.

Here's the thing though: if you are able to just turn your brain off and just enjoy the spy plotline, Three Days of the Condor is a decently entertaining film.

It's just odd to watch a film that deals with its espionage elements somewhat intelligently only to completely blunder with a key character.

Wiz RECOMMENDS Tangerine

I've heard about Tangerine for nearly a decade now.

But there's a few things that get mentioned about the film whenever I hear about it: it's about transsexual sex workers and it was shot on three iPhone 5s'.

But unless you pay real close attention (and I mean REAL CLOSE ATTENTION) you won't be able to tell. Tangerine takes the seedy, grimy L.A. setting and gives it a vivid, striking color grading.

There are scenes with neon, sunlight and even fluorescent lighting that have a vibrancy that contrasts with the ugliness of the area it's shot in.

In fact, it feels like the grimier the areas, the more colorful the setting feels. Pay special attention to scenes with back alleys and hotel rooms to see some of the more beautifully shot scenes in the muckiness.

As for the story, Sean Baker strikes a relatively good balance in keeping things humorous while also showing the humanity and compassion of the main character Sin-Dee.

The simple plot, Sin-Dee wants to confront her pimp boyfriend Chester when she finds out he's cheating on him with a woman, shows the character in both her comedically outrageous ways while also showing her deeper, sensitive side later on.

This is helped further by Kitana Kiki Rogriduez' performance as Sin-Dee. For her first (and as of right now only) performance, she strikes a perfect tone on the character that makes you laugh at her while also feeling for her, especially at the end of the film.

But I have one sizable gripe for the film: it should have cut some of the characters or time spent on those characters.

Alexandria, the person that Sin-Dee finds out what Chester did, could have easily been a character that you only see when it involves Sin-Dee on screen because she really didn't add much more.

But the one character that could have easily been cut was Razmik, a cab driver who's attracted to tranny prostitutes, played by Karren Karagulian.

Honestly, whether it's his family drama or him trying to pick up a prostitute for a quickie, it really just felt like a complete distraction from what the main plot is.

On top of that, with such a sensitive portrayal of Alexandria and Sin-Dee, it felt odd to treat this character who is attracted to these characters as a comedic relief.

It leaves this weird juxtaposition of trying to humanize Sin-Dee and Alexandria while making comedy of the fact that Razmik is attracted to them. For this oddity alone, this character could have been severely reduced or cut entirely.

It honestly leaves me conflicted with what exactly the filmmaker wants you to feel at the end of the film.

That leaves me with giving it a smaller recommendation than I would have liked to give.

The sensitive and funny portrayal of the lives of these prostitutes are well done and makes you empathize with their problems and the film is beautifully shot in its minimalist, shaky style.

It's just sad that a film feels like it could be trimmed more to hone in its story even in its very slight 90 minute runtime.

Wiz DOES NOT RECOMMEND Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (But You Should Probably See It Anyway)

I may struggle to convey how odd Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is.

This Finnish genre blender incorporates a whole load of genre and film sensibilities:

And here's the thing. As you can tell, I am not recommending this film.

However, I can't say it's a bad film.

On the contrary, the things that this movie is incorporating in it's story is pretty good. The horror and thriller aspects of the film are done well enough. The fantasy elements are mixed well with the setting. And even the Christmas elements are interesting.

But the mix of all these elements just didn't gel well with me.

Even though the film is about 75 minutes long, Rare Exports feels like it drags along. The "reveal" of what's going on doesn't happen until 45 minutes in, where the story is more about a frayed relationship between a widower dad and his son.

And when the reveal happens, it goes into this more Michael Bay/Roland Emmerich style of story that honestly had me rolling my eyes more than being invested.

But the odd thing is that the concept of the film is actually interesting: a buried evil Santa that captures children sounds like a great time. But for me, I honestly sat there puzzled with what I was watching.

The thing is though, Rare Exports isn't a bad movie: it's just a movie that didn't hit me very well.

Rare Exports feels like a love/hate: some are going to be like and wonder what in the hell did they just watch.

Others will adore it, champion it and put it on it's rotation of Christmas movies to watch every year.

It feels like I'm copping out a little, but as much as I don't recommend the film simply because I didn't enjoy it, I can fully see that there will be some that will love it.

I guess what I'm saying is if this interests you, give it a shot, even if I didn't like it.

Zero and Wiz RECOMMEND Edward Scissorhands

Combining a gothic horror monster with a 1950s aesthetic and sensibility, Edward Scissorhands takes this odd mash-up and turns it into an allegorical story on being an outsider and the vapidness of suburban life.

Edward has Johnny Depp as the title character who's scarred face, leather and buckle attire hides a very child-like, mousey demeanor. The character, as well as the house he is in, is evocative of classic horror films from the classic Hollywood era with it's exaggerated proportions and drapery of cob webs.

And yet, instead of the characters being instantly terrified of the pasty, scissor mittened monstrosity, they are fascinatingly curious (save for the lady who believes he's a demon).

This leads to the film having an absurdist, almost satirical tone that reminds of "Dennis the Menace" or "Leave It To Beaver" but where the ancillary characters are so paper thin they are used in the joke of the film itself.

It's this tone that makes for the film's most potent laughs, whether it's the knowing ridiculousness of the premise or the way the other characters react to the Edward trying to function in this society he's being thrust in.

But Edward's light tone and unseriousness of the characters is what gives the film the charm to buy in while the meat of the film gets fully digested into the viewer.

What could have easily been a "fish out of water" comedy becomes a thoughtful story on how people treat those who are different and those who are willing to accept them.

With Edward being a character that doesn't speak all that much, it's reliant on the other characters to do the heft of the work and it's Dianne Wiest and Winona Ryder's characters that do a fantastic job of providing it.

Wiest's performance is both hilarious and heartwarming as she plays someone, while buying into the puddle deep intellectual lifestyle of suburban banality, is one of the few who have convictions of kindness and how hard it is to be that way in this setting.

Ryder's character, although not as prominent in the film, also does a great job showing the societal pressures that Edward would have to conform to for acceptance.

The film is beautifully told when sticking to that template, but when the film veers into the romance between Edward and Kim (Ryder's character) it doesn't quite hit the mark.

That said, this is probably a call-back to movies where the ingenue falls for the beast that is capturing her and is not to be taken too deeply, but when the framing device of the film happens to involve that romance it seems like a stumble.

Honestly though, Edward Scissorhands is another example of why I should probably watch more of Burton's older films. After watching Beetlejuice last year and thoroughly enjoying it, it might be high time to give his other films another chance.

But for Edward, great performances and a surprisingly deep story make this more than an absurdist comedy with dark elements.

It's a touching, thoughtful film about society and how skin deep it can be while claiming it's deeper and more profound than it truly is.

Wiz DOES NOT RECOMMEND Arthur Christmas

I understand to a certain extent that critics overrate movies for kids to a certain extent.

The reason why is simple: how are they going to review something meant for kids through a kids perspective? They can't. For the most part, it feels like they review those movies based on how painful it will be for the adult watching it with them.

But honestly, it feels like there is another type of movie that gets overrated even more: Christmas movies.

And with that comes one of Aardman's non-claymation animated feature Arthur Christmas.

Featuring none of the wit, charm and humor of the Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep or Chicken Run movies, this film seems to want to coast on it's creative concept of "Santa with high tech gadgetry".

The problem is that the ingenuity of it is shallow at best. Secret agent elves? Didn't The Santa Clause do that? North Pole as an operation akin to The Pentagon? Yeah, cool...but is that it?

Pare that with a bunch of characters that range from boring to annoying and you have a film that can be strain to sit through.

What's most unfortunate is the most annoying of the characters is the main one: the title character Arthur voiced by James McAvoy. The film tries to play his goofy and clumsy nature as endearing, but he honestly comes off as groan inducing and annoying.

But what is possibly the most disappointing aspect of the film is the animation.

Now, the film doesn't look bad, necessarily. But it lacks the charm and distinctive flavor that Aardman Productions seem to have.

Gone are the witty, charming and expressive eyes and large mouths only to be replaced by plastic looking facial expressions and standard looking animation from CGI films from the 2000s.

It's not necessarily "bad", but it's profoundly average and lacks the detail and care that some of Aardman's films have.

Hell, it lacks some of the expressiveness, color and memorable animation from something like the original Shrek or FInding Nemo.

Arthur Christmas is a cracking disappointment, doubly so since it's considered one of the best modern Christmas movies.

Bland characters and a lack of distinctive flair make this a film that maybe kids will like, but I have a hard time seeing why parents and adults will enjoy this...other than it's a Christmas movie and it's that time of the season.

Wiz RECOMMENDS Klaus

For the first thirty minutes of Klaus, I had the most acute sense of deja vu: did the filmmakers seriously just copy/paste The Emperor's New Groove from the main character to the humor?

Honestly, it sure as hell felt like it: Jesper can easily be a stand-in for Kusco with his smarmy, rude sense of humor that might as well have been David Spade.

The only difference is that in Emperor, the humor isn't nearly as dark. Klaus is not pitch black, to be fair, but it features a lot of fighting, dread and misery that tries to maintain a biting humor.

Tries is the key word: the humor in Klaus doesn't really work in this thirty minutes.

I'm not sure if it's because of how close it feels to Emperor, but the attempts in humor doesn't land all that well.

For what is supposed to be a comedic family film, that can be a death knell. But Klaus has something that more than makes up for it: a heartwarming, beautiful emotional center.

The story picks up when you are introduced to Klaus, a burly, lonely woodsman who is voiced with a surprising sensitivity by J.K. Simmons.

This character turns the film from an unfortunate Emperor knock-off to a warm, loving story about the power of selfless deeds and neighborly love.

It can't be understated how well done this character and the evoking power he has: the film turns into a wholly different narrative that honestly is more powerful and beautiful than I was expecting.

On top of that, the hidden story of what could be considered the Santa Claus origin story is creatively and emotionally well done.

What's more: the animation is subtly beautiful. The film has characters that look like nutcrackers come to life which gives the characters a warm, detailed look.

When the film concluded, it shot up to being one of the best Christmas films I've seen in a long time.

But it's definitely a film that I warmed to than absolutely loved: the humor in it just doesn't work as well as the gooey, warm emotional center.

But even then, it's a film I would love to watch next Christmas to get me back into the spirit of the holiday.

Zero and Wiz RECOMMEND In Bruges

Part pulpy crime story, part morality play with a crass, blackened humorist tinge, In Bruges is a film that is a hilariously dark with a surprisingly sweet aftertaste.

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson carry a curse-laden, non politically correct yarn about two hit men waiting for their next assignment while they discuss what happened in the last contract.

The film has a back and forth to it that is somewhat surprising but is effective when it sticks to the core of salty, bruising humor.

Farrell plays Ray as a young man who has had enough and doesn't care who hears it. He's impulsive, distraught and a loose cannon (in more ways than one). Farrell plays him with an unsettled vibrancy that is arresting to watch while he's talking about midgets and retards with reckless abandon, not caring who hears it.

And Gleeson's straight man performance is well fit: he provides a centering of the story that is charming to watch.

And when the film sticks with The Odd Couple meets Grosse Point Blank, In Bruges has a lot of great lines and ludicrous laughs from the characters they engage with.

But then, the film starts to go from dark comedy to dark dramedy and it slips ever so slightly.

When it's revealed what happened in the last contract, the film takes on a more serious tone that tries to give the film a more dramatic edge but largely feels uneven.

This is mainly because the film doesn't exactly pivot to a drama but instead just sprinkles it into the dark humor.

Maybe I'm wrong on this, but it felt like the film wanted us to feel for Ray and his problems, but it's fairly hard to do that since the film wants to laugh at him as well, which doesn't feel quite earned.

But then the best performance of the film enters and that's Ralph Fiennes. Fiennes plays a foul mouthed, quick tempered crime boss incredibly well whether he is yelling uproarious insults or looking intense into the eyes of a person he's angry with. It's a small role, but it has one of Fiennes best performances.

When In Bruges sticks to the dark and foul humor, it is a hilarious time. Al three main actors do a great job with the comedy as well as the crime elements.

But the film does falter when it tries to be a little more serious.

And while that is a small portion of the film, it's a sticking point in what could have been an absolute favorite of mine.

But even so, it's a hilariously dark good time.

Wiz RECOMMENDS "Spencer"

To be honest, I was conflicted after watching Spencer.

On the one hand, the biopic is chock full of formulaic crap that highlights performances that are little more than good mimicry than anything that lets you see the heart and soul of the person it's about.

For every brilliant movie like I'm Not There, Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters and Malcolm X, there's a crap ton of mid to low tier films like Get On Up, Bohemian Rhapsody, I Wanna Dance With Somebody and Back in Black.

But Spencer gets my recommendation like Elvis did: it's a flawed film in some major ways, but the performance by the main actor is so nuanced and well performed that see it is worth the 2 hour investment.

The typical way critics say a person is good as another person is to say "it's like I'm watching the real person on screen...but it's not!"

Well, for the majority of the film, that's exactly what it felt like. Kristen Stewart gets the voice, mannerisms and feel of Diana Spencer so accurately that only when there are incredibly tight close-ups of Stewart's face does the illusion break.

The wispy voice and the awkward, stilted way she speaks and moves is incredibly articulated. She also fits incredibly well with the costumes in the movie, fitting the frame and aura that Diana had.

She also does an excellent job with the scenes involving mental health. Diana goes through a ringer in this film: she's not only dealing with bulimia, but there's also the suffocating nature of the Royal Family. And on top of that, she's processing the fact that her husband, Prince Charles (Jack Farthing), is having an affair behind her back.

When she's dealing with these issues, the film takes an uncomfortably tense mood that represents the inner strife of her emotions and her duties as Princess of Wales.

But the issues counteract a lot of these pluses:

First off, the film is beautiful in some spots, but it feels entirely too indulgent with itself. The setting and area where the film is set is gorgeous in itself, so it feels kind of overboard when the film goes for sweeping wide shots and other shots that seem to not fit with the personal story.

Finally, the film tries something different that most bio-pics don't really try.

In Spencer, to illustrate the severity of Diana's mental turmoil, they show these scenes that are more metaphorical and symbolic. This includes scenes where Diana sees the ghost of Anne Boleyn.

Though I appreciate a film that tries to do something different, these flourishes don't work at all for the film.

First off, it doesn't really add much to the film other than saying "ohh that's fucked up!" when she's going through her issues. It just feels kind of cheap.

What I don't understand is that you have an excellent performance by Stewart who can literally show all of the pain and suffering on her face. Why not just do that instead of this subplot that isn't really all that effective?

As a story, Spencer feels like a miss: it's too indulgent with it's visuals and it tries to make depth in flashy metaphors that doesn't work the way it should.

However, this is a recommend solely because of the performance by Kristen Stewart, which is amazing to see her morph into Diana so seamlessly.

But I will be honest: if you aren't a fan of Stewart, it's best to avoid.