14 January 2025

2024: Let's Try Villains Again

We were just having fun a few weeks ago when I realized that our villain pick, Jason Bateman in Carry-On (2024) was probably pretty weak sauce and mostly because I had just seen it. 2024 had a surprising amount of great on screen villains that we failed to recognize, so here we go!

Connor McGregor in Road House (2024)

Connor McGregor is a pretty awful person in real life, but boy is he a charismatic villain here! He's an absolute force of nature, psychotic, gleeful, and unstoppable. He has a memorable intro, butt naked and totally comfortable strutting his stuff around a chaotic environment. I hate to say he's pretty damn charismatic, too. The stakes in Road House are really solid, and he ends up being too much for even the people who hired him to control. That's all to say, it's really easy to hate him, but he also brings such competence and a challenge for Jake Gyllenhaal after the other goons are so dumb that you kind of cheer for him, too.

Dementus in Furiosa (2024)

Chris Hemsworth is an underrated villain and does a great impression of his grandfather here as the wildman throwing a wrench into Immortan Joe's works. He's a roving bandit of a villain, one utterly terrible at settling down even though that's what he's trying to do. You see him try to climb the ladder opposite to Furiosa but he's staggeringly incompetent. Furiosa seeks her revenge but finds more than anything she's outgrown him, and what seemed scary as a kid its just kind of a pathetic wiener man. He's got a magnificent arc, even it's a downward trajectory.

Evil monkeys

There was that weird guy in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) and the weird red monkey from Godzilla X Kong and of course, Robbie Williams. Strong year for Apes. Scar King was interesting, totally a sort of wicked bad guy who mostly hid behind a strong spin whip and frost beast. Intelligent and a worthy adversary, though. You don't often see Godzilla villain kaiju hatching schemes. Proxima Caesar, was that his name? He was just having fun and probably arrives too late into the film to be a huge presence, but he's notable and has a great death.

Anything we missed?

04 January 2025

2024 Movies in REVIEW MIRROR

Well, I can't believe I've been doing this for ten years! Ten years of data is pretty powerful. And the trends, Duke! The trends! It's envigorating. Here is my review of movie-watching data from 2024:

Grand Summary:

2015201620172018201920202021202220232024
Total movies198220224249200182181202171123
First-time viewingsn/a11713315713111011115410281
First-time viewing %n/a53%59%63%66%60%61%76%60%66%
Streamingn/a5581157118133134160133110
Streaming %n/a25%36%63%59%73%74%79%78%89%
TV868455107311379
TV %43%38%25%4%4%2%6%1%4%7%
Theater10111216827962
Theater %5%5%5%6%4%1%4%4%4%2%

That Theater includes one Drive-In and one movie theater. The only film I saw in theaters this year was Deadpool & Wolverine. Ugh, I'm part of the problem!

The other big note is that my streaming percentage spiked quite a bit. That proportion is mostly due to Netflix DVD ceasing operations. That might be a bit why my overall numbers also took a massive hit, but quite frankly I have a child and a high demand job now and I can't believe I ever watched 249 movies in a year.

My first time viewings were also solid, I really can't believe how many repeat movies I still watch, like that's crazy. It's really wild that 2016 was almost 50/50 but I think movies on TV was such a bigger force back then. Speaking of which, I watched the most percentage since 2017! I had some extended hotel stays here. It's really just hotels. TV has been such an afterthought for years. If only we had an accurate breakdown by streaming service....

Netflix3125.2%
Amazon Prime1814.6%
Max1814.6%
Hulu1713.8%
TV97.3%
Other Streaming64.9%
Tubi54.1%
Paramount+43.3%
Disney+32.4%
Apple TV+32.4%
Peacock32.4%
Planes21.6%
Theater10.8%
Drive-in10.8%
Total Streaming:11089.4%

I was pretty surprised by this. Netflix was a good chunk above the rest, and then Prime / Max / Hulu form a nice second tier. Max had been my mainstay for the past three years but now they're just kind of same as anyone else. Netflix is actually also pretty steady but just other sources have dropped off. Amazon Prime has really surged and I love how all the other services are kind of equally bottomed out. Other streaming included XUMO, Xfinity, and YouTube, which hasn't really changed.

My life is just really stable now, there's less going over to a friends' house and seeing something random on TV. I also did NOT watch a DVD this year, like how is that possible? You know, I feel like I watched Weird again. I wonder if I forgot to log that? We'll never know.

It's crazy, it's all the lack of Netflix DVD as I'm looking at it. Nothing seems to have taken its place, everything else is pretty much where it's been. Wild.

By Decade:

1940s10.8%
1970s10.8%
1980s108.1%
1990s1310.6%
2000s118.9%
2010s1411.4%
2020s7359.3%
20233830.9%
20243528.5%

Yeah, alright. I really just haven't sat down and searched for something old or challenging. 80s, 90s, and 00s are all kind of leveled out, but that's even starting to happen with 2010s movies, which is wild. My biggest seen year was 2023. Only five years in the 2000s decade were represented but my biggest year not in the current decade was 2002.

By Genre:

Action3326.8%
Adventure1512.2%
Comedy2822.8%
Drama2217.9%
Horror1814.6%
Thiller43.3%
Romance32.4%

I don't know if I'll keep doing genre. Not a ton of interesting data here. Believe it or not I like Action and Comedy movies. I did watch a bit more Horror this year. That's fun. Yeah, if I do this again, I might skip this part.

By Month:

2015201620172018201920202021202220232024AVERAGE
January1917231622151517161317
February1115121417211511101114
March1512181614271612161416
April152315252223131218717
May1517221319222919121118
June20162581819241817817
July1615161817151015171215
August121418251825141761016
September101416132016121412613
October1420171019241015181516
November12181810182120169615
December2221202820212216201020

It was wild to see 2024 plummet my averages. December's still pretty good, but this was the worst January, April, May, June, September, November, and December on record. Yay. A lot of this was fatherhood. They kept some general proportions and February I watched more! That's something! Looking at these trends, the months are actually sort of even. September is always busy and that dips. February, too. December is a big catch-up month and you've got time at home, so that's nice.

Last year I thought that more people might be watching movies than we think. After talking to the young people I can say that uhh...no we are not. This was such a rough year, a big reckoning year for Hollywood. There's weird mixed messaging like how well the absolute rehash that was Deadpool & Wolverine found success. But clearly we are so sick of a lot of these other same old garbage.

The other big mainstream sequels that did well (because yes, they were all sequels) had something novel about them, like Godzilla X Kong or Dune II. Venom got in there, I don't know, that one is a bit weird and I don't think anyone actually considered it a success. But there were four animated sequels that did absolutely crazy. I did not realize Inside Out 2 and Moana 2 were so lights out bonkers successful. I really did not give a shit about either of these and will probably never see either. But those did really well.

Indie stuff is the weirdest, though. It's out there but it feels even more fractured. I'm not sure how people sift through and find this kind of stuff. It just takes digging and keeping an ear to the ground for that buzz, man. I'm not even happy with my pics this year, especially when I realised that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was going to be one of the best movies I saw.

2025? It feels right, but my numbers are going to drop even more. Stay tuned, folks!
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