Best Movies of 2024 #84-71

84. The Contestant

I knew this whole story. A good measure of a documentary might be if reading the Wikipedia would be quicker and just as satisfying. Since the subject is naked the whole time the documentary wins out. Barely.

83. Riddle of Fire

This is the kind of movie you root for. It looks pretty, it's weird. Lio Tipton is in it, one of my favorite contestants on America's Next Top Model. One of the kids needs to be subtitled even though he's speaking English. Hmm, I'm making some pretty good points. Maybe I should give Riddle of Fire another shot.

82. Drive Away Dolls

Separating the Coen Brothers isolated the goofy and the gravitas. This is from the goofy one. At least it started the Margaret Qualley 2024 trilogy,

81. La Chimera

This was on some best of lists last year so it's one of those cusp movies. How about we make a rule that a movie isn't "released" until it's been out on DVD for six months?

80. Lovely, Dark, and Deep

Sometimes a review will praise the beautiful scenery in a movie which I always found strange. Really, who cares? But lately if a movie is in a forest you're half way to good movie for me. That puts this one 60% there.

79. Carol Doda Topless at the Condor

Amazon Prime really thinks I'm interested in unclothed-related documentaries now that I watched this and they don't even know about Hulu's The Contestant. 

78. Twisters

One of the few movies the whole family watched together this year. They didn't really like it. The ease in which they can find tornadoes was enjoyable though.

77. Suncoast

This and the next movie were released in those lean days of early 2024 when it was either watch this or go sledding with the children or something.

76. Self-Reliance

This was the first movie to be released this year like M3GAN was last year. That's why we were all doing that viral Self-Reliance dance last winter.

75. Don't Move

In October I was watching a horror movie a day when Netflix released this. It's a cat and mouse game where the mouse is paralyzed. A worthy entry in Don't horror movies (Don't Go In To The Woods... Alone!, Don't Open 'Til Christmas, Don't Panic).

74. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person

I've watched so many French-language movies this year I'm pretty sure I'm fluent. Let me try: 

L'outil de traduction n'est pas disponible, réessayez plus tard.

Hey, I am!

73. The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed

Now is the time in this list for movies with very long titles.

72. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Even good reviews just seemed happy this wasn't terrible. I was a little less enthusiastic than that. The way they handled the Jeffery Jones problem while still making him a pretty significant character was wild.

71. The Taste of Things

I made the mistake of watching this right after seeing 1987's Babette's Feast for the first time. They both imply food is an art that brings people together but really it's just an annoying chore to get over with so you can do real things. I don't know how they missed that.