If you had asked me how I felt about 2024 movies in September, I would have told you that the outlook is promising. By then, I could have already made a respectable top ten list, and I'd barely touched any likely awards contenders. By September, we already had Dune—now a real movie and not just a trailer, two Dan Stevens movies, a bunch of unexpectedly high-quality horror movies, and Netflix had released several movies that actually might have been written by a human being instead of artificial intelligence. Now in February, if I am assessing objectively, I will report that 2024 was fine; but if I'm forced to watch another 2024 movie I am going to scream—unless it's at the behest of someone I love and respect, which is approximately three and a half people. I am giving up. I would rather rewatch Megalopolis twice than watch three more adequately made but uninspiring dramas. There are several foreign movies I should watch, but am not going to. I may give in and watch the Almodóvar movie after I calm down; but I can't allocate any more hopeful optimism towards random indies, and I may never watch another Luca Guadagnino movie in my life. There is too much good television to ever be bothered with Challengers again.
