Tennis Threesomes, Ghoul dads & Me: 2024 favourites!
Someone told me it's almost 2025? Devastated.
Well folks, that’s a wrap on 2024 - a truthfully weird, chaotic year full of sand worms, frankenstien-ed boyfriends, ballads of witches roads and so much more. Whilst almost every box-office topping film has been a sequel, it feels as if 2024 was the year of pushing independent, smaller films into the limelight - suffice to say its been a great year for film all around! Not only that but the land of TV has also been graced with so many great shows. But before getting into a few of my favourites from this year, it would awful to neglect that this year has also been horrendous outside of the film space. Mass layoffs hit the games industry massively this year, leading to unprecedented levels of unemployment in the arts. Trans rights (especially in the U.S but unfortunately everywhere) have been reversed or worse & Isreal’s inhumane genocide in Gaza has somehow been allowed continued to devastate the world. These examples are merely a glimpse at the tragedies that we have faced this year and it feels foolish to hope that the simple changing of a year would stop all of them … but I never will.
This year has been a trash-fire so let us look back at some of those pieces of media that got us through these hard times. Here are my personal favourites of 2024…
Heartstopper season 3 -
Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in! After its second season I was in a contempt mind space, thinking that I was potentially okay with leaving the Hearstopper gang in the moment I left them. I knew that season three of the show was going to become a much more traumatic, triggering and simply darker place and I didn’t want continue and desperately wanted to leave them in the safe space they had reached (kinda). However I don’t know who I was kidding as I was there the morning it dropped on Netflix and finished it within 24 hours…
Season one of Heartstopper holds a very special place in my heart. It was a key player in my coming out but it also was simply released at a perfect time. The memories of the show are basked in heartwarming, summer sun and I will forever be nostalgic of cycling home listening to the vol. 1 soundtrack - which side-note Spotify why would you combine all of the seasons into one playlist? you got rid of some beautiful cover work for each volume?! Sort your shit out :(
I never thought that anything would top that first season… once again I had underestimated writer and creator Alice Oseman, who is swiftly becoming one of the best adapters of literature in history, up there with Peter Jackson and Greta Gerwig. Oseman’s work on the series is crucial, especially with this final season. Usually when adaptations go off and do their own thing it leads to a decline in quality, however Oseman here has included the original themes from the graphic novels but added a healthy portion of new ideas that feel superbly compatible. For me personally, the addition of exploring gender dysphoria and trans-intimacy with Elle & Tao was a highlight of not just the show BUT my entire 2024. It made me cry. It made me feel seen. It made me yearn.
Speaking of additions, Season 3 also lightly introduced us to Michael Holden (Darragh Hand), the titular friend of Tori Spring (who also was an absolute stand out this season). Whilst Holden did not have much a presence in this season, his introduction and perfect chemistry with Tori (Jenny Walser) has led the fandom to believe there is an adaptation of Oseman’s first book Solitaire in development. which reader … I would die! I adore that book!
I am upset to be saying goodbye to our gay little family. 2024 sees the end of Heartstopper as a TV medium and 2025 sees the last volume of the graphic novel being released. However I am so thankful for this show and its final season … and what a final season it was.
Challengers -
I’m not sure what I love more, the film itself or the memes that sprung from it! Challengers entered my top ten of this year very early and simply stayed there thanks to its restrained combination of both style and substance. The style is obviously in your face, the camerawork is decidedly bonkers and Luca Guadagnino does not shy away from that fact, opting for impossible shots from UNDER the floor?! This on its own is cool and fun but when paired with a good script elevates it to something completely different. Challengers was indeed cool! But it was also just incredibly slay to watch famous actor Zendaya, in a way, manipulate two men and be seen as the good guy… like I said… kinda slay. Not only that, but this film is one of the first pieces of ‘mainstream’ media positively approaching the idea of polyamory. Threesomes aside, Challengers is just that perfect summer movie right? You can feel the heat as the sweat drips down their body. You can feel the sexual tension between the three leads which is reflected in the literal changing of the weather. The ‘will they, won’t they’ plot convention is dialled up to eleven! It’s a rollercoaster of a movie!
What I love even more is just how well this film fitted into the meme stylings of film Twitter/TikTok! The sheer amount of amazing halloween costumes and skits this film sparked was hilarious and I adore the cultural impact it had on everyone. Shout out to the guy who LITERALLY dressed as the tennis ball for halloween?! Gotta love gay halloween.
Fallout Season 1 -
Ella Purnell. That could be the extent of my little review here but I’ll attempt to be more professional … or at least my version of professional. Fallout was never really on my radar, I liked the games and can be found watching playthrough’s of New Vegas on YouTube from time to time BUT I cannot say that I was ever amped to watch an adaptation of it - I think this was mainly due to the fact game adaptations are hardly ever good at its core of being a work of creativity … let alone an adaptation. HOWEVER Fallout consumed my life for the months of June through August!
Collecting one of the best ensemble casts ever put to screen, incredibly detailed & engulfing set designs, a storyline that weaves its way through everything and Walton Goggins as a sexy ghoul dad (I said what I said), Fallout is one of a kind. Said casting is so damn special as whilst it does have (at the time) heavy hitters like Walton Goggins, Kyle MacLachlan and Matt Berry, it is primarily made up of up and coming actors. Ella Purnell was in popular teen show Yellowjackets and the other amazing (and gay) video game adaptation Arcane, I do feel as if Fallout was her big break! The same goes for the confused yet charming Aaron Moten! This show was all about discovering new talent, something that feels rather rare these days and these new kids fucking crushed it!!!
A common theme I’m seeing in my wrap up of the year in film & TV is that women in film this year have absolutely killed it! We have been gifted so many amazing female protagonists this year and I really wish for this to continue! Elle (Heartstopper), Tashi (Challengers), Lisa (Lisa Frankenstein) and Vi (Arcane) just to name a few. Ella Purnell’s performance as Lucy Maclean is simply another diamond in a sea of other diamonds. Women on screen this year were angry. Women on screen this year not only had a presence but took over the entire screen for seasons on end. They were badass. They were AND are the moment. Purnell played Lucy with such masterful curiosity - whilst being a fish out of water she was also no damsel. In fact not many characters this year were! (including Milly-bobby Brown in a film literally called Damsel which pokes fun at the entire genre convention). Women… They’re just cool ya know? I have yet to watch Purnell in her latest series Sweetpea but she appears to be even more unhinged than in fallout… so that is most definitely on my watch list.
Lisa Frankenstein -
From Lucy Maclean to Lisa … she has no last name so this Segway doesn’t work as smoothly as I was hoping. Lisa Frankenstein is maybe the PERFECT halloween movie … for me. As someone who cannot handle horror and has yet to break the surface of the genre, this film is a perfect spooky watch near the festive season (halloween … not Christmas because it's simply a better holiday). I sadly do not have much of anything academic to say on this film, not that it’s not good, I just wanted to include it because it serves so much cunt. Lisa’s outfits in this film are incredible. watch it!
Wicked Part One -
In my initial Wicked blog post, I had forgotten to mention all about how Jeff Goldblum was perfectly cast for this film and how it has been the best casting since Daniel Craig donned his detective cap as Benoit Blanc. Those of you who read the blog will know I adore this weird man and the lengths I will go to show my aderation … so when I tell you that he wasn’t even my favourite thing about the film … you know it must be a good frickin film!
Wicked: Part One is a tour de force of everything relating to film as a craft & a medium. For starters it's one of the biggest productions in history and yet it contains an extraordinary amount of character. This is not just another musical (looking at you Emilia Pérez). THIS is Wicked! HOWEVER this should not be a surprise to anyone who has watched any of director, Jon M. Chu’s work. After watching Wicked I have admittedly fallen back into being obsessed with In The Heights, which is similarly a stage adaptation with a rather large budget and cast but equally as masterfully put together. I mention this more summer oriented film which came out … good lord three years ago now because it is good evidence in the argument against the films colouring:
Now I would be the first to say that I would love for wicked to have been more colourful and match that of its elder The Wizard Of Oz BUT that’s not to say that the film isn’t already beautiful and still rather colourful. Just because it wasn’t shot on technicolour film doesn’t mean it isn’t wonderful! People have taken to twitter to complain that the film is badly coloured and in turn suggesting that M. chu does not know how to direct. To those people I say that it’s clear that they haven’t watched any of his prior work and how bright and vibrant they are! In The Heights is beautiful. Moreover, Wicked is a prequel that deals with darker, more adult themes … themes that are incredibly relevant to today’s political landscape with issues like racism, mis-information and corrupt leaders. This leads me to feel completely content with the fact the team probably wouldn’t want to slather those important themes in whimsy and technicolour.
Wicked is an absolute joy.
Well that's all folks! 2024 has been weird. I officially moved out and started studying film here in Bristol with a bunch of amazing new friends. I started this blog which has kept me sane in my unemployment. I got weirdly into pretentious coffee. This year I changed my fucking name!!! So yeah … weird! Thank you to anyone who has read my silly words and supported me through many things this year. You’re the best <3
Have a wonderful Christmas and remember as always … light the lamp, not the rat!
