Weekend Watch - January/February 2024 Recap
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week, we’re looking back at the first two months of film releases in 2024, highlighting those that have a shot at making it on this blog’s list of Greatest Films of All Time. As always, they’ll be categorized into Long Shots, Possible Things, and Sure Things (spoiler alert: there’s no sure things so far this year). These first couple of months have been perhaps the most dismal in recent history in terms of putting out anything that lives up to its hype or even that overperforms against expectations. The best films of January and February were the wide releases of films from the 2023 slate, and so far, there’s only three films legitimately worth mentioning with actual 2024 release dates. Everything else has either underperformed, divided audiences, or just been legitimately bad. Hopefully the rest of the year gets better. Let’s get into it.
Long Shots:
The Greatest Night in Pop: Netflix’s documentary about the making of the iconic song “We Are the World” gets the year’s slate of music documentaries kicked off with a solid start, hitting the right notes with audiences and receiving positive, if strained, reviews from critics. If you like the music from that era or just music history in general, this’ll be up your alley.
Scrambled: The year’s first legitimate sleeper hit is a comedy about a woman who decides to freeze her eggs as she continuously finds herself as the bridesmaid and never the bride. Written by, directed by, and starring Leah McKendrick, the film has been a solid hit among critics and its target audience and has now become a topical film as well, so don’t count it out.
Orion and the Dark: The first film from Netflix’s animation department boasts the writing of Oscar winner Charlie Kaufman, and that’s been reflected in the response. The more mature themes have made it hit or miss with audiences expecting an easygoing kids’ movie based on the art and promotion, but critics have been fairly positive on it. Director Sean Charmatz has so far done Netflix’s animated specials, but this puts him solidly in the right direction for future animated endeavors.
Possible Things:
Society of the Snow: J.A. Bayona’s adaptation of the true story about the survivors of a plane crash in the Andes in the 1970s released on Netflix ahead of awards season. Critical and audience acclaim combined with a few awards nominations make this the best film of the year so far, but it’ll need to pull a serious upset to cement itself as a film with true staying power.
Origin: Director Ava DuVernay consistently tackles topical and challenging subjects, and her adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is no different. Since its wide release this year, its ratings have continued to climb among its audience. Quiet press tours and the late release have unfortunately left it out of awards conversations, but if it continues to improve its ratings, it’s not all the way out.
