Film / Captain Canada's Movie Rodeo / January 2024 / Gabriel Ricard

Image™ by the Motion Picture Association; public domain / Wikimedia Commons

Seven Movies I’m Excited to See in 2024 (And Five That Can Kick Rocks)

With only 2,000 or so movies in the backlog at Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo (new or new-enough movies I watched beginning from the inception of the column), I thought it would be fun to completely ignore that. Instead, and I’m pretty sure I’ve done this at some point in the hazy mists of past columns, I want to see what 2024 has in store.

Specifically in the sense of movies, because that’s one of the only things in my entire life right now that doesn’t give me fucking bi-hourly panic attacks (just weekly). I’ve looked over the expanse of what we’re allegedly getting this year, and I’m finding myself more excited than not for what’s coming. That’s definitely a quality over quantity issue, since technically most 2024 movies give me a sense of either indifference or mild dread, but the ones that sound amazing have the potential to outweigh a dozen shoddy, forgettable imitations of entertainment.

I’m writing this column intro with a very guarded optimism, but it’s also fun to complain, so I’m also going to touch briefly this month on 5 movies I’m not looking forward to. I intend to see them, but at time of writing it’s hard to be positive about that. I hope I’m wrong about the ones that sound genuinely terrible, which is sometimes the main thing that gets me to watch them. I’ve been aggressively wrong about movies in the past, and that doesn’t bother me more than I loved whatever I saw.

I’m also not saying these movies are bad. Only a child would interpret “This movie doesn’t sound very promising” as “MOVIE BAD.” I’m simply reacting to them as a possible consumer, with the intention of giving them a fair chance at some point in the near future.

That’s another example of how optimistic I’m trying to be. Aren’t you fucking lucky.

Seven 2024 Movies I’m Excited About

Evil Does Not Exist 

Directed By: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Starring: Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka
Release Date: April 26th

I don’t know for certain if the latest from Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) will be available to us in 2024, but I’m inclined to think this film festival heavyweight will come out before the end of that year. A small town is threatened by a company that plans to use the peaceful rural area to create a glamping (an idiotic combination of “glamorous” and “camping”) site for city tourists. I have no doubt the film will beautifully and harrowingly capture this small town on the brink of crisis masking as progress. I can only hope the story ends with some sense of optimism, but who can say. 

Drive-Away Dolls

Directed By: Ethan Coen
Starring: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein
Release Date: February 23rd

Ethan Coen has been pretty quiet since taking a break after 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and Drive-Away Dolls will be his first narrative film in about six years. That in of itself is exciting, although I’m certainly not alone in hoping we see Ethan working with brother Joel Coen soon. If not, movies like the upcoming Drive-Away Dolls will give me plenty to get excited about. A road trip movie with two friends that runs into strange circumstances and several dumbass criminals is the kind of comedy noir I know Ethan Cohen can put on the screen. The trailers suggest this movie is going to be a hell of a lot of fun, and a good way to get the year going.

Lisa Frankenstein 

Directed By: Zelda Williams
Starring: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Liza Soberano
Release Date: February 9th

I don’t know if this will translate to a good movie with her directorial debut in Lisa Frankenstein (I fucking love that title, man), but I do believe Zelda Williams is at least as funny as her famous father Robin. A script by Diablo Cody is also promising, especially with a story about a goth girl in 1989 who brings her Victorian era dream guy back from the dead. There’s a very solid horror comedy premise here, and I doubt it will be even comparable to the recent Poor Things, which has a vaguely similar plot. I’m optimistic that we’re in for something equal parts messy and fascinating and hilarious with Lisa Frankenstein.

Harold and the Purple Crayon 

Directed By: Carlos Saldanha
Starring: Zachary Levi, Lil Rei Howery, Zooey Deschanel
Release Date: August 2nd

I’m so excited at the notion of a live-action adaptation of one of my favorite children’s books, I could care less who’s in it. That includes Zooey Deschanel and Zachary Levi, who traditionally suck on toast in most things they do. I could give a shit this time. Nor do I even care that the director Carlos Saldanha has never helmed a live action feature before, but has done several successful animated films, including a couple from the Ice Age series. I’d feel better if Harold and the Purple Crayon was being directed by someone with experience in both mediums, but that’s okay. If this movie nails even half of the visual potential of this book, I’ll be happy.

Alto Knights 

Directed By: Barry Levinson
Starring: Robert De Niro, Cosmo Jarvis, Debra Messing
Release Date: November 15th

At 92 years old, film producer Irwin Winkler shows no signs of slowing down. Good. Movies are a better medium with him around, and Alto Knights will be a gangland warfare story directed by Barry Levinson. Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas) wrote the screenplay, which will feature Robert De Niro playing mob bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello at the height of their struggle at the top of the mafia food chain in the late 1950s. All of that amounts to a wealth of talent well-versed in this sort of material. I’m not looking for anything groundbreaking here, but I’m certain that Alto Knights will be a triumph of style and substance for everyone involved.

Horizon: An America Saga – Chapter 1 

Directed By: Kevin Costner
Starring: Kevin Costner, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington
Release Date: June 28th

A two-movie $200 million western epic by Kevin Costner honestly sounds pretty good at this stage of Costner’s career. Even dismal failures like The Postman remind me that he is almost certainly the only living filmmaker who can capture the American West in its beauty and horrific history on the level of a John Ford or Anthony Mann. He hasn’t made one of these in quite some time, but the last one (2003’s magnificent, thrilling Open Range) was damn good, and I suspect this long-standing passion project of him will bring to the forefront his ability to direct American epics that are compelling, entertaining, and decidedly cinematic.

Nosferatu  

Directed By: Robert Eggers
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe
Release Date: December 25th

While I’m not quite a fan of Robert Eggers on the level many seem to operate from, Nosferatu is a promising remake possibility. Only the second filmmaker to take a bold swing at this iconic interpretation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, Eggers has a knack for fire, madness, and death in hauntingly beautiful surroundings. Nosferatu is going to be worth my time just to see him come to those themes with his unique writing and directing talents, and it doesn’t hurt that Jarin Blaschke (The Lighthouse) is once again handling the cinematography for a Robert Eggers film. This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it has a chance to be Eggers’ best movie to date.

Five 2024 Movies That Can (Probably) Go to Hell

No one wants drown in negativity, so let’s keep this section relatively short. And hey, you never know, any one of these movies could prove my instincts wrong.

Madame Web 

Directed By: S. J. Clarkson
Starring: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor
Release Date: February 14th 

This is a good example of where I hope I’m wrong. S.J. Clarkson is a talent, as is the cast, but this is also a Sony Spider-Man Universe movie we’re talking about. Unless it’s animated, Madame Web will likely run somewhere between the usual mediocre (Venom) and abysmal (Morbius) that we’ve come to expect from the unfathomably ridiculous nitwits at Sony.

The Garfield Movie 

Directed By: Mark Dinbal
Starring: Chris Pratt, Nicholas Hoult, Hannah Waddingham
Release Date: May 24th

If anyone can make me ignore the relentless banality of Chris Pratt, who has about as much talent as a voice actor as I do, it’s the director of Cat’s Don’t Dance and The Emperor’s New Groove. Having said that, Garfield for any length of time longer than half-an-hour has historically been insufferable. 

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Directed By: Wes Ball
Starring: Owen Teague, Freya Allan, William H. Macy
Release Date: May 24th

I’m really going to be spoiled for shitty, shitty movies when my birthday rolls around on May 28th. I realize these movies have their fans, but sorry, I’m not one of them. I just can’t be bothered to give even a tenth of a fuck about another stupid Planet of the Apes movie. The trailer looks as boring as ever, but I have no doubt the movie will do well with its fans. And they deserve that, I mean it. Someone ought to be happy that weekend. 

Smile 2

Directed By: Parker Finn
Starring: Naomi Scott and Lukas Gage
Release Date: October 18th

A sequel to what’s easily the worst horror movie I’ve seen thus far in the decade? Goody fucking gumdrops. Smile 2 will have to work hard to be as insufferably pretentious, tedious, and pointless as its predecessor. I have all the confidence. 

Beetlejuice 2

Directed By: Tim Burton
Starring: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega
Release Date: September 6th

Will Beetlejuice 2 be the one that pulls Tim Burton out of hackdom? I’m not holding my breath, but I want to be a believer in that jackass one more time. There’s obviously some part of me that wants to see Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder as these characters one more time. Whether or not this will be another exhausting nostalgia hump-fest remains to be seen, but that’s at least the vibe I’m catching right now. Sometimes, I swear to god, it’s okay if a story doesn’t continue in wretched perpetuity.