The 2024 Film Guiding My New Year

and how you too can have a #TrapDad2025

In 2024, my movie consumption was down 59%. I had merely 27 viewings of 25 movies¹ in 2024 versus 61 viewings/movies in 2023. The Google Sheet where I track all my movie viewing tells me that this is my lowest annual movie consumption rate this decade, lower than 2022 (40 viewings), 2021 (51 viewings) and 2020 (45 viewings). But despite the record low quantity, I saw some true gems.

I find it difficult to evaluate art. Rather than assessment, usually I see my primary goal as appreciation — that is, finding the angle of observation that unlocks its intended beauty or effect. Making movies is challenging and important work, and it’s pretty low cost for me to offer up praise; further, disliking things is emotionally burdensome so I generally avoid it where I can. However, people often people want to hear a more critical perspective, so I have developed a more objective framework to “pass as normal” when people ask me what I think of a movie.

The system is simple. There are five stars up for…