Our 2024 Movie Resolutions, ‘Anyone but You,’ and ‘The Color Purple’

Michael Clayton 2007

The performance both come back to: the brilliant, unwell lawyer with the baguettes. Sean rates it one of the great screen turns of the century.

In the Bedroom 2001

Todd Field's first film, where most Americans first noticed him, opposite Sissy Spacek.

Duplicity 2009

Amanda's number one: another Tony Gilroy script he could make human and highfalutin at once.

Sense and Sensibility 1995

A small, essential part: his death early on sets the whole movie in motion.

The Full Monty 1997

Shakespeare in Love 1998

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2004

Batman Begins 2005

Carmine Falcone.

Wonka 2023

Past $400M worldwide. Sean's verdict: Chalamet is now a confirmed global movie star.

The Color Purple (2023) 2023

The Christmas box-office champion: $55M in under a week, roughly $18M on Christmas Day, with Black audiences north of 60% of the crowd.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom 2023

'Bombed' only relative to itself: already ahead of The Marvels and Blue Beetle. James Wan doing Butch Cassidy underwater; the last DCEU film before James Gunn takes over.

Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire 2023

Sean's burned solo ticket, watched on Netflix instead: 'very, very bad.' Snyder should stop being his own cinematographer.

The Iron Claw 2023

Already past $18M, likely to clear Past Lives and Priscilla, a strong start for A24's bigger-budget era.

Poor Things 2023

$11M in only 800 theaters; the show keeps trying to time a wide-release episode. Coverage promised for next week.

Ferrari 2023

Money-wise it bricked; lives on 'in the hearts of dads everywhere.'

Avatar: The Way of Water 2022

A year on from dominating Christmas 2022 with $2.35B, the point of comparison for how soft this holiday was.

Anyone But You 2023

Neither fish nor fowl: too tame for a raunchy sex comedy, too janky for a classic rom-com, with a Much Ado About Nothing riff wallpapered on. Glenn Powell is 'the man' and the only one awake; Sean argues Sweeney can't yet do comic delivery in this tone, and blames the underwritten script. The set pieces (Powell and the spider, the Sydney Harbour boat bit) and the closing Natasha Bedingfield montage are the highlights. A likely box-office and streaming win either way.

The Color Purple (2023) 2023

Blitz Bazawule's first major studio film, from the Broadway musical of Alice Walker's novel. Both find it broadly unsuccessful (the epistolary novel loses Celie at its center once flattened into a 40-year epic, and the abuse-to-musical-number whiplash is jarring), but grant three or four undeniable numbers. Danielle Brooks (Sofia) is the standout; Fantasia Barrino has the toughest assignment; Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo, and Gabriella Wilson all get big moments.

The Color Purple (1985) 1985

Spielberg's eighth film, Ebert's favorite of 1985: 11 Oscar nominations, zero wins, and heavy criticism from Black critics (James Baldwin among them). Beautifully made but, Sean argues, a director fitting his innocence onto a brutal story he doesn't quite understand, and among his least-seen '80s work now.

Fast X 2023

The site of the infamous meltdown Sean now resolves to stop having over franchise garbage. Amanda doesn't believe him.

Madame Web 2024

Sean's first franchise episode of the year isn't until February 16, which Amanda notes undercuts the whole resolution.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire 2024

Exhibit A for 'spend less time on filler movies': a good stoned watch, probably not a good podcast. Cover it last.

Migration 2023

Bigger at the box office than Anyone but You and skipped anyway, the kind of solid-but-negligible film the resolution is about.

The Passionate Friends 1949

The David Lean film, watched at home, that sparked the 'watch more, and more intentionally' resolution, aiming at 800 movies in 2024.

The Lady Vanishes 1938

Hitchcock, part of the black-and-white bedtime phase feeding the resolution to devote five episodes to non-contemporary greats (Lumet, Brando, Bacall all turn 100 in 2024).

Megalopolis 2024

The payoff for a new movie-books club, kicking off with Sam Wasson's Coppola biography The Path to Paradise.