Boy Movies #79

The 2024 celebration issue, brought to you by the Boy Movies extended family

You’re reading Boy Movies, the dumbest newsletter on Substack dot com. And that’s saying something.

Welcome to the Boy Movies 2024 year in review party celebration extravaganza issue (need a more succinct title for this thing). We made it, girls! (She says, covered head to toe in blood and limping.) Before we get into the festivities, I want to sincerely thank everyone who supported Boy Movies this year. I can’t imagine it was easy, considering that I forced you all to endure issues on everything from my mental breakdown to Entourage. Thank you for reading, thank you for your thoughtful comments and emails and messages, and thank you for not sending anything I’ve written about Austin Butler to Austin Butler. (I’m assuming, considering that I haven’t yet been hit with a restraining order.) It was a weird one, but I’m here and you’re here and what more is there to say to that aside from, like, “hooray”? HOORAY!

Now for the fun stuff! For the 2024 wrap-up festivities, I sent out a call to action to the Boy Movies [Dom Toretto voice] familia, asking them to pick their favorite boy movie of the year and write a few words explaining what exactly made it the boy-est of the boy. There were no rules, though I did note that the movie did not have to be one that was released in 2024 (why were roughly 87% of the 2024 movie offerings bad…). Unsurprisingly, everyone really ran away with the prompt and I had an absolute blast reading the submissions. These exceptionally brilliant people make me laugh so much and it is frankly insane to think about how many of them I wouldn’t even know if not for this stupid, stupid newsletter. I am grateful for them and for you and for all of us. But mostly for Austin Butler <3

I’ll be back in your inboxes one last time before the end of the year with something really stupid, but until then, enjoy the issue, happy holidays, I love you.

Akosua T. Adasi: Inception, Christopher Nolan (2010)

This year, I became an avid appreciator of boy movies thanks to the hard work of our dear Ms. Picurro, who is actually doing the Lord’s work. Of all the explosions and steely gazes that I experienced over the last 300 and some days, my surprising favorite was Christopher Nolan’s Inception. I’d watched half of this movie when I was 12 or 13 and then never returned to it. After rewatching Tenet in IMAX earlier this year, I thought I’d put Inception, which is basically the Tenet prequel, to the (iPad) test.¹ Reader, it passed with flying colors. Inception’s explosions, immense set pieces, and mansplaining managed to compel and charm me even without the flashy accoutrements of a well-equipped theater. As I wrote in my own newsletter² (shameless plug!), amongst its various achievements, this movie makes one of the best cases in the last decade for the power of a strong leading man. Gladiator II could take some notes!

Allison Picurro (me): Conclave, Edward Berger (2024)

I was so close to writing about A Complete Unknown but I wanted this issue to be an experiment in radical optimism and I have so few kind things to say about A Complete Unknown. (Oops, I snuck in some hateration!) No, in fact, the spirit moved me to pick something good, and what’s better than Conclave? Moreover, what’s more boy than Conclave? Only one 2024 release dared to gather a bunch of devout Catholics in an ornate yet confined space and let them run wild. Conclave is about voter suppression and rigged elections. Conclave is about taking your job really seriously (boy thing to do). Conclave is about cool hats and the unparalleled misery of trying to use the office copy machine. Conclave is a brain massage. Conclave is a fantasia. Conclave is Mean Girls for men over fifty. Conclave for Best Picture.

please

Ariana Bacle: Joker: Folie à Deux, Todd Phillips (2024)

Joker: Folie à Deux somehow created the one deeply troubled male character that absolutely no one would say “I could fix him <3” about, which is perhaps the greatest indicator that it is a boy movie through and through. Despite my boy Arthur being the human equivalent of a hair clog, he does say the funniest line of the year which is, “Nobody asked but I also killed my mother.” Nobody asked but he also killed his mother! Amazing. That... is boy.

Aya Lehman: The Wild Robot, Chris Sanders (2024)

Boy Movie of the year for me because I got in trouble for checking baseball scores on my phone during the screening.

Claire Cao: Kneecap, Rich Peppiatt (2024)

Kneecap is a music biopic that follows every single music biopic formula beat but is NOT Walk Hard because it’s idiosyncratically about the highs and lows of Being An Irish Boy. The film is centered on the titular hip hop trio who play themselves (and are shockingly great actors) as they try to preserve the Irish language through their music under continued British oppression. In typical boy fashion, they seem aware that this educational goal is a futsy topic. This is represented by a political campaigner girlfriend character, who’s treated with respect but also like, she’s super naggy and lame. The boys, meanwhile, further the political fight in an awesome BOY way: They snort tonnes of coke and K on stage, flee on foot from police and Brit loyalists, corrupt (and radicalise) the youth, and occasionally fuck the enemy. Michael Fassbender is there as a fictionalised deadbeat dad-fugitive-resistance bomber whose sole purpose is to look disapproving and hot until his son earns his approval. The film is a banger.

Daniela Tijerina: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Stephen Herek (1989)

For all intents and purposes Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is a perfect movie and the gold standard of boy movies. Bill and Ted, the titular boys, played with stunning stupidity (complimentary) by Alex Winter and star-in-the-making Keanu Reeves (literally no one has ever been hotter), must ace their final history presentation or risk failing the class, which would have Ted banished to military school and break up their rock band. Total disaster 3000 incoming, my dudes. But fear not, for in the future Bill and Ted's music has united mankind and they are worshipped as gods. Duh! So, naturally, with the help of a time traveller, the dumbest — but kindest — boys alive go back in time to learn elementary level world history that expands their minds and hearts. For a final show-stopping, talent show style history presentation they demonstrate their newfound knowledge by showcasing the historical figures, like Genghis Khan and Abraham Lincoln, that they picked up along the way. And they totally crush it, brother. The school is blown away by their intermediate understanding of history. War is Over. World Peace acquired. How blissfully simple. Again, I cannot overstate just how hot Keanu is in this role, but if you can look past his boyish charm, you'll find just how genius this movie is. It's also so boy to courageously travel through time and space and only bring back one woman, an absolutely gorgeous Joan of Arc ("Was she Noah's wife?") played by Jane Wiedlin of the literal Go-Go's. You see, when high school girls are portrayed as idiots in movies that's misogyny, but when beautiful boys are bimbotic beyond belief that's actually feminism. This holiday season, let this boy movie be a reminder to "be excellent to each other" and "party on."

Erik Baker: Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese (1976)

For me, the defining boy movie of 2024 was Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, primarily because I write about it in my book Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, which Boy Movies readers are welcome to pre-order in advance of its January 14 publication³ ;) And also because every boy in America is now Travis Bickle, apparently.

Geoffrey Lapid: Rap World, Conner O’Malley and Danny Scharar (2024)

I don’t think there was a Boy-er Boy Movie this year than Conner O’Malley and Danny Scharar’s hilarious ode to being a shithead no-talent townie determined to make it big and to bring your best boys with you on that sweet ride to living the Entourage lifestyle. It’s a movie that is at times so abrasive and obnoxious, but it’s all done in service of capturing the essence of what life was like in 2009 for abrasive and obnoxious young men with medium-sized dreams, stuck in suburban America. The great tragedy is not so much their misguided ambition or their delusional belief in their own self-mythologizing, but that under all their antics and posturing all they really want to do is to make a connection to someone, something, anything outside of themselves. *Linus in A Charlie Brown Christmas voice* That’s what being a boy is all about, Charlie Brown.

Haley Patail: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Matt Reeves (2014)

I have long refused to engage with the Planet of the Apes Cinematic Universe because I find fake chimps of all kinds very scary, but the release of the new Apes movie this year prompted me to be brave and I am now here to report that this movie simply rocks. To me, the experience of watching it was emblematic of a Boy Movie Best-Case Scenario™: After years of waving off boys trying to sell me on this movie (and Apes in general), I discovered that their hearts were in fact in the right place — they just fundamentally misunderstood what would entice me, a girl. Had just one of them said, “It's Andy Serkis doing Shakespeare,” I would have been on board much earlier.

Jerryan Ramos: Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter One, Kevin Costner (2024)

The Boyest Movie of the Year was HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER ONE. To the untrained eye, this is Westward Expansion slop for dads. But reader, I ask you: what could be more Boy than three hours of horseback riding and disjointed editing and beautiful landscapes? What could be more Boy than naming your main character after your son? What could be more Boy than putting all your money into a passion project you know has been doomed to fail since you conceived of it in 1988, and giving yourself some scenes kissing a beautiful woman to make the pain go away? What could be more Boy than ending your movie with a trailer for your next three movies? Please, consider opening your hearts and minds to Mr. Costner (PART ONE is available to stream on Max now), and join me in demanding New Line Cinema free HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER TWO from distribution hell for more Boy in 2025.

Katie Zhu: Challengers, Luca Guadagnino (2024)

I mean, I mean!!! This is very telling of what I like about cinema. Boys love sport. Boys love girl. Boy loves boy. Boys in love. In fact, is there anything more BOY than expressing your love for your boy best friend by chasing after the same girl? When Art and Patrick are about to meet Tashi for the first time as teenagers (literal boys!), they give us the boyest of boy dialogue:

ART: Come on. Don’t make fun, man. She’s a remarkable young woman.

PATRICK: I know. I know, she’s a pillar of the community.

…

PATRICK: I’d let her fuck me with a racket.

But what I love most about Challengers is how it takes the template of “boy” — SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS, competitive dudes being intensely competitive about literally everything, lots of dramatic grunts and sweating — and subverts it into a girl message: a cynical study on what and how we desire, and how that changes as we age. Yeah x10.

boy who is going to be okay

Leah Williams: Everybody Wants Some!!, Richard Linklater (2016)

Everybody Wants Some!! was released in 2016, but I only got around to it last month. It's so fun! Richard Linklater is one of our finest boy directors, and this is him at his most "Dudes Rock." It's about a college baseball team in 1980 running around Texas trying to find a party, trying on different identities, and trying to get laid. I want to be their token female friend soooooo badly. I dare you to watch this video and not be charmed (against your better judgment).

Nicholas Russell: The Sting, George Roy Hill (1973)

The poster features Paul Newman lounging on a desk with Robert Redford's arm draped around his shoulder, both of them laughing presumably at how awesome and hot they are. The Sting is, first and foremost, a movie about being cool, about effortless charisma, about bygone megawatt star power, and the fact that Newman and Redford are carrying out an elaborate heist against a gimpy Robert Shaw during the Great Depression only heightens these qualities. Call it a precursor to the boyish charm and wit that Brad and George brought to the Ocean's trilogy, though we shouldn't pit kings against each other. When the boys and their crew of miscreants and weirdos pull a fast one on some rich asshole, everybody wins.

Nicole Zhu: A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg (2024)

My favorite boy movie of the year is the one that most mirrors this year's top (girl) tracks, Girl, so confusing by Charli XCX. In A Real Pain, Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg play estranged cousins embarking on a Holocaust tour in Poland in honor of their late grandmother. The entire movie is them negotiating their own insecurities and neuroses, alternating between points of tension amidst their larger tour group and equally impactful one-on-one moments that peel back the exteriors they show the world. At the end of the day, it’s two boys who are trying so hard to cope with their own pain, the pain of inheritance and history, and the pain of intimacy. Boy Cousin, so confusing.

Allison note: Nicole made a bespoke meme to go with her submission and I didn’t even have to ask her to do it. She wins the 2024 Boy Movies Award for Most Iconic Contributor.

Sarah Turbin: Children of Men, Alfonso Cuarón (2006)

The best boy movie I watched in 2024 was Children of Men. It is my boyfriend’s purported “favorite movie,” so I magnanimously allowed him to show me this film despite my general suspicion of movies with the word “men” in the title⁴. A relationship milestone in my book, like meeting a significant other’s friends or exchanging house keys. In the movie, the year is 2027 (yikes) and nobody has been able to get pregnant in like 20 years, so of course society is on the brink of collapse. Clive Owen and Julianne Moore are great, and that woman who played Aunt Marge in Alfonso Cuarón’s other movie from this decade (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban — must I explain?) plays a surprisingly substantial role. I realize that the gun fights and military oppression make this seem like a boy movie, but it’s about a miraculously pregnant refugee and a hunky, noble shepherd who must help her to safety. Girlies, we may need to take this one from the boys, especially amidst today’s backdrop of declining birthrate discourse and reproductive rights being stripped away faster than you can say “Y Tu Mamá También.” Because like, she’s literally mother?

Oh, and I finally got to see that famous one-shot-take that this movie is known for, one I had only ever seen in an isolated YouTube clip. And you know what? It was pretty good.

Tessa Strain: Tenet, Christopher Nolan (2020)

Timing is everything, so when I realized that in 2020, the pandemic was going to keep me from seeing Tenet (a long-awaited return to form for Boy Movie auteur Christopher Nolan, which is what I call it whenever he decides to be stupid and macho instead of respectable and macho — let’s leave that to fellow Boy Movie luminary Michael Mann) in theaters that summer, I waited. Over the intervening years, friends saw it and told me I would love it, and yet still I waited. The time would arise. That time turned out to be early 2024, when Tenet returned to screens in 70mm and I could at last see it as intended: big and loud at that weird multiplex in West Hollywood that always appears to be hovering in a state of incomplete, tarp-draped refurbishment. The early months of 2024 had already been dedicated to what I termed “closing cursed loops,” completing cycles of unfinished business left anywhere from months to years as debts on my spiritual ledger, so imagine my surprise and delight when that turned out to be the actual text of Tenet. It was everything I hoped for, a work of bombastic goofball elegance that weaponized all of Nolan’s most Boy Movie artistic gifts: emotional immaturity, sick as hell action scenes, plotting that appears baroque and incomprehensible while actually being laughably straightforward, guys in various suits, truck that goes backwards.

1. For context, I first saw Tenet on my iPad, a viewing experience that I know is anathema to Christopher Nolan’s sensibilities. But my argument is that, even if it is compromised, a movie should be just as enjoyable on a tiny screen with bad speakers as it is on a big screen with incredible speakers.

2. Allison note: If you’re a Boy Movies reader and you’re not subscribed to Akosua’s Consumption Report, our sister publication, you’re missing out on one of Substack’s best.

3. Allison note: I preordered my copy, CAN YOU SAY THE SAME?

4. ONE man is usually enough, which is why I am happy to enjoy films like The Music Man, Spider-Man 2, and Rain Man. Movies with singular or plurals of “boy,” “girl,” and “woman”? I have no beef. See: About a Boy, Mean Girls, and Little Women.