Afraid I'm wordier than you guys.
Ringing the old year out appropriately on Dec. 31 with a trip to the theater:
Nosferatu (2024) dir. Robert Eggers; starring Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgard
It’s been decades since I watched the silent version, but my impression is this followed it closely; a friend who’d seen it more recently confirmed that impression. Beautifully shot, the feel of the town, the castle, the ship, the countryside all seem genuine and textured; the costumes appear appropriate to the time and place. The acting is good throughout, especially Depp as Ellen, Hoult as Helen’s husband, Thomas, and Emma Corrin as Anna, Ellen’s friend. The rats are pretty good, too.
If you’re uncomfortable with gore and violence this may not be for you. Also rats. Many, many rats.
Avoiding facing 2025 too directly:
Deadpool and Wolverine (2024) dir. Shawn Levy; starring Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman (Disney+)
An old-fashioned feel-good movie about a broken man yanked out of his timeline and given a shot at redemption. Served with extra helpings of violence and copious fake blood and bits – lotsa bits.
If you saw the first two Deadpools, more of the same but with a nice turn by Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova (didn’t realize until now I had watched a Corrin two-fer). Really, I can’t complain about any series that offers Leslie Uggams a chance to cuss constantly and a steady paycheck.
Murder Mystery (2019) dir. Kyle Newacheck; starring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Luke Evans, Gemma Arterton (Prime)
Often inane, but also often funny. Can’t recall if Sandler and Anniston had worked together previously, but they seem like a natural fit here, Anniston’s border-line ditzy sensibleness against his boisterousness mesh well. Plot is, pushed into a corner, cop Sandler takes wife Anniston on a European vacation. On flight, Anniston meets rich man Evans and the couple ends up invited to join Evans on his uncle’s (Terrance Stamp, playing to type as an overbearing gazillionaire) yacht. There’s a will, a murder or two, many hijinks and the cop and his wife have to figure out whodunit. Everyone seems to be having fun and the location shooting is gorgeous.
The Fall Guy (2024) dir. David Leitch; starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham (Prime)
Based on the ‘80s U.S. TV show with Lee Majors, this has stunt man Colt Seavers (Gosling) recovering more mentally than physically from a stunt gone badly wrong. Conned into joining the production of his former lover Jody’s (Blunt) first movie as director, he is dragged into finding the missing star Tom Ryder (Taylor-Johnson; another unintended two-fer, since he’s also in Nosferatu).
Blunt and Gosling work off each other really well, Waddingham steals almost every scene she’s in, Taylor-Johnson seems to be having a blast, the stunt work is terrific, every bit as good as in Deadpool, but for all this the movie doesn’t quite come together. Can’t really pinpoint why. But if you want mindless entertainment, it works well enough.
And finally, circling around seriousness:
Peeping Tom (1960) dir. Michael Powell; starring Karlheinz Bohm, Anna Massey, Moira Shearer
A re-watch (Turner Cable Movies), this was probably 20 years ahead of its time; excoriated in the British press, it ended Powell’s career as a director despite earlier successes, and in spite of the success the same year of Psycho. Plot: A young photographer, Mark (Bohm), essentially tortured by his scientist father as a child, is fearful of sex and obsessed with capturing the fear of death on film. Naturally, there’s only one way of doing this.
PT seems to come down on the “nurture” side of “nature vs. nurture.”
I’ve never seen it mentioned as an inspiration for giallos but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. Has some of the same feel for me as Hitchcock’s later movie, Frenzy. Tangential trivia: Jack Watson and Nigel Davenport portray police investigating the murders, and I’ve recently seen both in episodes of The Avengers the first year Diana Rigg’s Mrs. Peel was featured. (Silent Dust and The Danger Makers, respectively.)
I don’t know when British movies began to allow nudity, but this seems to get around any censors by having Mark work in a shop where postcards of topless women are displayed, and Mark supplements his income as an assistant in movie production by creating some of those cards and other photos. According to IMDB’s bio, Pamela Green (Millie in the movie) worked for George Harrison Marks in that business and Powell took inspiration from her work as model and as designer of sets and costumes for the shoots.
(I think I watched more movies in the two weeks around Christmas and New Year's than I did in the three months before that.)
I think I agree with my young self, 2010 has acting, a script, a story arc, whereas 2001 is just a long slippery ride into a black hole. Of course then I saw Tarkovsky's Solaris which trumped them both, but I digress.
No, the 1953 version. 
