mid-year media recap + more summer film recs

stuff i've read and watched this year that had me go "meh" and more films to enjoy this summer season

We’re basically halfway through 2024 (shoot me please) and I normally do a media recap of things that I’ve enjoyed so far. But, since I also do an end-of-year recap of my absolute favorites, I thought I’d switch things up this time and tell you about the things I’ve read and watched this year that I didn’t like or that I enjoyed but could’ve been better. The little goblin in me loves to rant about what doesn’t work and needs an outlet. Also, in a fashion true to me, I forgot some films on my summer film list so I’m going to add them here.

2024 books that were just “meh”

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

This one hurts. I love Celeste Ng’s work. Most known for her novel Little Fires Everywhere, which was adapted for a Hulu television series, Ng’s prose follows her (mostly female) protagonists' domestic lives and deeply private, complex thoughts, turning everyday mundane occurrences into revelations on race, class, desire, dreams, and more. So it was a surprise that Our Missing Hearts followed a young boy, but I was eager to read. The said boy is Bird, a mixed-race (Asian and Caucasian) pre-teen living in a future America that is rebuilding after decades of severe economic instability and violence. Thinking this turmoil was the fault of the Chinese, the American government has banned all books, lessons, conversations, and activities that are seen as anti-American, with the goal of “preserving American culture.” Most drastically, the children of any dissidents are taken away, names changed and contact forever cut. Bird’s mother is an Asian woman who wrote a book of poetry criticizing this new order, and left Bird and his father years ago. Bird is forbidden to speak of her for his own protection, but when he receives what he thinks is a clue, he goes on a quest to find her. I didn’t hate this book and I’m glsd it got me out of my reading slump but I prefer Ng’s domestic dramas. A lot of the prose felt shallow compared to her previous work and I didn’t get the point of her writing this. Similar to “Don’t Look Up” the audience Celeste is writing for is already aware of the things she’s writing about (such as covert discrimination, the dangers of censorship, etc.). However, I do appreciate that the book emphasizes how no matter what happens, they can’t take our voices, and the stories we tell will last for generations.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

I know. I know! I know. I was heartbroken too when I finished the last page of this novel and felt like something was missing. I adore Toni Morrison. I think her prose is music in literary form. Beloved is my favorite novel of hers. So I thought I would love The Bluest Eye. It follows several residents of a small town in Ohio sometime in the 1900s, but the story's focus is a little girl named Pecola who wishes for blue eyes so she can be loved like the blonde, blue-eyed children. Something happens to Pecola that changes everything forever. The biggest problem I had with this book was that it follows so many characters that I feel like Pecola isn’t the main character in her own story. On the one hand, I get why Morrison did this; exploring racism, classism, misogynoir, and generational trauma that is compounded by all of these things requires multiple points of view, and emphasizes why Pecola was treated the way she was. So much time was spent building up to the event that changes Pecola’s life and then very little time was spent after, it almost felt like it was dumped there exposition-style. I hate to say this about Morrison’s writing, my skin is crawling. I’m not writing off the book completely. It’s very complex and I think another read would help me understand better. It’s just that when I closed the pages of Beloved, I was overcome with a complete understanding of everything that happened and why. It just clicked. I didn’t get that with The Bluest Eye and that makes me sad. Anyone who has read it and has similar or different insights to mine, please share!

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

If I could sum this novel up in one sentence, I’d say: just watch the movie. If you’re unfamiliar, American Psycho follows Patrick Bateman, a 26-year-old Wall Street executive who is uber rich, uber hot, uber narcissistic, and uber murderous. By day he goes to the gym, follows elaborate skincare routines, wears designer clothes, and makes gobs of money. By night, he goes to exclusive clubs, chats shit with his friends, treats his girlfriend like shit, and murders women in cold blood in order to deal with the monotony of it all. Every page is full of outfit and product descriptions and everyday tasks in excruciating detail. I get why this is done but reading about some Ralph Lauren suit for the 30th time just gets exhausting. The prose is IN. YOUR. FACE. all the time. Again, to capture the fast-paced yet deeply boring, careless world of the ultra-rich NYC finance bros, so I get it, but I don’t need to read it twice. I like to pride myself on my ability to stomach extreme gore in fiction but some of the murder scenes in this book even tested my limits. However, I think Ellis nailed what he set out to do; Patrick Bateman is truly an unreliable narrator and the prose made ME want to go on a murderous rampage at one point just from how insane it made me feel. There’s truly no other book like it but 399 pages was just too much. So I repeat: just watch the movie.

2024 TV that ruined its potential

Percy Jackson & The Olympians

I read the Percy Jackson series growing up. The Logan Lerman movies were a comfort watch of mine even if they weren’t accurate to the books at all. When Disney announced a new Percy series would drop WITH the full support and involvement of author Rick Riordan, I thought we’d finally get the story we deserved. And then I watched the series. I’m just going to directly quote my notes app blurb about it:

“God what a letdown. What happened? WHAT HAPPENED?! How do you mess up this badly? Rick you should be ashamed of yourself. THIS is the project you’re proud of? It’s not awful but it’s so much wasted talent and potential. So much telling instead of showing. Illogically changing parts to make them boring? (examples: the bus, Medusa’s lair, THE LOTUS CASINO). Refer to Friendly Space Ninja’s video on YouTube for full thoughts because he basically said it all.”

What puts salt in the wound is Rick Riordan’s attitude. He blasted the OG movies for not being book-accurate and butchering his story and refused to engage with them. He touted the new series as HIS vision, the story we all deserve, Percy’s small-screen redemption. And we get a series that is lifeless, boring, and sucks out nearly all of the characterizations that made us love Percy and co. in the first place. The main trio acts like their characters in real life more than they do in the series and that’s completely the fault of the writing and direction. The Logan Lerman movies may not have been book accurate but at least they were FUN.

2024 TV that I just can’t get behind

Sex in the City

I’M SORRY. On paper, this show should be right up my alley. Four twenty-something (and Miranda) best friends living in NYC who meet for brunch to discuss their love lives? The main character is a columnist with a fabulous apartment? The setting is the late 90s? It was basically made for me! So why can’t I get into it? This is my third try and I made it 10 episodes. I didn’t hate it, so maybe I’ll give it another chance one day. I think with the headspace I’ve been in the last couple of years, a show where women dissect their sex lives and the strange behaviors of straight men, plus the fact that the protagonist’s longest-running relationship is with a fuckboy, it’s just not for me right now. It should be cathartic, but it just makes me have a crisis about modern dating.

2024 movies that I liked but could’ve been better

Bottoms (2023) dir. Emma Seligman

I probably wouldn’t care about this film if Rachel Sennot and Ayo Edebiri weren’t the stars. An absurdist comedy about two high school girls who start a female fight club in order to talk to their crushes, it has charm and humor. The epic battle scene on the football field was a masterpiece. Rachel and Ayo are absolute stars. The entire cast was great, and I do like it more with each rewatch. But the comedy was kind of hit or miss for me. I think I wrote in my Letterboxd review that they could’ve gone harder with the absurdist stuff. I don’t know. I get why people love it. I’ll definitely watch it again. But it’s no Shiva Baby.

Totally Killer (2023) dir. Nahnatchka Khan

Scrolling Prime one day, my best friend and I made a split-second decision to watch this because it stars Kiernan Shipka, an amazing actress who was born to play her most famous role of Sabrina Spellman in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and then kind of fell out of the spotlight for some reason. Shipka plays Jamie, a teenager living in a small town that’s most known for a string of gruesome murders in the 80s. Her mother Pam is a survivor and has lived in fear of the killer who still hasn’t been caught. On Halloween, the killer comes back to finish the job and succeeds, and Jamie finds a note from them in her mom’s old jacket that says “You’re next, one day.” Jamie becomes obsessed with finding the killer. Sound straightforward? Here’s where shit goes left. Jamie’s best friend Amelia built a time machine for their school science fair, and one night while the killer is chasing Jamie, she hides in the time machine and accidentally gets sent back to the 80s, right before the original murders. Jamie uses this opportunity to stop the original murders from happening and catch the killer this time in order to prevent her mom’s death in the future. The premise is interesting and different but the time travel mechanics don’t make any sense and the end of the film, in my opinion, is just strange and lackluster. But it’s still a fun film! There are countless jokes about a modern teenager having to school 80s teens on things like consent, drunk driving, slut-shaming, weed, bullying, etc. and some may think the jokes get old but Shipka delivers it every time so I don’t mind. And Shipka is the reason I’d watch this again. She brings so much emotion to everything and really nails the comedy, suspense, and horror. Now someone tell her agent to get her better projects!

2024 movies that I absolutely hated and want to see burn in hell

Saltburn (2023) dir. Emerald Fennel

I feel like you should know why at this point. Similar to Sam Levinson, Fennel only possesses a talent for aesthetics and should never come near Final Draft ever again, yet she acts like her work is so deep and on another level, when it’s really just shallow and pretentious. She is incapable of understanding the nuances and complexities of the worlds she writes about and can’t write a decent plot to save her life, instead relying on shock factor and plot twists that don’t make any goddamn sense. That 4:3 aspect ratio kinda slapped though. The only good thing to come out of this mess is the TikTok edits of Jacob Edlordi.

more summer film recommendations that I forgot to include in my original list because I have the memory of a goldfish plus that list was already very long so i’m just going to add them here instead of making an entire post for them

We’re The Millers (2013) dir. Rawson M. Thurber

I feel like I shouldn’t need to explain this one. A comedy about a weed dealer named David who suddenly owes his drug supplier tons of money, he is tasked with transporting tons of weed through the Mexican border to pay his debts. To avoid suspicion, he hires his neighbors-local stripper Rose, teen runaway Casey, and recently abandoned teen Kenny–to pretend to be his wife and kids on a family July 4th vacation so they can cross the border in an RV. Obviously, shit goes wrong in a myriad of hilarious ways. It’s genuinely a great comedy that’s perfect to turn your brain off with. I have “no ragrets” about watching it.

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) dir. John Avnet

I grew up being fed movies about strong southern women, my mother being one herself. This movie is such a comfort to me and the story is so beautiful. Kathy Bates stars as Evelyn, a middle-aged housewife in 1980s Birmingham who feels stuck in her life and undesired by her husband. Lonely, she befriends Ninny, a nursing home resident with many stories to tell about an old town named Whistle Stop. The narrative shifts between Ninny’s stories and Evelyn’s life as she grows more confident from listening to Ninny. The stories Ninny tells are primarily focused on two women, Idgie and Ruth. Idgie is a tomboy who is socially withdrawn and Ruth, who is a few years older, is engaged to Idgie’s older brother Buddy. After an unfortunate accident that causes Buddy’s death, Idgie and Ruth are forever bonded, and their friendship ebbs and flows over many years. I wish I could say more because the stuff that happens in this movie is truly hilarious, heartfelt, and devastating all at the same time, but you’ll have to hear it from Ninny, not me. The title of the film references the famous dish of fried green tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe where Idgie and Ruth work for a time. At its core, the film is about women rising above the circumstances they were dealt through the power of female friendship. Some would say a very close friendship. Also, murder is involved so that’s always fun. The deep south setting gives me summer vibes but it’s a great watch any time of year.

Smokey and the Bandit (1977) dir. Hal Needham

Another classic I grew up watching, the film follows Bo “Bandit” Darville (Burt Reynolds) who is hired to illegally smuggle 400 cases of beer across state lines from Texarkana (my mom’s hometown!) to Atlanta in 28 hours. He recruits his friend Cletus “Snowman” Snow to drive the actual truck while Bandit baits the police with a black Pontiac to distract them so the goods can be delivered. Just as they’re about to head off on their risky journey, a runaway bride named Carrie (played by the iconic Sally Field) hops in Bandit’s car and demands he take her away. Carrie’s would-be father-in-law is none other than Sheriff Buford T. Justice, who uses his power to chase Carrie and Bandit across state lines, now making Bandit’s goal riskier than ever. Highjinks and car crashes and romance ensues. It’s like a summer road trip full of southern 70s charm, comical mishaps, and outrageous stunts.

Steel Magnolias (1989) dir. Herbert Ross

Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley Maclaine, and Julia Roberts in one film? Instant classic. Yet another film I grew up with, Steel Magnolias follows the lives of a group of women in Louisiana. The story begins with Annelle, a young beauty school graduate who is hired by Truvy Jones (Parton) for her home-based beauty salon. Here, Annelle meets the rest of the women; mayor’s wife Clairee, loud-mouthed Louisa (Maclaine), and mother-daughter duo M’Lynn (Field) and Shelby (Roberts). The women are at the salon this particular day to get ready for Shelby’s wedding. While at the salon, Shelby suffers a severe diabetic episode and it’s revealed she can’t have kids and almost canceled her wedding because she felt bad about not being able to give her future husband children. Annelle opens up about her own struggles and Shelby invites her to the wedding, solidifying the friendship between these women. The rest of the film follows the next few years as romance, health scares, and tragedy strike. The balance between comedy and melodrama teeters but hey, I’m not going to complain too much about a film that centers the wonders of female friendship. I don’t know why this film feels extra special in the summer because it takes place throughout all seasons, but it just does. There’s a 2012 remake with an all-Black cast starring Queen Latifah and Alfre Woodard that I need to check out.

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That’s it! But knowing me, I probably forgot something. The great thing for my newsletter is that there will always be films to recommend. Is there anything you’ve watched or read this year that didn’t click with you? Rant about it in the comments!

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