Another year, another list of my favorite things from throughout the year. Like always, I've compiled a list of favorite things and people from this year for a variety of categories, as I'm interested in too many things to just write a yearly review about a single topic. What can I say, the world is an interesting place!
Movie: Uprising
The best historical epics are those that are as rooted in the relationships of their central characters as they are in the time and place they're set in. It's true for recent great historical epics from the last few years, like RRR and The Woman King, and it's true for Uprising.
This movie is set in Korea during the 1590s, when Korea was a kingdom (known as Joseon). During the decade Japan attempted to invade Joseon, which became known as the Imjin War. The story follows Cheon Yeong, an enslaved person who is an expert swordsman. He is best friends with Lee Jong-ryeo, the compassionate son of the Yeong's enslaver. Yeong is a free spirit who constantly tries to escape enslavement despite his affection for Lee. Luckily, because of his great swordsmanship, he escapes harsher punishment because of his value as a tutor for Lee.
The events of this movie put these friends onto a collision course. What's interesting about the larger political conflict here is that it's a three way one- the Korean elite are shown to care for Korean commoners little more than the Japanese do. In fact, the Korean elite sometimes even collaborate with the Japanese invaders. Certainly a biting metaphor for the aftermath of World War 2, when a lot of Korean elites who collaborated with the Japanese retained their power and influence thanks to the US occupiers.
This movie worked for me on multiple levels. The politics were intriguing, the action was exciting, the central friendship was sincere and really got me to care about the people involved beyond just the spectacle of everything happening. It was easily my favorite movie of the year until I saw I'm Still Here, but I still give this one the edge even though the latter is probably a "better" movie. Despite the fact Uprising is on Netflix and was written and produced by Park Chan-wook (of Oldboy, Lady Vengeance, and The Handmaiden fame), it's really slipped under the radar. I'm not sure why that is, but definitely check it out!
Comedy Movie: The Fall Guy
This was such a wonderful, fun movie. It stars Ryan Gosling as a stuntman and Emily Blunt as his ex-girlfriend who has become a movie director. It's a comedic rom-com with some action that is really just a celebration of movies and the people who work on it. I don't have too much more to say about it, because this movie isn't trying to do anything outside of the box. It's just a well-made crowd pleaser that does everything it aims to do in a really charming, enjoyable way. Like last year's pick (Polite Society), I'll fondly remember this one for a while.
Animated Movie: Look Back
Sometimes the process of artistic creation can be a lonely one. Not always, though- sometimes you find fellow creatives and things fall into place. Look Back is a celebration of the collaborative creative process, following a young manga artist named Ayumi Fujino. She draws manga for the school newspaper, but is eventually overshadowed by the mysterious Kyomoto. After an eventual chance encounter, the two become friends and collaborators.
I won't say more, as I think this is a movie better experienced with as little foreknowledge as possible. It's short, and almost ends in tragedy, but things go in an interesting direction after the tragedy that really reorients everything. It does all this not to create a super intricate plot, but to get us to feel the full weight of everything this movie is trying to make us feel. It succeeds beautifully, and manages to do so in just under an hour.
Actor: Aaron Pierre
Rebel Ridge was an exciting action movie that took on the corruption of police departments and the injustice of civil forfeiture policy, where police can arrest you, take your stuff, and not give it back (or have to jump through an exhausting series of hoops to be able to get it back) if they "suspect" it isn't actually yours. Starring in the film is Aaron Pierre, who simply has the it factor. He is cool, he is calm, he is collected, yet he is also a badass force of nature. At the same time, he also manages to inject a respectful humanity and depth to his character that makes him more than just an ass-kicking machine.
I'm not even sure what else to say here, other than this is the sort of performance that should make him an A-list star. Pierre deserves to start leading big, exciting blockbusters.
Actress: Fernanda Torres
I was all settled to give this spot to Maisy Stella in My Old Ass. She brings a refreshing liveliness to the movie that I love. She helps add a sincere yet fun charm to it, really elevating it beyond the script (with serious help from the always great Aubrey Plaza). But then I saw I'm Still Here.
The movie is about life in Brazil in the early 1970s under the dictatorship that ruled during that time. It's based on a true story. Fernanda Torres stars as Eunice Paiva, a mother of five and the wife of former Brazilian Congressman Rubens Paiva. Rubens had been a member of the Brazilian Labour Party until the rightwing military dictatorship came to power in 1964 and purged it. In the beginning of the movie we get a taste of both the love this family has for each other and the vibrant culture of Brazil, even in the midst of such a difficult time. Eventually, however, the military dictatorship ruins the family's peace by abducting Eunice, Rubens, and their second oldest daughter. I'll avoid saying much else so that anyone reading can go in fresh, but it's a powerful movie.
Torres's performance is the center of the movie. She is a mother trying to protect her family, a wife who loves her husband, and a woman of principle trying to do what is right in a system that is so wrong. She pulls everything off with flying colors. She balances toughness and vulnerability with impressive finesse, and the earlier, more lighthearted parts of the movie allow her to have fun before things get serious. Seeing that side of her really helps round out the character. This has to be one of my favorite performances of the decade so far.
Male MMA Fighter: Ilia Topuria
There were really only two choices for this spot: Alex Pereira or Ilia Topuria. And while I love Pereira for how entertaining his fights are and how cool his aura is, not to mention how often he stepped up to fight on short notice to save struggling UFC events, he's not exactly beating the best of the best. That's not his fault (the higher weight classes just don't have many good fighters), but in an otherwise close contest between two entertaining fighters, I gotta go with the one who beat higher quality competition.
Ilia Topuria beat two of the best pound for pound fighters on the entire planet in Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway. Not only that, but he beat perhaps the most well-rounded mixed martial artist ever in Volk (it's probably him or Demetrius "Mighty Mouse" Johnson), and perhaps the best MMA boxer ever in Holloway (there's a few on the shortlist for this honor, but Max is definitely one of 'em). That's a damn good year. Even if both fighters (but especially Volk) may be a little bit past their primes, beating fighters of that caliber while they're even decently close to their primes is beyond impressive.
Topuria is an interesting fighter. His background is as a grappler, having started martial arts as a kid with Greco-Roman wrestling and getting into Brazilian Jiu-jitsu as a teenager before moving to mixed martial arts. He has developed a dangerous and sophisticated boxing game, however. For many of his most recent fights that was what did the bulk of the work for him, though he did remind us how well-rounded he could be in his fight against Max Holloway (which you need to do to defeat an MMA-boxer of Max's caliber).
The fact Topuria is entertaining in addition to skilled makes him a joy to watch, like most featerweight champions. We'll see if Topuria can keep winning and build a legacy as champion like the other great previous champions of his division, including Volk and Holloway. I know I'll be watching with interest either way.
(NOTE: I usually also choose a female MMA fighter of the year, however this simply wasn't a great year for women's MMA in the UFC. I will, however, choose a female athlete from a different combat sport a few spaces down)
MMA Fight: Holloway vs Gaethje
This is one of those "what else can even be said about this?" sort of fights. Holloway and Gaethje went all out in one of the most entertaining brawls I've ever seen. On top of that, Holloway locked himself into fighter immortality through his point-and-brawl move toward the end that led to him knocking out Gaethje. While this fight wasn't quite as competitive as most of my picks for fight of the year in the past, it was just too fun to pass up.
Boxing Match: Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano
The Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul fight was a shit show. It was an embarrassment to the sport of boxing and an embarrassment to our collective intelligence. It was a spectacle of all show, no substance. Frankly, anyone who watched should be embarrassed...
...including me, because I watched it!
The main event was, of course, abysmal. The fights just before it, however, weren't. Especially not this fight. The two had already fought in 2022. They had an exciting, incredibly close fight that Kate Taylor won by split decision. This time, however... well, they yet again had an exciting, incredibly close fight that Taylor won by decision. These two are just made for each other. This fight was far and away one of the best fights of any combat sport I saw this year; it was almost enough to make Tyson vs Paul something of a real boxing card. If you enjoy fighting (especially boxing, but really any combat sports at all) and get the chance, this is an absolute must-watch.
Grappling Match: Kade Ruotolo vs Andrew Tackett
In grappling, there are generally two types of styles: "passers" who prefer to be on top of their opponent in grappling exchanges and "guard players" who prefer to play off of their back. I'm greatly oversimplifying, of course, but these are the two basic types at the most elementary level. Oftentimes in jiu-jitsu when you have two passers face each other it can turn into a boring, slow-paced wrestling match. Neither wants to be put on their back, but because both have good wrestling, they cancel each other out.
Kade Ruotolo and Andrew Tackett are both passing-based players, but their match earlier this year was anything but boring. The two gave it everything they have, constantly going for whatever moves they could without hesitation. The result is one of the greatest grappling matches of all time. You could show it to people who've never seen a grappling match to get them interested in the sport, you could show it to an advanced grappler to look out for high-level technical nuances. Best of all, it's free on YouTube!
Female Grappler: Ffion Davies
I love the martial art of jiu-jitsu. I've been practicing it for about a decade and currently hold the rank of purple belt. It's given me so much. But a dirty secret (that isn't really much of a secret if you're at all familiar with the sport) is that it is full of terrible people. Predators, scam artists, fascists, and straight up lunatics abound in the grappling world. Whenever an exciting new grappler emerges, you pretty much just take it for granted that they're probably not a good person.
But sometimes a good person hits the scene. And everyone once in a rare while, that good person makes it to the height of the sport. Ffion Davies is currently that person. An advocate for making jiu-jitsu more inclusive for women and for better athlete pay in general, she is also one of the best grapplers in the world. In 2024 she beat five high level women, four of them by submission. She even donated part of her purse for her highest profile match of 2024 at the Craig Jones Invitation to Gaza, which is pretty cool!
Scientific Discovery: Chimps Use Forests as Pharmacies
New research shows that chimpanzees may self-medicate when unwell, seeking out plants with anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties to ease what ails them. For example, in one study conducted, a chimp with a badly injured hand ate a type of fern tree that had anti-inflammatory properties.
This discovery is not only interesting in and of itself, but might be able to help human beings. By knowing that chimpanzees engage in this behavior, scientists can follow chimps around in the forest and study the plants they eat. After all, in jungles around the world there are far too many plants for scientists to study all of them. By having the field narrowed down to what chimps normally it, it makes the selection process for which plants to study a lot more manageable.
Scientific Achievement: Lenacapavir
In many countries around the world, HIV remains a serious public health problem. Treatment has improved exponentially over the last couple decades, but its spread is still a serious problem. A new drug, however, has been found to protect patients for six months after taking it. That drug is lenacapavir, which has just about a 100% efficacy rate. It's a wonderful breakthrough that will sure help millions around the globe.
Photo: UnitedHealth CEO Assassination
Was there a single person who makes less than $100,000 a year upset by this assassination?
Bullshit News Story: Haitian Immigrants Eating Pets
During the middle of the 2024 election campaign, the Republicans honed in on an obviously fake news story about Haitian immigrants eating pets. The "story" came from a couple calls from local racist cranks with zero evidence. Normally people would have the sense to brush that story off, but Republicans (particularly JD Vance) never pass up a chance to stoke racism against immigrants. What was shocking about this story, though, was how overtly racist it was. Most of the time, Republicans like to be suggestively racist, that way they have plausible deniability when confronted about it. This was just straight up George Wallace style racism, though.
When confronted about it, Vance more or less admitted he didn't care if the story was true or not. In his own words: "the American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do." Because the point isn't to figure out the truth. The point is to stoke hatred in order to enact their otherwise unpopular, shitty agenda.
Actual News Story: The Genocide in Palestine
As of writing this, a ceasefire has finally been reached in Gaza. It's nice that the killing has finally stopped, but the fact a genocide occurred over the last fourteen months (with full funding and arming from the Untied States) is an irrevocable stain on the world for letting it continue this long (with the United States repeatedly hampering all efforts by the United Nations to do anything to impose a halt to Israel's mass killing). All the rhetoric about the "rules based international order" and "human rights" that the United States, and the West more broadly, use was shown to be an empty shell.
Having kept up with news about the genocide for almost every day in 2024, I don't know what to even zoom in on here without writing an essay (or, hell, even a whole book- which I may do someday). From blowing up hospitals and schools to sabotaging peace talks to trying to cover up news of sexual assault against Palestinian detainees, Israel perpetrated countless atrocities. This is why even groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as genocide scholars and even the United Nations itself, have ruled it a genocide. But none of that was enough to stop it from continuing.
The people of Palestine have suffered so much. Even in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers continued stealing land from native Palestinians despite no Hamas presence at all in the region. We can only hope the best for them (as well as make donations whenever we have anything to spare), but that will not bring back the dead, or give homes to the almost 40,000 orphaned children, or help rebuilt the utterly ruined infrastructure. And it won't keep them safe going forward, where they're still at the mercy of Israeli occupation.
Inadequate as words are, though, it's still worth saying: free Palestine.
Badass: Palestinian Doctors
Throughout the course of Israel's genocide in Gaza, it repeatedly targeted hospitals. It has completely devastated the Gazan medical system. Yet there are countless stories of Palestinian doctors refusing to leave their patients despite the risk they're taking. Doctors around the world take oaths to care for their patients and do so with impressive dedication, but those who do so during a genocide where they are being targeted shows a level of bravery that is an entirely different league. They shouldn't have to be this brave, they shouldn't have to choose between risking their lives against a murderous rampage or abandoning their patients, but they were put in that position. And they chose to save lives.
Video: Palestinian Children Thank Student Protesters
I share this video not to give special mention to the college students across the world who protested for Palestine (I think they're wonderful, but they're hardly the most important people here), but because it just shows how desperate these poor children were to have some sort of beacon of hope while facing an extermination. Look at these precious kids- some of whom were certainly killed since the recording of the video. Don't their hopes, their dreams, their fears count too? Look at how earnest they are. How they smile in the midst of such devastation. The world failed to keep them safe. It continues to fail to keep them safe. That needs to change.
