The variety and interconnected universe is the only thing keeping the MCU afloat. Any franchise with as many misses and mediocre wouldn’t still be around this long after their last string of consistent hits.

Everything is dead and woke and dei killed it

You took 10 minutes to essentially say; "Ignore the horrendous writing and bad content we've been getting since Phase 4 and just appreciate the amount of content we have and the ever so slightly different vague collection of genres they belong to". The MCU is not thriving, it's almost as bad as Star Wars right now.

How much is you getting paid to defend shit movies with shit plot and shit character making shit decisions. Fuck marvel. Paramount and universal made better movies than disney

The mcu is donkey shit

I agree with this point of view. Phase 5 took an episodic TV approach to storytelling. Kevin Feige is a Star Trek fan, and TOS/TNG were famous for creating a variety of narratives per episode, action, comedy, drama, horror, etc. That variety was required because they had 26 episodes a season and maintaining a single tone would've been boring to watch and produce. But the MCU isn't Trek, and the MCU fan base doesn't seem to enjoy the variety. They kinda want the same story told in the same way but with sightly different characters.

People care about quality, that’s the thing you’re missing, the thing that you dismiss so easily is very important. I don’t want to watch characters being stupid so the plot can happen, and I don’t want to see plots so stupid that they insult my intelligence.

I agree with you that the MCU has many cool concepts, but the quality has been very low, and they have too much comedy in every project. You mentioned Multiverse of Madness, which is a great example, because the original idea was more of a horror movie, but what we got was nothing like it. That movie also focused on the multiverse, which is the worse thing to happen, since there are now much lower stakes in everything they do. In short, I really like many of the concepts, but too many unnecessary laughs and too many of the new movies introduced threats to Earth, or even the multiverse, but still handled by a single character or group, rather than bring in the Avengers.

Personally I think most of the mcu is generic trash. The first phase was the best phase and it just kept getting worse from there. Also you say at some point "putting quality aside" And absolutely not it is a movie if the quality is bad I don't care how different it is from other movies. It is entertainment first and foremost and if it's not entertainment it failed.

“Putting quality aside, we have a lot of variety” Um… so lots of different KINDS of shit? Great.

It's so refreshing to hear a positive take on the MCU especially nowadays when it seems like every single thing that gets insanely popular also attracts and equally-large mob of detractors and people that hate that thing solely for the fact that it's popular. Even back in 2019 when I was still an angsty depressed teen on Twitter, I was a target for ridicule by so many Film Twitter Zoomers because of this whole negative stigma attached to the fandom, that they're all gooner manchildren. When really I was just a guy that had a lot of love for the Marvel universe. Since then it felt like hating on the MCU was such an easy thing for film directors and online strangers to do. I was honestly contemplating making a video similar to this, but I just didn't know where to start. However, watching this video realized how much I relate to it. So thank you for making this video.

Where's The Substance? it should be #1.

Great list Aaron 😊 I do like seeing this since this year was the least amount I’ve seen for movies in a year. So seeing you talk about the variety of films that came out was great. Good job.

Oh God.....some people are really devoid of any taste. These choices are awful.

Your taste is awful but it is your taste. Your number one is great. I skipped through your list but I did not see Bagdad Cafe. It is never on top 100 lists but should be. I think it will be your cup or tea.

Interesting list. I’m also UK based and the problem with the Iron Claw argument is that also makes Poor Things, The Holdovers, All of Us Strangers, American Fiction and The Zone of Interest all 2024 releases. Doesn’t work!

My best movies is duchess doninique the witch recenge lee place of bones Heather Graham is fantastic dirty angels druve back azrael swap and the Stockholm bloodbath thanks for the list

Wonderful list pal. I was guessing A real pain would take your top spot (and I wasn’t far off 😊) but of course it would be Dune Part 2 hahahaha WHAT A MOVIE! Totally agree that it’s a cinematic experience I will never forget. ❤

Good one

Good list. Some of them made it in the collection, as I’m sure you’re aware. Maybe you can follow up with some more films to replace the ones that are in now. Personally, I dare Criterion to add Song of the South and Sound of Freedom. Both are controversial films that are also very important overall.

Although Dr. Strangelove was release first, I recommend watching Fail Safe first - a sobering reflection on nuclear weapons and war - then zD. estrange love, a broad parody the sharpens the message by punctuation the broad parody with needle-sharp observation cast as comedic absurdity that will take you back to the thesis they share.

None of these lists has any movies before 1975. The exposure to some of the best movies is very limited. And very few, if any, foreign films. The people giving lists or commenting seem to have no interest in film history. When you leave out Citizen Kane or GWTW or to Kill a Mockingbird or Top Hat or Singing' in the Rain it shows very knowledge of 125 years of film history.

Hail Jesus!!

stfu, this is masterpice

Great video Aaron. I like how you were able to talk about so many films in under 30 mins 😱 also I’m sad that the only film I’ve seen on this list was The Wild Robot 😭 I’ve been slacking this year. But again, good job!!!

It was great hearing your brief thoughts on everything you saw at LFF. I've only seen Anora and Blitz from your list. Overall it sounded like an underwhelming programme of features would you say?

This is what I remember: I was seven years old at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. I remember my brother and I arguing in the back of our mother's car as a news caster broke into the music playing on the radio. I remember how my mother shushed us as the newscaster informed us that the Russians were removing their missiles from Cuba and we were not going to die after all. To this day, I remember the fear on my mother's face. I had never seen a grownup physically afraid before. I have never forgotten it.

155 films. collateral made it and NOT buffalo 66... hmm

Good insight.

another great discussion!

For me, I’d pick “Star 80”, “Cabaret”, “Kids”, “Welcome to the Dollhouse”, “American Movie”, “King Kong (1933)”, “Good Bye, Lenin!”, “Requiem For A Dream”, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, and “Run Lola Run” just to name some

I watched Dr Strangelove maybe 25 years ago when I was young. I found it absurd and funny and kinda scary. And I think that might have been Kubrick's intention in making the film

Same problem I have over and over again with people under 40: a large number of movies from the last 20 or 30 years, but practically none from the 30s or 40s. Being too young to have not seen many classics when they were released is not an excuse.

Great vid - think Strangelove was more relevant to audiences at its time - cuba nuclear madness...

Nice list. Burning is a good movie and one of my top 50. Before Sunrise is in my top 5 too. I still need to see After Life - Koreeda is one of my favorite directors. His movie ‘I Wish’ is my #1 all time.

I'm very jealous you got to see the last voyager! I've wanted to see that for over a year 🤌

dont waste your money

incredibly badly made

I saw " Fail Safe " when I was in the mid 1960s in junior high then bought the paperback . I didn't see Strangelove until much later as an adult . The book was pretty good , the Fonda movie was okay , Kubrick's version is a masterpiece . My favorite movie .

I think the x-ray flashlight was a great idea. And there were some GREAT scenes. When Marie is trapped behind the door and the xenomorph is pushing out of it's chrysalis was absolutely horrifying. I felt like I was in there with her. It did get away from itself in the third act, but the floating acid was cool too. But the most unsettling, grossest part is when the face hugger jumps on the ex-boyfriend's face and he's fighting with it and you can see the extension from it's body going into his mouth and poking around his face trying to find his mouth again was just absolutely horrifying and a great shot. It's the first time you get to see mechanically what the face-hugger does when it gets on your face. I could imagine having that phalic extension of it's little alien spider body trying to get in my mouth. That is just crazy and was really well done. The worst for the movie was Rook. If people don't understand he's a completely different android to Ash and they just manufacturer them with the same face for some models, some people might be confused, and the CGI on his face was terrible. It ALMOST took me out of the movie. And then the end got away from me. They needed to go a different direction somehow. I don't know what. But not what they did.

Fede said that he wanted people to either love it or hate it. But he didn’t want anyone leaving the theater apathetic. He pulled that off for sure! 😂 Personally, I loved it.

It’s not incredible do you know what incredible means. It’s ok but has big flaws

First half was a 7 out of 10. Second half was chocked to death with fan service (was it homage or was it just blatant rip off) and was maybe a 3 out of 10. The sound design was absolutely shite - dialogue was mixed under the score ffs. Biggest issue was the procession of callbacks. Didn't capture the tension of the original, couldn't decide if it wanted to go full action or pull it back.

Nah, first half was great, last half of the film was crap. I don't need member-berries

I liked it

Ehhhh, I dunno man. You were talking about the names of characters and I was like "Who?". They're all forgettable with little to relate to. I think this is at best a slightly better than the average entry into the Alien universe. Some bits were really good and original, but others such as the lack of character development, poor CGI (you know what I'm talking about) and messing yet again with the development cycle of the alien are mistakes that just keep getting repeated. This could have been far better by making it simpler and focusing on building rapport between the audience and the characters. Oh, and by not trying to shoe-horn Rook in for nostalgia purposes.

Rook's face tho 😂

I finally saw Romulus today and I thought the two main performances were pretty good. It was pretty predictable and not that scary. However that last 15minutes - I loved! That was much more horror focussed and added something to the franchise I hadn't seen before. I didn't want a carbon copy as the first film so fair play to Fede! The music and cinematography 🤌

I liked it until they showed us the new alien morph. That's where they lost me. This movie is about as bad as Resurrection although not quite as intentionally cheesy

I feel the same about how they nailed the vibe of the original Alien setting. The visuals/setting were so strong. Honestly thought this would feel cheaper than it did just based off the trailer. I absolutely loved the third act My main gripe as an American is I occasionally couldn’t understand the accents 😂