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Thanks for taking a moment to check out a new direction for my SCREEN-SPACE writings. I launched SCREEN-SPACE in April 2012 and the site and its socials has built a dedicated following. But times are a’changing, and I reckon a newsletter rich with my aged wisdom and often witty, occasionally grumpy beat on all things film is a great way to bring what I love to do to you…

Essentially, you’ll enjoy all of what you’ve come to expect from SCREEN-SPACE - the right mix of insight, analysis, history and humour - but now, it’s straight into your inbox every week. I’m based on Australia’s East Coast, so I’ll certainly be reporting on our local industry, but we are one as a planet (now THAT’S writing) so there will be plenty of international coverage as well.

When I started SCREEN-SPACE, a key aim was to keep long-form film journalism alive. I grew up on the editorial scope of iconic magazines like Empire, Premiere and Movieline; kept up with ‘The Biz’ by devouring every word of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter; and, idolizing the artisans and craftspeople whose work was chronicled in Fangoria, Cinefex and American Cinematographer.

So let’s build a like-minded SCREEN-SPACE community together - through subscribing and sharing the newsletter; by clicking on the links and opening yourself up to a vast network of news and views; and, perhaps most importantly, through passionate discourse between each other about the inspiring world of film.

Simon Foster
Editor

MY FAVOURITE MOVIE MEMORIES OF 2024

No one needs me to rattle off my version of the same lists you’ve read plenty of lately. Most of us critics kind of agree on the ‘Year’s Best’ - Anora...tick; Emilia Perez…tick; Conclave…tick; A Real Pain…tick; Challengers…tick. There are films that were exactly as great as we had every right to expect them to be, like Dune: Part II (which I loved) or Wicked (which I really loved), and others that I adored for the feel-good vibes they brought, like Saturday Night (great entertainment) and My Old Ass (the year’s best coming-of-age narrative).

So instead, I’ll just reflect on my favourite movie memories of 2024, and encourage you to do the same in the comments below. You can see a more official Top 20 on my Letterboxd page. For now, enjoy the cinema moments that I enjoyed this year… 

MARGARET QUALLEY MOVIES: Andie’s daughter continues to build a rep as Hollywood’s most fearless, fascinating screen presence with three films that allowed her to shine. First to drop was her ensemble turn in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness (>Poor Things, imho); next, a great comedic spin opposite Geraldine Viswanathan in Ethan Coen’s wildly under-valued Drive-Away Dolls; and, above all else, the sex-bomb physicality and body-horror bonhomie of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. Demi will get the Academy’s attention come nomination season, but the year’s best horror film was every bit the two-hander it needed to be to work. 

NICHOLAS HOULT MOVIES: At 35, Nicholas Hoult ought NOT be referred to as, “The kid from About A Boy”, although the impact of his film debut aged 11 opposite Hugh Grant continues to resonate with the industry. In 2024, Hoult fleshed out some of his most memorable characters. He descended into an existential madness thanks to Bill Skarsgård’s nightmarish Count Orlock in Robert Eggar’s Nosferatu; unearthed a three-dimensional lead character in Clint Eastwood’s enjoyably pulpy courtroom drama, Juror #2; and, above all else, crafted the year’s most chilling villain - steely-eyed white supremacist ‘Bob Matthews’ in Aussie director Justin Kurzel’s midwest-Nazi expose, The Order.  

LOS ANGELES, JUNE 1-7: Travelling with my dream gal, we launched ourselves into a week of film nerd indulgence. Barely off the plane for two hours, we were in the lush red seats of the A.M.P.A.S. Museum’s David Geffen Theatre for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, screened in 70mm. Then, back again the next night, for a rare showing of 2002’s Real Women Have Curves, with director Patricia Cardosa present. The American Cinematheque was ‘celebrating’ its annual Bleak Week program, so we settled in for the 1979 family-murder drama Natural Enemies, with director Jeff Kanew on panel at the Los Feliz Theatre. Then, the centrepiece evening: A24’s premiere of their 40th Anniversary remaster of Jonathon Demme’s concert film Stop Making Sense at the Pantages Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard - the very theatre where the Talking Heads classic was filmed. Add in location visits to sites from La La Land, Blade Runner and Miracle Mile, and…well, I think about that week every day.      

JOKER: FOLIE DE DEUX: 2019’s Joker (which I did not like at all) earned a billion dollars for Warner Bros and the right for star Joaquin Phoenix and director Todd Phillips to do whatever they wanted with the sequel. But…a musical romance?!? Critics ripped it apart, audiences stayed away, and Warners were left licking the financial wounds that only a $250million flop leave behind. I dodged it during its brief theatrical run, though curiosity got the better of me (I like Lady Gaga, sue me!) so I rented it when it hit iTunes. The verdict? It’s the kind of grand folly that we rarely see the likes of nowadays but, I kid you not…I LOVED IT! It is a brilliant anti-anti-hero film that addresses the mental miasma of Arthur Fleck, focussed through the same pop-culture lens that drove him, his followers, and both the admirers and detractors of the first film’s nihilism, mad in the first place. 

THE MIGHT OF FACTUAL FILMMAKING: Real world events proved every bit as horrific, bewildering, captivating and humanistic as anything Hollywood creatives could conjure in 2024. Perhaps that is why factual filmmakers produced such profoundly special films as No Other Land, the first-person camcorder chronicle of Israel’s campaign of terror against Palestinian villagers; Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters, in which the missing daughters of a Tunisian woman’s family are replaced by outspoken actresses; Dan Reed’s Stopping the Steal, a celebration of the strength of character it took for a handful of individuals to say ‘No’ to dictator-wannabe Donald Trump; and, the heartbreaking, soul-enriching journey of a superstar comedian and his transgender buddy in Will & Harper. Mix in 2023 holdovers Occupied City, Anselm and Israelism, and real life made for the year’s best filmgoing.

REBEL RIDGE, JOY and WOMAN OF THE HOUR: Is Netflix still the No. 1 home viewing platform? Was it ever? My Screen Watching podcast co-host and Always Be Watching boss Dan Barrett is Australia’s best arbiter of that stuff, so over to him. I do know that Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge, a hard-edged thriller about small town prejudice and corruption (like First Blood? Yeah, a bit) featuring a voluminous heroic turn by Aaron Pierre and a great villain in Don Johnson, and Woman of the Hour, a based-in-fact serial killer psycho-drama that announced its star Anna Kendrick as a directing force, were the best films to drop on any streaming service this year. Add in Aussie director Ben Taylor’s deeply affecting true-life drama Joy, featuring Thomasin McKenzie as the woman who helped forge IVF science, and it’s well played in 2024, Netflix.

HEROINES OF HORROR: Regular Screen-Space readers know that the horror genre generally gets a stand-alone mention in our end-of-year wrap. In 2024, many of the high-profile shockers that impressed featured great performances by actresses - Naomi Scott in the hit sequel Smile 2; it-girl Sydney Sweeney in the religious shocker Immaculate; scream queen Maika Monroe (opposite a next-level Nicholas Cage) in Longlegs; a mesmerising Nell Tiger Free in The First Omen; Cailee Spaeny in Alien: Romulus; Melissa Barrera in the Beauty and The Beast riff, Your Monster; and, Screen-Space favourite Renate Reinsve in the unique zombie drama, Handling the Undead. Under-the-radar gems included In a Violent Nature, Red Room and V/H/S Beyond. And horror’s greatest against-type casting feat in 2024? Hugh Grant’s chilling psychopath in Heretic.

REMEMBERING TERI GARR: FIVE ROLES THAT WE ADORE

A beloved film presence, Teri Garr has passed away aged 79 after a long, courageous battle with Multiple Sclerosis. From her beginnings as a chorus dancer in Elvis Presley films, to a vast resume of television appearances, to a film career peppered with too-few leads and a myriad of perfect character parts, Garr was Hollywood’s ‘ace-in-the-hole’ for over five decades. When a project needed some moments of support-player magic, Teri Garr was as good as the industry has ever known…

In the hours after her passing, her Mr. Mom co-star Michael Keaton wrote, “Forget about how great she was as an actress and comedienne, she was a wonderful woman. Not just great to work with but great to be around. And go back and watch her comedic work; man, was she great! R.I.P., girl.”

We recall our five favourite Teri Garr big screen performances:

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (Dir: Steven Spielberg; 1977) As ‘Ronnie Neary’, the wife and mother who had to hold the family together as husband Roy (Richard Dreyfuss) succumbed to his UFO obsession, Garr lent on her dramatic acting training at New York’s Lee Strasberg Institute to keep Spielberg’s fantasy epic grounded in its suburban reality and deep emotion. She remains one of the director’s great ‘movie moms’ alongside Goldie Hawn in The Sugarland Express; co-star Melinda Dillon; Lorraine Gary in Jaws; and Dee Wallace in E.T. 

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (Dir: Mel Brooks; 1974) What wasn’t often exploited in most of Teri Garr’s performances (to her credit) is just how damn beautiful she is. When casting the voluptuous lab assistant ‘Inga’, Mel Brooks recognised Garr would not only be able to nail the inspired comedic moments in his script, but also emerge as one of the 70’s most desirable ‘movie stars,’ in a role that called for all that moniker entails. Her line “Vould you like to have a roll in ze hay?” remains a comedy classic.

ONE FROM THE HEART (Dir: Francis Ford Coppola; 1981) Director Francis Ford Coppola had cast Garr in his 1974 paranoia classic The Conversation, opposite Gene Hackman (who she’d reteam with 24 years later for the romance Full Moon in Blue Water) and his 1979 production, The Black Stallion, directed by Carroll Ballard. So great was his faith in the actress, Coppola chose her as the female lead in his mega-budgeted musical One From The Heart, a dark song-and-dance love story that drained the director’s Zoetrope Studios of every penny and goes down as one of the filmmaker’s great follies. Garr, who got to draw on her ballet roots as dreamer/travel-agent ‘Frannie’, is luminous in the film. 

TOOTSIE (Dir: Sydney Pollack; 1982) The Academy finally catches up with what audiences had embraced for the best part of a decade - that Teri Garr is one of the great support stars in Hollywood’s history. She earned her first (unbelievable) and only (also, unbelievable) Oscar nomination, for Supporting Actress in Sydney Pollack’s blockbuster Tootsie. It’s the perfect American comedy, rich with hilarious characterisations deep into the cast list - Hoffman, of course, but also Dabney Coleman, Bill Murray, George Gaynes, Charles Durning and Jessica Lange - who took out the coveted trophy. Lange’s very good, of course, but…really?...

AFTER HOURS (Dir: Martin Scorsese; 1985) Full disclosure - After Hours is our favourite Scorsese film, not least because of a dazzling Teri Garr as Julie, the achingly-sweet but also slightly off-kilter romantic whose skills as a portrait artist amps up the late night odyssey in which Griffin Dunne’s Paul finds himself. ‘Julie’ is why Garr in her prime was a Hollywood gemstone; just a few fleeting moments of her presence lit up an entire scene…hell, an entire movie. See also Michael Winner’s Won Ton Ton: The Dog That Saved Hollywood (1976); Carl Reiner’s Oh, God! (1977); John Schlesinger’s Honky Tonk Freeway (1981); and Jim Kouf’s Miracles (1986).

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES FIRST FILMS FOR 2024

The Sydney Film Festival has announced a first wave of programming with 17 new films and events to be featured in this year’s event, set to unspool at sites all over Sydney from June 5-16. 

“This selection, though diverse in setting and scope, reveals some common themes: resilience foremost amongst them. These films offer a taste of a Festival program rich with discovery and insight, poised to captivate and inspire,” Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley said.

Two new Australian films will have their world premiere at the 71st festival. In Vitro, the highly anticipated feature from directors Will Howarth and Tom McKeith, stars Ashley Zukerman (pictured, top) in an Australian sci-fi mystery thriller set on a remote cattle farm in the near future. And in The Pool, director Ian Darling paints a cinematic portrait of a year in the life of the iconic Bondi Icebergs.

From New Zealand comes The Mountain (pictured, right), the directorial debut of actor Rachel House. Executive produced by Taika Waititi, the film centres on three children discovering friendship's healing power through the spirit of adventure as they trek through spectacular New Zealand landscapes. 

International festival prize-winners in the first release of films include winner of the Golden Shell for Best Film at San Sebastián, The Rye Horn, a story of a rural Galician midwife who flees after an illegal abortion goes awry. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Venice, legendary filmmaker Agnieszka Holland’s refugee thriller Green Border raised the ire of some Polish politicians and inspired protests before setting a box office record.

Pepe won the Silver Bear at Berlinale 2024. The film tells the true-ish story of Pepe the hippo who broke free of Pablo Escobar’s private zoo, featuring narration from the multilingual hippo himself. Explanation for Everything (pictured, left) is a Hungarian satire about the culture wars where a student accidentally becomes a figurehead for the right when he is embroiled in a national scandal. The film won the Orizzonti Award for Best Film at the Venice International Film Festival.

One of the hits of Berlinale 2024, Sex follows two married and ostensibly heterosexual chimneysweeps who are unmoored when one of them sleeps with a man and the other begins to question the recurring dreams he’s been having about David Bowie.

Another offbeat tale in the Festival line-up is Clair Titley’s documentary The Contestant, an incredible true story of a TV contestant left naked in a room, unaware his months-long challenge was being broadcast to millions via a Japanese television show.

Gastronomes will find their appetites whetted by Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros (pictured, right), director Frederick Wiseman’s mouth-watering epic set in a three-Michelin-star French restaurant; Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios’ La Cocina, featuring Rooney Mara and Raúl Briones in a comedic drama set during the hectic lunch rush at a New York restaurant; and Busan Film Festival favourite House of the Seasons, an intergenerational family saga set in a tofu factory in Daegu, Korea.

Documentaries include COPA ’71, the untold story of the 1971 Women’s Soccer World Cup and their fight against systemic sexism within governing bodies determined to undermine women’s soccer, and The Battle for Laikipia explores the tensions in Kenya's Laikipia region among herders, landholders, and conservationists against a backdrop of drought, politics, and colonial history.

Other highlights announced include Olivier Assayas’ most personal film yet, Suspended Time, about art, memory, and love in the time of COVID; and Oscar-nominated Pawo Choyning Dorji’s The Monk and The Gun (pictured, below), which takes place in rural Bhutan during the lead-up to his country’s first-ever election.

A special film and live music event not to be missed, Hear My Eyes: Hellraiser will give audiences the opportunity to experience Clive Barker’s 1987 extra-dimensional horror classic, re-scored live by EBM explorers Hieroglyphic Being and Robin Fox, and a synched laser-art show at City Recital Hall.

STUPID OSCAR SNUBS: THE BEST OF 2023 NOT IN WITH A SHOT

When the arguments about who have been ‘snubbed’ arise each year in the wake of the Oscar nominations announcement, there is always a counter-argument about who should have missed out to make way. There isn’t a name amongst the nominees that we’d begrudge their spot. But there is certainly a sense of “What might have been…” when you consider our most startling non-nominees…

GRETA GERWIG (Best Director) and MARGOT ROBBIE (Best Actress): They weren’t technically shut out of the ceremony - Greta, with hubby Noah Baumbach, are up for Adapted Screenplay; Robbie as a producer for Best Picture - but the now decade-long trend that favoured viewer-inducing box-office hits in key categories screeched to a halt when the Barbie pair missed out. Just as last year, when Tom Cruise’s cinema-saving return as Maverick was ignored, Robbie and her director deserved Oscar’s respect - for both shepherding the film’s bold narrative to fruition and its billion dollar box office.

BEST DOCUMENTARY - BEYOND UTOPIA (pictured, right) and STILL: A MICHAEL J. FOX MOVIE: The first-person factual filmmaking masterclass in 2023 was Madeleine Gavin’s account of the horrors of life in North Korea and one family’s odyssey to freedom. And the soul laid bare that Davis Guggenheim’s camera captures in his profoundly moving chat with Hollywood’s favourite son is unforgettable viewing. How these two missed a Best Doco slot…well, I just don’t get it…  

BEST ACTOR - JOAQUIN PHOENIX (Beau is Afraid) and NICHOLAS CAGE (Dream Scenario): Seems there is only room for one obnoxious, neurotic white guy in the Best Actor mix, and that spot was filled by Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers. Phoenix’s masterclass in anxiety and Cage’s everyman dream guy were, let’s be frank, far more nuanced and inventive performances than Giamatti’s one-note, smart-alec, cliched academic, but…well, here we are.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - RACHEL McADAMS (Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret) and PENELOPE CRUZ (Ferrari): Admittedly, this was a super-competitive category, as usual. But both McAdams, as the perfect movie-mom incarnation ever in the adored adaptation of Judy Blume’s YA-lit classic, and Cruz, as the emotionally-tortured wife of the automobile industry giant, support their films with invaluable, indelible characterisations.  

BEST ACTRESS - GRETA LEE (Past Lives; pictured, right): Another example of a film that didn’t go unnoticed - Past Lives earned two nominations, including Best Film - but one that couldn’t hold award season momentum in the category it deserved most, Best Actress, for the luminous Greta Lee. We can legitimately point an accusing finger at the FYC marketing budget at Netflix; Annette Bening’s kind-of surprising inclusion here for the streamer’s biopic Nyad stole away Lee’s shot at a trophy.   

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM - FALLEN LEAVES (Finland) and THE MOTHER OF ALL LIES (Morocco): These are two films that bear the unmistakably unique hallmarks of two truly singular auteur’s - Finnish cinema’s national treasure, Aki Kaurismäki and one of 2023’s breakout talents, Asmae ElMoudir, from Morocco. Their films were perhaps ultimately too idiosyncratic, given the Best International Film spots were taken by the far more palatable Society of the Snow (no pun intended) and Perfect Days (which we love, so no shade intended).

BEST SONG - “PEACHES” by JACK BLACK (The Super Mario Bros. Movie): Can you imagine the giggly, crowd-pleasing thrill of following up Ryan Gosling’s live rendition of ‘I’m Just Ken’ with Jack Black going all-in on stage as his SMB villain Bowser singing his unhinged love serenade ‘Peaches’? Well, it ain’t gonna happen. Black’s brilliantly comedic ballad, an inspired intermission in the otherwise frantic animated hit, should’ve been nominated.      

EVERYTHING SALTBURN: There was a tangible momentum over the last month that suggested Emerald Fennell’s hot-button pic was on Oscar’s radar. Barry Keoghan for Best Actor; Rosamund Pike for Supporting Actress; Original Script, Set and Costume Design, Cinematography, Editing all seemed within reach. But the divisive film instead fell in with a prestige crowd that includes The Iron Claw, Priscilla, All of Us Strangers, Eileen, A Thousand and One, Origin, Memory, Asteroid City - great films from 2023 that didn’t get their shot.

SEE THE FULL LIST OF NOMINATIONS HERE