The Films I Watched in 2024

After sports, my favorite hobby has long been watching movies. I won't try to define the reasons, or to explain why I have watched so little television by comparison, or ramble on about the beauty of film or whatever. There is no need when I provide no shortage of words over the rest of this post.

But I will say that, starting during the pandemic, I have tracked every film that I watch over the course of each year, and a couple years ago started bucketing them by how much I liked them. I will never get on Letterboxd, as I do not need another social media platform in my life. However, my brain demands that I organize trivial things. My vanity requires that I write my opinions. Hence, this post.

If you want the short version, you can find in this table all 60 films without commentary, sorted by tier.

Click to enlarge.

The long version, then, begins below. This post goes in reverse order from the table, starting with the one film I write off as worthless and ending on my ten favorite things I watched in 2024. Until the last section, the films are alphabetized within each tier.

Just Trash

Crash, dir. Paul Haggis (2004)

I added the "Just Trash" tier to my lists last year after watching Network (1976), a film that verbosely proclaims its own importance, intelligence, and righteousness at every opportunity. Crash, by comparison, is humbly earnest about its creator's faults: Paul Haggis, who is white, wrote the screenplay as a guilty reflection on his own racism a few years after being carjacked by Black men in Los Angeles.

To a degree, the thought is noble. A rich white man, however, is not the person the world needs writing parables about prejudice. "We're all a bit racist, but we're also all human" is not a profound thesis to an adult audience, or should not be. The premise is flawed from the start. The best-case scenario for this kind of movie is still at least a little overwrought and simplistic.

Yet even by sympathetic standards, Haggis' failure is spectacular. In the months since watching this film, its awfulness has haunted me to the point of costing me sleep. Crash tosses aside character growth as easily as it rushes to redeem its worst characters, fights racism with racist stereotypes and omnidirectional hate, uses ham-fisted symbolism, and in general does not seem to understand its own theses. It is utterly unsalvageable, only offering some perverse unintentional comedy to those not expecting its preposterous and incoherent turns.

Did Not Enjoy

The Raid, dir. Gareth Evans (2011)

The reason that this tier is called "Did Not Enjoy" instead of "Bad" or something similar is that sometimes a movie has some kind of merit but is just not my thing. The Raid is fairly good at what it is, which is to say an endless stream of impressively choreographed fight scenes and basically no plot or character depth. It's not my kind of action movie but can easily be someone else's.

Previewing Virginia Tech

Overview

Record: 6-6 (4-4, 8th in Atlantic Coast Conference)

"Second-order" Record: 7.1-5.9

SP+ Overall Rank: 24th

If it feels like Virginia Tech has stagnated over the last decade and change, it's because they kind of have. Since 2012, this once prominent program has won eight or more games just three times, finishing now seven regular seasons at 6-6. Head coach Brent Pry, a former Frank Beamer graduate assistant and as Appalachian a man as they come, arrested the late slide of Justin Fuente's tenure but has subsequently only spun his wheels. His program recruits like a middle-of the road ACC team and so far plays like it.

The Hokies' stats largely justify their record, showing a little bit of talent but a fair amount of averageness and some outright problems, particularly with passing and defending the pass. While it takes some bad luck to go 0-5 in one-score games, Pry is still looking for a signature win. By the Massey Composite, the best team the Hokies beat in 2024 was No. 38 Georgia Tech.

The week after the first National Signing Day, Pry fired three coaches, including defensive coordinator Chris Marve (whom he coached at Vanderbilt). A handful of starters have announced their intentions to transfer, and others still are sitting out the bowl against Minnesota to protect their NFL Draft stock or recover from injuries. These departures may tilt what most projection systems consider a coin flip the Gophers' way.

Offense

Quarterback Kyron Drones had a difficult season, missing three games because of injuries and averaging just 7.0 yards per pass attempt. Drones looks doubtful to appear in Charlotte. Redshirt freshman William "Pop" Watson III, one of two players who filled in for Drones during the year, is the presumed starter over redshirt senior Collin Schlee.

Watson made his first meaningful college appearance against Duke, relieving an injured Schlee after a quarter. After Watson had a decent couple of drives, the Blue Devils sacked him seven times. Pressure was often immediate, but he also had opportunities to throw the ball away.

Shortly after this sack, Watson threw an interception on a quick out to the opposite sideline. He finished 12-for-25 for 146 yards.

Identifying Potential Transfer Priorities for the Gophers (2024-25)

Next Monday, the first transfer window opens, at which point Minnesota and everyone else in college football can start adding college-experienced players to their rosters for next fall. While the system is a mess, the truth is that every team needs to take advantage of the transfer market to fill out its roster. Not every high school recruit works out, and plenty of players find that the schools they chose originally are imperfect fits.

The Gophers will lose players via transfer (history suggests it will be a good few) in addition to their graduations, and the best way to making sure that next season ends in another bowl is to buffet their high school recruiting with transfers of their own. Below are the positions I believe they will (or at least should) target this month and when the window reopens in the spring.

In this post, players are referred to by their class (freshman, sophomore, etc.) entering the 2025 season. This practice may be slightly confusing, but since this covers the 2025 roster, it is better than the alternative.

Quarterback

Potential need: immediate contributor

When it went so well the first time...

Bringing in Max Brosmer worked superbly. The leading passer in FCS in 2023 completely revived and reshaped the Minnesota passing attack in 2024. The only regret from the experience is that Brosmer did not have one more year year to play. Redshirt freshman Drake Lindsey and incoming freshman Jackson Kollock seemingly provide solid potential long-term, but ideally they would get to sit a little longer.

Recently, P.J. Fleck has favored FCS transfers: Jack Gibbens (Abilene Christian), Jack Henderson (Southeastern Louisiana), Tre'Von Jones (Elon), Ethan Robinson (Bucknell), and Brosmer (New Hampshire) have all stepped right into the lineup from the lower subdivision.

This strategy works well for a program of Minnesota's stature. Unlike FBS transfers, players from the FCS usually are not leaving their previous schools because they lost a competition to someone better. They want a step up to improve their NFL Draft stock but do not typically get looks name-brand programs. And one figures that their demands for NIL-related compensation, if they have any, are easier to fit into a collective's budget. I expect Fleck to go this route again, finding a high-level FCS quarterback on his last year of eligibility. He might not replicate the success Brosmer had, but another veteran under center could make sure the bottom does not fall out of the passing game.

I Do Not Understand You People

Donald Trump gave us the two most surreally enraging moments of his first presidential term on his way out the door. The first was on June 1, 2020. After Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd to spur nationwide protests over police brutality and structural racism, Trump left the White House on foot for St. John's Episcopal Church. Law enforcement violently charged, gassed, and shot with rubber bullets demonstrators in Lafayette Square so that Trump could peacefully walk to the front of the church. There, he awkwardly foisted a bible in the air with the reverence of a baboon considering its own turd. Then, after hardly uttering a word, he walked back to the White House.

It was a galling yet confounding display of autocratic force and vanity, pettily wielding agents of the state as a cudgel to serve no end except his own image. The image Trump chose for himself, meanwhile, was devoid of symbolic power or popular appeal, contributing to the perception that he was (and is) mentally deteriorating with age.

The second, of course, was on January 6, 2021. The culmination of two months of false claims he had won the 2020 election, the Trump cult descended on the Capitol to disrupt the certification of that election's results. While some were your run-of-the-mill suburban racists on a tour of imagined grievances, many rioters were legitimate extremists from militia groups such as the Proud Boys, carrying zip-ties meant for members of Congress and planting pipe bombs around D.C.

Trump held a rally at noon that day to incite the insurrection and call on Mike Pence to overturn the election. As the attack proceeded, Trump refused to intervene. In the previous days, he in fact had ordered the Department of Defense to protect the rioters.

For his action and willful inaction encouraging a coup, the House of Representatives impeached him, and the Department of Justice indicted Trump. He left office with a 34-percent approval rating, tied with those of George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, who departed during economic crises (which Trump, presiding over the COVID-19 pandemic, also oversaw), and only trailing corruption-allegation-plagued Harry Truman and post-Watergate Richard Nixon. Though Trump maintained a devout base, the public rejected him.

Yet here we are. The societal causes are numerous — and in some cases, even in the wake of Trump's initial defeat, were foreseeable. While people smarter than me are already interrogating that, I am taking this moment to rage at the American electorate itself.

When the problem of Trump was immediate, people appeared to understand its weight. He had not won the popular vote in 2016 or 2020, but in the latter case, he was booted from office. There are no shortage of largely apolitical Americans who loathe Trump for reasons beyond his actual policies and actions in office: his self-centered personality, his criminal record, his background as a celebrity and New York elite. To apparently forget the danger and despicability of Trump is unfathomable.

Seven Things I Think I Learned about the Gophers in Their First Three Games

Minnesota has made it to the end of their non-conference schedule in pretty good shape. Setting aside an injury scare at cornerback and a toss-up defeat in the opener, the team has given reason for optimism: competence from transfers, clear steps forward from their young defense, and a few big plays from underclassmen.

September is also the most confusing time to be a college football fan. How much should early results shake us from our priors? Good teams take care of business against bad ones, but can we really expect that to translate when the schedule gets harder? What schematic shifts will we not know about until coaches are in the games that really count? It's the hot take part of the season, where it seems everyone is wildly overconfident in their team or convinced of their doom.

Overreactions are part of the fun to some people, but I try to take a tempered approach to the early season. The season is so short that we cannot say we really know much until at least the midway point, if not later. And the games can turn on such random events that a win or a loss can distract us from the specifics of a game and lead us to false conclusions. At the same time, these first few weeks do not mean nothing. They might tell us the wrong things sometimes, but not without traces of truth.

In the spirit of interrogating we know and do not know, I present some things I think the 2024 Golden Gophers have taught me about who they are. Some of these items are observations rather than prognostications, but even the former can be proven at least partly wrong later. We'll just have to check back in a couple of months to see where I am mistaken.

Max Brosmer has stabilized the quarterback position the way the Gophers hoped, with caveats.

For whatever tweaks different players or coordinators have introduced, the Minnesota offense has never asked a ton out of its quarterback. At its highest-functioning, a capable band of skill players and a strong offensive line can lead the way — as long as a steady hand is at the wheel, that is.

The rushing attack needs space that will not be there if defenses do not fear the pass. A star receiver can only do so much if the ball is over his head or going to the other team. The Gophers cannot plug in just anyone and field a balanced, effective offense. See the examples of Conor Rhoda and Demry Croft, Cole Kramer, and of course Athan Kaliakmanis. Kaliakmanis had some ability but lacked consistency, and in his redshirt sophomore season he averaged just 6.3 yards per attempt.

With Kaliakmanis off to Rutgers, the new quarterback is Max Brosmer. Brosmer's output so far affirms preseason expectations. When he is on his game, Brosmer is a rhythmic passer who is on time with his receivers and very willing to find the checkdown if needed. He has a quick release and can apply just the right combination of touch and velocity to hit intermediate throws.

2024 Gophers Season Preview

Most coaches don't last this long. A majority don't make it even half this long. For all his game management issues, for as many of his players transfer every year, and for the amount he keeps his name on the market for other jobs (whether as a leverage play or to actually leave), P.J. Fleck has made it to an eighth season as Minnesota's head football coach. Just four men have held this job longer than him; two have their names on buildings, and another has his name on the locker room in the stadium. (The fourth pops up on the Big Ten Network every once in a while.)

Fleck has given the Gophers their best season since Lyndon Johnson was president, ended losing prolonged losing streaks to Wisconsin and Iowa (not that he didn't contribute heavily to the latter), and brought in the program's best recruiting classes of the internet era.

Yet his tenure has been plagued by big questions, posed with varying degrees of fairness: If he took more risks, would the Gophers have won the West before divisions went away and the conference became harder? Can he identify a reliable quarterback? If he has another breakthrough season, how quickly does he head for the exit? How much of his success has been because of Joe Rossi, who is now at Michigan State? Does he have to be this way?

After seven years, Fleck may for the first time face the threat of losing his job. Making a bowl on a technicality once is a forgivable outcome, just a normal trough in the cycle of a fine but not elite college football program. Two successive sub-.500 finishes would at the very least test the patience of the fan base, and depending on the circumstances, could justify Fleck's dismissal. His buyout drops to $5 million on January 1, which is not insignificant but in the era of super-conference television contracts is not prohibitive either, even while considering the decent chance that athletic director Mark Coyle has to find a new men's basketball coach next spring. Five wins would not guarantee Coyle makes a move, but could one call Fleck definitely safe in that situation?

Fleck has, to his credit, constructed a roster with potential. Maybe this year is just middling, but there are intriguing young players in several areas: a brilliant starting tailback who is still a true sophomore; three blue-chip offensive linemen in their first or second year of college; athletic wide receivers who should play supporting roles in 2024 but will take on more responsibility in future seasons; a couple of a pair of highly touted edge rushers; ascendant linebackers; a safety from just a couple hours up I-35 who looks like a future star. This goes without mentioning the four-star quarterback committed to next year's recruiting class. The pieces are here to build to something greater a year or two down the line.

To do that, however, Fleck must re-establish Minnesota right now as a stable, competitive team that will not throw away games late, serve as chum for the helmet schools, or look like a wreck against a worse team due to an unfavorable matchup. If the prospects are ahead of schedule, he can pull it off and regain the fans base's trust. If they still need time, and the team's veterans cannot pick up the slack, Coyle might be asking another big question about his coach: Can someone do this job better than Fleck?

* * * * * *

From this point on, you will find a more straightforward preview of the Gophers' season. For each area of the team — offense, defense, special teams — I've linked the position previews I published over the last few weeks and offer a predicted depth chart. I also ask 10 big questions facing the 2024 Gophers, divided between the three units.

Offense

Position previews: receivers and tight ends ・ running backs ・ quarterbacks ・ offensive line

Predicted depth chart:

Click to enlarge any image in this post.

Around better weapons, will Max Brosmer show he has another gear?

Fleck bet on a high-upside quarterback in Athan Kaliakmanis, and it never clicked. Max Brosmer does not have Kaliakmanis' physical abilities, but he has an impressive track record from his days at New Hampshire and should offer a higher floor. If that is all he offers, then the Gophers' offense will be steadier. If Brosmer can be any more than that, he could give them a genuine chance to beat one or two of the tougher teams on their schedule.

2024 Gophers Position Previews: Special Teams

September's coming soon, so it is once again time to start thinking about football. Ski-U-Blog will analyze every position group on the Gophers' roster: starters, depth, and potential future contributors. The series ends today with a look at the special teams unit.

Likely Starters

A good number of college kickers hit game-winning field goals. Not all of them do, obviously. But there are game-winners every year, whether they are of the walk-off variety or in the last minute or with a bit longer than that and more work to do. However special each kick is to that player, and however much fun it is for his team and for the fans, it is not a unique moment.

How many kickers get to say they won a game for their team? Not put on the final touch, but won it by scoring every point? In the 21st century, it might not take two hands to count them all at the FBS level. And I doubt any of them got to do what Dragan Kesich did, which is go 4-for-5 in 22-mile-per-hour winds at Kinnick Stadium, breaking an eight-year losing streak to one of his school's most hated rivals. He won back Floyd of Rosedale, and he got to lead the charge to pick up the pig.

The win over Iowa was the high point of Kesich's season, but there was plenty of good besides that. Kesich hit six of seven field goal attempts of 45 yards or longer, and he was 17-for-20 on all other kicks. He converted every extra point he tried last year. On kickoffs, Kesich has been a near-automatic touchback since he joined the team in 2020. His performance made him the Big Ten kicker of the year and a semifinalist for the Lou Groza Award. If he has another strong year, Kesich could win the award outright before heading to the NFL.

2024 Gophers Position Previews: Secondary

September's coming soon, so it is once again time to start thinking about football. Ski-U-Blog will analyze every position group on the Gophers' roster: starters, depth, and potential future contributors. A remodeled secondary that could make or break the season is the focus of this post.

Likely Starters

Field cornerback Justin Walley contributed from Day 1 his true freshman year, chasing after Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson as an introduction to college football. If you can believe it, Walley is now a senior, having never missed a game and starting the last 32 in a row. He has never quite become a star, but he is easily Minnesota's most trusty defensive back entering 2024.

Walley is less a game-changing, impact player than an well-rounded, reliable one. He stays on top of his man and has quick enough hips and feet to turn and track a receiver going vertical. While he has at times had issues with comeback routes — possibly a crack in the scheme — or underthrows, Walley has developed into a sure tackler like Coney Durr and Terell Smith before him.

As long as Walley is available, he gives the Gophers one spot on the field about which they do not have to worry. If he can take another step before departing, he will be one of the better cornerbacks in the conference and improve his NFL stock.