For over 60 years, the Presidential Medal of Freedom has been given out as the highest honor a civilian can get. Joining U.S. President Joe Biden’s list this year – his final in office – are some of our own favorite performers, including Michael J. Fox and Denzel Washington.
The official White House website noted the philanthropic works of Michael J. Fox and Denzel Washington – those in the fight against Parkinson’s and serving as a national spokesman for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, respectively – as key reasons for receiving the Medal of Freedom. Both have continued to fight the good fight for decades, so it is pretty amazing to see them recognized on this prestigious level. Notably, Denzel Washington was set to receive the Medal of Freedom in 2022 but could not attend due to contracting Covid-19.
Both Michael J. Fox and Denzel Washington have made plenty of headlines as of late. Fox – who left the screen to focus on his health and activism, raising over $2 billion for Parkinson’s research – has recently considered returning to acting if the part was right. As far as other recent honors, Fox was bestowed the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2022. Meanwhile, Washington saw the release of Gladiator II and has teased his own imminent retirement. In 2019, Washington earned the AFI Life Achievement Award.
In his opening remarks at the ceremony, President Biden stated, “For the final time as president I have the honor of bestowing the Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor, to a group of extraordinary — truly extraordinary people who gave their sacred effort to shape the culture and the cause of America.”
Other recipients included U2 singer Bono, retired NBA superstar Earvin “Magic” Johnson and William Sanford Nye, who we all know best as Bill Nye the Science Guy. Also on the entertainment and athletic front, Joe Biden has previously awarded the Medal of Freedom to the likes of TV host Phil Donahue, Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh and Olympian Simone Biles.
Michael J. Fox’s famous Back to the Future co-star, Christopher Lloyd, was among those who congratulated him:
Over the holidays here at JoBlo, we’ve been posting plenty of lists. We went into the Best Movies of 2024, the Best TV Shows, and the Most Under/Overrated Movies of the year. We also dipped into the Worst Horror Movies of the year, and our own Jesse Shade is hard at work on his annual Awfully Good take on the Worst Movies of the Year. But, while we’re waiting, we thought that as last week we polled our readers on the Best Movie of the Year (which had some WILD results, with Terrifier 3 topping the list, and noted bomb Argylle in the top 3!) that you also be given the chance to choose the worst.
If you take a look at the poll below, there are loads and loads of movies listed. These range from terrible streaming movies you might have forgotten (Unfrosted, The Deliverance) to theatrical bombs (including Borderlands – which might be one of the priciest duds of all time), and, of course, the disaster that was Joker: Folie a Deux. But what was the worst? Take the poll and let us know!
The most famous house in all of New Mexico, that of Walter White’s on Breaking Bad, is up for sale. And while the owners didn’t directly blame fans (or pollution…), they and their pizzas haven’t exactly made it easy.
The Breaking Bad house has been with the same family for over five decades and is now owned by one of the daughters of the married couple who purchased it in the 1970s. But with around 300 cars driving by or stopping every day, it has become too much to handle, especially with eventual owner, Joanne Quintana, helping care for her ailing parents inside.
At one point, Quintana recalled, “Around 4:30 in the morning, the doorbell rang, my mom got up and opened the door, and it was a package…My brothers said that’s it, we’re done, fence is going up. That’s too close for comfort is the front door.” Apparently the package was actually addressed to Walter White, causing her to call the bomb squad.
And while there may be some slight bitterness buried in the push to sell, fortunately it wasn’t all bad times for the family. As Quintana remembered, allowing the Breaking Bad crew to film at her residence gave her once-in-a-lifetime stories, including one about her mom’s cookies that she always made on shooting days. “What was funny was Bryan Cranston could not eat not one cookie. Because he had cancer in the show, so he was losing weight. So he would pass, but everybody, all the directors, all the writers would eat the cookies. The last day of shooting, he takes a picture holding my mom’s biscotti because he finally got to eat her cookies…Aaron Paul had to grunt and get angry to get into his character of Jesse. That was awesome. And the magic of Hollywood, nobody will ever get to experience what we did.”
It’s too bad that the traffic and the Breaking Bad fans have essentially forced the family to leave the house they grew up in, but there are at least some unique memories that they can carry with them to their next home. Maybe the Poltergeist house will hit the market again!
The price for the house — whose listing you can find here — is $3.995 million. So if you want to be the one who knocks and have that sort of cash sitting in barrels, you can have one heck of a pool party.
The most famous house in all of New Mexico, that of Walter White’s on Breaking Bad, is up for sale. And while the owners didn’t directly blame fans (or pollution…), they and their pizzas haven’t exactly made it easy.
The Breaking Bad house has been with the same family for over five decades and is now owned by one of the daughters of the married couple who purchased it in the 1970s. But with around 300 cars driving by or stopping every day, it has become too much to handle, especially with eventual owner, Joanne Quintana, helping care for her ailing parents inside.
At one point, Quintana recalled, “Around 4:30 in the morning, the doorbell rang, my mom got up and opened the door, and it was a package…My brothers said that’s it, we’re done, fence is going up. That’s too close for comfort is the front door.” Apparently the package was actually addressed to Walter White, causing her to call the bomb squad.
And while there may be some slight bitterness buried in the push to sell, fortunately it wasn’t all bad times for the family. As Quintana remembered, allowing the Breaking Bad crew to film at her residence gave her once-in-a-lifetime stories, including one about her mom’s cookies that she always made on shooting days. “What was funny was Bryan Cranston could not eat not one cookie. Because he had cancer in the show, so he was losing weight. So he would pass, but everybody, all the directors, all the writers would eat the cookies. The last day of shooting, he takes a picture holding my mom’s biscotti because he finally got to eat her cookies…Aaron Paul had to grunt and get angry to get into his character of Jesse. That was awesome. And the magic of Hollywood, nobody will ever get to experience what we did.”
It’s too bad that the traffic and the Breaking Bad fans have essentially forced the family to leave the house they grew up in, but there are at least some unique memories that they can carry with them to their next home. Maybe the Poltergeist house will hit the market again!
The price for the house — whose listing you can find here — is $3.995 million. So if you want to be the one who knocks and have that sort of cash sitting in barrels, you can have one heck of a pool party.
The box office battle between Mufasa: The Ling King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 has been see-sawing back and forth all throughout the holidays. Usually, Mufasa’s been tops during the week, only for Sonic to ride in and claim the weekends. However, that pattern is set to change this weekend, with Deadline reporting that Mufasa is moving up to the top spot with an estimated $24 million weekend, which is much higher than we predicted earlier this week. Sonic 3 isn’t too far behind, with a $20.7 million weekend. While Mufasa’s got the top spot, its cumulative box office still trails Sonic, $169 million to $187 million. While it’s rallied better than anyone thought it would, it will likely only make a fraction of what the 2019 Lion King did, which made over $600 million domestically.
Meanwhile, the race for number three is tight, with Deadline predicting a difference of only $100k between Moana 2 and Nosferatu, which will make over $13 million. Nosferatu will end the weekend shy of $70 million, with it looking like it will clear $100 million domestically. It shouldn’t have any trouble becoming Focus Features’s highest-grossing domestic release ever, a spot which is currently held by Downton Abbey, which made $83 million domestically.
Another Christmas release that is setting records for its distributor is Searchlight’s A Complete Unknown. It should come in sixth place (just behind Wicked) with an $8 million-plus weekend, a decline of only 29% from the week before. With a $41.9 million total, it’s Searchlight’s highest-grossing film since the Disney merger in 2019, and it should play well throughout awards season, with a potential $60-70 million cume if word-of-mouth holds up (it might get a boost if it wins some Golden Globes tomorrow night).
We’ll be back with the full top 10 tomorrow and a breakdown of how certain indie titles, like The Brutalist and Better Man, are faring ahead of their wider releases.
The box office battle between Mufasa: The Ling King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 has been see-sawing back and forth all throughout the holidays. Usually, Mufasa’s been tops during the week, only for Sonic to ride in and claim the weekends. However, that pattern is set to change this weekend, with Deadline reporting that Mufasa is moving up to the top spot with an estimated $24 million weekend, which is much higher than we predicted earlier this week. Sonic 3 isn’t too far behind, with a $20.7 million weekend. While Mufasa’s got the top spot, its cumulative box office still trails Sonic, $169 million to $187 million. While it’s rallied better than anyone thought it would, it will likely only make a fraction of what the 2019 Lion King did, which made over $600 million domestically.
Meanwhile, the race for number three is tight, with Deadline predicting a difference of only $100k between Moana 2 and Nosferatu, which will make over $13 million. Nosferatu will end the weekend shy of $70 million, with it looking like it will clear $100 million domestically. It shouldn’t have any trouble becoming Focus Features’s highest-grossing domestic release ever, a spot which is currently held by Downton Abbey, which made $83 million domestically.
Another Christmas release that is setting records for its distributor is Searchlight’s A Complete Unknown. It should come in sixth place (just behind Wicked) with an $8 million-plus weekend, a decline of only 29% from the week before. With a $41.9 million total, it’s Searchlight’s highest-grossing film since the Disney merger in 2019, and it should play well throughout awards season, with a potential $60-70 million cume if word-of-mouth holds up (it might get a boost if it wins some Golden Globes tomorrow night).
We’ll be back with the full top 10 tomorrow and a breakdown of how certain indie titles, like The Brutalist and Better Man, are faring ahead of their wider releases.
Well, Schmoes, as 2024 finally draws to a close, we reflect on a year full of ups and downs, box office shocks and surprises, and many unexpected hits and misses. If there is one thing for sure, there are always movies highly overrated and underrated by critics and fans alike. As the UnPopular Opinion Guy, I felt it was only fitting to issue my list of the movies I felt the masses got wrong. Some of these may shock you, and some may piss you off, but these are my honest-to-goodness perspective on the movies of 2024. If you disagree with any of the choices, please voice your opinion in the comments below. After all, the only opinion that really matters is yours, and I am just here to share mine.
The Most Underrated Films of 2024
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Robert Zemeckis has gotten a lot of flak for his use of technology to augment his films. While The Polar Express, Pinocchio, and Beowulf crossed too far into motion capture’s uncanny valley, he has achieved some remarkable visuals in recent films Flight and The Walk. Reuniting with Forrest Gump alums Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, and screenwriter Eric Roth, Zemeckis’ Here is a beautiful and unique look at generations of life from the dawn of the dinosaurs through today in a single location. Based on the graphic novel of the same name, the heavy use of visual effects and de-aging technology has become a point of contention for many. Here is a beautiful love letter with a great ensemble that also includes Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly.
Argylle
After reinventing the X-Men franchise with First Class and adapting the Kingsman comics as a trio of films, Matthew Vaughn took on the challenge of trying to kickstart an original franchise with Argylle. Led by Sam Rockwell and Bryce Dallas Howard, along with roles for Henry Cavill, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson, and Dua Lipa, Argylle never resonated with audiences on the big screen or when it debuted on AppleTV+. A complex combination of Vaughn’s technicolor visuals but without the gore of profanity in Kingsman or Kick-Ass, Argylle is a blast from start to finish. With a tease that connects Argylle and Kingsman with the potential for sequels and spin-offs, audiences should give this movie another chance as it is full of off-kilter action and has a dastardly sense of humor.
Rebel Ridge
Jeremy Saulnier originally had John Boyega set to lead this film, but the actor dropped out just as production began. Boyega’s loss became Aaron Pierre’s gain as the actor delivers a star-making performance opposite Don Johnson in this blast of action. Taking a timely story, Rebel Ridge is Saulnier’s most accessible film to date. It is chock full of intense sequences that give Pierre a fantastic showcase that likely led directly to his casting as Jon Stewart in the upcoming DC Studios project Lanterns. Don Johnson continues his string of excellent performances as a corrupt cop facing off against an unexpectedly talented adversary. This movie would have been a huge hit in theaters and deserves even more viewers, thanks to its debut on Netflix.
Joker: Folie A Deux
Todd Phillips’ Joker was intended to be an homage to the gritty early films of Martin Scorsese. Still, despite winning substantial critical awards, many found it derivative of the Mean Streets filmmaker. With a sequel almost a given after the massive box office of the original, Folie A Deux was a disaster for fans and critics alike. A dark musical continuation of Arthur Fleck’s spiral into villainy, the second Joker has been unfairly lambasted by those unwilling to give it a chance. While I agree that Lady Gaga was underutilized, the sheer audacity of this film to try something unexpected is enough to warrant its existence. Joaquin Phoenix continues to delve into Arthur as a character while stretching his musical talents in the most original comic book adaptation ever to come from DC or Marvel.
Red One
After barely registering at the box office, Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans’ holiday action movie became the biggest debut ever for Prime Video. Johnson reunites with his Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle director Jake Kasdan for an action-heavy comedy with a sincere and heartfelt seasonal message just in time for the holidays. Forging a mythology involving Krampus and other supernatural beings, Red One could easily kick off a franchise of feature films with its blend of updated Yuletide tales that combines Dreamworks’ Rise of the Guardians with The Incredibles. JK Simmons, Lucy Liu, and Kiernan Shipka join in the merry adventure, which gives Johnson his most subdued character to date and utilizes Evans playing against his Captain America typecasting. It is more fun than it should be and a solid addition to Christmas movies.
The Most Overrated Films of 2024
5 Anything With Glen Powell
To paraphrase Mean Girls, stop trying to make Glen Powell happen. The charismatic actor came into his own with 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick before his co-starring romcom with Sydney Sweeney, Anyone But You, debuted last Christmas. Since then, we have had Powell headline Richard Linklater’s Hit Man and Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters this year, with multiple starring roles coming our way. Powell’s to-the-moon ascent to the A-list baffles me. The guy is fine as an actor and has some charisma, but overall, he does not bring anything to his roles that countless other actors can do better. Everyone needs to stop proclaiming this guy as the next big thing, as he has yet to prove he is worth the moniker of even being the next mediocre thing.
Gladiator II
Musician Nick Cave wrote a sequel to Gladiator that would have been the most insane follow-up to any film in history. Even though that movie would have had Maximus travel through the afterlife before being reborn to fight through the Crusades, World War I and II, and Vietnam, it would have at least been a unique and original idea. Instead, Ridley Scott’s sequel is essentially a remake of Gladiator with a less charismatic leading actor in Paul Mescal. Not to trash Mescal, a talented actor in every other film he has appeared in, Gladiator II is a showcase for Denzel Washington’s Macrinus but fails to forge a path that feels like anything other than an updated version of the 2000 Best Picture winner. The poorly animated monkeys in the early fight scene alone should discredit this film from consideration as a worthy successor to the original movie.
Challengers
Luca Guadagnino released two films in 2018: Call Me By Your Name and Suspiria. One was critically acclaimed, and the other incredibly polarizing. In 2024, the filmmaker did it again with two releases in Challengers and Queer. While Queer has been lauded as one of the ten best movies of the year, Challengers has remained in quite a few Best Of rankings. A melodramatic film that attempts to be erotic but somehow is not sexy at all, Challengers fails to capitalize on Zendaya’s talents as an actress while ripping off a plot twist previously used by Alfonso Cuaron in Y Tu Mama Tambien. Challengers is not a bad movie, but it is also not a very good one, and to have it constantly listed as one of the best of the year may be the overstatement of 2024.
Nosferatu
Robert Eggers’ reinvention of the classic silent vampire film was my most anticipated movie of the year. With an ensemble cast that rivals any other movie in 2024, it was impossible for me to imagine how underwhelming I would find this movie. Nosferatu is a beautiful film in terms of production values and musical score, and it boasts the most transformational performances of Bill Skarsgard’s career. Based on Egger’s announcement that he was returning to the core of vampire myths, Nosferatu feels almost beat for beat to be the same as Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Dracula. As good as Lily-Rose Depp is, Nosferatu is the definition of underwhelming. Plus, for all the secrecy around the look of Count Orlok, I could not have been less impressed by the look of this take on the bloodsucker.
Wicked
While it seemed virtually impossible for Wicked not to have been a box-office sensation, the critical adulation was something of a surprise. Having seen the stage production and film, I am impressed by Jon M. Chu’s balance of keeping the grandeur of the musical with a tangible world that does not look like a theater stage. Wicked is good, but it does not deserve a spot as one of the year’s best films or even a contender for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are good, but a three-hour movie that only covers the first half of the musical stretches the limits for even the most ardent movie-goer. Wicked is an enjoyable and a good movie, but it is also the most overrated film of the year.
How UnPopular do you think these rankings are. Let us know what you think of these picks in the comments below. Also, let us know your most overrated and underrated movies of the past year!
Jeff Baena, the writer of I Heart Huckabees and Life After Beth, as well as the husband of actress Aubrey Plaza, has died at the age of 47.
Jeff Baena co-wrote I Heart Huckabees with its director, David O. Russell, instantly marking him as a unique voice on the independent scene. But it would be a decade later that he got behind the camera himself, directing Life After Beth in 2014. That movie, which starred eventual wife Aubrey Plaza, nabbed him a Grand Jury Prize nomination at the Sundance Film Festival, as did his next feature, 2016’s Joshy (a movie we quite liked here at JoBlo).
After working as a production assistant for Robert Zemeckis, Jeff Baena started to blossom by working for David O. Russell as an assistant editor, receiving a call from the director while he was actually watching Flirting with Disaster. He would work closely with Russell under such duties for a while until some words of encouragement – stemming from an eye injury he suffered in a car accident – pushed him to consider writing. On his friendship and collaboration, Baena said, “He was super-generous, creatively. He allowed me to advocate for any ideas that were in conflict with his ideas. We were on the same wavelength, had the same style and interests…It allowed me to have the feeling that I deserved to be there, as opposed to just riding someone’s coattails.”
Jeff Baena would prove he didn’t need the coattails, going on to direct three more features after Joshy: The Little Hours, Horse Girl and Spin Me Round, all starring Alison Brie. Baena would work on the small screen as well with anthology series Cinema Toast, which gathered a number of filmmakers who used public domain footage as launching points for their own episodes. Baena directed the first episode (using footage from 1939’s Made for Each Other) while Plaza would make her directorial debut with the episode “Quiet Illness.”
We here at JoBlo.com want to express our condolences over the passing of Jeff Baena, a figure whose work most definitely left an impact and who was lost far too soon. Leave your own in the comments section below.
Jeff Baena, the writer of I Heart Huckabees and Life After Beth, as well as the husband of actress Aubrey Plaza, has died at the age of 47.
Jeff Baena co-wrote I Heart Huckabees with its director, David O. Russell, instantly marking him as a unique voice on the independent scene. But it would be a decade later that he got behind the camera himself, directing Life After Beth in 2014. That movie, which starred eventual wife Aubrey Plaza, nabbed him a Grand Jury Prize nomination at the Sundance Film Festival, as did his next feature, 2016’s Joshy (a movie we quite liked here at JoBlo).
After working as a production assistant for Robert Zemeckis, Jeff Baena started to blossom by working for David O. Russell as an assistant editor, receiving a call from the director while he was actually watching Flirting with Disaster. He would work closely with Russell under such duties for a while until some words of encouragement – stemming from an eye injury he suffered in a car accident – pushed him to consider writing. On his friendship and collaboration, Baena said, “He was super-generous, creatively. He allowed me to advocate for any ideas that were in conflict with his ideas. We were on the same wavelength, had the same style and interests…It allowed me to have the feeling that I deserved to be there, as opposed to just riding someone’s coattails.”
Jeff Baena would prove he didn’t need the coattails, going on to direct three more features after Joshy: The Little Hours, Horse Girl and Spin Me Round, all starring Alison Brie. Baena would work on the small screen as well with anthology series Cinema Toast, which gathered a number of filmmakers who used public domain footage as launching points for their own episodes. Baena directed the first episode (using footage from 1939’s Made for Each Other) while Plaza would make her directorial debut with the episode “Quiet Illness.”
We here at JoBlo.com want to express our condolences over the passing of Jeff Baena, a figure whose work most definitely left an impact and who was lost far too soon. Leave your own in the comments section below.
For movie and TV fans. The conclusion of the calendar year means scouring through a lot of best-of lists. But for those who truly want something to sink their teeth into, we go to Steven Soderbergh. But Soderbergh doesn’t bother telling us his favorite movies of the year; instead, he tells us everything he watched in those 365 days, from movies to individual episodes. So what did Steven Soderbergh sit down for in 2024?
Steven Soderbergh shared his annual SEEN, READ list over the weekend, showing that he kicked off 2024 with Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation on January 4th (he read a book on the 2nd), along with a few episodes of Showtime’s The Curse. On his birthday, January 14th, Soderbergh treated himself to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
And just like his own filmography, the man jumped around genres quite a bit, hitting Hitchcock’s Notorious, Coppola’s Megalopolis and Curb Your Enthusiasm within a week. He even took a deep dive into Star Wars, with rewatches of portions of the first two trilogies as well as Andor.
Like the most chaotic of film nerds, there’s really no rhyme or reason to Steven Soderbergh’s movie habits. For example, he first watched Jaws in 2024 on April 3rd, when we all know it works best in the summer (granted, he did rewatch it in June, July and August). He was also fairly light on horror movies in October, only hitting Dario Argento’s giallo Deep Red, John Carpenter’s underrated TV movie Someone’s Watching Me! and Lake Mungo. For Christmas Day, Soderbergh went with Stalag 17, which is “Christmas adjacent” at best.
But we’re definitely not knocking Steven Soderbergh’s taste, because to watch that many movies and TV shows (not to mention getting through that many books) is an impressive feat, especially since he’s releasing a film of his own every year. He even notes this on his list, saying shooting began on Black Bag (slated for release this March) on May 7th…the day after he got through episodes of Hacks and The Jinx: Part Two, as well as the finals of the Madrid Open!
How many movies did you watch in 2024? Share some of your favorite first-time watches with us below.
