Lifestyle
9 movie scenes I couldn't stop thinking about in 2024
Some scenes just stay with you. Clockwise from left, I Saw the TV Glow, My Old Ass, Trap, Tuesday.
A24/Screenshot by NPR; Marni Grossman/Amazon Content Services; Warner Bros. Pictures; A24
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A24/Screenshot by NPR; Marni Grossman/Amazon Content Services; Warner Bros. Pictures; A24
As a critic, I’m sometimes asked about my note-taking habits: Do you take a lot of notes? (Almost always; my memory can get fuzzy fast.) How do you do this in a dark theater? (Absolutely no phone screens! I scribble furiously with a pen and paper and hope for the best.) What do you usually take notes about?
To that last question, it truly varies, but I can say that I’m consistently being pulled in by words, spoken and unspoken. The profound, the funny, the relatable, the subtext-laden; the lines that reveal some kind of truth about the world on screen and thus the world we’re existing in now. When I think of some of my most memorable film-going experiences of 2024 – a great year for movies! – these are some of the moments and performances that have moved me, and stuck even many months later.
“I’m a little sick of the fluff.” — Girls State
Emily Worthmore, one of the candidates for governor at Girls State, poses with friends.
Apple TV+
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Apple TV+
Gendered inequities become glaringly obvious very quickly in Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s fascinating documentary about the long-running high school program known as Girls State. Like many before them, the ambitious civic-minded teens profiled here set out to build their own government from the ground up. But the film was shot in 2022, the first time the Missouri chapter hosted both the girls and boys programs on the same campus at the same time, and the girls spend much of their time observing how much attention is paid to the enforcement of dress codes and how little is given to discussing more substantial and urgent political issues. (Meanwhile, there’s ample evidence the boys’ ambitions are taken far more seriously. Among their advantages: being “sworn in” to “office” by the state governor.)
In one scene some of the girls commiserate over their disappointment with the tenor of the program, with one of them calling it out as distracting “fluff.” The moment speaks to the obstacles that still persist for women in politics and is a sobering depiction of young hopefuls getting an early taste of political disillusionment.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about before. I’m sorry about that before.” — I Saw the TV Glow
Owen (Justice Smith) panics at a child’s birthday party at the end of I Saw the TV Glow.
A24/Screenshot by NPR
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A24/Screenshot by NPR
The final lines of Jane Schoenbrun’s challenging and mesmerizing transgender allegory are a wallop of a denouement, proffering both sadness and hope. The sadness comes from everything we’ve learned about the meek protagonist Owen (Justice Smith) to this point – how, out of paralyzing fear, they’ve made a deliberate choice to deny their true self, and live a depressing and unfulfilling life. Now working at the kind of job that can only be described as the stuff of nightmares – a Chuck E. Cheese-like amusement center – the crushing weight of their denial finally hits, and sends them into a panic attack in the middle of a child’s birthday celebration.
But Schoenbrun leaves room for hope when Owen collects themselves in the bathroom and in a visually stunning sequence, realizes that who they are is still very much a part of them no matter how much they try to ignore it. They crack a slight smile that suggests some relief and then return to work, ambling past patrons and colleagues while mumbling apologies for their outburst. In a way Owen is still shrinking themselves, apologizing for being who they are. And yet: There’s a sense there’s finally been an existential breakthrough, and perhaps a less painful way forward.
“What the f***? Did you honestly think you were going to be married and have multiple kids and your dream job by the time you were 40?…Oh, you did. OK.” — My Old Ass
In My Old Ass, Maisy Stella plays soon-to-be college freshman Elliott — and Aubrey Plaza plays 39-year-old Elliott, a PhD student.
Marni Grossman/Amazon Content Services
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Marni Grossman/Amazon Content Services
The beauty of Megan Park’s coming-of-age dramedy is that it never attempts to explain how 18-year-old Elliott (Maisy Stella) comes to encounter her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza), beyond a hallucinogenic mushroom trip the first time she appears. The obvious and more pressing question then is, What does my future hold? When older Elliott delivers the sobering news to younger Elliott – that life rarely plays out exactly as planned – the reality of many millennials and Gen Zers the world over is succinctly and wittily acknowledged. Own a house? Work a fulfilling job that also pays at least a living wage? LOL.
Park’s film mercifully doesn’t dwell on such cynicism, but it is all the better for those little nuggets of pointed commentary peppered throughout, blending a healthy dose of lived wisdom with the energy of youthful optimism.
“I love you so much more than me, and this is your life. And from now on, we’re gonna do what’s best for you.” — Tuesday
Lola Petticrew plays the titular character in Tuesday, a teenager with a terminal illness. Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays her mother, Zora.
A24
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A24
Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Zora is unquestionably relatable — what person wouldn’t do everything in their power to ward off a loved one’s impending death, especially their child’s? But ultimately, Zora’s impulses are more harmful than good for her terminally ill daughter Tuesday (Lola Petticrew), who’s already come to terms with her own fate. It takes several extreme attempts at “killing” Death, imagined here as a majestically baritone macaw voiced by Arinzé Kene, before Zora understands she must set aside her own fears of what’s to come and live in the present.
When that epiphany arrives, their mother-daughter relationship begins to heal; Tuesday no longer has to worry about how her mother will fare once she’s gone, and Zora can cherish and appreciate what little time they have left together.
“Why didn’t they call me by my real name? Don’t they know it?” — Dahomey
A wooden statue of King Ghezo, who led Dahomey in the 19th century, is given a voice of its own in Dahomey.
MUBI/Screenshot from YouTube
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MUBI/Screenshot from YouTube
Twenty-six pillaged artifacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey were returned by France to the Republic of Benin in 2021. One of those objects, No. 26, is given a literal voice in Mati Diop’s stunning documentary, composed from a mix of male and female voices blended to create what she describes as “genderless vocal texture in deep, metallic frequencies.” As Diop’s camera captures the meticulous process of preparing them for transportation, that voice poetically ponders what it means to go back to a home you no longer recognize, through lines written by Haitian author and poet Makenzy Orcel. It’s a poignant reminder that even well-intentioned correctives to historical blights are insufficient in making up for what’s often lost — memories, names, and above all, a sense of self.
“You have a kind of — a forthrightness, you have a kind of aggressive quality. It sounds like a criticism; I don’t mean it as one. I’ve just always worried — I’ve just always wondered how that would work with a man. I’ve wondered if it might be easier for you to be with a woman.” — Janet Planet
11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) and her mom, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), in Janet Planet.
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A24
One night, inquisitive tween Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) asks her mom Janet (Julianne Nicholson) if she’d be “disappointed” if she dated a girl when she’s older. Janet, an acupuncturist and total hippie, admits she’d be neither disappointed nor shocked if that came to pass. The clarity of the observation about her daughter reveals that Janet sees a quality in Lacy that doesn’t exist within herself, namely that “forthrightness,” a lack of interest in tamping down any part of who she is.
This plays out throughout writer and director Annie Baker’s quiet drama, as Janet slips in and out of relationships with men who are no good for her, and as Lacy looks on skeptically. But the mother-daughter divide is made most honestly plain in this scene, which is both tender and (metaphorically) loud in the way it speaks to how women are traditionally conditioned to act and think about themselves. There’s care in Nicholson’s delivery, along with a tinge of regret.
“I need you, because I hate myself.” — The Substance
Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) attempts to revive her younger counterpart, Sue (Margaret Qualley).
MUBI/Screenshot by NPR
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MUBI/Screenshot by NPR
There is nothing subtle about this movie, but in a sparse script overflowing with bluntly obvious points about the horrors of sexism and misogyny, this line is the most apt thesis statement. What makes Coralie Fargeat’s astounding, seismic body horror so unique is that the external forces – men, the patriarchy writ large — are on the periphery. Instead, Fargeat is preoccupied with what those forces stir within Elisabeth (Demi Moore), a TV aerobics star resorting to the most desperate of measures to regain her youth, and Sue (Margaret Qualley), the other, younger half she gruesomely expels from her body with the aid of “the substance.”
As Elisabeth’s experiment goes awry, she begins to regret what she’s done and attempts to kill Sue, but can’t bring herself to go through with it. Now haggard and pitiful, Elisabeth says the not-quiet-at-all part even louder: “… I hate myself.” The film is a testament to how corrosive that hate can be.
“I’m taking such good care of my little white boys.” — Challengers
Tashi (Zendaya) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor), her ex-boyfriend.
Amazon MGM Studios
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Amazon MGM Studios
There’s so much narrative possibility packed into this throwaway line, spoken by tennis star-turned-coach Tashi (Zendaya). She’s a ruthless striver wedged in the middle of a homoerotic love triangle because she married Art (Mike Faist) after first having dated his best friend Patrick (Josh O’Connor). Does she love either of them as much, if not more, than she loves the thrill of a little green ball connecting with a swinging racket in a game of “good tennis”? Doubtful. But she’s dedicated her life to making sure Art does what she wasn’t able to accomplish on her own after a career-ending injury, and she’ll be damned if she’ll let Patrick humiliate him on the court.
Zendaya, of course, is a Black woman playing an athlete in a predominantly white and occasionally racist sport. Director Luca Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes mostly ignore this reality, arguably to a fault; the movie’s avoidance of Tashi’s perspective in this regard keeps it from having any true thematic heft. But what little it does give us is in the form of this brief acknowledgment from Tashi that she’s hitched herself to these two pathetic “little white boys” who’ve squandered all their privilege and talent right before her eyes.
“Reminding everyone, visual markers. Surveillance footage from area of where victims were found recorded men of various builds: A redheaded male; two African-American males, above-average height; a male with white hair in his 60s; a white male in his 30s with a tattoo of a rabbit or animal on his right arm. A white male with a scar on his lower jaw.” — Trap
Josh Hartnett as Cooper and Ariel Donoghue as Riley in Trap.
Warner Bros. Pictures
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Warner Bros. Pictures
Look, I never said this was a list of the best movies of 2024. M. Night Shyamalan’s nepo-baby project starring Josh Hartnett as a hot and doting dad who’s also a serial killer is truly one of the dumbest, most nonsensical things to come out of Hollywood in recent memory. But it’s fun as hell, and the commitment to such a ridiculous premise is weirdly audacious: The F.B.I., led by a serial killer “profiler” played by Haley Mills, has trapped thousands of people at a pop star’s concert to catch a guy who could be literally anyone. (That pop star is played by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka.)
What does this killer look like? Who knows! Except if you’ve seen this movie and made it through to the end, you eventually realize that everyone hunting this guy down should’ve absolutely known. It makes no sense. The plot holes are abundant. This is cinema.
Entrepreneur David Huang tests out a VR headset while conducting demonstrations of the social dance lesson app Dance Guru at the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, Calif., June 17, 2026.
Chloe Veltman/NPR
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Chloe Veltman/NPR
Wedding season is in full swing, bringing with it a familiar sense of dread for anyone who fears the dance floor.
But relief may finally be at hand with the help of a new app, Dance Guru, and a virtual reality (VR) headset.
The social dance instruction app transports users to a spacious, digital dance studio. Waiting inside is a computer-generated coach: a handsome, male avatar wearing a shirt open to his navel. He speaks with a slightly gravelly English accent.
“Watch me now,” he instructs at the start of a waltz lesson — which NPR tried out at the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, Calif., an annual conference showcasing the latest developments in virtual and augmented reality.
The avatar then demonstrates a basic box step.
From there, the lesson becomes interactive. The coach tells the user to hold his hand while an electric pinging sound tracks the student’s foot placement.
“One, two, three, four, five, six,” the virtual teacher counts down.
When the user stumbles, he remains remarkably patient. “Do not worry, foundations take time. Let’s try that again. Work on grounding your steps more intentionally.”
Solving the beginner’s dilemma
Dance Guru creator David Huang said he came up with the idea for the app a couple of years ago out of frustration.
“I always wanted to learn to dance and I was always terrible at it,” Huang said. “And I always ended up stopping midway through the lessons.”
He soon realized that many beginners hit the exact same roadblocks.
“Private lessons are too expensive, and you feel like you’re always forgetting the dance steps,” Huang said. “You cannot find a partner to dance with. So I figured maybe I can create something like this.”
The Dance Guru platform currently offers tutorials in salsa, bachata, waltz, and cha-cha, in both lead and follow modes. To make the digital instruction feel authentic, Huang used motion-capture technology to record the movements of real-life dance teachers — with their permission.
Building on the legacy of online tutorials and video games
Dance Guru belongs to a small but growing wave of apps using VR to demystify social dance. At a nearby booth, conference attendee Victor Chen is testing out a competing app called Trip the Light. It currently offers salsa lessons, as well as freestyle options, where a user can dance with a partner without having to learn specific steps.
Trip the Light’s booth at the Augmented World Expo included posters of the app’s virtual instructors. Real-life performers, who gave Trip the Light permission to motion capture their movements, were used as a basis for these avatars.
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Chloe Veltman/NPR
“A lot of times when you’re trying to learn a choreography, it’s watching a YouTube video and you have to pause it, rewind, and play it,” Chen said. “If you were to have a virtual avatar dancing in front of you and correcting for any parts that you missed, it might be a lot easier.”
Interactive video games like Dance Dance Revolution and Just Dance, and YouTube tutorials have been helping people improve their skills in private for years. But those games are mostly aimed at solo players. Unlike the new generation of immersive VR apps, they cannot simulate the mechanics or confidence required for partner dancing on a live dance floor.
The reality check
But this kind of app won’t work for every dancer.
“Everyone learns a little bit differently. And so unless you have a game that has lots of different ways of teaching, you’re going to have things that work for some people and don’t work for others,” said Ariana Katana, a trained contemporary dancer and dance content creator who’s active on YouTube, Twitch and other platforms. “Also, it’s hard to dance with a headset on.”
And then there’s the issue of not being able to physically feel a virtual partner’s hand or shoulder while dancing with them. Patrick Ascolese, the creator of Trip the Light, said the experience could become more tactile in the future. “Haptic suits and wearables will be coming, but I think we’re a little away from that,” he said.
Ascolese said even with their limitations, immersive tools like Trip the Light have immense potential as judgment-free training grounds — giving reluctant dancers the baseline confidence they need to eventually step onto the dance floor with real partners in the real world, including at weddings.
“Just like anything else, practice makes perfect,” said Ascolese. “So the more time you spend in VR with a virtual partner, it works towards helping you get over that social hurdle. We are teaching you the moves that you have to do in order to go out and have fun.”
Jennifer Vanasco edited the broadcast and digital versions of this story. Chloee Weiner mixed the audio.
For half a century, Deidre Hall has taken on every kind of disaster in the drama-packed town of Salem, Ill., as a star of “Days of Our Lives.”
There was the time — actually, it happened twice — when her character, Dr. Marlena Evans, was famously possessed by the devil and even levitated.
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Or the time a serial killer, who was actually Marlena under hypnosis, seemed to kill several beloved characters. The long-running show’s storylines have become legendary, and in March, while promoting “Hail Mary,” actor Ryan Gosling even gave Hall a shout-out, admitting he was a fan, praising the hard work of soap opera actors and calling her an “OG acting inspiration.”
But Hall’s real life in Santa Monica is much quieter than her character’s, and she likes it that way.
“When I bought my house in Santa Monica, I didn’t realize how great it would be to live near Montana Avenue,” says Hall, 78, about the popular shopping spot. Every day, she walks to the main street with her golden retriever, Riley, and enjoys Pilates, art and good food along the way. “The owners of the Farms Market even keep dog biscuits, so guess where the dog wants to go every time we walk — the Farms, of course,” she says, laughing.
When she isn’t filming the daily soap opera, which airs on Peacock, Hall enjoys raising monarch butterflies, exploring the shops and restaurants on Montana, and hosting movie nights at home with her two sons.
Here’s what a perfect day in L.A. looks like for her.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
7 a.m.: Breakfast and dog walk
I usually kick off my day with a protein shake, feed our golden retriever and take her out for a walk. She’s a phenomenal girl. When we adopted her, her name was Riley, but I did think about naming her after Mrs. Hughes from “Downton Abbey.”
10 a.m.: Church and garden time
After I walk the dog and go to church, I like to spend some time in my yard. I’m not a natural gardener, but I really enjoy it. I started raising monarch butterflies because my identical twin sister, who played my twin on the show, planted a butterfly garden. Monarchs are amazing because they are transitional. Every year, they travel from Mexico to southern New England, but it’s getting harder for them. Their numbers have dropped by about 80%. To help, I plant milkweed, which is what they need to survive. I buy my milkweed from the Staghorn Garden on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. Julie, who owns the nursery, is delightful and has a wide variety of milkweed. The monarchs always seem to find my garden. Julie was raising some caterpillars too, and she cared a lot about them. We talked about how important it is to help the butterflies. That’s why I do this. Sometimes I get milkweed with eggs already on it, and Julie knows her butterflies are going to a good home.
1 p.m.: Walk to Montana Avenue for some lunch
I live near Montana and love taking long walks, going to Pilates and trying out the great restaurants nearby, like R+D Kitchen and La La Land. I’m a big fan of the waffles at the Courtyard Kitchen. Just a few days ago, I had a chicken salad on raisin bread with an Arnold Palmer, and it was delicious. It is right on Montana and has a nice outdoor seating area. It’s one of my favorite spots. La La Land always has a long line in the morning, which is perfect if you want coffee. They serve coffee, doughnuts, croissants and avocado toast. There’s plenty of outdoor seating, and you can even bring your dog.
2 p.m.: Peek inside a clock shop
There’s a small clock shop on Montana Avenue that’s closed on Sundays, but if you walk by, you’ll see all kinds of clocks — standing, table and wall clocks. The owner is great at fixing them. Once, I bought a wall clock from MacKenzie-Childs, but it didn’t work. And I was really upset because it matched everything else on my countertop. I brought it to the owner and said, “I love this, but I can’t make it work.” He fixed it right away. His name is John, but I call him Geppetto. And we all know why. He really does have a magic touch.
2:30 p.m.: Visit a neighborhood art gallery
Ten Women Gallery is run by 10 artists, all of whom show their work there. I was drawn to some watercolors there, bought a few cards and spoke with one of the artists. She told me, “You seem to love watercolors,” and mentioned that the artist who painted them, Pamela Harnois, lives in Los Angeles and teaches nearby. I got Pamela’s name and found out she taught at the Brentwood Art School. I was so inspired by her gift that I started taking private lessons with her on Saturdays. That gallery is where I discovered my love for watercolor painting.
3 p.m.: Grab some ice cream at Rori’s
The other day, my longtime girlfriend wanted to get ice cream and told me, “We are walking to Rori’s Artisanal Creamery.” It’s a small shop on Montana near Lincoln. They make everything themselves, using local ingredients from grass-fed cows with no added hormones. The place is family-owned and probably has the healthiest ice cream you’ll find. They switch up their flavors often, but my favorite is the salted caramel.
6 p.m.: Family dinner and movie night at home
R+D Kitchen is always packed, so my sons, who are 31 and 33, do the cooking. They come over, and together we make salads and cook dinner. There’s a neighborhood grocery store called the Farms, off Montana, a small family-run place that has everything we need. Everyone knows each other there, and people bring their dogs. We try to have movie night every Sunday. Sometimes the day changes, but we always make sure to have one night a week where we cook a meal and sit down as a family. Keeping that tradition has become really important to us. My sons are great cooks, which is funny because they definitely didn’t get that from me. [Laughs]
9 p.m.: Take Riley for one last walk and visit neighbors
After dinner, I take my dog for a walk. It’s a great way to meet neighbors. We always go around the same block. We’ve met so many people, and since she’s a golden retriever, she loves meeting everyone.
10 p.m.: News, knitting and bedtime
I am a news junkie, so I usually watch whatever is on the news before I go to bed. I have a long-standing passion for knitting. Lately, though, the news would make me drop a stitch.
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