What does Beauty have to do with sports or advanced technology or the economy? I am Isabella Rossellini, and in each episode of This is not a Beauty podcast, I uncover stories that explain beauty's fascinating and often hidden role in modern life. Listen to This is not a Beauty podcast now on your favorite podcast platform. Brought to you by L'Oréal Group. Hey, it's Michael. As I mentioned yesterday, for our last few episodes of 2024, we're bringing you something really special. Today and for the next three days, my colleague Melissa Kirsch is going to talk to Times critics, reporters, and editors who have spent the last 12 months making sense of the year in arts and culture. Take a listen. I think you're really going to like From the New York Times, this is The Daily.

I'm Melissa Kirsch, Deputy Editor of Culture and Lifestyle. As we close out 2024, I'll be talking with my colleagues around the newsroom about what they watched and listened to and read this year, about the things they loved and the things they didn't love. Today, Chief Television Critic, James Ponawazik, is here to talk about why TV might feel a little blocked right now. Then our Chief Film Critic, Manola Dargis, on her favorite movies of 2024, and why you shouldn't let the algorithm tell you what to watch. It's Thursday, December 26th. Jim Ponawazic, thanks so much for being here.

Oh, thanks for having me.

Okay, so Jim, fill in the blank. In the world of television, 2024 was the year of...

Mid TV.

Mid TV. Mid TV.

Yeah. It's not great. It's not terrible. It's just mid.

Explain what you mean by that.

Mid TV is okay TV of the present that reminds you of great TV of the past. It's got a famous cast. It was shot in fancy locations. It's slickly produced. It's tasteful, but it's just not especially memorable. It doesn't have the quirks and bumps and idiosynchrosies that mark a show that you are going to remember and will stick with you for a long time.

Give me an example of what you mean.

Paul Moroyal on Apple TV. There are no doors on the back of the Paul Moroyal.

I never said I use the door.

I barely remember this show.

Exactly. Who Among Us The cast was absolutely loaded. Kristen Wig, Laura Dern, Carol Burnet. It looked fabulous. If you watched the whole thing, you probably forgot that you'd seen it a week later. I am never in over my head.

It would be disrespectful to my hairdresser.

Okay, but it wasn't that long ago that everybody was talking about Prestige TV, right? Like these highly polished hour-long traumas that were as good as movies. Walk me through how we got from Prestige TV to mid-TV.

I think of the Prestige television era as the era beginning around the turn of the 21st century, when you had the emergence of a lot of new cable outlets, ones like HBO, that in order to distinguish themselves in the marketplace, started taking big bets on unusual shows that they had a freedom to produce that traditional broadcast TV didn't. A classic example of this is The Sopranos. What have I happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type. Right. On ABC, ABC, you couldn't do a show about a sympathetic mobster. On HBO, you can. And then it's this function this, and this function that, and this function my fun girl. We We get The Wire. We get Breaking Bad. I am the one who knocks. People like Martin Scorsese start making TV series. Actors like Glenn Close start starring in cable TV series. Hey, Big man.

You want to get into it?

Tv was, you could argue, the premier popular art medium of its time. And also, it's now big business. Netflix, which used to be the company that you got DVDs from in the mail, starts making original TV programming. You look great.

I mean, who knew you could rock orange.

Then it ultimately is joined by Amazon. We don't need cops like you anymore, Bush. By Apple. Hey, how are you all doing? I'm Ted Lass. Disney. Guilty of being the God of Mist. Paramount. Your Honor, the issue here is not intellectual. And on and on and on. That creates this money gusher directed at starting up a lot of new shows in order to create enough content for these platforms to produce a lot of prestigy-looking thumbnails when you get to the home screen of the app. What is serving up those thumbnails to you? It's the algorithm. It's deciding what you are likely to click on and keep watching to generate those viewing hours for them. That creates a different incentive. That's not the incentive where you're like, Oh, I'm going to create a drama about a mobster in New Jersey because people haven't seen that before, and it'll be so surprising. They'll watch it. It is, I'm going to generate something that reminds you of that show that you watched about the mobster in New Jersey, so that you'll click on that and watch our streaming platform for a little longer. Metals or wounds, each man in the 101st Airborne would be going home.

You loved Band of Brothers back when it was on HBO? All right, Apple TV is going to give you Masters of the Air, which is more boring, but it's good enough for now.

Right.

The 100th Bomb Group was sent to England in the spring of 1940. You liked Big Little Lies on HBO? I feel so ashamed for saying this, but being a mother, it's not enough for me. Okay. Will make Apples Never Fall, another Leanne Moriarty novel, not as distinctive or original or surprising, but probably good enough for now.

Never even a thank you. You just give it all up because that's what having a family demands of a woman.

It's this tsunami of familiar, safe content that results in just a deluge of mid-TV.

You You hear so much about how people's attention spans are limited these days, and there's so much buying for their attention with social media and TikTok and Instagram. If TV is mid, how can TV hope to retain its audience?

Well, I think it's definitely a danger for the TV industry. I think if you have a lot of same seeming stuff out there, you run the risk of just oversaturation of the market, which in fact is what we seem to be experiencing now. I don't think that the artists of television have gotten less creative. I think that it is more difficult in this environment to pitch off the wall idiosyncratic and personal ideas, something like Fleabag, which was an amazing show that really represents a risk for a programmer that is responsible for answering to boards and all the people who have put up all this money.

I met someone. What? Really?

Yeah. Oh my God, that's amazing.

What does he do?

He's a priest.

I mean, as a viewer, I want off the wall and idiosyncratic and personal. What you're describing, I'm familiar with this zombie version of Prestige TV, and it's not satisfying. It's not the show that I want to binge. I'm wondering what the outlook is. Is mid-TV the future of TV? Is this just the way TV is now?

Talent always finds a way out. There are times in the history of any medium when it gets a little more difficult for talent and originality to find its way, but artists want to create, even when all the forces of money and business and the culture and technology are pushing against that and trying to smooth out the bumps. That's what gives me hope.

Okay, so reasons for optimism. Tell me about the shows that really stood out for you this year?

One show this year that I absolutely loved and could recommend unreservedly was We Are Lady Parts. One, two, three, four. It is this fresh, irreverent, screamingly funny British sitcom about a band of female Muslim punk musicians. Maybe instead of Voldermort under my hat scarf, you could do, I love to wear my head scarf, less more, I don't know. Yeah, maybe. Part of what works so well about We Are Lady Parts is that it is very much a story that that is about trying to make original, outspoken art under the constraints of working for a big entertainment corporation. Another show that I really liked and is so original that I almost have a hard time characterizing it was Fantasmus, which was a comedy on HBO this year, starring the comic funny person Julio Torres. Thank you. But the reason I'm here is because I was tossing and turning all night thinking about how you need to make a clear crayon.Clear. Like the color clear, yes. I think a term I used for it was sketch fantasy about a young man trying to rent an apartment in New York. It's this surreal real stream of consciousness look into his imagination and the workings of his mind.

Julio, you need a new apartment.

To get a new apartment, you need proof of existence.

No, I can't think of the apartment because I'm sick. No, Julio, don't go into your thoughts. Come back. It's the opposite of mid-TV. It's not trying to be familiar or safe or a turn your brain off experience. It's a surprising fun show that makes you pay attention because it's so original. I don't go here. Why are you here? Because I'm waiting for class to be over so I can yell at a hamster.

Oh, I'm going to check this out.

That's one thing I love about television is that it's a medium that ideally is very responsive to changes in the culture and shifts in the currents. It's a way or different voices that you may not have encountered before to percolate through and shift your perspective.

So talent will out.

Talent will out. It may take a little longer sometimes than the others, but talent will out.

Well, I am feeling a little more hopeful than I was at the outset of this conversation. So thank you so much for talking with me, Jim.

Thank you so much for talking with me.

After the break, I'll talk with Chief Film Critic, Manola Dargis about the best movies of 2024. We'll be right back.

Hi, my name is Sondra E. Garcia, and I'm a reporter at the New York Times. I write for the Style Desk, where we try to understand our complicated world by keeping up with culture.

We want to take you to the forefront of cultural shifts and let you know why things are trending. Our subscriber subscribers make this coverage possible so the New York Times can continue to highlight the stories that go beyond breaking news. Help us keep a pulse on culture by subscribing at nytimes. Com/subscribe.

My Milla Dargis. Thank you for being here. Hi.

Thanks for having me.

I'm wondering if you could do something for me, which is I'd like you to read the list of the top grossing movies of 2024.

Sure. Easy enough to do. Inside Out 2, which is a charming sequel from Pixar. Deadpool and Wolverine, which I could not stand. Despicable Me 4, which I will never see unless I'm forced by gunpoint. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, which was fine, fine. Dune In part two, Wicked Twisters, Moana 2, Godzilla Kong, The New Empire, kung fu Panda 4.

Okay. Now, of the movies you just mentioned, nine out of 10 of them are sequels, and Wicked It is technically a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. What's going on here?

Well, it's very familiar. Sequelitis, this is the current model for the big companies.

Very similar to what's going on with TV, where studios aren't looking for necessarily innovative or original work. They're looking for safe bets.

If you're in charge of a multimillion dollar outfit, much less a multibillion dollar conglomerate, you're not really going to be one to take big chances like, Oh, let's bankroll this tiny little movie from... That whole mentality is really... That's been part of the mainstream entertainment business for some time. When you start introducing things like algorithms, that At a certain point, it's just going to start suggesting things that you've already... That are like what you just saw. It's depressing.

We should say that not all sequels are bad. You liked some sequels.

Oh, I like the Gladiator sequel very much. I never forgot it, that a slave could take revenge against an Emperor. First of all, Sharks versus gladiator, what's not to like? Also, there's a fantastic performance from Denzel Washington. It's one of the great performances of the year.

I have a destiny. The gods deliver you to me. You will be my instrument.

He's wildly Really entertaining. So please, people, do not tell me that there's nothing to see. There are things to see.

Okay, so let's talk about some of those things to see. I've got your list of the best films of the year here. Your number one movie of 2024 is an Indian film called All We Imagine as Light. I have not seen this movie.

I would say that most people have not seen this movie. It's quite a small movie. It is made by Payal Kapadia, and it is a deeply touching movie that even when I start talking about it, I get a little misty, so forgive me. It's set in Mumbai, and it focuses on one woman, but it's mainly three women who all work at a hospital, two nurses and a cook, and it is about both their individual lives, but also their relationships with one another. Padia has worked in documentary before, and she inserts these documentary scenes of people just milling about, celebrating, walking in streets, and you get the sense from the movie that she could have picked another three people and told their stories. What she's saying is each of us has a story that is there. It is something I have never seen and that I was delighted to see. It's an independent film, and it's glorious.

Now, let's talk about a very different movie. Another film you loved this year was Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. This is the latest entry in the Mad Max franchise. It's directed by George Miller and stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. I had Gashtown, I had Bullet Fomb The Vatican had crippled the Citadel.

The rule of the Whitesland. The Whitesland would have been a far better place for all of us.

George Miller, great director from Australia. He makes these incredibly... They're just pure cinema, I think. I love the stories. This one did move me. It's about a woman's empowerment. Can I say I'm a sucker for female empowerment?

My childhood, my mother. I want them back. Of course you do. I want them back.

One of the things I really love about it is George Miller uses practical effects rather than relying on just computer-generated imagery. You are really watching people doing these crazy things. It's beautifully choreographed the way, let's say, a 1930s or '40s Fred Astaire number would be beautifully choreographed. We are talking about visual pleasure, maximum. It's just so wonderful.

I think a movie people might be surprised to find in your top 10 is Megalopolis, This is the movie that Francis Ford Coppola, who directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, self-financed and wrote and directed. It stars Adam Driver. It was divisive, but you loved it.

Listen, man, I'm going down on this ship. I I don't care. This is a wildly ambitious, ungainly, imperfect movie. But you are going to see things much like with a George Miller movie that you have never seen before. This is a movie that Coppola has been thinking about for decades. He's been working on it. It's a very optimistic movie filled with beautiful imagery. It is nuts, but in a glorious way. I Why? It's not Despicable Me 234. It's not. It's something different. It is funny. It is strange. It is unexpected. Why do you go to the movies? Do you just want to see the same thing over and over and over No, maybe see something that you have never seen before, and I guarantee you that you have never seen this before.

Oh, hear me, time. For Julia. Just try. Emmy, time to stop now.

Resist the algorithm, seek out movies that- Resist the algorithm.

This is going to be my new T-shirt All right, sister, I think we're ready for a revolution now, right?

We're going to go like- To the barricades. Okay, let's take a little break. When we return, we're going to talk about movies you can see in the theater right now. Hey, I'm Robert Vinlo, and I'm from New York Times Games, and I'm here talking to people about Wurtle and the Wurtle Archive. Do you all play Wurtl? Yeah. I have something exciting to show you. Okay.

It's the Wurtle Archive. Oh. If I miss it, I can go back.

A hundred %. Oh, that's sick. Now you can play every Wurtle that has ever existed. There's like a thousand puzzles. Oh, my God.

I love it.

Amazing. New York Times game subscribers can now access the entire Wurtle Archive. Find out more at nytimes. Com/games. Here we are in the week between Christmas and New Year's. A lot of people have time off from work. This is a time when a lot of people go to the movies, what do you recommend?

There are some really interesting movies that I highly recommend that people can look at. One of those, I really like September 5.

Do you hear that?

We're close gun shots? It's about the 1972 Olympics where the Israeli team was taken hostage, and ABC was covering it live. What do I tell the cameras?

What do you mean? I mean, can we show someone being shot on live television?

It's a very modest movie. It's really short. It's about 90 minutes long, and it just seems like, oh, it's just about the fact that they were covering it. No, I think it's journalistic ethics, and it's really interesting, and I think it's very germane to the moment. Our job is to tell the story of these individuals whose lives are at stake.

It's not okay if we made it worse.

I also like a movie coming up called The Brutalist, which is a movie by braided Corbett. It stars Adrian Brodie, who, when we first see him, is actually just stepping off onto Ellis Island. It's post-World War II, and he comes to America, and he runs face first into the wall of American capitalism.

Tell me, why is an accomplished foreign architect shoveling coal here in Philadelphia?

It is a really big, ambitious movie, and it has one of the other great performances of the year from Guy Pears, who plays an American capitalist. Oh, my God. It is an amazing performance. So highly recommend that movie. It's a beautiful movie. If you can see it in theaters, please do. It is one of the most beautiful monumental-looking. It's tremendous-looking. Then, of course, there's the movie that I think is going to be a very, very big Oscar movie is a complete unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet as the very, very young and cutie-pied Bob Dylan.

The movie opens with him arriving in in New York City, and it takes us through to when he goes electric.

It's a movie that I think is going to surprise people in terms of Timothée Chalamet. It's opening a whole new Chalamet chapter. It's a movie that is going to be talked a lot about in terms of the Oscars. You're going to hear a great deal about that for the next couple of months.

Well, it sounds like there's a lot of good stuff to see in the theater right now. Manola, thank you so much for being here.

It's been a pleasure, Melissa.

Today's episode was produced by Alex Barham with help from Kaytla Presti. It was edited by Wendy Dore, with production support by Frannie Car-Toth, and original music by Diane Wong, Pat McCusker, and Dan Powell. It was engineered by Daniel Ramirez. Special thanks to Sia Michael, Sam Sifton, David Mallets, Jason Bailey, Jeremy Eggner, Stephanie Goodman, Lauren Manley, Ben Calhoun, Claire Tennisgetter, Alexandra Lee-Yung, Alisha Baetup, Sarah Curtis, John White, Tina Antalini, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dolnik. That's it for The Daily. I'm Melissa Kirsch. I'll see you tomorrow.