They say it’s a bad idea to compare yourself to others, especially the lives others share on social media, but I don’t think that’s entirely true. For reasons I won’t go into just yet, I could describe my 2024 as having been pretty terrible, but when I put it into perspective against the year some of my friends have had, it starts to look not all that bad. What do you mean you’ve had a year filled with hospital trips and chemotherapy? You’re living in an active war zone? Too many of your weekends were spent attending family funerals? My current living situation is temporarily a little uncomfortable and now I have to take a tablet if I want to eat cheese!

So yes, my year could have been better, but it also could’ve been a whole lot worse, and I’m grateful for just how bad a year some of my friends had, so mine may appear better in comparison. So, how did my year go? If you’re new to these annual posts, I’ll be taking a look back at the plans and resolutions I made this time last year, laugh raucously at how few of them I accomplished, and then make some more wildly implausible plans for the coming twelve months. Let’s get to it!

Film: Cancel my cinema subscription

I did this, but I have also undone it. I cancelled my Odeon subscription in January after watching The Holdovers and Poor Things (both excellent). I then spent five months not going to the cinema (I probably did other things in that time too, but the more memorable part was just sitting at home thinking “I’m not at the cinema right now.”) I paid cold hard debit card to see Furiosa in an independent cinema whilst on vacation in Scotland, and then I signed up to be on the Out Now with Aaron and Abe podcast to talk about Twisters in July, so I checked the upcoming releases and saw there were enough coming up that warranted purchasing the membership again, and I’ve yet to cancel it. That’s also partly down to me having a little more free time over some weekends right now, so I’ll be keeping this for a little longer at least. That being said, I only saw about 12 films with the membership in 2024, which would cover the cost of the tickets if I were buying them individually but, as is the case with these things, I probably wouldn’t have seen all these films were I making decisions on a film-by-film basis. My full 2024 movie rankings will be in a separate post, and I’m really going to put the effort in this year and actually post it in January.

Reduce streaming services:

Again, this was done but has now actually gone further in the other direction. Apple was cancelled, taking our active streaming services down to Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+, but seeing as Netflix is tied into our Sky bundle (along with Paramount+, but that’s free) I can’t really count that. However we’ve just received a 4-months free Apple TV offer, so it’s on again, and I’ve also signed up for Shudder for an upcoming podcast episode on Sharksploitation, and a free one week trial of MGM+ (who knew that existed?) so we can watch Blink Twice. MGM+ will be cancelled before having to pay anything, and Shudder will likely only be around for a month or two. Apple should also be cancelled at the 4-month mark. We were supposed to end Disney+ when my wife finished Grey’s Anatomy, but then she found (and finished) the spin-off, Private Practice, and is now wading through Scandal. I’ve truly lost her in Shondaland at this point.

Watch fewer bad movies, more older, acclaimed films:

I think this counts as a win. Of all the 2024 releases I’ve seen so far (the full ranked list is coming soon), I’d say only maybe four or five were so dull and bland that I haven’t thought about them since. I’m not counting ones I saw for podcasting purposes (No Way Up) or because my wife wanted to see them (The Idea of You, Migration), as those weren’t watched just for entertaining me. As for older, better films, here’s my top 10 new-to-me pre-2024 releases I saw in 2024:
10. The Frighteners
9. Defending Your Life
8. Below
7. Open Water
6. The Strangers
5. Virus
4. Juggernaut
3. We’re No Angels
2.Trick ‘R Treat
1. It Follows
A lot of these are fairly recent, and many were for podcasting purposes, so I don’t think I’m quite hitting the goal of more older acclaimed films, but this is a better list than some recent years would’ve yielded.

TV: Finish off some of the started shows:

Another win! I finished Barry seasons two through four (just incredible and kept me guessing and surprised all the way to the end, Bill Hader has truly proven himself as a writer and director, and I’m looking forward to whatever he does next), What We Do In The Shadows (also excellent, though season five may have jumped the shark with one character’s plotline, we’ll see where it goes in season six), Fargo seasons four and five (I understand why four doesn’t get a lot of love, but I still enjoyed it, whereas five kicked all kinds of arse, Sam Spruell’s oddball assassin a clear frontrunner for one of my favourite characters of the year) and made more progress with Cheers (I’m halfway through season ten of eleven, although the more I watch the less I’m enjoying it. Still, I’ve made it this far, and tend to only watch it whilst I’m doing the washing up, so I’ll see it through). No further progress has been made on Succession, Twin Peaks, Quantum Leap, The Boys or Deadwood.

Books: Read more books I enjoy:

I think I’ve enjoyed every book I’ve read this year! Here are some mini reviews:
The Thursday Murder Club – Ricard Osman – I may have read this before 2024 but I couldn’t find a mini review so it’s on here. Spoiler for three future entries in this section but I thoroughly enjoyed all four of these books. The characters are well drawn and relatable – chances are you know at least one Joyce, Elizabeth, Ibrahim or Ron in the real world – and I did not expect these fairly light-hearted and incredibly readable stories to hit me quite as emotionally as they all did. There’s a film coming out with an as yet questionable cast (Helen Mirren and Ben Kingsley are almost too perfect as Elizabeth and Ibrahim, I can see why Celia Imrie was cast as Joyce but I’d pictured more of an Imelda Staunton or Ellen Thomas type, and Pierce Brosnan couldn’t be further from Ron, when the likes of Phil Daniels and Alan Ford exist in the world) but we’ll see how it goes.
The Man Who Died Twice – Ricard Osman
The Bullet That Missed – Ricard Osman
The Last Devil to Die – Ricard Osman – I can’t rank these four, they’re all equally good and I recommend them all, especially if, like me, you enjoy books with short chapters so you can easily leave them on a conclusive point rather than falling asleep mid-paragraph.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Stuart Turton – I loved this so much. A bizarre set-up – an unknown, nameless protagonist relives the same day from various perspectives in an attempt to solve a murder – with a cast of equally bizarre and often hideous characters. Puts you into the minds of some right creeps, but is gripping throughout. Something very different, and Turton has been added to my list of authors to watch (more on him soon).
Killers of a Certain Age – Deanna Raybourn – Marketed as the Thursday Murder Club meets Charlie’s Angels, this sees four former special agents on the run from the agency they used to work for. Not as fun as Thursday Murder Club, but still a good read. I bought it for Aisha but she didn’t like the sound of it, so I read it and liked it, as did my Mum.
The Devil and the Dark Water – Stuart Turton – Turton’s back with another slightly less bizarre set-up, this time following the bodyguard of a Sherlock Holmes-type infamous detective aboard a ship that becomes the setting for some seemingly fantastical foul play. Easier to follow than The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle primarily because everything is told in the same order and from far fewer perspectives, but if anything this lack of complexity made me enjoy it less. Still good though, and the ending was a surprise.
Last One at the Party – Bethany Clift – Recommendation from my wife who, as usual, was spot-on as to whether I’d like it. Essentially diary entries of a normal, regular, unprepared and inept everyday person who inexplicably becomes the only survivor of a global pandemic. Sort of a World War Z meets Bridget Jones kind of deal (I assume, I haven’t seen/read Bridget Jones’ Diary, but I think I get the gist). This book absolutely wrecked me, as predictably some of the earlier chapters are gruelling, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend reading it on a busy train as you visibly and loudly weep into your jumper. The book itself though is highly recommended.
Whalefall – Daniel Klaus – Seemed appropriate reading given the Deep Blue Sea podcast I co-host, the premise of Whalefall is a guy goes diving in search of his father’s sunken remains, but ends up getting swallowed by a gargantuan sperm whale and tries to survive. There’s quite a lot of accurate-sounding whale anatomy and science going on here, but mercifully less than Moby Dick (still the worst book I’ve ever endured). Initially I thought the metaphors and sub-text were being employed a little heavy-handedly, but it turns out that’s because they’re more the driving themes of the story than something you’re supposed to realise upon reflection. Has a Slumdog Millionaire feel to how every aspect of the main character’s life was all building up to this one encounter, and I’m forever impressed by how implausibly detailed the main character’s memory is for even the tiniest fragments of childhood conversations, but despite all that I really enjoyed this crucially short-chaptered book.

House: Finish jobs:
We got so much done house-wise in 2024! More than I could possibly list here, but basically everything is finished on the house – for now. We have big plans for 2025 though, don’t you worry! I’ve really enjoyed getting projects ticked off, there’s a real sense of accomplishment at doing them yourself and them actually going well.

Exercise: More varied workouts, less running:
So my plan for 2024 had been to run less and do more varied workouts instead. In actuality, I ran further in 2024 than any year previously, and beat my previous record year (2023) by around 20%. Ridiculous. I ran a total of 3,076km (1,911 miles), and I’m genuinely not sure how I ran that far. I didn’t get any shin splint flare-ups or horrendous periods of sickness, so my only two periods of not running were due to a bout of COVID in summer and a particularly busy batch of house-jobs in late November. Other than those I ran at least every other day, averaging one run every 1.6 days. Do I feel physically fitter because of this? No. Do I think I’m improving as a runner? No. Did running help alleviate a lot of stress I went through in the past twelve months? Almost certainly.

I alluded in the intro that my diet has also needed to change, due to a realisation that I have become lactose intolerant. It’s unclear exactly when this happened, but safe to say my dairy intake has drastically reduced. This has not been fun, as pretty much every food I love contains frankly unhealthy amounts of dairy, so much so that I feel I’ve accrued this condition by simply meeting a lifetime’s dairy quota by the age of 37. Gone are my yoghurt parfaits, my cheese boards, ice creams and mashed potatoes, deep fried halloumi and mozzarella-laden pizzas, burgers with blue cheese. Lactose-free milk makes an acceptable porridge, but if anyone suggests using goat milk in anything I’ll kindly refer you to the overwhelmingly off-putting goaty smelly that comes with such a substitution. Buffalo mozzarella seems to not upset me too much. Everything else is being tested systematically, and I’ve trialled a tablet called Milkaid that helps with this sort of thing, but it’s raspberry flavoured and needs to be eaten with the food, so the first dairy-filled bite of a savoury dish is often accompanied by a contrasting tartness. Still, it’s better than nothing.

Sleep: More, please:
Another win! Around August I made a concerted effort to try and get more sleep. This saw me going to bed earlier and not getting up at silly times if I could avoid it. All year long I’ve reduced my caffeine and chocolate intake in the evenings, with a strict not-after-10pm rule, and I’m happy to say that all year, and especially since August, my fitness tracker has shown a marked increase in my sleep. Could this have anything to do with my Fitbit being replaced with an Apple watch, coincidentally around early August when my wife gave me one for my birthday? Who can say, but I feel like I’ve gotten more sleep, and that’s the important thing.

Podcasts: Cover more shark movies:

I wanted to tick off some of the more prominent shark movies over on Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast, and we’ve definitely done that. 2024 saw me and various guests cover the likes of Open Water, Aatank, Shark Tale, The Deep, Shark!, The Requin, USS Indianapolis, House Shark, The Last Shark and the first three Sharknado movies (the remaining three are on deck for 2025), as well as a bunch of new releases including No Way Up, Deep Fear, Something in the Water and Under Paris. I had planned a big shark-themed celebration of shark movies for Deep Blue Sea‘s 25th anniversary last year, but alas life got the better of me once more and it was missed due to more pressing concerns. Lambpardy still did not return, and doesn’t look like it will any time soon, despite how much I miss writing and hosting a silly movie trivia game.
Here are some other podcasts I appeared on last year:
MovieRob Minute: It’s A Wonderful Life Minute 131, Die Hard with a Vengeance Minutes 1-5, 129, Saving Private Ryan Minutes 1, 3-5, 7
Pop Art – In Bruges / We’re No Angels
Fight Club Minutes 82-84
What Do You Love?
Out Now with Aaron & Abe – Twisters
The One-Armed Minute 85-87

Resolutions for 2024

Here I go again, lets get some (probably familiar-sounding) resolutions on the docket for 2025:

Films:

I’m still in a situation where most of my weekends will be spent in a kind of limbo for a while, so I’ll be spending some of these frequenting my local cinema and watching anything that I’m even slightly interested in, visiting my favourite fried chicken restaurant (7 Bone, the fish caramel sauce tastes far better than it sounds) then going back to the cinema to watch something else. My Letterboxd account is @jaycluitt if you want to follow along. Here are some of the upcoming releases I’m looking forward to this year:
Last Breath
Flow
Mickey 17
Thunderbolts*
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Jurassic World: Rebirth
Final Destination: Bloodlines
28 Years Later
M3GAN 2.0
Nobody 2
Predator: Badlands
Avatar: Fire and Ash

Outside of new releases I’d love to get back into reviewing a bit more. I wrote a handful for Blueprint Review last year, and would like to get back into the writing swing of it again, so much so that I’m going to try and write something every day. Not a whole post (so far this post has ticked the “Write today?” box six times), but at least furthering something. It’s all about progress. As such, I’m going to try and tackle some specific films that I technically need to review (based on the lists I used to go through), but that I also, and this is crucial, want to watch. These specific films are the collective filmographies of David Lynch and Stephen Spielberg, or more specifically, filling in my blind spots. I’ve picked these two because Blank Check, one of my favourite podcasts, recently did a series on Lynch, and are now gearing up for a series on early Spielberg. I skipped a lot of the Lynch episodes on the films I hadn’t seen, so I can circle back to those, and I plan to watch-and-listen along to the Spielberg series. My blind spots for these two are:
Blue Velvet (seen once, barely remember)
Wild at Heart (seen once, barely remember)
Lost Highway
The Straight Story
Mulholland Drive (seen once, would like to revisit)
Inland Empire (tried to watch once but gave up because it was incomprehensible)
The Sugarland Express
1941
Twilight Zone: The Movie
Empire of the Sun
Always
Hook (seen once, barely remember)
Amistad
Catch Me If You Can (seen once, but all I can remember is Walken’s two mice in a bucket of cream speech)
Munich (seen once, barely remember)

TV:

I have one main TV goal for 2025, and it ties in neatly with my movie goal. As well as watching David Lynch’s films, I’m finally going to watch Twin Peaks. Blank Check did a few episodes on this too, and I’ve owned the first two seasons on DVD for literally years. I’d like to do a review-a-long episode-by-episode recap, but we’ll see how I feel. If I watch all of Twin Peaks then I’ll pivot into Deadwood, Quantum Leap, The Boys, Succession or whatever else I’d like to do next, who knows?

Books:

I’m not setting a target for a number of books to read, my aim is to just read every day. Half a book? A chapter? Three lines? Doesn’t matter just something, each day. and preferably something I enjoy. I’ve just cracked the spine on Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary.

House

Too much to go into here without delaying this post even more than usual, but stage one is to get some expert advise on our plans and get some quotes. Sorry to be so vague, but I’ll give more information this time next year!

Health:

On top of my read and write every day missions, I’m adding yoga (or some form of stretching) onto the daily routing too. On days that I go for a long run, the post-run cool down stretch will count as the yoga for that day, but I can do more if I so wish. Speaking of running, I’m still aiming to run less than last year, but maybe try and increase my distances. I’d love to test myself at running a marathon distance. So basically, fewer, longer runs. I’m still loving paddleboarding and climbing big hills (2024 saw me encounter a couple of pods of wild seals in the Outer Hebrides, and climb Ben Nevis), so I’ll be making efforts to do more of these activities this year, and hopefully every year after as well.

2024 saw me average 5.88 hours sleep a night over the year. In 2025 that number is going to start with a 6. I’m aiming for a minimum of 6 hours sleep a night, no excuses. I’m going to bed before midnight, and once I’m in bed I’m not on my phone. That’s the plan, that’s the rules, let’s see how I get on.

General:

I’d really like to make better use of my time. It’s far too frequent that you can find me endlessly scrolling on Instagram or Youtube, so I’ve moved those apps to be less conveniently clicked upon on my phone. Instead, I’m going to look into bettering myself as a person – maybe take an evening class or something – and I’m also trying to add to my reading, writing and stretching every day by drawing something every day too. Don’t be dissuaded by my blog logo, I used to be quite good at drawing and miss it, so I’m hoping that this checklist activity inspires me to pick up the pencil a little more often. I’m not planning on sharing any of them, but if I do something I’m proud of I might throw it up on Instagram on @jaycluitt.

Podcasts

Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast is continuing our quest to discuss Deep Blue Sea with every one in the world who wants to talk about it. We’re in our 6th season, in which Mark and I are going back through DBS scene by scene with all new guests, interspersed with other episodes dedicated to films or scenes somehow connected to DBS. In 2025 we’re hoping to track down some hard-to-find Renny Harlin films (The Refuge and Class Reunion 3: Singles Cruise) as well as cover more upcoming shark movies. I’ll be finishing off the Sharknado franchise (episode 4 has already been recorded with Nick Rehak) and delving into the Piranha saga as well.

I’ve been thinking recently, and I think that perhaps I listen to too many podcasts. Not every waking second of my day needs to be sound-tracked by friends, strangers or comedians talking about movies, food or theme park rides, and sometimes it might be healthier to not have anything playing and just enjoy the sounds of the world. When I climbed Ben Nevis this year it was on my own, on a beautiful sunny day, and with no headphones in my ears. I listened to the birds. I (of course) marvelled at the waterfall halfway up. I talked to strangers! Can you imagine? It was truly a highlight of the year, marred only by the massive backpack full of wet weather gear, extra layers of clothing and plenty of food, despite me climbing up and down in a t-shirt and shorts, stopping only for a cinnamon bun at the peak. I also find that listening to podcasts can often make me sleepy, even ones I’m especially enjoying and have been looking forward to listening to. As such I’ll be scaling back my podcast listening this year. Sure, the regular dog walks will most likely be accompanied by a podcast or two, as will the runs, but maybe not when I’m working on my bike, cooking dinner or working in the garden. I’m also getting more into listening to movie scores (Interstellar and Pig have inspired some of this post), so I might experiment more with that too.

So that was my 2024. How did yours go? Any plans for 2025? Any specific movie scores I should give a listen?