2024 brought firsts for everyone. It was Hark's first year as a manager, my first as an ambassador, and Brody and Riley's first as preschoolers.
Outside of work, Hark started following the news, sometimes more than me! That faded for both of us after the first week of November -- hard to imagine why... Hark also made six new ice cream flavors and too many recipes to count. For me, the top recipes were his Christmas spread and karate cookies. The cookies were the perfect snack for Frost's Cobra Kai appreciation session, which included appearances from actual cast members.
Other Frost sessions featured a first-rate poet, flutist, advocate, and American Idol contestant. New members of the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, Air Force, and Space Force visited. Numbers-wise, no branch could compete with Space Force?! There was also the introduction of student-faculty pickleball, kickball, and flag football, and a reboot of the Frost 5K.
In 2024, Riley started scrimmaging in soccer, going underwater in swimming, counting to 20, recognizing A, B, C, and, somehow, W, X, and Z. Brody started Fairfax baseball, Turnpike basketball, counting to 120, and recognizing letters, sounds, and actual words. His big breakthrough: CHASE. He now yells it every time we pass a Chase Bank.
Brody and Riley were both glad to see family in Virginia, Tampa, Memphis, and Setauket. Surprise guests were Ellie, their new cousin, and at the end of the year, grandma and grandpa! Throughout the year, they were blessed to have caring coaches. Theo, Noah, Sean, Bryce, Hailey, Erfan, Cooper, and Phil gave them a solid foundation in basketball, soccer, lacrosse, swimming, and fitness. Who knows, a decade from now, thanks to Phil and Sharon Peterson, they may enter the Frost Fitness Hall of Fame.
If Brody and Riley had a Film Hall of Fame, this year's inductee would be My Penguin Friend. In the past, movies have been little more than babysitters, and unreliable ones at that -- given their Dug-like attention spans. I was thrilled then when both kids were engaged by Penguin the whole way through! The one time Brody got upset (really upset) was when he had to pee. He didn't want to get up and miss the movie! You and me both, kid -- get used to it.
Here's where My Penguin Friend fits in my annual year-end ranking. As usual, films are graded into tiers. Within tiers, films are not ranked.
Here's my experience with the 111 films I saw in 2024...
D: King Lear [2016]
C: Nashville [1975], The Beast [2023], Janet Planet
C+: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, I'll Be Right There, Monkey Man, The Substance
B-: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
La Chimera, Babes, Moana 2
B: Matilda, Bambi [1942], Amore Mio Aiuleeti (Help Me, My Love) [1969], Tokyo Cowboy, The Elephant Man [1980], Throw Down [2004], King Lear [1974]
Mufasa: The Lion King, Twisters, Irma Vep [1996], Didi, Look Into My Eyes, Blitz, Gladiator 2, Queer
B+: Widow Clicquot, My Penguin Friend, Blink, One Life, Evil Does Not Exist, Arthur The King, Red White and Royal Blue [2023], Problemista, Remembering Gene Wilder, Dune: Part 2, Serpico [1973], About Dry Grasses, Kiki's Delivery Service [1989], Only Yesterday [1991], The Nature of Love, Longlegs, The Verdict [1982], Strange Darling, Girls Will Be Girls, The Apprentice, My Name is Alfred Hitchcock [2022], Gladiator [2000], Nosferatu [1979], Nosferatu [1922]
The Bikeriders, Thelma and Louise [1991], Good One, Sing Sing, 101 Dalmatians [1961], My Three Daughters, Transformers One, Piece by Piece, Moana [2016], The Order
A-: The Lady and the Tramp [1955], Peter Pan [1953], Chungking Express [1994], Deadpool and Wolverine, Cool Hand Luke [1968], King Lear [2018], Nosferatu
You Can Call Me Bill, Challengers, Nowhere Special, The Young Woman and the Sea, Anora, A Real Pain, Chinatown [1974], Wicked: Part One, Flow
A: To Live and Die in LA [1985], A Bronx Tale [1993], Running on Empty [1988], Out There: A National Parks Story [2023], The Fire Inside
The Cowboy and The Queen, Kneecap, A Different Man, Conclave, The Piano Lesson, Will and Harper
A+: Cabrini, Uproar, Saturday Night, Exhibiting Forgiveness, Memoir of a Snail, Who Is Stan Smith?, Touch, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, A Complete Unknown, Lake George, Daughters, Super/Man, Ghostlight, The Wild Robot, Heretic, My Old Ass, Thelma, Dog Day Afternoon [1975], Inside Out 2, We Grown Now
