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What do you think was the best movie of last year? Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers recently caught up with one of 2024's most talked-about films and have some strong opinions — namely how it earned the crown of best film of the year.
On the January 15 episode of their Las Culturistas podcast, Yang and Rogers spoke about finally watching The Substance, a body horror/sci-fi film starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley that impressed them so much that they are calling it their "favorite movie of the year" if not the "best film of 2024." Yang did note, however, that the choice is "notwithstanding projects that we've been involved in," referring to his role in Wicked.
"People throw around this word, but it wields camp in the most perfect way, which is it's poor taste and good taste. That's exactly what that movie is the entire way through," Yang said. "The dialogue, like oh my god, this is a reverie. This is dreamlike... in such a calibrated way."
Rogers, who in the past has not been a big fan of horror, explained why he has been changing his tune.
"It's one of the genres that I respect the most, horror and sci-fi," he said, "because... you can, more than anything else, so brilliantly make points about our culture when you are a sci-fi or horror filmmaker or both."
Elsewhere in their chat, the duo expressed their heartfelt condolences for the "horrible" wildfires still devastating Los Angeles, with Rogers sharing, "All I really want to say is that we are sending all of our love and strength to everyone that's affected, everyone that will be affected... truly heartbreaking."
On Las Culturistas, Rogers and Yang "get into the hottest pop-culture moments of the day" and even hang out with special guests like Ariana Grande, Tina Fey, Charli XCX and Cynthia Erivo, to name a few. Check out more episodes of the Las Culturistas podcast at iHeart.com.
Las Culturistas is even nominated for Podcast of the Year at the 2025 iHeartPodcast Awards at SXSW, which listeners can vote for at iHeartPodcastAwards.com through February 16. You can also check out the list of podcasts nominated in categories like best comedy, best crime, best pop culture and many more.