THE LAST FEW THINGS I WATCHED AND WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THEM: FYC EDITION No.2
Hey, your Movie Friend here again, catching up on more titles for year end awards consideration, and here’s some capsule reviews of nine new films that are either out now, or will be coming in the next few weeks and months during awards season—including three hotly-anticipated Christmas Day releases!
Since I know it is a challenge to make ANY film and it’s a miracle when a film comes together, I tend to only write reviews for those films that resonated with me in one way or another (and keeping it to myself when I don’t like something), and my thoughts are to help convey not only what I liked about them, but also the experience of watching them so you can make your own choices and form your own opinions.
*NOSFERATU (2024, Robert Eggers) - OPENING IN THEATERS CHRISTMAS DAY
This ravenous and ravishing remake of the 1922 film by F.W. Murnau, simultaneously souped-up in its film craft and dialed back in its storytelling, is intense, stylishly gothic, and often stunningly beautiful. Even though it’s a “the Titanic sinks” type of story, its spellbinding stronghold of evil is palpable in a way that only Robert Eggers, as scholarly as he is tactile, can deliver. Each actor is perfectly cast, with Lily-Rose Depp performing impossibly acrobatic feats of bodily contortion while under the curse of an unrecognizable Bill Skarsgård as the grotesque but irresistibly seductive Count Orlok, who “cannot be sated.” On a craft level, this film is the one to beat. It may not linger too long after it ends, but if you love gothic horror, it is a gleefully gross and vicious voyage worth taking.
*BABYGIRL (2024, Halina Reijn) - OPENING IN THEATERS CHRISTMAS DAY
One of the year’s buzziest films, director Halina Reijn’s erotically charged and kinky follow-up to BODIES BODIES BODIES certainly features bodies, but a remarkable restraint while also being completely open and frank in its exploration of Nicole Kidman’s character’s desires, when her CEO and her new intern (Harris Dickinson, THE IRON CLAW and TRIANGLE OF SADNESS) not only cross the line, but challenge where the line even is. While the film exactly didn’t do it for me, the performances are first-rate, the situations are presented without judgment or shame, and it will definitely start conversations. Plus, you may never think of milk the same way again.
*A COMPLETE UNKNOWN (2024, James Mangold) - OPENING IN THEATERS CHRISTMAS DAY
I absolutely adored this rambling, rollicking and rousing new film by James Mangold and starring Timothée Chalamet in a near-transcendent performance as Bob Dylan, breathing fresh life into the often hackneyed and reductive music biopic genre. Here’s my full review: https://www.zachhammill.com/moviefriend/-a-complete-unknown-review
*THE LAST SHOWGIRL (2024, Gia Coppola) - OPENING IN THEATERS JANUARY 10
No, Hell has not frozen over: Pamela Anderson is a legitimate part of the 2024 awards conversation. Now 57, Anderson has been reflecting of late on her career and life with wisdom, intelligence, warmth and generosity. This seems to have now manifested in the role of a lifetime in director Gia Coppola’s THE LAST SHOWGIRL, which aesthetically and thematically feels like Darren Aronofsky’s THE WRESTLER. While I found the screenplay to be uneven (Billie Lourd’s character was very underdeveloped) and the production value inconsistent (it sometimes unfairly feels like a cheaply made movie), Anderson brings an urgency bathed in a surrogate-motherly quality to showgirl Shelly, whose classic Vegas strip revue is abruptly closing after a 30-year-run. Anderson is supported by Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Brenda Song and Kiernan Shipka as her makeshift family of Vegas misfits. While they all see the writing on the wall long before Shelly does, it is Shelly’s (and Anderson’s) hard-won eternal optimism, and her desire to keep this family together, that keeps the movie elevated above other gritty Vegas parables (it never slips into self-destructive, self-pitying martyrdom, a la LEAVING LAS VEGAS, but still allows Anderson to express the fire and heartbreak over what may likely be Shelly’s legacy). As for Anderson’s legacy, it’s been a joy and a thrill to see her healing journey, and I hope this translates into an exciting new chapter for her career. I would also recommend watching her visit to the Criterion Closet, as well as her Actors on Actors episode in which she and Mikey Madison (ANORA) interview one another.
*REBEL RIDGE (2024, Jeremy Saulnier) - NOW ON NETFLIX
This thriller lives in the same county of efficient, muscular storytelling of films like HIGH NOON. Aaron Pierre (the titular Mufasa in Disney’s MUFASA: THE LION KING) is utterly magnetic as a former Marine whose errand to post bail for his cousin leads to a series of escalating dangers when he refuses to back down from a hostile backwater police department and city government, made corrupt in response to being underfunded. Writer/director Jeremy Saulnier (BLUE RUIN, GREEN ROOM) keeps it moving along at a steady clip, and Don Johnson and AnnaSophia Robb also shine as (respectively) the corrupt police chief and Pierre’s new ally. Whereas one might expect the film to devolve into a bloodbath, REBEL RIDGE, like its protagonist, has something more humane and clever up its sleeve, while still delivering high-octane thrills. Also, this film isn’t being discussed for awards, but it was a fun and most welcome respite/palette cleanser.
*HIS THREE DAUGHTERS (2024, Azazel Jacobs) - NOW ON NETFLIX
This comforting hand-knit sweater of a dramedy follows three sisters—one a bit too high-strung (Carrie Coon), one a bit too strung-out (Natasha Lyonne—a standout), and one seemingly just right (Elizabeth Olsen)—as they tend to their ailing (mostly offscreen) father in his final days, during which they excavate their relationship to each other as adults, with a great deal of humor and sobering honesty. Mostly set in and around their father’s cozy, lived-in New York City apartment, this Netflix film unfolds with the wit and clarity of a great stage play, carrying the weight of the past without feeling heavy itself in the telling.
*THE PIANO LESSON (2024, Malcolm Washington) - NOW ON NETFLIX
As the producer/director/star of 2016’s FENCES and a producer of 2020’s MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM, Denzel Washington is the big-screen ambassador of the works of playwright August Wilson. Here, he produces Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning THE PIANO LESSON, and brings along the whole family: sons Malcolm (directing his feature debut) and John David (all bluster as the opportunistic Boy Willie), daughters Katia (executive producer) and Olivia (as Young Mama Ola), and even his wife Pauletta (as Mama Ola). While the film can’t always resist putting Wilson’s words on a pedestal, it becomes more of a film (and less like a filmed play) as it goes, and it helps when you have actors like Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Deadwyler, Michael Potts and Corey Hawkins to breathe life into those words. It’s also a treat to see Ray Fisher get another crack at a great part after almost being swallowed up by the ill-fated JUSTICE LEAGUE.
*HARD TRUTHS (2024, Mike Leigh) - OPENING IN THEATERS JANUARY 10
The great Mike Leigh is back, working on a smaller canvas like his earlier work, and reuniting with his SECRETS & LIES collaborator Marianne-Jean Baptiste. In this brisk but impactful slice-of-life, set on a Mothers’ Day weekend in working-class London, Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman unlike her name, whose moods range from humorously cantankerous to poisonously cantankerous, who sometimes sleeps but never rests, is often turned up to 11 the moment she wakes, and lashes out at anyone at all, including and especially her non-confrontational husband Curtley (David Webber) and her sad son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). Her joyful hairdresser sister Chantal (the effervescent Michele Austin) seems to be the only one who can weather Pansy’s storms, with the love that she deserves. Sort of like a more realistic and more British AS GOOD AS IT GETS, alternately humorous and heartbreaking, HARD TRUTHS is simple yet complex, and in a performance that could easily be pitched as a repetitive caricature, Jean-Baptiste never hits a false note.
*MY OLD ASS (2024, Megan Park) - NOW ON PRIME VIDEO
Writer/director Megan Park’s sophomore feature is wise beyond its years. I was a big fan of Park’s excellent debut feature, the stark but tender THE FALLOUT (featuring Jenna Ortega and centered around a school shooting), and I’ve been an Aubrey Plaza fan since FUNNY PEOPLE, but it was a friend’s Letterboxd comment—“wasn’t quite braced for Miyazaki levels of beautiful human moments and profundity”—that ultimately won me over to watch it. I was also not braced for it. It has a little less Aubrey Plaza than the trailer implies, but Maisy Stella is wonderful as Elliott, a gay teenager itching to leave town at the end of the summer, who gets to meet her older self (Plaza) during a mushroom trip, which rocks her world and makes her rethink the plans she has for her life. Hilarious, warm, and moving, with much more to it than the cutesy premise would suggest.
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#thezlistwithzachhammill
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#babygirl
#acompleteunknown
#thelastshowgirl
#rebelridge
#histhreedaughters
#thepianolesson
#hardtruths
#myoldass
Zach is a proud member of the Minnesota Film Critics Association (MNFCA). For more info about Zach, the organization, or to read other great reviews from other great Minnesota-based film critics, click here: https://mnfilmcriticalliance.wordpress.com/