January 2025 Roundup
New year, trying something different!
Good morning!
With the start of a new year (and far past the point of saying “Happy New Year” according to Larry David), I wanted to experiment with the newsletter as I am always trying to find new ways to write more consistently without burning myself out. I know, it sounds like the hardest position to be in, but these are the sacrifices I make. So, with inspiration from my Top 50 Films of 2024 list, I wanted to do a roundup of all the movies I saw this past month.
One little note: I’m not going to include my coverage of the Sundance Film Festival (which was super cool!). I’ll be providing coverage for it at The Daily Orange. I’ll link here to it so yinz can see. (Yes, I said “Yinz.” I wanted to use some Pittsburghese at least once).
With that out of the way, here’s my roundup from the past month:
It’s Complicated, dir. Nancy Meyers (2009)
B+
My girlfriend and I had been going through the filmography of romcom director Nancy Meyers. While all of the films aren’t perfect (including the two films I’m talking about to start off this newsletter), I always appreciate that Meyers carefully approaches the craft and makes the genre pictures she wants to make. What I find the best quality of Meyers’ approach, particularly from a writing standpoint, is how she doesn’t shy away from wackiness in romcoms.
Take It’s Complicated as an example. Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin are divorcees who start an affair 10 years after their marriage’s end. Sounds like a good logline. But Meyers goes the extra level by making Baldwin’s character certifiably insane. He’s a sex addict and manipulator who does everything he can to get back with Streep’s character. In another director’s hands, this scene could’ve come off as weird or problematic at worst. But there’s no better proof of Meyers’ humor than this video chat scene between Streep and Steve Martin. It perfectly highlights how Meyers can be truly funny in her writing and scene construction.
The Intern, dir. Nancy Meyers (2015)
B+
I’m glad I got to finish Meyers’ filmography with an absolute banger. Some of the talk about technology, running a fashion startup and a woman at the head of the company comes off as dated and ridiculous even in 2015. But honestly the film, through De Niro’s truly lovely performance, feels like it’s understanding all this stuff in real time. It’s coming to this world with a blind earnestness that’s almost refreshing, only heightened by the heartwarming dynamic between Hathaway and De Niro. Meyers is a wonderful filmmaker, with flaws and all. I hope she makes another movie!
Duel, dir. Steven Spielberg (1971)
A-
Even though this was technically a TV movie, I would count this as Steven Spielberg’s first movie. Man, did he have the goods from the very beginning. I wish he had made more movies like this. Spielberg, known for his incredible works of action and excitement typically fun for the whole family, opened his feature film career with a simple question: What if a truck driver tried to murder you? He perfectly manifests everyone’s worst fears of road rage and of driving in general. Just some immaculate stuff in here.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, dir. Nick Park, Merlin Crossingham (2024)
A-
A delightful film that should serve as a lesson to children and Hollywood executives alike. But I don’t think the latter is mature or intelligent enough to know how to treat technology. I still had so much fun and it’s probably my favorite animated movie from 2024! I want some of the sleepy hot cocoa.
The King’s Speech, dir. Tom Hooper (2010)
B-
It’s easy to say The King’s Speech committed highway robbery in the 2010 Best Picture race against The Social Network (though my girlfriend likes Hooper’s film more, probably our nastiest fight so far was arguing who should’ve won). You can most likely thank the literal embodiment of evil, Harvey Weinstein, for the win at the Oscars. But I will try to judge the movie on its material.
And it’s OK! Not bad, but nowhere near great. Colin Firth and Geoffery Rush are both solid and they create decent chemistry by the end of the film. I wasn’t prepared for the in-your-face cinematography and the center framing to the extent Hooper uses it. I don’t know how much it adds to the story, but it’s fascinating considering how much of this film’s reputation is how it was the most basic Oscars movie. Maybe I should watch Cats now to see what this Tom Hooper guy is made of.
Nevermind.
Den of Thieves, dir. Christian Gudegast (2018)
B+
“What if Heat but dumber and more masculine” sounds like a disaster of a pitch for an action movie. But Den of Thieves, starring Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr., stands out as one of the better action films of the last decade. There are some truly laugh-out-loud moments and some carefully crafted shootout and heist scenes. It’s basically everything you would want and probably the peak of a concept like this. Also, it has maybe the greatest prom date scene of all time.
Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, dir. Christian Gudegast (2025)
B+
I have a review of this film. Check it out here on Trill Mag!
The Last Showgirl, dir. Gia Coppola (2024)
B-
Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis breathe life into this film in what otherwise is a very talky, not really profound, rumination on an artist and the sacrifices they make. Wish I liked it more, especially since it’s about Las Vegas showgirls on their last legs. Makes me wanna watch Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. Now that movie is fun.
Jackass Forever, dir. Jeff Tremaine (2022)
B+
Johnny Knoxville is one of the great artists of our time.
The Sugarland Express, dir. Steven Spielberg (1974)
B+
While there are plenty of moments that I could easily define as “Spielbergian” (intricate staging and camera movements that eventually reveal it’s all one shot), I’m kinda shocked at how much it isn’t like the rest of Spielberg’s filmography. The Sugarland Express serves more as an indie drama with very little spectacle. There’s a great Goldie Hawn performance, but I can’t help but feel that this is a little lesser in the “runaway criminal lovers” genre. Examples include the Coen brothers’ Raising Arizona and Terrence Malick’s Badlands, both of which feel more in tune with the director’s sensibilities.
Speaking of Malick….
The New World, dir. Terrence Malick (2005)
A
I was fortunate that I was able to watch the extended cut. Terry just can't miss, man. A tone poem that's just as transcendent as any of Malick's other films, The New World shows how man, especially from the West, can disrupt cultures and nature. These two things are interconnected, making the slow and inevitable transformation of Pocahontas feel horrifying and heartbreaking. I just need to sit and think about this and life more. Maybe I could look at the stars. Also, I want to listen to more Mozart and Wagner. Nature is amazing.
The Tree of Life, dir. Terrence Malick (2011)
A
I’ve been watching Terrence Malick recently as part of a larger piece that I’ll link to right here. But I watched the extended cut similarly to The New World. There was a moment where I couldn't just hold it in anymore. I sobbed. I couldn't help but feel a connection to a boy trying to wrestle with the emotions of the mother (supposedly grace) and the father (supposedly nature). But Malick doesn't make it that simple in this three hour opus. He shows how both parents wrestle with these same issues and how other families wrestle with these forces.
This balance of nature and grace, he posits, can show us how our universe came to be. The Tree of Life really does feel like it can only come from one mind and one vision and that's what I think makes this film such a true, unadulterated masterpiece. I imagine I will go back and watch the theatrical cut. Malick shows us that cinema is not the technology of what has been but the technology of what is possible. Doesn't get much better than this.
Immediately after I watched the extended cut, I went back and watched the theatrical cut. I just had to watch it again because I couldn’t get it out of my mind. This is going to sound stupid and cliche to say, but I feel lucky that I am alive when I am able to watch the work and artistry of a man like Terrence Malick. Also, I have to say that there’s no better film with characters named O’Brien.
The Room Next Door, dir. Pedro Almodóvar (2024)
B-
I wrote a review for The Daily Orange about this film! Here’s the link for it. One thing I would keep in mind is that I’m not the most well-versed in Almodóvar, a titan of Spanish cinema. Since this is his first English language feature film, I was certainly curious to see how I would feel.
Black Adam, dir. Jaume Collet-Serra (2022)
F
There’s been plenty of talk over the past few months about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s career with the utter failure of Red One. I’ve written about it before. But Black Adam, The Rock’s attempt at a superhero film, makes me think he shouldn’t be in movies at all anymore. However, that’ll never happen because we still call this guy The Rock. We can’t even call him Dwayne Johnson. He’s too big to fail so he’ll be back on top of the Hollywood pedestal. Soon enough, we’ll be back considering him for President.
Babygirl, dir. Halina Reijn (2024)
A-
A movie for the sickos! It’s Nicole Kidman returning to the erotic thriller with Harris Dickinson! So fun. There were some moments when I didn’t understand what exactly the movie wanted to say. And that might come down to the film being too ambiguous for its own good and falling into familiar traps it tries to point out. But at the same time, I think Halina Reijn creates an erotic thriller that actually wants to dissect what it means to be a woman in power. It may not be on the level of Paul Verhoeven. Hell, it may not be as courageous in its convictions as Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer. But I left the theater thinking a good while about Babygirl.
The Brutalist, dir. Brady Corbet (2024)
A
I thought I could just rewatch this film and feel the awe and horror I felt the first time. But the Oscars race discourse spares no one, and we had a whole stupid news cycle in which we had to speculate how much artificial intelligence is in this great film about art. For those not in the know (or not doomscrolling on Twitter), there was an article posted last week about how The Brutalist used generative AI as part of the filmmaking process when it came to Hungarian dialogue and building structures.
After a bunch of stupid fracas on social media, director Brady Corbet came out with this statement to Deadline: “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.”
I think the statement, the whole discussion, and the controversy around this point to the unfortunate reality that generative AI will be a part of Hollywood for a long time. Not every film uses it, but films that I will enjoy might use it in subtle ways in post-production, as The Brutalist does. Still sucks!
Little Women, dir. Gillian Armstrong (1994)
A-
I still like the 2019 version more. That said, Winona Ryder and Christian Bale are throwing HEATERS in this.
Experimenter, dir. Michael Almereyda (2015)
C+
A movie that really fucks with forms and historical dramas. I had never seen such a weird experience in something that easily could’ve been something like The Imitation Game (a film I like to be clear!). But Experimenter feels so self-satisfied with itself, which was irritating. And for the love of god, I could not stand the narration.
Pawn Sacrifice, dir. Edward Zwick (2014)
C-
I was really looking forward to seeing Tobey Maguire be an insane chess player. I mean, look at this overacting!
Unfortunately, the rest of the film nowhere near matches this ridiculousness. Boredom doesn’t even begin to describe my experience watching Pawn Sacrifice.
Wolf Man, dir. Leigh Whannell (2025)
C
Man, what a bummer. Leigh Whannell, writer of the original Saw and director of 2020’s The Invisible Woman, had an amazing chance to top himself with a modern spin on The Wolf Man. That’s no small feat since Lon Chaney Jr. made the role legendary. However, Whannell insists on making Wolf Man rife with the same themes as his Invisible Woman. This time around, the story feels like an uninteresting retread with no new insights or perspectives on monster movies and patriarchal relationships. Ugh.
Watcher, dir. Chloe Okuno (2022)
C
Watched this on the way to Sundance. Glad it was mostly a snoozefest.
What's Up, Tiger Lily?, dir. Woody Allen (1966)
D+
Sigh. I’ve finally watched a Woody Allen movie. I’m starting to watch his films to gain an understanding of what made him such a force in American cinema for so long. For obvious reasons, I don’t feel fantastic about it and seeing his face. With that said, he’s easily the funniest and most compelling part of this variety show-esque gag picture. I’m excited and dreading what comes next.
Bridge of Spies, dir. Steven Spielberg (2015)
B+
I watched this film over a decade ago and hated it. On a rewatch, I can officially confirm that my 13-year old self was stupid.
Miami Vice, dir. Michael Mann (2006)
A
Slowly but surely becoming one of my favorite movies ever. Maybe the best film about running out of time. Maybe the best action movie of the 2000s. Maybe Michael Mann’s greatest film. I’m a fiend for mojitos.
Ted 2, dir. Seth MacFarlane (2015)
C
A great movie to watch while sick. To be clear, this is not a good film and is a sizable downgrade to the first Ted. It just makes me sad that studio comedies do not exist in theatrical in the slightest anymore. Additionally, as a comedy sequel, Ted 2 serves as a bizarre civil rights story. Kinda bonkers.
Peeping Tom, dir. Michael Powell (1960)
A
A disgusting and colorful movie about the making of movies. I don’t know if I have seen anything like it.
Experiment in Terror, dir. Blake Edwards (1962)
A-
I was kinda surprised by how this film is just an honest-to-god great caper. Like Peeping Tom, this movie seems to be taking notes from Alfred Hitchcock. What makes this movie really awesome is Henry Mancini’s score. He might be the greatest composer of that era.