Quick Reviews and Stuff: December
Hello from 2025!
Movies
Donnie Darko (2001) — Exactly as weird as I expected it to be. I enjoyed trying to piece together what was happening, and this feels like a movie that would reward re-watching because you can pick up more clues once you know how the plot resolves itself. I can’t believe I’ve known the phrase “I doubt your commitment to sparkle motion” for 20+ years without ever knowing where it came from before now.
Interstellar (2014) — The core of this plot — the relationship between a father and his daughter, and love being the most important thing above anything else — is not one that generally works for me, but everything here is so perfect that it joins a small number of similarly themed movies that I loved despite the core emotions not resonating with me. This was such a solid, tense adventure, especially because somehow over the past 10 years, I managed to learn exactly zero things about the plot of this one. It was engaging and the performance from Matthew McConaughey was incredible. It’s interesting to look back at the past 10 years of Christopher Nolan’s filmography and see some common themes. The recursive nature of time travel? Hello, Tenet. The use of sound, or lack thereof, at key moments? Hello, Oppenheimer. I understand why this is a divisive entry in the Nolan film canon but — aside from the fact that it’s an excellent movie — I think it’s important to watch to understand where Nolan’s been heading all this time.
Flow (2024) — An absolutely perfect animal movie. Utterly immersive. The lack of dialogue or explanation about the world lets your mind spin in so many different directions as to how the world got the way it did. Leaving things so open to interpretation is sometimes hit or miss with me but in this case, it was a perfect choice. The animation, despite being done with a free/open-source program, is so expressive and full of life, and the animators clearly studied actual animals to base the movements off of. As a Known Cat Person, every move the cat made was absolutely pitch-perfect, and I loved that they recorded actual animal sounds to voice the animals. I look forward to revisiting this one soon.
Queer (2024) — Aging gay American expat in Mexico obsesses over new young twink who will never love him back. I haven’t read any Burroughs to be able to judge this as an adaptation, but this was aesthetically incredible. Luca Guadagnino has such an eye for these period pieces filled with longing and the inability to connect with another human in the way you most would like to. I love Daniel Craig’s post-Bond film choices, good on him for being fully in a “I’m rich enough to do whatever I want” era.
Cuckoo (2024) — Teenaged girl gets dragged along with dad and dad’s new family to live in the Alps for Secret Reasons, horror ensues. This movie needed a much better script, because the story got increasingly messy as time went on. But I really enjoyed Hunter Schaefer’s performance, bringing the exact right amount of sullen teen dirtbag ennui to her character. Dan Stevens is evolving into an incredible character actor who delights when he shows up in any movie for like 20 minutes to play an absolute weirdo.
Last Night in Soho (2021) — Misfit fashion student discovers she can maybe time travel back to the ’60s, only to learn that the Past was Bad. This movie would have been better if it had picked a lane. Part horror movie, part thriller, part giallo, part romance, part Pretty But Awkward Girl Gets Picked On By Mean Girls. I liked the concept of past trauma echoing through the years and never quite going away, but the execution, particularly in the last third or so of the movie, turning more into “ha ha lol bitches be crazy huh” just didn’t do it for me.
Aftersun (2022) — Grown wom.an reflects back on a holiday she took with her dad when she was a girl. Reading between the lines, we can assume this is probably the last time she saw him. I don’t have the kind of relationship with my dad to make this movie resonate on a deeply personal level (and instead I’m sitting here trying to relitigate my childhood to figure out why it’s devoid of core memories) but even so, the melancholy here is palpable. I appreciate that the film lets you draw your own conclusions about what happened to Sophie and Calum after that holiday. Paul Mescal is incredible as a man with so much lurking beneath the surface that he’ll never let anyone else see. Casting the relatively young Mescal as the dad of an almost-tween is a great choice that adds even more to the clearly troubled life he’s leading. We don’t get any backstory and the movie is all the better for it.
Juror #2 (2024) — A Clint Eastwood movie about the justice system made me a little nervous, but this worked, even if some of it was a little on the nose. Eastwood isn’t a particularly interesting director, and this movie feels like it could have been made 20 years ago or today and it would look and feel the exact same, but he gets great performances out of his actors. It turns out to be a pretty sharp look at a) the vagueness of memory and b) what it means to be tried by a jury of your peers, and sometimes those peers don’t take their responsibility seriously. I can’t think for too long about how many people have probably actually been convicted by a jury that’s got a bunch of people who just want to go home and not actually think critically about the case being put in front of them. Unfortunately the people who need to be convinced on the topic of prison reform, let alone prison abolition, aren’t going to get across that line via this movie.
Crimes of the Future (2022) — Dystopian future performance artists cut each other open to remove rogue organs. This was fine. The weird future world was interesting and very open ended; I appreciated the level of grime and unpleasantness that blanketed the world. I’m sure this was trying to say important things about Art but ultimately it raises more questions than it answers in a satisfactory manner.
Nosferatu (2024) — I love Robert Eggers’ vision and aesthetic. I don’t know that this was as successful as I wanted it to be, but it was still thoroughly enjoyable. The whole cast is clearly very committed to their performances (even if they don’t always appear to be in the same movie) and the way that Eggers honors the original Nosferatu while still putting his own spin on it is fantastic. I will probably see this again in the new year to let it sink in a little more.
Mufasa: The Lion King (2024) — If I had a nickel for every movie I saw this month about a catastrophic flood that swept up an innocent cat in it, I’d have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened two times. (The other was Flow.) This was a wholly unnecessary movie but could have been made a lot better by just being a straight prequel, rather than a “present day characters hear a story about the past”. The flash back framing really disrupted the flow of the movie and seemed designed for the short attention span crowd, given that some of the “present day” pieces literally just summarized what we’d seen in the past 20 minutes or so. It doesn’t help that Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner made for the most insufferable versions of Timon and Pumbaa. I literally got up and wandered out to the bathroom during one of these segments. The animation is beautiful right up until the lions start talking, at which point everything is so uncanny valley that I felt uncomfortable looking at it.
Hundreds of Beavers (2022) — What an absolutely ridiculous amount of fun. A silent-ish movie about a guy who has to trap the titular hundreds of beavers. I think it ran just a bit too long, but this is such a labor of love, which shines through in every scene. We all lament the live action Coyote/Roadrunner movie that got canned by its studio but this is basically spiritually a Coyote/Roadrunner story. Slapstick usually does not do it for me, but this made me laugh harder than nearly any mainstream movie I saw this year. This is so creative and whimsical, it’s easily one of my favorites of the year based solely on the sheer audacity to do something wild and different.
Nosferatu (1922) — Did everyone in 1922 just absolutely lose it when they saw this? I can’t even imagine. Like obviously it’s going to seem simplistic to us, today, 100 years later, but it’s easy to see how this shaped the way horror is portrayed on screen. The scene where Count Orlok rises up on the boat is still genuinely creepy, and the way that light and shadow is used is so effective. While I’m sure it’s not meant to be funny, the “Orlok drags his coffin around as he looks for his new home” scenes are legitimately hysterical.
Rustin (2023) —Biopic of Civil Rights activist Bayard Rustin, focused on the work he did to organize the 1963 March on Washington. Rustin, someone who’s been somewhat ignored in history. While I liked the targeted focus of just one big moment in his life, I also think that Rustin probably deserved a better adaptation of his life than the one we get here. Colman Domingo is excellent as the flamboyant, opinionated Rustin, but the writing often leaves something to be desired. Another review on Letterboxd pointed out that the director of this film is a theater veteran and I think that’s part of what went sideways here for me — so many scenes seemed like they were better suited for the stage than film. A worthy watch but could have been better.
Kneecap (2024) — The true-ish story of the Irish hip-hop trio of the same name, who started putting out music in 2017, rapping largely in Irish. The movie frames their music as an act of resistance as their lyrics mix larger than life drug/alcohol fueled shenanigans with a political message advocating for the reunification of Ireland. Interestingly, the three leads in the film are the actual real life members of Kneecap, something that I never would have guessed based on the strength of their performances. Definitely worth a watch, but you’ll probably thank yourself for turning the subtitles on.
Pride (2014) — The true-ish story about a group of lesbian and gay activists who raised money to help support striking British miners in 1984. A nearly perfect movie starring so many British actors that you’ve seen in a dozen other things. I did cry through like a third of this. Is it sometimes a little too on-the-nose with its writing? Is it frequently very neutered despite being about a bunch of queer people? Yeah, sure! But it’s also a beautiful story about found family and solidarity.
Prospect (2018) — Low budget sci-fi about a girl forced to work with Pedro Pascal to devise a plan to get off of the planet they’re stuck on. Very cool slow burn sci-fi. Someone on Letterboxd called it a sci-fi western and I think that’s it exactly. It’s a simple story. There’s a standoff, there’s there’s some prospecting, there’s a semi-villain redemption arc, there’s Pedro Pascal. I loved the aesthetics and what they managed to accomplish on a limited budget, and I loved the mysterious universe this is set in. This doesn’t do anything new but it does feel a little like a hidden gem, and at just over 90 minutes, is the exact right length.
Books
The Kingdoms, Natasha Pulley — I’d actually started reading this when it came out, got sidetracked, and never finished it, so was glad to finally revisit it now. Time travel wrapped in historical fiction, our lead character loses his memory and is determined to put together the clues to find out who he is. If you’ve read any of Pulley’s other books, you’ll be able to see where this one is going fairly early on, but that doesn’t make it any less moving when all the pieces finally fall into place. Puts a different twist on time travel and the somewhat recursive nature of being able to go between past and present. I wish we got more of a sense of why the characters fall in love (because of course there’s a romance plot in there) rather than just knowing that they care about each other because we’re told that they do, but honestly that’s a pretty common problem in lots of books anyway. And despite that, the ending is still a heart-clutching mixture of devastating and hopeful.
City Dog, Country Frog, Mo Willems and Jon J. Muth — A dog and a frog befriend each other throughout the seasons. I think the most lovely thing about this story about unlikely friendships is how the ending can be interpreted however the reader wants. As adults we all assume that Country Frog is dead but it’s clear from reading reviews on here that have input from kids that they assume frog is simply hibernating or looking for food or something else. It’s a great reminder of the power of imagination and of letting things be open to new conclusions. The watercolor illustrations are realistic but still charming — the body language of the dog was captured especially well.
Floof, Heidi McKinnon — As the owner of a fluffy gray cat who looks pretty identical to Floof, I’m legally required to love this book. The illustrations are adorable and reading about Floof’s very busy day (including an “if he fits, he sits” moment) with the accompanying images of what he’s actually getting up to is fun for all ages.
The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas — YA book about the aftermath of a police shooting in a Black community. It’s a serious, but timely, topic, and this is a very necessary book. I do think some readers who are already falling down the horrifying alt-right internet rabbit holes may need a savvy adult to help guide them in the right direction on this one, but that’s not an indictment against the book but rather on the way kids are preyed upon by bad actors. While I didn’t always love the writing style, finding it often too simplistic, I am also like 20+ years older than the target audience. This is one that I’d love to see how it resonates with an actual teen, because my opinion as an adult is sort of unnecessary here.
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Other Stuff
Spent a couple of days in New Orleans, a city which I visited once before in 2009 (I think) but spent most of the time at a music conference in rehearsals so I didn’t really get to experience much of the city. Based on my long weekend there this time around, it’s somewhere I’d really like to return to in the future to explore more. Preferably in the winter — it was 4 degrees when I left Chicago, and it was 74 degrees when I left New Orleans.
What’s Next
Look for my Favorites of 2024 post coming to you soon, probably this weekend. I’m already planning on starting 2025 out by spending the day in the movie theater — I’ve got Wicked and Babygirl on deck for today.
I’ve got a ticket to see Shucked when it comes through Chicago — it had been on my long list of stuff to see last time I was in NYC but I didn’t make it, so I’m glad that it’s touring so I can see it. Just once concert on the agenda for January so far, singer-songwriter Christian Lee Hutson comes to town for promoting his new album.
For books, I’m working through a few that I started last year (lol) and didn’t finish. I also put together my 25-in-’25 list — 25 books that I’ve been wanting to read but haven’t yet. There’s a few repeats from my 24-in-’24 list, as books that I didn’t get to finish or didn’t start but really want to make the effort to read this year. This year I’m hoping to actually finish the challenge.
What about you? What’s on tap for the new year?
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