12 Best Movies To Watch After A Christmas Carol (1938)
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
There are few names as deeply ingrained in the fabric of American pop culture as Ghostbusters, the action-comedy franchise spawned by Ivan Reitman’s beloved 1984 film. Nonetheless, despite its staggering financial success (netting nearly 300 million against a 25 million dollar budget) and pop culture permeance, Sony has had trouble recapturing the magic in later entries. Neither 1989’s Ghostbusters II, 2016’s Ghostbusters, and 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife have neared the original’s success. Despite that, it seems the Ghostbusters franchise has finally found a sequel concept it’s willing to forge ahead with. The franchise’s latest installment, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, is a direct sequel to Afterlife. It once more reunites Egon Spengler’s (Harold Ramis) children with the three living original Ghostbusters— Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Bill Murray. Despite an intriguing subplot for Phoebe, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is an incohesive, unoriginal entry. It coasts on fan service to carry a paper-thin plot and a lukewarm crop of characters, new and old. Bill Murray and Paul Rudd discuss their love of fog machines. (Sony Pictures) Picking up two years after the events of Afterlife, Frozen Empire follows the Spengler family (Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard) to New York City. After the previous film's tradition-breaking decision to unfold in rural Oklahoma, this returns the franchise to its true home. Bankrolled by the uber-wealthy Winston (Hudson) they're back operating out of the old Ghostbusters firehouse. There the Spenglers struggle to juggle ghost-hunting with their interpersonal dynamics. That's all while working to keep the mayor (William Atherton) from shutting the family business. Continue Reading →
Snow
J.A. Bayona directs a heartbreaking adaptation of a true-life tale of tragedy & miracles. Though we joke about the smallest inconveniences rendering us helpless, in truth the human will to survive cannot be underestimated. When confronted with imminent death, we can and will resort to extreme means to escape it, sometimes in ways that might shock and horrify those who weren’t there. One such story was Aron Ralston, a hiker who was forced to break and cut his own arm off after he was trapped by a fallen boulder, as depicted in 2010’s 127 Hours. Another was a 1972 plane crash in the Andes mountains, after which the survivors, faced with subzero temperatures, no food, and no plant life or animals to be found, eventually resorted to cannibalism to avoid starvation. The Andes plane crash story was adapted for film a number of times, including the trashy, exploitative Survive!, and 1993’s competently made but whitewashed Alive, in which Ethan Hawke was cast as a character named Nando Parrado. Now J.A. Bayona, whose 2012 film The Impossible was also a harrowing tale of survival, takes a turn with Society of the Snow, a gripping, heart-wrenching look at the emotional toll such an unthinkable event takes on those who somehow came out of it alive, if not exactly well. Continue Reading →
The Color Purple
Blitz Bazawule's adaptation of the Alice Walker classic (and the Broadway musical) is a more joyful, celebratory film than its predecessor. The Color Purple has taken on a musicality ever since Steven Spielberg and Quincy Jones adapted Alice Walker’s 1983 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel for the screen. When the first film was released in 1985, Spielberg already referred to it as a “musical.” In a behind-the-scenes interview about the film's musicality included in Warner Bros’ sumptuous new 4K release, Walker, Spielberg, and Jones conduct us through the “diverse places” that music appears in the original film. There are rail work songs, African dance, juke joint blues, and revival gospel; all tonally matched together in a near seamless “immersion” of sound. In an age where nearly every popular and cult film gets a Broadway adaptation, The Color Purple is a particular no-brainer. Celie’s journey of self-discovery through systematic abuses and struggles at the turn of the twentieth century lends itself to the kind of emotional bigness a musical requires. With music by the legendary Brenda Russell and the late queer songwriting icon Allee Willis, The Color Purple: The Musical also showcases a diverse range of musical styles and modes, especially those well suited for the stage, like swing and Greek chorus. Continue Reading →
Eileen
Thomasin McKenzie & Anne Hathaway burn up the screen in William Oldroyd’s unsettling thriller. Eileen will likely be lost in the holiday season shuffle among such spectacles as the upcoming Wonka and awards-friendly fare like Ferrari. On the other hand, it’s unclear under what circumstances Eileen would make a big splash. It’s an odd, occasionally off-putting little film that wouldn’t work as well as it does if not for the scorching chemistry between its two leads. Based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s (also odd and occasionally off-putting) novel of the same name, Eileen stars Thomasin McKenzie as the titular character, a lonely young woman stuck in a miserable rut. Living in the most depressing town in Massachusetts circa 1964, Eileen is forced to take care of her alcoholic, mean-spirited father (a chilling Shea Whigham, still somehow not one of Hollywood’s biggest stars), a former cop who’s taken to waving his gun at their neighbors. Working as a secretary at a juvenile detention center, though she’s in her twenties she comes off as someone much younger, a meek and awkward child merely dressing up as an adult. Eileen also has a child’s taste for doing things like ignoring her hygiene, stuffing herself with candy, and compulsively masturbating, while maintaining a rich fantasy life involving rough sex with a detention center guard, or murdering her father. Her boredom has reached pathological levels. Continue Reading →
The Holdovers
After stumbling with Downsizing, Alexander Payne bounces back with a gentle & witty comedy-drama. The artist Dmitry Samarov one said to me that the ratio of good to bad late periods in an artist's life was depressing to consider. For every Sir Edward William Elgar there was an Eric Clapton (my example, not his), and that it was rare to see someone sharpen as they aged. Now, I like Dmitry and certainly respect his opinion, but I can’t help but feel that when film overtook painting as the dominant artwork that people engage with, the ratio shifted towards bizarre experimentation and welcome self-reflection as much as dull self reflection. Take for instance 62 year old Alexander Payne, who, after the biggest disaster of his career (2017’s confused parable Downsizing), has started his fourth decade as a director by leaning hard back into what he knew (and what the royal “we” enjoyed) and rediscovered himself with The Holdovers, a movie no one can seem to stop comparing to Hal Ashby. No mean feat, of course, but even that sells its virtues short. This is no mere homage, no mere return to form, this is the movie that Payne’s been hoping to make since his 90s heyday, a film that earns both its jaundiced gaze and its catharsis. Continue Reading →
Killers of the Flower Moon
To talk about The Killer is to strip away pretense. Well, one can try. Cold it may be, but David Fincher's latest is an incredibly open film. The houses are made of glass; the windows are ceiling-high; the voiceovers from the title character (Michael Fassbender) give infallible insight into his worldview. The film is his worldview, simple in its machinations and complex in its philosophy. In most other circumstances, this would unfold over time. And it does here, at least to an extent. Continue Reading →
Love at First Sight
As an avid consumer of romance—be it in book, film, or television format—you learn to level expectations when a beloved story is adapted. That’s particularly the case amongst the recent spate of mid-to-low budget adaptations across the gamut of streaming services. Usually, the best-case scenario is they’re mildly enjoyable but ultimately forgettable. For example, there’s Prime Video’s recent adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, and Royal Blue. More often than not, they’re absolutely dreadful. The less said about Netflix’s take on Austen’s Persuasion, the better. What is true, though, is that they’re very seldom genuinely good. Continue Reading →
A Million Miles Away
A Million Miles Away is one of those movies that live in the meaty part of the decent curve. Far too sturdy and well-made to be called bad. Too rote and predictable to really call good. It tells the true story of José Hernández (Michael Pena), an unquestionably inspiring man who did an impossibly difficult thing under impossibly difficult circumstances. Continue Reading →
High-Rise
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn't exist. Continue Reading →
A Field in England
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn't exist. Continue Reading →
Bird Box Barcelona
Okay, fine, Bird Box Barcelona isn’t exactly a sequel. It’s more of a continuation, as Netflix gets a belated start on making a franchise out of 2018’s Bird Box, a perfectly fine but unremarkable film that inexplicably became a smash hit. Smash or not, five years is a long time, so you might need a refresher course. Much of Earth’s population has been decimated by malevolent beings with visages so emotionally overwhelming that anyone who looks at them immediately commits suicide, and the survivors are forced to navigate what’s left of the world with their eyes covered, lest they see whatever “they” are. That’s really all you need to remember. Continue Reading →