Movie Review The Fire Inside

The Fire Inside 

Directed by Rachel Morrison

Written by Barry Jenkins

Starring Ryan Destiny, Bryan Tyree Henry

Release Date December 25th, 2024 

Published December 9th, 2024 

One of the great pleasures of my career as a film critic is watching great actors act. Bryan Tyree Henry is an actor that I particularly enjoy. Ever since I first saw him on Donald Glover’s Atlanta, I’ve been eager to see more of Henry’s work. Since then, he’s delivered some of my favorite character actor performances on the big screen from If Beale Street Could Talk to the criminally underseen Causeway with Jennifer Lawrence, and even his work in the less than stellar blockbuster, The Eternals. Bryan Tyree Henry makes acting look effortless. Thus, I was very excited to see his name in the credits for the new movie, The Fire Inside. 

The Fire Inside stars Ryan Destiny in the story of Olympic Gold Medal boxer Claressa ‘T-Rex’ Shields. The film follows the challenges that Shields overcame on her way to winning the gold medal in boxing at the 2012 Olympic Games. Shields was only 17 years old at the time. Bryan Tyree Henry co-stars as her trainer and father-figure, Jason Crutchfield. When things at her home with her troubled mother became chaotic, Crutchfield took Claressa in and made her part of his family. Together, they would train and prepare for the next challenge in front of them, whether it was a boxing opponent or life in Flint, Michigan.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Kraven The Hunter

Kraven the Hunter 

Directed by J.C Chandor 

Written by RIchard Wenk, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway 

Starring Aaron Taylor Johnson, Fred Hechinger, Ariana DeBose, Russell Crowe 

Released December 13th, 2024

Published December 13th, 2024 

Kraven the Hunter has me wondering if Hollywood has somehow discovered a Mel Brooks-The Producers style scheme where a flop can actually be a moneymaker. I don’t know how that would work in the film space but it’s the only way I can conceive of how movie studios can release movies as bad as Kraven the Hunter, movies that are almost guaranteed to lose money, and simply move on to the next movie without everyone involved losing their jobs. And when you consider that this is the studio behind Madame Web and Morbius, suddenly my theory becomes at least a little bit plausible. 

Kraven the Hunter is a bafflingly silly proposition. A kid named Sergey, the son of a famed gangster played by Russell Crowe, is mauled by a lion while on a safari vacation in Africa and is rescued by a mysterious potion that, mixed with the lion’s own blood, gives Sergey super-human strength, speed, agility, and instincts. The potion is a gift from a stranger named Calypso, whose grandmother, and I truly cringe to write this, is a voodoo priestess. Best not to unpack that.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Nickel Boys

Nickel Boys 

Directed by RaMell Ross 

Written by RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes 

Starring Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger

Release Date December 13th, 2024

Published December 16th, 2024 

The experience of Nickel Boys begins quite jarringly. If you don’t know that the film is shot in first person, from the perspective of the main character, it takes a few minutes to acclimate. When the perspective then moves to a second lead character, the film once again forces you to find your bearings. Smartly, and compassionately for an often distracted modern audience, director RaMell Ross introduces the shift in perspective via showing a scene for a second time from this new perspective. It’s a simple yet incredibly smart way to apply a unique way of presenting a movie. And it is this simple and effective approach that provides the foundation for what becomes an incredible movie. 

Nickel Boys follows the lives of two young men who meet while being held at a reform school that acts more like a prison for teens. We are first introduced to Elwood ‘El’ Curtis (Ethan Herisse), a smart and politically active young man living in Florida in the early 1960s. El has a bright future ahead of him as one of his teachers has helped him secure acceptance into a historically black college. His tuition is free, all he has to do is get there and that’s where things go wrong. After accepting a ride from a well dressed man in a nice car, El is arrested when it’s revealed that the man is a car thief.

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review The Last Showgirl

The Last Showgirl 

Directed by Gia Coppola 

Written by Kate Gersten 

Starring Pamela Anderson, Dave Bautista, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song, Billie Lourd

Release Date December 13th, 2024 

Published December 18th, 2024

The Last Showgirl stars Pamela Anderson as Shelly, a Las Vegas showgirl adjusting to the end of her career. The show where Shelly has worked for the past 30 plus years is closing, soon to be replaced by some Cirque Du Soleil style show. The end of the show is devastating for Shelly as she sacrificed just about everything to be part of this show for just over three decades. She has little savings and few career opportunities due to her age and the growing lack of shows like hers in the new Las Vegas landscape. 

As this story unfolds in the foreground, a secondary story emerges as Shelly’s daughter, Hannah (Billie Lourd) arrives in town. When Hannah was very young, Shelly gave her up to focus on her career. Hannah was raised by her aunt in another state while Shelly dedicated herself entirely to her career. Now, with the show ending, and Hannah arriving to have a very hard conversation about why her mom chose her work over her daughter, Shelly is facing crises on two fronts.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review A Complete Unknown

A Complete Unknown 

Directed by James Mangold 

Written by James Mangold 

Starring Timothee Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbero, Boyd Holbrook

Release Date December 25th, 2024 

Published December 18th, 2024

There are many sharp elements in A Complete Unknown. Timothee Chalamet’s prickly take on Bob Dylan is one, Monica Barbero’s sharp performance as Joan Baez is another, and Elle Fanning’s keen eyed take on Dylan’s muse, Suze Rotolo, renamed Sylvie Russo in the film, is equal to her co-stars. But it is in the softer, gentler moments of A Complete Unknown where I really enjoyed the film. In particular, Scoot McNairy portrays the dying days of music icon Woody Guthrie wordlessly but with remarkable warmth and expression. Seeing Dylan gently full of awe as Guthrie urges him to play a song for him is one of my favorite moments of any film in 2024. 

That I don’t completely love A Complete Unknown has a lot to do with my lagging ability to tolerate music biopics. While A Complete Unknown does have a stronger approach than many other recent biopics, the thudding Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect, comes unfortunately to mind as an example of rote hero worship, director James Mangold nevertheless falls into many of the typical traps of the hagiography as his reverence for Dylan and his culture shifting performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival renders the director something of a fanboy rather than a clear eyed director.

Find my full length review at Beat.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Better Man

Better Man 

Directed by Michael Gracey 

Written by Simon Gleeson, Oliver Cole, Michael Gracey 

Starring Robbie Williams, Jonno Davies, Alison Steadman 

Release Date December 25th, 2024 

Published December 19th, 2024 

While many are praising the new Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, another music biopic has my attention, one I never imagined would be as good as it is. Better Man tells the story of English pop star Robbie Williams and it’s the biggest surprise of 2024, for me anyway. I had no real expectations for Better Man. I am only vaguely aware of Robbie Williams, mostly via his reputation as a troubled celebrity. When I heard a movie was being made of his life I was a little puzzled, Robbie Williams doesn’t appear to have the kind of global celebrity that one expects of someone who gets a movie made about their life. 

And then the trailer for Better Man dropped and I was even more perplexed. Instead of an actor portraying Williams or Willams appearing as himself, a CGI Chimpanzee stood in place of the pop star. To say this peaked my skepticism is an understatement, the film looked like a deeply unserious bit of nonsense and a potential disaster. I’m so happy to have been proven wrong. Better Man takes the bizarre concept of a CGI chimp leading man and turns into a genuinely poignant metaphor for the self loathing, anxiety, and fear concealed behind the pop star bravado of Robbie Williams.

Find my full length review at Beat.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Nightbitch

Nightbitch 

Directed by Marielle Heller

Written by Marielle Heller 

Starring Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy

Release Date December 12th, 2024

Published December 28th, 2024 

What I love about Nightbitch is the raw honesty that drives so much of Amy Adams’ performance and the script of Nightbitch. The film is about the sacrifices women make to become a mother, beyond the physical toll and into the intellectual and emotional toll. Women don’t get the chance to talk about these feelings as it can seem, on a very base level, that they aren’t happy to be mothers or that they didn’t participate in the choice of becoming a mother. It’s a nuanced conversation that some, mostly men, aren’t comfortable with. 

Nightbitch doesn’t shy away from it. Instead, writer-director Marielle Heller takes Rachel Yoder’s bestselling novel, and her remarkably unique premise, and builds on it with Amy Adams’ raw performance and a visual style that compliments the unusual metaphor at the heart of the movie. If you’re not aware, in Nightbitch, Amy Adams turns into a dog at night, partially at first, with a full-on transition as the story progresses. She doesn’t remain a dog, it’s merely a part of her, an instinctual, animalistic element of her Mother character that represents aspects of herself that have lain dormant.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review The Brutalist

The Brutalist

Directed by Brady Corbet

Written by Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold 

Starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn 

Release Date December 20th, 2024 

Published January 1st, 2025 

The Brutalist is an unrelenting, haunting, and engrossing film. Brady Corbet’s three hour plus epic follows a holocaust survivor, played by Adrien Brody, who leaves behind his wife in Hungary to establish a life for the two of them in America in the immediate aftermath of World War 2 and the loss of countless family members and friends. Having once been a prominent and well respected architect in Hungary, Brody’s Laszlo Toth will have to start at the bottom in America to rebuild his life and career while finding a place for himself, his wife, Erszebet (Felicity Jones) and their niece, Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy) whom they’ve cared for since her parents were killed in a concentration camp. 

The story of The Brutalist unfolds in chapters as uncompromising as the rest of the movie. By that I mean the title of each chapter is daunting. The first chapter is titled, 'The Enigma of Arrival' and charts Laszlo’s arrival in America, his being processed through Ellis Island, and his bus journey to Philadelphia where he will be staying with and working for his cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola) and Attila’s wife, Audrey (Emma Laird). His room is a tiny former storage closet hastily converted into a single bed dungeon that opens directly into Attila’s high end furniture store.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review The Damned

The Damned 

Directed by Thordur Paisson 

Written by Jamie Hannigan 

Starring Odessa Young, Siobhan Finneran 

Release Date January 3rd, 2025 

Published January 2nd, 2025 

The Damned stars Odessa Young as a 19th century era widow in charge of a small, Icelandic fishing outpost. It’s been a year since the death of her husband, Magnus, and she has surprised his crew of fishermen by continuing to man the fishing outpost. The harsh winter makes the job a sorrowful and punishing one but she does it to maintain his legacy. Struggling to provide food and supplies, the rowdy crew is still loyal to Young’s Eva, especially Daniel (Joe Cole), a loyal friend of her late husband. 

The plot of The Damned kicks in when a foreign ship is dashed against the rocks within seeing distance of the fishing outpost. The fisherman could attempt to rescue members of the foreign crew but, as the lead fisherman points out, it could be more than a dozen more mouths to feed on the limited supplies that they already have. Eva is left to make the difficult decision not to mount a rescue. However, when supplies from the dashed ship wash up on shore, including a barrel full of bait, Eva decides that rescuing the supplies might be worth the risk.

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media

Documentary Don't Die The man Who Wants to Live Forever

Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever 

Directed by Chris Smith 

Written by Chris Smith 

Starring Bryan Johnson 

Release Date January 1st, 2025 

Published January 3rd, 2025 

Does the reality of death make life more meaningful? Does the notion of an ending to life make what you do while living matter more? I thought about these questions a lot while watching the new Netflix documentary Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever. The documentary examines the story of former Tech CEO and multi-millionaire, Bryan Johnson. After spending years on the grind to build his company Braintree into a major player in online payment technology, Johnson sold the company and dedicated himself to trying to live forever. 

Bryan Johnson exists at the intersection of legitimate breakthroughs in aging science and being a con-man or grifter who takes advantage of vulnerable, frightened people desperate for the secret to not getting old. As the documentary tracks Johnson’s journey from deeply depressed grindset-mindset tech-bro to a man who claims to no longer use his ‘mind’ and is thus a functioning automaton guinea pig, we really cannot tell which side of the grifter-scientific pioneer fence Johnson falls on.

Find my full length review at Longevity.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Maria

Maria 

Directed by Pablo Larrain 

Written by Steven Knight

Starring Angelina Jolie 

Released November 27th, 2024 

Published December 4th, 2025 

In the early 2000s I coined a flippant, dismissive new term for typically young adult movies that featured young, attractive people dying of the disease of being too pretty and full of promise. I dubbed these movies ‘Dead Ingenue Movies.’ The term was mostly inspired by Mandy Moore’s soporific starring vehicle A Walk to Remember, from 2002. But there were other, similar movies from the early 2000s that mined the same dimwitted tropes to craft a tear jerking narrative about young women whose value to the world was to reform a ne'er do well male protagonist before dying from being too attractive and young. 

In the last few years however, director Pablo Larrain has single handedly transformed the dead ingenue sub-gene by combining the trope-heavy, too-perfect-to-live teen weeper with a splashy, toney biopic of a famous dead ingenue. In 2016 Larrain trained his eye on Jackie Kennedy to capture the vulnerable side of the first lady in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy. Then, in 2021, Larrain turned his camera’s eye to, perhaps, the most famous dead ingenue of all, Princess Diana, in Spencer.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Aladdin 3477-1 The Jinn of Wisdom

Aladdin 3477-1: The Jinn of Wisdom 

Directed by Matt Busch

Written by Matt Busch 

Starring Erik Steele, Lin Zy, Aaron Golematis

Release Date January 3rd, 2025 

Published January 5th, 2025 

Experimental artist Matt Busch has directed his first feature film, the strangely charming, low budget, Aladdin meets the future flick, Aladdin 3477-1: The Jinn of Wisdom. This unique take on the Aladdin legend takes the young thief and beggar into a far future where major cities now float in the sky over the slums that remain on the ground and robots keep the classes divided by acting as future law enforcement. In this bizarre mix is Aladdin, played by Erik Steele as a schemer with a heart of gold. 

The story follows Aladdin as he is recruited to steal a legendary Genie’s lamp from a dangerous and cursed cave. All the while, Aladdin is chased after and protected by Oomi (Lin Zy), a homeless martial arts expert who has, for reasons we are not privy to, dedicated her life to protecting Aladdin. We can tell that Oomie is desperately in love while Aladdin is both unaware of Oomie’s feelings, to a hostile degree, and unworthy of such loyalty. Oomie is the best character in the movie and the main reason to see Aladdin 3477-1: The Jinn of Wisdom.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here.