2024

2024’s “Nosferatu” is Pretty as a Connect-the-Dots Dracula Picture

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Oh, another bite at the Dracula story! Nosferatu (B-), the remake of the 1922 German classic directed in 2024 by Robert Eggers, chronicles the obsessive 1838 story between the Transylvanian thirst trap (Bill Skarsgard) and a haunted damsel (Lily-Rose Depp) in a picturesque pageant of dread and horror across Europe. There’s lots of slow-burn mood setting and stunning Jarin Blaschke cinematography in this crafts cavalcade. Baroque production design, exquisite costuming and creative makeup effects aside, though, there’s very little added to this tale as old as time. Eggers, so incredibly innovative in most of his works, has a sixth sense for this sort of story but doesn’t fully bring his fully unhinged and twisted sensibility to this affair. What he delivers is a perfectly preserved revival and rendition but not a new definitive one. The camera loves Depp, and there are a few fun scares. It’s just a little low stakes.

2024

Southeastern Film Critics Association Top 10 Films of 2024 Include “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “Challengers,” “Nickel Boys,” “The Substance”

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Southeastern Film Critics Association

The Southeastern Film Critics Association (SEFCA) has named Sean Baker’s Anora as best picture of the year. SEFCA’s 89 members (including this reviewer!) located across nine Southeastern states named the following to its top films of 2024.

  1. Anora
  2. The Brutalist
  3. Conclave
  4. Dune Part 2
  5. Challengers
  6. Nickel Boys
  7. Sing Sing
  8. Wicked (Part 1)
  9. The Substance
  10. A Complete Unknown

Runner-up to SEFCA’s top ten and 11th overall was the film I Saw the TV Glow.

The dark comic romcom Anora was clearly a favorite, with Sean Baker winning best original screenplay and breakout performer Mikey Madison snagging best actress for the fierce title role. The epic immigrant saga The Brutalist carried home the most awards including Brady Corbet for best director and Adrian Brody and Guy Pearce for best actor and supporting actor, respectively.

Colman Domingo was runner-up for best actor for the uplifting prison-set drama Sing Sing, and Demi Moore runner-up for best actress for the body horror film about aging in Hollywood, The Substance. Kieran Culkin was runner-up for best supporting actor for the dark comedy A Real Pain about mismatched cousins on a trauma tourism expedition.

Best supporting actress winner is Ariana Grande as the singing and dancing “good witch” of Wicked with runner-up Zoe Saldana as a singing and dancing lawyer in the unconventional musical Emilia Perez.

This critics’ body awarded the Vatican-set Conclave best ensemble with Sing Sing as runner-up. Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold were runners-up for best original screenplay. Sean Baker was runner-up for best director for Anora.

Best adapted screenplay was Peter Straughan for Conclave with runners-up RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes for the historic drama Nickel Boys.

Best documentary was Sugarcane chronicling the disappearances of Native American children with Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story as runner-up. The Wild Robot won best animated feature with Flow as runner-up. Best foreign language film was the French production Emilia Perez with runner-up The Seed of the Sacred Fig, a political thriller from Iran.

Best cinematography was Greg Fraser for the sci-fi extravaganza Dune Part 2 with runner-up Jarin Blaschke for gothic vampire film Nosferatu. Best score went to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the tennis threesome dramedy Challengers with runner-up Daniel Blumberg for The Brutalist.

Learn more about the SEFCA here.

2024

The Atlanta Film Critics Circle Announces 2024 Award Winners

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Now in its eighth year, the Atlanta Film Critics Circle has announced its awards for top cinematic achievements in 2024.

The 38 voting members of the AFCC chose director Sean Baker’s Anora, the winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or, as its top film of the year. The sweet and sinister modern fairy tale, which also won Best Original Screenplay, features a breakout performance from Mikey Madison as Ani, a Brighton Beach stripper who falls for the son of a Russian oligarch. Madison is also the AFCC’s Best Lead Actress and Best Breakthrough Performer for her complex portrait of a woman equal parts fragile and bullet-proof. “I think most of the credit is due to the character of Ani and Mikey Madison’s performance. From moment one, you care so deeply about Ani and what happens to her. You want to go with her on this journey, no matter what happens,” said AFCC member Sammie Purcell, associate editor of Rough Draft Atlanta.

This year’s top films were a fascinatingly diverse mix, ranging from a clever spin on the Wizard of Oz in Wicked, to a tennis love triangle with heart-pounding matches in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, one of two films by the Italian director this year along with Queer. In a stunning, expertly crafted opus that never loses your interest despite its three-and-a-half-hour length, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist follows a Hungarian Jewish refugee from Germany’s concentration camps to what initially seems to be an American promised land. Corbet won Best Director for his self-assured, acclaimed epic portrait of the rigors of immigration and creativity. Adrien Brody also won the AFCC’s Best Actor Award for his doleful turn in the film as the tortured, mercurial architect contending with the maddening whims of his benefactor.

“This year, our critics seemed to gravitate to smaller budget labors of love,” said AFCC advisory board member Hannah Lodge. “Films like Anora, The Brutalist, Nickel Boys, Sing Sing, and I Saw the TV Glow remind us that cost doesn’t correlate with worth.”

Despite the diversity of films, AFCC member Spencer Perry, editor and critic at ComicBook.com, saw some common ground in the AFCC’s selections. “Something that feels distinct across all of our top 10 films is the idea of legacy. Be it Vanya’s parents in Anora, the rivalry between Patrick Zweig and Art Donaldson in Challengers, picking a new pope in Conclave, a galactic empire facing war in Dune: Part Two, or even a single robot learning to choose its own destiny in The Wild Robot, all of these films are wrestling with what someone can be or should be, either in their own eyes or in everyone else’s.”

Number three on the AFCC’s top 10 films, screenwriter RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes’s adaptation of novelist Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Nickel Boys, about two Black boys trying to survive a brutal Florida reform school, won Best Adapted Screenplay as well as Best Cinematography.

Perry was also delighted to see the atmospheric, but perhaps lesser seen coming-of-age fantasy I Saw the TV Glow make the AFCC’s top 10 list.

“Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine both deliver amazing work in a movie that is as haunting as it is personal,” said Perry of director Jane Schoenbrun’s moody feature. “I’m so thrilled that collectively we were able to recognize I Saw the TV Glow, a movie that at its core is about finding community despite your own feelings of internal isolation.” 

Member of AFCC’s advisory board Jason Evans noted how close many of the awards were this year, with Adrien Brody (The Brutalist) beating out Colman Domingo in Sing Sing by just one point. “The number of places and categories that were decided by only one or maybe two points is stunning,” said Evans, “a sign of the quality of the films and work this year,” and an indicator of “how competitive this awards season is likely to be.”

The AFCC inaugurated Best Voice Performance and Best Dog awards this year. In a near sweep, the canine star of Deadpool & Wolverine, Peggy, was the AFCC’s top dog. The British pugese, who previously captured an award as Britain’s ugliest dog, has turned her runt of the litter status into Hollywood stardom this year.

Lupita Nyong’o won the AFCC’s first ever Best Voice Performance for her work as an intelligent robot Roz in The Wild Robot, who finds an escape from loneliness in the company of the wild animals that inhabit a desert island, including a gosling with whom she forms a special bond.

“Voiceover acting is so often overlooked, but it’s such a key part of animated films. Lupita Nyong’o brought something really special to The Wild Robot. In animation, voice acting isn’t just about delivering lines — it’s about bringing the character to life,” said AFCC member and entertainment journalist Tatyana Arrington. “It’s a huge part of what makes animated films work, and I really think it deserves more recognition.”

Jesse Nussman, AFCC advisory board member, said he hopes studios are taking note of the vision driving this year’s award winners. 

“What strikes me about many of the films that took home multiple awards — Anora, Nickel Boys, The Brutalist — is their specificity. They’re the work of filmmakers who feel unburdened by marketplace demands or fears of alienating their audiences,” he said. “Hollywood, if you’re listening? We want more.”

Complete AFCC Award List

BEST FILM: 

Anora                       

TOP 10 FILMS (ranked):              

1. Anora

2. Challengers

3. Nickel Boys

4. The Brutalist

5. Conclave

6. Dune: Part Two

7. Sing Sing

8. Wicked: Part One

9. The Wild Robot

10. I Saw the TV Glow  

BEST LEAD ACTOR:

Adrien Brody, The Brutalist

BEST LEAD ACTRESS:

Mikey Madison, Anora                     

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain                  

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Ariana Grande, Wicked               

BEST ENSEMBLE CAST:

Sing Sing                                 

BEST DIRECTOR:

Brady Corbet, The Brutalist                            

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:                               

Sean Baker, Anora             

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:     

RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes, Nickel Boys  

BEST DOCUMENTARY:

Sugarcane                                     

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE:

Kneecap (Ireland)               

BEST ANIMATED FILM:

The Wild Robot   

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:

Nickel Boys        

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE:

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Challengers         

BEST STUNT WORK:

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga                                      

BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMER:

Mikey Madison, Anora                  

BEST FIRST FEATURE FILM: 

Josh Margolin, Thelma             

BEST VOICE PERFORMANCE:

Lupita Nyong’o, The Wild Robot


BEST DOG:

Peggy as Dogpool, Deadpool & Wolverine

About the AFCC

Co-founded by longtime Atlanta film critics Felicia Feaster and Michael Clark in 2017, the Atlanta Film Critics Circle is an attempt to fill a void in the local film community, and in the representation of Atlanta’s media on the national stage. The AFCC is supported by its Advisory Board and longtime critics Jason Evans, Will Leitch, Hannah Lodge, Michael McKinney, Jesse Nussman, Kyle Pinion, and Josh Sewell.

Composed of a dynamic mix of 38 Atlanta-based critics working in newspaper, magazine, and online journalism, the AFCC’s mission is to establish a national presence for a film critics group in Atlanta and to foster a vibrant film culture in Atlanta, already home to an exploding film industry production presence.

Members (critics living in and/or currently writing for global, national, regional and/or Atlanta metro area outlets) of AFCC voted on December 8 for the group’s annual awards.

2024

Find These Ten “Megalopolis” Treasures at Coppola’s All-Movie Hotel

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A few months after its global debut, the speculative sci-fi noir film Megalopolis is still reigning supreme as a cult and conversation catalyst sensation, and its writer/director Francis Ford Coppola has many reasons to return to the stomping grounds where he completed this landmark production. While filming at Georgia’s Trilith Studios, the famed filmmaker simultaneously created a living and post-production space called the All-Movie Hotel located in the hamlet of Peachtree City where worldwide visitors can now stay in purpose-built suites for filmmaking and post-production. The curated curiosities at the hospitality complex include props and promotions related to projects such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, but for those dreaming of the Roman Empire on screen in his utopian fantasy, there’s quite a bacchanal. “There’s one serious critic in this world, and that’s the test of time,” the filmmaker told an audience for a screening of the film at Atlanta’s Tara theatre. “I’ve seen [the movie] more times than you, I suspect, and I’m very satisfied with it.” Coppola continues to cheerfully engage viewers about what societies they’d envision for the future if they weren’t living in the here and now. And if you have the opportunity to stay at his heralded hotel, be sure to look for these ten treasures from Megalopolis.

Columns, spires and background props from the film’s “New Rome” greet guests at the All-Movie Hotel lobby.
Location markers and props from “New Rome” abound on hotel grounds.
Adam Driver and Aubrey Plaza are among the actors who dined and drank from the plates and chalices of the All-Movie Hotel’s lavish room service place settings.
Building replicas line some of the hotel’s common areas.
You may recognize Jon Voight’s impressive statue standing guard before Peachtree City’s golf cart trails at the All-Movie Hotel.
The All-Movie Hotel has many “seals” of approval; this one is in the lobby.
A high-flying reminder of the arena sequence is perched near the hotel pool.
China patterns for in-suite catering hail Caesar.
You may even see gladiators celebrating the holidays.
Did we mention you can stay in the Francis Ford Coppola suite he personally designed while he directed the film? It was a great stay!

2024

“The Piano Lesson” Film Adaptation Doesn’t Strike Consistent Chord

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Malcolm Washington didn’t choose the easiest adaptation — nor did he make much cinematic sense of it — with his directorial debut, The Piano Lesson (C), based on the August Wilson play. Instead of simply or conventionally translating a work already imbued with storied drama, the new director experiments with form and frenzy to unearth a bevy of resonant themes, and the overstuffed result doesn’t strike a consistent chord. A family clash over the heirloom of the title pits brother and sister — he hopes to sell it, the she refuses to give it up — sets the stage for a story unleashing haunting truths about how the past is perceived and who defines a family legacy. Unfortunately abrupt tonal shifts, a decision to open up the story with ghost story and horror motifs and a veil of fussiness between flashbacks and dialogue scenes continually obscure the workmanlike skills of an impressive acting ensemble. There’s interesting craft on display in terms of cinematography and music, but the symbolism is often heavy-handed. John David Washington and Danielle Deadwyler are the standout siblings whose tense reunion is a catalyst to conflict and discussions centered on tradition and collective memory of historical trauma. Ray Fisher is also fantastic in a hard-working and stacked cast. The actors do an outstanding job even though the film’s awkward approach doesn’t always do them justice. 

2024

Whimsical, Witchy Women Spotlighted in Sensational Singing Saga “Wicked: Part I”

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The ultimate musical about dorm room essentials and etiquette signals its inspirational intentions on a wondrous dry erase storyboard when an underground campus scandal threatens to silence outspoken professors, prompting two mismatched roomies to rally together for a common cause. It’s also the prequel to The Wizard of Oz about young witches at a crossroads of magic school Shiz University, the activist roommate going green while the other mindlessly revels in her pink bubblegum popularity. This tidy trapper keeper of Broadway-adapted bliss, John M. Chu’s Wicked: Part I (A) juggles the poppies, rainbows and yellow bricks of its spellbinding origin story while celebrating its vibrant cinematic connections to Victor Fleming’s 1939 classic with lavish set pieces, buoyant production numbers and, most of all, an iconic central duo metaphorically stepping into Dorothy’s shoes. The splendid odd couple at the heart of this tuneful tale represents no easy-bake coven; rather it’s a rarefied once-in-a-lifetime collision of talent. Cynthia Erivo as outcast Elphaba and Ariana Grande as populist Glinda slay their respective roles, their Stephen Schwartz songs such as “The Wizard and I” and “Defying Gravity” and the machinations of the mid-tempo melodrama. Splitting the film adaptation into two installments gives Chu a delicate opportunity to better excavate the characters’ relationships and showcase sequences faithfully fused from Gregory Maguire’s novel and L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The adaptation experiment works brilliantly and brings the story full circle. It’s only half the story, and yet there is a complete movie arc in this single act with the young ladies discovering agency and friendship to a rousing conclusion and one-year intermission. The prequel to a prequel as it were shines equally in a near-silent moment of undeniable power and resilience as it does in its most elaborate song-and-dance sequences. There is also a stunning allegory afoot for those who seek a tonic elixir antidote to grim political poison in the air, with an undeniably prescient “rise up” drumbeat piercing the artifice. Jonathan Bailey is a charming supporting character as love interest Fiyero, bringing rizz to Shiz via a standout “Dancing Through Life” number with an inventive choreographed sequence within the university’s circular rotating library. The filmmakers have clearly thought through the best and most creative ways for each and every beat to come through, emotionally and sonically. The film’s crafts from the whimsical costume designs to the elaborate production environments and soaring underscore provide wall-to-wall wonder. Most of all, this musical fantasy is a genuine triumph of casting, with Grande acing her assignment as both comically oblivious but daffily lovable and Erivo offering a slow-burn reveal and belting to the emerald heavens. If I could pass Chu a note or two, it would be that some of the CGI could be less fussy and the choreography could be more Fosse. Nearly three quarters of a century after cinematic Oz world-building began, the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch conjure some rousing revisionist history and extend the franchise in one of the year’s most enchanting experiences.


2024

As a Movie, “Maria” Doesn’t Sing

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The least interesting thing about famed opera singer Maria Callis is finding her usually wondrous soprano voice cracking and croaking during her final days living in 1970s Paris, and yet that’s exactly what Pablo Larrain chooses to dramatize in his impressionistic biography Maria (C). Angelina Jolie plays the Greek diva-as-artist as the film chronicles the temperamental behavior of her late career and flashes back to her tepid love affair with Aristotle Onassis, played charisma-free by Haluk Bilginer. Just like an opera, this psychological drama is structured in acts and culminates in tragedy. Larrain photographs the stately Jolie like she’s fresh out of a spring magazine shoot, but the glum persona she embodies is far from inspiring, despite her devotion to the role. And the lip syncing, even with multi-track blending, just doesn’t do the trick. Few actors in the ensemble including Kodi Smit-McPhee as a journalist make much of an impression, leaving Jolie in various poses within baroque rooms to sleep or stand and model. The third in Larrain’s film trilogy of important 20th century women in levels of distress (following Jackie and Spencer), this one is a considerable let-down, mainly mired in pathos with only a few arch lines to stir the soul.

2024

“Heretic” a Clever Cat and Mouse Game

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Hugh Grant plays against type as a creepy arbiter of a horrific escape room where he mansplains to two female Mormon missionaries the limits of faith in Bryan Woods and Scott Beck’s Heretic (B-). It’s a strange little movie, ostensibly in the horror genre but often so talky and obtuse that it might as well be a three-hander play. Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher are superb and highly believable as their characters negotiate with the man who may be their captor. They make realistic moves and are whip smart against a crafty antagonist. As “Mr. Reed,” Grant leverages his romcom charm to diabolical effect; his character may be a bit more cultured than boogeymen in Halloween or hockey masks, but he’s just as intense. The film is an exploration of the lore and belief systems of religion, powered by a smart premise and solid acting, and makes for an intriguing watch. But those expecting wall-to-wall thrills will likely find themselves underwhelmed.

2024

“Gladiator II” a Strong Companion Piece to Oscar-Winning Original

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The palace intrigue and visual effects both get mighty upgrades — albeit with fewer iconic declarations of dialogue — as Ridley Scott returns to the ring for a highly enjoyable Gladiator II (B+). While many of the story beats represent a retread of the Best Picture winning 2000 original film, Paul Mescal steps comfortably into the sandals of the protagonist role and draws viewers in as his character watches Roman emperors (Pedro Pascal among the leaders) conquer his homeland before he endeavors to return a legendary land to glory. As an empire-adjacent antagonist, Denzel Washington is also a highlight as a complex power broker with constant surprises around every turn. His scenery chewing rivals Joaquin Phoenix from the first film. The sequel’s action set pieces including a clash of warriors on ships within a coliseum are stunning. After one questionable sequence involving fake CGI monkeys early on, the film’s visual effects are roundly glorious. There’s a lingering feeling of wanting just a little more emotionally from this film, but it’s hard to argue with the brutal bacchanal of pulpy violence and vengeance on display here. Overall the film is a marvelous and rousing adventure.

2024

Iran-Set “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” Interrogates Power and Protest

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Political conflict within a family sets the stage for rage as an Iranian wife and her two modern daughters rebel against the husband and father promoted to a role as prosecutor for the government and whose gun is missing from within their home. It’s a crackerjack premise surrounding a charged object and a movie stylishly made and well acted, interspersing fictional narrative with real 2022-2023 cellphone footage of horrors against dissidents in Tehran’s revolutionary streets. In fact, writer/director Mohammed Rasoulof’s engaging Persian language family parable The Seed of the Sacred Fig (B+) is a work born of such urgency, it was created in secrecy and smuggled out of Iran to be released in Germany and around the world. The very existence of the film is a stunning work of protest; and at a near-three hour run time, it has a resonant and lived-in quality with a slow-simmering first act setting the stage for a shape-shifting battle as the conflict evolves. Rasoulof wisely shows how the teenage girls (especially the vocal Mahsa Rostami but also the expressionate Setareh Maleki) first become distrustful of government via the testimony of friends and evidence on social media just as the paranoid father (stoic Missagh Zareh in a rather thankless role) finds himself increasingly ensconced as an apologist for a brutal regime. Soheila Golestani is superb as the mom trying desperately and deliberately to maintain Intrafamilial peace in this tinderbox of a domestic drama. The talky opening reel is punctuated by a sequence of profound power as a young woman’s face uncovered by hijab undergoes cursory healing from a spray of bullets fired upon her in the name of religion. Soon dialogue boils to more conventional action underscoring the blistering broadside against the Iranian regime with varying levels of authenticity. It’s a searing portrait of straining relationships as society destabilizes against the backdrop of unrest, an effective glimpse at courage against oppressive rule and overall an insightful film worth finding.

2024

“Here” It Isn’t

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There’s probably a brilliant movie to be lensed using a stationary camera affixed on one single room of a house and chronicling what happens in that space on earth from prehistoric to pandemic times. Director/co-writer Robert Zemeckis hasn’t landed on the brilliant part of his cinematic science project. His Here (D+) is a filmed carousel of progress with some occasionally lovely compositions but an absolutely inert set of artificial storylines. It has the effect of an old vacation slide show presented by your most cringe-worthy relative. The nostalgic object lessons, told out of order in a taxonomy of themes, include vignettes of Native American rituals, Benjamin Franklin’s relatives, a crackpot inventor, a greatest generation couple, boomers delighting and struggling with modern family life (Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in various dreadful levels of de-aging effects) and the African-American family of the here and now. The only surprises along the journey are the effective use of pictures-in-picture delineated by rule lines, a late-breaking mirror effect and clever dissolves. Sometimes windows gracefully overlapping with the wilderness of bygone times or a novel show running on the family TV provide a welcome distraction from the human doldrums. The punishing pageant of various still lives accompanied by soaring Alan Silvestri music are comprised of such basic tropes that any moments of genuine drama are robbed of their gravitas. Latter stage Zemeckis films have been preoccupied with visual effects to the detriment of story, and this particular film finds little focus except for that omniscient camera in the same damn place the whole time. The film manages to be maddening and melodramatic when it was meant to be meaningful.

2024

“Emilia Pérez” is Audacious Art for Adventurous Moviegoers

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French filmmakers prove more artfully attuned to both the transgender experience and crime in the Mexican milieu than the product of billions of dollars of American political ad spending in a bold and brilliant subtitled melodrama paced, plotted and performed with the zest and scope of an opera. On the surface, Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez (A-) qualifies as a musical with piquant original songs contributed by Camille, a rousing original score by Clement Ducol and tight, cagey choreography by Damien Jalet, but the tone poem aesthetic echoes a fascinating central character study and crime adventure. The plot centers on a Mexican lawyer (a never better Zoe Saldana), who helps a vicious crime lord fake his own death and transition to life as the female title character (a fascinating Karla Sofia Gascon). A delightfully unhinged Selena Gomez portrays the widow who, several years later, believes Emilia is aunt rather than father to her two children. Meanwhile Perez embarks on a crusade to shed light on the disappearing victims of the country’s cartels. Audiard’s audacious work as writer/director, backed by Paul Guilhaume’s stunning cinematography and Juliette Welfling’s deft editing, creatively chronicles the journey of the story’s trio of remarkable women. Saldana and Gascon in particular are riveting and empathetic in authentic pursuit of their lives’ calling, and Gomez sneaks up in the final reel with some genuine scene-stealing too. Anthony Vaccarello of fashion house Yves Saint Laurent designed costumes for the film, impeccable in all manners of craft. This import is distributed by Netflix, but be advised it is best enjoyed without distraction on the epic canvas of a big screen.