BETTER MAN Review

With better musical numbers - at least as far as how they’re conveyed in the format of film - than Wicked and a more innovative take on the musical biopic certainly than anything that has been released since Bohemian Rhapsody became a four-time Oscar winner, Better Man transcends its multiple genres and demolishes expectations via a number of choices, perspectives, and ideas. Chief among these being that the main character, British pop star Robbie Williams, is rendered as a chimpanzee for the entirety of the film. Whether this is due to the fact he felt “less evolved” than those around him, that he felt treated like a circus act during his "Take That" days, or simply that he became something of an animal once fame afforded him the space to be, the central gimmick is more admirable in a distracting fashion than it is an influential one, but it doesn't not work and that was the risk in taking such a swing.

The facet that actually separates Better Man from the current crop of musical biopics is the fact Williams himself couldn't give less of a shit about PR. That is to say, the man has no issue showing you his scars or telling you how he feels about those that surrounded him. Getting this kind of unfiltered access and perspective feels more and more rare these days when the majority of musical documentaries are more or less controlled and therefore extremely filtered pieces of marketing material for their subjects. Luckily, a puff piece is not what neither Williams nor director Michael Gracey were interested in. As these things always go, it begins with wanting to make a father proud because of the lack of attention said father paid to their child while still on their own quest for fame and fortune. This neglect enables the kind of imposter syndrome Williams suffers from throughout the film and likely still to this day even with all of the awards and accomplishments, propping up the drive that has ultimately placed him in a position to command his own musical biopic despite what some might consider proper talent.

TOP 10 OF 2024

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After 2023, I wasn't sure what the future of my role in "film criticism" would be or if there would be one at all. After the dissolution of my YouTube channel in May of last year and trying to find my footing so far as how often I would go long in writing about films it has more or less organically become a pattern of logging my viewing habits on Letterboxd and if a film comes to evoke a certain type of response that either has me wanting to process my reaction further or simply discuss it at length, then it typically ends up on this site. This happened less than I would have liked this year, but to be completely frank it may happen even less in the upcoming year and not because I’m pessimistic about the new year’s slate of films (I’m actually quite hopeful for what '25 might bring) but simply because my wife and I are welcoming our fourth child in a matter of weeks and I don’t know that I’ll be able to sustain my weekly theater visits. That said, I’ll be at home and even on paternity leave for some portions of the year, so I don’t plan on seeing fewer movies just seeing fewer movies at the multiplex - potentially. Speaking of this year I watched 172 2024 releases, 93 of which were on the big screen and some of them - including Deadpool & Wolverine, Dune: Part Two, Alien: Romulus, Joker: Folie à Deux, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and The First Omen - I saw twice in theaters. I watched upwards of 250 films total over the course of the year including re-watches and older films I experienced for the first time. Essentially, I have no idea what 2025 will look like in terms of what or how often I will post here as I also plan on doing a good amount of offline writing, but one thing I can say with certainty is that if I'm still here in a year’s time you can count on me to post my favorite films of 2025. But first! My ten favorite films of 2024…

NOSFERATU Review

Throughout Robert Eggers' interpretation of the Dracula mythos we hear the word "providence" uttered multiple times, most frequently by Simon McBurney’s servant figure Knock (I wonder if he and Nicholas Hoult consulted with one another). Naturally, one would assume the context of such comments would be regarding the protective care of God in a film about a plague-inducing demon, but providence can also be defined as timely preparation for future eventualities. This latter meaning is in fact the outline for what composes much of 2024’s Nosferatu. As much of an impression as Bill Skarsgård’s titular character makes throughout the course of the film it is he who is largely orchestrating said timely preparations (which are sometimes a little too timely) whereas it is Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen who is the focal point of both the vampire and Eggers’ fascinations. The future eventualities of this particular situation are the unlocking of this young woman’s shame (or sin, as she sees it) in order to find salvation – whether that be her own, the monster’s, or mankind’s is up to the viewer. Initially, Ellen believes she has found such salvation in Thomas Hutter (the aforementioned Hoult), a young man whom she’s recently wed, who she is eager to start a life with, and with whom she believes she can remedy her darkness. We learn, of course, that when Count Orlok, Nosferatu, the vampyr, is stirred from his grave by the afflictions of others, he cannot be sated – satisfied - without fully consuming them which, ironically, feels more like an absolute than the possibility promised by “providence”.

There is undoubtedly an unlimited number of allegorical meanings one could graph onto Ellen’s function, but most interesting about Eggers film is this idea that this central character embodies the facade of the thing she believes she should be yet is seemingly afraid to embrace her instinctual tendencies while Eggers ensures the film itself is the inverse of as much; following his innate, natural inclinations so far past their conclusions that what we’re delivered is not necessarily what we expect from Dracula (outside of maybe the costumes and language), but moreover it authentically amps up and delivers upon the startling terror of what made (and makes) this long-looming figure of the genre so horrifying over a century after his creation. He, Nosferatu, is more than just the presence of a monster but the enigma that fills us with conflict and dread.

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN Review

As with Johnny Cash prior to James Mangold's 2005 film, Walk the Line, I had no close affiliation with or personal connection to Bob Dylan prior to seeing Mangold's latest musical biopic, A Complete Unknown. After seeing Walk the Line I wanted to not only consume as much of Cash's music as I could but learn as much about he and June Carter's life and the time around which the movie was based as well as what happened after. All of this to say, the question of whether A Complete Unknown would be successful or not was then going to naturally rest upon how invested I became in the life and music of Dylan post-screening. Maybe it’s because I had more time on my hands as an eighteen-year-old in 2005, but while I certainly enjoyed Mangold’s adaptation of Elijah Wald’s “Dylan Goes Electric!” book - admire it even for many of its choices - I don’t know that I feel as compelled to go down the long and winding road that is both Dylan’s biography and discography. Or maybe it is simply that Cash had a more charismatic personality and was therefore easier to be drawn to as is exemplified by a scene-stealing Boyd Holbrook in this film. Dylan is of course a more enigmatic figure, and Mangold seems to have understood this and that his approach to the respective films made about each of these men would need to be as wildly different as the men themselves.

It is notable in this genre that A Complete Unknown features neither of Dylan’s parents in any capacity - roles typically utilized in the first act to not only propel our aspiring protagonist out of their comfort zone, but who continue to serve as motivation to remain as disconnected from the life they knew as a child and on becoming as famous as they need to be in order to have earned themselves their own biopic. There is no such device in A Complete Unknown, the first sign Mangold is breaking from a tradition he helped instate and the first indicator he is catering his storytelling to his subject even as his filmmaking remains the handsome, sturdy, and reliable type that looks to modestly enlighten and wholly entertain while offending only those who've already claimed I'm Not There as the only necessary Dylan feature. It is the understanding of this objective that helps define Mangold's successes (and some of his shortcomings) here, as his job is not to necessarily demystify but capture the essence of this mysterious and often difficult individual so that a new generation might come to understand why Dylan became so important to the young, noisy activists of the sixties as well as to remind that same generation that "there was a time when the old songs were new."

SEFCA ANNOUNCES 2024 WINNERS

Southeastern Film Critics Association Names Anora as the Best Film of 2024. Writer-director Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning tale also snagged awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for Mickey Madison’s breakout performance as a sex worker looking for a meaningful relationship in a world where love and sex often feel like nothing more than a transaction. 

Monday, December 16, 2024 – The Southeastern Film Critics Association (SEFCA) has named Sean Baker’s Anora as the Best Picture of the Year. SEFCA’s eighty-nine members located across nine Southeastern states also recognized Baker for Best Original Screenplay and the film’s star Mikey Madison for Best Actress. 

While Anora won Best Film of 2024, The Brutalist, writer-director Brady Corbet’s epic of artistic obsession, carried home the most SEFCA awards. The film finished second to Anora for Best Film of the Year and was also honored with prizes for Best Actor (Adrian Brody), Best Supporting Actor (Guy Pearce) and Best Director for Corbet. 

The single closest race was for Best Documentary. With only two ballots remaining to be tabulated, there was a three-way tie between Will & Harper, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story and Sugarcane. Ultimately, Sugarcane, a horrific tale that chronicles the disappearances of Native American children from a “residential school” near the Sugarcane Reservation, carried home the award. 

“Every year we hear from the naysaying sectors of the industry that it wasn’t a very good year for film,” said Scott Phillips, President of SEFCA and writer for Forbes.com. “This slate of winners easily disproves that statement for 2024. Between theatrical distribution and streaming, releases can be a bit scattered and hard to find, but if you take the time to find the better films of 2024, they form a potent lineup. We hope that film fans out there can use our Top 10 list to catch up on some of the best that 2024 had to offer.” 

Read SEFCA’s full list of winners below. Visit SEFCA on the web at SEFCA.net to learn more about its members as well as past winners. You can also follow SEFCA on Twitter at @SEFilmCritics.