We're Just 7 Weeks Into 2024 & I've Already Seen 2 of the Best Films I'll See All Year
American Fiction and The Iron Claw, two great movies
We’re 7 weeks in to 2024 and so far this year I’ve watched 29 films. (Only 4 films a week? When I was younger I must have watched 4 films a day.)
I’ve caught up with several classics for the first time - Yasujiro Ozu’s incredibly moving Tokyo Story; Lone Star, possibly John Sayle’s greatest film; The Killers, fantastic film noir based on a Hemingway story that marked Burt Lancaster’s film debut; Hearts of Darkness, the documentary on the making of Apocalypse Now, which I had to finally watch after reading Sam Wasson’s entertaining book The Path to Paradise (about the making of the film as well as the triumphs and insane failures at American Zoetrope) and then I went back and re-watched Apocalypse Now for the nth time (this time around, the “Final Cut” version).
(BTW, I started a post listing my favorite films of 2023. I got about a third of the way through writing it when life got in the way - more specifically, when I broke my face. I’m now coming back to “me” again and I thought I’d start with something a bit shorter.)
But there were also two films from the end of 2023 that blew me away as much as anything else I saw. And you ought to see them too!
The first is American Fiction.
I’ll watch almost anything with Jeffrey Wright. (He was Felix Leiter in the Daniel Craig James Bond movies, Muddy Waters in Cadillac Records, and most recently he’s been in Westworld, Asteroid City, The Batman - the man has range). It’s written and directed by first-time director Cord Jefferson (who has written for Watchmen, Station Eleven, The Good Place, Master of None).
Here’s the story in a nutshell. Wright plays Thelonoius Ellison (everyone calls him “Monk”), a college professor who has written at least one poorly-selling novel. He’s frustrated that since he’s black, publishers only want him to write a “black book”, filled with gangsters and drug dealers and hookers - so he decides to give them what they want, and ends up succeeding beyond his wildest dreams.
But there’s so much more going on here than just that plot. Ellison comes from a wonderfully real and complex family, characters who are fully fleshed out and with their own lives and issues. And these people are played by Tracee Ellis Ross, John Ortiz, Sterling K. Brown, Issa Rae, and Leslie Uggams.
Befitting a film about a writer, the script is solid, and it’s also very funny. Shot for around US$10 million (which is nothing these days), this is the kind of film that reminds you that some people are still making entertaining films for adults.
And now for something completely different, the second great film I saw this year is The Iron Claw.
This is an uncharacteristically poor trailer from the great A24 company. It barely hints at the emotional wallop this film carries. So yeah, this is based-on-the-true-story of the Von Erich professional wrestling family. But if you think that’s what it’s all about, think again: Jack Adkisson, aka Fritz Von Erich, had six sons. Five of those sons are dead, three by suicide. How did that happen?
I think I probably watched more than my share of professional wrestling back in the 60s and 70s, when it was on broadcast TV and featured “legends” like Bruno Sammartino and Andre the Giant. But it’s been more than 40 years since I gave a shit about wrestling. It would take a lot to get me to watch a film about wrestling these days. I did so because the reviews have been strong and it’s from A24.
(A partial list of A24 films includes Spring Breakers, Ex Machina, Green Room, The Lobster, Swiss Army Man, Moonlight, Good Time, Lady Bird, First Reformed, Hereditary, Midsommar, The Lighthouse, Uncut Gems, Minari, The Green Knight, The Tragedy of Macbeth (the Joel Coen version), Everything Everywhere All At Once - these guys release mostly terrific films and market them very well.)
The first reason to watch this film is a simply astonishing performance from Zac Efron. I thought he was some kind of former teen idol sort of star. Here, it’s not just the physical transformation, there’s real depth and power to his performance. There is also a career-best performance from Holt McCallany (so good in David Fincher’s Mindhunter series).
One reason the film really registered with me was that I have heard of the Von Erich family but knew nothing about them, so I was deeply drawn in as the story progressed and got darker and darker. The title, “The Iron Claw,” refers to the family’s signature wrestling move, but it also might be said that the real “iron claw” in the film is the father.
What will be the next great movie I see in 2024? I’ve already got a ticket to see Dune 2 in IMAX for its opening weekend, and the advance reviews/hype are pretty spectacular.
