Happy New Year! I hope you are all doing well. I have been busy as ever before wrapping up 2024 movies and getting ready for new 2025 films. In particular I have begun planning for Sundance which will be here before I know it (the festival planning is bizarre this year with only 2 venues in Salt Lake!) Make sure you check out my Most Anticipated video for 2025 movies:

I have caught up on a few 2024 releases since I did my mammoth post last week.

Here we go:

And Mrs

I have been working my way through all the romances of 2024 and I stumbled upon this little indie from the UK, and I ended up really enjoying it. It tells an unconventional story of a woman (Aisling Bea) who after losing her fiancé decides to marry him anyway. This is obviously bittersweet, but I found it quite endearing with an excellent supporting cast. Billie Lourd shines as her pregnant best friend and Colin Hanks, Elizabeth McGovern and Harriet Walter all give entertaining performances.

And Mrs is also an R rated romantic comedy so it won’t be for everyone but I found it the right balance of emotion and laughs with a fresh perspective.

Smile Worthy

Chosen Family-

Everyone knows I am always rooting for a romantic comedy as I love the genre. Unfortunately they don’t always work out. Such is the case with Heather Graham’s directorial debut Chosen Family. She stars with Julia Stiles and John Brotherton (who I have actually interviewed here) and they actually have decent chemistry. The problem is the script doesn’t give them much to do. It focuses mostly on his extremely bratty daughter and their attempts to placate or get around her outbursts. We also have an array of supporting characters played by Thomas Lennon, Michael Gross and more.

The movie feels like it wants to be a Hallmark movie but then is too sexy and edgy for the sweet genre. It doesn’t know what it wants to be so it ends up being dull and uninteresting. It’s too bad because I do think these 2 leads have a good rom-com in them and I’d encourage Graham to try again.

Frown Worthy

Elton John: Never Too Late-

While there are definitely facets to like about this music documentary on Elton John it’s also frustrating with the amount the film skips over in favor of just telling John’s story from a pride perspective. While his journey in his sexuality and addiction is important it’s kind of crazy to get a documentary on the man on Disney Plus that doesn’t mention The Lion King even once. Does that seem crazy to anyone else?

I feel like I learned more about John from watching the narrative Rocketman film than this documentary and that shouldn’t be the case. Still if you want to hear him sing and see his very cute family than this is fine. I was just hoping for more.

Frown Worthy

Music by John Williams

The better music-themed documentary on Disney Plus is Music by John Williams. It profiles the incredible career of John Williams starting out in his teen years with his parents making him take piano lessons and how he went from jazz musician to composing scores. I had no idea he was nearly 40 before doing Jaws. I guess that makes sense given he is 92 now but still it was interesting to learn about his pre-Jaws work as I was only really familiar with Fiddler on the Roof.

The documentary covers all his popular projects and franchises and includes interviews from Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Chris Columbus and more. It is much more comprehensive than the Elton John doc and I loved hearing about his inspiration for Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones and more. This is definitely a must watch for any movie fan.

Smile Worthy

 Babygirl-

Babygirl is a movie with a lot of erotic scenes that aren’t actually very sexy. There is no emotional connection between our couple so it feels clinical and not romantic hurting my investment in the story. I get it wasn’t trying to be a traditional romance but there needs to be some reason for me to be invested in this couple other than watching 2 attractive people have kinky strange relations.

It is very well filmed and the actors do what they can but it felt repetitive and boring when it is supposed to be sexy and intriguing. Antonio Banderas does what he can in an underwritten role (who ever thought he would be the fuddy-duddy husband in a movie like this!) but I was ready for it to be over pretty quickly. I certainly will never think of a glass of milk the same way again.

Frown Worthy

So there you have it. What have you been watching? I would love to hear.

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