New galaxies. New friends. Yoshi joins the adventure. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is only in theaters April 1.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is an animated film based on the world of Super Mario Bros., and follows The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was released in 2023 and earned more than $1.3 billion worldwide. Both the 2023 film and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie are produced by Chris Meledandri of Illumination and Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo.
The film is co-financed by Universal Pictures and Nintendo and will be released worldwide by Universal Pictures.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is directed by returning filmmakers Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, from a screenplay by returning screenwriter Matthew Fogel, with Brian Tyler returning to compose the score.
It stars Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Benny Safdie, Kevin Michael Richardson, and Brie Larson.
2024 was terrible year for comic book adaptations and blockbusters, but was a solid year for films in general. I feel like “elevated” horror became my genre of choice from this year with my favorite picks touching on that subject matter in some way. Also, I became a member at my local indie theater (Shout out The Belcourt!), and it’s a fun experience to pay late 2000s prices to see the latest A24 or Neon film and then also have the opportunity to see Eyes Wide Shut in 35 mm or Hannah Montana: The Movie or Ghost World at midnight. (There was no overlap between those two audiences.) Seriously, if you have the means, supporting your local indie cinema is one of the best things you can do and also provides you a little escapism in our late capitalist hellscape.
But enough rambling, here are my favorite ten films of 2024!
10. Lisa Frankenstein (Zelda Williams)
Starring Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse and with a sparkling screenplay from Jennifer’s Body‘s Diablo Cody, Lisa Frankensteinis about a 1989 teenage girl, who falls in love with a reanimated corpse while the dealing with the trauma of her mother being axe murdered. Although the PG-13 rating stymies some of the horror elements, this film is a sweet, devilishly funny, and maniacally homicidal love story. Newton brings a buoyant, weird girl energy to the lead role of Lisa Swallows, and costume designer Meagan McLaughlin deserves an Oscar nomination for the Gothic-inspired fits she puts the lead characters in. However, my favorite part of Lisa Frankenstein is its expertly curated soundtrack of late 1980s college rock that overlays key scenes like “Strange” by Galaxie 500 washing over an animated sequence of Lisa and The Creature falling love, or “Head On” by The Jesus and Mary Chain when she walks in like the coolest girl in school. (Because she is.)
9. My Old Ass (Megan Park)
My Old Assis a throwback to classic high concept comedies like Heaven Can Wait, Peggy Sue Got Married, and a heavy dose of Freaky Friday with a contemporary sensibility like its main character being bisexual and her little brother having a shrine to Saoirse Ronan. In the film, Canadian high school senior Elliott (Maisy Stella) has a bad mushroom tea trip and meets her older self, played by an always deadpan hilarious Aubrey Plaza. Elliott gets advice from her older self about bonding with her family while she gets the chance and also to avoid a teenager who works for her family named Chad (Percy Hynes White) Despite the light science fiction and psychedelic elements, My Old Ass is a wise, beautiful film about cherishing family, friendship, and romantic relationships while you have them and to be more realistic about goals for the future. (Older Elliott reveals that she’s a 39 year old graduate student in one of the film’s funniest scenes.) The rural Canadian countryside setting is also an invitation to soak in and savor the film like Elliott does with her last moments of freedom before being thrust into the world of adulthood.
8. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
Furiosa is the darker, more character driven little sister and prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road and fills in the backstory of Furiosa as she goes from a kidnapping victim to a commander of a war rig. Just like its predecessor, Furiosa has many balls-to-the-walls chase and action sequences, but the film succeeds because of the twin performances from Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa. Through just a look, they can convey fear, rage, or just resignation as the manically evil and aptly named Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) tries to find the mythical Green Place. An Ozsploitation villain is a perfect fit for Hemsworth’s comedic and physical skills, and he injects a little B-movie fun into Furiosa when it’s at the risk of getting too dour. However, the film works as both set-piece spectacle and a character study of one of the best action film heroines of the 21st century.
7. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass)
Love Lies Bleedingis a roid rage-infused lesbian romance thriller about a gym manager named Lou (Kristen Stewart) and a bodybuilder named Jackie (Katy O’Brian), who fall in love, murder abusive men, take a lot of performance enhancing drugs, and eventually go on the run. Rose Glass both explores and queers the Pumping Iron gym culture of the 1980s and brutally satirizes the “family values” of Reagan/Bush Sr-era United States in the dysfunctionality of Lou’s family, especially her father Lou Sr. (A menacing Ed Harris) and toxic brother-in-law JJ (A smarmy Dave Franco) Of course, Lou wants to find escape and freedom, but she ends up repeating old patterns, and Love Lies Bleeding ends up being tragic rather than life affirming. But it’s one hell of a ride, especially in its surreal third act, and Stewart and O’Brian have insane chemistry.
6. Queer (Luca Guadagnino)
An adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novel, Queeris about the relationship between a thinly-veiled analogue for Burroughs named William Lee (Daniel Craig) and a beautiful, young US army veteran named Eugene (Drew Starkey) Through the literally down-for-anything conduit of Craig, Luca Guadagnino takes from the gay bars of Mexico City to the jungles of Ecuador in a search for something to scratch that itch and expand the consciousness. Like many of the films on this list, Queer has trippy visuals to go along with a mind-altering score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross as well as timely Nirvana needle drops. (Kurt Cobain and William S. Burroughs were actually friends.) Some of my favorite moments in the film are the ghostly representations of the desires of what Lee wishes he was doing with Eugene, but can’t because of illness or shame. He’ll probably lose to Timothee Chalamet or Ralph Fiennes, but Daniel Craig gives a Best Actor-worthy performance as Lee and digs deep into the grimy pits of love, lust, and telepathy.
5. Didi (Sean Wang)
Didiis both a universal and very specific coming of age story about about an eighth grader in 2008 named Chris “Didi” Wang (Izaac Wang), who makes videos with his friends and tries to find love and acceptance in the summer before going to high school. Sean Wang understands the vibe of the late-2000s Internet and social media as Didi uses Facebook to gather intel on the girl he has a crush on or hastily deletes his prank videos when he tries to become the filmer for a group of cool, popular skater kids. Throughout the film, he tries to put on a variety of identities, but still gets flak for being Taiwanese and not having the knowledge, skills, or lingo to fit in with various in-groups he tries to join. Didi is a film for anyone who struggled to fit inset to a music landscape of 2000s indie pop and pop punk (His older sister is a big Paramore fan!), and I love how Didi’s family members have their own arcs and struggles and aren’t just obstacles or comic relief. Shirley gives a beautiful performance as his mother Vivian, who must deal with an absent husband, two pain-in-the-ass kids, and a disapproving mother-in-law.
4. Wicked (Jon M. Chu)
Featuring two iconic performances from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda respectively, Wickedis a soaring musical fantasy blockbuster that doesn’t lose any of its source material’s subversiveness. Splitting the story into two parts was a shrewd move from Chu as it lets the musical numbers breathe, and he even finds some room for a new one with Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth passing the torch to the next generation in a spot-on, pro-Wizard propaganda number. Grande has Broadway pipes, but is in full pop diva mode as she exudes confidence and conventionality in contrast with Erivo’s rebel with a cause. However, it’s Peter Dinklage’s voice performance as Dr. Dillamond that sticks with me in the months after seeing the film as he makes a bold and clear stand for marginalized folks and academic freedom that has become more increasingly relevant with the re-election of Trump and putting Linda McMahon in charge of the Department of Education. To steal a line from Billy Bragg, Wicked mixes pop and politics very nicely indeed.
3. Nosferatu (Robert Eggers)
Opening with Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) convulsing orgasmically to the dulcet Dacian tones of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard), Nosferatuestablishes itself as a slow-burn, Gothic freak fest that’s not afraid to explore the darker side of humanity and stare into the abyss of pure evil. Writer/director Robert Eggers’ winning streak continues, and he crafts a world where people take the undead and the supernatural completely seriously far removed from 21st century cynicism and postmodernism. Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke embraces the film’s German Expressionist-meets-Victorian penny dreadful roots in his use of chiaroscuro lighting, shadow, wide vistas, and sharp corridor. Nosferatu is a masterclass in classic horror storytelling with Willem Dafoe’s defrocked academic Professor Von Franz bringing a quirky occultist balance to the powerful physical performances from Depp and Skarsgard.
2. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)
I Saw the TV Glowis an allegory for gender dysphoria couched in the visual language of cheesy fantasy horror TV shows, sad girl indie pop, and liminal spaces. (Also, jump scares from Fred Durst and Phoebe Bridgers.) It’s buoyed by soul-destroying lead performance from Justice Smith as Owen with Brigette Lundy-Paine’s acting as the Virgil to his Dante and introducing him to the show The Pink Opaque that is the only spark of light in his white noise suburban childhood. Both frightening and immersive, I Saw the TV Glow is the one 2024 film that has been a splinter in my mind as I compare my own experiences with pop culture and gender with Owen’s. (X-Men Evolution was my Pink Opaque.) It interrogated and transformed my relationship to reality and identity in a similar manner to The Matrix or The Invisibles, but with a lot less gunplay and more serialized storytelling a la the comics and television shows I’ve spent analyzing for over 1/3 of my existence. Maybe, the egg will crack one day.
1. Anora (Sean Baker)
While I Saw the TV Glow touched me the most personally, Sean Baker’s Anorawas the most engaging and well-made film I saw in 2024. The movie is about a sex worker named Ani (Mikey Madison) who has a whirlwind romance and marriage with Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a powerful Russian oligarch. From the opening strip club sequence, Madison is a riveting force of nature, who dances, fucks, quips, and fights her way out of extremely stressful situations. Along the way, she bonds with Igor (Yura Borisov), who steals the whole damn movie with his empathy, active listening, and stoic sense of humor. Anora is a romance, thriller, and full of social commentary about social class in the United States. Ani Mikheeva is a true working class hero and deserves all the fairytale endings.
As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland, they come across the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.
Anya Taylor-Joy stars in the title role in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and along with Chris Hemsworth, the film also stars Alyla Browne, and Tom Burke.
George Miller penned the script with Mad Max: Fury Road co-writer Nico Lathouris. Miller’s behind-the-scenes creative team includes first assistant director PJ Voeten and second unit director and stunt coordinator Guy Norris, director of photography Simon Duggan (“Hacksaw Ridge,” “The Great Gatsby”), composer Tom Holkenborg, sound designer Robert Mackenzie, editor Eliot Knapman, visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson and colorist Eric Whipp. The team also includes other longtime collaborators: production designer Colin Gibson, editor Margaret Sixel, sound mixer Ben Osmo, costume designer Jenny Beavan and makeup designer Lesley Vanderwalt, each of whom won an Oscar for their work on “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
Warner Bros. Pictures Presents, in Association with Village Roadshow Pictures, A Kennedy Miller Mitchell Production, A George Miller Film, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. The film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, in theaters only nationwide on May 24, 2024 and internationally beginning on May 22, 2024.
Shattering box-office records and generating over a billion dollars worldwide, Nintendo and Illumination’s animated spectacular The Super Mario Bros. Movie blasts into homes tomorrow, May 16, 2023, exclusively on digital platforms nationwide where you can buy or rent movies – from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.
Showcasing an all-star lineup to voice the iconic pop culture characters, The Super Mario Bros. Movie stars Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogan, Jack Black and Fred Armisen.
The movie tells the story of two Brooklyn plumbers who are brothers and best friends: Mario, the brave one with the “let’s-a go” attitude, and the perpetually anxious Luigi, who would prefer to go nowhere. We open with the Super Mario Brothers reckoning with their struggling plumbing business, and wind up in a whirlwind adventure through Mushroom Kingdom. Through their journey, we meet a cast of familiar, lovable characters, ultimately uniting together to defeat the power-hungry villain, Bowser. The Super Mario Bros. Movie takes what millions of gamers worldwide have loved for thirty-five years and levels it up to a new and breathtaking cinematic experience.
The Northman is the two-headed offspring of a black metal cover of “Immigrant Song” and a copy of Hamlet with half the pages torn out to be used as fuel for a funeral pyre for one of the many characters that die in this gory two hour Viking epic from writer/director Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse) and co-writer Sjon (Icelandic poet/musician/Bjork collaborator). With the exception of an interesting bit of subtext becoming text towards the film’s last act, The Northman is a stylish, yet straightforward revenge yarn done in the mode of an Icelandic saga with all kinds of other elements from classic genres, like epic, tragedy, odyssey, and maybe even a bit of sword and sorcery, served up in a wintry, eye-gouging, psychedelic slurry where Willem Dafoe going goblin mode and playing a scene-stealing and narrative-furthering Lear’s Fool is only the tenth or eleventh most interesting thing about the film.
The film’s plot follows the bloody path of Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard), a Scandinavian prince who sees his father Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke) murdered by his uncle Fjolnir (Claes Bang) in front of his own eyes. Afterwards, he sees Fjolnir carrying his mother Gudrun (Nicole Kidman) off and generally taking possession of the kingdom. This series of events causes Amleth to go into exile and join a warring band of Viking berserkers. While raiding a Rus settlement, he meets the enigmatic sorceress Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is part of a shipment of slaves being sent to Fjolnir in his new home of Iceland. Amleth joins them, and vengeance ensues with a side of wolves, he-witches, Valkyries, and a kind of proto-rugby game that is more Blood Bowl than World Cup.
From the opening narration featuring a wide shot of one of Iceland’s volcanoes, Eggers and his cinematographer Jarin Blaschke set The Northman in the epic mode invoking Odin, the Norns, and Valhalla and setting up the film’s big themes of revenge versus love and fate versus free-will. There are also supernatural elements, like various prophets and seers (Including one played by a strikingly costumed Bjork that sets up the last half of the film), a magic sword, Valkyries, and barrow-wights, that are predominantly played straight as the characters try to make sense of the world around them and their purpose in life. Robert Eggers and Sjon use gods and prophecies as background elements like how William Shakespeare adding spooky bits to Hamlet and his other plays, or even reaching further back in time when Homer used them as capricious game players in his poems. The inclusion of rituals like blood sacrifices, or Amleth and Aurvandill howling like wolves while belching and farting gives The Northman an alien feel in a similar manner to the use of dialect in Eggers’ first film The Witch.
Along with trippy, magick-filled bits, The Northman features visceral fight sequences that showcases Skarsgard’s physical approach to the role of Amleth as he is grounded down as the film progresses. After an extended underground ritual/mead hall sequence, Eggers and editor Louise Ford kick into thriller mode with arrows zipping right into Aurvandill’s body. His assailants are masked at first, but then, it’s revealed to be Fjolnir, and the story really starts to take off. Eggers and Ford use long takes to show the sheer violence of the world, and this can be seen most clearly in the raid on the Rus, or when Amleth basically becomes 9th century Iceland’s Punisher (or Zodiac killer) as a night fight sequence is shown from the POV of one of Fjolnir’s henchmen who couldn’t kill Amleth as a kid. The camera lingers on Alexander Skarsgard’s face and body as he exerts his way through carnage and labor for a chance at avenging his father, rescuing his mother, and reclaiming his kingdom even though he finds out his original home belongs to Harald of Norway in a darkly humorous exchange with a slave trader.
Although, much of the film is bloody spectacle, The Northman does carve out some quiet, intimate moments, and Robert Eggers and Sjon create a believable romance between Amleth and Olga that is helped a lot by the physical chemistry between Skarsgard and Taylor-Joy as well as the soft light and less dreary/hellish palette used by Blaschke. At the beginning, Olga seems like just another woman, who will be enslaved and raped, but she and Amleth basically bond over their weirdness with her pointing out that he’s a literal wolf in sheep’s clothes when he stows aboard the slave ship. He can drop his guard around her, and she plays the role of co-conspirator when he’s hatching his plan of vengeance. However, The Northman isn’t a romantic comedy, and their relationship ends up being much more strained and complicated than hanging out in an Icelandic hot spring.
The Northman is the cinematic equivalent of the Old Norse-derived words in the English language, including muck, dirt, skull, knife, and depending on the linguist, piss and shit. Alexander Skarsgard shows the physical strain of the quest for revenge and brings an animalistic energy to the fight sequences where he’s a wolf like the one he befriends in one of the film’s rare cute scenes. In both his storytelling techniques and meticulous attention to detail, Robert Eggers and collaborators like the aforementioned Jarin Blaschke and costume designer Linda Muir, create an immersive time capsule into a long forgotten time that may leave some wincing and flinching and others intrigued by a display of humanity at our most primal that is gently and later violently deconstructed towards the end of the film. Think Conan the Barbarian has an existential crisis…
Directed by Josh Boone, The New Mutants is 20th Century Fox‘s latest entry into their world of the X-Men. Based on the classic comic series, the movie comes to theaters April 13, 2018.
While there’s been numerous iterations of the team this one features Maisie Williams as Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane, Anya Taylor-Joy as Illyana Rasputin/Magik, Charlie Heaton as Sam Guthrie/Cannonball, Henry Zaga as Sunspot/Roberto da Costa, and Blu Hunt as Danielle Moonstar/Mirage. The film also features some time X-Man Dr. Cecilia Reyes who is being played by Alice Braga.
The weekend is almost here! What geeky things will you all be doing? Sound off in the comments below! While you wait for the weekend to begin, here’s some comic news and reviews from around the web in our morning roundup.
The weekend is almost here! What geeky things will you all be doing? Sound off in the comments below! While you wait for the weekend to begin, here’s some comic news and reviews from around the web in our morning roundup.