The annual rush of year-end lists (including the Hassle’s own!) can become disorienting to the casual moviegoer. Where did these movies come from, one might ask, and how can one catch up with all of them? Thankfully, the Brattle Theatre’s annual list is interactive: from now until the end of the month, the Brattle will be screening more than two dozen of the most strange and wonderful films released in the past twelve months, often presented in thoughtfully curated double features. To guide you through the theater’s program, the Hassle has once again crafted a roundup with commentary from our dogged staff of writers, along with links to our full reviews and interviews where available.
Wed 1/15: HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (dir. Mike Cheslik)
“This is a movie called Hundreds of Beavers, a mostly silent slapstick throwback in which the majority of the cast wear oversized cartoon animal mascot costumes, and in which the hero spends much of the running time getting hit in the nuts. To quote Barton Fink, ‘What, do you need a road map?’” (Oscar Goff)
Thu 1/16: GODZILLA MINUS ONE (dir. Takashi Yamazaki)
Technically a 2023 release (but in and out of theaters so quickly you might have missed it), this Oscar-winning prequel restores the King of the Kaiju to its original, fearsome glory. By the end, you too will stand and salute Godzilla. (OG)
Fri 1/17-Sat 1/18: GOOD ONE (dir. India Donaldson)
“Good One doesn’t offer a concrete resolution, but neither does life; like life, it’s at once gentle and heartbreaking, funny in ways both affectionate and brutal. It offers its young protagonist a hard lesson, but it’s also clear that life will go on.” (OG)
Double feature w/ His Three Daughters
Fri 1/17-Sat 1/18: HIS THREE DAUGHTERS (dir. Azazel Jacobs)
“The central pleasure of His Three Daughters is watching these three eminently watchable actresses share a stage. The effect is a little like watching a supergroup of established guitar heroes, each with their own signature style… The real magic is when they jam together, locking into each other’s rhythms in often surprising ways.” (OG)
Double feature w/ Good One
Sat 1/18: EMILIA PÉREZ (dir. Jacques Audiard)
“Diamond roles in the rough are not so rare, and I could only hope that in taking in the good, the crazy, and the crazy good, Emilia Pérez is one to enjoy in full stride. It’s a breakout film of stupendous acts and a beacon of extravagance among slow-paced drones of forgettable films.” (Anna Hoang)
Sat 1/18-Sun 1/19: THE PEOPLE’S JOKER (dir. Vera Drew)
Even if The People’s Joker were nothing more than the parody Warner Bros. ordered withdrawn from Sundance, its place in cult cinema would likely be cemented. Thankfully, it’s something more: a hilarious and searingly personal trans coming-of-self narrative brilliantly illustrated through a dizzying arsenal of Batman iconography. It is also a remarkable achievement of DIY cinema, brought to life by dozens of anarchic independent animators (as well as a few titans of alt-comedy, including Tim Heidecker, Maria Bamford, and Bob Odenkirk). Where does she get all those wonderful toys? (OG)
Screening on 35mm!
Sun 1/19: RUMOURS (dir. Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, & Galen Johnson)
“Rumours isn’t a film about politics, not really. It’s a film about shuffling bog-mummies furiously masturbating in the moonlight; about endless, Buñuelian discussions about whether or not characters should leave a gazebo; about the practicalities of building the world’s largest sundial. It is, in short, a very odd movie (if, again, relatively restrained by the filmmakers’ standards).” (OG)
Double feature w/ Megalopolis
Sun 1/19: MEGALOPOLIS (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
“Narratively and thematically, Megalopolis is a mess, yet there is genuine beauty here, not just hidden within the mess (though there are plenty of striking images), but in the mess itself. Few filmmakers in history have ever worked on such an enormous canvas without the interference of studio moneymen… For better and for worse, this is 100% Coppola’s undiluted vision.” (OG)
Double feature w/ Rumours
Mon 1/20: FANCY DANCE (dir. Erica Tremblay)
With another incredible performance by Academy Award nominee Lily Gladstone at the center, Erica Tremblay’s feature debut is a remarkable work that was sadly underseen last year. A Native film by Native artists is shockingly rare, but Fancy Dance does not buckle under the pressure of representation. A gripping story rooted in the all too real hassle of federal-tribal jurisdiction and what Native kids risk losing in the process, Fancy Dance is well worth seeing on the big screen. (Kyle Amato)
Double feature w/ Sugarcane
Mon 1/20: SUGARCANE (dir. Emily Kassie, Julian Brave NoiseCat)
Sugarcane demonstrates the relentless, generation-jumping trauma many Indigenous peoples face through breathtaking sights, sounds, and sobering details about the Canadian Indian residential system. Filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat and his father Ed uncover the history of that system in their community, the Sugarcane Reservation, which continues to wreak havoc on their and the community’s livelihoods. Using breathtaking wide shots, cathartic interviews with boarding school survivors, and a refreshingly natural navigation through Indigenous living, NoiseCat ensures there’s a good balance of humor and (historic) horror for these truths to sink in—showing the need for the truth’s rediscovery. (Charlie von Peterffy)
Double feature w/ Fancy Dance
Tue 1/21: LA CHIMERA (dir. Alice Rohrwacher)
“There’s an argument to make that this is the best film of [TIFF 2023], or at least the most delightful, most gorgeous, most rollicking, or most Italian. I don’t want to say anything else, lest I ruin this dreamlike film. Just see it.” (KA)
Double feature w/ The Beast
Tue 1/21: THE BEAST (dir. Bertrand Bonello)
“The Beast operates on a level of surreality that borders on anti-cinema, or a new form of post-cinema emerging to match our bizarre world. I am usually allergic to any film taking on ‘our modern world,’ as many writers and directors struggle to find ways to make cell phones cinematic, but The Beast leans into just how crazy it feels to be alive.” (KA)
Double feature w/ La Chimera
Wed 1/22: OMEN (dir. Baloji Tshiani)
“Omen is one of those movies whose low budget only enhances its scope and atmosphere. The film at times seems to take place in a sort of dream state which can only partly be explained away by cultural differences– take, for example, the burly cemetery worker who spontaneously bursts into a soprano aria– yet the ramshackle surroundings place the proceedings firmly on terra firma.” (OG)
Double feature w/ Dahomey
Wed 1/22: DAHOMEY (dir. Mati Diop)
While documentaries often exist to take you into the minds of their subjects, how often are those subjects inanimate statues being repatriated to their African country of origin? Dahomey, bifurcated between the shipping process of the Kingdom of Dahomey’s stolen treasures from Paris back to Benin and the academic discussion of reparations among students, uses its short runtime to the fullest. A meditative experience with Diop’s signature camerawork. (KA)
Double feature w/ Omen
Thu 1/23: MONKEY MAN (dir. Dev Patel)
“Not only does it deliver on the genre’s promise of bone-crunching satisfaction (my preview audience was cheering and wincing in equal measure, often at the same time), but it’s personal and idiosyncratic in a way that few wide-release action films are; it’s rare, to say the least, to see an American-produced blockbuster with such a clear and earnest reverence for Hindu folklore, and just as unusual (at least in the last couple of decades) to see a popcorn film in which all cops are well and truly bastards.” (OG)
Double feature w/ Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
Thu 1/23: TWILIGHT OF THE WARRIORS: WALLED IN (dir. Soi Cheang)
The stylized digital action pulses through the dangerously tight and constricting city and makes for one of the more exciting watches of 2024. (Joshua Polanski)
Double feature w/ Monkey Man
Fri 1/24-Sat 1/25: CHALLENGERS (dir. Luca Guadagnino)
“Luca Guadagnino, he of a million projects in development, tries a ton of remarkable shots, nearly all of which land without being too jarring. Set to a divine score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Challengers lives up to the hype and delivers a home run (not a tennis term, but there’s plenty of time for that).” (KA)
Double feature w/ Anora
Fri 1/24-Sat 1/25: ANORA (dir. Sean Baker)
“Anora is that rarest of films, at once funny, sexy, exciting, and profoundly human. From its giddy first act to its bittersweet final shot, this is the sort of film which ruled in the golden age of the ‘70s, and fingers crossed might come back into vogue.” (OG)
Double feature w/ Challengers
Read the Hassle’s interview with actor Karren Karagulian here!
Sat 1/25-Sun 1/26: FLOW (dir. Gints Zilbalodis)
In a world where most children’s animated films are obnoxious, corporate-driven affairs, Flow is a breath of fresh air: a gorgeous, dialog-free feature in which a cat and its animal friends attempt to navigate a flood in an ambiguously post-apocalyptic world. After it’s over, you’ll want to rush home and give your kitty some extra pets. (OG)
Read the Hassle’s interview with director Gints Zilbalodis here!
Sun 1/26: THE SUBSTANCE (dir. Coralie Fargeat)
“The Substance is, first and foremost, a satire, and it aims to make you bark with laughter as much as recoil with revulsion. By the end, the effects on display– many of them rendered practically, in loving homage to Rob Bottin and Screaming Mad George– are so gleefully outrageous that I found my delight far outweighed my disgust. It’s the sort of film one can imagine Peter Jackson making today if he’d continued down the road of his first three movies rather than messing around with all those damn hobbits.” (OG)
Double feature w/ A Different Man
Sun 1/26: A DIFFERENT MAN (dir. Aaron Schimberg)
“Whether you choose to appreciate, laugh, or roll your eyes at the joke, there’s no doubt that Schimberg keeps ’em coming with psychological punchlines once the first one is uncovered, showing us how dark a comedy can get when the dial is turned to the pitch-black abyss.” (AH)
Double feature w/ The Substance
Mon 1/27: PROBLEMISTA (dir. Julio Torres)
“I have no doubt that Julio Torres’ star is on the rise, and I suspect his films will grow more assured and ambitious as he gains experience. Yet there is something thrilling in witnessing the early, unfiltered vision, a cavalcade of ideas Torres has clearly been stockpiling for exactly this moment.” (OG)
Tue 1/28: EVIL DOES NOT EXIST (dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
“The Hamaguchi approach is still pervasive. While ambiguous motives are concealed behind the sparsely translated images and off-screen gunshots, the borderline surrealism finds itself present within the negative space and unspoken desire.” (AH)
Wed 1/29: I SAW THE TV GLOW (dir. Jane Schoenbrun)
“[Schoenbrun’s] latest film, I Saw the TV Glow, takes the eerie, online-age alienation of their 2021 breakthrough We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and expands it into dazzling widescreen psychedelia. TV Glow is a film about the intense bonds we form with media to sublimate the pain and confusion of our real lives, and the way our brains and hearts can tumble the silliest bits of genre-fic ephemera into something unimaginably meaningful.” (OG)
Double feature w/ Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
Wed 1/29: HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON (dir. Ariane Louis-Seize)
“This is, quite simply, an adorable film, wildly charming and imminently crowd-pleasing (not for nothing was it the handy winner of this year’s BUFF Audience Prize). It’s the sort of film I can imagine growing beloved for years to come, handily securing a slot alongside Trick ‘r Treat and Shaun of the Dead (and, yes, Beetlejuice) as an essential Halloween comfort rewatch.” (OG)
Double feature w/ I Saw the TV Glow
Thu 1/30: LONGLEGS (dir. Osgood Perkins)
“Longlegs falls somewhere between a carnival haunted house and a half-remembered dream, the kind which continues to haunt you even as you fail to articulate it in the light of day.” (OG)
Screening on 35mm!
The Brattle Theatre’s (Some of) The Best of 2024 runs from Wednesday, 1/15 through Thursday, 1/30 @ Brattle Theatre. For showtimes and ticket info, click here.
