December movie reviews

In theaters:

VIOLENT NIGHT

Santa beating up a collection of criminals in violent fashion. This would seem to be a good setup for an alternative Christmas movie, but the movie never grows beyond its one joke. I did really enjoy the sequence that homages Home Alone in much more realistically brutal fashion, and David Harbour is well cast as Santa, but no I don't see this becoming a standard. 

THE FABELMANS

Steven Spielberg's very autobiographical film about his childhood and becoming obsessed with making movies. It's not quite the home run I might have expected, and it's definitely too long (could have cut down on some of the high school drama), but it is a fairly worthy Oscar favorite. The performances are quite good. I was especially surprised by how good Paul Dano was. There is lots of good material showing the young Spielberg stand-in's burgeoning love of filmmaking. 

EMPIRE OF LIGHT

Sam Mendes's first film since the brilliant 1917 is vastly different. This is a heartfelt little drama mostly set at a British movie theater in the early 80s, and mostly about the relationship between Olivia Colman and newcomer Michael Ward. It doesn't wind up amounting to a whole lot, but the performances make it a pleasant watch. Colman is of course fantastic and will probably be nominated. 

SPOILER ALERT

Kind of took a flyer on this one. It's obviously not in my wheelhouse, being a romantic drama about two gay men, but I found the movie to be pretty solid, if at times almost too much in the sap department. Quality writing, and very good performances. I was stunned at how good Jim Parsons was. He's so familiar as Sheldon Cooper but this is a very dramatic, very emotional part and he kind of kills it. 

THE WHALE

Brendan Fraser's performance is every bit as great as advertised. He plays a 600 pound shut-in, and even though you know it's him under a ton of prosthetics Fraser completely disappears into the character. The film, Darren Aronofsky's best since Black Swan, takes place almost entirely inside Fraser's small apartment, but it is a thoroughly compelling watch, and quite an emotional wringer at times. A few other actors pop in, most notably Sadie Sink and Hong Chau, but this is primarily a Fraser film. I've honestly never been much of a fan of his, but man is he brilliant here. If I picked the best actor Oscar he would win it for sure. 

BABYLON

Damien Chazelle's massive 3 hour epic isn't just another movie about movies, it tries to be the last movie about movies. It throws in basically every storyline about moviemaking and movie stars that you have ever seen before, and turned up to a rather relentless high pitch of craziness. It wore me out eventually, even though there's a lot of good stuff in it, from great production and music to an unhinged performance by Margot Robbie as a rising starlet. 

I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY

This Whitney Houston biopic follows way too closely to the music biopic formula to distinguish itself at all. And too often it has moments that ring false. But it has two things in its corner thar make it a solid watch. It has the radiant Naomi Ackie as Whitney, and a lot of focus on the actual musical performances. I was never a giant Whitney fan but she had a lot of good songs. 

Everything else:

THE WONDER

I would watch Florence Pugh twiddle her thumbs for 2 hours. This film is a period drama where she is a nurse trying to figure out why a young girl won't eat. Pugh is stellar of course, but all the movie really has is the mystery of why the girl doesn't eat, and it's not that interesting. 

ALONE TOGETHER

Katie Holmes wrote and directed this pleasant little dramedy about a pair of strangers cooped up at an AirBnB during the early days of COVID. It gets pretty sappy, but Katie hasn't been this upbeat and relaxed in anything in years. She still has that dynamite smile. 

TURNING RED

A solid entry into the Pixar canon. A young girl starts turning into a fluffy red panda when she gets emotional. It's a cute movie with a lot of energy. It doesn't quite have that emotional pull of the best Pixar films (the mom character is an irritating cartoon) but was enjoyable.

THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING 

George Miller's wildly different follow-up to Fury Road was a huge money loser in theaters, which is no surprise when you watch it. Tilda Swinton is a writer who unleashes a genie (or a djinn) played by Idris Elba. Then the bulk of the film is just Elba telling the story of his life. I was actually pretty drawn in by a lot of this. Both actors are terrific, and there are lots of neat visuals involved. The third act pivots more into a romance that is not quite as effective. 

OLIVIA RODRIGO: DRIVING HOME 2 U

This is a documentary basically just explaining the origins of her songs, with her also doing performances of each. I like her songs, and I find her extremely likable, so I liked the movie. 

LOU

So this is basically like a Liam Neeson movie with a gender swap. Allison Janney is this rugged woman living out in the wilderness who helps Jurnee Smollett rescue her kidnapped daughter. I dug it. The two leads are great. There's a great dog in it. 

THE GRAY MAN 

Netflix's $200 million action flick got trashed when it was released in the summer. It's not bad though. Sure it's an obscene waste of money, but it does have some pretty good over the top action, and some solid performances. Chris Evans sports the silliest mustache in movie history. Ana de Armas looks incredible. 

NOT OKAY

This is almost like the good version of Dear Evan Hansen. Zoey Deutch is a clout chaser who pretends to be on vacation in Paris, which is then hit by a terrorist attack, and she lies and says she was there. The lie of course grows way beyond what she planned, and of course she is eventually busted. But this film really surprised me by starting out as a very broad comedy but pivoting to take certain elements of the story seriously. Even playing a character who does some awful things, it is hard not to like Deutch, who is just great in everything. I could see how some of the film could be problematic, but it smartly never tries to gain sympathy for Zoey's character, even up to the ending.