The Holdovers

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I don’t know about you, but I always find movies about teacher-student relationships fascinating and rather touching. As a child I was always scared of my teachers because they were big, looming, authoritative figures, and as a teenager I just got the impression that I was just a part of their job. I know there are people out there who hugged their teachers regularly or remained in touch with them into adulthood, but that’s never been a part of my reality.

Perhaps it’s knowing, even on some level when you’re very small, that teaching is one of the hardest and most underappreciated (and underfunded) jobs in the world that makes movies about teachers and their students the more compelling: the idea that someone could believe so much in their job and the good that it does for people that they overcome incredible challenges and change lives – Dead Poets Society, To Sir With Love, Sister Act 2. Films where the relationship works both ways are even more fascinating: what could the student teach their professor? The Holdovers, one of the Oscar-nominated films for Best Picture last year, did just this.

The film follows Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a cranky history Professor who gets saddled with the task of remaining on campus at a New England boarding school to supervise the handful of students who are unable to go home for Christmas Break. Over the course of the break, he develops an unlikely relationship with a bright but audacious troublemaker (Dominic Sessa) and the head lunch lady (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who has recently lost her son in the Vietnam War.

A modest and small film with heart, I think the major appeal of The Holdovers is the vintage, grainy filter that it uses to create the aesthetic of a small-budget British film from the ‘60s or ‘70s. Putting us in mind of films like To Sir With Love or Billy Elliot, the film tells a simple story in which the protagonists undergo an emotional transformation through witty and loaded dialogue. There is very little physical or external narrative action that drives it, rather it’s the compelling performances and gorgeously artistic yet down-to-earth script that makes the 2 hours fly by.

Image credit: Classic Cinema

Giamatti treads this incredibly fine line between cantankerous, Scrooge-esque dictator and cynic with a soft side, as he begins the film hating his privileged students and taking a fiendish delight in making them miserable (which is very funny to watch) and ends it being inspired by one of them. Sessa plays the bright, but troubled teenager very well, with something of the bravado of John Bender but more eloquent and self-assured. And Randolph, who walked away with the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, is sweet, sassy and reserved while delivering the hard truths in perfectly inflected one-liners.

The Holdovers is an unexpectedly touching film that explores the complexities of human relationships within the setting of one of the most important institutions in society. Armed with interesting characters, a great script, and brilliant performances, it’s a deceptively simple and compelling piece of work.

Director: Alexader Payne, 2023

Cast: Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Carrie Preston, Brady Hepner, Ian Dolley, Jim Kaplan, Michael Provost, & Andrew Garman

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

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We all know that art imitates life and that films often serve as a source of social commentary as well as entertainment. Films about humanity’s increasingly dangerous reliance on technology have been around since the era of Charlie Chapin in which his famous comic character, The Tramp, very humorously showed us what could happen when technology breaks down in Modern Times. And did we listen?

Isaac Asimov has been trying to caution us with this science fiction stories that usually depict robots turning on their masters or evolving an intelligence to rival humans. I Robot, Alien, Blade Runner, 2001 ASpace Odyssey – what do all these films have in common? Villainous AI. Even Disney had a stab at trying to redirect our reliance on technology with WALL-E and now, with the very real rise of AI, Aardman has taken up challenge.

As a present for Gromit, Wallace invents a robotic gnome to help him in his garden. When the neighbours see ‘Norbot’, there’s a scramble to hire him to help in their gardens and households and Wallace quickly becomes a neighbourhood celebrity. Word travels fast and soon a TV interview with Wallace gets seen by none other than Feathers McGraw, the villainous penguin who tried to steal the Blue Diamond. Languishing in prison, McGraw soon concocts an elaborate revenge plot against Wallace and Gromit, with Norbot as the key.

While Feathers McGraw may be the villain of this piece, the real evil is society’s reliance on technology. The gadgets that populate Wallace and Gromit’s house have exponentially grown in number since The Wrong Trousers, eradicating the need for Wallce to do anything – even pat his own dog. This lack of physical intimacy between the two heroes is the real drama and helps to hammer home the message that there are some things that technology just can’t do.

The film definitely rides strong on nostalgia, essentially being a longer and less emotional remake of The Wrong Trousers. This ensures bums stay in seats and a few laughs get choked out, but I found Vengeance Most Fowl to be a little bit tortured and straining. The jokes are tired, the story is predictable, and even the chemistry between the heroes feels a bit diluted.

Image credit: Animation Magazine

But the animation is still gorgeous with beautiful scenic backdrops that make this one of the bigger Wallace and Gromit adventures in existence. Seeing Claymation and stop-motion is always refreshing because it is an artform that took off but stayed relatively low to the ground. Like a waterfowl, it’s been steadily skimming the reservoir of cinema for decades, content to just glide along.

Vengeance Most Fowl is a fun visit with old friends but ultimately, I still find the old half-hour features to be more emotionally enjoyable.

Director: Merlin Crossingham & Nick Park

Cast: Ben Whitehead, Peter Kay, Lauren Patel, Muzz Khan, Diane Morgan, Reece Shearsmith & Lenny Henry

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Image credit: Film-book.com

I remember one writing an essay for uni about the various ways that filmmakers can tell captivating stories and deliver an immersive cinematic experience despite the confines of a designated timeframe. The details of the essay are lost to time, I was only reminded of it this morning after watching a very cute and quirky short film from Wes Anderson: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.

Based on the short story by Roald Dahl, the short tells a lovely story about Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch) a rich and greedy man who discovers the means to see without his eyes. Using this talent for gambling, Henry quickly discovers the hollowness of accumulated wealth and determines to use his talents to bring some good to the world.

During the pandemic Taika Waititi and a bunch of friends, including Benedict Cumberbatch, recorded a zoom meeting storytelling session in which they sat about and read James and the Giant Peach out loud, complete with character voices and sound effects from various items from the house and garden. If you’ve not seen it, you can find it on YouTube and I would recommend it because it so lovely and wholesome.

Watching The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar reminded me a little of Waititi’s little story time. It’s a short film that celebrates the oral tradition of storytelling with the added modern joy of theatre. Aware of their own narrative nature, the characters tell the story as though they are reading it from the page, with comically deadpan delivery while stagehands are rushing about behind them changing the backdrop from jungle to London apartment. One would think that this would really disrupt the flow of the film, but because it’s a Wes Anderson movie the weirdness that sits behind the visual gags and painful symmetry within the mise-en-scene becomes rather delightful.

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Sitting at a just over half an hour, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar uses this gorgeous combination of oral storytelling and theatrical reenactment to tell a full and inspiring story that could easily fill 2 hours. It’s an Oscar-winning example of the concentrated power of oral storytelling that has been merely enhanced by theatre and playacting. The obviously cardboard sets rigged to slide away when a change of scene is required are a) a great exhibition of talent and b) bring an added celebration of the power of human hands and humanity’s achievements in storytelling.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film and it’s not hard to see why. Anderson’s signature quirkiness mixed with Roald Dahl’s whimsy is a match made in Heaven and this short film that celebrates two of humanity’s strongest modes of storytelling is a delight.

Director: Wes Anderson, 2023

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Kinsley, Dev Pateel, Richard Ayoade, Jarvis Cocker, & Ralph Fiennes

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande

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While sex is something that certainly runs rampant in cinema, transcending every single genre, it’s funny how little conversation there is about it. Much like the real world, open conversations about sex are dangerously few – probably for a multitude of ridiculous reasons- and as a result there is so much ignorance regarding literally everything about it from the mechanics of the physical act to the social power dynamics that come with it.

As a medium that reaches so many people, cinema is the perfect megaphone through which to openly chat about sex and how it works (or sometimes doesn’t) and the nice thing about that is that the discussion does not have to be graphic or sexy. It can absolutely be tasteful and accessible, like the film that I curled up and watched this morning: Good Luck To You, Leo Grande.

Two years after the death of her husband, Nany Stokes (Emma Thompson) decides to try and regain some excitement of her youth before a bland marriage and children shaped the larger part of her life. She hires a sex worker named Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack) in an attempt to find some adventure -and sex- but gets more than she imagined when the two start talking and she becomes a returning client, fascinated by Leo and his take on the social stigmas of sex, age, and beauty.

This is a lovely, bare-bones film that doesn’t rely on the bells and whistles of extravagant artistic design, special effects, or even long, drawn-out narratives. It’s an hour and a half of two people having conversations about subjects that are often hard to talk about. Over the course of four meetings, we learn about Nancy and Leo as characters, as well as hear important discussions and social commentary on the state of the world and the institutionalised, toxic methods of thinking that shape society. The film explores the social stigmas around the sex work industry, as well as sex in relation to age, gender, and what is socially acceptable as ‘sexy’.

The performances of both Thompson and McCormack are both wonderful: instantly intriguing and relatable. Nancy is an anxious and unhappy woman who transforms, through her curiosity and then fascination with Leo, into a satisfied and wider-minded person and Thompson superbly conveys a wealth of emotions with nothing more than quick, eloquent dialogue and long, unblinking glances. On the other side of the bed is Leo who is charming, patient, soothing, and very down-to-earth.

Image credit: Flicks

The one problem I did have with this movie was that it didn’t overtly discuss the sex work industry, which is a major plot point. While it certainly tries to refer to many of the struggles and problems that sex workers face both in their job and in society in general, it merely glosses over them and this hand-wavey attitude ends up becoming something of a problem when the dramatic incident of the third act comes into play. Without wanting to give too much away, there is a scene that depicts a breach of trust and social contract between the two. It’s committed innocently, with the guilty party not realising the potentially dangerous repercussions of their actions and what’s most annoying is that, rather than making the severity of the drama known, the film then turns it on to the injured party and goes in for a most awful cliché of social attitude towards sex workers. While there is some redemption within the last ten minutes, the way this dramatic turn was narratively handled really gave me the ick enough to lament that the film had been so good up until that point. While it’s a more accessible and less cliched depiction of sex workers, it’s certainly not the most enlightening.

But aside from this one big stumble, which did kind of feel like a condom snapping midway through and killing the mood for a bit, Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is a sweet and engaging film that I really did enjoy.

Director: Sophie Hyde, 2022

Cast: Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack, & Isabella Laughland

Wonka

Image credit: IMDb

Sometimes it’s a real shame when one’s cynicism and basic human need to be stubbornly obtuse gets in the way of good time. But isn’t it better to be late to the party than never go at all? This morning my brain decided that 2 hours before my alarm was the perfect time to wake up so I treated myself to an early morning movie in bed and thank goodness I decided to throw my cynicism about biopics of fictional characters out the window, because I had the most delightful movie experience with Wonka, and was happy for the rest of the day.

Young Willy Wonka (Timothee Chalamet) is fresh off a boat in the big city famous for its chocolate and ready to achieve his dream of starting his own shop. After swiftly losing all his money, he finds himself in debt to a couple of scammers and forced to work in their washhouse in order to pay it off. His dreams of a shop start to become even more unreachable as he soon discovers that the city’s industry is run by a cartel of greedy and ruthless chocolatiers. But with his friends from the washhouse and a hatful of dreams, Willy might just be able to stop their tyranny and share his chocolate with the world.

This movie is a delight! It’s a brightly wrapped return to the whimsy of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory while at the same time playing with some pretty serious themes. It perfectly balances that mixture of wonder and macabre in Roald Dahl’s classic story without teetering dangerously on the edge of overkill.

Timothee Chalamet is wonderful: a starry-eyed child in a man’s body. His interpretation of Wonka is a little closer to Gene Wilder’s immortal rendition, being very down-to-earth and charming. And then you’ll see a spark flash through his eyes, something electric flicker across his face and the quirkiness and showmanship of the character bursts out. While arguably a large portion of the film’s whimsy and delightfulness comes from the absolutely stunning art design, set design, costumes, and special effects, an equally large part of it comes from Chalamet’s performance as he so endearingly acts out a story of a wide-eyed dreamer who refuses to be broken by the awful situations he finds himself in.

Image credit: USA Today

As can be expected with any tale that features a literal candyland, there’s a lot of love and hard work going into the art design, set design, costumes, makeup, and special effects. Between Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa, gorgeously choreographed musical numbers, and the eventual world of pure imagination, the film is a sumptuous feast for the eyes. Even the subtle explorations into addiction and the evils of the social hierarchy look good enough to eat.

With a gloriously catchy soundtrack, plenty of comedy, and a dash of drama, Wonka is just an absolute delight! It doesn’t ride on nostalgia, though of course a rendition of ‘Pure Imagination’ is featured, but brings a fresh and endearing take on a classic literary character and delivers a story with a timeless and important message. I absolutely adored it!

Director: Paul King, 2023

Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Olivia Coleman, Tom Davis, Calah Lane, Paterson Jospeh, Mathew Baynton, Matt Lucas, Keegan-Michael Key, Jim Carter, Natasha Rothwell, Rich Fulcher, Rakhee Thakrar, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, & Rowan Atkinson

Nosferatu

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In my review for Last Voyage of the Demeter, I stated that I do agree with the argument that major studios are overdoing it with reboots and remakes. I am still of this opinion – there are so many good stories out there that could be turned into a compelling films that might actually do well. The Invisible Life of Adie Larue could be the new romantic drama to replace The Notebook, The Scholomance series could easily become something like a new Twilight or Divergent series. But the more good remakes that I watch, the more I am inclined to ease off. At the end of the day, people are choosing to retell these stories because they are timeless and have a special relationship with people.

It's funny that the last time I talked about this was a vampire movie, a retelling of Dracula nonetheless, and that I’m talking about it again now with my review of Nosferatu.

Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) has been haunted by nightmares since childhood. When her nightmares come back shortly before her husband leaves on a job that would secure him a promotion, it proves to be a dark omen indeed. Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) travels to meet with the esoteric Count Orlock to finalise the sale of a property in England. Thomas’ stay with the count lengthens as he mysteriously falls ill and begins to awake each day with strange bite marks on his body. Fearful for his life, Thomas manages to escape back to England and his wife, but it soon becomes apparent that their dealings with the sinister Count Orlock are far from over.

Based on the novel by Bram Stoker and a remake of the 1920’s classic Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens starring Max Schrek, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a gorgeous American-Gothic horror film that breathes a new life into the classic tale.

Filmed with a cold colour palette, almost dark enough to be black and white, and favouring tantalising, lingering panoramic shots that stretch the nerves to their utmost extent in anticipation of a jump scare, the film is a return to supernatural horrors of the ‘20s and ‘30s where performances, camera techniques, and hand-crafted achievements in costume, set, and makeup design enthrall audiences. Whilst definitely adhering to the gothic-romance aesthetic, the film superbly mixes both modern and traditional folk horror with culture clash and the differences in social evolutions of towns and countries prove to be the real villain. Afterall, what’s more terrifying than bringing an old horror from another country home with you?

Image credit: Rotten Tomatoes

The captivating performances of Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Will Dafoe and Bill Skarsgard ensure bums remain firmly planted in seats from reel one, with the story being just different enough from Dracula to keep you invested in the heroes’ goal to eradicate the monster. There is a romantic element to the tale and a unique relationship written in between Ellen and Orlock: a story of infatuation, loneliness, and the power of promise. Depp is graceful and gorgeous, almost ethereal when she’s not seizing or having blood gush from her eyes. And Skarsgard produces some good ol’ fashioned chills down the spine with his deep and painfully eloquent vocal work. But of course, the real stars are Sally Alcott and the incredible makeup department who so perfectly designed a modern monster from a different age. The makeup design for Orlock is incredible: scary enough to cause recoil, yet not completely masking the humanity underneath.

Nosferatu is a beautiful modern horror movie that feels like a classic and what’s most endearing about it is that the love for the story, the genre, and the medium can be seen and felt in every shot.

Director: Robert Eggers, 2025

Cast: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, Bill Skarsgard, & Willem Dafoe

Captain America: Brave New World

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So after the epic bout of finality that was Infinity War plus a few movies to test the waters of new characters and see how best to further the tales of those characters who’s stories hadn’t quite finished, the Avengers cycle feels like it’s starting anew with Captain America: Brave New World – a mirror film that I think audiences were a bit dubious about, but honestly stands as a solid instalment in the MCU saga.

The film follows Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) doing his best to follow Steve Rogers’ footsteps as the new Captain America. Saving the world one international threat at a time, Sam comes up against his biggest challenge when President Ross (Harrison Ford) asks him to recreate The Avengers Objective. Sam’s conflicting thoughts on the job are put on hold when an assassination attempt on Ross sends him on a hunt for a villain whose schemes of revenge against Ross are so grand that they could even spark war.

This movie has been only warmly received as far as I’m aware, which is a fair response as it really is a generic Marvel movie. All films adhere to the unspoken/unwritten codes of their genre to deliver a certain type of cinematic experience to its audiences – you go to a Marvel or superhero movie with the expectation of a mixture of action, comedy, and a little drama. Brave New World delivers all this, but does not go above and beyond, making it a safe film that people can’t be mad about because it’s what they expected to see in the cinema.

What I personally liked about this movie was that it was a return to bare bones narrative conflict and action. There is no multiverse mayhem to muddy the waters, no aliens, no space travel, no Lovecraftian horror that could open a third or fourth eye – it’s just an exceptional man trying to find the truth and save his country. Even the arrival of Red Hulk – not a spoiler, he’s literally on the posters - doesn’t come until the third act and isn’t even really made that a big a deal of. This movie was really just about Sam finding his feet as a great hero’s replacement and learning how to make the job his own.

Image credit: comicbook.com

In a very sweet dramatic scene, made better with a metafictive gag after the emotional talk, Bucky Barnes says to Sam, “Steve inspired hope in people, you inspire ambition”, which really sums up the film and Mackie’s performance. His Captain America is also an everyman, but an everyman that has gone through trauma and is determined to see the bright side. Where Steve Rogers’ overcoming adversity schtick was physical, Sam’s is emotional and manifests in an attractive, almost magnetic, emotional pull to the man once you meet him.

Harrison Ford replaces William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross and I really enjoyed his performance because, even though we’re primed to not like Ross due to his past actions in other Marvel films, in Brave New World he is a man shooting for redemption and there is something about Ford’s face that houses this amazing internal conflict between being absolutely enraged and desperately heartbroken. Ford can flit between the two emotional states with superhuman speed and because of that natural softness he has in his features, he turns Ross from a loathed character into a liked character.

There have been hints of Disney’s plan for the MCU in a lot of the films that have come out since Infinity War: a bunch of Doctor Strange escapades across the multiverse, the Fantastic four are coming, the X-Men are coming, and even an Avengers Junior team, oh and let’s not forget about the Eternals. Whether all of these ideas come through is anyone’s guess, but Captain America: Brave New World seems to have really raised a torch to light the path we’re set to follow.

Director: Julius Onah, 2024

Cast: Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbley, Giancarlo Esposito, Xosha Roquemore, Tim Blake Nelson, Takehiro Hira & Liv Tyler