My Favorite Films of 2024

2024 had a lot to live up to after the banner year for movies that was 2023 (which was led by two towering achievements, Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer). But while there were fewer stone-cold masterpieces than the year before, the depth of quality films may have been stronger in 2024. Beyond last year's outstanding Top 10, I struggled to find a slew of worthy near-misses. This year, there are at least fifteen additional feature films that were of considerable merit - along with two short films with personal significance, which receive a tongue-in-cheek Special Jury Prize.

1. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)

"No matter what others try to sell you - it is the destination, not the journey." 

Watching the epilogue of The Brutalist, I thought of all the lifetime achievement awards shows I’ve seen over the years, and what horrors must get glossed over in the pomp and circumstance of celebrating an artist's life. Over the course of three and a half hours, we witness the harrowing journey of Hungarian architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody), and there is something truly powerful about intimately experiencing the warts and all portrait of this man's life, and then jumping ahead to a gaudy, chic Italian event that eschews the ugliness that came before. 

The First Venice Biennale, 1980 (as the film's epilogue is titled) shows us a gala in which it feels as if Tóth's masterworks of architecture were just inevitably going to happen, without much reflection on the torturous, decades-long process of making them. It's this dissonance between the painstaking process of becoming and the jubilant celebration of having made it that lends so much power to the ending of Brady Corbet's monumental film. And that final line of dialogue, which seems to have mystified some critics, is the key to what it's all about.

I saw The Brutalist on a beautiful 35mm print at the Austin Film Festival last year, and I knew immediately it was a film that demanded to be seen more than once, ideally with an architect by one's side (luckily, I married one last October, and it was a treat to see the film again with her when it opened). In terms of scope and style, it's tempting to compare The Brutalist to one of Paul Thomas Anderson's twin American epics, The Master (2012) or There Will Be Blood (2007), but ultimately this thing is its own, strange beast. Corbet has enormous confidence in his vision - the movie is characterized by long, unhurried scenes and an unrelenting conviction that the audience will stay with this decades-spanning, often grueling story until the very end. And they do.

The Brutalist is also, in part, a film about who gets credit or acknowledgment for what. The climactic point of the film is Tóth's wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) defending her husband’s honor - and then we jump ahead twenty years to an event honoring him with only a passing mention of her. I find it interesting that a husband and wife team (both of them filmmakers) wrote this movie together; in fact, in the film's opening titles, the credit reads "By Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold," essentially giving authorship to both of them.

A testament to the power of artistry, both in its portrait of the fictional László Tóth and in its very miraculous existence, The Brutalist gives me hope that great American movies are still possible, against all odds.

2. A Complete Unknown (James Mangold)

Given that the best Bob Dylan biopic already exists (Todd Haynes's I’m Not There) and this genre was blown to shreds by Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), I was fairly skeptical of A Complete Unknown in the months leading up to its release. But I’ll be damned if James Mangold didn’t knock this one out of the park, sidestepping many of the musical biopic conventions he immortalized with Walk the Line (2005) nearly twenty years ago.

The first thing A Complete Unknown does right is refuse to explain away Dylan’s behavior and persona through some simplified backstory. Instead, the movie adopts the ethos of Dylan himself (brilliantly portrayed by Timothée Chalamet): “Life isn’t about finding yourself, or finding anything. Life is about creating yourself, creating things.”

While the film (correctly) doesn’t try to force a traditional character arc onto our protagonist, Dylan does undergo an evolution over the course of the movie. Mangold’s strongest choice is bookending the film with Dylan’s visits to Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) in the hospital. Yes, our boy goes electric by the film’s end, and no, he won’t apologize for it - but he hasn’t abandoned his roots. He hasn’t forgotten the person who drew him to this profession in the first place. And the fact that the mostly nonverbal Guthrie is the only person not projecting anything onto Dylan makes theirs the purest relationship in the movie.

I was also delighted to find that this is a true ensemble piece. Yes, Dylan is front and center, but including Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) as a central character is critical to the audience understanding the divide between folk and electric. I felt great empathy for both sides of this debate - I want Dylan the artist to feel free to express himself and not be boxed in by the demands of his audience, and I also understand Seeger’s desire to preserve the integrity of his folk festival, which exists to champion a musical tradition in danger of disappearing.

More than anything, A Complete Unknown respects the music. Dylan has written many of the greatest songs of all time, and this movie allows us to hear them. The vinyl of this film's soundtrack has been playing on repeat in my apartment the last few weeks, and I suspect the eventual Blu-Ray release will do the same.

3. Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik)

It's a thrill to see one of my closest friends, Mike Cheslik, deliver the most original and acclaimed independent film of the year. Mike has been pushing the limits of narrative comedy for years, and all of his prior work comes to a head in his one-of-a-kind masterpiece Hundreds of Beavers. 

Human cartoon Ryland Brickson Cole Tews plays Jean Kayak, a 19th century applejack salesman and fur trapper mired in a never-ending battle against beavers (played by human actors in animal mascot costumes). Beavers is a black-and-white, dialogue-free film (though hardly silent, with its stupendous sound design by Bobb Barito) - an absolutely unhinged fusion of slapstick comedy, Saturday morning cartoons, and video games, topped with a splash of Guy Maddin and The Simpsons (at one point, Jean Kayak has the misfortune of getting the Lionel Hutz of beaver lawyers). 

Mike has said that micro-budget filmmakers can't compete with studio movies, so his films have to look and feel like something else entirely - in other words, the work has to be noticeably indie. Hundreds of Beavers has become a sensation precisely because there's absolutely nothing else that looks, sounds, or feels like it in the cinema climate today.

4. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood)

In my view, Juror #2 is a film about the transference of guilt. The win-at-all-costs, morally compromised character at the film's beginning (Toni Collette's Faith) gains the backbone initially possessed by our protagonist (Nicholas Hoult's Justin), while the reverse is true of Justin. The film feels and looks like a top tier John Grisham courtroom drama from the 1990s (I mean that as a high compliment), but as we get closer to the end, we realize Eastwood's after something bigger than the film's subgenre would suggest.

Guillermo Del Toro described Juror #2 as Clint Eastwood's take on Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and that feels apt. The final haunting shot of this film is something that will live in my brain for a long time. If this were the closing chapter to Eastwood's unparalleled career, it would be a stunning finale. Thank God the tireless 94-year-old workhorse is already preparing his next movie.

5. Hit Man (Richard Linklater)

Richard Linklater's latest film is a huge argument in favor of seeing a movie with a big audience. At Austin Film Society Cinema, the film played like gangbusters, the audience riding high on its comedic wavelength at every turn. It's too bad, then, that most people watched Hit Man in their living rooms after the film received one of Netflix's token week-long theatrical releases in a handful of theaters.

Listening to Linklater talk about Hit Man in a post-screening Q&A, it was astonishing to me that studios didn't see the inherent commerciality of this movie, particularly with Glen Powell in the lead. It's a frustrating and dispiriting cinematic landscape where Hit Man isn't considered a surefire wide release hit.

6. The Order (Justin Kurzel)

After driving to the outskirts of Austin to see the lone cinema showing Clint Eastwood's Juror #2 (don't get me started on how Warner Bros. has treated him this past year), I took another drive outside the Austin city limits to see another compelling adult drama starring Nicholas Hoult that was been banished from most theaters due to it not being a candy-colored piece of disposable IP.

In Justin Kurzel's The Order, Jude Law gives us a lead character straight from the Jake Gyllenhaal in Prisoners (2013) school of law enforcement protagonists. We don’t need this guy's entire backstory - the character is fascinating enough as he is that we’re hooked from the get-go, nosebleeds and all.

The most disturbing thing about The Order is how relatively normal the white supremacists are. When Law and Hoult come face to face mid-movie, Law doesn’t even peg the handsome young man as a potential suspect. These aren’t the bucktooth rednecks we’ve come to expect in these types of films - they’re organized, fully functional individuals who split their time between hosting backyard family barbecues and robbing armored cars to bankroll their fanatical cult.

7. Coup de Chance (Woody Allen)

For his 50th film as writer and director, Woody Allen decided to shoot an entire movie in the French language - and it's a damn good one. Although there are echoes of Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point (2005) here, Coup de Chance is a little lighter on its feet than those films. It's been a treat to see Allen's visual style evolve over the course of his working relationship with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, which now spans five films. This is their strongest collaboration together since Wonder Wheel (2017), and, like other movies on this list, it's a shame the visual splendor wasn't widely available on the big screen.

8. The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi)

The Apprentice wasn't a movie many people wanted to see before last year's U.S. presidential election, and I'm not certain if many people want to see it now, either. But I have a feeling the film will age very well. Utterly horrifying without ever succumbing to moralization, The Apprentice is also remarkable for the shreds of humanity it manages to find in its lead characters. Both Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong are outstanding as Donald Trump and Roy Cohn. I left with an icky feeling that’s going to be hard to shake.

It was interesting to see how afraid people were of this movie. Nobody wanted to release it. One of the best things to happen this award season was Stan and Strong both receiving much-deserved Oscar nominations for their performances. Someone needed to make this movie, and in our current cinema climate - where to take a risk means alienating a shareholder - Ali Abbasi went out and made the movie everyone else was too scared to make. 

9. Conclave (Edward Berger)

A film so compelling, I watched it twice in one day! Conclave is a spirited debate on the future of the Catholic Church, with phenomenal performances by Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini, and John Lithgow.

For a movie that alternates frequently between English and Latin, why would Prime Video not offer an option for English subtitles only when characters speak Latin (IE, the subtitles that are actually burned into every Conclave DCP that played in the U.S.)? There are a multitude of frustrations to be had with streaming (the inability to watch a film's end credits without being greeted by recommended titles, the dipping in and out of resolution no matter how strong an internet connection, the burial of older films), but weird subtitle inconsistencies is one that often gets overlooked.

10. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)

Five stars for the sheer audacity of this thing alone. There is simply never going to be anything this batshit crazy allowed in IMAX cinemas again, but boy am I glad it confounded unsuspecting audiences everywhere. Look, at this point, I’m hungry for any movie that doesn’t feel like it was vetted by a corporate board, for better or worse. And the only possible person who could’ve vetted this movie is the madman genius Francis Ford Coppola, and it feels like he got to make exactly the movie he wanted to make.

As for the content of Megalopolis, I was struck by the film’s earnestness and good faith attempts to start a conversation about the future of humanity, both between its characters and its audience. I think the movie could have benefitted from a more robust exploration of the characters’ competing visions for the future - I mean, I understand what they represent individually (Adam Driver = utopian dreamer, Giancarlo Esposito = status quo, Shia LaBeouf = populist fearmonger), but the movie doesn’t explore how and why they think their visions will provide a better future for generations to come.

But, ultimately, I was so damned entertained by Megalopolis that I didn’t mind. This is an insane anomaly of a movie, and I’m here to celebrate its existence.

Special Jury Prize #1

Rusty Lightnin' Kick Starts (Jack Kyser)

All right, I made this movie, and it's seven minutes long, and it's not really a movie at all - it's a proof-of-concept for my forthcoming feature film Rusty Lightnin'. But I've screened it quite a bit this past year, and as such it's my most viewed film of 2024. That has to count for something, right?

Special Jury Prize #2

De Niro, New York (Sam Gill, Luke Neher)

In order to explain what the dreamlike, kaleidoscopic De Niro, New York installation/ six-screen immersive short film is, exactly, I have to offer a mini-diary of my day at De Niro Con at last year's Tribeca Festival (which is exactly what it sounds like - Comic-Con for fans of Robert De Niro). I won’t bury the lede here. I had the opportunity to ask De Niro a question during his Q&A with artist JR, which I was not expecting (they don’t often open these things up to audience questions). But the talk became something of a group therapy session (it was billed as a discussion of “art, family and film” - but it went really hard on the “family” part, with De Niro speaking candidly about his relationship with his father and the legacy he’ll leave behind for his children). 

After watching a beautiful excerpt from a new film De Niro and JR are making together and listening to the two men touch on a number of personal matters, a line of people formed in front of a microphone close to the stage and, one by one, began sharing stories about their fathers (and yes, I was one of them) and asking De Niro to share memories of his own. He sat there patiently, gamely participating in this Father’s Day Emote-a-con, truly empathetic to each speaker, occasionally getting choked up himself. Hell, even Spike Lee got a turn at the mic, speaking about his late father Bill Lee. It was a surreal experience. 

My question for De Niro was about whether, in digging through his father’s archives and working on this new autobiographical project, he had been able to fill in any of the gaps in his understanding of his dad. I shared that I had held close to little things of my father’s - letters, home movies, mementos - to help me put together a more complete picture of a man I will never fully know. 

De Niro replied, “You’re right. I mean, that’s why I keep saying we should do it as long as we need to do it. Things happen, you discover things, you learn about this, you learn about that. You know, it’s a process. And it’s more important… to get as much out of that as you can. I don’t mean exhaust it, but yes, I mean, it’s never ending, it seems to me. So the least you can do is do it for as long as you can without saying, ‘Well, we’ve got a deadline.’ That’s normal, that’s okay, I understand that. But in this thing, this is how I feel. So there are helpful revelations in all of that, even the stuff that JR just showed of me, it’s moving. So, it’s just that… if that makes sense?” I gave him an “absolutely, thank you very much,” and walked away the happiest person on earth. 

Okay, De Niro, New York. Outstanding work by Little Cinema (shoutout to Harvey’s Last Night on the Avenue breakout Max Pava for his work on this massive project). De Niro’s extraordinary body of work is in conversation with itself here. I watched the piece three times (for one viewing, I just picked the center of the six screens and only watched it). I really loved how Pava and his team used a lot of material from underseen recent-ish films (Everybody’s Fine, Being Flynn, The Wizard of Lies, etc.) and some of De Niro’s early Brian De Palma movies, too. Perhaps the most striking moment is of Travis Bickle staring in his rear view mirror on the center screen. You do a quick 180 degree turn, and on the opposite screen is steely-eyed Frank Sheeran sitting in a passenger seat, staring right back at Travis. Two De Niros, 43 years apart, engaging across space and time with one another.

The Rest of the Best:

11. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg)

12. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (David Hinton)

13. The Bikeriders (Jeff Nichols)

14. A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg)

15. The Secret Art of Human Flight (H.P. Mendoza)

16. Asphalt City (Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire)

17. The Last Stop in Yuma County (Francis Galluppi)

18. Anora (Sean Baker)

19. Saturday Night (Jason Reitman)

20. Daddio (Christy Hall)

21. September 5 (Tim Fehlbaum)

22. Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve) 

23. Knox Goes Away (Michael Keaton)

24. Horizon: An America Saga - Part One (Kevin Costner)

25. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)

Honorable Mention (a.k.a. My Wife's Favorite Movie of the Year):

The Fall Guy (David Leitch)

The Rape of Recy Taylor, Mike Maynard, Four Play, Summer 2017 and More

Currently receiving rave reviews at the Venice Film Festival, my former boss Nancy Buirski's new documentary The Rape of Recy Taylor is soon being released, and it's sure to make quite an impression. Per Deadline's exclusive article on the film, the story is as follows: "This is the true story of a 24-year-old wife and mother who was gang raped in Alabama by six white men in 1944. The doc highlights the black women who waged war to take back their bodies and their dignity, and by speaking up helped inspire the civil rights movement that was to come." I had the honor of working on the extremely powerful film, both as one of the assistant editors and as the voice of one of the assailants. Despite the fact that I lent my voice to an unsavory human being, I'm thrilled to have a significant amount of voiceover material in the film (along with my friend and fellow actor Tommy Bernardi, who voices another of Ms. Taylor's perpetrators). The film was recently named by Variety as one of twelve hot titles likely to spark bidding wars. The Rape of Recy Taylor makes its North American premiere next month at the New York Film Festival, where I very much look forward to seeing the finished film. It just received a rave review from The Hollywood Reporter, and Nancy received the HRNS Special Prize for Human Rights at the Venice Film Festival. Nancy also had a great screening of her film The Loving Story this February on Valentine's Day, which was a particularly meaningful event for all involved.

Going back a little bit, Nancy's last film By Sidney Lumet (on which I was an associate producer and assistant editor) made its broadcast premiere on PBS/ American Masters on January 3rd. There was so much great press surrounding its broadcast, including this amazing review from the Wall Street Journal and a New York Post interview with Treat Williams, star of Lumet's Prince of the City (1981), who participated in an interview after the broadcast with Buirski (I was part of the production team on the interview). The film is now available for purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD.

I want to tell you a little bit about Mike Maynard, who passed away on August 27th of this year. Mike was undoubtedly the most devoted supporter and champion of the Red Dragon Players at Austin High School, and, according to his obituary, attended 98 productions in total over his many years as our loyal friend. I say "our" because, although it's been eight years since I graduated from Austin High in 2009, there is a lifelong bond for many former students to this wonderful theatre department, and Mike was a major part of it all. I was in over twenty productions at Austin High, and I can guarantee you that Mike came to every single show, likely even more than once.

Billy and Annie Dragoo, our beloved theatre directors, would always tell our class the day after a performance what Mike thought of the production. I'm not sure I know the origins of his devotion to the department, but I know he and Dragoo became very close, and his opinion meant a great deal to everyone. I remember he was a particular fan of the play Someone Who'll Watch Over Me in 2008, in which I performed alongside the amazing Lucas Loredo and Ben Stelly. Mike continued to be a huge supporter for me personally after I graduated. Last year, when I was fundraising for my series Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue, Mike chipped in and helped make the film possible with a contribution. It was such a generous act, and I was profoundly moved. I last saw him when I was in Austin in May at a performance of Shrek at Austin High, and he was as ebullient and spirited as ever. I can't claim to have known him incredibly well, but his presence was always felt in the department, and he will be greatly missed. You can read his obituary here from the Austin American-Statesman.

I'd also like to mention my mother's godmother, Vera Lee Giles, who passed away earlier this year. She was a truly loving and vivacious woman, and I have such fond memories of various poker nights and Christmas celebrations at her house in Austin. I saw her earlier this year at her home, and as always, she was a force to be reckoned with.

I've travelled twice to Charlottesville this summer to visit my girlfriend Sophia's family, and it's a beautiful town. I stayed in colonial Williamsburg with my mom and dad several times when I was much younger, and also travelled near Marshall, Virginia to shoot some key scenes for Alex Fofonoff's feature Blood & Thunder, but I loved getting to experience another part of Virginia. The second time visiting Charlottesville over Labor Day weekend was considerably different than the first time, given the horrible tragedy that occurred in early August when a Neo-Nazi terrorist drove his car into a crowd of protestors, killing a young woman. I imagine the mood of the city has changed considerably after that terrifying act of violence, and I truly hope it is not a harbinger of any more violence in other cities in which these abysmal human beings choose to hold their white supremacist rallies.

Earlier this summer, I signed on to direct a new film that I did not write, which is a first for me. The writer (and producer, and lead actor) is Ben Krevalin, a talented guy who is a friend of a friend. I attended a reading of his piece, currently titled Four Play, and I was very excited by the prospect of directing the film. This cast includes a number of incredibly talented people, including Justin Danforth, who starred in Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue - I simply cannot wait to work with him again - and two amazing actresses, Lizzie Stewart and McLean Peterson. Ben successfully raised over $15,000.00 this summer through an IndieGoGo campaign, which you can see here, and we begin production the first weekend in October. It's a incredible opportunity to be in post-production on one film and simultaneously directing another new one.

On June 28th, there was a great screening of my film Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding at Anthology Film Archives as part of NewFilmmakers New York. I screened my movie Jake the Cinephile there over three years ago, and it was great to be back. We had a nice-sized crowd with some folks who hadn't seen the movie before, so that was very gratifying.

At the end of May, I made a big apartment move - my first in four years - with my roommate Bobb, to another location in Brooklyn (which is not too far away from our old place). My mom, Gretchen, came up to New York, and we had a chance to do some fun things. We made our way to the Longacre Theatre to see the musical adaptation of A Bronx Tale. I was particularly interested in the production, as it was co-directed by my hero Robert De Niro, who directed the film on which the musical is based  (which, in turn, was based on an autobiographical, one-man play by Chazz Palminteri). Not only was I impressed by the musical, I was very impressed by the box seats we acquired (how that happened, I'm not sure - I picked up discounted rush tickets on the day of the performance). I also saw the musical Groundhog Day, which was a delight. The lead actor, Andy Karl, was pretty unbelievable, in a physically demanding and highly comedic performance. Sophia, her father and I also sweat Sweat by Lynn Nottage on Broadway earlier this year, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama - another excellent production.

I'm continuing the monthly meetings for my Fellowship with producer Richie Jackson, which is going very well. I had a great birthday last month - my twenty-seventh, which is hard to believe - and I was surrounded by dear friends. I caught a screening early in the day of Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit, which was masterfully directed and performed - I wouldn't expect anything less from Bigelow (and Annapurna Pictures, for that matter).

Last summer, I assistant-directed a short film entitled Mouse, written and directed by the very talented filmmakers Celine Held and Logan George. It was a wildly fun two-shoot that also presented some unsavory smells - as we had several real dead mice on set as props. This short film has been tremendously successful, premiering at SXSW in March (and following that premiere with several other major festivals) and then receiving a Vimeo Staff Pick in June. As I write this, it has been viewed by nearly 400,000 people on Vimeo. Here's the short below - I think you'll find it quite hilarious and disturbing in equal measures, and also masterfully made.


Mouse from ELO films on Vimeo.

Speaking of excellent films on which I worked, this year also saw the online premiere of Mike Cheslik's hilarious, wacko cartoon web series L.I.P.S. (or The League of Interplanetary Process Servers). I was the assistant director on this series three years ago, shortly before the production of Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding (Mike was, in turn, my assistant director on that film, and his girlfriend Ani - who produced L.I.P.S. - was my producer). Filmed largely in a green screen studio, L.I.P.S. is another amazingly funny piece by Mike, and I was honored to play a small role in the series, as well, as a character with probably the most exciting name you can imagine - Relaxed Eyeball Dweller or [Indistinguishable Dissonant Noise]. I'll never get a better character name than that, period. Per Mike's synopsis, the series is about the League of Interplanetary Process Servers' finest agent attempting to deliver 30 subpoenas throughout the universe in ten minutes. Starring Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (a hysterical human being) and Allison Frasca (who is one of the leads in Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue), L.I.P.S. has screened at many film festivals around the country before premiering online. Here it is in its full glory:


L.I.P.S. from Mike Cheslik on Vimeo.

One major highlight from this past May was attending the 44th Chaplin Award Gala honoring Robert De Niro, organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. It was a great opportunity to celebrate the great man - from the nosebleeds, granted. Presenters and speakers included Martin Scorsese, Sean Penn, Harvey Keitel, Meryl Streep, Michael Douglas, Whoopi Goldberg, Barry Levinson and Ben Stiller. Afterward, in the lobby, I saw Michael Mann hanging around. It was that kind of night.

It's been quite a year for De Niro, who, in addition to the Lincoln Center tribute and the performances of A Bronx Tale, was a part of a Tribeca Film Festival talkback with the cast of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II as part of the film's 45th anniversary. This resulted in one of the greatest reunion pictures of all time, with De Niro, Al Pacino, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire. I can't believe I missed it. It's worth watching the full 90-minute talkback here. In February, his new film The Comedian, directed by Taylor Hackford, was released. The film overall has its problems, but De Niro is fully committed, and it's a joy to see him share scenes once again with Keitel. Then, in May, he gave his best performance since Silver Linings Playbook (2012) in Barry Levinson's The Wizard of Lies, the fascinating and absorbing true story of Bernie Madoff. The film was made for HBO, but it has more quality and substance than most theatrical releases. I don't understand how this wasn't a major studio film.

And then, the big news - Scorsese's mob epic The Irishman recently went into production. It's currently shooting in New York (including in front of my old Broome Street apartment, apparently), and as expected, the film stars De Niro, Pacino, Keitel, Joe Pesci, Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romano and Stephen Graham (Pesci was apparently a hold-out, but he came out of retirement). I feel quite certain that there is nobody on this planet more excited for The Irishman than me. And it's already rumored that, following The Irishman shoot, De Niro and Scorsese could make Killers of the Flower Moon next year with Leonardo DiCaprio (that's very speculative, though).

There were some recent deaths of artists who meant a great deal to me, chief among them Sam Shepard. One could organize the greatest theatre and film festival in the world with the written works and performances of Shepard. Start with The Curse of the Starving Class, A Lie of the Mind and Buried Child, then move on to Days of Heaven (1978), The Right Stuff (1983) and Mud (2013). Then, for the great supporting performances, go on to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Baby Boom (1987), Black Hawk Down (2001), The Pledge (2001), Midnight Special (2016) and Out of the Furnace (2013). What a talent. I participated in a reading of The Curse of the Starving Class last December with my good friend and fellow Red Dragon Player Cora Walters, in which we played Weston and Ella. That text is absolutely incendiary from start to finish. And then there's Jerry Lewis. I just watched his brilliance performance again in Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy (1983) in July. He was a genius in every film - the two I enjoyed most (at my grandmother's house in Hallsville, I remember distinctly) were The Nutty Professor (1963) and The Disorderly Orderly (1964), which has an ending so funny I remember nearly crying.

Earlier this year, there was another heartbreaking loss - one of the greatest of all directors, Jonathan Demme, passed away. I met Demme when I was twelve years old at the Austin premiere of The Truth About Charlie (2002) at the Paramount Theatre. I gave him a copy of my weekly film review article in the West Austin News, and I told him how much I loved The Silence of the Lambs (1991). He laughed and was surprised that someone my age had seen that film. I believe my mother must have interjected in there, saying she supervised my seeing it. I saw him again last year at the Tribeca Film Festival for the panel after the By Sidney Lumet screening - I remember giving him his badge and seeing that same smile that emanated generosity. He was such a great filmmaker - from the crazy energy and life of Something Wild (1986) to the haunting melancholy of Philadelphia (1993), from the reinvention of a film classic with The Manchurian Candidate (2004) to the reinvention of his own career with Rachel Getting Married (2008) - and that's not even getting to his music documentaries!

Then there was the cinematographer whose images have inspired me more than any other photographer - Michael Ballhaus. We shared a birthday, which I discovered rather recently, and that brings me great joy. He photographed many films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (I'm ashamed to admit I haven't seen any of those films yet), and then moved on to American films, collaborating with Scorsese on seven pictures - After Hours (1985), The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990), The Age of Innocence (1993), Gangs of New York (2002) and The Departed (2006). His cinematography was exhilarating, to say the least, and the fact that he never won an Academy Award is astounding. He shot many other films (I recently re-watched Robert Redford's Quiz Show, and there again was his energetic camerawork), and it's truly sad we won't see another Ballhaus-shot film again. Here's Scorsese on his frequent collaborator.

Another major Scorsese collaborator, Frank Vincent, passed away this past Wednesday. He gave iconic performances in three Scorsese pictures - as Billy Batts in Goodfellas (1990), Salvy in Raging Bull (1980) and Frankie in Casino (1995). His interactions in these films with Pesci were particularly memorable (the two actors had a long history together, even working as a comedy act in the 1970s). He starred in countless other films, including Do the Right Thing (1989) and Cop Land (1997). There aren't many actors who were in four of my top thirty favorite films, but Vincent was one of them. Now go home and get your f#$%ing shine box! 

Bill Paxton, a Texan, was a welcome presence in so many films, and a great director, too, as he proved with the under-seen Frailty (2002). Robert Osborne was the face of Turner Classic Movies and a trusted voice in cinema. John Hurt, the brilliant star of The Elephant Man (1980), passed away this year, as well. He had just given a great supporting performance last year in Jackie, and always was a pleasure to watch in films as varied as Alien (1979), Heaven's Gate (1980), Owning Mahowny (2003), V for Vendetta (2006), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and Snowpiercer (2014). Time Magazine film critic Richard Corliss died, too - in addition to being a great critic, he wrote a fascinating book titled Conversations with Scorsese, which is exactly that. The late Martin Landau was so memorable in, among many other films, Ed Wood (1994), North by Northwest (1959) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).

Speaking of Scorsese, the Museum of the Moving Image held a career retrospective of his work this spring, and he was the subject of an incredible exhibit at the museum that was, quite simply, overwhelming in its thoroughness and one of the most extraordinary exhibits I've ever seen. Because I was heavily in the midst of pre-production on Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue, I only visited the exhibit twice (which seems sacrilegious to a die-hard Scorsese fan like me). In fact, there were both Scorsese and Robert De Niro retrospectives going on in New York at the time, and I had to be making a movie right during them. At the Scorsese exhibit, I found I couldn't possibly absorb everything it had to offer. I could have gone back five more times, at least. The first time I went, I followed it by attending a screening of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) in 35MM with Sophia and her friend Erin (who works at the museum), followed by a Q&A with its Oscar-winning star (and one of the greatest actresses of all time) Ellen Burstyn. The second time I went, I followed it by attending a screening of The Last Waltz (1978) in 35MM, which was introduced by Scorsese himself. I had never seen either of these masterful Scorsese films on the big screen, so that was a real treat. The film I wish I had seen in 35MM was Bringing out the Dead (1999), one of Scorsese's best and less talked-about films - it's not the kind of movie that screens often theatrically, so I may have missed my chance on that one.

For this post's final mention of a Scorsese screening, Sophia and I went to an outdoor screening of my favorite film, Goodfellas, earlier this month at a place called the Knockdown Center in Queens. I couldn't help but thinking - we weren't that far from where the events in the film took place. There was live music before the screening and during a brief intermission. All in all, it was a nice time.

It's been a particularly good summer at the cinema (aside from poor audiences, who simply can't stop talking during films), with several new pictures from auteurs that make going to the movies such a pleasure. The best of the best included Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (look for my upcoming review); the aforementioned Detroit; the Safdie Brothers' Good Time (Robert Pattinson is on fire, starring in two of the year's best films - the other being The Lost City of Z); David Lowery's A Ghost Story, a profound meditation on the nature of time, with a wonderful Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara; Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled, which won her the Best Director prize at Cannes; Wind River, another winner from Taylor Sheridan, this time directing in addition to writing, and with a killer performance from Jeremy Renner; Ingrid Goes West, 2017's answer to The King of Comedy and the perfect use of Aubrey Plaza; Patti Cake$, a real surprise (after not connecting with the first twenty or so minutes, I did a huge 180 turn and was won over); Edgar Wright's Baby Driver, full of energy and music; Michael Showalter's The Big Sick, with a perfectly cast Ray Romano and Holly Hunter; the Netflix release of Bong Joon Ho's very entertaining Okja; and Ana Lily Amipour's batty and wild The Bad Batch. All in all, a pretty great bunch of films. And that's not even discussing the spring highlights, chief among them James Gray's exquisite The Lost City of Z (the best film of the year and one hell of an adventure - my full review is on its way, but for now, read this Vulture piece on Gray) and Terrence Malick's Song to Song, which I thought was even stronger than his Knight of Cups (2016) and To the Wonder (2013), both of which I loved.

But I haven't gotten to the two biggest surprises, for me, of the summer - Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky and Dave McCary's Brigsby Bear, both movies I now adore. I'll be posting full reviews of both in the near future, but let me just say that Logan Lucky, in particular, is an absolute pleasure. In fact, I think my favorite performance and movie character of 2017 so far is Daniel Craig as Joe Bang.

There are lots of movies I can't wait to see this fall, including new films from Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, Lynne Ramsay, Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen. Here are trailers for three films in particular I know I'll love - Alexander Payne's Downsizing, Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying and Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected).

The awards season this past year was a crazy one, but a lot of worthy films won well-deserved accolades in the process. I was overjoyed that Casey Affleck and Kenneth Lonergan both won Academy Awards for their monumental work on Manchester by the Sea, and Emma Stone and Viola Davis won Oscars for outstanding performances, as well (for La La Land and Fences, respectively). And although I would have personally picked Manchester by the Sea for Best Picture, Moonlight is a spectacular choice (the infamous botched announcement overshadowed the importance of the film's win - although I will continue to defend Warren Beatty, who had nothing to do with it so far as I can tell).

The major omission by nearly all awards bodies was the exclusion of Martin Scorsese's Silence, a film that deserved so much more. It was nominated for one Oscar - a well-deserved nomination for Best Cinematography - but should have easily received nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Andrew Garfield, who was actually nominated for a different film, Hacksaw Ridge), Best Supporting Actor (Liam Neeson), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Production Design. Glenn Kenny's piece on the strong simplicity of Silence is worth reading, as are many other articles on Scorsese and his process.

Until next time - and remember, as always, to shut the hell up during movies.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and The Beginning of a New Year

To your right, you will see the incredible new poster for my film Jake the Cinephile by the endlessly talented Benjamin Dewey. Ben designed the beautiful posters for With Love, Marty and The Wheels, as well, and I was thrilled to have him design this new poster. 

Jake the Cinephile had its film festival premiere on Sunday, March 9th at the Beacon Film Festival (Freeze Frame) in Beacon, New York. I was so honored to screen the film in the Beacon, where we shot all of the movie theater scenes for the film. I travelled up to Beacon for the screening, where I was thrilled to see posters for the festival in many of the store windows along Main Street. Outside the Beacon Theater, they had pictures posted for each film (which you can see in the picture below).

The film screened on its own (rather than part of a short film program), and I was very excited to participate in a Q&A onstage after the screening. I had the opportunity to spend some time in Beacon after the screening, as well, which was great fun.

The festival received some wonderful publicity, including a large story in the Poughkeepsie Journal, where Jake the Cinephile not only received a mention, but the newspaper also featured a picture from the film (see a picture of the article below). The film and I were also mentioned in the Philipstown newspaper in an article about the fourth annual Beacon Film Festival and our film shoot in the Beacon.

If you're in New York City on Wednesday, April 16th, Jake the Cinephile is screening at 8:00 PM as an Official Selection of NewFilmmakers New York's Short Film Program at Anthology Film Archives! It will be very exciting to screen the film at Anthology, which is an incredible screening space. Check out our film's profile on NewFilmmakers New York's website here. 

On September 23rd, I was honored to screen Jake the Cinephile at Rutgers University for one of its largest audiences yet, as part of a special screening for Professor John Belton's film class. Professor Belton, a brilliant film writer, has been such a champion of this film, and I was thrilled that he not only invited me to screen the movie in his class, but that his entire afternoon lecture was dedicated to screening the film and a Q&A with the class afterward. More than any other screening, I was really amazed by how the movie was received by the students here. It's been fun screening this particular movie (there was even an unofficial sequel made in Yemane Demissie's summer Sight and Sound: Film class - where I screened the movie for the class - that ended up in the Tisch School of the Arts Sight and Sound showcase).

Thanks to our Executive Producer Steve White, we also now have our poster on the Jake the Cinephile IMDB page.

Richie Donnelly, one of my late father's best friends and another Executive Producer of Jake the Cinephile, passed away in December. One of the kindest people I've met, Richie was a loving and supportive presence in my life with his wife Susan Morris. From telling me stories about my father to coming to my plays in high school, Richie's support and love means more to me than I can ever say. I know my dad is overjoyed to see his old friend. Richie's memorial page and obituary can be found here, although how can these brief paragraphs ever begin to capture the beauty of someone like this?

It's been a terrible few months for losing genius talents. Peter O'Toole, one of the finest actors in cinema, brought an intimacy and emotional complexity to a four-hour epic with David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Lawrence is unlike any other screen protagonist I can remember, and this was just the first leading role for an actor who would give so many more genius performances. Roger Ebert's 2002 interview with O'Toole is worth checking out. 

Harold Ramis was a master, giving us some of the funniest movies of all time, including Groundhog Day (1993), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Caddyshack (1980), Ghostbusters (1984) and Analyze This (1999). I hope his dark thriller The Ice Harvest (2005) is rediscovered. And his performances - from Stripes (1981) to Knocked Up (2007) to Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) - are golden.

The great Lou Reed, Marcia Wallace, Pete Seeger and James Rebhorn (who wrote his own very moving obituary) are among the many other wonderful artists who have passed away in recent months.

I've wanted to write a tribute for some time to one of the greatest actors the world has ever known, but the thought of articulating all of my love and appreciation for this man into one neat article seems impossible. So, I will continue to write about the work of Philip Seymour Hoffman in future posts, as he has changed the world of film and theatre so tremendously that it's impossible to write about great works in either medium without mentioning at least one of his performances.

Not only was Hoffman the finest actor of his generation, he was also an incredibly gracious person. I'll never forget meeting him and congratulating him the week after he won his Oscar for Capote in March of 2006 (this was at the ninetieth birthday party of Horton Foote). His work onstage in the Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman was the most powerful stage performance I've ever seen, and his openness with the Tisch Dean's Scholars when he talked to us last April was inspiring. He was the master. 

I was honored to be have been interviewed for an article on Mr. Hoffman's extraordinary legacy for Newsday, who also published a picture of our Dean's Scholars group with Mr. Hoffman (along with the article itself) in amNewYork. There have been a number of lovely tributes to Mr. Hoffman, including this moving montage of his work on Vimeo, a wonderful tribute by film critic Michael Phillips, a tribute from his Almost Famous director Cameron Crowe, memories from the staff at RogerEbert.com (Ebert always said that he wanted Hoffman to play him in a movie) and even a cartoon from The New Yorker that brings a tear to my eye.

I first became aware of Mr. Hoffman and his incredible range as an actor in 2002, around the time I became a more adventurous theatrical moviegoer. That fall alone, I was amazed by his extraordinary performances in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, Spike Lee's 25th Hour and Brett Ratner's Red Dragon. The following spring, after reading Roger Ebert's rave four-star review of Owning Mahowny (2003), my mom and I sought out the wonderful independent film at the Regal Westgate in Austin (back when Austin multiplexes screened independent films). In the film, Hoffman plays a compulsive gambler, and in any other actor's filmography, this would be their greatest performance. For Hoffman, it's one of many buried treasures that I hope people will continue to discover when delving into his rich filmography.

By that time, I had started watching his brilliant performances in earlier films that were changing my life and still remain among my favorite movies, including Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000) and Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999) and Boogie Nights (1997) - not to mention coming to appreciate his hilarious turn in Joel and Ethan Coen's The Big Lebowski (1998), which I had first watched with my dad (who was a Lebowski fan before it was popular, for what it's worth), even more than when I first saw the movie. 

I was overjoyed when he won the Best Actor Oscar for his monumental performance in Bennett Miller's Capote (2005). It was clear, more than ever, that Hoffman was the finest working actor, on par with De Niro, Pacino, Nicholson and Penn and never anything short of brilliant in every single role. In the next few years, audiences were treated to the best of both worlds - Hoffman gave towering leading performances in contemporary masterpieces such as Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), Tamara Jenkins' The Savages (2007), Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (2008) and John Patrick Shanley's Doubt (2008), while still remaining the finest character actor alive in Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Bennett Miller's Moneyball (2011), George Clooney's The Ides of March (2011) and J.J. Abrams' Mission: Impossible III (2006). 

And then there were his stage performances. I was lucky enough to see Mr. Hoffman onstage twice - in 2009's Othello at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, and in Mike Nichols' production of Death of a Salesman on Broadway in 2012. Death of a Salesman left me devastated in a way no live theatre production has in my life. When I met Mr. Hoffman for the second time less than a year ago with the Tisch Dean's Scholars, I was near the end of my own thesis film shoot, and I asked him about the communication and notes shared between actor and director while shooting a film. We were so fortunate to spend time with a genius who has forever changed cinema and theatre.

I haven't mentioned so many of his other wonderful performances - in Cold Mountain (2003), Flawless (1998), Pirate Radio (2009), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) and, in perhaps his greatest screen role, Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012). Many of the best films of the last twenty years were anchored by Mr. Hoffman's genius, and watching his performances on film and stage influenced me in no small part as an aspiring actor, too. His characters felt so vulnerable and authentic, and losing him feels like a great personal loss to so many people. I don't know how to comprehend a world without Mr. Hoffman. 

Since the heralded premiere of her film Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq at the 51st New York Film Festival in October, I have had the privilege of continuing to work as an assistant for Emmy-winning director Nancy Buirski. Her new film, on which I worked as a researcher and production assistant, had three incredible screenings at the New York FIlm Festival.

The distributor Kino Lorber picked up Afternoon of a Faun for distribution shortly after the end of NYFF, and earlier the year, I was fortunate to attend several meetings at the Kino Lorber offices to discuss the release of the film. Here is the official trailer for the movie, which opened on February 5th at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

In October, we screened Afternoon of a Faun with UNICEF on World Polio Day (October 24th) at the United Nations. Following the screening, Nancy spoke on a panel dealing with Polio in the 21st Century with David Oshinsky, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Polio: An American Story; Peter Crowley, Global Polio Team Leader; and journalist and U.N. correspondent Irwin Arieff.

Over the holiday break, I discovered that my grandmother, Lucille Kyser, attended the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in St. Louis in 1945, 1946 and 1947, which included ballets choreographed by George Balanchine and danced by Alexandra Danilova and Maria Tallchief. Nancy and I were thrilled to share pictures from the original programs to our Facebook followers (as my grandmother still has the programs in her collection after all these years).

On the Monday evening before the film opened in cinemas, there was a wonderful premiere of Afternoon of a Faun at the JCC in Manhattan, followed by a dessert and champagne reception at the home of Richard Lorber. 

On its opening weekend, Nancy was actually out-of-town for the film's International Premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival (also at Berlinale - Scorsese's New York Review of Books documentary). I assisted with the opening weekend Q&As at Lincoln Center, which included talkbacks with Jacques D'Amboise, Randy Bourscheidt and Arthur Mitchell. Among the many ecstatic reviews the film received, my favorites are the rave from RogerEbert.com and Owen Gleiberman's Grade A review in Entertainment Weekly (not to mention Stephen Holden's outstanding review in The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle's four-star review). And after two months in theaters, Afternoon of a Faun is still at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

On its opening weekend, Afternoon of a Faun topped the Specialty Box Office. "With perfect first positioning by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Afternoon of a Faun certainly blasted off this weekend - we're all thrilled and getting ready to pirouette into national release in the coming weeks," Gary Palmucci of Kino Lorber said in this article from IndieWire. Since then, the movie has continued to do incredible business.

In early March, I had the incredible honor of serving as an Associate Producer on a two-day film shoot in which Nancy interviewed legendary dancer Jacques D'Amboise. We spent two days in a studio at the National Dance Institute in Harlem listening to Mr. D'Amboise's incredible stories - he is one of the most energetic storytellers around, and I was honored to be a part of this shoot.

In addition to getting its run extended for several weeks at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Afternoon of a Faun also opened at Cinema Village on 12th Street later in February. The movie continues to expand across the country as the rave reviews keep coming in - please visit the film's website to check out its upcoming theatrical playdates. Not to overwhelm you with links, but here is Nancy's interview on NPR from February, and her brilliant piece from The Daily Beast on the film and Tanaquil Le Clercq's story. Coming up, Afternoon of a Faun is a Center Frame screening at the Full Frame Documentary FIlm Festival. The film will screen at 4:00 PM this Friday, with Nancy and Jacques D'Amboise speaking after the movie.

On Monday, February 24th, I was lucky enough to attend the Tribeca Film Institute's 20th Anniversary benefit screening of Robert De Niro's directorial debut A Bronx Tale (1993) at the Village East Cinema. After the screening, De Niro participated in an incredible Q&A with the audience. This wasn't the first time I had seen my lifelong hero in person, but as I sat in the second row of the Village East's large auditorium, it was the closest I had ever been to the man who, along with Martin Scorsese, has shaped my life in an extraordinary way.

De Niro had so many words of wisdom, including a response to a question about Method Acting that drew applause from the entire theater. In short, it was a wonderful opportunity to see my hero in person speaking about one of his finest films.

Earlier this year, I was thrilled to support Steve James' new documentary Life Itself, based on Roger Ebert's memoir, which raised money on IndieGoGo. The film was executive-produced by Martin Scorsese and, as a perk of contributing to the movie, I was able to watch it simultaneous to its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Life Itself moved me to tears - my heart swelled with love for Mr. Ebert, who changed my life, and I cannot wait to write more about the movie when it receives a theatrical release later this year.

In other recent screening news, my film The Wheels was selected as one of three student films to screen on Friday, March 28th at the NYU Student Film Showcase, presented by The Motion Picture Club at NYU and the Humanities Ambassadors. The event ran from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM in NYU's Kimmel Center, and it was followed by a discussion of the films and answering questions about the making of these movies. As always, it was a joy to get to screen my work for others.

There's much more to cover in my next blog post, including my thoughts on this year's Academy Awards and awards season in general. Nothing will ever equal seeing The Wolf of Wall Street for the first time with Martin Scorsese laughing uproariously a few rows behind me, but I spent Christmas Day the way any self-respecting Scorsese fan would - taking the family to see this certifiably insane masterpiece again. DiCaprio blows the roof off the theater every time I've seen it, and Scorsese doesn't let anyone off the hook easily. The way the music shifts in the wedding scene alone is genius - from Sharon Jones singing Goldfinger live onstage to the creeping in of Six Mix a Lot's Baby Got Back to the hard cut to Bo Diddley's howlingly devilish Pretty Thing - well, I could go on (which reminds me - here's a dang good list of the year's best soundtracks). But I have to agree with Wesley Morris when he says "it's rare that a tracking shot brings a tear to [his] eye." As Scorsese would put it, the film is big and ferocious.

I'll end by writing that my Advanced Production class was treated to a wonderful dinner at the home of our professor Yemane Demissie in February (I've included some pictures from this evening throughout this post). It was a fantastic meal and a delight to spend time with our mentor as we all complete or near completion of our senior thesis films.