Making You the You You Are
February 3, 2025 6:23 AM Subscribe
THIS WEEK IN FANFARE... A list of Best Documentary Feature Nominees. NEW MOVIES: Sophie Thatcher tries to be the perfect girlfriend, ends up running for her life in Companion; Captain Underpants author Dav Pilkey's Dog Man scampers onto screens; Mark Wahlberg plays against type in Flight Risk. Meanwhile, people still have a lot to say about Nosferatu and Star Trek: Section 31. AND IN TV: A new episode of Severance and its fictional self-help book The You You Are gets a real e-book. Also new in TV: season/series posts for American Manhunt: OJ Simpson; the Netflix adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude; and the Sharon Horgan dark comedy Bad Sisters. SPECIAL EVENTS: The 2025 Grammys, The FireAid Benefit Concert, and a new Rifftrax take on Lancelot, Guardian of Time. Bonus inside this week: a massive list of all of the A24 films posted on Fanfare.
2025 Academy Award Nominees for Best Documentary Feature Film
Books
in reverse order of release
2025 Academy Award Nominees for Best Documentary Feature Film
- Black Box Diaries - Japanese Journalist Shiori Ito investigates her own sexual assault, seeking to prosecute the high-profile offender.
- No Other Land - This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval.
- Porcelain War - Under roaring fighter jets and missile strikes, Ukrainian artists Slava, Anya, and Andrey choose to stay behind and fight, contending with the soldiers they have become.
- Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat - Jazz and decolonization are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Patrice Lumumba .
- Sugarcane - An investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school in Canada ignites a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve.
- Companion - New horror thriller with Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets) has trailers that tell you maybe more than you would want to know.
- Dog Man - A new animated family comedy/adventure, based on the series by Dav Pilkey (Captain Underpants).
- Flight Risk - Mark Wahlberg stars in a new action thriller about US marshals escorting a fugitive to trial.
- Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
- Nosferatu
- Wolf Man
- Presence
- Wicked
- Heretic
- Star Trek: Section 31
- Flow
- One of Them Days
- The Wild Robot
- Out of the Blue - Harrowing 1980 Dennis Hopper film stars Linda Manz as an abused teen struggling to find a way forward as nihilism beckons.
- Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter - Hammer's genre-blending attempt to create a swashbuckling horror hero who hunts and kills vampires. From 1974.
- Diary of a Mad Housewife - Oscar-nominated 1970 dramedy about a woman (Carrie Snodgrass) whose attempt to escape the frustration of her bad marriage with an affair only leads her to more awful men.
- The Dark and the Wicked - Plagued by waking nightmares, two siblings suspect that something evil is taking over their family at an isolated farmhouse. A 2020 horror film from Bryan Bertino (the original version of The Strangers.
- 17 Blocks Acclaimed documentary tells the story of the Sanfords, a DC family hit hard by addiction and gun violence, through their own footage.
- Kin-dza-dza! - Soviet sci-fi comedy from 1986 about two earthlings stuck on the planet Pluke, navigating its absurd social customs and language.
- Last Man Standing - Walter Hill's 1996 gangaster reworking of Yojimbo stars Bruce Willis.
- Absolute Beginners - Young Brits seeking stardom in the late 1950's in 1986 Julien Temple musical with Patsy Kensit, David Bowie, Ray Davies, Eddie O'Connell.
- After the Wedding - Mads Mikkelsen stars in this 2006 drama as the manager of a struggling orphanage in India, sent to Copenhagen to secure a donation from a mysterious benefactor.
- Kumdo: Age of the Rampant - Joseon-era Korean action yarn from 2014.
- Blue Ruin - 2013 drama from filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room, Rebel Ridge) about a beach bum, driven to become an agent of revenge.
- Cómo ves? - Gritty 1986 musical about life in the ghettos of Mexico City features a soundtrack of Mexican rock music.
- Runaway Train - Oscar-nominated 1985 thriller about prison escapees stuck on an out-of-control train. Based on a script by Akira Kurosawa. Starring Jon Voight and Eric Roberts.
- Margin Call
- Perfect Days
- Casino
- Paddington
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
- Kursk
- Martyrs
- Party Girl
- Brotherhood of the Wolf
- Almost Famous
- Hundreds of Beavers
- Retfærdighedens Rytter
- Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers
- The Entity
- The Ipcress File
- It Happened Tomorrow
- Crimes of Passion
- Demon Seed
- Scream (2022)
- The Agency Paramount Plus espionage thriller with a star-studded cast.
- American Manhunt: OJ Simpson - Four-part Netflix docuseries about the OJ Simpson trial.
- The Pitt - Like 24 but in the emergency room. On Max.
- Severance - The third episode of season two of the Apple TV sci-fi mystery. And if you think I would even get near a spoiler for a show like this, you are kidding yourself. Bonus, in books this week: The You You Are.
- Bad Sisters - Sharon Horgan co-created and stars in this Irish adaptation of the Belgian black comedy series Clan.
- One Hundred Years of Solitude - Netflix TV adaptation Gabriel García Márquez multi-generational saga.
- Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man - The new MCEU animated show is not part of the main timeline, giving it room to make some fresh choices.
- AEW Collision and All Elite Wrestling Dynamite - WRASSLING TIME! On TNT/Max (Collision) and TBS/Max (Dynamite) in the US.
- Taskmaster Series 18
- The Pitt
- American Primeval
- For All Mankind - s03e09 Coming Home
- Laid
- Stra Trek Enterprise - New comments on s01e16, "Shuttlepod One."
- Star Trek - THE OG show has new comments on s01e26, "The Devil in the Dark."
- The Chris Isaak Show - The turn of the millennium Showtime comedy tells a fictionalized version of Isaak and his band and their everyday lives.
- Ted Lasso
- Person of Interest - The single episode posts are well into season three now.
- North & South
- Stargate SG-1 - New talk on s02e03 "Prisoners", s02e04 "The Gamekeeper" and s02e05 "Need"
- Star Trek: The Next Generation - New comments on s03e18 "Allegiance", s03e20 "Tin Man", s03e21 "Hollow Pursuits", and S03e21 "The Most Toys.
- King of the Hill - Favorite episodes from throughout the run are continuing to get new posts.
- Gilmore Girls - Episode-by-episode posts are now into season 2.
Books
- Diavola - Jennifer Thorne skewers all-too-familiar family dynamics in this sly, wickedly funny vacation-Gothic from 2024.
- The You You Are - The fictitious self-help book from the Apple TV puzzle box show gets a real-life e-book version.
- Chain Gang All-Stars - The 2023 debut by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is set in a dystopian near-future America where prison systems have been transformed into a brutal, televised blood sport called the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE) program.
- James - New comments on the Percival Everett book.
in reverse order of release
- The Brutalist
- Heretic
- We Live in Time
- A Different Man
- The Front Room
- Sing Sing
- MaXXXine
- Janet Planet
- I Saw the TV Glow
- Civil War
- Steve!
- Love Lies Bleeding
- Problemista
- The Iron Claw
- The Zone of Interest
- Dream Scenario
- Priscilla
- Stop Making Sense (A24 re-release)
- Talk to Me
- Past Lives
- You Hurt My Feelings
- Beau Is Afraid
- Sharper
- The Whale
- White Noise
- Aftersun
- Pearl
- Bodies Bodies Bodies
- Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
- Men
- Everything Everywhere All at Once
- X
- After Yang
- The Tragedy of Macbeth
- Red Rocket
- Lamb
- The Green Knight
- Val
- Zola
- Saint Maud
- Uncut Gems
- In Fabric
- The Lighthouse
- Skin
- The Farewell
- Midsommar
- The Last Black Man in San Francisco
- Under the Silver Lake
- High Life
- Climax
- The Hole in the Ground
- Mid90s
- The Children Act
- Slice
- Eighth Grade
- Hereditary
- How to Talk to Girls at Parties
- First Reformed
- The Disaster Artist
- Lady Bird
- The Killing of a Sacred Deer
- The Florida Project
- Good Time
- A Ghost Story
- It Comes at Night
- Free Fire
- The Blackcoats Daughter
- 20th Century Women
- The Monster
- Moonlight
- American Honey
- Morris from America
- Swiss Army Man
- The Lobster
- Green Room
- Krisha
- The Witch
- Room
- The End of the Tour
- Amy
- Slow West
- Ex Machina
- While Were Young
- A Most Violent Year
- Obvious Child
- Locke
- Under the Skin
- Spring Breakers
I promised to take my son to see Dog Man, glad to see the reviews here seem to think it's bearable for adults.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:36 AM on February 3
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:36 AM on February 3
I recently spotted a Bobby Hill tattoo on someone, they had just purchased a kiln-fired clay dong at a market in southern Mexico (as one does)
Early contender for least-foreseen sentence of the week.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:48 AM on February 3 [6 favorites]
Early contender for least-foreseen sentence of the week.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:48 AM on February 3 [6 favorites]
It's been interesting to me, as I have compiled these that the Trek shows (and Stargate SG:1) basically never die.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:46 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:46 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]
Looking back at SG1, I find it interesting how different. some of these early episodes feel compared to the later seasons. You can see the core of what makes the show tick later coming through, but there's a lot of stuff that was surprising to revisit. I will wonder if it really is the showtime/scifi switch that actually makes the change, or if it happens before that official switch.
posted by Carillon at 11:33 AM on February 3
posted by Carillon at 11:33 AM on February 3
Even if you've had the supposed twist spoiled for you (though it's part of the setup, not the climax, so even then BFD) Companion is this year's current leader in the see-it-before-people-ruin-it-for-you derby.
The way it plays knowingly with serious issues, but is ultimately just trying to be a fun thriller is going to set a million bad takes a-typing. I think you're gonna get people swearing it's deep (it's not) or that it tried to be deep and failed (it didn't).
It's a fun film with leads doing very fun work.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:52 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]
The way it plays knowingly with serious issues, but is ultimately just trying to be a fun thriller is going to set a million bad takes a-typing. I think you're gonna get people swearing it's deep (it's not) or that it tried to be deep and failed (it didn't).
It's a fun film with leads doing very fun work.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:52 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]
Should I be embarrassed that new Severance is giving me something to live for this week? Probably.
posted by eirias at 7:51 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]
posted by eirias at 7:51 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]
Mod note: fixed title, per DirtyOldTown!
Also, The You You Are, now helping itself on the sidebar and Best Of blog!
posted by taz (staff) at 12:33 AM on February 4
Also, The You You Are, now helping itself on the sidebar and Best Of blog!
posted by taz (staff) at 12:33 AM on February 4
I’m an A24 fan but I hadn’t realised they had done so many films!
posted by ellieBOA at 8:10 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
posted by ellieBOA at 8:10 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
There should be threads for all the Best Picture nominees too, dangit, and there are a couple missing. Lemme start those.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:53 AM on February 5
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:53 AM on February 5
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I recently spotted a Bobby Hill tattoo on someone, they had just purchased a kiln-fired clay dong at a market in southern Mexico (as one does)
posted by ginger.beef at 6:58 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]