Joey Magidson
Welcome back to my Home Movies! This week, we have one of last year’s best and most underrated films in The Iron Claw leading the way. Truly, this is a title that deserved more love and attention. Today also features several other flicks, as well as a pair of Criterion Collection releases, so there’s plenty to dig into. Read on for more…
The Iron Claw
This film blew me away. I was very curious how The Iron Claw would turn out ever since it was announced, but to see it executed so well was almost stunning. The movie is heartbreaking, intsense, and ultimately quite moving. It’s truly an underrated gem from last year that, with an earlier release date, would have resulted in Academy Award nominations. My interviews with writer/director Sean Durkin (here), as well as cast members Harrison Dickinson (here), Holt McCallany (here), Maura Tierney (here), Stanley Simons (here), Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White (here) are on the site for your enjoyment. My four star rave review here on the site begins like so:
It’s okay not to be okay. We all should know that it’s a show of strength to admit when you’re in a bad place, not a display of weakness. This goes doubly for supposed tough guys. The Iron Claw, the true story of the Von Erich family of wrestlers, speaks to this with immense power. The family suffered tragedy throughout the years on a level one can barely comprehend, but what if some of them had been able to speak to their traumas? Would things have turned out differently? One can’t know, but this film depicts just how damaging keeping it all inside can be. It’s a fantastic sports movie, biopic, and character study, but as a look at why asking for help is crucial, it may well be an important one as well. It all adds up to one of the best and most moving works of 2023.
The Iron Claw obliterated me. Strong acting, impeccable filmmaking, and a timely message about mental health makes for a real stunner. I loved wrestling as a kid and have a passing knowledge of the Von Erich family, as well as the “Von Erich curse,” but not having that is no barrier for entry. Much like Raging Bull or Rocky doesn’t require you to be a boxing fan, this film does the same with wrestling.
The Book of Clarence
The Contender (Blu-ray)
The Departed (Blu-ray)
Good Burger 2
Monk: The Complete Fifth Season (TV)
Wednesday: The Complete First Season (TV)
When Evil Lurks
To Die For
From The Criterion Collection: “The all-American obsession with celebrity turns monstrous in this deliciously subversive (and disturbingly prescient) satire of our television-mediated, true-crime-obsessed age. In a career breakthrough, Nicole Kidman delivers a diabolical deconstruction of the girl next door as a local TV weather reporter whose perfectly perky facade belies a murderous heart, as her ruthless pursuit of fame ensnares three disaffected teens in a sordid, tabloid-ready scandal. Deftly deploying shifting perspectives, faux-documentary interviews, and a supporting cast featuring Joaquin Phoenix, Matt Dillon, and Casey Affleck, director Gus Van Sant adds provocative layers of meaning to this darkly funny examination of suburban sociopathy.”
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Saint Omer
From The Criterion Collection: “Bringing a documentarian’s sense of open-ended inquiry to her first narrative feature, writer-director Alice Diop constructs a morally and emotionally layered courtroom drama unlike any other. When she travels to Saint-Omer, France, to attend the trial of a young Senegalese woman (Guslagie Malanda) accused of murdering her infant daughter, novelist Rama (Kayije Kagame) finds herself shaken to the core by a case that proves to have profound resonances with her own life. Interweaving complex themes of mother-daughter bonds, immigrant alienation, and postcolonial trauma into a piercing portrait of two mysteriously connected women, Diop forgoes mere questions of guilt and innocence in order to plumb the unsettling unknowability of the human soul.”
Stay tuned for more next week…
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