The week is now over and that provides a chance to size up all the movies you can see this weekend. Whether it is the big new theatrical releases like A Quiet Place: Day One and Horizon: An American Saga, the Apple TV+ release of Fancy Dance starring the great Lily Gladstone, the chance to see Anya Taylor-Joy rip her way through the action epic that is Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga at home on VOD, or a hidden gem that you’ll want to put on your radar, we’re here to guide you through all of it. There is much to explore, so let’s dig into it.
5 Horizon: An American Saga (2024)
Directed by Kevin Costner
Sometimes, there are those figures in Hollywood who do the absolute most and yet still have little to show for it. In this case, it’s Kevin Costner as he not only writes, directs, and acts, but even funds the expansive yet lackluster experience that is Horizon: An American Saga. Though his heart is certainly in it, this film is more than a little slow on the draw. From my review back when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, I was interested in how it is a work that is “both lightly complicating and reveling in the mythos of classic Westerns” though still was disappointed as “the result as a whole is simply far too scattered to hold together.”
REVIEW
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1
Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 does a whole lot of setting up for what’s next without providing much of anything memorable of its own.
- The film moves along at a fairly speedy pace, proving to be occasionally moderately entertaining.
- Everything plays like we are watching an extended prologue for what’s coming next.
- Several key characters vanish from the movie, leaving us with no connection to them until we’ll presumbably see them in the next film.
- The ending feels like it runs out of runway, culminating in the longest “tune in next time” montage you’ll ever seen in a movie.
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4 Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Directed by George Miller
Every morning George Miller wakes up, comes to a remote Australian set, and asks himself in the mirror “Are you prepared to make it epic?” The director of one of the best action rides ever made, Mad Max: Fury Road, attempts to do the impossible by following it up with another film set in the same world. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a prequel that follows the iconic titular character as she is taken from her home and must survive in the desolate wasteland. In her review back from when it first hit theaters, Features Editor Therese Lacson wrote that “depending on your expectations, Furiosa could either be an epic origin story for this beloved character, or it can be caught in the shadow of its more stylistic predecessor.”
REVIEW
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Furiosa’s prequel film shines with Anya Taylor-Joy and Alyala Browne, but is weighed down by too much story.
- Anya Taylor-Joy and Alyla Browne are fantastic as Furiosa, blending perfectly into Charlize Theron’s original character.
- Taylor-Joy and Tom Burke have amazing chemistry, making an underdeveloped segment of the story sing despite shortcomings.
- Furiosa is George Miller’s best and most well-developed character.
- Furiosa is far too long, weighed down by too much info dumping.
- Not enough is done to make Chris Hemsworth unrecognizable, weakening his performance.
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3 A Quiet Place: Day One
Directed by Michael Sarnoski
If you don’t know the name Michael Sarnoski, the director of both the poetic Pig and now the surprising A Quiet Place: Day One, you’re going to want to just as much as you do stars Joseph Quinn and Lupita Nyong’o. In his second feature, he takes over from John Krasinski to tell us a story back before the world as we know it comes to an end when two strangers are brought together in the crisis. In her praising review, Horror Editor Emma Kiely wrote “as we’ve seen humans fight to survive any situation possible, Day One manages to stand out in both its subgenre and its franchise by taking a different approach to man vs. monster.”
REVIEW
A Quiet Place: Day One
A Quiet Place: Day One is a compelling character-driven spectacle that walks its own path in the franchise.
- A Quiet Place: Day One gives us complex and vivid characters to root for.
- Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn give exceptional performances and play off each other’s platonic chemistry.
- The film is a complex human drama that offers much more than the trailers would have you think.
- The horror and tension of the first two films are more muted and the threat of the aliens becomes less exciting.
- The movie doesn’t make full use of its New York setting, with many other monster movies having done it better.
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2 Family Portrait
Directed by Lucy Kerr
While it may be the most unknown of all the movies getting a release this week, you’re going to want to make sure to sit up and pay attention to Lucy Kerr’s haunting feature debut Family Portrait. Teetering on the edge of horror before plunging all the way in, it’s a film that doesn’t hold your hand as everything ordinary starts to become far stranger as it centers on Deragh Campbell’s riveting Katy as she begins to see her world come apart. In my rave review, I wrote that “too often, the imagery in films we take in can end up being merely consumed rather than considered” though “Kerr invites us to do more considering, letting us watch as the already troubled Katy begins to wander from her family and, potentially, even life itself.”
REVIEW
Family Portrait (2023)
Family Portrait is a haunting feature debut from Lucy Kerr that is worth taking the often horrifying plunge for.
- The sound design by Andrew Siedenburg and Nikolay Antonov is magnificent, creating a cacophony of dread begins to burrow its way under your skin
- Deragh Campbell gives an excellent performance, ensuring that the final plunge into horror is all the more effective.
- Kerr remains completely in control of the whole experience, making the crushing conclusion all the more shattering.
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1 Fancy Dance
Directed by Erica Tremblay
Closing us out is Erica Tremblay’s fantastic Fancy Dance, the newest film to star Lily Gladstone after she blew us all away with her incredible work in Killers of the Flower Moon from last year. Her latest is a modern classic in the making, seeing her play the hustler with a heart of gold Jax as she tries to find her missing sister and look after her young niece. In my rave review back from when it played at Sundance in 2023, I called it “one of the best of the year” and that absolutely remains true for 2024. Specifically, it’s a film that deserves just as much attention as her past work as Gladstone again proves she is a performer like no other.
REVIEW
Fancy Dance
Fancy Dance boasts not only another magnificent performance from Lily Gladstone, but every other aspect of it becomes a beautiful work of art.
- The film takes a familiar story and makes it into something that is bursting with life.
- Gladstone is able to do more without saying much at all than most actors could with pages and pages of dialogue.
- The conclusion is shattering yet sublime, proving to be one of those moments that can linger forever in our memories.
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