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- [00:01]
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Aisha Harris
We covered dozens of new movies in 2024. Some we loved, some we didn't, and everything in between.
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Glenn Weldon
And there are always a few favorites that we didn't get a chance to talk about. Here's where we remedy that. I'm Glenn Weldon.
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Aisha Harris
And I'm Aisha Harris. And today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we're making recommendations for great movies we missed in 2024.
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Aisha Harris
Us today is NPR film critic Bob Mondello. Hello Bob.
- [02:48]
Bob Mondello
Good to be here.
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Aisha Harris
Great to have you. Also with us is writer and critic Walter Chow. Welcome back, Walter.
- [02:53]
Walter Chow
I am so Happy to be here.
- [02:55]
Aisha Harris
Yes. Yes. We've got some great picks coming up here. So for this episode, each of us is going to offer up one film recommendation from 2024 that didn't get its own pop culture happy hour episode. We all kind of made our picks individually. We knew what they were ahead of time, but we did not consult each other beforehand. So we were coming into this. These are our fav. These are the ones we want to talk about. So, Glenn, let's actually start with you. What is Your pick for 2024?
- [03:22]
Glenn Weldon
Cool. My pick is called the Last Stop in Yuma county, and this movie is just a perfect little indie gem. It was made for about a million bucks in 20 days. It's a very tense, very funny, very suspenseful little neo noir that's set in the 70s on a hot, deserted patch of highway in Yuma County, Arizona. It begins when a salesman pulls up to a gas station, the last one for a, hence the name, and finds out that the station is out of gas and they're waiting for the fuel truck to show up. So he chooses to wait in the diner next to the gas station. Just as it opens for the day, one by one, the diner starts to fill up with folks who are in his same predicament, including a pair of bank robbers who are desperate to leave. Can we just admire that premise for a second? That's a play premise. Like, that's bus stop kind of thing.
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Bob Mondello
It sounds like Petrified Forest.
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Glenn Weldon
Exactly.
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Aisha Harris
Oh, yeah, you're right.
- [04:15]
Glenn Weldon
And we've all seen films with great premises that just beef it in the execution. But this film makes us the frog in the pot of water that keeps getting hotter and hotter. Things get worse and worse and worse. Funnier, funnier, funnier, Darker, darker, darker. And, you know, it's one of those films that I like when the first shot doesn't make any sense until you see the last shot of the film. It's written and directed by Francis Gallupi, and there's just enough bits of directorial flair, you know, where you get idiosyncrasy. So you're curious who the director is, but it doesn't feel like affectation. Right. That's a very thin line to navigate there. At one point, we are in the parking lot with a character. We're watching them. They decide they need to run into the diner to do something, and if we went into the diner with them, there'd be no tension. So we stay in the parking lot, but the camera pivots away from the door of the diner. Past the gas station, down the highway, Lyss looks down this long, empty road because it knows that we, the viewer, are desperate to figure out if anyone's coming. That's what we're worried about, right? And then we hear the character emerge from the diner. So the camera pivots back to them, and it's like suddenly, we're the lookout, right? We're part of this film in a way that we weren't before. And, you know, this is one of those films where somebody says, now if nobody does anything stupid, nobody's gonna get hurt. And, you know, both of those things are not gonna work out. It's so great. That is the last stop in Yuma county, and you can rent or buy it on vod.
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Aisha Harris
Oh, man. This is one of the movies, actually the only movie of the ones we're gonna talk about that I haven't seen. But this sounds.
- [05:44]
Glenn Weldon
Oh, you're gonna love it.
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Aisha Harris
Right up my alley, Aisha. It is.
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Glenn Weldon
So this is Neo noir we talked about. What the hell does Neo noir mean?
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Aisha Harris
I love it. I love it.
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Walter Chow
And to Bob's point's a little bit Petrified Forest. It's a little bit Treasure of the Sierra Madre, too. And, you know, the cast is wonderful. They're spot on. The lead is a guy named Jim Cummings, and I have to disclose, a friend. And Francis Galupe has become that as well, and they're just really having fun. And Francis has been tabbed to do one of the two upcoming Evil Dead movies.
- [06:12]
Glenn Weldon
Yeah, that's a good. That's a good match.
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Walter Chow
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he's got the sense of timing, the sense of humor, is really a great announcement for an exciting, I think, new filmmaker. What a pick. Glenn, I love this movie.
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Aisha Harris
Indeed. Well, I'm gonna add this to my watch list. That is the last stop in Yuma county, and it is available to rent or buy on vod. So, Bob, your pick is what I have seen, and it is a very complicated movie. It has a bit of a complex backstory. That is the seed of the sacred fig, and it's written and directed by Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasul, whose work in the past has criticized Iran's government, and he spent time in prison. He shot this movie in Iran in secret, and just a few days after its completion, he was sentenced by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Court to eight years in prison over charges linked to his previous films in activism. So not related to this film directly, because at the time, I didn't know about it, but, you know, when that Happened, he decided to leave the country. The film premiered at Cannes and it's Germany submission for the international feature Oscar. So, Bob, the seed of the sacred fig. Why did you choose it? What about it is so special?
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Bob Mondello
Well, a lot of the things you just said are the reason I found it so interesting. Can you imagine making a film and not being able to be present while you were making a film? I mean, this was not just done in secret. He couldn't be there with the actors when they were in a lot of the places they were. It's just a really complicated thing. It's about an investigating judge in Iraq who has just been appointed. And he has every expectation that this is going to be a wonderful thing for his family. But then pretty quickly it goes south. He is in a position of having to sign death warrants for all sorts of people and not given even a moment to figure out whether it's right to do. And it's all about his family. And it is the way that Rasulov has made the picture. The actions that happen within the family absolutely mirror what's happening in Iran. And what the director did is he interspersed actual footage of the woman Life freedom demonstrations that took place in Tehran. So the characters are forever reacting to actual events in Tehran. It feels terribly urgent, and it's a very clever device to make the film more complex. And by the end of it, I was just like. It's like a vice getting tighter and tighter and tighter, and it's just amazing. I thought it was just a breathtaking film and easily one of the best I've seen this year.
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Walter Chow
Yeah, I was really stunned by this movie as well, Bobby, you know, and everyone. What I really loved about it, I think, is how they use the family's disintegration and the mistrust and the paranoia that grows within the family unit. And I saw a lot of parallels to the United States as well. Just our wave of Black Lives Matter protests and our wave of protests on school campuses last year. And the idea that kids could be at directly opposite opinions of polarities from their parents. And the parents begin to say, well, you don't understand. And the kids hold up their cell phones and say, actually, I watch it live every single day. I think it's you that doesn't understand. And so that kind of divide is really explored, I think, smartly, intensely, throughout the course of Sacred Fig in this idea that, you know what I mean, People who've been in the government like the father has maybe don't have the clearest view of what the government is actually doing to the people, I don't know. I felt emotional watching it with two kids of college age feeling like, man, I just. This world. Yeah. But the courage of this and the tenseness of it, the way that you make this a thriller, but also very cogent political satire for me was. I'm with you 100%. What a. What a wonderful film.
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Bob Mondello
It really is.
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Aisha Harris
Yeah. I'm really glad you brought this. So thank you. So that is Bob's pick, the seed of the sacred fig. It's in select theaters now, and it's going to be expanding wide throughout the rest of the month. Walter, you've also got quite a movie here. I'm gonna let you explain it.
- [10:17]
Walter Chow
Oh, my gosh. I thought I was gonna be off the hook for having to explain what this movie was.
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Glenn Weldon
Just sum it up in a couple sentences, Walter. That should be pretty easy.
- [10:24]
Aisha Harris
Tell us, what is your pick? Walter?
- [10:26]
Walter Chow
Oh, you know, it's about all of us. It's about the gig culture. It's about rage. It's about sort of performative desensitization. Anyway, it's called do not expect too much from the End of the World. It's by a Romanian provocateur and genius, I think, named Radu Judah. You know, we follow one gig worker, Angela, and she. During the course of one day, and she has to do all this stuff. She's an Uber driver. She has time for a quick liaison with her boyfriend. It's just breathless and exhausting just to watch her. And to blow off steam, she does little tiktoks as this alter ego named Bobata, who is obviously a take a satirization of Andrew Tate. And she yells and says terrible, misogynistic, anti Semitic things in that character, I think, just to blow off steam. But indeed, she's introducing all this toxicity anyway by doing it, even if it's a joke. And then part of her other gigs was to be a production assistant on a safety video that a company is shooting, during which they interview a guy who's been put into a wheelchair because of the lack of safety at the company that they're working at. And through the course of manipulating his testimony, they actually make it sound like he's advocating for the company that put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. And it's so down and so depressing and with a couple of really graceful moments in between. Overall, what a complex and beautiful film that really, I think you can just sum up as this is how we live today.
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Glenn Weldon
I'm so glad you picked this, Walter, because more people deserve to see this. It is going to throw up some barriers as you start it off. It is 2 hours and 45 minutes long, but it's never boring, as you say. It's not a traditional narrative. It can seem very chaotic and loose, but of course, that's intentional. It's more a mood piece. And the mood, as you referred to is. The mood in question is anger. And it comes from the rest of Europe, kind of exploiting Romania for cheap labor, for cheap resources. So it doesn't surprise me that this is Romania's Oscar submission, because from an outsider's perspective, anyway, it feels like this is giving voice to the country. It's like this seems to be giving the finger to the rest of Europe. And it's using humor as a kind of sociological bludgeon, a weapon to kind of take that Europe. And it's weirdly borrowing from British and American culture to do that. You mentioned the Andrew Tate running gag. And there's that final sequence you mentioned where we watch how nowadays truth gets distorted and workers still get undermined. But it's not being done by Nicolae Ceausescu. It's the former Romanian dictator today. It's being done by corporate capitalism and PR and the needs of the shareholders. So, no, it's not subtle, but we don't care about subtlety anymore. It scores its points.
- [13:13]
Aisha Harris
This movie absolutely worked for me, and I was there for everything I was trying to say about corporate life, about how we sacrifice our most vulnerable for a buck. Like, yes, it was there. So I'm so glad you picked this, Walter. Like, this is.
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Walter Chow
Oh, thanks.
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Aisha Harris
This is great.
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Walter Chow
There's a scene early on where she eats a burrito.
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Aisha Harris
Yes. Yeah.
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Walter Chow
It's the hungriest eating of a burrito since the last time I ate a burrito.
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Aisha Harris
Yeah, that's. Do not expect too much from the End of the World. And it's streaming on Mubi and vod. Well, my pick for this one is also quite heavy, but I found it incredibly gripping as well. And that is good one. And this is India Donaldson's feature directorial debut. And it's a really kind of simple story in a way that I think has some really, really grand, big ideas happening for it. And it hits you like a gut punch at the end. So basically, it's about Sam, a young, played by Lily Coleas, who is going on a hiking trip with her dad, Chris, played by James Legro, as well as his best friend, Matt, played by Danny McCarthy. Matt's like, you know, a family friend of her entire life. Basically, they're going to the Catskills. And it's all about this trip. Matt's kid was supposed to come. His son was supposed to come with him. But at the last minute, he drops out. We also later learn that Matt is going through a divorce. And we learn all of these little bits and pieces as this movie goes on. It's a very quiet movie. There. Not a lot of dialogue. And when there is dialogue, it's very intentional. You are learning bits and pieces about these characters, how they interact, what their relationships are to each other. And it's just like an ordinary hiking trip until something happens in the third act that just turns the entire thing around. It flips everything that's come before it to a point where you're like, oh, man. Was not expecting it to go this way. Because the movie does a really good job of leaving breadcrumbs, you know, a trail of breadcrumbs, as it were. Cause they're hiking that, like, don't really register until you have this moment. And then the director, India Donaldson, makes such a fascinating choice that I didn't register until after the film ended. And again, I don't wanna give it away, but, you know, I think people, if you've seen the movie, you might understand. She makes a choice after that thing happens that is so profound and hits in a way that I was, like, not expecting. I will say, like, there have been plenty of stories told about this subject. Both about the idea of, like, hiking in the woods or being in nature. And how those things can bring out certain aspects of humanity that are ugly or gross or weird. And there have been stories about what it's like to be a girl in this world. I've never seen anything quite like this. And I think the performances, especially of Willy Coleas as Sam the daughter, are just such. So pitch perfect. Like, it's profound, but it doesn't overplay that profundity, if that makes sense. Yeah, I just really loved this movie and was knocked out by it. And I think all three of you have seen it, right?
- [16:24]
Bob Mondello
Yeah, I sort of flipped over it when I saw it. I love her performance. I think she's extraordinary. And I love the strength of the character. I was wondering where this was headed. And then when it headed there, I thought, oh, okay, well.
- [16:40]
Walter Chow
And I really love James Legro's performance as the scene. Sort of befuddled father. He cares. He does love her. But I think the way that it's done suggests that they've been growing Apart or he's allowed them to grow apart in some way. And I feel that when I talk to my kids sometimes where I feel like, when did you become this person with their own set of values, with their own experiences, with their own language sometimes, you know. And that is portrayed, I think, in that performance in such a understated, I think, way, you know, to your point, the whole thing is sort of understated, but it lands with this real gravity, doesn't it, throughout the course of it, you know, there's a key moment where she says, you know, she wants to talk about something. And he says. And the dad says, look, I'm just. He doesn't say this, but he implies, I'm just having such a hard time related to you anyway, and we're kind of making progress. Can you please just be okay?
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Aisha Harris
Yeah.
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Walter Chow
You know, he doesn't say that, but that's what I get from him.
- [17:37]
Aisha Harris
Yes.
- [17:38]
Walter Chow
In another real way, I think a real movie about us and our time is kind of like, guys, I just need a moment. I just need a minute. You know, it's all so hard right now.
- [17:48]
Glenn Weldon
And, you know, this film is about the thing that happens, but it's also about people's. The characters, reactions to the thing that happens, or lack of reactions to the thing that happens. I love this list because this film could not be more different than do not Expect Too Much. Because where that film shouted and cursed at you and poked you in the rib, this film whispers, it intimates. It's a much more traditional narrative. And I was kind of like, bob, I was like, where is this going? Oh, okay, this is gonna be a mood piece. This is gonna be a vibe. And then that small thing happens that is small only on the surface and its repercussions. Its meaning is huge because it's about what happens to a feeling of safety, A kid's feeling of safety, being cared for. And this is a film about crossing a certain threshold of being let down by those who you love and by those who love you and of entering adult life with everything that entails with its dangers and its crushing disappointments. And I came away from this film feeling like this is gonna sound like a dig, but it's not. I felt like I just read a quote unquote literary short story that was so sharply observed and realistic and prosaic that I didn't get it while I'm reading it. But as soon as I stopped, I was like, oh, the meaning of this just clobbers you. Yeah, yeah, It's a film of all of these that I think lingers longest.
- [19:05]
Aisha Harris
For whatever reasons that is good one. It's available to rent or buy on VOD. And those are our picks for 2024. Or for those of you at home, let us know what your favorite movies are that we may have missed. There's probably something we didn't talk about. There were a lot of movies in 2024. Find us at Facebook.com PCHH and on Letterboxd@Letterbox.com NPRPopCulture we'll have a link in our episode description. And that brings us to the end of our show. Bob Mondello, Walter Chow, Glenn Weldon, thanks so much for being here. These were some really great picks.
- [19:41]
Glenn Weldon
Thank you.
- [19:42]
Bob Mondello
Great fun.
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Walter Chow
Happy New Year.
- [19:43]
Aisha Harris
And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour plus is a great way to support our show and public radio. You get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor free. That's a great deal. You should do it. Please go find out more@plus.NPR.org Hannah Happy Hour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Romel Wood, Hafsa Fathoma and Liz Metzger and edited by Mike Katsiff. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy and hello Kamen provides our theme music. Thanks so much for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from npr. I'm Aisha Harris and we'll see you all next time.
- [20:20]
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