Jeremy Beck, Author at MovieManifesto

Ranking Every TV Show of 2024: Part I

February 10, 2025February 10, 2025 Jeremy BeckTV Rankings

Daveed Diggs in Snowpiercer; Krysten Ritter in Orphan Black: Echoes; Benedict Cumberbatch in Eric; Morfydd Clark in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power; Jennifer Connelly in Dark Matter

To paraphrase Dante from Clerks: eighty-seven?? That figure represents the number of TV series I watched in full in 2024, and I suspect you’ll find it appalling regardless of your viewing habits. If you’re a normal person with a family and a social life and a passing interest in sunlight, you’ll surely deem it disturbingly high (especially when paired with the 237 movies I watched during the same calendar year). But if you’re a true media-consumption addict, your disgust might take on a more contemptuous tone: Eighty-seven, that’s it? What’s the matter, Beck, you trying to get actual sleep these days?

It’s true that, in pure quantitative terms, this is my lowest tally since 2015. As for quality, I can promise you that of the 90-odd TV shows, I can strongly recommend at least 12 of them. Read More

Companion: Beauty Is in the AI of the Beholder

February 5, 2025February 4, 2025 Jeremy BeckReviews

Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher in Companion

She’s the perfect girlfriend. She’s smart but not intimidating. She’s pretty but doesn’t draw too much attention to herself. She’s a good listener but doesn’t dominate the conversation. She’s good in bed but doesn’t demand her own gratification. She’s everything a man could want, and nothing he can’t handle.

The chief satirical insight of Companion, the slick and engaging new thriller from Drew Hancock, is that the preceding paragraph’s negative phrases—emphasizing a woman’s passivity, her lack of desire or independence—function as positive attributes. For the men in this movie, the platonic ideal of romantic partnership isn’t equality but compliance. They aren’t interested in being challenged or enriched; they just want to be admired and obeyed. Read More

Presence: Phantom Dread

January 29, 2025January 28, 2025 Jeremy BeckReviews

As auteurs go, Steven Soderbergh is relatively humble. His closing credits never use the phrase “a film by,” and while he typically shoots and edits his movies himself—not since 2011’s Contagion has anyone else fulfilled either of those roles in one of his features—he also deploys pseudonyms (Peter Andrews for cinematography, Mary Ann Bernard for editing), as if to minimize the fastidious control he exerts over his own productions. That’s especially noteworthy in the case of Presence, given that its star is, well, Steven Soderbergh—or rather, his camera.

To be sure, there are actors in this movie, which centers on a white-collar nuclear family that’s just moved into an appealing new home in suburban New Jersey; Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan play the parents, respectively named Rebekah and Chris, while their disaffected teenage children are Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang). But the heart of Presence is its titular entity, an invisible being that roams about the house in a state of persistent curiosity, and whose field of vision doubles as the audience’s point of view. Read More

The Brutalist: Nadirs of the Lost Architect

January 24, 2025January 23, 2025 Jeremy BeckReviews

The American dream gets flipped upside-down in The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s soaring, scathing portrait of post-war greed. Yet while it may be a troubling tale of moral decline, it opens with its hero going up, up, up, climbing toward the prospect of salvation. His name is László, and we first see him in the steerage of a ship docking at Ellis Island, his pallid skin and crooked nose long shielded from the light of day. As his mind recites a letter from his absent wife, he begins to ascend along with countless other sweaty hopefuls, the camera swooping and twisting like he’s navigating a labyrinth. When he finally bursts onto the deck, his face breaks into an ecstatic grin, the sunlight beaming down on him, the score’s trumpets booming in triumph. Never mind that our first view of Lady Liberty comes at an inverted angle, as though she’s about to plunge her torch—and its elusive promise of prosperity—into the harbor.

This knockout introduction instantly signals The Brutalist’s monumental ambition, both thematic and aesthetic. Much has been made of the film’s length (over three-and-a-half hours, including a 15-minute intermission), but its running time is just one of its many extravagances. Corbet, eschewing subtlety in favor of sheer grandeur, has delivered a truly maximalist production, a work of sweeping scope, vigorous style, and provocative rhetoric. The movie is, to borrow the tagline from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, an epic of epic epicness. Read More

Oscars 2024: Nominations and Analysis

January 23, 2025January 23, 2025 Jeremy BeckOscars

This year’s Oscar nominations were pretty good, except for the ones that were terrible. Or maybe it’s the other way around. As is always the case, it’s hard for me to get too fired up about the Academy’s selections, even if I inevitably feel a twinge of disappointment when one of my favorite films gets ignored (fare thee well, Challengers) or a rush of euphoria when another gets recognized (Coralie Fargeat, allez!). That’s how this is supposed to work: The ~~snubs~~ omissions go hand in hand with the surprises, resulting in an overall slate that’s flawed, messy, and interesting.

So while acknowledging that the Oscars remain perfectly imperfect, let’s run through the nominees in each of the 14 feature categories that I previously predicted (quite poorly, in some cases), along with some quickie analysis of where things currently stand: Read More