3 movies I watched in 2024!

Anora:

The story of a exotic dancer/sex worker and the son of a Russian oligarch. Warning: there is a lot of nudity and sex in this movie. Is the sex gratuitous? Well one of the main characters is a sometime sex worker and if a movie about a carpenter had a lot of carpentry in it would the carpentry be considered “gratuitous”? Just saying. But all that aside,,once the rich Russian kid’s minders and family get involved in trying to end the relationship between their son and the dancer, the movie becomes hilarious, madcap and frenetic! A lot of fun!

Conclave:

Fat Cat cardinals get together to elect a pope, and needless to say, there’s a lot of jiggery popery. It’s got Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow and their performances make up for some ridiculous B movie plot twists at the end. Isabella Rosselini plays the long suffering head nun who doesn’t say much but her face is permanently fixed in a look of barely concealed contempt for all around her. Her nuns are basically maid servants to the feuding cardinals. Ralph Fiennes is brilliant.

A Real Pain: Kieran Culkin playing a version of his Succession character (without the financial support) and Jesse Eisenberg playing, as usual, the socially awkward tech nerd. They are cousins on a trip to Poland to visit their dead grandmother’s home. It’s very funny and cringeworthy and moving all at the same time and not afraid of anticlimax. It proves the old adage that you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your relatives…one of the best !