Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
The original film’s happy-go-lucky journey through the streets of Chicago gets the Ari Aster treatment in this morbid commentary on self-liberation. Ferris (Timothée Chalamet) and Sloane (Alexa Demie) convince Cameron (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) to engage in increasingly violent behavior, from robbing an elderly woman to assaulting Principal Rooney. Cameron’s iconic moment of introspection, originally in front of Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, takes place instead in front of Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son. The film crescendos with Ferris urging Cameron to commit patricide while a chilling rendition of “Twist and Shout” played on a glockenspiel hauntingly pings in the background. A24 drops a blood-soaked Red Wings jersey on their merch website that sells out in minutes.
The Fast and the Furious (2001)
After the lackluster box office sales of Fast X, Universal execs panic and collaborate with A24 on a black-and-white period piece that tracks undercover Bureau of Prohibition agent Brian O’Connor (Lucas Hedges) as he infiltrates Dominic Toretto and his crew of bootleggers. O’Connor starts to question his superior’s draconian outlook and eventually helps Toretto escape in a high-speed chase at a whopping 28 mph, the maximum capability of the time. Tabloids go ballistic when Vin Diesel drops out of the production because the Coen Brothers refuse to put “Salud mi familia” into the script. Despite the off-screen drama, the picture receives a standing ovation at Cannes, and The New Yorker film critic Richard Brody proudly boasts that “it’s the best meditation on crime and authority since The Wire.” Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s “See You Again”, re-released as a ragtime ditty for the soundtrack, peaks at #3 on the Spotify global charts.
The Proposal (2009)
Fourteen years ago, Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds charmed audiences with a light-hearted enemies-to-lovers saga set in the quaint town of Sitka, Alaska. Today, fans grapple with the brooding melodrama of Greta Gerwig’s remake, backdropped by the abandoned steel mills of Youngstown, Ohio. With lead roles played by Jenny Slate and Saoirse Ronan, this tour de force clocks in at 3 hours and 20 minutes, nearly twice the runtime of the original movie, and tackles themes ranging from fourth-wave feminism to late-stage capitalism. The lovable “Gammy” character, originally portrayed by the late Betty White, is replaced by Bruce Dern’s Fox News obsessed “Grumpy”, whose insensitive barbs give viewers PTSD of past Thanksgiving dinner table conversations.
Shrek (2001)
Director Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Northman) reimagines the jolly DreamWorks classic as an adaptation of the haunting 17th-century Spanish fable El Ogro. After winning the right to marry Princess Fiona (voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy), Shrek feasts on the bodies of attacking knights in this horror romance that explores love, power, and class. Laced with nauseating realism, sound designer Damian Volpe spends two weeks in a Nebraska pigpen to capture the perfect audio of crackling bone. Fiona wrestles with a growing affection for her captor while Donkey’s light-hearted wisecracks and Smash Mouth’s “All Star” add a sadistic delight to this horrid dreamscape. Parents picket the premiere after Common Sense Media warns that “this is NOT a kids movie” and labels the film “traumatically violent”.
Jurassic Park (1993)
Director Claire Denis subverts the triumphant special effects of Steven Spielberg’s technical masterpiece with this scaled-down “one room” drama, akin to 12 Angry Men or Locke. Trapped in a conference room, paleontologists Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, chaotician Ian Malcolm, and billionaire John Hammond debate man vs nature as velociraptors terrorize the park. Aaron Sorkin’s sharp dialogue keeps viewers on the edge of their seats while the loudening shrieks of (never pictured) dinosaurs build tension. Shot in 4:3, Denis transforms the conference room into a claustrophobic examination of the human psyche. A24 blasts T-Rex sounds around Austin for two weeks before debuting the picture at SXSW.