Three Must-See Movies Released in August 2024
August is typically a quiet month for movie releases, and this year was no different. However, among the films that premiered this month, there are some hidden gems. Here are the three best movies to watch in theaters now, and soon on a streaming service near you.
Between the Temples
Over the last 15 years, independent filmmaker Nathan Silver has created a number of quirky but engaging films, which might lack polish but have a distinctive personal touch. In his delightfully offbeat film, Between the Temples, plays Ben Gottlieb, a depressed cantor who has lost both the will and the ability to sing. He unexpectedly reconnects with his grade-school music teacher, Carla Kessler, portrayed by , who has decided that despite her age, she wants the she never had. She convinces Ben to tutor her, but he is the one who ends up reconnecting with the essence of his faith—and he also regains his voice. Kane—beloved by almost anyone who has seen Hester Street, The Princess Bride, Scrooged, or an episode of Taxi—is one of those performers we don’t get to see often enough. With her bubbly laugh and cheerful smile, she is both captivating and disarming—she can make you feel euphorically, wonderfully dizzy, the way you do after looking at a sparkler for too long. She and Schwartzman have fantastic chemistry together; their rhythms harmonize perfectly. We owe Silver a debt of gratitude for bringing them together.
Good One
Writer-director India Donaldson’s debut film, Good One, feels like a refreshing discovery: it’s a delicate film, but one that stays with you long after the credits roll. Relative newcomer Lily Collias is excellent as 17-year-old Sam, who is going on a weekend camping trip with her father Chris (James Le Gros) and his oldest friend, Matt (Danny McCarthy). Chris is divorced from Sam’s mother and has a new baby with his second wife; Matt is an underemployed actor still recovering from a recent divorce. Sam has no reason to care about these men’s problems. But she listens sympathetically as they share their tales of midlife woes around the campfire. Then, in a fleeting moment that cannot be undone, everything changes. Good One shows how having empathy can sometimes feel like a burden. Yet, what choice do we have? Especially if, as women, we have been raised to believe that nurturing is our duty? Still, Sam is on the winning side: her generosity is not a mistake but a luminous quality, worth holding onto. Collias captures something delicate here, a quiet transition into adulthood that happens, literally, overnight. []
Close Your Eyes
Spanish master Víctor Erice has made only four feature-length films; his most famous may be 1973’s Spirit of the Beehive. So when a new one arrives, run, don’t walk. His latest, Close Your Eyes, is an immersive, tender film about the nature of memory and memories—they may overlap at times, but they are not the same thing. A famous actor, Julio Arenas (José Coronado), disappears mysteriously during the filming of a movie, sometime in the early 1990s. He never reappears and is presumed dead. Nearly 20 years later, the director of that film, Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo), now lives in a cozy beachside shack. He’s still writing, but filmmaking is a completely different world, one that has left him behind. He learns that Julio—who was also his oldest and closest friend—may still be alive. What follows is partly a contemplation on the nature of friendship: what we think we know of a person never reveals the whole story. But mostly, it’s a poetic reflection on how cinema feeds into the very essence of memory. Movies touch everything we know; there’s no escaping them.