The last film to receive major 2024 awards recognition that I hadn’t seen before, A24’s Heretic, is available from the studio on both 4K UHD and standard Blu-ray. It is also currently streaming on Max.

The film is one of two 2024 releases starring Hugh Grant that is currently available on Blu-ray while also streaming on Max. The other is Paddington in Peru which I tried to watch but couldn’t get into despite having seen and loved its two predecessors.

Grant is one of the best actors of his generation, most of whose films are available for home viewing. His two best performances were in the comedies, Four Weddings and a Funeral from 1994, and About a Boy from 2002. He was also outstanding in the 2003 ensemble film, Love Actually and in just about everything else he has done.

It’s not a surprise then, that Grant’s work in Heretic is stellar, but he was not a frontrunner in last year’s Best Actor Oscar race where there were primarily six actors in contention for five slots. The five who made it were Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown, Colman Domingo in Sing Sing, Ralph Fiennes in Conclave, Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice, and Adrien Brody who won for The Brutalist. The sixth major contender was Daniel Craig in Queer.

Grant would likely have been seventh in the running for those five slots judging by his showing in other races.

The actor was among the six nominees for Best Actor at both the BAFTAs and the Satellites supplanting Craig at BAFTA and Stan at the Satellites. The Golden Globes, which nominated all six frontrunners for Best Actor – Drama, nominated Grant for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy, a blatant misrepresentation as Heretic is neither a musical or comedy. A couple of old songs played on records whose similarity is noted by Grant do not make it a musical and a few droll comments from the actor do not make it a comedy. It’s a horror movie for crying out loud!

It starts out strongly as a game of cat-and-mouse as two young ladies from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) make their way to the secluded mansion of a gentleman who has expressed interest in the church. They secure their bicycles to the gate of the mansion and proceed to knock on his door. He bids them enter. They are hesitant as they are not allowed to enter a home unless there is a woman present. He insists it’s okay to enter as his wife is there. They enter but remain standing awaiting the arrival of his wife who he says is in the kitchen baking a blueberry pie which they can smell. They give him their coats which he takes away.

The man, played by Grant at his most charming, is very polite, regaling the young ladies with questions about the Church while making snide remarks about religion in general which makes them uncomfortable as they sit waiting for the wife. When he leaves to fetch his wife and the pie, they decide to leave but they can’t because the key to the lock on their bicycles is in the pocket of one of the young ladies’ coats, besides which the lock on the front door won’t turn.

Eventually Grant comes back and convinces them to come into the kitchen for a piece of pie, after which the game of cat-and-mouse intensifies and evil rears its ugly head leading to bloody murder and mayhem.

Grant and Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as the young women are excellent. The direction by writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods is strong throughout but their screenplay, which starts out well, lets the project down about two-thirds of the way in. The pair, which is best known for their screenplay for 2018’s A Quiet Place, can and should have done a better job.

Andrew Ahn’s 2025 remake of Ang Lee’s 1993 breakthrough film, The Wedding Banquet, has been released on Blu-ray by Decal-Bleeker Street.

While the film’s screenplay is credited to both Ahn and James Schamus, who co-wrote Lee’s original, it is a huge letdown with very little in common with Lee’s great original.

Lee’s original may have been a film of its time, but it has a heart that makes it a film for all-time. This so-called remake is nothing like it.

In Lee’s film, a young Taiwanese-American landlord living in Manhattan with his Caucasian male lover and his female tenant agree to a marriage of convenience so she can get a green card, and he can get his parents off his back by finally marrying. Complications arise when his parents decide to come to New York for the wedding and deceptions are afoot, leading to hilarious comic moments. The wedding, the banquet, and its aftermath, are all beautifully staged.

The film ends with a charming revelation that sent audiences out with a smile on their lips.

The acting was first-rate with strong performances by Winston Chao as the landlord, Mitchell Lichtenstein as his lover, May Chin as his tenant, Ah-Lei Hua as his mother, and Lee regular Sihung Lung as his father.

In the new version, lesbian lovers Lily Gladstone and Kelley Marie Tran bicker over the cost of Tran undergoing IVF treatments so they can have a baby after Gladstone rejects them twice leading Gladstone to come up with a plan for wealthy gay Han Gi-Chan to marry Tran so he can get a green card, and she can get the money she needs for the treatments.

In the meantime, Gi-Chan’s lover Bowen Yang and Gladstone have a drunken one-night stand, and she becomes pregnant. To add to the complications, Gi-Chan’s grandmother, Youn Yuh-Jung arrives promising to give the bride and groom a big Korean wedding banquet. It ends abruptly with the couples uncoupling and marrying their true partners with no accompanying banquet. A coda taking place a year later shows two babies crying with both couples taking care of them.

The acting by the four principals is merely serviceable. The performances of veteran Joan Chen as Tran’s mother and Oscar winner Youn give it some heft but not enough to make it something to recommend. Stick with the original.

Happy viewing.