December’s most anticipated films: Ferrari, The Color Purple, Wonka, and more
Also, Godzilla smashes his way into theaters once again, Beyoncé brings her Renaissance tour to the big screen, and Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom finally arrives
Film News Films
December has always been one of the most important moviegoing months of the year; you’ve got all the prestige pics competing for Oscar nominations, plus plenty of family-friendly crowd-pleasers for the holiday season. This year, Ferrari and The Color Purple are the big awards-season blockbusters to watch out for, while Wonka and The Boy And The Heron tick the family box. And beyond the major studio movies there are plenty of interesting indies: Poor Things is the latest film from Oscar-nominated director Yorgos Lanthimos, The Iron Claw depicts a wrestling dynasty’s downfall, and All Of Us Strangers is set to be the season’s requisite tearjerker. Plus, the inspirational sports story The Boys In The Boat is rowing into theaters this Christmas. Check out the rest of our December film picks below.
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I’m not usually one to point out the creative bankruptcy of Hollywood because it seems like that’s been kind of obvious for decades, but man, a third of this list are stories that have been told multiple times already. And a lot of the rest don’t look interesting in the slightest. Poor Things might be the one high point on the list, and it’s a retooling of Frankenstein.As someone who is older and loves film, it’s a little disheartening to see how unoriginal we remain.
True, even the Miyazaki movie feels a bit like a retread of his past tropes. I’m still excited to go see it because even if the story is a bit cliche I’m sure it will look amazing
Just Willy Wonka movies foreverWilly Wonka but it’s the original draft where he owns slavesWilly Wonka but everyone is girlsWilly Wonka but everyone is boys, but in a bad way, like Lord of the FliesWilly Wonka but everyone is fliesWilly Wonka but it’s an Illumination musicalWilly Wonka but Zach Snyder filmed it in deeply desaturated color and everyone is awfulWilly Wonka but the chocolate is made of homeless corpsesWilly Wonka but it’s Weimar Germany and society is crumbling around the chocolate factoryWilly Wonka but it’s the Cambodian civil war and society is crumbling around the chocolate factoryWilly Wonka but it’s The Troubles and society is crumbling around the chocolate factoryWilly Wonka but it jumps back and forth between the fiction and the author like in Dr. Wai in the Scripture with No WordsWilly Wonka but Willy Wonka is Melissa McCarthy and her name is Winnifred Wonka and there’s a lot of rude jokes that are sanitized to the point of losing all humorWilly Wonka but it’s the French New Wave and most of it is just time lapse shots of chocolates melting and rotting on platesWilly Wonka but it’s the Depp Movie with AI used to replace Johnny Depp with Gene Wilder
Yeah. Poor Things and Zone of Interest are the only films here I’m interested in whatsoever. I really dislike how the “highly anticipated” tag get thrown around so much. I mean — Wonka? I doubt that Chalamet’s mom is even that interested, and his agent has probably already been paid. Even with some Paddingon pedigree, I forget about it altogether until another article like this shows up.
Fun fact — the first movie remake (by Melies, the guy Scorsese’s Hugo was about) was in 1896. He remade Lumière’s Playing Cards.
Look, I can’t be the only one holding out for Adam Driver to make the bold, unique creative decision voice Enzo with a Super Mario-esque “Mama Mia!” accent.“Ay, why-a you not drive-a fast-a, eh? You-a slower than my nonna when she make-a the ravioli and slice-a the prosciutt’, and she have-a the arthritis!”Can’t be any worse than Gucci.
I mean , it’s me I guess , but I’ve zero interest in any of these.
“kind of obvious for decades”It’s been explicit since day one. Movies are expensive and people don’t like throwing money away, so the safest bet is something with a built-in audience. Movies that challenge audiences (whether or not the resulting movies are “good” by any critical metric) are good for the art form and good for the culture at large, but are a much riskier business financially. There’s no reason to expect those dynamics to ever change.The only reasonable point of attack is, perhaps, a grass-roots effort to get the public at large to want to seek out more challenging fare. This is obviously a tall order as it ultimately requires you to revise our current system where people have to work in that Goldilocks zone between “worked so hard they snap and revolt” and “have enough time to think critically about why the capitalists get to steal their labor.” In that zone, most people only have the mental energy to absorb middle-of-the-road art.
I’m unapologetically looking forward to Rebel Moon. I’m sure it’s gonna be big loud and stupid(and in slow motion) but I bet it’s still entertaining enough. It’s gonna be the top pick of movies our old drunk uncle is gonna turn on in the den at Christmas.
I swear to god I thought it was a Star War. This was Zack Snyder going to Disney with his idea for a Star Wars flick and Disney going “Thank you for you time, Mr. Snyder” and Zack flouncing out going “FINE! I’LL MAKE MINE OWN STAR WAR! WITH BLACKJACK! AND HOOKERS!*” right?*I’m not sure about the blackjack, but I guaran-damn-tee you there’ll be some heavily-tattooed Suicide Girl-type blowing a fat dude in it somewhere.
The one commercial I remember featured two separate instances of someone leaping in slow motion at someone else, so you’re definitely gonna get your slow-mo fix covered if that’s what you’re into.
It’s a Snyder film. That three hour run time would be 83 minutes if you played the slow mo at regular speed.
In ochre and sepia, naturally
Agreed. Same for Aquaman.
same. i might even try to see it in a theatre!
I have no idea what that is, but I kind of want it to be like Iron Sky, with a Confederate moon base instead of a Nazi one.
I’m happy with Confederate Star Wars:“NO: I AM YOU FATHER.”“No. NO- wait. I thought you were my cousin?”“That too.”
I’d love to see writers fully included in the background of new movies – given you are all writers, and after the strike, it would be good to shift the norms to including not just the director and lead actors… .
American Fiction looks like fun. I need more Jeffrey Wright in my life.
Man, Wright strikes me as the biggest, most serious actor, but then I remember he was Think Tank in the Venture Bros. “Nietzsche. It was Nietzsche. How could the children not know that?”As an Australian writer with Asian in me who gets the whole “Why don’t you write about being Asian? No, not like that” every five minutes, I’m gonna be first in line for a ticket, that’s for damn sure.
My first reaction to the aquaman movie after seeing the trailer was: “hell no”
courseraquiz.com
No one is anticipating Wonka with anything but dread.
Ferrari looks good enough, in a dad-movie sort of way. I’m down for any weird shit Lanthimos is willing to subject me to, so Poor Things looks intriguing, and Boy and the Heron is going to be shown at my local 100 year old theater, so I can’t wait for that. Rebel Moon looks like butt. Ditto with Wonka. American Fiction and Iron Claw look pretty solid.