Hear Marisa Abela’s Amy Winehouse voice in new biopic trailer, judge some Oscars songs, and more from the week in film

Here’s why you know that song from Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig’s hilarious Golden Globes bit

Whether you know it or not, you’ve most likely heard a piece of music written by Kevin MacLeod. If you were watching the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday night, you’ve definitely heard it. During their presentation of the award for best actor in a comedy, Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig tried to play it straight, only to be distracted by a snippet of a bouncy song called “Fluffing A Duck” that brought out their goofiest dance moves. The bit also got some of the best reactions of the night from the audience, including Golden Globe nominee Andrew Scott and Jennifer Lopez. Even watching at home you could feel the release of tension in the crowd after a night of awkwardness and jokes that didn’t land. – Cindy White Read More

Mean Girls review: Fetch just can’t happen twice

What exactly are we meant to get from a remake of Mean Girls? This is, of course, the existential quandary of any remake: to find a purpose beyond simply being a brand regurgitation of something that was once successful and popular. But the 2024 version of Mean Girls is doubly cursed in this regard, functioning both as a retelling of the 2004 film and as a film adaptation of the Broadway musical inspired by the film. Is the introduction of musical numbers conceived for the stage enough of a reason to mine this material for the screen once more? Or is this a soulless retread that finds screenwriter Tina Fey revisiting her same story (itself adapted from the book Queen Bees And Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman) 20 years later without finding anything new to say? The answer to both, strangely enough, is yes. – Leigh Monson Read More

The biggest snubs and surprises from the 2024 SAG Award nominations

The SAG Awards unveiled their nominations this morning, honoring actors across film and television. While the lists were fairly predictable (and heavy on the awards-bait style biopics), there were still some pretty horrendous snubs and some (mostly pleasant) surprises. Voted on by the Screen Actors Guild to honor their colleagues, the SAG Awards are often considered somewhat of a bellwether for who we could see receive an Oscar nomination on January 23. – Drew Gillis Read More

The Book Of Clarence review: An adventurous homage to biblical epics

In The Book Of Clarence, writer and director Jeymes Samuel (The Harder They Fall) imagines a 13th apostle who lies his way into being a disciple of Jesus. Set in Jerusalem in the year 33, the film follows a charming small-time crook talented in the art of hustling. He’s not a believer in God, but rather someone who sees an opportunity to ride Jesus’ popularity for his own benefit. The premise is a fun sendup of classic bible movies like Ben-Hur (1959) and The Tenth Commandment (1956), and the film straddles the line between entertaining anachronism—modern performances and soundtrack and tongue-in-cheek humor—and respect for the religious framework. But it never fully commits to either stance, thus ending up an odd, albeit entertaining, mismatch of tones and themes. – Murtada Elfadl Read More

Ranking every Best Original Song contender for the 2024 Oscars

When the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences recently released its shortlist of the 15 songs in consideration for Best Original Song nomination, there was almost as much talk about what wasn’t included as what was. There were no tunes from Wish, for instance, marking the first time in two decades that a Disney animated musical was shut out of a category that the studio has long dominated. New songs added to the live-action version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid by Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda also didn’t make the cut, depriving Menken of his 20th nomination and denying Miranda a chance to complete his EGOT. – Cindy White Read More

Pixar’s pandemic films are heading to theaters. Other studios should follow suit

2020 is a forgotten year at the movies. Namely because the movies and, more specifically, movie theaters barely existed. After Trolls: World Tour broke the dam for movies to bypass theaters and go straight to VOD, the words “day-and-date” emerged as a new form of distribution. Movies would simultaneously go live on streamers and in theaters, and it was the right thing to do at the time. Seeing Tenet wasn’t worth adding to the already catastrophic losses. Today, unsustainable trends like “day and date” release structures have mostly gone the way of “social distancing.” Movie theaters are back open, and surprisingly, movies devoid of superheroes and multiverses are making money. – Matt Schimkowitz Read More

The Beekeeper review: Predictable Jason Statham actioner lacks buzz

In The Beekeeper, Jason Statham plays, as you may well have surmised, a beekeeper. When we first meet him, this beekeeper is the stoic kind, unconcerned with the world beyond his hive. Even the woman who’s renting him a barn where he harvests his bees’ honey is kept at arm’s length. Soon, though, we learn this beekeeper used to also be, well, another kind of “beekeeper.” And if me saying the film’s title oh so many times in this intro has already irked you enough, worry: for David Ayer’s efficiently directed actioner utters it so many times and exhausts its bluntly delivered metaphor so often that just watching Statham punch and shoot his way out of any scene he’s in becomes an exercise in exhaustion. – Manuel Betancourt Read More

What the Mandalorian & Grogu movie reveals about the future of Star Wars

This week’s announcement of The Mandalorian & Grogu film added one more major project to Lucasfilm’s already crowded Star Wars slate. While we don’t have many details about The Mandalorian movie at this point, what we do know shows where the studio is focusing its resources, and where the Star Wars franchise is headed. It’s pretty clear that Lucasfilm is all in on the adventures of an adorable little green puppet and his dad as well as the creators who brought him into the world in the first place. But it’s also interesting to look at what’s been sidelined as a result of fast-tracking this project. – Cindy White Read More

Marisa Abela debuts her Amy Winehouse (speaking) voice in first Back To Black teaser

Amy Winehouse is the next late, great artist to get the biopic treatment, after films like Elvis, Maestro, and Rocketman have made it a pretty significant trend in recent years. Winehouse’s meteoric rise and tragic death will be told through the lens of director Sam Taylor-Johnson, whose film Nowhere Boy, an exploration of John Lennon’s early years, first brought her acclaim in the genre over a decade ago. – Emma Keates Read More