DECEMBER
“The Aeronauts”
Have you ever thought, “I want to see a film about the epic fight for survival while attempting to make discoveries in a hot air balloon?” Well, Amazon Studios and director Tom Harper (“Wild Rose,” “Peaky Blinders,” “War And Peace” mini-series) believe you’ve come to the right place with their upcoming biographical adventure film, rooted in the truth about pilot Amelia Wren (a fictional character) and scientist James Glaisher (a real one). A reunion for its “The Theory Of Everything” leads Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, Harper is coming off his “Wild Rose” hit which had a ton of indie buzz this year, Redmayne and Jones are both Academy Award-nominated actors and this one has Oscar potential written all over it. What’s more, it’s been accepted to play at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and rumored to be making its world premiere in Telluride first over Labor Day weekend.
Release Date: December 6 – RP
https://twitter.com/ThePlaylist/status/1161286266052366337
“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”
One of the most talked-about films out of Cannes this year, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” skyrocketed to the top of our must-see movies of the year following its lauded premiere. Written and directed by Céline Sciamma, the 18th-century romance follows a young artist named Marianne (Noémie Merlant), hired to paint the portrait of a woman named Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), a portrait that has been commissioned to potentially illicit marriage proposals. Héloïse is fundamentally against the concept, housing no desire to be turned into a bride-to-be. As the two women grow closer, Marianne starts developing feelings for her subject, falling into forbidden love. The movie is the first feature directed by a woman to win the Queer Palm at Cannes (quite the unfortunate statistic) and Sciamma also took the Best Screenplay trophy home from France. As our review wrote, “[the film] never traps either character in the role of the muse, allowing each woman the agency and interior subjectivity of the (usually male) artist.” If you somehow missed all the buzz for this breakthrough period picture on ill-fated romance when it debuted across the Atlantic earlier this year, you might want to add ‘Portrait’ to the top of your watchlist.
Release Date: December 6 – AB
“In Fabric”
Peter Strickland is one of those directors whose work gets more interesting with each new film. His kinky, mannered breakthrough, “Berberian Sound Studio,” was a skillfully assembled Giallo tribute that never quite overcame its status as pure pastiche. The director’s follow-up – a smoldering erotic reverie called “The Duke of Burgundy” – was one of 2014’s most exciting films. If the first trailer for Strickland’s latest – an A24-produced horror-comedy called “In Fabric” – is any indication, this could be the director’s first genuine crossover hit. It might also be the first-ever entry in the “evil clothing” subgenre, as the plot is said to center around a coveted red dress that harms anyone who comes into contact with it. In this case, that would be a British woman named Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste of “Secrets and Lies”) who’s just split with her husband. We don’t know much beyond that, but the first trailer for “In Fabric” is a tease in the best possible sense of the word – it doesn’t give you much, but it makes you want to know more The film premiered to largely favorable reviews at last year’s TIFF, and it looks to do potentially decent business with arthouse crowds and fans of other creepy A24 offerings such as “The Lighthouse” and “Midsommar.”
Release Date: December 6 – NL
“A Hidden Life”
For a long while, it seemed as though mythical auteur Terrence Malick was all but lost in the woods of his own imagination. While experimental, late-period Malick offerings like “To The Wonder,” “Knight of Cups,” and “Song to Song” undoubtedly have their defenders, it’s hard to dispute that these movies often feel unmoored and unfocused. Even the highlights of these aforementioned efforts feel more like pale imitations of Malick’s signature magic than anything genuinely new. So it’s a pleasure to report that “A Hidden Life” (previously titled “Radegund”) appears to be Malick’s most successful movie since “The Tree of Life.” “A Hidden Life” is the story of Franz Jägerstätter (played in the film by August Diehl), an Austrian conscientious objector who is imprisoned for refusing to fight during WWII. Based upon the first wave of reactions from Cannes, all the Malick staples appear to be in place – whispered voiceover, twirling camerawork, an exalted air of mysticism and awe – but this nevertheless seems like a more mature work from a director who’s been out to sea for some time now. Diehl apparently gives a standout performance, but special mention should also go to the late Bruno Ganz, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Franz Rogowski (star of this year’s miraculous “Transit”) in the supporting cast.
Release Date: December 13 – NL
“Uncut Gems”
Although Adam Sandler has given some truly outstanding performances in non-Happy Madison vehicles – as a temperamental, lovesick loner in “Punch-Drunk Love” or as a divorced sad-sack in “The Meyerowitz Stories” – he’s never undergone a transformation quite like the one he seems to have gone through for Josh and Benny Safdie’s upcoming crime drama “Uncut Gems.” Set photos revealed Sandler looking like your teen son’s ketamine dealer, prompting many of us to wonder… what exactly is the comedian up to? It looks as though the Safdies are giving Sandler the treatment they gave Robert Pattinson in 2017’s unforgettable underworld saga “Good Time”: they’re dirtying him up and bringing him into their chaotic street-level world. “Uncut Gems” is the story of Howard Ratner: a jeweler and gambling addict working in New York’s infamous Diamond District who must balance work, family and escalating debts en route to what the film’s TIFF press release calls “the windfall of a lifetime.” This looks to be another win for the prodigiously gifted sibling duo, in addition to showcasing another Oscar-worthy performance from Sandler and supporting turns from a diverse supporting ensemble that includes Eric Bogosian, Judd Hirsch, Idina Menzel, Lakeith Stanfield, basketball star Kevin Garnett, and R&B sensation The Weeknd.
Release Date: December 13 – NL
https://twitter.com/ThePlaylist/status/1152962466185265152
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is a continuation of the discrete, modestly-budgeted series of films that… just kidding, ‘Rise of Skywalker’ is a goddamn “Star Wars” movie, and we venture that you, reader, will be buying a ticket whether you’re a die-hard fan of these films or not. This last round of “Star Wars” flicks has been a series of peaks and valleys: J.J. Abrams restored a sense of gimlet-eyed nostalgia to the franchise with his rousing ‘The Force Awakens‘ before Rian Johnson took a hard left turn into divisive idiosyncrasy with the mostly-maligned ‘The Last Jedi‘ (The spin-off ‘Rogue One‘ was a bleak intergalactic war film that worked for many “Star Wars” devotees, while the origin story ‘Solo‘ didn’t do enough to justify its troubled production history). With the somewhat rocky trajectory of these last few movies, it makes sense that Kathleen Kennedy would want to bring back Abrams – who knows a thing or two about giving fanboys what they want – to direct this epic-looking finale. In addition to franchise regulars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, and John Boyega, ‘Skywalker’ sees the return of Billy Dee Williams’ Lando Calrissian – and, if the iniquitous cackle near the end of the first teaser trailer is any indication, also the wicked Emperor Palpatine.
Release Date: December 20 – NL
“Cats”
Tom Hooper is one of those directors who is probably just going to continue to make glossy, middlebrow Oscar bait for the rest of his career. After all, this is the guy who gave us “The King’s Speech” (which dominated the 2011 Oscar circuit), the divisive “Les Miserables” movie and, uh, “The Danish Girl.” All that said, I don’t think anyone was prepared for the trailer for Hooper’s latest, a big-screen adaptation of the popular Broadway musical “Cats.” What should have been an innocent piece of awards-season fluff was instead revealed to be a full-throttle nightmare of Lovecraftian proportions. Instantly, Film Twitter went to town on the movie, ridiculing its excesses and posing all sorts of inquiries: why is cat Judi Dench wearing a fur coat? What’s going on with the proportions of these demented-looking felines? What the hell is Jason Derulo doing in this movie? Why do some of the cats have breasts? All these pressing questions aside, “Cats” could either be a “Battlefield Earth”-style dumpster fire or a runaway Oscar darling, or… perhaps both? While we’re still trying to figure out why no one at Universal protested any of the first trailer’s more unsettling qualities, we suppose there’s a chance that “Cats” could be… good… maybe?
Release Date: December 20 – NL
“Untitled Jay Roach/Roger Ailes Film/Bombshell“
The dark, poisoned legacy of Roger Ailes and Fox News is all the rage now that Ailes, the founder of Fox News has passed and the Trump administration has made the story all the more relevant. The doc “Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes” debuted last year and this year, Showtime‘s “The Loudest Voice” is currently wrapping up with a powerhouse performance by Russell Crowe as Ailes. Directed by Jay Roach, who made the somewhat odd and unexpected move from slight comedies (“Austin Powers“) to political films (“Game Change,” “Recount“), this Ailes story shifts things slightly and entered around the sexual harassment allegations made against Ailes by female employees, including Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson. Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson and Margot Robbie as the lesser-known Kayla Pospisil. In what could be a gigantic career-boost for the actor, John Lithgow plays Ailes and he hasn’t had a really meaty mainstream role in ages. The movie also stars Allison Janney, Kate McKinnon, Malcolm McDowell, Alice Eve, and many more and is sure to cause controversy when it arrives at the end of the year.
Release Date: December 20 – RP
https://twitter.com/ThePlaylist/status/998929215134121984
“Clemency”
While our words out of Sundance suggested that Chinonye Chukwu‘s extremely intense and very particularly paced film, “Clemency,” could use some significant edits, the movie – about an experienced death row prison – has an incredibly powerful lead performance from Alfre Woodard that should not be missed. Given how slowly it breathes, Chukwu’s judicially mindful film was intricately researched but requires a lot of patience from the viewer. It’s a tough sit about a resilient woman starting to unravel, thanks to having one of the toughest jobs on the face of the Earth. Woodard’s character is now suffering from insomnia and she’s prone to drink her thoughts on all the terrible executions she’s presided over away. The response to her performance has been remarkable. “It may seem out of bounds to ask a filmmaker in a formal review to consider returning to the editing room, but in this case, it’s warranted,” our own Gregory Ellwood wrote, “Woodard is too good to not have this performance seen by the masses or at least the art house masses.” We shall see if non-festival audiences react similarly resistant to “Clemency’s” bold pacing choices.
Release Date: December 27 – AB
https://twitter.com/ThePlaylist/status/1089831592321736704
“Little Women”
Greta Gerwig could have done anything she wanted after the success of 2017’s coming-of-age instant classic “Lady Bird.” That film is one of the highest-grossing movies in the A24 roster (second only to Ari Aster’s supernatural spookfest “Hereditary”), and it introduced the world to several major talents, including rising megastar Timothee Chalamet and “Booksmart” breakout Beanie Feldstein. With that in mind, it makes sense that Gerwig would want her next film to be bigger, more illustrious, and possessing more considerable chances of Oscar season glory. And so she’s decided to tackle Louisa May Alcott’s seminal text “Little Women”: the story of the March girls, all of whom find themselves navigating the complexities of first love and the perils of sisterhood against the rich backdrop of the American Civil War. Unsurprisingly, Gerwig has brought back a who’s who of stars from her first movie, including “Lady Bird” herself, Saoirse Ronan, Chalamet, and Tracy Letts, alongside new collaborators like Florence Pugh, Laura Dern, and the great Meryl Streep. Really, there’s no reason for “Little Women” not to be one of the smash hits of 2019 – and as if all that wasn’t enough, the film has officially secured a coveted Christmas Day release, a surefire sign of faith if ever there was one.
Release Date: December 25 – NL
“1917”
Sam Mendes has had an interesting career since bursting onto the scene with a little Best Picture-winning film called “American Beauty.” Near the end of the early aughts, Mendes directed a pair of films about romance: one dark and disquieting (“Revolutionary Road”) and one effervescent and whimsical (“Away We Go”). After that, Mendes directed a pair of James Bond films, including the propulsive, mostly fun “Skyfall” and also “Spectre,” which fell well the expectations held by most 007 fans. “1917,” which has been given a Christmas Day release by Universal, looks to be the director’s most colossal undertaking to date: a war epic chronicles a period of 24 hours amongst a battle-hardened British Battalion during WWI. What’s more is that Mendes’ film features a terrific cast that includes George MacKay (next to be seen in Justin Kurzel’s “True History of the Kelly Gang”) and “Game of Thrones” actor Dean-Charles Chapman as well as seasoned pros like Colin Firth, Mark Strong, and Benedict Cumberbatch. The film is also one of two holiday Oscar hopefuls being lensed by the legendary Roger Deakins (the other being “The Goldfinch”) and we’re betting that Mendes and co. are hoping that “1917” is the “Dunkirk” of 2019: an immersive, harrowing, you-are-there glimpse at the horrors of combat.
Release Date: December 25 – NL
“Just Mercy”
Captain Marvel herself, Brie Larson, reunites with acclaimed “Short Term 12,” and “The Glass Castle,” director Destin Daniel Cretton; only Carol Danvers is not playing his lead this time around. The pair’s newest creative project, “Just Mercy,” stars Michael B. Jordan as civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson and is based on the defense attorney’s own personal memoir, recounting his experiences attempting to overturn the murder conviction of one Walter McMillion, played by Jamie Foxx. The legal case is a crazy story that reveals just how insanely corrupt our justice system has always been. Being a sensitive and socially conscious filmmaker who puts raw empathy ahead of artistic indulgence, Cretton’s proven skillset seems especially suited for his latest picture, which is probably the last low budget movie he’ll be making for a while. The “Short Term 12” director’s newest film is the upcoming MCU debut, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” Now, how can they also write Kilmonger into the movie and get Jordan’s character in the same room as Tony Leung’s The Mandarin?
Release Date: December 25 – AB
https://twitter.com/ThePlaylist/status/1163622351768031232
Also Coming In December
“Black Christmas” (December 13), “Superintelligence” (December 13), “Jumanji: The Next Level” (December 13).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTpQy813HmI
