And we’re at the end of 2016. A mostly disappointing year for movies closes out with a mostly disappointing month for movies. Even the awards season fare appears lackluster. Surprisingly, of the more than 20 movies to be released this month, only Rogue One: A Star Wars Story would fall under the remake/sequel banner, and even that exists in kind of a grey area. Regardless, let’s get through this.
DECEMBER 2, 2016
The Big: INCARNATE
Incarnate – The only big movie this week is Incarnate, a PG-13 horror movie directed by San Andreas director Brad Peyton and starring Sully‘s Aaron Eckhart and Games of Thrones‘ Carice van Houten and is only set to be released in ~1,500 theaters. The first week of December is traditionally a slow week, so I guess it’s common practice for studios to give us a calm before the torrents of Oscar hopefuls and Star Wars and allow us to catch up on those November awards favorites that we might have missed. (Arrival and Manchester by the Sea are probably the two best bets.) Incarnate is review-less on Rotten Tomatoes as of Thursday, December 1, so it’s shaping up to be a surefire hit.
The Small: JACKIE
Jackie – Jackie is an Oscar hopeful if there ever was one. A biopic of former First Lady Jackie Kennedy (played by Oscar-winner Natalie Portman) that follows her life immediately following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Early reviews have been fantastic with praise being given to Portman’s performance, the costume/set design, and director Pablo Larraín, who makes this his English language debut.
DECEMBER 9, 2016
The Big: OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY
Office Christmas Party – The first of the two R-rated bawdy comedies this month is an ensemble about chaos ensuing during an office Christmas party, hence the easy-to-sequelize title. While audiences seem to have rejected Bad Santa 2 (and rightly so), maybe something like Office Christmas Party with more modern humor and a focus on silly rather than harsh might attract viewers. Even the ads make it clear that the goal of the party is to save people’s jobs, so it’s anarchy … with a heart and social conscience. Plus it has an ensemble so large (with the likes of T.J. Miller, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, and Courtney B. Vance), you’d be hard-pressed not to find at least one actor you like. One question this month: which will get more commercial and critical success: this or the other upcoming holiday-themed comedy, Why Him? Before you choose this one, just a warning – it is written by Timothy Dowling, who wrote Pixels.
The Small: LA LA LAND
La La Land – Although it’s almost certainly going to be the art house hit of the season – the music, the glamour, the lavishness! – and possibly even the overall awards favorite of the year – the big question is, whether La La Land will be a crossover hit. My guess is – no, despite the near universal praise this is sure to get. The old Hollywood fetishism that takes awards voters by storm doesn’t generally translate to the general public, and it’s hard to think of the last successful non-animated movie musical that wasn’t based on a pre-existing property. And while La La Land has some star power in leads Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, neither of them are proven draws in the way Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence are. Besides, the last time those two were in a movie together, it was Gangster Squad.
DECEMBER 16, 2016
The Big: ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY vs. COLLATERAL BEAUTY
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – Star Wars! Again! Every Christmas! From now until eternity! Unlike The Force Awakens, which grew more enticing the closer we got to it, my excitement for Rogue One is waning. Yes, it’s a Star Wars movie, so I am (we are) compelled to see it, and pre-sales have been outstanding, but is this the right foot for the Star Wars Story prequel franchise to start off on? On the one hand, I like the idea of seeing a Star Wars side story that emphasizes the Wars part of Star Wars. Unfortunately, the quest of how the Rebel Alliance got the plans for the Death Star seems relatively unimportant when considering the entire gamut of Star Wars mythology. Though maybe it’s the smartest move. Start simple, irrelevant, and hope to lure us in by seeing AT-ATs, AT-STs, and the rest of our favorite toys on the big screen again.
(Side note: I know that people are trying to imbue meaning into this movie before it’s released and hope to figure out someway it’s connected to The Force Awakens. Fan theories abound that Jyn Erso is Rey’s mother or that the Rogue One-ders are the Knights of Ren. Like most fan theories (e.g. DCEU Joker is Jason Todd), my money is still on none of these coming to pass. Yes, interconnecting these stories can provide real depth to what would otherwise be a pointless tale, but trying to link them could be more trouble than it’s worth. (Where were they in the 40 years between the two trilogies?) Disney is smart enough (or should I say safe enough) not to tie a more-or-less unproven side series so deeply into its flagship franchise. The best hope is that Rogue One will be an entertaining, but ultimately insignificant, action-adventure-war movie made to sell us the toys we already have.)
Collateral Beauty – Putting this up against Rogue One is one of the smartest bits of counter-programming in years. (Or dumbest. Time will tell.) Collateral Beauty doesn’t just want to tug at your heartstrings, it wants to tear them out and beat you with them until you choke to death on your own sobs. Will Smith learns to love again with the help of metaphysical concepts such as Time and Death, following the death of his son? The Pursuit of Happyness made over $160 million and his son was alive in that trailer, so this will be extra sad, which could easily mean extra money. The success of Suicide Squad and the failure of Independence Day: Resurgence shows that audiences still like Will Smith. Combine that with this movie having the designation of this season’s tissue waster all to itself means that it will probably have remarkable staying power. After all, you can’t turn on a TV this month without Love Actually playing somewhere.
The Small: NERUDA
Neruda – Jackie director Pablo Larraín has second extremely critically-acclaimed movie coming out this month with Neruda. A likely contender for Best Foreign Film, Neruda stars Gael García Bernal as an inspector hunting renowned author Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco) in the 1940s, who became a fugitive in his home country of Chile after joining the Communist Party. Much like the early reviews for Jackie, early reviews for Neruda have praised Larraín’s ability to transform the biopic into something inventive and intimate while having more to say than ‘this is a famous person whose name you kind of know.’ Take that, Snowden.
And now two weeks where we get a collection of movies that might be wide released, might be very limited, or might be relegated to LA/NY just to sneak in time for awards season.
DECEMBER 23, 2016
The Movies: PASSENGERS vs. ASSASSIN’S CREED vs. SING vs. PATRIOTS DAY vs. A MONSTER CALLS vs. WHY HIM? vs. SILENCE
Passengers – It’s undeniable that Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence are two of the biggest movie stars working today. But is their presence (and essentially only their presence) enough to get people to see Passengers? This has been good year for smarter sci-fi with the likes of Arrival and Midnight Special, and (presumably) the strength of this movie has forced the similarly-themed (but far less star driven) The Space Between Us to move to February 2017, but could Passengers be the financial juggernaut the studio is (presumably) expecting it to be. It’s ostensibly about very few people alone on a spacecraft, which can be the premise for great movies (e.g. Moon, Silent Running), but they are generally smaller films that achieve cult fandom rather than massive success. Then again, Alien did quite well. But Alien had the alien, this has Michael Sheen as a robot who dresses like Lloyd the Bartender in The Shining. Part romance, part thriller, Passengers seems more like a bigger budgeted Sunshine, which was a fantastic film but not the smash this film presumably needs to be with a purported $120 million production budget. Plus it’s competing against other sci-fi properties with far more brand recognition, which may hurt it (audiences tend to go with what they know) or help it (its “outsider” status could lure more people in).
Assassin’s Creed – Speaking of sci-fi brands with questionable box office potential … While this video game adaptation is definitely one of the biggest movies of the month, is Assassin’s Creed really considered one of the most anticipated? While the visuals and physicality look remarkable, the advertisements aren’t doing good job at making the overall movie look interesting. Why is Michael Fassbender’s character going back in time to join the “assassin’s creed” (it’s how they say it in the ad)? Is most of the movie in that facility set in “modern/future” day, as some reports have claimed? If so, this could be very problematic. People presumably play the games because they enjoy the past settings, and people will presumably see the movie because they want to see the highly stylized Spanish Inquisition set fight sequences. There’s nothing novel about the sterile “modern/future” day environment presented in the ads. (Not to mention how it looks somewhat like that Skynet facility in Terminator: Salvation. The one about a man sentenced to death who ends up being used for time travel-related medical experiments. Kind of like this seems to be about.)
Nevertheless, it’s too early to count the movie out quite yet. Director Justin Kurzel, Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Michael Kenneth Williams have all done some really solid work (as well as far less impressive work), and I wouldn’t want the trailers to spoil everything, but maybe some sense of plot would be nice. Plus coming out a week after a Star Wars movie? Not the best move for a film whose biggest selling point is parkour.
Sing – Animated animals singing. It’s going to be a gigantic hit. Especially because it’s the only children’s movie this month – even the Star Wars installment, despite the reshoot, is definitely skewing older than BB-8 fans.
Patriots Day – Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg reunite for movie that looks fascinatingly similar to their earlier collaboration from this year – Deepwater Horizon. Mark Wahlberg plays the your average blue collar working man who is surrounded by blue sky America symbolism and must be the rock during a major catastrophe (the Boston bombing instead of the BP oil spill). Michelle Monaghan replaces Kate Hudson as “Crying Wife.” Though the Wahlberg/Berg pairing (they also did Lone Survivor together) have established a somewhat nice niche in presenting Based on a True Story movies about the unsung heroes whose deeds are often overshadowed or underreported. Does this mean that people want to see a movie about a terrorist attack during Christmas? Probably not. But what they are doing is kind of respectable, and early reviews have been terrific.
A Monster Calls – J.A. Bayona, director of The Impossible, The Orphange, and soon Jurassic World 2, tries his hand at recreating Pan’s Labyrinth, except far less interesting looking – but it has Super-Groot voiced by Liam Neeson. The BFG showed earlier this year that ‘darker’ kids movies aren’t a surefire bet at the box office. Plus Felicity Jones’ (as presumably the critically ill mother of main character) delivery of “And if you need to break things, by God you break them!” in the trailer is so melodramatic it borders on parody.
Why Him? – James Franco takes a break from being a horrible director whose films are barely seen to replenishing his bank account in a bawdy R-rated comedy. (I’m not even anti-Franco overall, but as a filmmaker he has butchered Cormac McCarthy, William Faulkner, and Charles Bukowski. How does he keep getting the rights to some of America’s best wordsmiths? At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow he gets to be the one who makes The Catcher in the Rye.) Straitlaced dad played by Bryan Cranston disagrees with his daughter’s (Zoey Deutch) choice for a paramour (Franco) due to his crazy, unconventional style. At the end, they both put aside their differences for the sake of the daughter. Hilarity ensues. Of course, Daddy’s Home made $150 million domestic with the same basic premise and the same basic release date so maybe this could be a hit.
Silence – One of Martin Scorsese’s dream projects finally hits theaters, and it’s a nearly three-hour tale about two 17th century priests (Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield) who travel to Japan to save their mentor (Liam Neeson, also the voice of the titular monster in this week’s A Monster Calls) who is being persecuted for trying to spread Christianity. We know that Martin Scorsese is one of the best living filmmakers, but his previous historical epics (such as Kundun and The Age of Innocence) rarely stand out among his filmography. Silence has the feeling of an epic undertaking, and based on the trailer you can comfortably throw whatever lavish words you want to to describe its look, feel, intensity, etc. – but it’s probably going to be buried critically (maybe) and commercially (definitely) from a lot of the other films coming out this month. Sure, it might get token nominations come awards time based on the Scorsese name alone, but it probably won’t be a serious contender.
DECEMBER 30, 2016
The Movies: FENCES vs. LIVE BY NIGHT vs. HIDDEN FIGURES vs. 20th CENTURY WOMEN vs. THE FOUNDER vs. GOLD vs. PATERSON
Fences – So we finally wrap up the year with a decent grouping of smaller films. The biggest of these could be Fences. Starring and directed by Denzel Washington and based on August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Fences is about the African-American experience in the 1950s with Washington playing a father during a tumultuous time in American history. This definitely is a major awards contender and possibly become this year’s most important socially conscious film after the failures of The United States of Jones, The Birth of a Nation, and Ghostbusters.
Live by Night – If Fences isn’t the biggest movie of the week, it’ll be Ben Affleck’s latest directorial effort, Live by Night. Based on a Dennis Lehane novel, Live by Night marks a return to the prohibition crime drama, which has given us great works such as Miller’s Crossing and some of Boardwalk Empire (plus not as good ones such as Public Enemies and Lawless). Maybe a return to the director’s chair will give Affleck some much needed energy following the twin disappointments of Batman v. Superman and The Accountant. This film was even moved up from 2017 to qualify for the 2016 awards, which either shows a real confidence in the quality of this film or a real confidence in the lack of quality of all the other films. I don’t think the trailer looks “exceptional,” but it’s an era I like exploring.
Hidden Figures – If Fences isn’t the biggest socially conscious movie of the week, it’ll be Hidden Figures. Telling the story of African-American women (played by Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe) who aided NASA during the 1960s, this movie might be hamstrung by its PG rating. “PG” is so rare that you have to wonder if this film will really delve into the difficulties they faced, or if it’ll be glossed over, just giving us a movie where people do math.
20th Century Women – If Hidden Figures isn’t the biggest women-centric movie of the week, it’ll be 20th Century Women. Directed by Mike Mills (Thumbsucker and Beginners), 20th Century Women stars Annette Bening (last month’s Rules Don’t Apply), Elle Fanning (also in this month’s Live by Night), and Greta Gerwig (also in this month’s Jackie) as three generations of women living in 1970s California. Sure, the trailer makes it look like pretty much every other 1970’s-based movie, but it’s hard to judge a movie on a trailer, especially one that adheres so closely the “1970s/1980s template” (cue the classic rock song while people sit around a record player, then someone hanging out by a car smoking).
The Founder – If 20th Century Women isn’t the biggest period piece of the week, it’ll be The Founder. The Founder, which was originally set to be released the same day as Suicide Squad and Nine Lives (that Kevin Spacey cat movie), was pushed to some amorphous time in December. Some reports say it’s going to be released on December 16, while others have it in set firmly January, which, if true, probably means they gave up on all awards hopes for it. If that’s the case, it’s disappointing since the trailer was one of the best of the year, showcasing a keen self awareness and a dark humor. A particularly skeevy Michael Keaton stars as Ray Kroc as the movie follows the controversial rise of the man behind the McDonald’s franchise, and he’s surrounded by a great cast including Laura Dern, Nick Offerman, and Patrick Wilson. It’s also written by Robert Siegel who was responsible for the terrific films Big Fan and The Wrestler. The only real question is its director John Lee Hancock, who directed the truly terrible The Blind Side.
Gold – If The Founder isn’t the biggest movie about capitalism run amok this week, it’ll be Gold. Starring Matthew McConaughey, the film has trailer that makes it look like The Wolf of Wall Street, and a poster that makes it look like Uncharted. But McConaughey seems to be having fun, so it might be good for a watch.
Paterson – If Gold isn’t the biggest movie with one-word title this week, it’s Paterson. Directed by art house favorite Jim Jarmusch (who earlier this year came out with the documentary Gimme Danger about Iggy Pop), Paterson stars Adam Driver as a poet/bus driver living in New Jersey, and continues Jarmusch’s trend of understated, quiet and classy insights into average people leaving ordinary lives (or as his last film, Only Lovers Left Alive, showed vampires leading ordinary lives).
So that’s December (and for that matter the year). A month that seems somehow packed yet empty. For all the movies set to be released, very few jump out as ‘must sees.’ December 2016 lacks the edgy or surprising films that this month generally gives us, like The Revenant, The Hateful Eight, and Anomalisa in 2015. Even Live By Night looks like a conventional, albeit good, crime drama. Could the most inventive movie this season be a feel-good, PG-13 musical? Nevertheless, even if there are few ‘stand outs,’ there are plenty to see, even if they aren’t opening weekend musts. So take in what you can because in January, it’s time for xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.
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