It's that season again. Time for a look at some of the movies that will round
out the year.

October 20 - Killers of the Flower Moon

Backtracking a little bit to cover this title, Martin Scorsese's latest epic
of violence in American history. It pertains to the discovery of oil under
Osage Nation land and a series of murders that ensues. With both of Scorsese's
two most prominent regulars (De Niro and DiCaprio) in the cast, it's sure to
be at minimum a powerhouse acting showcase.

October 27 - Five Nights at Freddy's

This next Blumhouse horror movie wouldn't normally be the sort of thing I'd
cover here, but I'm intrigued that Jim Henson's creature shop is providing
animatronics for the film rather than the more typical fallback of using CG.
I have nothing against CG other than its overuse. Employing traditional
methods ironically gives us something new and keeps those arts alive.
Nice choice, whether or not it pans out for this film.

November - Self Reliance

Jake Johnson wrote, directed, and starred in this comedy thriller about a man
who plays a deadly reality game show where he can be hunted by assassins
whenever he's not in the company of others. It got good reviews out of
the film festival circuit, with people calling it both suspenseful and funny.
Anna Kendrick and Christopher Lloyd, both favorites of mine, co-star.

November 3 - Priscilla

Last year, Baz Luhrmann made Elvis; now Sofia Coppola provides the story from
Priscilla Presley's perspective with this adaptation of her memoir. Coppola's
creative arc hasn't gone where we thought it would back in the Lost In
Translation / Marie Antoinette days. She's had some disappointments (though
few if any outright bad films) and also taken up directing shorts, commercials,
and musical performances, but this material feels like a natural continuation
to her early feature film career, and I'm interested to see what she does
with it.

November 10 - The Holdovers

It's been a while since we got a trademark Alexander Payne dramedy. This is
the writer-director who gave us Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, The
Descendants, and Nebraska. This one stars Paul Giamatti as a cranky history
teacher, which is such great casting that I think I would genuinely be
surprised to learn he's NOT a cranky history teacher in between acting gigs.
The early word is outstanding and suggests his last movie, the disappointing
Downsizing, will prove an anomaly.

November 10 - The Killer

David Fincher dabbles in a wide variety of genres, but he seldom stays away
from neo-noir for long. After the solid if not quite enduring biopic Mank,
he's now realizing a 20-year passion project of his, an adaptation of the
French graphic novel of the same name, with Michael Fassbender and Tilda
Swinton. The premise would have been fresher 20 years ago -- an assassin
finds himself battling his employers on an international manhunt -- but with
Fincher in the director's chair I have no fear that this will come off
as yet another unmemorable John Wick clone. The early word is positive,
that the movie brings something new to the genre and that a certain cold sense
of humor adds a texture that so many lesser genre exercises clumsily force or
lack entirely.

November 10 - The Marvels

Brie Larson's Carol Danvers is back, this time with Ms. Marvel at her side.
While I may well eventually work my way up to this one, my momentum on the MCU
petered out last year after a string of disappointments and the introduction of
dependencies on the various MCU television shows. Kevin Feige's announcement
that a reboot is coming to pare it all back down is welcome, but that it's not
coming until 2027 is not.

November 17 - The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

This film adapts Suzanne Collins' 2020 prequel novel, set 64 years before the
original trilogy. It chronicles the story of Coriolanus Snow, the primary
villain, as a young man. While I enjoyed both the books and the movies in
this franchise, I'm skeptical that a prequel is called for. It feels like
returning to the well once too often. Still, I'll happily return to this world
and see what this installment has to offer.

November 22 - Napoleon

Ridley Scott managed what Stanley Kubrick spent decades trying to do and never
managed -- get a Napoleon film onto the big screen. The film covers Napoleon's
rise to power and ostensibly delves both into intimate character relationships,
particularly his relationship with his wife Josephine, and grand epic battle
sequences. There is no question that Scott is a great director, and he's
proven he's capable of making this kind of material great. What he isn't is
reliable; he may have made Alien, Black Hawk Down, and The Martian, but he also
made Someone To Watch Over Me, Robin Hood, and The Counselor. But his successes
outweigh his failures, and this is comfortable territory for him, so I'm
cautiously optimistic. Joaquin Phoenix playing the title role is a promising
sign.

November 22 - Wish

For decades, Disney Animation was a quality guarantee. Sadly, that is no more
the case, so it's tough to tell if Wish is the next Encanto or the next
Strange World. Usually the difference is whether or not the studio is doing
what it has done best since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs back in the late
30s and not so well when it's imitating some other studio's trademark
(e.g., DreamWorks). By that rule of thumb, we should be in for a good time.
What's more Disney than wishing upon a star?

December 1 - Godzilla Minus One

I love the enumeration of Japanese movie prequels. In 2000 we had Ring 0,
but now we've got Godzilla -1, a prequel to (or arguably remake of) the
1954 original. It's the 33rd or 37th Godzilla film, depending on how you
count them, putting it above James Bond on the list of resilient film
characters. But will this be any good? Beats me, but I'm not sure if anybody
interested in this movie is asking that question.

December 8 - The Boy and the Heron

The legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki has made a dozen films as
writer-director and a few more that he wrote but did not direct. Half of those
were thought to be his last, but this time he Really Really Means It. He
started working on it in 2016 before getting a green light and has been picking
away at it at his own pace (which worked out to approximately one minute of
animation per month) ever since. By the time it was completed, it had become
the most expensive film ever produced in Japan. Now it drops in theaters
without an ounce of promotion other than a poster and quietly became a critical
and commercial hit in Japan. It is based on a 1937 children's book and has
autobiographical features in its story. The English dub, only announced a
week ago or so, features such names as Christian Bale, Mark Hamill, Dave
Bautista, and Willem Dafoe.

December 15 - Wonka

Timothee Chalamet as a young Willy Wonka is surely an origin story nobody
asked for or needs. Despite the impressive cast (including Olivia Colman
and Rowan Atkinson), I would be unreservedly down on this except that the
director is Paul King, whose two Paddington movies are two of the best
family fantasies of the last decade. So, all right, we know this guy can
do justice and then some to classic children's literature. Still, I can't help
but wonder what we could have gotten from these creative talents instead, had
they been loosed on original material.

December 20 - The Color Purple

No, it's not quite an adaptation of the Alice Walker novel, nor a remake of
the Spielberg film; rather it brings the 2005 broadway musical version to the
screen. The cast is mostly new, with only Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks
reprising a role from one of the stage productions. Successful Broadway
musicals don't always translate as well to the screen as you'd think (consider
Nine and Cats) even when the material has already worked on film (consider
The Producers), but I am cautiously optimistic.

December 22 - Rebel Moon (Part One - A Child of Fire)

It sounds like a Star Wars spin-off or a video game adaptation, but it is
neither. Instead we have a rare original science fiction epic, albeit one
that is already hoped to seed a new universe of stories. Part 2 was shot
back-to-back and has a release date in April, and apparently there is already
a planned third film if these two do well. RPGs, novelizations, and comics
are already in the works. The whole thing is masterminded by Zack Snyder,
about whom I have conflicted feelings. He's certainly capable of delivering
the required spectacle, but for me he's not yet been able to deliver a clean
story. Still, even most of his failures are compelling in some way.
Almost everything he's done to date has been tied to carefully controlled
preexisting IP, so it will be interesting to see what he can do when given
more latitude. The one time he's been in that situation before was with
Sucker Punch. Many consider that to be his worst film; for me it was probably
his best. Madness, I know, but I think that statement says less about my
opinion of Sucker Punch as everything else he's done.

December 25 - Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

If the MCU is desperately in need of a reboot, the DC Universe needs it even
more. I have no idea if this specific movie will be good or not, just that
DC's track record is abysmal. So far, the best episodes have been
comparatively unconnected offshoots of the core throughline (if you can even
argue that there is one).