Last week may have been dominated by “Avatar: The Way of Water,” but — wait, what are we saying? “but”? but what? it looks as if James Cameron’s much-anticipated sequel just might lure in a fresh audience this weekend at the box office, perhaps setting up for a second week of ruling the seas and the moons and the whathaveyou. But for those who have a) already seen the film or b) didn’t want to in the first place, there are a variety of other options. There’s the gritty excess of Damien Chazelle’s wild love letter to early Hollywood (“Babylon”), a crowd-pleasing “Puss in Boots” sequel for the entire family, lauded dramas like “Living” and “Women Talking,” Australian Oscar entry “Corsage,” and even a Whitney Houston biopic.
Staying at home? Rian Johnson’s beloved “Knives Out” sequel arrives on Netflix, and seems primed for repeat viewings. What a bounty of choices, and you don’t even need to rank on the nice list to enjoy them. We’ll be back in 2023 with a new update, but for now, happy holidays and see you at the movies! Each film is now available in a theater near you or in the comfort of your own home (or, in some cases, both, the convenience of it all). Browse your options below.
Week of December 19 – December 25
New Films in Theaters
As new movies open in theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic, IndieWire will continue to review them whenever possible. We encourage readers to follow the safety precautions provided by CDC and health authorities. Additionally, our coverage will provide alternative viewing options whenever they are available. “Babylon” (directed by Damien Chazelle) Distributor: Paramount Where to Find It: Theaters A dorky Caligulan ode to the early days of Hollywood, Damien Chazelle’s sprawling “Babylon” may begin in 1926, but the movie is soon burdened with a clairvoyance that allows it to become unstuck in time. Several of the epic’s characters are haunted by glimpses of a future they’re powerless to prevent, a curse that its director brings to bear by drawing inspiration from across the entire spectrum of film history. Burdened with the knowledge that this $80 million studio project could be the last of its kind, “Babylon” refracts Hollywood’s first major identity crisis through the prism of its latest one. It reminds us the movies have been dying for more than 100 years, and then — through its heart-bursting, endearingly galaxy-brained prayer of a finale — interprets that as uplifting proof they’ll actually live forever. It just doesn’t have any idea how the movies will do it, or where the hell they might go from here. Read IndieWire’s full review.
Scott Garfield “Corsage” (directed by Marie Kreutzer) Distributor: IFC Films Where to Find It: Select theaters, with VOD to follow “There is an air of quiet death in this house, and I do not like the way it smells,” Reynolds Woodcock announces over breakfast in “Phantom Thread.” Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary (“Phantom Thread” co-star Vicky Krieps) appears to feel the same way about Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace, the difference being she has finally got used to its odor. It doesn’t help that, by Christmas 1887, a quiet death is exactly what “Elise,” the now-40-year-old spouse of ruler and busybody Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), seems destined for. No chance. In the hands of Krieps and Austrian director Marie Kreutzer (who directed the Golden Bear-nominated “The Ground Beneath My Feet”), the Empress Elisabeth of “Corsage” is an irreverent, often immature, and tremendously endearing first lady with an insatiable desire to determine her own future. Having helped establish the doomed Joint Monarchy and reigned in Vienna for longer than any ruler’s wife, Elise certainly occupies a special place in the hearts and minds of Austrians. Read IndieWire’s full review. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (directed by Kasi Lemmons) Distributor: Sony Where to Find It: Theaters A music biopic so broad and hacky it makes “Jersey Boys” seem like “All that Jazz,” Kasi Lemmons’ well-acted but laughably trite “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” is an anonymous portrait of a singular artist — a by-the-numbers “Behind the Music” episode that needs 146 minutes to say almost nothing about a once-in-a-lifetime voice. Not even “Bohemian Rhapsody” was so obviously written by the guy who wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody,” as Anthony McCarten’s algorithmic script skips down the various sections of Houston’s Wikipedia page with all the flow of a scratched greatest hits CD. Here’s young Whitney as a choir soloist at the New Jersey church where she discovers her love for music. There she is at Arista Records’ HQ listening to the demo track for her future hit single, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (“It’s about wanting to dance with somebody,” she says approvingly). Once her career takes off, the rest of her life is reduced to a diminishingly unsophisticated series of reactions to whatever happened in the previous scene, which doesn’t express Houston’s struggle to be everything to everyone so much as it does this movie’s desperation to be anything to anyone. Read IndieWire’s full review. Emily Aragones “Joyride” (directed by Emer Reynolds) Distributor: Magnolia Pictures Where to Find It: Select theaters, plus various VOD options
tk “Living” (directed by Oliver Hermanus) Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics Where to Find It: Select theaters, with expansion to follow it shouldn’t be so uncanny to see Bill Nighy star in a sleepy British remake of Kurosawa’s greatest film, but “Ikiru” has always been a different beast. Whereas the director’s most frequently cited films tend to be period tales that are rooted in the legible grammar of their respective genres, this contemplative 1952 fable draws from the rich traditions of Russian literature and Hollywood melodrama without feeling like it belongs to either one of them. A simple yet knotted story about a zombie-like Tokyo bureaucrat named Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) who finds new purpose to his time on Earth after being diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, “Ikiru” exudes a plaintive emotional power that’s as profound as it is fleeting, and as impossible to replicate as the magic of first snow. And yet, it’s hard to fault “Living” director Oliver Hermanus (“Moffie”) for hoping that the same bolt of lightning might strike twice halfway around the world and 68 years apart. For starters, he came to the table with a few legitimate aces up his sleeve. They include an assist from the great novelist Kazuo Ishigiruo (whose lean screenplay is suitably repressive, if also faithful to a fault), an evocative historical backdrop courtesy of London County Hall, and a cast punctuated with rising talents like Tom Burke and “Sex Education” star Aimee Lou Wood. Read IndieWire’s full review. “The Pale Blue Eye” (directed by Scott Cooper) Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Select theaters, streaming on Netflix on January 6 tktk ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (directed by Joel Crawford) Distributor: DreamWorks Where to Find It: Theaters “The Last Wish” continues the Shrek franchise’s tongue-in-cheek penchant for throwing popular fairy tale characters into the same world and seeing what comes out. Pugh voices Goldilocks with a gruff “oi oi” London drawl and Mulaney is a treat as violent manchild Jack, darkly intoning the nursery rhyme’s catchphrase “What a good boy am I” at a pivotal moment in the film. The Wolf is particularly frightening as an almost literal personification of Puss’s deep-seated fear of death, appearing out of dark corners with glowing red eyes and a sinister whistle that makes the cat’s fur stand on end. DreamWorks’ animation department (for which “The Last Wish” debuts a brand-new logo honoring the studio’s most popular characters) has long been one of the more underrated in terms of trying out new styles and aesthetics from film to film (the “Boss Baby” franchise notwithstanding), and “The Last Wish” has a particularly fun blend of standard computer imagery combined with the sketchy look of hand-drawn animation and the fast-paced flip-book style fight choreography popularized by “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Read IndieWire’s full review. “Women Talking” (directed by Sarah Polley) — IndieWire Critic’s Pick Distributor: MGM/UAR Where to Find It: Select theaters, expansion to follow For God knows how long, the women of an isolated religious community (Mennonite in everything but name) have been drugged with cow tranquilizer and raped on a regular basis during the night. The women had been told they were being violated by ghosts, demons, or even Satan himself — punishment for their own improprieties — and they believed that lie until two young girls saw one of the rapists as he scurried back to bed across the field one night. Some of the men were arrested, and the ones who weren’t have gone into the city to arrange for bail. The women of the colony, unsupervised for a short period of time, have roughly 48 hours to decide what their future will be like. Adapted from Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name with fierce intellect, immense force, and a visionary sense of how to remap the world as we know it along more compassionate (matriarchal) lines, Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” never feels like it’s just 104 minutes of bonneted fundamentalists chatting in a barn, even though — with a few memorable, and sometimes very funny exceptions — that’s exactly what it is. Toews’ book could easily have been made into a play, but every widescreen frame of Polley’s film will make you glad that it wasn’t. She infuses this truth-inspired tale with a gripping multi-generational sweep from the very first line, which puts the violence in the rear-view mirror and begins the hard work of keeping it there. Read IndieWire’s full review. Also available this week:
New Films on VOD and Streaming, Including Premium Platforms and Virtual Cinema
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (directed by Rian Johnson) — IndieWire Critic’s Pick Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix Before you worry too much about dissecting the meaning of “Glass Onion,” both the main title of Rian Johnson’s second “Knives Out” feature (and just as delightful and inspired as the first film) and the name of a Beatles song from their White Album, we’ll just go ahead and direct you to the (likely?) key lyric from the 1968 jam: “Well here’s another clue for you all / The walrus was Paul.” Talk about an a-ha moment, right? Alas, John and Paul were having a bit of fun with that particular ditty, as most of their “Glass Onion” is less about unraveling fan theories than straight up poking holes in them. It’s a fitting title for Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” which delights in unspooling theories, the bread and butter of the genre, and then poking right through them to find something even more witty and amusing. Rest assured: Johnson isn’t reinventing the mystery movie with “Glass Onion,” but he is having a hell of a time lightly deconstructing it and reorienting it to suit his whipsmart script and central super detective. Perhaps the only whodunit in which its main character will, upon solving the film’s central crime, proclaim it’s all “so dumb!” (and be both right and wrong in that declaration), and all the better for it. Read IndieWire’s full review. Also available this week: “The Seven Deadly Sins: Grudge of Edinburgh” (directed by Bob Shirohata) Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix
Check out more films to watch on the next page.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
title: “New Movies Release Calendar For December 23 And Where To Watch” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-13” author: “Heidi Holly”
Last week may have been dominated by “Avatar: The Way of Water,” but — wait, what are we saying? “but”? but what? it looks as if James Cameron’s much-anticipated sequel just might lure in a fresh audience this weekend at the box office, perhaps setting up for a second week of ruling the seas and the moons and the whathaveyou. But for those who have a) already seen the film or b) didn’t want to in the first place, there are a variety of other options. There’s the gritty excess of Damien Chazelle’s wild love letter to early Hollywood (“Babylon”), a crowd-pleasing “Puss in Boots” sequel for the entire family, lauded dramas like “Living” and “Women Talking,” Australian Oscar entry “Corsage,” and even a Whitney Houston biopic.
Staying at home? Rian Johnson’s beloved “Knives Out” sequel arrives on Netflix, and seems primed for repeat viewings. What a bounty of choices, and you don’t even need to rank on the nice list to enjoy them. We’ll be back in 2023 with a new update, but for now, happy holidays and see you at the movies! Each film is now available in a theater near you or in the comfort of your own home (or, in some cases, both, the convenience of it all). Browse your options below.
Week of December 19 – December 25
New Films in Theaters
As new movies open in theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic, IndieWire will continue to review them whenever possible. We encourage readers to follow the safety precautions provided by CDC and health authorities. Additionally, our coverage will provide alternative viewing options whenever they are available. “Babylon” (directed by Damien Chazelle) Distributor: Paramount Where to Find It: Theaters A dorky Caligulan ode to the early days of Hollywood, Damien Chazelle’s sprawling “Babylon” may begin in 1926, but the movie is soon burdened with a clairvoyance that allows it to become unstuck in time. Several of the epic’s characters are haunted by glimpses of a future they’re powerless to prevent, a curse that its director brings to bear by drawing inspiration from across the entire spectrum of film history. Burdened with the knowledge that this $80 million studio project could be the last of its kind, “Babylon” refracts Hollywood’s first major identity crisis through the prism of its latest one. It reminds us the movies have been dying for more than 100 years, and then — through its heart-bursting, endearingly galaxy-brained prayer of a finale — interprets that as uplifting proof they’ll actually live forever. It just doesn’t have any idea how the movies will do it, or where the hell they might go from here. Read IndieWire’s full review.
Scott Garfield “Corsage” (directed by Marie Kreutzer) Distributor: IFC Films Where to Find It: Select theaters, with VOD to follow “There is an air of quiet death in this house, and I do not like the way it smells,” Reynolds Woodcock announces over breakfast in “Phantom Thread.” Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary (“Phantom Thread” co-star Vicky Krieps) appears to feel the same way about Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace, the difference being she has finally got used to its odor. It doesn’t help that, by Christmas 1887, a quiet death is exactly what “Elise,” the now-40-year-old spouse of ruler and busybody Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), seems destined for. No chance. In the hands of Krieps and Austrian director Marie Kreutzer (who directed the Golden Bear-nominated “The Ground Beneath My Feet”), the Empress Elisabeth of “Corsage” is an irreverent, often immature, and tremendously endearing first lady with an insatiable desire to determine her own future. Having helped establish the doomed Joint Monarchy and reigned in Vienna for longer than any ruler’s wife, Elise certainly occupies a special place in the hearts and minds of Austrians. Read IndieWire’s full review. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (directed by Kasi Lemmons) Distributor: Sony Where to Find It: Theaters A music biopic so broad and hacky it makes “Jersey Boys” seem like “All that Jazz,” Kasi Lemmons’ well-acted but laughably trite “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” is an anonymous portrait of a singular artist — a by-the-numbers “Behind the Music” episode that needs 146 minutes to say almost nothing about a once-in-a-lifetime voice. Not even “Bohemian Rhapsody” was so obviously written by the guy who wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody,” as Anthony McCarten’s algorithmic script skips down the various sections of Houston’s Wikipedia page with all the flow of a scratched greatest hits CD. Here’s young Whitney as a choir soloist at the New Jersey church where she discovers her love for music. There she is at Arista Records’ HQ listening to the demo track for her future hit single, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (“It’s about wanting to dance with somebody,” she says approvingly). Once her career takes off, the rest of her life is reduced to a diminishingly unsophisticated series of reactions to whatever happened in the previous scene, which doesn’t express Houston’s struggle to be everything to everyone so much as it does this movie’s desperation to be anything to anyone. Read IndieWire’s full review. Emily Aragones “Joyride” (directed by Emer Reynolds) Distributor: Magnolia Pictures Where to Find It: Select theaters, plus various VOD options
tk “Living” (directed by Oliver Hermanus) Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics Where to Find It: Select theaters, with expansion to follow it shouldn’t be so uncanny to see Bill Nighy star in a sleepy British remake of Kurosawa’s greatest film, but “Ikiru” has always been a different beast. Whereas the director’s most frequently cited films tend to be period tales that are rooted in the legible grammar of their respective genres, this contemplative 1952 fable draws from the rich traditions of Russian literature and Hollywood melodrama without feeling like it belongs to either one of them. A simple yet knotted story about a zombie-like Tokyo bureaucrat named Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) who finds new purpose to his time on Earth after being diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, “Ikiru” exudes a plaintive emotional power that’s as profound as it is fleeting, and as impossible to replicate as the magic of first snow. And yet, it’s hard to fault “Living” director Oliver Hermanus (“Moffie”) for hoping that the same bolt of lightning might strike twice halfway around the world and 68 years apart. For starters, he came to the table with a few legitimate aces up his sleeve. They include an assist from the great novelist Kazuo Ishigiruo (whose lean screenplay is suitably repressive, if also faithful to a fault), an evocative historical backdrop courtesy of London County Hall, and a cast punctuated with rising talents like Tom Burke and “Sex Education” star Aimee Lou Wood. Read IndieWire’s full review. “The Pale Blue Eye” (directed by Scott Cooper) Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Select theaters, streaming on Netflix on January 6 tktk ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (directed by Joel Crawford) Distributor: DreamWorks Where to Find It: Theaters “The Last Wish” continues the Shrek franchise’s tongue-in-cheek penchant for throwing popular fairy tale characters into the same world and seeing what comes out. Pugh voices Goldilocks with a gruff “oi oi” London drawl and Mulaney is a treat as violent manchild Jack, darkly intoning the nursery rhyme’s catchphrase “What a good boy am I” at a pivotal moment in the film. The Wolf is particularly frightening as an almost literal personification of Puss’s deep-seated fear of death, appearing out of dark corners with glowing red eyes and a sinister whistle that makes the cat’s fur stand on end. DreamWorks’ animation department (for which “The Last Wish” debuts a brand-new logo honoring the studio’s most popular characters) has long been one of the more underrated in terms of trying out new styles and aesthetics from film to film (the “Boss Baby” franchise notwithstanding), and “The Last Wish” has a particularly fun blend of standard computer imagery combined with the sketchy look of hand-drawn animation and the fast-paced flip-book style fight choreography popularized by “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Read IndieWire’s full review. “Women Talking” (directed by Sarah Polley) — IndieWire Critic’s Pick Distributor: MGM/UAR Where to Find It: Select theaters, expansion to follow For God knows how long, the women of an isolated religious community (Mennonite in everything but name) have been drugged with cow tranquilizer and raped on a regular basis during the night. The women had been told they were being violated by ghosts, demons, or even Satan himself — punishment for their own improprieties — and they believed that lie until two young girls saw one of the rapists as he scurried back to bed across the field one night. Some of the men were arrested, and the ones who weren’t have gone into the city to arrange for bail. The women of the colony, unsupervised for a short period of time, have roughly 48 hours to decide what their future will be like. Adapted from Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name with fierce intellect, immense force, and a visionary sense of how to remap the world as we know it along more compassionate (matriarchal) lines, Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” never feels like it’s just 104 minutes of bonneted fundamentalists chatting in a barn, even though — with a few memorable, and sometimes very funny exceptions — that’s exactly what it is. Toews’ book could easily have been made into a play, but every widescreen frame of Polley’s film will make you glad that it wasn’t. She infuses this truth-inspired tale with a gripping multi-generational sweep from the very first line, which puts the violence in the rear-view mirror and begins the hard work of keeping it there. Read IndieWire’s full review. Also available this week:
New Films on VOD and Streaming, Including Premium Platforms and Virtual Cinema
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (directed by Rian Johnson) — IndieWire Critic’s Pick Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix Before you worry too much about dissecting the meaning of “Glass Onion,” both the main title of Rian Johnson’s second “Knives Out” feature (and just as delightful and inspired as the first film) and the name of a Beatles song from their White Album, we’ll just go ahead and direct you to the (likely?) key lyric from the 1968 jam: “Well here’s another clue for you all / The walrus was Paul.” Talk about an a-ha moment, right? Alas, John and Paul were having a bit of fun with that particular ditty, as most of their “Glass Onion” is less about unraveling fan theories than straight up poking holes in them. It’s a fitting title for Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” which delights in unspooling theories, the bread and butter of the genre, and then poking right through them to find something even more witty and amusing. Rest assured: Johnson isn’t reinventing the mystery movie with “Glass Onion,” but he is having a hell of a time lightly deconstructing it and reorienting it to suit his whipsmart script and central super detective. Perhaps the only whodunit in which its main character will, upon solving the film’s central crime, proclaim it’s all “so dumb!” (and be both right and wrong in that declaration), and all the better for it. Read IndieWire’s full review. Also available this week: “The Seven Deadly Sins: Grudge of Edinburgh” (directed by Bob Shirohata) Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix
Check out more films to watch on the next page.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
title: “New Movies Release Calendar For December 23 And Where To Watch” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-12” author: “Sheree Lopez”
Last week may have been dominated by “Avatar: The Way of Water,” but — wait, what are we saying? “but”? but what? it looks as if James Cameron’s much-anticipated sequel just might lure in a fresh audience this weekend at the box office, perhaps setting up for a second week of ruling the seas and the moons and the whathaveyou. But for those who have a) already seen the film or b) didn’t want to in the first place, there are a variety of other options. There’s the gritty excess of Damien Chazelle’s wild love letter to early Hollywood (“Babylon”), a crowd-pleasing “Puss in Boots” sequel for the entire family, lauded dramas like “Living” and “Women Talking,” Australian Oscar entry “Corsage,” and even a Whitney Houston biopic.
Staying at home? Rian Johnson’s beloved “Knives Out” sequel arrives on Netflix, and seems primed for repeat viewings. What a bounty of choices, and you don’t even need to rank on the nice list to enjoy them. We’ll be back in 2023 with a new update, but for now, happy holidays and see you at the movies! Each film is now available in a theater near you or in the comfort of your own home (or, in some cases, both, the convenience of it all). Browse your options below.
Week of December 19 – December 25
New Films in Theaters
As new movies open in theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic, IndieWire will continue to review them whenever possible. We encourage readers to follow the safety precautions provided by CDC and health authorities. Additionally, our coverage will provide alternative viewing options whenever they are available. “Babylon” (directed by Damien Chazelle) Distributor: Paramount Where to Find It: Theaters A dorky Caligulan ode to the early days of Hollywood, Damien Chazelle’s sprawling “Babylon” may begin in 1926, but the movie is soon burdened with a clairvoyance that allows it to become unstuck in time. Several of the epic’s characters are haunted by glimpses of a future they’re powerless to prevent, a curse that its director brings to bear by drawing inspiration from across the entire spectrum of film history. Burdened with the knowledge that this $80 million studio project could be the last of its kind, “Babylon” refracts Hollywood’s first major identity crisis through the prism of its latest one. It reminds us the movies have been dying for more than 100 years, and then — through its heart-bursting, endearingly galaxy-brained prayer of a finale — interprets that as uplifting proof they’ll actually live forever. It just doesn’t have any idea how the movies will do it, or where the hell they might go from here. Read IndieWire’s full review.
Scott Garfield “Corsage” (directed by Marie Kreutzer) Distributor: IFC Films Where to Find It: Select theaters, with VOD to follow “There is an air of quiet death in this house, and I do not like the way it smells,” Reynolds Woodcock announces over breakfast in “Phantom Thread.” Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary (“Phantom Thread” co-star Vicky Krieps) appears to feel the same way about Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace, the difference being she has finally got used to its odor. It doesn’t help that, by Christmas 1887, a quiet death is exactly what “Elise,” the now-40-year-old spouse of ruler and busybody Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), seems destined for. No chance. In the hands of Krieps and Austrian director Marie Kreutzer (who directed the Golden Bear-nominated “The Ground Beneath My Feet”), the Empress Elisabeth of “Corsage” is an irreverent, often immature, and tremendously endearing first lady with an insatiable desire to determine her own future. Having helped establish the doomed Joint Monarchy and reigned in Vienna for longer than any ruler’s wife, Elise certainly occupies a special place in the hearts and minds of Austrians. Read IndieWire’s full review. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (directed by Kasi Lemmons) Distributor: Sony Where to Find It: Theaters A music biopic so broad and hacky it makes “Jersey Boys” seem like “All that Jazz,” Kasi Lemmons’ well-acted but laughably trite “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” is an anonymous portrait of a singular artist — a by-the-numbers “Behind the Music” episode that needs 146 minutes to say almost nothing about a once-in-a-lifetime voice. Not even “Bohemian Rhapsody” was so obviously written by the guy who wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody,” as Anthony McCarten’s algorithmic script skips down the various sections of Houston’s Wikipedia page with all the flow of a scratched greatest hits CD. Here’s young Whitney as a choir soloist at the New Jersey church where she discovers her love for music. There she is at Arista Records’ HQ listening to the demo track for her future hit single, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (“It’s about wanting to dance with somebody,” she says approvingly). Once her career takes off, the rest of her life is reduced to a diminishingly unsophisticated series of reactions to whatever happened in the previous scene, which doesn’t express Houston’s struggle to be everything to everyone so much as it does this movie’s desperation to be anything to anyone. Read IndieWire’s full review. Emily Aragones “Joyride” (directed by Emer Reynolds) Distributor: Magnolia Pictures Where to Find It: Select theaters, plus various VOD options
tk “Living” (directed by Oliver Hermanus) Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics Where to Find It: Select theaters, with expansion to follow it shouldn’t be so uncanny to see Bill Nighy star in a sleepy British remake of Kurosawa’s greatest film, but “Ikiru” has always been a different beast. Whereas the director’s most frequently cited films tend to be period tales that are rooted in the legible grammar of their respective genres, this contemplative 1952 fable draws from the rich traditions of Russian literature and Hollywood melodrama without feeling like it belongs to either one of them. A simple yet knotted story about a zombie-like Tokyo bureaucrat named Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) who finds new purpose to his time on Earth after being diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, “Ikiru” exudes a plaintive emotional power that’s as profound as it is fleeting, and as impossible to replicate as the magic of first snow. And yet, it’s hard to fault “Living” director Oliver Hermanus (“Moffie”) for hoping that the same bolt of lightning might strike twice halfway around the world and 68 years apart. For starters, he came to the table with a few legitimate aces up his sleeve. They include an assist from the great novelist Kazuo Ishigiruo (whose lean screenplay is suitably repressive, if also faithful to a fault), an evocative historical backdrop courtesy of London County Hall, and a cast punctuated with rising talents like Tom Burke and “Sex Education” star Aimee Lou Wood. Read IndieWire’s full review. “The Pale Blue Eye” (directed by Scott Cooper) Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Select theaters, streaming on Netflix on January 6 tktk ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (directed by Joel Crawford) Distributor: DreamWorks Where to Find It: Theaters “The Last Wish” continues the Shrek franchise’s tongue-in-cheek penchant for throwing popular fairy tale characters into the same world and seeing what comes out. Pugh voices Goldilocks with a gruff “oi oi” London drawl and Mulaney is a treat as violent manchild Jack, darkly intoning the nursery rhyme’s catchphrase “What a good boy am I” at a pivotal moment in the film. The Wolf is particularly frightening as an almost literal personification of Puss’s deep-seated fear of death, appearing out of dark corners with glowing red eyes and a sinister whistle that makes the cat’s fur stand on end. DreamWorks’ animation department (for which “The Last Wish” debuts a brand-new logo honoring the studio’s most popular characters) has long been one of the more underrated in terms of trying out new styles and aesthetics from film to film (the “Boss Baby” franchise notwithstanding), and “The Last Wish” has a particularly fun blend of standard computer imagery combined with the sketchy look of hand-drawn animation and the fast-paced flip-book style fight choreography popularized by “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Read IndieWire’s full review. “Women Talking” (directed by Sarah Polley) — IndieWire Critic’s Pick Distributor: MGM/UAR Where to Find It: Select theaters, expansion to follow For God knows how long, the women of an isolated religious community (Mennonite in everything but name) have been drugged with cow tranquilizer and raped on a regular basis during the night. The women had been told they were being violated by ghosts, demons, or even Satan himself — punishment for their own improprieties — and they believed that lie until two young girls saw one of the rapists as he scurried back to bed across the field one night. Some of the men were arrested, and the ones who weren’t have gone into the city to arrange for bail. The women of the colony, unsupervised for a short period of time, have roughly 48 hours to decide what their future will be like. Adapted from Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name with fierce intellect, immense force, and a visionary sense of how to remap the world as we know it along more compassionate (matriarchal) lines, Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” never feels like it’s just 104 minutes of bonneted fundamentalists chatting in a barn, even though — with a few memorable, and sometimes very funny exceptions — that’s exactly what it is. Toews’ book could easily have been made into a play, but every widescreen frame of Polley’s film will make you glad that it wasn’t. She infuses this truth-inspired tale with a gripping multi-generational sweep from the very first line, which puts the violence in the rear-view mirror and begins the hard work of keeping it there. Read IndieWire’s full review. Also available this week:
New Films on VOD and Streaming, Including Premium Platforms and Virtual Cinema
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (directed by Rian Johnson) — IndieWire Critic’s Pick Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix Before you worry too much about dissecting the meaning of “Glass Onion,” both the main title of Rian Johnson’s second “Knives Out” feature (and just as delightful and inspired as the first film) and the name of a Beatles song from their White Album, we’ll just go ahead and direct you to the (likely?) key lyric from the 1968 jam: “Well here’s another clue for you all / The walrus was Paul.” Talk about an a-ha moment, right? Alas, John and Paul were having a bit of fun with that particular ditty, as most of their “Glass Onion” is less about unraveling fan theories than straight up poking holes in them. It’s a fitting title for Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” which delights in unspooling theories, the bread and butter of the genre, and then poking right through them to find something even more witty and amusing. Rest assured: Johnson isn’t reinventing the mystery movie with “Glass Onion,” but he is having a hell of a time lightly deconstructing it and reorienting it to suit his whipsmart script and central super detective. Perhaps the only whodunit in which its main character will, upon solving the film’s central crime, proclaim it’s all “so dumb!” (and be both right and wrong in that declaration), and all the better for it. Read IndieWire’s full review. Also available this week: “The Seven Deadly Sins: Grudge of Edinburgh” (directed by Bob Shirohata) Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix
Check out more films to watch on the next page.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
title: “New Movies Release Calendar For December 23 And Where To Watch” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-23” author: “Edward Coleman”
Last week may have been dominated by “Avatar: The Way of Water,” but — wait, what are we saying? “but”? but what? it looks as if James Cameron’s much-anticipated sequel just might lure in a fresh audience this weekend at the box office, perhaps setting up for a second week of ruling the seas and the moons and the whathaveyou. But for those who have a) already seen the film or b) didn’t want to in the first place, there are a variety of other options. There’s the gritty excess of Damien Chazelle’s wild love letter to early Hollywood (“Babylon”), a crowd-pleasing “Puss in Boots” sequel for the entire family, lauded dramas like “Living” and “Women Talking,” Australian Oscar entry “Corsage,” and even a Whitney Houston biopic.
Staying at home? Rian Johnson’s beloved “Knives Out” sequel arrives on Netflix, and seems primed for repeat viewings. What a bounty of choices, and you don’t even need to rank on the nice list to enjoy them. We’ll be back in 2023 with a new update, but for now, happy holidays and see you at the movies! Each film is now available in a theater near you or in the comfort of your own home (or, in some cases, both, the convenience of it all). Browse your options below.
Week of December 19 – December 25
New Films in Theaters
As new movies open in theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic, IndieWire will continue to review them whenever possible. We encourage readers to follow the safety precautions provided by CDC and health authorities. Additionally, our coverage will provide alternative viewing options whenever they are available. “Babylon” (directed by Damien Chazelle) Distributor: Paramount Where to Find It: Theaters A dorky Caligulan ode to the early days of Hollywood, Damien Chazelle’s sprawling “Babylon” may begin in 1926, but the movie is soon burdened with a clairvoyance that allows it to become unstuck in time. Several of the epic’s characters are haunted by glimpses of a future they’re powerless to prevent, a curse that its director brings to bear by drawing inspiration from across the entire spectrum of film history. Burdened with the knowledge that this $80 million studio project could be the last of its kind, “Babylon” refracts Hollywood’s first major identity crisis through the prism of its latest one. It reminds us the movies have been dying for more than 100 years, and then — through its heart-bursting, endearingly galaxy-brained prayer of a finale — interprets that as uplifting proof they’ll actually live forever. It just doesn’t have any idea how the movies will do it, or where the hell they might go from here. Read IndieWire’s full review.
Scott Garfield “Corsage” (directed by Marie Kreutzer) Distributor: IFC Films Where to Find It: Select theaters, with VOD to follow “There is an air of quiet death in this house, and I do not like the way it smells,” Reynolds Woodcock announces over breakfast in “Phantom Thread.” Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary (“Phantom Thread” co-star Vicky Krieps) appears to feel the same way about Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace, the difference being she has finally got used to its odor. It doesn’t help that, by Christmas 1887, a quiet death is exactly what “Elise,” the now-40-year-old spouse of ruler and busybody Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), seems destined for. No chance. In the hands of Krieps and Austrian director Marie Kreutzer (who directed the Golden Bear-nominated “The Ground Beneath My Feet”), the Empress Elisabeth of “Corsage” is an irreverent, often immature, and tremendously endearing first lady with an insatiable desire to determine her own future. Having helped establish the doomed Joint Monarchy and reigned in Vienna for longer than any ruler’s wife, Elise certainly occupies a special place in the hearts and minds of Austrians. Read IndieWire’s full review. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (directed by Kasi Lemmons) Distributor: Sony Where to Find It: Theaters A music biopic so broad and hacky it makes “Jersey Boys” seem like “All that Jazz,” Kasi Lemmons’ well-acted but laughably trite “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” is an anonymous portrait of a singular artist — a by-the-numbers “Behind the Music” episode that needs 146 minutes to say almost nothing about a once-in-a-lifetime voice. Not even “Bohemian Rhapsody” was so obviously written by the guy who wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody,” as Anthony McCarten’s algorithmic script skips down the various sections of Houston’s Wikipedia page with all the flow of a scratched greatest hits CD. Here’s young Whitney as a choir soloist at the New Jersey church where she discovers her love for music. There she is at Arista Records’ HQ listening to the demo track for her future hit single, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (“It’s about wanting to dance with somebody,” she says approvingly). Once her career takes off, the rest of her life is reduced to a diminishingly unsophisticated series of reactions to whatever happened in the previous scene, which doesn’t express Houston’s struggle to be everything to everyone so much as it does this movie’s desperation to be anything to anyone. Read IndieWire’s full review. Emily Aragones “Joyride” (directed by Emer Reynolds) Distributor: Magnolia Pictures Where to Find It: Select theaters, plus various VOD options
tk “Living” (directed by Oliver Hermanus) Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics Where to Find It: Select theaters, with expansion to follow it shouldn’t be so uncanny to see Bill Nighy star in a sleepy British remake of Kurosawa’s greatest film, but “Ikiru” has always been a different beast. Whereas the director’s most frequently cited films tend to be period tales that are rooted in the legible grammar of their respective genres, this contemplative 1952 fable draws from the rich traditions of Russian literature and Hollywood melodrama without feeling like it belongs to either one of them. A simple yet knotted story about a zombie-like Tokyo bureaucrat named Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) who finds new purpose to his time on Earth after being diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, “Ikiru” exudes a plaintive emotional power that’s as profound as it is fleeting, and as impossible to replicate as the magic of first snow. And yet, it’s hard to fault “Living” director Oliver Hermanus (“Moffie”) for hoping that the same bolt of lightning might strike twice halfway around the world and 68 years apart. For starters, he came to the table with a few legitimate aces up his sleeve. They include an assist from the great novelist Kazuo Ishigiruo (whose lean screenplay is suitably repressive, if also faithful to a fault), an evocative historical backdrop courtesy of London County Hall, and a cast punctuated with rising talents like Tom Burke and “Sex Education” star Aimee Lou Wood. Read IndieWire’s full review. “The Pale Blue Eye” (directed by Scott Cooper) Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Select theaters, streaming on Netflix on January 6 tktk ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (directed by Joel Crawford) Distributor: DreamWorks Where to Find It: Theaters “The Last Wish” continues the Shrek franchise’s tongue-in-cheek penchant for throwing popular fairy tale characters into the same world and seeing what comes out. Pugh voices Goldilocks with a gruff “oi oi” London drawl and Mulaney is a treat as violent manchild Jack, darkly intoning the nursery rhyme’s catchphrase “What a good boy am I” at a pivotal moment in the film. The Wolf is particularly frightening as an almost literal personification of Puss’s deep-seated fear of death, appearing out of dark corners with glowing red eyes and a sinister whistle that makes the cat’s fur stand on end. DreamWorks’ animation department (for which “The Last Wish” debuts a brand-new logo honoring the studio’s most popular characters) has long been one of the more underrated in terms of trying out new styles and aesthetics from film to film (the “Boss Baby” franchise notwithstanding), and “The Last Wish” has a particularly fun blend of standard computer imagery combined with the sketchy look of hand-drawn animation and the fast-paced flip-book style fight choreography popularized by “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Read IndieWire’s full review. “Women Talking” (directed by Sarah Polley) — IndieWire Critic’s Pick Distributor: MGM/UAR Where to Find It: Select theaters, expansion to follow For God knows how long, the women of an isolated religious community (Mennonite in everything but name) have been drugged with cow tranquilizer and raped on a regular basis during the night. The women had been told they were being violated by ghosts, demons, or even Satan himself — punishment for their own improprieties — and they believed that lie until two young girls saw one of the rapists as he scurried back to bed across the field one night. Some of the men were arrested, and the ones who weren’t have gone into the city to arrange for bail. The women of the colony, unsupervised for a short period of time, have roughly 48 hours to decide what their future will be like. Adapted from Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name with fierce intellect, immense force, and a visionary sense of how to remap the world as we know it along more compassionate (matriarchal) lines, Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” never feels like it’s just 104 minutes of bonneted fundamentalists chatting in a barn, even though — with a few memorable, and sometimes very funny exceptions — that’s exactly what it is. Toews’ book could easily have been made into a play, but every widescreen frame of Polley’s film will make you glad that it wasn’t. She infuses this truth-inspired tale with a gripping multi-generational sweep from the very first line, which puts the violence in the rear-view mirror and begins the hard work of keeping it there. Read IndieWire’s full review. Also available this week:
New Films on VOD and Streaming, Including Premium Platforms and Virtual Cinema
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (directed by Rian Johnson) — IndieWire Critic’s Pick Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix Before you worry too much about dissecting the meaning of “Glass Onion,” both the main title of Rian Johnson’s second “Knives Out” feature (and just as delightful and inspired as the first film) and the name of a Beatles song from their White Album, we’ll just go ahead and direct you to the (likely?) key lyric from the 1968 jam: “Well here’s another clue for you all / The walrus was Paul.” Talk about an a-ha moment, right? Alas, John and Paul were having a bit of fun with that particular ditty, as most of their “Glass Onion” is less about unraveling fan theories than straight up poking holes in them. It’s a fitting title for Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” which delights in unspooling theories, the bread and butter of the genre, and then poking right through them to find something even more witty and amusing. Rest assured: Johnson isn’t reinventing the mystery movie with “Glass Onion,” but he is having a hell of a time lightly deconstructing it and reorienting it to suit his whipsmart script and central super detective. Perhaps the only whodunit in which its main character will, upon solving the film’s central crime, proclaim it’s all “so dumb!” (and be both right and wrong in that declaration), and all the better for it. Read IndieWire’s full review. Also available this week: “The Seven Deadly Sins: Grudge of Edinburgh” (directed by Bob Shirohata) Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix
Check out more films to watch on the next page.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
title: “New Movies Release Calendar For December 23 And Where To Watch” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-19” author: “Marguerite Beauchamp”
Last week may have been dominated by “Avatar: The Way of Water,” but — wait, what are we saying? “but”? but what? it looks as if James Cameron’s much-anticipated sequel just might lure in a fresh audience this weekend at the box office, perhaps setting up for a second week of ruling the seas and the moons and the whathaveyou. But for those who have a) already seen the film or b) didn’t want to in the first place, there are a variety of other options. There’s the gritty excess of Damien Chazelle’s wild love letter to early Hollywood (“Babylon”), a crowd-pleasing “Puss in Boots” sequel for the entire family, lauded dramas like “Living” and “Women Talking,” Australian Oscar entry “Corsage,” and even a Whitney Houston biopic.
Staying at home? Rian Johnson’s beloved “Knives Out” sequel arrives on Netflix, and seems primed for repeat viewings. What a bounty of choices, and you don’t even need to rank on the nice list to enjoy them. We’ll be back in 2023 with a new update, but for now, happy holidays and see you at the movies! Each film is now available in a theater near you or in the comfort of your own home (or, in some cases, both, the convenience of it all). Browse your options below.
Week of December 19 – December 25
New Films in Theaters
As new movies open in theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic, IndieWire will continue to review them whenever possible. We encourage readers to follow the safety precautions provided by CDC and health authorities. Additionally, our coverage will provide alternative viewing options whenever they are available. “Babylon” (directed by Damien Chazelle) Distributor: Paramount Where to Find It: Theaters A dorky Caligulan ode to the early days of Hollywood, Damien Chazelle’s sprawling “Babylon” may begin in 1926, but the movie is soon burdened with a clairvoyance that allows it to become unstuck in time. Several of the epic’s characters are haunted by glimpses of a future they’re powerless to prevent, a curse that its director brings to bear by drawing inspiration from across the entire spectrum of film history. Burdened with the knowledge that this $80 million studio project could be the last of its kind, “Babylon” refracts Hollywood’s first major identity crisis through the prism of its latest one. It reminds us the movies have been dying for more than 100 years, and then — through its heart-bursting, endearingly galaxy-brained prayer of a finale — interprets that as uplifting proof they’ll actually live forever. It just doesn’t have any idea how the movies will do it, or where the hell they might go from here. Read IndieWire’s full review.
Scott Garfield “Corsage” (directed by Marie Kreutzer) Distributor: IFC Films Where to Find It: Select theaters, with VOD to follow “There is an air of quiet death in this house, and I do not like the way it smells,” Reynolds Woodcock announces over breakfast in “Phantom Thread.” Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary (“Phantom Thread” co-star Vicky Krieps) appears to feel the same way about Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace, the difference being she has finally got used to its odor. It doesn’t help that, by Christmas 1887, a quiet death is exactly what “Elise,” the now-40-year-old spouse of ruler and busybody Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), seems destined for. No chance. In the hands of Krieps and Austrian director Marie Kreutzer (who directed the Golden Bear-nominated “The Ground Beneath My Feet”), the Empress Elisabeth of “Corsage” is an irreverent, often immature, and tremendously endearing first lady with an insatiable desire to determine her own future. Having helped establish the doomed Joint Monarchy and reigned in Vienna for longer than any ruler’s wife, Elise certainly occupies a special place in the hearts and minds of Austrians. Read IndieWire’s full review. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (directed by Kasi Lemmons) Distributor: Sony Where to Find It: Theaters A music biopic so broad and hacky it makes “Jersey Boys” seem like “All that Jazz,” Kasi Lemmons’ well-acted but laughably trite “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” is an anonymous portrait of a singular artist — a by-the-numbers “Behind the Music” episode that needs 146 minutes to say almost nothing about a once-in-a-lifetime voice. Not even “Bohemian Rhapsody” was so obviously written by the guy who wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody,” as Anthony McCarten’s algorithmic script skips down the various sections of Houston’s Wikipedia page with all the flow of a scratched greatest hits CD. Here’s young Whitney as a choir soloist at the New Jersey church where she discovers her love for music. There she is at Arista Records’ HQ listening to the demo track for her future hit single, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (“It’s about wanting to dance with somebody,” she says approvingly). Once her career takes off, the rest of her life is reduced to a diminishingly unsophisticated series of reactions to whatever happened in the previous scene, which doesn’t express Houston’s struggle to be everything to everyone so much as it does this movie’s desperation to be anything to anyone. Read IndieWire’s full review. Emily Aragones “Joyride” (directed by Emer Reynolds) Distributor: Magnolia Pictures Where to Find It: Select theaters, plus various VOD options
tk “Living” (directed by Oliver Hermanus) Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics Where to Find It: Select theaters, with expansion to follow it shouldn’t be so uncanny to see Bill Nighy star in a sleepy British remake of Kurosawa’s greatest film, but “Ikiru” has always been a different beast. Whereas the director’s most frequently cited films tend to be period tales that are rooted in the legible grammar of their respective genres, this contemplative 1952 fable draws from the rich traditions of Russian literature and Hollywood melodrama without feeling like it belongs to either one of them. A simple yet knotted story about a zombie-like Tokyo bureaucrat named Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) who finds new purpose to his time on Earth after being diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, “Ikiru” exudes a plaintive emotional power that’s as profound as it is fleeting, and as impossible to replicate as the magic of first snow. And yet, it’s hard to fault “Living” director Oliver Hermanus (“Moffie”) for hoping that the same bolt of lightning might strike twice halfway around the world and 68 years apart. For starters, he came to the table with a few legitimate aces up his sleeve. They include an assist from the great novelist Kazuo Ishigiruo (whose lean screenplay is suitably repressive, if also faithful to a fault), an evocative historical backdrop courtesy of London County Hall, and a cast punctuated with rising talents like Tom Burke and “Sex Education” star Aimee Lou Wood. Read IndieWire’s full review. “The Pale Blue Eye” (directed by Scott Cooper) Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Select theaters, streaming on Netflix on January 6 tktk ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (directed by Joel Crawford) Distributor: DreamWorks Where to Find It: Theaters “The Last Wish” continues the Shrek franchise’s tongue-in-cheek penchant for throwing popular fairy tale characters into the same world and seeing what comes out. Pugh voices Goldilocks with a gruff “oi oi” London drawl and Mulaney is a treat as violent manchild Jack, darkly intoning the nursery rhyme’s catchphrase “What a good boy am I” at a pivotal moment in the film. The Wolf is particularly frightening as an almost literal personification of Puss’s deep-seated fear of death, appearing out of dark corners with glowing red eyes and a sinister whistle that makes the cat’s fur stand on end. DreamWorks’ animation department (for which “The Last Wish” debuts a brand-new logo honoring the studio’s most popular characters) has long been one of the more underrated in terms of trying out new styles and aesthetics from film to film (the “Boss Baby” franchise notwithstanding), and “The Last Wish” has a particularly fun blend of standard computer imagery combined with the sketchy look of hand-drawn animation and the fast-paced flip-book style fight choreography popularized by “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Read IndieWire’s full review. “Women Talking” (directed by Sarah Polley) — IndieWire Critic’s Pick Distributor: MGM/UAR Where to Find It: Select theaters, expansion to follow For God knows how long, the women of an isolated religious community (Mennonite in everything but name) have been drugged with cow tranquilizer and raped on a regular basis during the night. The women had been told they were being violated by ghosts, demons, or even Satan himself — punishment for their own improprieties — and they believed that lie until two young girls saw one of the rapists as he scurried back to bed across the field one night. Some of the men were arrested, and the ones who weren’t have gone into the city to arrange for bail. The women of the colony, unsupervised for a short period of time, have roughly 48 hours to decide what their future will be like. Adapted from Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name with fierce intellect, immense force, and a visionary sense of how to remap the world as we know it along more compassionate (matriarchal) lines, Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” never feels like it’s just 104 minutes of bonneted fundamentalists chatting in a barn, even though — with a few memorable, and sometimes very funny exceptions — that’s exactly what it is. Toews’ book could easily have been made into a play, but every widescreen frame of Polley’s film will make you glad that it wasn’t. She infuses this truth-inspired tale with a gripping multi-generational sweep from the very first line, which puts the violence in the rear-view mirror and begins the hard work of keeping it there. Read IndieWire’s full review. Also available this week:
New Films on VOD and Streaming, Including Premium Platforms and Virtual Cinema
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (directed by Rian Johnson) — IndieWire Critic’s Pick Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix Before you worry too much about dissecting the meaning of “Glass Onion,” both the main title of Rian Johnson’s second “Knives Out” feature (and just as delightful and inspired as the first film) and the name of a Beatles song from their White Album, we’ll just go ahead and direct you to the (likely?) key lyric from the 1968 jam: “Well here’s another clue for you all / The walrus was Paul.” Talk about an a-ha moment, right? Alas, John and Paul were having a bit of fun with that particular ditty, as most of their “Glass Onion” is less about unraveling fan theories than straight up poking holes in them. It’s a fitting title for Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” which delights in unspooling theories, the bread and butter of the genre, and then poking right through them to find something even more witty and amusing. Rest assured: Johnson isn’t reinventing the mystery movie with “Glass Onion,” but he is having a hell of a time lightly deconstructing it and reorienting it to suit his whipsmart script and central super detective. Perhaps the only whodunit in which its main character will, upon solving the film’s central crime, proclaim it’s all “so dumb!” (and be both right and wrong in that declaration), and all the better for it. Read IndieWire’s full review. Also available this week: “The Seven Deadly Sins: Grudge of Edinburgh” (directed by Bob Shirohata) Distributor: Netflix Where to Find It: Streaming on Netflix
Check out more films to watch on the next page.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
