In the first part of this series on fall and winter movies, I shared that there were more movies coming to the silver screen than I could fit in one article. And as promised, some of the films on the sequel list feature the actresses you'll see vying for awards this season. But once things sifted out, most of the films that piqued my interest were male-centered. It was not through a lack of trying, I swear.
Let's get started!
The producers of "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire," the follow-up to "Ghostbusters: Afterlife” (2021), dropped a teaser trailer for it in November, and it was supposed to come out in theaters Nov. 20. But now it won't be released until March 29, 2024. What happened? "Frozen Empire" is yet another movie whose release date is a casualty of the actors union strike. Of course, the much-longer writers' strike didn't help much, either.
Anyway, here's the teaser trailer, courtesy of Sony Pictures:
Among the listings of new and upcoming films from indie outfit A24 through the end of 2024, you'll find the biopic, "Priscilla," about Priscilla Presley (nee Beaulieu). You couldn't miss all of the hoopla in 2022 about Baz Lurhrmann's musical extravaganza "Elvis," which garnered the lead actor an Oscar nod. But A24, remember, took home a load of hardware (seven statuettes) from the most recent ceremony, for "Everything Everywhere All at Once."
This movie, directed by Sofia Coppola, portrays the highs and lows of Elvis World through the eyes of the young Priscilla. The teenager, after striking up a romance with Elvis while he's serving in the Army in Germany, quickly learns that there are major downsides to what looks like a happy life from outside the gates of Graceland.
"Priscilla" is one of two movies here that made the box office tills ring their opening weekend
In the indie corner of the US #BoxOffice, the 2 Festival darlings keep on giving!#Focus’s #TheHoldovers expanded from 64 to 778 theatres grossing strong 3.2M on 3rd limited weekend, up +463.4% from last weekend for a 4.3M cume.#A24’s #Priscilla expanded again from 1.359 to… pic.twitter.com/RIElZq9Bwo
— Luiz Fernando (@Luiz_Fernando_J) November 12, 2023
The other film was directed by Alexander Payne. "The Holdovers" reunites Payne with his star from the Golden Globe-winning film, "Sideways," Paul Giamatti. It tells the story of a New England prep school instructor (Giamatti),
who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them -- a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) -- and with the school's head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da'Vine Joy Randolph).
What's going to be cool to see here is how Payne fares with someone else's script...Instead of being written or co-written by the director, "The Holdovers" was written by David Hemingson:
"Maestro" sees Bradley Cooper directing his second movie (after his co-starring turn with Lady Gaga in "A Star Is Born").
Scoring another biopic (pardon the pun) on this list is a look at the life and career of the late composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, played by Cooper (who also wrote the screenplay).
Bradley Cooper on "Maestro" https://t.co/fZUMZjdohH
— CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) November 14, 2023
Cooper told "CBS Sunday Morning" correspondent Mo Rocca in a recent interview, about the moment he knew he had the blessing of the Bernstein family to carry the mantle of their father's legacy. It came during the first time the actor met with Bernstein son, Jamie, in a New York restaurant, which Cooper discussed with Jamie during the segment:
I eat with my hands all the time, and I'm eating the spinach with my hands. And I recognize it, and then I either apologize or something, and you said, 'That's what my dad used to do.' And I remember in that moment I thought: Oh, this might happen.'
"Maestro" opens in theaters December 20th.
"Napoleon" is getting a frigid reception even before it reaches screens nationwide, at least from the reviewer at the New York Post, who pans the new Ridley Scott film as "another Joaquin Phoenix freak show." Academy Award winner Phoenix stars as the French military genius/dictator in the epic film.
The scathing review, however, makes sure to praise Phoenix's co-star Vanessa Kirby, who plays Napoleon's wife, Josephine.
The movie is now playing in theaters.
I know I'll get guff for mentioning yet another sequel/prequel/remake movie, but I have a good feeling about "Wonka." (After all, this column is something of a sequel itself.) If you know anything about the plot of the Wonka empresario as a young person, it's that he's played by actor Timothée Chalamet. And up to now, the actor has mainly been featured in niche indie movies that most people haven't seen (Oscar bait, you might call it). I also haven't seen anything he's done. Partly because of that, I'm willing to give this movie the benefit of the doubt.
One other thing has me intrigued. Chalamet recently sat down with director Martin Scorsese for a chat about films. He came across as intelligent and well-spoken--something that's no mean feat when the topic is movies, and you're going toe to toe with someone with encyclopedic knowledge like Scorsese. I also learned in the interview that they worked together on a commercial.
"Wonka" arrives in theaters Dec. 15.
Lastly, on our fall and winter movie list, there's Adam Driver. The teaser trailer was recently released for director Michael Mann's "Ferrari," Driver's follow-up to playing another Italian originator, Gucci founder Maurizio Gucci, in Ridley Scott's "House of Gucci" (2021). Here, he depicts Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari. The film follows the story of Ferrari and his family, starting in the summer of 1957. Here's how the studio, Neon, describes it:
Behind the spectacle of Formula 1, ex-racer Enzo Ferrari is in crisis. Bankruptcy threatens the factory he and his wife, Laura built from nothing ten years earlier....Meanwhile, his drivers' passion to win pushes them to the edge as they launch into the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the Mille Miglia.
But there's a personal story here, too, besides the fast Italian cars zooming around:
....[Ferrari is} also juggling difficulties with his wife Laura (Penélope Cruz) as they suffer through the emotional fallout of the death of their son Dino the year before. Secretly, Enzo also has a young son, Piero, with another woman, Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley), and must decide whether the boy will eventually take his last name.
Driver is likely best known to moviegoers for his role as "Kylo Ren," in the last batch of sub-par woke Star Wars movies from Disney, but I'm looking forward to seeing what he does here. He was quite good in "Silence."
"Ferrari" opens in U.S. theaters on Christmas Day. You can watch the trailer below, via Neon:
