I am currently suffering from The Crown withdrawal after finishing Season 4, and (like pretty much everyone) predicting we’ll see Emmy nominations for Gillian Anderson (Margaret Thatcher) and Josh O’Connor (Prince Charles). Also I’m very on board with this suggestion that Erin Doherty deserves her own Princess Anne spinoff series (please get on this asap, Netflix). She’s spectacular.
I’m not quite ready to commit to a new streaming series yet so went to the backlog of movies I have queued up; I tried to get into Queen’s Gambit but honestly, I don’t get the hype about that movie, the dialogue is so clunky. I even went so far as to open an actual physical book yesterday (lol) before restarting Season 1 of The Crown (hi Claire Foy and John Lithgow!). At least we still have The Mandalorian to look forward to every Friday.
Some great new trailers this week and a couple of second trailers/teasers for highly anticipated movies whose theatrical debuts were derailed by the coronavirus pandemic.
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One Night in Miami
Oscar/Emmy/Golden Globe winner Regina King makes her feature film directorial debut with One Night in Miami, an adaptation of Kemp Powers’ 2013 play of the same name. It tells the fictional story of a meeting of Muhammed Ali (then still known as Cassius Clay), Jim Brown, Sam Cooke, and Malcolm X, as they get together following Ali’s 1964 fight against Sonny Liston. Powers also wrote the script. The movie is generating huge Academy Awards buzz (obviously, with a powerhouse like King at the helm) and has already received praise from critics at the Toronto and Venice film festivals. Leslie Odom Jr., Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, and Aldis Hodge star. One Night in Miami will hit theaters on Christmas Day and debut on Amazon Prime Video January 15th.
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Chaos Walking
In a future dystopia, Viola (Daisy Ridley) crash lands on a planet of men who are affected by something called “The Noise” that makes all their thoughts visible. All the other women are dead, or so we are told (I mean I have watched more than one future dystopia sci-fi flick in my life). Based on the trilogy of books by Patrick Ness, Chaos Walking also stars Tom Holland, Mads Mikkelsen, Nick Jonas, and David Oyelowo. It’s due in theaters January 22nd.
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Wonder Woman 1984
Warner Bros. announced last week that Wonder Woman 1984 would be released in theaters and on HBO Max December 25th, and we got a new “main” trailer to tide us over, with new glimpses of Diana, Steve, and Kristen Wiig’s Cheetah (“I want to be an apex predator” right on, girl).
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Superintelligence
Not every movie is about a future dystopia or superheroes, you guys! Melissa McCarthy stars in this very goofy-looking comedy about a woman who has to prove to an AI (voiced by James Corden) who’s thinking of destroying the Earth that humanity is worth saving. Girrrrl, good luck. Bobby Cannavale and Bryan Tyree Henry also star (and I was especially happy to see Sam Richardson, the funniest person from the Veep cast not named Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Superintelligence comes to HBO Max November 26th.
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Godmothered
Look, I can’t stop the tide of Christmas movies, so just settle in and accept them for the next couple of weeks. This one looks pretty cute, with Jillian Bell as fairy godmother in training Eleanor. She tries to help a 40-year-old single mom who made a wish as a child that didn’t come true. Isla Fisher and Jane Curtin (yessss) also star in Godmothered, which comes to Disney Plus on December 4th.
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Justice League: Director’s Cut
The first full-length teaser of the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League shows us Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Superman, Cyborg, and The Flash with Leonard Cohen’s version of “Hallelujah” playing— which feels a little too slow for an action movie? I watched the trailer at 1.5 speed and with all due respect to the late, great Mr. Cohen, it seemed a better fit. You know the backstory about the Snyder Cut; it will hit HBO Max in 2021.