Boxing Day movies through to New Year's Day: What's opening in Australian cinemas - ABC News

Kamis, 24 Desember 2020

Boxing Day movies through to New Year's Day: What's opening in Australian cinemas - ABC News

Like everything else about 2020, this summer's film slate is hardly business as usual; we'd normally be running a gauntlet of Oscar contenders and big blockbusters, but many of those releases have been delayed due to the ongoing pandemic.

Instead, we have a strange mash of big, small, middle-scale and idiosyncratic films to choose from for Boxing Day through to New Year's Day.

If you can't get to a cinema, never fear — we've thrown in a couple of streaming recommendations.

In cinemas from December 26:

Wonder Woman 1984

Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen
Director: Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman; Monster)
Run time: 2h 31m
Noteworthy because: It made it to the big screen at all, after being pushed back by COVID many times.
See it with: Pals, partner, teens in your life.
Our reviewer Luke Goodsell says: Like its 2017 predecessor, a multi-million-dollar corporate product that rode the conversation around representation to a sense of cultural significance, this sequel is a big, cornball superhero adventure that — to its credit — wears its heart on its bulletproof bracelets. But its well-intentioned escapism also feels decidedly anachronistic in the current climate.
Likely to make you: Escape.

Nomadland

Starring: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May, Swankie, Bob Wells
Director: Chloe Zhao (The Rider; Songs My Brothers Taught Me)
Run time: 1h 48m
Noteworthy because: It's based on and stars real-life grey nomads; it's likely to be a major player at the Oscars; Chloe Zhao has just wrapped Marvel blockbuster Eternals — which feels like the polar opposite to Nomadland.
See it with: Pals, partner, parents.
Our reviewer Annabel Brady-Brown says: The film leans into a Malickian perspective that calmly pits the transience of human life against the eternal majesty of nature. Perhaps most refreshing though is the film's clear-eyed interest in and acceptance of other ways of living, of different strokes for different folks.
Likely to make you: Emotional, moved — and want to read the book.

How To Be A Good Wife

Starring: Juliette Binoche, Noemie Lvovsky, Yolande Moreau
Director: Martin Provost (Seraphine)
Run time: 1h 48m
Noteworthy because: Of its trifecta of French talent.
See it with: Gal pals, parents, parents-in-law.
Our reviewer Luke Goodsell says: The sexual revolution collides with archaic provincial France in this deceptively polite, late-60s set comedy, starring Binoche as the prim headmistress of an all-girls boarding school that instructs its students on how to be obedient homemakers. Though it's miles from the French New Wave provocations of the era, this breezy satire sows the seeds of rebellion through escalating farce, a winning comedic ensemble, and a dash of queer longing — with some Zero de Conduite-style pillow fighting thrown in for good measure. It's all topped by a brazenly contrived, all-singing roll-call of feminist icons, en route to Paris and May '68.
Likely to make you: Charmed.

The Croods: A New Age

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Kat Dennings, Emma Stone, Catherine Keener, Leslie Mann, Nicolas Cage
Director: Joel Crawford
Run time: 1h 35m
Noteworthy because: It's the most fun kids will have in cinemas.
See it with: Little kids, animation fans, neanderthal boyfriends.
Our reviewer Luke Goodsell says: Faster, funnier and more inventive than its 2013 predecessor, this belated DreamWorks sequel takes its titular clan of cavemen — led by Nicolas Cage's knuckle-dragging dad, his feisty teenage daughter (Emma Stone) and her dreamy crush (Ryan Reynolds) — into the treehouse utopia of the Bettermans, a smug family of flip-flop wearing, top-knotted entrepreneurs whose environmental meddling has enraged an army of ferocious monkeys. Bright and bouncy, with wacky critters, King Kong riffs, fantasy art feminism (this must be the first kids animation to feature a 'Queen o' Wimmins'), and a flying hairpiece named — in the movie's dumbest, and best, joke — Wigasus.
Likely to make you: Happy.

A Call to Spy

Starring: Sarah Megan Thomas, Radhika Apte, Stana Katic, Linus Roache
Director: Lydia Dean Pilcher
Run time: 2h 4m
Noteworthy because: It's a World War II story that's never been told.
See it with: History buffs, grandparents
Our reviewer Luke Goodsell says: A fresh tale from one of history's most well-trod periods on screen, this British World War II drama shines a light on Churchill's secret division of female spies — including Romanian-Jewish commander Vera Atkins (Stana Katic), Muslim wireless expert Noor Inayat Khan (Radhika Apte) and amputee agent Virginia Hall (writer-producer Sarah Megan Thomas) — who infiltrated Nazi operations and fought heroically alongside the French Resistance. Director Lydia Dean Pilcher pays attention to the oft-unsung diversity of the Allied campaign, and while the film can be dramatically stiff, the handsome cinematography and earnest spirit should engage the historically curious.
Likely to make you: Inspired.

End of the Century

Starring: Juan Barberini, Ramon Pujol, Mia Maestro
Director: Lucio Castro
Run time: 1h 24m
Noteworthy because: It's an acclaimed queer drama that mixes soulful romance with time-hopping experimentation.
See it with: Someone you love (even if they don't know it yet)
Our reviewer Luke Goodsell says: Past, present and possible futures intertwine in this slippery drama from Argentine filmmaker Lucio Castro, which opens on a chance hook-up between two men — Javi (Ramon Pujol) and the elliptically named Ocho (Juan Barberini) — before flashing back, forward, and maybe sideways in space and time. The chemistry between the leads is palpable, but what gives the film its kick — other than some judicious dancing to A Flock of Seagulls — is Castro's way with multiple, co-existent realities, a kind of queer Sliding Doors in which life paths can switch in a flash and decades vanish in the blink of cinema's eye.
Likely to make you: Warm, wistful, pleasantly perplexed.

Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles

Starring: Yotam Ottolenghi, Dominique Ansel, Dinara Kasko, Sam Bompas
Director: Laura Gabbert
Run time: 1h 15m
Noteworthy because: This documentary features a line-up of top dessert-world chefs in a mouth-watering spectacle.
See it with: Sweet teeth, MasterChef die-hards, foodie friends, in-laws.
Our reviewer Luke Goodsell says: If extravagant pastries and courtly decadence are your thing, then this documentary, which follows celebrity chef Yotam Ottolenghi as he transforms the Palace of Versailles into cake form for New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, will more than indulge your cinematic sweet tooth. Ottolenghi's sense of cultural history makes him an engaging, humble guide as he brings together a diverse array of pastry artists — from cronut creator Dominique Ansel to architectural wizard Dinara Kasko — to both recreate and reimagine the shapes, colours and flavours of 18th-century French frippery. At its best, as Tunisian pastry chef Ghaya Oliveira observes, it can "remind your palette that good things exist."
Likely to make you: Drool.

Streaming from December 25:

Soul

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Richard Ayoade, Questlove, Angela Bassett
Director: Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc., Up, Inside Out)
Run time: 1h 47m
Noteworthy because: It's Pixar, goddammit!
See it with: Everyone!
Our reviewer Luke Goodsell says: Pixar's latest is one of the American animation giant's most imaginative in some time. A middle-aged jazz musician (Jamie Foxx) meets an untimely demise and finds himself marooned in an otherworldly realm where souls are formed, a surreal dimension of candy-pastel fields, vintage computer graphics, and bloopy New Age synth music (courtesy of unlikely Pixar recruits Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross). His quest to return to Earth gets scrambled with that of another lost soul (Tina Fey), resulting in body swap antics, metaphysical gags and the studio's best inter-dimensional conceit since director Pete Docter's original Monsters, Inc. Frustrating sentimentality keeps the astral weirdness from the sublime, but it's a swing in the right high-concept direction.
Likely to make you: Delighted.
Watch it: Disney+ from the evening of December 25.

Sylvie's Love

Starring: Tessa Thompson, Nnamdi Asomugha, Eva Longoria, Aja Naomi King
Director: Eugene Ashe
Run time: 1h 54m
Noteworthy because: Tessa Thompson.
See it with: (Music) lovers.
Our reviewer Luke Goodsell says: Caressed by classic jazz and warm, vintage period detail, this designed-for-swoon romance stars Tessa Thompson and Nnamdi Asomugha as lovers whose affair spans the late 50s through early 60s, giving Black America the kind of heart-swelling, old fashioned movie that would never be seen in the era. She's an aspiring TV producer and he's a saxophonist on his way to becoming the next Coltrane, and the romantic fantasy is braided with an elegiac sense of jazz culture fading into the industrialised sounds of Motown. A soundtrack of Charlie Parker, Sam Cooke, Sarah Vaughan and The Drifters helps it go down a modest treat.
Likely to make you: Romantic.
Watch it: Amazon Prime Video

In cinemas from December 31:

Pieces of a Woman

Starring: Vanessa Kirby, Shia LaBeouf, Molly Parker, Sarah Snook, Iliza Shlesinger, Benny Safdie, Jimmie Fails and Ellen Burstyn
Director: Kornel Mundruczo (White God, winner of the 2014 Prix Un Certain Regard Award)
Run time: 2hr 6m
Noteworthy because: Hungarian Director Kornel Mundruczo and writer Kata Weber are partners in real life, and are exploring their own personal trauma in this tale of a home birth gone tragically wrong.
See it with: Arthouse die-hards who can handle the trauma and don't mind watching LaBeouf on screen, given recent allegations of domestic violence and abuse by his former partner.
Likely to make you: Devastated.

In cinemas from January 1:

The Dry

Starring: Eric Bana, Genevieve O'Reilly, Keir O'Donnell, James Frecheville, Sam Corlett, BeBe Bettencourt
Director: Robert Connolly (Paper Planes, The Boys)
Run time: 1h 57m
Noteworthy because: A bestselling book gets a big screen treatment by some of Australian cinema's big guns — including producer Bruna Papandrea (Big Little Lies).
See it with: Anyone who likes crime drama, on page or screen.
Our reviewer Jason Di Rosso says: Jane Harper's bestseller about a cop returning to his hometown to investigate a murder-suicide has inspired a film of shimmering, drought-stricken landscapes and small-town menace. More high-end cop show than Wake in Fright, there's also a dramatic B-story of tragic teen romance, told in flashback, that sometimes upstages Bana's detective drama. Be prepared for some intricate plotting, unless you've read the book, in which case you've heard it all before.
Likely to make you: On the edge of your seat; uneasy.

Monster Hunter

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Tony Jaa, Ron Perlman, monsters
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil)
Run time: 1h 45m
Noteworthy because: It's a summer short on action spectacle — and Resident Evil stylist Paul WS Anderson knows how to scratch that itch.
See it with: Pals, gamers.
Our reviewer Luke Goodsell says: Anderson's latest video game adaptation stars Milla Jovovich as a squad leader whose patrol team gets sucked through a portal into an alternate fantasy world, where the star teams up with Thai martial artist Tony Jaa and a mightily coiffed Ron Perlman to battle a beastly menagerie straight out of some heavy metal fever dream. Mashing together everything from Ray Harryhausen to Starship Troopers and kaiju rumbles (the film is a co-production with Toho), it's lean, loud, and formally satisfying — just the escape from the drudgery of higher-minded offerings.
Likely to make you: Ponder a future in which man and mythical beast might finally, peacefully coexist.

Dragon Rider

Starring: Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Felicity Jones, Patrick Stewart, Freddie Highmore, Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Nonso Anozie
Director: Tomer Eshed
Run time: 1hr 32m
Noteworthy because: It's based on the best-seller of the same name by German children's book author Cornelia Funke.
See it with: Young kids, dragon fans.
Likely to make you: Locate your inner child.

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2020-12-24 19:22:00Z
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Kamis, 24 Desember 2020