My Most Anticipated Movies of the Fall
#144: The 2021 Movie Season Preview, "Come From Away," Clint Eastwood movies, "Untold: Breaking Point"
Edition 144:
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
In this week’s newsletter: It’s a supersized edition to preview the official 2021 Movie Season. There are so many movies I’m pumped to see coming out in such little time. Plus the usual streaming suggestions and in this week’s “Trailer Watch,” I go on an absolute rant about black-and-white movies.
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to movie season.
All year, the cinephiles like myself wade through the winter horror junk and the spring rom-coms and the summer action movies and the evergreen superhero mumbo-jumbo, and we do it gladly, to reach the glory of last three months of the calendar. That’s when all of the good movies — or at least the ones that populate “best of the year” lists — all get released.
Of course, movie season was one more cruel casualty of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Most studios held onto their prized entries last year and the awards conversation got dominated by streamers, leaving myself and many others to call it a pretty weak movie year.
Which means this year is in some ways cramming two seasons worth of entries into the same time frame.
I jotted down a quick list of movies I was super excited to watch the rest of the year, and before I knew it I had a list of 20 movies. There are 16 box office weekends left in the year, and two of those you can scratch out because nothing on my list comes out until October.
So 14 weeks, 20 movies.
This seasonal setup really sucks for you, Mr. Average Joe Moviegoer. You might only go to the movies every once in a while and now there’s 4-5 movies in theaters at the same time you might like, all coming out around the same time you’re traveling and busy with the holidays.
But your inconsistent attendance to these types of movies throughout the past 20 years forced the movie distributors to change their tactics and serve awards voters directly, hoping to be fresh on their minds as they fill out their ballots. Then, with any luck, they can slingshot the awards nominations and wins back into commercial appeal.
Because if you’re only going to go see one or two of these movies, you figure you might as well let them fight it out to see which is best before you commit.
Well here’s my challenge to you: can you watch FIVE of the 20 movies below?
Here’s the 2021 movie season rubric:
The Many Saints of Newark (Oct. 1, same-day HBO Max): It’s a big budget prequel to “The Sopranos,” an amazing show that I admit I haven’t watched, but they went out and got the premium Italian mob repertory theater troupe (Ray Liotta, Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll, Alessandro Nivola) plus Leslie Odom Jr. and James Gandolfini’s son Michael to play a young Tony Soprano, with a screenplay from showrunner David Chase, so I have high hopes.
No Time to Die (Oct. 8): Other than the fact this movie clocks in at a ridiculous 2 hours 43 minutes, I couldn’t possibly be more excited for the last ride of the best James Bond ever (Daniel Craig), with a stacked cast and a talented director like Cary Fukunaga (who directed “True Detective” S1).
The Last Duel (Oct. 15): Matt Damon and Ben Affleck cowrote their first screenplay together since Good Will Hunting, a medieval drama they’ll star in along with Adam Driver and Jodie Comer — what a foursome. And you’re telling me it’s directed by Ridley Scott? Yeah, I’m in.
Dune (Oct. 22, same-day HBO Max): Warner Media is betting basically their entire company on Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into what they hope will be, what they need to be, a franchise sensation. The cast is crazy deep, the giant action sequences look bonkers, and the story is basically…Star Wars? But Villeneuve’s track record is fantastic so I trust him to pull it off.
The French Dispatch (Oct. 22): Very few filmmakers have as recognizable a style as Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fantastic Mr. Fox). He’s one of my favorite directors, and this anthology-style movie is inspired by a New Yorker-style magazine set in Paris. So needless to say, it was made for me.
Last Night in Soho (Oct. 22): To be honest, this might be the movie I’m MOST excited about on this list. The best trailer of the year, hands down. I’m a huge fan of Edgar Wright’s kinetic style of filmmaking, and anxious to see how he translates that into this dark, noir-ish, horror-ish thriller set under the neon lights of 1960s London.
The Harder They Fall (Nov. 3, Netflix): Regina King, Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Zazie Beetz, Lakeith Stanfield, and Delroy Lindo? This all-black western is going to be iconic no matter how good it turns out to be. And it looks pretty dang good.
Spencer (Nov. 5): The tabloid industry will likely make it impossible for you not to consider this Princess Diana biopic starring Kristen Stewart. The casting seemed odd at first, but when this movie debuted at festivals everyone was saying she’s a favorite for Best Actress.
Belfast (Nov. 12): People are calling this Kenneth Branagh’s version of Roma, a movie about his parents set in Ireland during The Troubles. It’s a small movie set to be a critical darling, starring 50 Shades alum Jamie Dornan.
tick, tick…Boom! (Nov. 19, Netflix): The creator of Broadway smash hit “Rent” wrote this new musical which is also Lin-Manuel Miranda’s directorial debut and stars Andrew Garfield, Vanessa Hudgens, Bradley Whitford and…SAY NO MORE SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.
King Richard (Nov. 19): The early buzz on this movie is that it’s a crowd-pleaser, and that Will Smith should be a strong contender for Best Actor as Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena.
House of Gucci (Nov. 26): Ridley Scott’s other entry on this list is definitely taking the most ambitious swing of the season. Adam Driver and Lady Gaga co-star with some…interesting accents, in this high stakes drama that will either be one of the best movies of the decade or a total disaster.
Licorice Pizza (Nov. 26): You may remember I stumbled upon one of the shooting locations for this movie, and got a paparazzi-style view of Paul Thomas Anderson working with Bradley Cooper decked out in an all-white 1970s-style leisure suit. We don’t know too much about it but PTA is one of the greatest filmmakers of the 21st Century so the lowest this movie could be is an 8 out of 10.
The Power of the Dog (Dec. 1, Netflix): I didn’t know this movie existed until a few weeks ago, when it made a huge splash on the film festival circuit and got people saying Benedict Cumberbatch is a favorite to win the Oscar for Best Actor. It’s a western from under-appreciated master Jane Campion.
West Side Story (Dec. 10): I still have my questions about why we needed to remake a movie that won 10 Oscars (10!), but I’m not going to pretend to doubt Steven Spielberg. He’ll find a way to make this great.
Nightmare Alley (Dec. 17): The only thing we’ve gotten from this movie are still frames, but this is Guillermo del Toro’s first movie since the Best Picture-winning The Shape of Water and he’s signed up Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Bradley Cooper, Rooney Mara, and Mary Steenburgen. That’s enough for me!
The Matrix Resurrections (Dec. 22): Everybody went crazy for the trailer, including me. We got the old cast plus great additions (Yahya Abdul-Mateen, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris) for some kind of prequel-sequel thing that’s probably not going to be awesome but we’re all going to love it anyway.
Don’t Look Up (Dec. 24): I discussed this movie last week, and am sticking with my claim that it’s the greatest movie cast ever assembled, for a climate change satire directed by Adam McKay.
The Tragedy of Macbeth (TBA): No release date yet, no trailers or stills or really any other details. But here’s all you need to know. Denzel Washington is Macbeth. Frances McDormand is Lady Macbeth. Brendan Gleeson is King Duncan and Corey Hawkins is Macduff. And…drum roll…directing is Joel Coen (for the first time without his brother Ethan). Can’t wait.
C’mon C’mon (TBA): At least this undated release has a trailer out (which you can watch below!). Joaquin Phoenix fresh off his Oscar win plays the exact opposite of The Joker, an empathetic radio journalist (think Ira Glass) who becomes a surrogate father to a young boy. It looks like the type of movie that might involve a good happy cry or two.
Something New
Come From Away (AppleTV+): I got the tip from my friend and this newsletter’s Broadway correspondent (Will!) that Apple put up a filmed production of this Broadway hit, shot in the cinematic style that Hamilton made popular last year (rather than just a fixed cam on the stage). Its ambition is quite a bit lower than Hamilton (no shame there), but I really enjoyed it.
It’s about a small town in Newfoundland that took in over 7,000 stranded air passengers when the American airspace closed in the days after the 9/11 attacks. The show is fun with really clever writing and a small cast jumping back and forth between multiple roles (to great comedic effect), focusing on the good Samaritan acts of the town’s citizens rather than choosing to focus on the tragedies of those days. And with no intermission the show comes in under two hours, less than a lot of movies. So why not give it a try?
Something Old
Clint Eastwood movies (ALL streaming services): Clint Eastwood is 91 years old, and has a new movie opening this weekend (Cry Macho) in which he directs, stars, rides a horse and at one point punches a guy. Again, 91! He’s starred in over 60 movies and directed almost 40, so you can find his work scattered all over every streaming service.
I wanted to let you know where you can find the absolute classics. On Netflix is The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). On Amazon Prime, try either A Fistful of Dollars (1967) or Escape from Alcatraz (1979). Hulu has Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). And HBO Max has the biggest library, which makes sense considering they are distributing his new project. There you can find Dirty Harry (1971), The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966), and perhaps my personal favorite, Unforgiven (1992). If you like shoot-em-up westerns, you pretty much can’t go wrong with this list.
Something to Stream
Untold: Breaking Point (Netflix): The Malice in the Palace documentary got all the buzz, but this entire “Untold” sports documentary series is turning out to be fantastic. In particular, this entry about tennis player Marty Fish might be the greatest document of athlete mental health struggle ever. Nothing but respect for Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka, but they stand on the shoulders of a giant in Fish, who transformed himself from happy-go-lucky mediocre pro into a ruthless top-10 player in the world and in the process developed a severe anxiety disorder.
This is required viewing for anyone who has ever sacrificed to pursue a goal obsessively, because it grapples with both the price of greatness and its payoff. Is it worth it? Seriously, this was the type of documentary I just wanted to have conversations about afterwards, which is the ultimate endorsement.
Trailer Watch: C’mon C’mon
Taking this opportunity to address a distressing trend I’ve noticed when talking to people about movies.
A startling number of young people won’t watch a movie if it’s in black and white.
Now, I can understand (even if I violently disagree) why these people might avoid movies made in the 1930s or 40s…that’s one thing. But to immediately disregard a modern movie just because, why, it looks “old-timey?” Do those colored pixels truly make or break your ability to enjoy the story? Most of you all are only looking at the subtitles anyway (don’t try to deny you watch with the subtitles on).
It’s just about the most childish thing I’ve ever heard, and I think it points to a deeper problem with people’s relationships to movies. Is the movie there to serve you, cater to your desires, reinforce your worldview, give you exactly what you want? Or is the movie a work of art from a creator or group of creators who poured years of their lives into crafting every single frame so it could be the exact story they wanted to tell? (That goes for everything from awards movies nobody sees to the biggest comic book movies — lest we forget The Snyder Cut was in black/white).
Ok, great, now that I’ve convinced you, prepare yourselves for a whole handful of black and white awards movies that are coming this fall, starting with this syrupy surrogate father-son story featuring Joaquin Phoenix as an Ira Glass-like audio journalist. Oh, and the next time I recommend the monochromatic Frances Ha to you (and I WILL), freaking watch it.