On the Early Year Radar…

Sorry about disappearing at the start of the New Year, folks. When you speak out against far-right extremism and treason against the United States, that sometimes attracts unwanted attention from creeps with too much free time on their hands. I want to thank Joey and the team for supporting me during a pretty stressful month, and I look forward to this incident being an unpleasant blemish on an otherwise wonderf… oh, who am I kidding? 2024 is going to be a nightmare of stress and anxiety for all of us.

Luckily, there were no terribly interesting new releases in January, so while we continue to observe the Oppenheimer steamroll through the rest of the awards season, are there any movies to anticipate in February and March?

MADAME WEB – In Theaters February 14

Directed by S. J. Clarkson

Starring Dakota Johnson, with Emma Roberts and Tahar Rahim

What is it about? A clairvoyant develops psychic abilities that allow her to see within the “spider world.”

How am I feelin’ about this one? Studio executives confound me, sometimes. The idea of greenlighting a solo feature starring an ensemble of popular established and up-and-coming movie stars as a bunch of distaff Spider-Man side characters in their own solo feature without first gauging their appeal in any previous film starring Spider-Man seems… kinda silly. This is not a complaint about these characters getting their own movie just because they’re women, either. I’m not Awards Radar’s Favorite Special Boy. The existence of a solo origin movie coming out later this year centered on a, if we’re being honest, second-tier male Spider-Man villain also baffles me. I understand these films were put into production before the public started showing signs of superhero franchise fatigue, but what exactly convinced Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Avi Arad that these characters were worth nine-figure production budgets?

I think it comes down to a continued misunderstanding of why certain IPs have such an enduring appeal with a wide audience. Just like those unwatchable Fantastic Beasts movies, a lot of Hollywood producers seem to be under the impression that people love characters like Spider-Man and Harry Potter because of, like, “the lore” surrounding them, and expanding on that lore with multiverse prequels and side character spinoffs is the most reliable way to keep that audience interest. But Spider-Man isn’t popular because of the intricate mythology surrounding his spider powers or the backstories of his villains; he’s one of the most popular superheroes ever because he’s a relatable everyman who constantly has to balance superheroic deeds with mundane everyday problems like preparing for final exams and making this month’s rent.

The one exception to this rule for everyone’s favorite web-slinger (in Hollywood, at least) was the unexpected animated masterpiece Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and even then, I would argue the popular appeal of that movie was due to its focus on also-relatable teenager Miles Morales and the beautifully-written arc he goes through, which was foregrounded ahead of the interdimensional world-building of the first movie. How do the major decision-makers in the entertainment industry… not… how do they not understand this?

But stubborn commitment to extended world-building is what Hollywood paper-pushers want, so Dakota “Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen” Johnson stars as a version of the eponymous character that I personally have no familiarity with. Rather than the geriatric, blind, quadriplegic mutant with psychic powers created by Denny O’Neil and John Romita, Jr., this new hot Madame Web has to “confront her past” with three special women: Julia Carpenter (a character who eventually took on the mantle of Spider-Woman in the comics and played here by Sydney Sweeney), Mattie Franklin (another character who would take on the Spider-Woman identity and portrayed in this film by Celeste O’Connor), and Aña Corazón (played by Isabela Merced as yet another character who became Spider-Wo… hey!), wait a minute! This isn’t a feature film, this is a blockbuster concept test kitchen!

You know, when corporations commission consumer surveys to gauge reactions to new products, they generally don’t make those consumers pay for the privilege of giving them marketing data. Ugh. I like these actresses. I want them all to do well in their careers. But the blatant cynicism of this project reminds me why big-budget superhero movies make me break out in hives these days.

Also worth noting that Johnson left her former talent agency WME just a few days after the first trailer for this movie dropped.

DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS – In Theaters September 22 February 23

Directed by Ethan Coen (and only Ethan Coen)

Starring Margaret Qualley, with Geraldine Viswanathan and Beanie Feldstein

What is it about? An uninhibited free spirit bemoaning yet another breakup with a girlfriend and her demure friend who desperately needs to loosen up embark on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee, but things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals along the way.

How am I feelin’ about this one? Man, if there’s one behind-the-scenes True Hollywood Story from the last ten years I absolutely would love to know more about, it’s what motivated Joel and Ethan Coen, arguably the most famous and accomplished sibling team in cinema history, to break up and go solo shortly after the release of their anthology film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs five six years ago. The mundane answer I assumed at the time was that nothing lasts forever and they probably just decided to go their separate ways for other creative ventures without any kind of hit to their familial relationship. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele went their separate ways and that wasn’t because of a “falling out.” Why shouldn’t these brothers be able to pursue solo projects at the ages most working Americans consider outright retirement?

But here’s the weird part: they might be reuniting again. So soon? I’m certainly not opposed to the idea, of course. But if they’re already open to being a duo again, it can’t be because of some desire to shift into very different artistic paths or any personal brotherly animus. It had to be over the recent movies they directed by themselves, right? It is the only logical explanation. Ethan must have thought a black-and-white, German Expressionist-influenced William Shakespeare adaptation of a play that has already produced multiple excellent big-screen treatments (which is actually not as common as you’d think, considering the number of times Shakespeare has been adapted for the big screen) was a waste of time and Joel must have had no interest in working on a lesbian road trip comedy caper his sister-in-law and brother had been nursing for years. The Tragedy of Macbeth was certainly an unconventional display of Joel’s directorial sensibilities without Ethan, especially the heightened hyper-unreality to its spare production design and some odd choices of which scenes from the play to cut. Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s passion project that apparently turned off Joel appears to be very different in tone and ambition.

In fact, Drive-Away Dolls looks a lot more… Coen-y, at least on the surface. Heck, the basic premise of “someone accidentally steals something from some dangerous people” has been done at least a few times before by them as a team. Which raises the question: why was Ethan so determined to get this made, with or without his brother? According to an interview with Collider, the main thing distinguishing Drive-Away Dolls from past Coen Brothers movies is that it’s a lot more “sexual” and depicts “fun sex” to a degree he was never able to do with his brother. Which, as someone who has lamented the dearth of positive depictions of sexuality in modern cinema in the past, I certainly won’t object to. But is Joel Coen uncomfortable with sex in cinema? Really? I mean, I guess it’s possible, but again, this is where a behind-the-scenes exposé would be really illuminating.

As for the movie itself: it looks okay, I suppose. But aside from the LGBT milieu and sex-positivity, I’m not really sure if there’s anything about this that looks… interesting? Even the worst movies that these brothers directed and produced together were very nearly always movies still worth seeing. Worth discussing. Worth grappling with. This just seems like the Coen Brothers “playin’ the hits,” even though one of them had no input in it. Even the cast appears to be just settling into stock character types they’ve already done before, especially Colman Domingo and Bill Camp. I’m hoping Ethan and Tricia have an ace up their sleeve to surprise me with because, right now, this feels like something that would not add or detract from anything in me in either direction if I end up seeing it. Joey seemed to like it a fair amount, for what that’s worth.

Oh, and I hope we’re all well aware, based on how he’s cut in the trailer, that Pedro Pascal is only going to be in this movie for one scene. So if you’re a super-fan of his, just keep that in mind.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING – In Theaters March 8

Directed by Rose Glass

Starring Kristen Stewart, with Katy O’Brian and Ed Harris

What is it about? A gym employee and an amateur bodybuilder decide to Be Gay, Do Crime.

How am I feelin’ about this one? Wow, so we’re getting two Lesbians On The Run movies within a two-week timespan? Interesting. Unlike Drive-Away Dolls, this movie is not directed by an established filmmaker, but what notoriety Rose Glass does possess in her still-nascent feature filmmaking career enjoyed a major advantage in getting this project off the ground, since Radar Award-winning actress Kristen Stewart reportedly was such a fan of Glass’s debut horror feature Saint Maud that she offered herself up for literally any role available for her in her next project. Fortunately for them both, her next project was a queer romance/thriller, and when Kristen Stewart is available to star in your gay movie, you do not pass that up.

Her co-star, Katy O’Brian, had a very different path to being in this movie, apparently having to audition six times for her first leading role here as a bodybuilder who immediately falls into a passionate love affair with Stewart (joining Sally Hawkins, Jessica Henwick, Chloë Sevigny, Lily Gladstone, Vanessa Bayer, and Juliette Binoche in the My Character Turned Gay For Kristen Stewart Club) and in doing so, falls into the orbit of her father’s criminal empire. Her villainous father being played by Ed Harris, getting in some work in an edgy little project before falling into Wonder Man for what I hope is a fat Marvel paycheck. Seems like a pretty straightforward small-scale thriller, right?

Except there are signs of this having a little more going on:

Pay attention to 1:31 and 2:00 of that trailer. Doesn’t it look like O’Brian’s character is literally “hulking out” in those split seconds? In fact, I could’ve sworn the original premise for this movie was about a bodybuilder destroying her health with performance-enhancing drugs? Am I imagining that? Or perhaps those are surreal narrative devices or symbolic scenes depicting Jackie’s state of mind? This would be in keeping with the subjectivity deployed in Saint Maud. I was not quite as taken by that movie’s super-slow-slow-slow burn approach to psychological horror as Ms. Stewart was, but the oppressive atmosphere and discombobulating depiction of its protagonist’s fracturing sanity definitely showcased Glass as a promising talent and could lead to this being an unexpected indie sleeper hit.

Color me intrigued by this one. I feel like this is going to be something that ignites a lot of The Discourse next month.

DUNE: PART TWO – In Theaters November 3 March 15

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Starring Timothée Chalamet, with Zendaya and Rebecca Ferguson

What is it about? Paul Atreides, now united with Chani and the Fremen, seeks revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family and prevent a terrible future that only he can predict.

How am I feelin’ about this one? Ah, here we are! Arguably the first “big” movie of 2024 and it was not even supposed to come out in 2024! Like Drive-Away Dolls, the concluding chapter of the story of Frank Herbert’s first Dune novel was supposed to be released in the fall of 2023, and then the strikes happened and it got pushed back along with a lot of other movies. So, for another four months, we were left hanging as the betrayed heir to House Atreides agreed to hang out with the Fremen in exile. But the wait will soon be over, and we will be graced with hopefully another large-scale, tactile epic clocking in at… two hours and forty-six minutes?!

I mean… hey, if a movie made up of Senate hearings and scientists in rooms talking about nuclear fission could hold me in rapt attention for longer than that, then there’s no reason why this can’t justify its runtime. But I could have sworn the first movie covered about 60% of the novel, so I just assumed the next one would sport a shorter runtime since it already set up the setting and major players and could just sprint to the finish line in the second part. Maybe this one is going to cover a little bit of the story of Dune Messiah near the back end? Doubtful, since that book takes place twelve years after the end of the first one. More likely this expanded runtime is to accommodate some reportedly ambitious extended action setpieces, if the promises from its director are to be believed. Which we probably should, since if there’s one thing we can reliably expect from Denis Villeneuve, it’s for his movies to look like capital-M Movies.

I should also acknowledge that this longer runtime may be needed to introduce some major characters from the novel who couldn’t be included in the previous film for, likely, budgetary reasons: we’ve got Christopher Walken as the Emperor of the Known Universe, Florence Pugh as his daughter Princess Irulan (her late introduction actually makes sense, since from what I remember, Irulan only shows up in the back half of the book), Léa Seydoux as the seductive Bene Gesserit priestess Lady Margot, and newly-minted Oscar nominee Austin Butler as the sadistic Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. But it’s pretty clear, based on the latest trailer and promotional materials, that Paul and Chani are going to be front-and-center here as the lovers leading the Fremen rebellion against House Harkonnen. I have to admit… I got a sense that Zendaya struggled a little to fit in with the operatic science fantasy tone of the first movie, but I also concede that she was not in the first movie all that much, so my instincts may be unfairly biased against her based on scant screentime.

Another thing about this movie that gives me pause that is not necessarily the fault of the movie is, if you judge it solely in reference to itself, and you weren’t aware of the ultimate fate of Paul Atreides, the first Dune comes off like a dated Mighty Whitey fantasy. I have no doubt some people will come out of this movie and accuse fans who criticized Avatar’s racist hoo-hah of hypocrisy. So here’s hoping this is enough of a hit to greenlight Dune Messiah, which on one hand is my least-favorite of Herbert’s mainline Dune series, but on the other hand, really needs to be made so casual fans who like these movies but will never read the books come around to understanding that Paul is not The Good Guy in the end.

SHIRLEY – On Netflix March 22

Directed by John Ridley

Starring Regina King, with Terrence Howard and the late Lance Reddick (rest in peace)

What is it about? Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to the United States House of Representatives, stages a longshot bid to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States in 1972.

How am I feelin’ about this one? When Shirley Chisholm first ran for Congress in 1968, there were only eleven women in the House of Representatives. Women are 50% of the population, and they were 2% of the House of Representatives in 1968. When she won her race in an upset, she became the first black woman to serve in either chamber of Congress. She was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971. She was a champion of providing aid to the poorest children in the country, contributing to the creation of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children and was one of the main drivers of a bill that would have provided nearly $10 billion in federally-funded childcare programs to assist working mothers… had it not been vetoed by Richard Nixon because, in case anyone forgot, he was a monstrous bastard. She was also a supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. Just generally one of those politicians who was demonized as a far-left woke social justice warrior in her time only for the next generation to come around to realizing she was right about pretty much everything.

But her most well-known political act was her decision to run for President in 1972 in the Democratic Party presidential primaries, being the first active black candidate for President of the United States and the first woman in the Democratic Party to run for the office (the first woman to officially run for President was Victoria Woodhull in 1872 under the banner of the Equal Rights Party). Chisholm’s odds of actually attaining the nomination were effectively zero, and I think she knew that. But in running, in putting herself out there and saying, “Yes, I am qualified and worthy of this position,” she made a statement that would inspire future generations of women and nonwhite political leaders. Including our 44^th President, who cited her as one of his inspirations to run for the job in 2008.

It makes sense, in an unfortunate way, that it would take so long for someone as significant as her to get her own Hollywood biopic. Until relatively recently, it was difficult for black women-led feature film projects to get greenlit, and even then, they are often expected to settle for less than what other projects receive in compensation and support. But winning an Academy Award and starring in a hit TV miniseries gave Regina King enough pull to finally realize a big-screen treatment of Congresswoman Chisholm’s historic campaign, with her filling in the eponymous role. In the director’s chair is 12 Years a Slave screenwriter and American Crime showrunner John Ridley. He actually has quite an extensive list of projects I was not previously aware of, not only in television but also comic books, which is pretty cool.

Any biopic with major distributor backing and awards buzz always makes me nervous, since so many biopics fall into the trap of becoming just the most tedious Oscar-bait. But the conviction of the individuals behind this story gives me hope that we will be getting something genuine and compelling here.

MICKEY 17 – In Theaters March 29 January 31 April 18 March 7 of 2025… Boy This Got Moved Around a Lot, Huh?

Directed by Bong Joon-ho

Starring Robert Pattinson, with Naomi Ackie and Steven Yeun

What is it about? Adapted from the novel by Edward Ashton, a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim who dies, and a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact.

How am I feelin’ about this one? Imagine you’re Bong Joon-ho on the morning of February 10^th, 2020. You have just made history with your movie, Parasite, being the first movie not in the English language to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. You were able to attract the attention of movie stars like Chris Evans and Jake Gyllenhaal before this historic achievement; imagine how many of them will be begging to be in your next project now. You can pretty much get anything you want produced in two continents. What in the world could stand in your way?

Besides a once-in-a-century pandemic that shuts down huge portions of the economy for several months, of course?

With that unfortunate business out of the way, and the movie business at your beck and call, what do you work on? Here was what he went with:

Hmm. That didn’t reveal too much. Robert Pattinson is the star, which shouldn’t be too surprising, considering his history of being down for conceptually dense sci-fi. This is also an adaptation of a book that was published just two years ago almost to the day. That is a remarkably quick turnaround time for book adaptations, even one as widely acclaimed and popular as this reportedly was. Exploring ideas of uploading consciousness in perpetuity and what it might mean to be truly immortal captivated a lot of science fiction buffs back when people were still stressing over a red wave that never came, and I can see how the director of Snowpiercer and The Host would be interested in expanding on these ideas cinematically.

But honestly… that’s all I really have to say about this movie we otherwise know very little about heading in.

What do you predict Bong has in store for us? Why are Fugitive Lesbians suddenly in vogue this spring? Do you think sad Confederate cosplayers will ever stop accidentally saying the quiet part out loud as they continue to use threats and violence to relitigate the outcome of a war they lost 159 years ago? Sound off in the comments, and if you get any Facebook friend or Instagram follow requests from anyone who claims to be me, they are not me. Block and report.