Spend time NOT talking to family with our preview
of the holidays’ most-hyped new releases. by Dom Sinacola

Holidays are usually meant for time with family, which is obviously why so many people elect to go to the movies on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanks to theaters being open, you now have a ready-made excuse to avoid talking to loved ones for a solid two hours. 

From St. Johns Twin Cinemas to Regal Division Street, every corner of Portland is thriving with film love, be it a first-run chain or local rep theater. So, to gird thy loins for the upcoming high holy days, I’ve assembled a preview of the movies you can see in theaters on Thanksgiving and/or Christmas day when conversation runs as dry as an overcooked bird. 

Thanksgiving (November 28)

Red One

Following the box office shrug that was 2022’s Black Adam, The Rock optimistically reported from the set of Red One that his new blockbuster, co-starring Chris Evans and JK Simmons (as muscle daddy Santa Claus), is a “big, fun, action packed [sic] and fresh new take on Christmas Lore [sic].” After The Rock’s supposed chronic lateness and “unprofessional” on-set behavior helped push Red One to late 2024, this “new take” on the late-December holiday will finally see the overcast light of mid-November. Apparently, when Santa Claus is kidnapped, the head of North Pole security, Callum Drift (Rock), must join forces with world-class bounty hunter (come on now) Jack O’Malley (Evans, seemingly running on fumes), to save Kris Kringle. Whatever. I have no doubt this movie will be excrement, struck with surprisingly upsetting violence splayed against the most conservative values you can carve from a $250 million budget. This comes out on November 15; will it still be in theaters on Thanksgiving? Let’s hope not.

Gladiator II

If you’ve seen Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, you know that the octogenarian director cannot be bothered by such woke trappings of cinematic culture as “historical accuracy” or “consistent accents.” Instead, Scott trades obsession for the spectacle of history; he’s in thrall more to the bloom of organs erupting from cannonball wounds than allegiance to facts most audiences wouldn’t know anyway. 

That energy will carry into Gladiator II, Scott’s sequel to his 2000 original, which will surely be a stupendously gory feast for IMAX screens. Arms all veined up, Paul Mescal is New Gladiator, the fate of Rome on his shoulders for some reason, with Denzel Washington clearly having a blast playing an ancient weapons dealer. Finally able to put a career’s worth of ideas onto the screen, Scott’s never been more prolific, and never less beholden to anyone than himself. Respect. 

Wicked Part One

The first half of an adaptation of the musical—as well as of the 1995 novel on which the musical’s based and the Wizard of Oz writings of Frank L. Baum—Wicked has a runtime of two hours and 40 minutes. More like Wicked Long Movie [pats self on back]. Growing to the width of the Garfield balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, Ariana Grande’s dinner plate eyes will ultimately occlude all other light. Suddenly, lifetimes will pass in the dark of that theater. You will wake in another epoch, another land, and you will discover there is still a second movie to sit through.

Moana 2

The November of The Rock continues with the last IP he hasn’t stripmined of all goodwill. That’s right, Rockheads, Maui, the beefy demigod from Moana, is back for the sequel. Originally developed as an animated series, Moana 2 went theatrical eight months ago when Bob Iger announced the series had been reconfigured following a revamping of the producing and directing teams—for solely artistic reasons, I’m sure. Rarely are reports like this a good sign, usually accompanied by accounts of animators enduring hellish work conditions or presaging a movie that feels functionally incomplete. Still, I can’t imagine families not defaulting to this Thanksgiving weekend. Will our thumb-headed megastar once again drop a People’s Elbow on the box office? I sincerely do not care.

Christmas (December 25)

The Brutalist 

Brady Corbet’s gushed-over saga about architect László Toth (Adrien Brody) has the accolades (garnering Corbet the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival), distribution deal (A24), and runtime (215 minutes) to make it the year’s biggest small release. Couple this with Corbet and cinematographer Lol Crawley shooting in Vistavision—a process that can make 35mm film look as huge as 70mm in the theater just by running the stock through the camera sideways—and expect to see this engorged on the swollest screens in town. It’s so intentionally and obviously epic, you’d be forgiven for assuming architect László Toth is a real person. The magic of cinema!

Babygirl

I was going to make a joke about Halina Reijn’s Babygirl being the perfect choice for families wanting to watch a horny movie together on Christmas, but looking into the film’s reception at the Toronto International Film Festival, I find critics saying that Nicole Kidman’s performance as a repressed CEO who forms a sub-dom bond with an intern (Harris Dickinson) is a brave and reflexive exploration of her career and aging physicality. So I will be similarly brave and refrain from making that joke.

Nosferatu

A young foil to Ridley Scott and his disregard for the exigencies of time, Robert Eggers is a horror filmmaker who makes macabre period pieces—The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman—that are so thoroughly researched they feel like stolen visions, like sights from the past that we have no right to witness. With Nosferatu, he seems to be pulling from F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film as much as from Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake and Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula novel, filtering his hyper-literate taste through a century of German expressionism. 

A Complete Unknown

James Mangold responds to Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story—a satire responding to the pestilence of Oscar-bait biopics birthed by Mangold’s Walk the Line—by making an even more by-the-numbers take on an iconic musician. This time it’s Bob Dylan, given approximate life by Timothée Chalamet. A Complete Unknown will almost certainly hinge on Dylan going electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, giving him the opportunity to reminisce about what led up to this all-culminating cultural moment. Its financial returns will be optimistic, its award season obligatory. So it is foretold.

Better Man

While we’re on the subject of biopics: Better Man is about the life of UK pop idol Robbie Williams… only he’s a CGI chimpanzee and no one else in the movie acknowledges he’s a CGI chimpanzee. I hesitate to call this conceit so stupid it may be genius, but I won’t hesitate to recommend it, because we both know it will be [my eyes glaze over and soul noticeably disappears from my body] bananas.

"When a soldier dies, you suck it up." Briarcliff Ent. has unveiled an official trailer for a movie called My Dead Friend Zoe, marking the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Kyle Hausmann-Stokes (who was in the US Army). A fresh new take on veterans. This initially premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival earlier this year, where it won the Audience Award in the Narrative Spotlight section. You can tell why from this trailer! Engaged in a mysterious relationship with her dead best friend from the Army, a female Afghanistan veteran comes head to head with her Vietnam vet grandfather while at the family's ancestral lake house. At its core, this is about a complicated friendship, a divided family and the complex ways in which we process grief. This unique indie film stars Sonequa Martin-Green as Merit, Natalie Morales as Zoe, along with Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Gloria Reuben. This is an impressively dark comedy about grief and veterans, following her around as she deals with a lingering ghost of her best friend. This looks VERY smart and clever, which is what cinema really should be all about these days. Take a look. Here's the official trailer […]

New releases that hit cinemas in Thailand this week. 

Ryan Reynolds feels the Academy did Eddie Murphy a disservice by not awarding him Oscars for his roles in these comedies (and he's right to say it).

Looking for what to see in theaters? Our feature, updated weekly, highlights our top recommendations for films currently in theaters, from new releases to restorations receiving a proper theatrical run. While we already provide extensive monthly new-release recommendations and weekly streaming recommendations, as distributors’ roll-outs can vary, this is a one-stop list to share the […]

The post The Best Movies Now Playing in Theaters first appeared on The Film Stage.

Bermudian actor Daren A. Herbert is playing a character named “Vaughn” in a new holiday-themed film featuring musical group En Vogue, titled “An En Vogue Christmas.” The made-for-television film debuted last month, and is set to air on the Lifetime LMN network twice more before Christmas Day, including tonight at 9.00pm and December 13 at 1.00am. […]

Have you ever heard a radio announcer say, "That was (song) from the movie (title)," and you thought, "Wow, I've always loved that song, but I never knew it was from a movie." It may well have been from a movie you never saw or never even heard of because it wasn't all that great. Plenty of film productions commission songs specifically for the film, and even more find appropriate but unreleased songs to use that are then released in conjunction with the film. That leaves us with a lot of songs that became hits from movies that flopped so badly we don't even remember them -or maybe the film is just too old.  

Back in 2014, you couldn't escape the Pharrell song "Happy." It was the biggest song of the year, won two Grammys, and we posted about it quite bit. Yet few people recall that is was written for the 2013 movie Despicable Me 2. The movie was honestly a hit, but it was aimed at children. Even more obscure is the origin of the song "Unchained Melody," which was a big hit for the Righteous Brothers in 1965 and you might associate it with the 1990 film Ghost. However, it was written for the 1955 prison movie Unchained, and that's how it got its title.

Some of your favorite songs may have been spawned by a movie you've never seen. Read up on 21 of those songs, with videos, at Cracked.

By Amanda Mannen Published: November 13th, 2024

Selena Gomez has starred in a variety of shows and movies, from "Only Murders in the Building" to "Emilia Pérez." Here's how her roles stack up.

Apple and A24 are working on a film adaptation about Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX crypto scandal, with the script set to be written by Lena Dunham.

The two studios are in the early stages of developing the film based on the New York Times bestseller "Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon" by Michael Lewis. The book covers the rise of Bankman-Fried, followed by the eventual discovery of missing funds at the cryptocurrency exchange and subsequent fraud charges.

Lena Dunham has been attached to the film, reports Variety, having previously starred and produced the HBO series "Girls," as well as "Camping" and "Generation." Her work on "Girls" led to eight Emmy Award nominations, as well as one Golden Globe.


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Lupita Nyong’o makes major move into Christopher Nolan’s star-packed untitled mystery film Lupita Nyong’o is the latest actor to join the star-studded ensemble of Christopher Nolan’s next highly anticipated film.Following the casting announcements of Anne...

Nicole Kidman reveals she wants to work with THIS movie-makerNicole Kidman has recently taken a subtle dig at one of the iconic directors in Hollywood for his male-centered movies.In a new interview with Vanity Fair, the Stoker actress responded to a question about any notable movie-maker...

1. Kanguva first reviews: Suriya ‘shed his blood and sweat’ but the movie ‘is tiring’, say fans  Hindustan Times
2. Kanguva movie review: Suriya-starrer has great ideas, but sub-par execution spoils it  India Today
3. Kanguva Movie Review: An earnest Suriya gives his all for a Siva film that doesn’t give him enough  The Indian Express
4. Kanguva X reviews: 'Hard to save a script like that,' say netizens on Suriya's colossal pan-India outing  Business Today
5. Kanguva: Here's how much Suriya, Bobby Deol and Disha Patani got paid for Siva's directorial  TOI Etimes

Murase, Kitō play AI Molcar, fabled princess in November 29 film

രണ്ട് മുഖ്യധാരാ പുരസ്കാരങ്ങളാണ് പ്രിയങ്ക നായർ നായികയായ കർണികയ്ക്ക് ലഭിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നത്.   

Ahead of the mega trailer launch, Rashmika Mandanna shared her thoughts after watching Allu Arjun in Pushpa 2: The Rule.

Olaf From The Movie Frozen by Trevor Mezak is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to Limited Edition Of 95 pcs

The feverish Cannes-winning spectacle dazzles with audacity but stumbles under the weight of its own ambition

Wedding bells rang at Trinity Methodist Church yesterday afternoon (Nov 12) as couples renewed their vows — but it was all for a scene in local director Jack Neo's upcoming movie, I Want To Be Boss. Among them, however, was an actual couple who have been married for more than six decades — Jack's very own parents. "I want to leave a beautiful memory of them in the movie," the 64-year-old actor-director told local media on the set. His mum, 86, was dressed in a white wedding gown with tulle sleeves, while Jack's father, 91, looked sharp in a black suit with a matching bowtie. Jack added: "I especially requested that my mum put on a wedding dress today for this scene, because the first time they wore their wedding outfits, I only got to see them in photos. I can see them now."

XAVC is an open recording format that was introduced by Sony Inc that want to make XAVC products like Sony PMW-F55, Sony PMW-F5. XAVC/ XAVC S video format can keep footages in 4K resolution (4096*2160 and 3840*2160) at up to 60...

Luther: The Movie, DVD --> Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love) stars as Martin Luther, the brilliant man of God whose defiant actions changed the world, in this epic film that traces Luther's extraordinary and exhilarating quest for the people's liberation. Regional princes and the powerful Church wield a fast, firm and merciless grip on 16th-centur Germany. But when Martin Luther issues a shocking challenge to their authority, the people declare him their new leader - and hero. Even when threatened with violent death, Luther refuses to back down, sparking a bloody revolution that shakes the entire continent to its core. Approx. 2 hours 4 minutes.

One of the many high-profile productions being affected by the looming writers' strike is Angels & Demons, the follow-up to The Da Vinci Code -- but if director Ron Howard and his fellow filmmakers have anything to say about it, their sequel's progress will be unimpeded. Variety reports on the last-minute preparations behind the scenes of Angels & Demons, which will find Tom Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon from The Da Vinci Code, the $758 million-grossing adaptation of Dan Brown's bestselling book. Angels is scheduled to start filming in Europe next February, but with the writers' strike coming as early as November 1, Howard's team has to move quickly. ... Meanwhile, the "Angels" team have begun casting around Tom Hanks, who will reprise his role as Robert Langdon. Hanks' character, a Harvard-based expert on religious symbols, this time sleuths a mystery that involves a secret society and a conspiracy that leads to Vatican City and threatens the future of the Catholic Church. Variety's report goes on to note that, although the Angels & Demons novel was written before -- and takes place before -- The Da Vinci Code, the film will be a sequel.

Mohammed Yusef, the founder of Invicta Capital in Great Britain, is using a government tax-incentive program to fund the movie version of the anti-Christian "Da Vinci Code" novel for Sony Pictures. According to the Times of London, the London-based Invicta is taking advantage of British tax rules to provide Sony with 100 million pounds of the 114 million pounds that the movie reportedly cost. The capital allows Sony to dramatically reduce its cost of borrowing money to produce and market the movie.

All over the web I'm seeing more and more embedded video on websites. This is a really nice add-on that gives your site just a little more of the cool factor.



Steps:
1. Find a video. Any short quicktime movie will do. Remember, try to keep file size small.
2. Use this code on your website:

< src="sample.mov" width="320" height="256">< /embed>
(Remove the " " just before "embed" and before the "/embed" when copying and pasting.)

3. Replace "sample.mov" with your movie file (either absloute or relative URL)
4. Set height and width to desired values. (Add 16px to the height so that the play/pause controller will show up.)

That's It!

There are several varibles that can also be set such as autoplay and start time. Check out everything shown here and more at Apple's tutorial page.

+MacMan

If you want to download and save the embeded movies from a website, read my how to.

'They all have husbands and wives and children and houses and dogs, and, you know, they've all made themselves a part of something and they can talk about what they do. What am I gonna say? "I killed the president...

"Anyone who isn't dead or from another plane of existence would do well to cover their ears right about now."...

"We could put up wanted posters all over school: Have you seen this prick? Report immediately to Beula Balbricker. Do not attempt to apprehend this prick, as it is armed and dangerous. It was last seen hanging out in the...

"They don't know what you're talking about, Judith. That's one good thing about the end of the world. No more easy listening."...

"Wow. Brad, hi, you been holding this long? Uh huh. Neverland. Lost Boys. Jim Hook, duel to the death, I'll tell you about it later, I love to chat. But I gotta climb a drain pipe right now. Why? Because...

"You try to tough it out with them, they'll lock you in a room somewhere and throw away the room."...

"Most people think Marv is crazy. He just had the rotten luck of being born in the wrong century. He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield swinging an axe into somebody's face. Or in a Roman arena, taking...

"Avada Kedavra! The killing curse. Only one person is known to have survived it, and he's sitting in this room."...

We Hate Movies entered it's ninth season earlier this year and is mid-way through its annual October Spooktacular, as of this writing. Far more than another "bad movie podcast," the gang includes film programmer for the Jacob Burns performing arts...

Recommended

Gather round, kiddos, for this review of The Brady-est Brady Bunch TV & Movie Collection will, as never before, attempt to make sense of this unkillable piece of pop culture iconography. Your humble reviewer was in the thick of things when The Brady Bunch, the 1969-74 family sitcom, staked its claim onto the American consciousness, and can offer a bit perspective those generations, just before and since, can't quite reconcile.

But before we do that, let's first point out that this compact if unruly boxed DVD set, with a total running time of around 75 hours (!) of material includes with one notable exception just about everything Brady-related one might possibly ever want: the original series; The Brady Kids animated spin-off; The Brady Girls Get Married TV movie and its short-lived sitcom follow-up, The Brady Brides; A Very Brady Christmas, a later TV ...Read the entire review

The author of the original book, Bradley Denton, has an update on the status of the movie with a link to the movie's Facebook page in GB 321.

When discussion turned to this epic starring Robert Preston, Chill Wills and Susan Hayward, Lazzaro found the whole thing on YouTube, and posted it in GroupBlog 321.

Scott Linder, a former projectionist in Tulsa movie theaters, tells inside-the-booth stories with the encouragement of TTM readers in just-archived GroupBlog 321.

A diminutive other-world alien gets encountered in the vicinity of Area 51 by two comic book geeks from England named Graeme and Clive. With Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jane Lynch, Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Bateman, Sigourney Weaver, Kristen Wiig, Tulsa's Bill Hader, John Carroll Lynch and Seth Rogen. Opens 3/18.

...is still outstanding. More about the "fabulous" prizes in GroupBlog 323.

Jon Heder is the star of a movie now in production: "Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede". Plot recap: All TV channels worldwide show a noninterruptible live performance by Buddy Holly originating from a Jovian moon. Oliver Vale is the apparent object of the broadcasts. Story elements relevant to TTM include TV, a drive-in theater, 60s/70s/80s pop music and culture, and the Kansas/Oklahoma setting (book only). YouTube and links in GroupBlog 324.

Jimmie Tramel wrote an article about KTUL's Plenty Scary Movie in Monday's Tulsa World.

One of the attributed sources for Jimmie Tramel's article.

From the OK Historical Society. Shot in OKC in 1972, starring Robert Lansing ('Gary Seven'), Marj Dusay ('Brain and brain, what is brain' from 'Spock's Brain'), and Peter Hardt of Fantastic Theater. Now on the main page, and favorited on the TTM YouTube Channel.

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The good folks from anime distributors Anime Limited have sent us details of the upcoming release of the Spy x Family Code White Movie. The ...

Hugely popular anime Spy x Family is going to hit cinemas in the UK and Ireland from Friday 26th April 2024. To find a screening near you ca...

Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle is due to hit cinemas in the UK and Ireland from Friday 31st May 2024 thanks to the good folks at Crunchyroll. ...

Blue Lock is the hugely successful football manga with over 30 million copies in circulation. The franchise has one season of anime so far, ...