Directed by Emmy winner Maria Schrader, She Said is from the screenplay by Oscar winner Rebecca Lenkiewicz.
Based on the New York Times bestseller, She Said stars two-time Academy Award nominee Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman, An Education) and Zoe Kazan (The Plot Against America limited series, The Big Sick). Together they play New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, who broke one of the most important stories in a generation.
The story helped propel the #Metoo movement, shattered decades of silence around the subject of sexual assault in Hollywood and altered American culture forever.
The Academy Award-winning producers of 12 Years a Slave, Moonlight, Minari, Selma and The Big Short bring the New York Times bestseller: She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement to the screen.
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Black Adam is full of action and adventure, following Dwayne Johnson, who plays the latest DC antihero.
Touted, “the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is about to change.”
The cast includes Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Shahi and Noah Centineo.
Collet-Serra’s directing chops include mainly horror movies, such as House of Wax, Orphan and The Shallows. He has worked with Liam Neeson in several thriller films, like Unknown and The Commuter.
Adapting author Paul Gallico’s famous 1958 novel Mrs.’ Arris Goes to Paris for the screen, writer and director Anthony Fabian create a modern-day fairy tale. The message is about pursuing your dreams, friendship’s power, and the importance of remaining true to who you are.
In post-World War II London, Ada Harris, played by Lesley Manville, earns money cleaning houses. She’s led a lonely life since her beloved husband, Eddie, went missing in action, but she’s not the type to brood over any misfortune or complain about her circumstances.
Still, the ever-pragmatic Ada sees an unimaginably lovely Christian Dior gown hanging in the master bedroom of a wealthy client. She’s surprised to feel an overwhelming pang of desire—owning something so otherworldly, so beautiful, an actual work of art — why that could change things for a person.
Ada takes on extra jobs and saves as much as possible, trying her luck at the racetrack. Ada can finally afford to pay for a Dior dress when all seems lost. She bids farewell to close friends Vi, played by Ellen Thomas, and Archie, played by Jason Isaacs.
She goes to Paris to visit the prestigious House of Dior and turn her dreams into reality. Yet when she arrives, Ada is met with a series of surprising setbacks, not least of which is Dior’s intimidating Madame Colbert, played by Isabelle Huppert, who bristles at the notion of a common charlady wearing haute couture.
Ada refuses to leave Paris without her dress, whatever obstacles come her way. Her unwavering commitment charms idealistic Dior accountant André, played by Lucas Bravo, kindly model Natasha, played by Alba Baptista, and the aristocratic Marquis de Chassagne, played by Lambert Wilson, Paris’ most eligible bachelor.
Ada soon discovers that, in changing her own life, she changes the lives of all those around her. She might even help save the House of Dior itself.
Fabian’s feature film work up until that point was mainly family dramas based on true stories, yet he felt a particular affinity for the material. Having lived in Paris as a boy and attending boarding school in England, he could appreciate both cultures at the heart of the story. “I understood these two worlds extremely well, London and Paris,” Fabian says. “I felt it was a story that I could tell in an authentic and accurate way.”
Initially brought on as a director for hire, Fabian eventually gained the rights to adapt and produce himself. He began working on an entirely new screenplay while searching for other partners to collaborate with. He turned to Carroll Cartwright, with whom he had previously worked on the feature Louder Than Words. Together, they wrote the first drafts, while prolific film and television writer Keith Thompson and A Girl with a Pearl Earring writer Olivia Hetreed gave the script a final polish.
Fabian wanted to clarify why getting a beautiful haute couture artifact became such an obsession for Mrs. Harris throughout the adaptation process. “The book gives you the bones of the story, but not the flesh,” he says. “It doesn’t really explain why Mrs. Harris wants this dress, other than in the most frivolous and superficial terms—it had to be more profound. Ultimately, I wanted to suggest that Ada Harris’ heart is healed by going on this journey. She is a widow who has put her heart on ice, and this dress is an inanimate object that she can love without betraying her husband. Somehow, the dress becomes a catalyst for opening her heart and allowing her to love again.”
Produced by Guillermo del Toro and directed by Chris Miller, the magical story of Puss in Boots continues with the feline crusader, played by Antonio Banderas, trying to restore his nine lives after using up eight.
According to the DreamWorks fandom page, the original title was Puss in Boots: Nine Lives and Forty Thieves, and it’s now Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. The change most likely occurred because the story focuses on Puss getting his last wish to regain the eight lives he spent swashbuckling through fairytale land.
Directed by Janus Metz with a screenplay by Olen Steinhauer, adapted from his bestselling novel of the same name, All the Old Knives starts on a bleak winter morning in Vienna. CIA Chief of Station Victor Wallinger, played by Laurence Fishburne, visits veteran case officer Henry Pelham, played by Chris Pine, and delivers volatile news.
Ilyas Shushani, played by Orli Shuka, the Chechen extremist who masterminded a deadly hijacking that killed more than 100 airline passengers and crew in Austria eight years ago, has been captured by the agency. During interrogation, Shushani revealed that a mole in the Vienna station provided vital intelligence to the hijackers, resulting in the catastrophic loss of life. With this new information, Henry is assigned to reopen the case of Flight 127 and identify the traitorous double agent.
But the mission means revisiting painful memories and laying traps for old friends. Even for a spy as adept at compartmentalizing his emotions as Henry is, that’s no easy task. His first stop is a pub in London, where he surprises his former superior, Bill Compton, played by Jonathan Pryce, who was second in command in Vienna during the hijacking. Long since retired from the agency, Bill considers the incident ancient history. Still, Henry points out several disturbing inconsistencies in Bill’s story, suggesting he knows far more than he’s letting on.
With troubling investigation details piling up, Henry travels to Northern California to question another retired Vienna station colleague, Celia Harrison, played by Thandiwe Newton. Henry and Celia were once passionate lovers, more than just ex-coworkers, but their relationship fell apart after the hijacking disaster.
When they meet for a meal together at a stylish cliffside restaurant in Carmel, romantic sparks reignite as the two seasoned spies reminisce about their bittersweet past. But as night falls and the dinner conversation gradually becomes an interrogation, their intimate rendezvous becomes a sly cat-and-mouse game played by two experts, where the stakes are life and death.
As his second feature film, Danish filmmaker Metz found the script most intriguing because of its powerful emotional depth and the complex ethical questions it raises. “I fell in love with the script from the moment I read it,” says Metz. “It was a very compelling story about two CIA agents meeting for dinner, one tasked with interrogating the other. Essentially, it’s a love story interwoven with a spy thriller. There’s a whodunit plot that drives the film, but Henry and Celia’s tragic relationship anchors everything.”
Metz believes the film is about people forced to make difficult choices to preserve what they care about, regardless of the consequences. “It’s a story about trying to do the right thing at the right moment,” he says. “But the dilemma for Henry and Celia is that they are in a situation where that becomes next to impossible.”
Coming to us again from Stephen King’s classic thriller and directed by Keith Thomas, Firestarter is about a girl, played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong, with extraordinary pyrokinetic powers, who fights to protect her family and herself from sinister forces that seek to capture and control her.
For decades, parents Andy a new adaptation of Stephen King’s classic thriller from the producers of The Invisible Man, a girl with extraordinary pyrokinetic powers fights to protect her family and herself from sinister forces that seek to capture to control her.
For more than a decade, parents Andy, played by Zac Efron, and Vicky, played by Sydney Lemmon, have been on the run. They are desperate to hide their daughter, Charlie, from a shadowy federal agency that wants to harness her remarkable gift for creating fire into a weapon of mass destruction.
Andy has taught Charlie how to defuse her power, triggered by anger or pain. But as Charlie turns 11, the fire becomes harder and harder to control. After an incident reveals the family’s location, a mysterious operative, played by Michael Greyeyes, becomes deployed to hunt down the family and seize Charlie once and for all. Charlie has other plans.
Drew Barrymore played the girl with the powers in the first movie. The CGI special effects will prove most beneficial as a popcorn thriller with the technology today.
Directed by Damien Power from the bestseller No Exit by Taylor Adams, the movie follows Darby Throne, played by Havana Rose Liu. Darby is driving to see her mother in the hospital when a blizzard hits.
Darby end ups at a lodge where a handful of people are also waiting out the snowstorm, played by Dale Dickey, Daniel Rameriz, Dennis Haysbert and David Rysdahl.
She discovers a young girl, played by Mila Harris, locked in a van parked in the parking lot outside. Darby tries to find out who of the handful of people snowbound put the girl in the van.
Goodreads and IMDB helped with information about this movie, which will play on Hulu.
Based on the bestselling novel by faith-based novelist Francine Rivers and directed by D. J. Caruso, Redeeming Love is a powerful story of relentless love and perseverance as a young couple’s relationship clashes with the harsh realities of the California Gold Rush of 1850. The story is the retelling of Hosea and Gomer from the biblical account in the Old Testament.
Angel, played by Abigail Cowen, expects only pain from those around her. Sold into prostitution as a child, Angel survives with hatred towards herself and the men who use her. She meets Michael Hosea, played by Tom Lewis, a farmer who believes God wants Angel to be his wife. Dire circumstances force Angel to accept his proposal, but her wounded heart mends when Michael defies her bitter expectations.
As Angel encounters a love unlike anything she has ever experienced, feelings of unworthiness and shame cause her to run from a life she doesn’t think she deserves. As Michael sets out to find her, Angel discovers no brokenness that love can’t heal.
Cowan’s screen credits include I Still Believe, another faith-based movie.
How often have you wanted to return to Hogwarts and spend time with Harry, Hermione, Ron and the other delightful characters written beautifully by J. K. Rowling?
In 2011, before the release of the last Harry Potter movie, YouGov America reported that 18 percent of those surveyed had read all the Harry Potter books. And 31 percent had read at least one book.
The story of Harry Potter is over with the disintegration of Voldemort in the last book and movie. We can still appreciate the seven books and eight movies by re-reading and re-watching the telling of a fantastic story.
Perhaps that is why HBOMax brings us Harry Potter’s 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts on New Year’s Day. Viewers watch as actors reminisce about working on one of the world’s finest movie franchises.
