Tommy Wirkola directs David Harbour as Santa Claus in Violent Night. An international team of mercenaries burglarizes a family compound on Christmas Eve. Everyone in the household becomes hostage as the mercenaries try to access hundreds of millions of dollars.
Santa Claus arrives to place the Christmas gifts around the tree when he stumbles on the bad guys and gets combative. He uses all the tactics he knows to save a little girl’s Christmas and her family.
Violent Night is definitely a movie you want to add to your Christmas favorites. Keep your younger kids away because of foul language and sexual references.
David O. Russell directs an all-star cast about a story in the 1930s. Three friends witness a murder and are framed for doing it. While trying to clear themselves, they stumble upon an unbelievable plot in American history.
Damien Chazelle, who directed Whiplash, La La Land, now brings us another side of Hollywood, Babylon.
Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.
It’s an original epic set in 1920s Los Angeles led by Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Diego Calva, including an ensemble cast: Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li and Jean Smart.
Jovan Adepo plays Sidney Palmer in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.
A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.
Set on a fictional, remote island off the west coast of Ireland, The Banshees of Inisherin follows lifelong friends Pádraic, played by Colin Farrell and Colm, played by Brendan Gleeson.
They find themselves at an impasse when Colm unexpectedly ends their long-term friendship. A stunned Pádraic, aided by his sister Siobhán, played by Kerry Condon, and troubled young islander Dominic, played by Barry Keoghan, endeavors to repair the relationship, refusing to take no for an answer.
But Pádraic’s repeated efforts only strengthen his former friend’s resolve, and when Colm delivers a desperate request, events swiftly escalate, with shocking consequences.
Written and directed by Martin McDonagh, who has worked with Farrell and Gleeson several times, he is a well-known Irish playwright and screenwriter.
“One of the things I love about Martin’s writing is that it lacks malice,” continues Farrell. “Some of the characters he presents to the audience can be incredibly malicious and cruel, and some of the events can be beyond the pale in regards to the macabre, but I never detect any maliciousness from the writer, the voice, the creator of it.”
Farrell and Gleeson worked together in the film In Bruges, which McDonagh wrote and directed. The movie permitted Farrell and Gleeson to develop a shorthand, and McDonagh wanted to bring them back together again.
Along came The Banshees of Inisherin, written especially in mind for Farrell and Gleeson to star. “As an actor, you’re looking for someone who has a unique voice, an original way of articulating thoughts and feelings and creating characters and whole worlds. It’s lovely when you come across a writer that establishes a world that has its own kind of order and sense of aesthetic (sic). Martin’s voice can be extraordinary.” Gleeson describes McDonagh as fearless. “He goes into these awful places finally, armed with compassion and empathy.”
Directed by Marius Vaysberg, About Fate takes a genuine stab at Rom/Com with Margot Hayes, played by Emma Roberts and Griffin Reed, played by Thomas Mann.
With Christmas in her taillights and her sister’s, played by Britt Robertson, and New Year’s Eve wedding fast approaching, Margot has convinced herself that her boyfriend – the drop-dead-gorgeous (and narcissist supreme), Kip Prescott, played by Lewis Tan is about to pop the question.
No matter that they’ve only been together for three months. No matter that her reliably blunt mother, Judy, played by Cheryl Hines, who, like the rest of the family, has yet even to meet Kip – thinks Margot is simply setting herself up for disappointment, again. Yet she heads to dinner to meet her beau and is ready to say “Yes!” to the proposal.
But as fate would have it, at the same restaurant is where Griffin Reed is planning to propose to the woman of his dreams, the drop-dead-gorgeous nightmare, Clementine, played by Madelaine Petsch, online influencer and local model, that same night.
New Year’s Eve-Eve, the date of his overprotective mother, played by Wendie Malick, said, ‘I do,’ to Griffin’s dad.
Of course, things go anything but according to plan that evening. And with their respective dubious relationships going awry, it’s ultimately down to Margot and Griffin. Fate throws together two perfect strangers – and two perfect soulmates – to see what’s staring them in the face… Namely, each other.
“They felt right together,” says director Marius Vaysberg of the palpable big-screen chemistry between leads Emma Roberts and Thomas Mann in About Fate, which was filmed in and around Boston last summer over the course of 26-days, “There’s this simplicity and humanity about both of them that they connect in a way,” explains the director. “Because of the pandemic, it was hard for the three of us to meet [before filming], so it was a risk that I had to take. But it felt like it was going to work. And it sure as hell clicked as soon as the three of us met in Boston.”
The secret to a brilliant romantic comedy is simple enough, according to screenwriter Tiffany Paulsen, here marking her first collaboration with Marius Vaysberg and her third with Emma Roberts. “You have to want the couple to kiss,” she says with a gracious tip of the hat to her About Fate director for bringing that last element to the screen. “Marius is genuinely one of the loveliest people I’ve ever worked with,” says Paulsen. “He brings a unique warmth, humor and openness that I’ve never experienced with a director. He absolutely knows what he’s doing and what he wants but has no ego in being open to ideas… I loved working with Marius.”
Co-written and directed by Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky, The Good House follows Hildy Good, played by Sigourney Weaver. Hildy is a wry New England realtor and descendant of the Salem witches.
Thomas Bezucha also co-wrote the script with the directors. Bezucha’s credits include writing and directing Let Him Go and six episodes of the Secret Invasion mini-series.
She loves her wine and secrets, yet her compartmentalized life unravels as she rekindles a romance with her old high-school flame, Frank Getchell, played by Kevin Kline. She becomes dangerously entwined in one person’s reckless behavior.
The situations ignite long-buried emotions and family secrets, propelling Hildy toward a reckoning with the one person she’s been avoiding for decades — herself.
The Good House additionally stars Morena Baccarin and Rob Delaney.
Written by Will Tracy and Seth Riess and directed by Mark Mylod, The Menu follows a couple, played by Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult. They travel to a coastal island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef, played by Ralph Fiennes, has prepared a great menu with a few shocking surprises.
Mylod is a British film and television director and executive producer. Entourage, Game of Thrones and Succession are some of his best works on television.
Joining the couple are three young, already inebriated tech brothers, Bryce and Dave, an older wealthy couple and repeat clients, Anne and Richard, renowned restaurant critic Lillian Bloom and her slavish magazine editor Ted, and a famous middle-aged movie star with his assistant Felicity.
With the immaculately dressed front-of-house staff led by general Elsa, the evening unfolds with increasing tension at each of the guest tables as secrets are revealed and unexpected courses are served. With wild and violent events occurring, Slowik’s motivation begins to rattle the diners as it becomes increasingly apparent that his elaborate menu is designed to catalyze a shocking finale.
George Clooney and Julia Roberts reunite on the big screen for a simple romantic comedy. They are high-end exes on a shared mission to stop their love-struck daughter from making the same mistake they once made—marrying too young with an established career.
Ol Parker directed Ticket to Paradise from his script with Daniel Pipski. Parker has also directed other upbeat films, such as Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and scripted the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films.
Ticket to Paradise has a promotional line that says it’s a romantic comedy about the sweet surprise of second chances. The film sounds like we know the ending but must watch Roberts and Clooney go through the hoops to get there.
Kaitlyn Dever also stars as their daughter, who found her true love and plans to marry him unless her parents stop her.
Directed by Tom George, the story happens in London’s West End in the 1950s. There are plans for a movie version of a smash-hit play to come to an abrupt halt after a pivotal crew member ends up murdered.
When world-weary Inspector Stoppard, played by Sam Rockwell, and eager rookie Constable Stalker, played by Saoirse Ronan, take on the case, the two find themselves puzzling whodunit within the glamorously sordid theater underground, investigating the mysterious homicide at their own peril.
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.
