We look at the new movies releasing this month, from Netflix films to HBO Max/WB’s next big “hybrid” debut.
Looking for some electrifying and amusing works of theatre?
Well, you have just found yourself in the right spot! As the dynamics of this country shifts from “COVID” to what we call a “NEW NORMAL.”
The cinemas have begun to upskill their game as well …This month is marked by even more enticing and beguile theatrical releases .
Lets plunge right in to reveal what’s in store!
A Glitch in the Matrix
February 5
What if we are living in a simulation, and the world as we know it is not real? To tackle this mind-bending idea, acclaimed filmmaker Rodney Ascher (ROOM 237, THE NIGHTMARE) uses a noted speech from Philip K. Dick to dive down the rabbit hole of science, philosophy, and conspiracy theory. Leaving no stone unturned in exploring the unprovable, the film uses contemporary cultural touchstones like THE MATRIX, interviews with real people shrouded in digital avatars, and a wide array of voices, expert and amateur alike. If simulation theory is not science fiction but fact, and life is a video game being played by some unknowable entity, then who are we, really? A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX attempts to find out.
Malcolm & Marie
February 5
This Netflix release has awards buzz around it as well as eye-popping marquee value with its depiction of a love story between John David Washington and Zendaya (Euphoria,Spider-Man). The film is from the mind ofEuphoriacreator Sam Levinson and is his third feature, followingAssassination Nation.
Malcolm’s new film is about a 20-year-old woman struggling with drug abuse. Marie insists he drew from her own experiences as an addict, yet never so much as acknowledged he did. Malcolm argues the character is a composite based on all the women from his past. This snowballs into an argument about artistic collaboration, the purpose of filmmaking, and the desire for authenticity.
Falling
February 5 (U.S. Release, Playing Now in the UK)
Viggo Mortensen debut production revolves around the Adult children and parents being placed under the debilitating dementia.
John was born to a loving mother, Gwen, and a father Willis , who embraces masculinity, taking his son duck hunting while he’s a toddler and allowing him to pull the trigger. However, Willis also has a hair trigger temper, which eventually drives his wife away and alienates John and his younger sister Sarah, who alternately hate and fear being in his presence.
When Willis is elderly and begins to show signs of dementia, John brings him to his home in California in order to be able to take care of the man. However, in his elder years, Willis has become more toxic than ever. A stream of racist and homophobic comments constantly flow from his mouth. John, who is gay, is married to another man and has an adopted daughter, but despite his horrific experience as a child with his father, still feels bound by duty to take care of Willis.
Judas and the Black Messiah
February 12 (U.S. Only, UK TBC)
As a film with Oscar aspirations—Daniel Kaluuya has already been nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes and SAG Awards—Judasgives a hard-edged study of the life and times of Fred Hampton, the Black Panther Party chairman who was executed by police in 1969.
Fred Hampton is the passionate chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party. His activity gets the attention of the FBI, so when William O’Neal gets into trouble with the law, agent Roy Mitchell offers to get the charged dropped in exchange for William becoming an FBI informant.
O’Neal poses as a Black Panther follower and helps the FBI get into Hampton’s inner circle, but his situation becomes dangerous when the Black Panthers suspect there’s a rat in their midst.
Minari
February 12 (March 19 in the UK)
It is a classic immigrant story with specific, often unique new details. A Korean American family headed by a father, Jacob (Steven Yeun) and mother Monica (Yeri Han), came from Korea in the 1980s and spent time in California working as chicken sexers, separating baby chicks by gender. Now they have moved with their two American-born children, a serious and mature girl named Anne (Noel Kate Cho) and a six-year-old named David (newcomer Alan S. Kim), hoping to start a 50-acre farm in a small Arkansas town. It really is something special and all-American, despite its occasional categorization as a “foreign language film” by awards bodies. See it in theaters on Feb. 12 or wait for its VOD release on Feb. 26.
To All the Boys I Love: Always and Forever
February12
With this year’s upcoming Valentine Day special Netflix presents a trilogy of “To All the Boys I love”. This classic production is the key source of high anticipation among the teenagers. In the movie, Lana Condor returns as Lara Jean, the once gawkish high school girl with a series of crushes who is now coming into her own as she spends her spring break on a whirlwind vacation that sends her to South Korea, New York City, and around the world.
French Exit
February 12 (March 26 in the UK)
Michelle Pfeiffe , French Exit is a perfect blend of dry comedy and quintessential casting. Pfeiffer plays Frances Price, a Manhattan socialite of a certain age who’s lived long enough to see the invitations to high society dry up. Worse, she’s also run out of the inheritance she’d been living off for decades.So Frances moves in with her peculiar son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) in a tiny Parisian apartment. Slow boiling mayhem ensues. Well-regarded for Pfeiffer’s performance on the festival circuit, this is one to keep an eye on.
Land
February 12 (April 9 in the UK)
Robin Wright’s Land is a Bland Portrait of the Grieving Process Wright’s directorial debut might capture the beauty of Wyoming but the story will put you to sleep.
Edee (Robin Wright), in the aftermath of an unfathomable event, finds herself unable to stay connected to the world she once knew and in the face of that uncertainty, retreats to the magnificent, but unforgiving, wilds of the Rockies. After a local hunter (Demián Bichir) brings her back from the brink of death, she must find a way to live again.
I Care a Lot
February 19
Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) has made a mint selling off the assets of the dozens of senior citizens who are trapped in her permanent care. She and her partner Fran (Eiza González) stumble upon a veritable golden goose in the form of Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), a mark with no apparent family or debt, only a tidy fortune to be mined.
However, while their scam is underway, Marla and Fran discover that Ms. Peterson is not who they thought she was, and that their actions have disturbed the designs of a crime lord (Peter Dinklage), who will stop at nothing to protect his mother. I care a lot is an incredibly dark comedy.
The Mauritanian
February 19 (February 26 in the UK)
Kevin Macdonald continues awakening us from his knotty, reality checking ,political drama based true events. One of his upcoming onscreen works is The Mauritanian. Macdonald’s film documents that legal fight with a large ensemble which includes Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley as the lawyers representing
Salahi, and Benedict Cumberbatch as an American officer who suffers a crisis of conscience. Most of all though, the film has gotten attention for Tahar Rahim as Salahi in a performance that has already garnered him a Golden Globe nomination.
Nomadland
February 19 (March 19 in the UK)
This Unspooling lackadaisically amidst crumbling, disintegrating towns in the American Midwest, Zhao and her gifted cinematographer Joshua James Richards together showcase landscapes and vistas of poetically scant, perpetual sunsets, a magic hour America that carefully communicates the innate dignity of the peripatetic Fern. As Fern’s family and friends wrestle to reason with her wandering vagabond lifestyle, the immersive and deeply resonant grandeur that’s become Zhao’s trademark holds sway. Nomadland will roam around your heart and occupy your mind for a good long time.
Tom & Jerry
February 26 (March 19 in the UK)
Your childhood has been incomplete if it did not include the adventurous, comedy filled thrilling shows of Tom and Jerry. This year’s upcoming American live-action/computer-animated slapstick comedy film based on the characters of the same name created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, produced by the Warner Animation Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The premise of this HBO Max-bound release is Jerry has set up shop as a mouse in a Manhattan hotel when junior management (Chloe Grace Moretz) introduces a cat to take him out. Unfortunately, for her, the cat is Tom. The two old foes immediately resort to their old ways, destroying the swanky establishment just before a high-profile wedding. Maybe she should have called the Ghostbusters?
Cherry
February 26 (March 12 in the UK)
The amalgamation of crime and spine wrecking drama is depicted in the upcoming movie Cherry. The wild journey of a disenfranchised young man from Ohio who meets the love of his life, only to risk losing her through a series of bad decisions and challenging life circumstances.
The United States vs. Billie Holiday
February 26
A traditional biopic,The United States vs. Billie Holidayis now getting awards notice, with Andra Day’s starring turn as Billie already netting her a Golden Globe nomination. Not bad for an actor in her first starring role.
This upcoming Hulu release is a passion project for Lee Daniels (Precious,The Butler), and one that aims to provide new dramatic light on the life of Billie Holiday. One of the great jazz and swing singers of the 1940s and ‘50s, Holiday had a singular voice and talent that was commodified by the music industry at the time due to her Blackness, and then hindered further the more political she became. While Holiday did have a drug problem, it’s interesting how the industry seemed to conspire to exacerbate it, as opposed to urging her to get clean.
The Father
February 26 (March 12 in the UK)
It’s one of the most powerful movies of 2020… and one of the most depressing. In a role that’s already netted him Golden Globe and SAG nominations, Anthony Hopkins plays Anthony, an elderly man who’s been living alone for years since his wife passed. But with dementia setting in and his daughter (Olivia Colman) wishing to move to Paris, some tough decisions are going to be made about Anthony’s care.