The oft-delayed summer blockbuster is finally getting released on Christmas Day via movie theaters and HBO Max. Gal Gadot and Chris Pine (somehow) return as Diana Prince and Steve Trevor. Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal team up as a supervillain and power hungry mogul.
Themes of excess, commercialism, and power are secondary aspects of the flick. Patty Jenkins also returns to direct Wonder Woman 1984, which is the second of four projected movies from the Wonder Woman universe.
Promising Young Woman
One of the most challenging film concepts of the year was executed at a high level. Promising Young Woman follows Carey Mulligan’s femme fatale character as she enacts vengence on those attempting or having instigated sexual assualt. The individual segments can be extreme on an individual level, but make devastating points as a unified product.
There is just enough levity in the film to keep the must-see movie flowing. While Promising Young Woman is the least Christmasy Christmas Day movie imaginable, it is a potent piece of filmmaking that leaves no prisoners.
News Of The World
Tom Hanks as you’ve never seen him before. He’s still playing someone with the title of “captain” and yet, we’ve never seen the actor saddle up for a Western. While Westerns are somewhat antiquated now, that doesn’t mean that projects like Deadwood and Hostiles have not found ways to relay compelling stories.
In News Of The World, the veteran actor plays a newspaper editor tasked with escorting a young woman through the Old West. The film appears to check a unique box for Hollywood’s most unassuming man of action. His captaincy of planes, destroyers, and even a Greatest Generation platoon fit with his range of period pieces. Hanks on horseback is the most exposed character we have seen from the everyman actor in quite some time.
One Night In Miami
One of the most stimulating films of the year comes from Regina King, although the actor will be in the director’s chair this time. King is making her directorial debut with an all-time historical what-if. The paths of Jim Brown, Malcolm X, Muhammed Ali, and Sam Cooke intersect in a 1964 Miami hotel room.
The lives of four of the most influential African-American figures of their time result in a dynamic apocryphal possibility. Leslie Odom, Jr., Aldis Hodge, Lance Reddick, and Michael Imperioli dazzle in King’s ensemble cast.
Pinnochio
One Night In Miami is slated for a theatrical release on Christmas and Amazon Prime on January 15.
There are three Pinnochio moves slated to come between Christmas Day 2020 and whenever the Robert Zemeckis-Tom Hanks Disney + version comes out. That’s way too much Pinnochio. The first of the big-nosed onslaught is an Italian film that is now available with English dubs.
This version has garnered some critical praise and scored well on Rotten Tomatoes. While the Guillermo del Torro edition of the tale is the most likely to score with audiences, the first of the Pinnochio triumvirate may be worth a look for families looking for children’s movie.
Pinnochio is scheduled for its initial U.S. theatrical release this Christmas.
About the Author: John Saeger is a music and film writer from Philadelphia. He is also the co-host of the Philly sports podcast The Boo Birds. Prior to The Globe, he wrote the pop-culture blog Long After Dark, a site dedicated to the arts in the City of Brotherly Love and beyond. Email/ Twitter
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