The Streamer’s Guide To January 2020: What To Watch At Home To Prepare For This Month’s Theatrical Releases
By Marshall Shaffer/Jan. 2, 2020 8:00 am EST
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. (Welcome to The Streamer’s Guide, a new monthly feature recommending at-home viewing options from filmmakers with new movies arriving in theaters this month.) You may recognize this column name from its appearances surrounding the Sundance, Toronto and New York film festivals over the last two years. Festivals provide an important opportunity to assess filmmakers releasing new works and contextualizing them within their previous projects. They’re often useful for cinephiles and writers looking for growth or an auteurist stamp.
But … why limit it to just festivals? Each month offers a fresh crop of new releases, many of which are culminations or further explorations of elements from those creative teams’ prior work. So we’ve now expanded this feature to encompass each month’s new releases, and believe it or not, there are even things to look at in the barren terrain of January – Hollywood’s traditional graveyard for ominous-looking releases.
The Grudge (January 3)
Horror remakes, reboots or re-imaginings are always a dicey proposition, especially whenever the property is still fairly recent. (I remember recording the original American Grudge film on my DVR and watching it on Halloween as my first “real” horror movie as a frightened tween.) Whatever goodwill the first film generated over 15 years ago – lest we forget, it was a $100 million hit – has largely vanished following two subpar later installments.
But this The Grudge promises a “twisted new vision,” and if the trailer is any indication, they might not be lying. The film looks light on fan service and heavily overt references to the first American film. The footage shown clearly demonstrates the eye of the man entrusted with reenergizing a franchise dormant for over a decade, the impeccable visual stylist Nicolas Pesce – who also holds a screenplay credit on the film. Hopefully producer Sam Raimi and studio Sony stayed out of Pesce’s way and let him put his stamp on the material. With actors like John Cho, Andrea Riseborough and Jacki Weaver all on board, there’s more potential here than might be suggested by the ominous first weekend of the year release.
Want to prep for release? Watch this at home: I’ve been following Pesce since seeing his debut feature, The Eyes of My Mother, premiere at Sundance back in 2016. The first installment of this column, in fact, used the opportunity of Pesce’s second film Piercing debuting at Sundance 2018 to plug his freshman film. I’ll spare you the reruns of my rave from that piece, but the fact remains that The Eyes of My Mother is a sparse, chilling film with many an unsettling (yet visually resplendent) image. The 76-minute black & white work might be lean, but Pesce packs in more than enough scares, terrors and nightmare fuel. It might as well be a demo reel to take over a horror series like The Grudge. (Available to stream for free to Netflix subscribers)
The Streamer’s Guide To January 2020: What To Watch At Home To Prepare For This Month’s Theatrical Releases
By Marshall Shaffer/Jan. 2, 2020 8:00 am EST
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. (Welcome to The Streamer’s Guide, a new monthly feature recommending at-home viewing options from filmmakers with new movies arriving in theaters this month.) You may recognize this column name from its appearances surrounding the Sundance, Toronto and New York film festivals over the last two years. Festivals provide an important opportunity to assess filmmakers releasing new works and contextualizing them within their previous projects. They’re often useful for cinephiles and writers looking for growth or an auteurist stamp.
But … why limit it to just festivals? Each month offers a fresh crop of new releases, many of which are culminations or further explorations of elements from those creative teams’ prior work. So we’ve now expanded this feature to encompass each month’s new releases, and believe it or not, there are even things to look at in the barren terrain of January – Hollywood’s traditional graveyard for ominous-looking releases.
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
You may recognize this column name from its appearances surrounding the Sundance, Toronto and New York film festivals over the last two years. Festivals provide an important opportunity to assess filmmakers releasing new works and contextualizing them within their previous projects. They’re often useful for cinephiles and writers looking for growth or an auteurist stamp.
But … why limit it to just festivals? Each month offers a fresh crop of new releases, many of which are culminations or further explorations of elements from those creative teams’ prior work. So we’ve now expanded this feature to encompass each month’s new releases, and believe it or not, there are even things to look at in the barren terrain of January – Hollywood’s traditional graveyard for ominous-looking releases.
The Grudge (January 3)
Horror remakes, reboots or re-imaginings are always a dicey proposition, especially whenever the property is still fairly recent. (I remember recording the original American Grudge film on my DVR and watching it on Halloween as my first “real” horror movie as a frightened tween.) Whatever goodwill the first film generated over 15 years ago – lest we forget, it was a $100 million hit – has largely vanished following two subpar later installments.
But this The Grudge promises a “twisted new vision,” and if the trailer is any indication, they might not be lying. The film looks light on fan service and heavily overt references to the first American film. The footage shown clearly demonstrates the eye of the man entrusted with reenergizing a franchise dormant for over a decade, the impeccable visual stylist Nicolas Pesce – who also holds a screenplay credit on the film. Hopefully producer Sam Raimi and studio Sony stayed out of Pesce’s way and let him put his stamp on the material. With actors like John Cho, Andrea Riseborough and Jacki Weaver all on board, there’s more potential here than might be suggested by the ominous first weekend of the year release.
Want to prep for release? Watch this at home: I’ve been following Pesce since seeing his debut feature, The Eyes of My Mother, premiere at Sundance back in 2016. The first installment of this column, in fact, used the opportunity of Pesce’s second film Piercing debuting at Sundance 2018 to plug his freshman film. I’ll spare you the reruns of my rave from that piece, but the fact remains that The Eyes of My Mother is a sparse, chilling film with many an unsettling (yet visually resplendent) image. The 76-minute black & white work might be lean, but Pesce packs in more than enough scares, terrors and nightmare fuel. It might as well be a demo reel to take over a horror series like The Grudge. (Available to stream for free to Netflix subscribers)
But this The Grudge promises a “twisted new vision,” and if the trailer is any indication, they might not be lying. The film looks light on fan service and heavily overt references to the first American film. The footage shown clearly demonstrates the eye of the man entrusted with reenergizing a franchise dormant for over a decade, the impeccable visual stylist Nicolas Pesce – who also holds a screenplay credit on the film. Hopefully producer Sam Raimi and studio Sony stayed out of Pesce’s way and let him put his stamp on the material. With actors like John Cho, Andrea Riseborough and Jacki Weaver all on board, there’s more potential here than might be suggested by the ominous first weekend of the year release.
Want to prep for release? Watch this at home: I’ve been following Pesce since seeing his debut feature, The Eyes of My Mother, premiere at Sundance back in 2016. The first installment of this column, in fact, used the opportunity of Pesce’s second film Piercing debuting at Sundance 2018 to plug his freshman film. I’ll spare you the reruns of my rave from that piece, but the fact remains that The Eyes of My Mother is a sparse, chilling film with many an unsettling (yet visually resplendent) image. The 76-minute black & white work might be lean, but Pesce packs in more than enough scares, terrors and nightmare fuel. It might as well be a demo reel to take over a horror series like The Grudge. (Available to stream for free to Netflix subscribers)
Like a Boss (January 10)
Also, Like a Boss has a surprisingly highbrow pedigree for a studio comedy as Miguel Arteta was on directing duty. He’s more a creature of Sundance than Hollywood with multiple titles that played the festival circuit; one of them even won him an Independent Spirit Award. Perhaps Hayek, the star of Arteta’s 2017 film Beatriz at Dinner, put him up for the gig. It’s not exactly clear from the trailer whether Arteta was able to put much of a personal stamp on the film, but if it helps get a smaller project off the ground in the coming years, hopefully the experience was worth it for him.
The Gentlemen (January 24)
The film looks like a return to the British crime films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch that put writer/director Guy Ritchie on the map. Like the aforementioned titles, The Gentleman looks to feature a complicated plot involving a collision of business and the criminal underworld, though the real draw is the quippy dialogue and thrilling action anyways. It’ll be most interesting to see how Ritchie handles Henry Golding, who’s cast against his emerging matinee-idol type as the film’s apparent villain.
The Turning (January 24)
And these are not just any children, mind you. They’re eerie, entitled and played by child stars Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) and Brooklynn Prince (breakout actress from The Florida Project). Their creepy deployment in The Turning might make you ever regret finding their precociousness charming. Hopefully director Floria Sigismondi, who primarily cut her teeth in music videos, gives all three of them plenty of room to go crazy.
The Assistant (January 31)
The experiences of his assistant Jane, played by Julia Garner, tell us all we need to know as she goes through her daily routines. It’s almost as if she goes through her professional tasks like someone with PTSD; the trauma of her past experiences shows in something as mundane as office chores. But when one incident arouses her suspicions, Jane realizes just how deep the company’s culture of complicity and protection runs. (Shoutout to Matthew MacFayden, Succession’s Tom Wambsgans, for committing to bringing the same nervous and awkward energy to The Assistant.) The film has all the makings of a major breakout for Garner, an Emmy winner for her work on Ozark and an indie stalwart in pretty much any movie from the 2010s involving a cult. And as the first fictional film for Green, The Assistant could mark her as a director to watch.
