Karl Glusman and Samara Weaving in EENIE MEANIE — PHOTO: 20th Century Studios.
Directed by Shawn Simmons — Screenplay by Shawn Simmons.
Shawn Simmons’ Eenie Meanie is a crime comedy-thriller that follows Edie (played by Samara Weaving), who has a past as a getaway driver. Edie has just found out that she is pregnant, and so she decides to seek out the child’s ne’er-do-well father, John (played by Karl Glusman), whom she hasn’t been with in months. When she shows up at his apartment, however, she becomes entangled in a web of crime to which her former lover is stuck. To save the father of her child, Edie will have to put some of her old skills to good use to do a job.
One of the vanishing kids running down the street in Zach Cregger’s Weapons — PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures (Still image from trailers).
Directed by Zach Cregger — Screenplay by Zach Cregger.
Whenever an up-and-coming new filmmaker, whose previous film had the makings of a bona fide genre classic, is about to turn in his latest film, you pay attention. You especially pay attention when the filmmaker’s script for his new picture was so highly regarded in the American film industry that it not only launched a bidding war but also, reportedly, got a modern horror master to fire his manager over their failed attempt at securing the distribution rights to it. Such is the case with Barbarian writer-director Zach Cregger and his latest film, Weapons, a multi-perspective horror-thriller with drama and comedy elements that had a memorable and fantastic marketing campaign built around it, and which also, thankfully, turns out to be exactly the kind of must-see thriller epic that I’ve been craving.
Liam Neeson in THE NAKED GUN — PHOTO: Paramount Pictures (Still image from trailers).
Directed by Akiva Schaffer — Screenplay by Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, and Akiva Schaffer.
One of the best pieces of marketing for a film that I’ve seen this year is an ad for The Naked Gun that features Liam Neeson prominently asking viewers to go back to theaters to watch comedy films. At the end of the ad, we hear Liam Neeson do a classic Leslie Nielsen-style fart-machine joke. It is a delightfully silly note to end on, but the message at the heart of the ad rings true. Comedy films have largely been relegated to being streaming fodder. If you want to watch a new comedy film, you’re more likely to find one on Netflix or on Amazon Prime Video than in the movie theaters. For example, Happy Gilmore 2 recently premiered on Netflix, just like the John Cena and Idris Elba vehicle Heads of State premiered on Prime Video. Unfortunately, major comedy stars have flocked to the streaming services and left movie theaters without successful comedies for quite some time. To reignite the spark that would keep comedy movies thriving on the big screen, we now have a reboot or legacy sequel of The Naked Gun, the Leslie Nielsen vehicle from the 80s and 90s, filled with spoof film humor, some of which has become quite iconic. For the legacy sequel, the studio turned to the Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer, director of Popstar: Never Stop, Never Stopping, as well as producer Seth MacFarlane, with the hopes of finally releasing a good spoof comedy film in the theaters again. Thankfully, with screen legends leading the picture, the reboot of The Naked Gun is a success. It is, undoubtedly, one of the funniest films I’ve seen this year, and I hope it’s the beginning of a new trend where comedy films can once again thrive in theaters.
Directed by Tom Kingsley — Screenplay by Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, Ben Ashenden, and Alexander Owen.
Tom Kingsley’s Deep Cover is a crime comedy film about a group of improvisational comedy performers who are hired to use their talents to go undercover in London’s criminal underworld. The film follows Kat Boyles (played by Bryce Dallas Howard), an improv teacher, Marlon (played by Orlando Bloom), a struggling method actor, and Hugh (played by Nick Mohammed), a socially awkward IT worker, who has joined Kat’s comedy group to improve his communication skills and make friends. Their involvement with law enforcement begins when Kat is approached by Detective Sergeant Graham Billings (played by Sean Bean) following one of her comedy shows. Although their first attempt at improvising undercover has some rough edges, they soon find that they’re so convincing that it may get them into trouble.
Trailer title card — PHOTO: Netflix (Still image from trailers).
Directed by Matt Palmer — Screenplay by Matt Palmer and Donald McLeary.
In 2021, Netflix pleased horror fans with the nostalgic horror-slasher trilogy of films, adapting R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series from director Leigh Janiak. Janiak’s films all had clear style, grisly horror sequences, and well-done references to their cinematic inspirations. They were all quite solid films that got their hooks into a certain audience, and it put Fear Street on the map for Netflix. So much so that I had, honestly, been looking forward to seeing how Netflix would follow up the relatively successful trilogy. Four years later (and, notably, without Leigh Janiak in the director’s chair), we now finally have that next step. Fear Street: Prom Queen also tries to be a nostalgic slasher flick, but it fails in most departments and, frustratingly, fumbles the goodwill that the first three films had earned.
Directed by Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) — Screenplay by Liz Maccie.
Stephen Chbosky’s Nonnas is a biographical dramedy that follows Joe Scaravella (played by Vince Vaughn), an Italian-American man, who is grieving the loss of his mother. Hoping to honor her and his grandmother’s memory, Joe, against the wishes of his closest friend Bruno (played by Joe Manganiello), uses his mother’s life insurance money to open a restaurant in her name wherein Italian grandmothers — ‘nonnas’ — will cook the dishes they know best. But that is easier said than done, as the grandmothers have a lot of opinions about how things are done in the kitchen and, notably, because Joe has no idea how much it’ll take to open a restaurant. Meanwhile, Joe hopes to rekindle an old romance with his high school sweetheart named Olivia (played by Linda Cardellini).
Jack Quaid mid-action in NOVOCAINE — PHOTO: Paramount Pictures (Still image from trailers).
Directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen — Screenplay by Lars Jacobson.
Dan Berk and Robert Olsen’s Novocaine follows Nathan Caine (played by Jack Quaid), an introverted assistant bank manager, who has the condition known as ‘congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis’ meaning that he doesn’t feel pain and temperature. This diagnosis means that he lives a life defined by his own attempts at protecting himself, by, among other things, avoiding solid foods as he could conceivably bite off his own tongue due to his issues with the sense of feeling. However, one day he runs into someone who could change his life. That person is Sherry (played by Amber Midthunder), an extroverted co-worker, who he is immediately smitten by. They eventually establish a connection, but, right as he is finally starting to discover happiness in his life, she is kidnapped and taken as hostage during a bank robbery. Desperate to save her, he follows in pursuit and is willing to put his body through hell to get her back.
Robert Pattinson and Robert Pattinson in Bong Joon-ho’s MICKEY 17 — PHOTO: Watner Bros. Pictures (Still image from trailers).
Directed by Bong Joon-ho — Screenplay by Bong Joon-ho.
It boggles the mind that it’s been more than half a decade since the release of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, the first non-English language feature to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Director Bong’s Oscar-winning magnum opus is a widely recognized 21st Century masterpiece, and, thusly, the director’s follow-up to such an achievement would always be hotly anticipated, especially given the fact that his next release was a blockbuster-budgeted American studio release. In fascinating fashion, Bong Joon-ho has spent his Hollywood blank cheque, or carte blanche, on a scathing but funny political satire sci-fi flick about the way capitalist governments, whose leaders may use religion to gain and exercise power, view and treat the common person, women, and foreign territories, as well as its inhabitants. Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17, an adaptation of Edward Ashton’s novel Mickey7, is ambitious, messy, strangely predictive about the time we’re in, and very much a Bong Joon-ho film, even though it is very different from Parasite.
A burning Iris (played by Sophie Thatcher) sitting across from Josh (played by Jack Quaid) in COMPANION — PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures (still image from trailers).
Directed by Drew Hancock — Screenplay by Drew Hancock.
In the marketing for this film (more on this later), trailers have highlighted the fact that this new genre-bendy flick is the product of the studio behind The Notebook, arguably the most well-known American romance film, and the creators of Barbarian, the hugely surprising horror film with multiple tricks up its sleeves from 2022. It’s a good marketing narrative that does communicate the film’s genre fluidity from one thing to another from certain scenes to certain scenes. But, in actuality, this is the brainchild of writer-director Drew Hancock, a Blue Mountain State writer, who, to be honest, has crafted something quite entertaining for his feature directorial debut.
Margot (Reese Witherspoon) and Jim (Will Ferrell) in YOU’RE CORDIALLY INVITED — PHOTO: Glen Wilson/Prime Video
Directed by Nicholas Stoller — Screenplay by Nicholas Stoller.
You’re Cordially Invited is the second Amazon Prime Video January release since 2023 to be explicitly a comedy about weddings. Back in 2023, it was the Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Lopez action rom-com Shotgun Wedding, which was relatively forgettable despite having a decent cast. This latest Prime Video wedding-centric January release is a star vehicle for Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Neighbors director Nicholas Stoller. Although, admittedly, it isn’t as good as Stoller’s best films, I had a relatively good time with this comedy of wedding hijinx one-upmanship.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 