Hollywood

Somehow the strange circumstances of the death of Gene Hackman, found dead in his New Mexico home with his wife Betsy and their dog, make the end of one of America’s finest actors all the more poignant. The full details will presumably become clear soon — but whatever happened, it is more important to remember Hackman’s legendary on-screen career than to waste time fixating on his final moments. He was an actor without sentiment, but with enormous amounts of fierce compassion — even when playing villains — and it is those qualities that should be celebrated. Hackman began his life in the Marine Corps before he became an actor, and many of his best performances have the tough, unbending quality that he developed in the military.

Usually, by the time the BAFTAs — now comfortably established, along with the Golden Globes, as a dress rehearsal for the Oscars — roll around, it is fairly clear which film or films are likely to be taking gold at the Academy Awards next month. Thanks to the often frenzied behind-the-scenes lobbying and intriguing of various well-paid publicists, a storyline will emerge, and it is only in relatively rare cases that there will be a genuine surprise on the night. After all, nobody wants to spend a fortune on promoting (or celebrating) a lost cause. This year, however, is wildly unpredictable, and in fact is the first occasion since 2019 that it’s genuinely difficult to know which film is going to be triumphant.

Traditionally, the Super Bowl advertising spots are not only the most prestigious and expensive of the year, but also serve to showcase the movies that will be the biggest and most thrilling blockbusters of the coming summer. Since the advent of social media and streaming, there is no longer the same giddy thrill at watching a few seconds’ footage, which is usually taken from a more expansive and detailed trailer, but it’s still a clear calling card for studios to suggest which of their forthcoming films they’re most excited by, and which have been quietly set aside. (Awful though I think it looks, however, James Gunn’s Superman, which lacked a new spot, did at least have a short clip with the hoped-for breakout star Krypto the Superdog.

Had the Mark Wahlberg vehicle Flight Risk, which topped the US box office last weekend with a modest but far from disastrous $12 million gross, been directed by most competent journeymen filmmakers, then it would have been a case of job done, box ticked and onto the next project. If you were told, however, that it was made by an Oscar-winning filmmaker whose previous movies have been large-scale dramatic epics — and who, frankly, would have done a far more interesting job with The Brutalist, although its overtly Jewish themes may have given him considerable difficulty — then the first question most people would ask is “Why?” And then when you’re told the director in question is Mel Gibson, the response is usually “Ah” and “Oh.

You may, or may not, be planning on seeing the third film in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise when it is released this Christmas, but whether or not your taste for CGI pugnacious animals encompasses this latest cash-in for the Nintendo character, the presence of Jim Carrey should provide some distraction. Carrey is playing the villainous Dr. Robotnik for the third time, and has been offering some amusingly candid comments in interviews about his decision to return to the role. He announced that he came back to this film’s universe for two reasons, “first of all, I get to play a genius, which is a bit of a stretch” and “I bought a lot of stuff, and I need the money, frankly.

To say superhero films are in a rut is to understate how bad a state they're in. Deadpool 3 was underwhelming, yet it was still the only superhero film released this year that wasn't terrible. Its competition? Venom 3, Madame Web, Kraven the Hunter and Joker: Folie à Deux.  2023 was a bit better, with Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse both being genuinely great. But otherwise? Ant-Man 3 was unwatchable. The Flash was horrific. The Marvels was aneurysm-inducing. Shazam! 2 was utterly forgettable. I did actually forget that Blue Beetle existed until I started writing this list. Oh yeah, and there was another Aquaman movie. It, like most of the films listed here, flopped.

The title tells it all. It’s a Wonderful Life was first released back in December 1946, in the same week that President Truman was issuing Proclamation 2714, which officially ended hostilities in World War Two, and for that matter prefiguring Donald Trump by proposing that the US buy Greenland. The movie may be seventy-eight years old, but it’s one of those timeless classics, like Casablanca or The Searchers, that actually improve with familiarity. It’s also long since woven its essential message of good cheer into the fabric of our festive season. It’s an unusual plot for a film synonymous with feel-good family entertainment.

Well, nobody could accuse the Golden Globes Foundation — as they are now called — of predictability. Of the films that have been nominated for the ceremony on January 5, the frontrunner is Jacques Audiard’s much-discussed crime musical Emilia Pérez with ten nominations, including Best Film (Musical or Comedy), Best Director and Best Supporting Actress for its stars Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana. The movie, which has met with enormous controversy in some circles because of its unfettered approach to social mores — not least having a trans woman, Karla Sofía Gascón, in the lead — is undeniably a bold and distinctive film that indicates that this is a year of risk-taking rather than complacency. But to what end?

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — so good, they named it twice. At least, that’s what you would have hoped. Unfortunately, Tim Burton’s latest movie is a dismally confused hotchpotch that aims for a curious mixture of comedy, mild horror and the usual Burton wackiness, along with performances from his regular actors including Michael Keaton, Jenna Ortega and Winona Ryder. Sequel to an Eighties curio that was diverting rather than brilliant in the first place, it has nevertheless capitalized on the ever-present vogue for nostalgia that has permeated theaters over the past few years. It made an astonishing $111 million at the US box office last weekend; the original grossed $75 million worldwide during its entire run at movie theaters, albeit the best part of four decades ago.

After a fairly barren summer movies-wise (I’m just waiting for the Alien: Romulus backlash to begin, and will be only too pleased to join in with it), there are more promising movies coming our way this fall. Yet the one that’s attracted more attention and interest than possibly anything else this year, maybe even this decade, is the grand return of Francis Ford Coppola with Megalopolis, a self-funded, wildly ambitious folie de grandeur that premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival to predictably mixed reactions and an overall consensus that, alas, the one-time visionary genius of theater is no longer a force to be reckoned with, however loopily wild his latest (and, one reluctantly assumes, last) movie is.