Movie Trailers for January 2024

 What's coming out in January?

Night Swim - 05JAN24

So it's an evil pool. Looks like an able execution of the idea of an evil pool. It even makes the dad go crazy. It's something I've seen a million times before, but perhaps I take for granted that there's someone out there who sees the novel idea at the core of it and has only seen the shambling, recycled skeleton 500,000 times. 

 

The Beekeeper - 05JAN24

Speaking of things from a genre that should be called "ad infinitum," let's count the cliches.

• Retired badass played by aging actor.
• Innocent friend hurt my cartoon monster-people.
• World-spanning conspiracy.
• One-against-one-hundred odds, both individually and as the man takes on the system that can be killed by murdering one guy and destroying a single computer.
• Hero is part of a secret society bad guys are afraid of, even though it lacks the institutional power to do the thing he's doing. It's basically just a discount gun store with a visually impressive lock for divorced losers to kill comically evil people (played by even more-aging actors) who represent ideas too vast to be killed with bullets.
• Novel fight scenes
• Novel setpieces

I guess if they're so predictable, I should start writing them. Obviously there's demand, although I'll only have a few weeks to do it since this seems like the first genre AI could start writing wholesale.

 

The Book of Clarence - 05JAN24

"It has everything," get said about a lot of movies. It always meant what I've seen termed as 'all of the good stuff, none of the bad stuff.' Kind of a blanket, "This movie loves you."

 

But The Book of Clarence looks like a movie that has everything. A clever idea. A complex main character. Biblical elements. Fistfights. It's got a lot of pistons firing and really, it could only disappoint me from here.

 

It's my Tragically Unwatched for January 2024.

 

Origin - 19JAN24

Origin is intriguing. It's got one of those classic trailers that doesn't seem to tell you everything about the movie. I can put a lot together in that it's one woman's search for the origins of racism and her determination to answer that question through experience.

 

I.S.S. - 19JAN24

On the other hand, I.S.S. gives you the premise--US and Russian astronauts are on the International Space Station when World War 3 breaks out. The US team is told to take the ISS and presumes the Russians are told the same thing.

 

Queue intrigue and death on the most dangerous building ever created by man when the obvious, overhanging solution is to work together to delay the ticking clock of the ISS as a habitable building before descending to the wasteland below.

 

The Concierge - 19JAN24

 

I've also seen this titled The Concierge at Arctic Department Store, which is about a woman who wants to excel at her job, but the problem is talking animal customers. It's anime. What do you want? I'm not the demographic for this movie. I wish I could see US movies the way I see anime films; just the matrix code of a desire to excel, some random job, and a few relatable obstacles before the inevitable catharsis and peace and love on planet Earth ending.

 

Founder's Day - 19JAN24

Two horror movies in January. Is that normal? Doesn't feel normal. It's honestly more threadbare than Night Swim. Night Swim has a monster and a supernatural force trying to 'get' the family in novel ways. Founder's Day is a unique mask plus a unique murder weapon. Your Jason Vorhees, your guy from Scream, your The Strangers, your Leatherface, and to a lesser extent, your Black Phone guy, your Saw guy, and your The Purge folks.

 

But now it's a powdered wig and a gavel. Sure. Who gives a fuck?

 

Mean Girls (2024) - 12JAN24

Wait, I don't think I can bottom out on fucks before I get to the remake of a comedy that I never saw, but which is part of the Trio of Well-Regarded Lady Films I haven't seen (Clueless, Legally Blonde, and Mean Girls).

 

But prima facie, it looks stupid and it gets my 0 Fucks Award for January 2024. Look, horror guys are gonna eat Founder's Day up unless it's surprisingly good by being original. I couldn't imagine who Mean Girls (2024) is for. 

 

Miller's Girl - 26JAN24

I'm not a fan of Martin Freeman. I mildly dislike him and his characters. They always come across like pricks. I don't like all of John Krasinski's career choices, but his version of Jim in The Office worked because he had charisma. Freeman has prick energy, which played better for his version, but I can't stand the guy. He was perfectly cast as the one white guy in Black Panther.

 

Oh right, I was disappointed that this movie wasn't a horror movie. It's just a story about how a teacher and student have chemistry and she can ruin his life with false accusations if he doesn't say 'yes.' Yeah, that can happen, but that seems like a smaller social issue than men with power using that to get with girls/young women girls.

 

Or the media they look at to validate their actions and play the victim when they get found out. I'm not saying Miller's Girl will be a bad film, it's just a film that shouldn't.

 

Self Reliance - 03JAN24 (Hulu)

It's interesting and charming and only gives us the first act or two of the idea. The idea of the secret game where humans are hunted for sport always has, like, a thousand holes in it when the movie is about hunting a middle-class Westerner in the middle-class West, so they might as well make it a comedy.