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mayyourshipsbewithyou · 3 years ago

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Things I loved about In the Heights

-The sounds of the city are part of the music of the opening song

-The frame story is the only way this story should be told; the story only works if it shows the results of Usnavi's decision to stay

-Anthony and Lin shaking hands

-Yay to random mixed race couple asking for directions

-“I hope you’re writing this down I’m gonna test you later” only makes sense with kids

-Showing different residents of Washington Heights provides scale

-I’m not sure about the decision to cut Camila, but if it means less Nina drama, then I love it

-I love how Usnavi has his friends’ orders all ready to go

-LOVE how Usnavi announces Benny’s entrance

-Everything about Vanessa in this movie is perfect=> she’s given so much more depth, her beauty is downplayed, she’s kind of a nerd, but has a beautiful smile

-Nina’s heels=> metaphor for her reaching for the stars

-I love the actress that plays Nina; she’s the right age and her singing voice is so sweet

-Nina’s hair is straight when she’s at school; as soon as she comes home, it’s curly=>she can be herself at home

-When Nina turns around and sees the crowd of people counting on her=> I felt that

-I love seeing Nina get her acceptance letter; I remember what that was like for my brother

-Camila must have died while Nina was at college in this version; Nina lost her mother recently which helps explain her different reason for dropping out; she feels lost

-I don’t know why Sonny is using this deep voice, but I love it!

-Whoever decided to have 96,000 take place at the pool is a genius

-The graphics at the beginning of 96,000 are good for helping regular people understand the rap

-Pete just put his arm around Sonny=> are they dating?

-Sonny yelling 96,000 as he enters the pool=> the sound design

-Pete nodding along to Usnavi=> sucking up to the family

-Usnavi is such a proud cousin-uncle during Sonny’s part in 96,000

-Vanessa making her “I'll be downtown” walk down a ramp

-The dancer doing flips is now a diver doing spins into the pool

-On stage, the lighting was dark; in the movie, it’s underwater

-The circles of people in the pool reflect the zeros in 96,000

-Lin and Chris being rivals is perfect; their bromance is everything

-Nina and Benny being together before the events of the movie means they are the beta couple and have less drama than Usnavi/Vanessa which is how it should be

-Benny joins in during “on that fire escape”=> like West Side Story

-Benny’s “Let me in” against the fence is hilarious

-Nina and Benny are FUN, not angsty like in the original

-Nina following the little girl=> following herself, following her dreams which eventually lead her to the sea; all of this is done while she’s talking about her past

-Nina and Benny instrumental™ part 1 in the middle of “When You’re Home”, Benny interrupts=> their story isn't complete yet

-Benny says he believes in her without discounting her feelings

-Everyone loving Nina=> I finally get it

-Nina is home geographically and with people who love her

-Benny is Nina’s home

-In the Heights is about how dreams are great, but the life you have now can be so beautiful

-Nina’s hair during the dinner/club scene is great

-Usnavi is wearing his dad’s hat for his date with Vanessa; he knows that she is to him what his mom was for his dad

-Family dinners are the same in every culture

-Awkwardness of long-time friends going on a date

-Vanessa offers Usnavi his first drink of the night; he thinks that’s what she wants; because why would she want him and only him?

-Usnavi whispering in Vanessa’s ear is so sexy

-Love that Benny is on Nina’s side instead of being mad at her

-I wonder if they thought 5 years of Benny working for Kevin was too much or too little since they changed that line to "all these years"

-Benny’s reactions to Vanessa dancing at the club are hilarious

-Vanessa laughing at Usnavi dancing with someone else

-Nina is always smiling and laughing at the things going on around her; not as self centered

-Nina and Benny dancing at the club=> all of the yeses

-Usnavi is too nervous about being alone with Vanessa that he un-dated himself; he wasn’t quite ready

-Love that they consciously cut all the “Usnavi, help me” parts=> Vanessa is not a victim

-Fireworks are a romantic setting for Sonny and Pete, just saying

-Usnavi/Benny/Nina talking about the fourth member of their square gives me feelings; I need more of these four in fanfic, my dreams

-“I got to wait for Vanessa”=> the stuff dreams are made of

-Benny is such a good person; he’s even better than the original which is what he deserves

-Usnavi is relieved to have Vanessa call his name

-“Don’t walk away from us tonight”=> great addition

-To give Usnavi and Vanessa some of Nina and Benny’s original lines is to see the face of God

-The first time I saw this, I’m ashamed to admit, I thought Benny was going to steal money from the dispatch; I was a fool

-Dancer with fireworks on his shoes

-Benny is smart and good; he isn’t doing this for Kevin or Nina but for the people of New York

-Abuela was able to see stars again on the last night of her life

-I’m sad Blackout isn’t exactly the same but the orchestral parts that cover up what is unsaid is so beautiful it makes up for it

-Abuela’s family is her “fireworks”; they are what light up the Heights

-Sonny came to Usnavi instead of being with his dad during the blackout; his real family

-Abuela’s smile as she looks at her family while reflecting on her childhood is the most beautiful thing there will ever be

-Paciencia y Fe as a dream sequence is how it was meant to be

-The transition on the subway from reality to memory

-Paciencia y Fe is a mixture of cultures; like Abuela’s memories

-“Wide awake”=> stepping off the subway

-The same actress played Abuela on Broadway and in the movie

-Abuela may be in a musical, but she’s still an old woman

-“As I feed these birds”=> back to the present

-Calor means heat in Spanish but in English it sounds like color

-Abuela dying during the night of the blackout is perfect

-Usnavi saying “she was just here” twice: when she was literally just there and many years, maybe a decade, after the fact

-Usnavi’s daughter is the life that goes on after Abuela is gone

-Usnavi and Nina crying together

-Those closest to Abuela are inside and everyone else is outside

-Iris was sitting on the outside and now she’s in the middle; needed comfort from her friends

-“Should we take a break?”=> we’re past the point of an intermission

-“No daddy, keep going”=> does this look like a stage production to you? It’s a fucking movie

-There isn’t a clear point for an intermission; the action stays strong over where the intermission should be; this is a movie, not a play, and movies don’t have intermissions

-Everyone’s holding candles; like the stars Abuela loved so much

-Iris called Usnavi Daddy for the first time because that was the point in the story where he needed to hear that the most

-“I thought about the people I care about the most, I thought about you”

-Anthony makes Usnavi sexy in a way Lin never could

-So many people love Vanessa, but no one better than Usnavi

-Abuela paid to have Camila's napkins cleaned after all

-Usnavi is the kind of parent that doesn’t sugarcoat life

-Vanessa listed no emergency contacts even though she had people

-“That’s senorita to you”=> yes girl, get it

-Love Daniela for getting everyone out of their asses

-“Tonteria” means foolishness=> the more you know

-How fast Carla says no to “ask me why” shows how quickly she wants to please her love

-Usnavi’s Nueva York t-shirt=> I need it

-Daniela’s first effect being on a woman whose hair is terrible

-Carla pushing that man away from her woman with a bullshit excuse

-My friend was laughing at the parts that were meant to be jokes

-Usnavi’s entrance being announced in Carnaval del Barrio; just like Benny in the opening song

-“There’s nothing holding me down”=> assuming he was rejected

-The different communities dancing with their flags

-Nina being part of Carnaval del Barrio is great

-Even Kevin, kind of an old man, can get down

-Since Nina and Benny sex scene wasn’t shown on screen (praise Jesus), I have to assume Nina told Daniela even though she knows she’s a huge gossip

-Everyone stops because Sonny, a kid, starts singing

-Vanessa and Sonny are so powerful together

-Vanessa’s hand on Sonny’s shoulder

-A kid providing Usnavi with the “flag I’ve got in my hand”

-Usnavi and Vanessa dancing together is muy romantico

-Everything about Nina’s appearance in “When the Sun Goes Down”

-“Let me just listen to my block”=> peak Nina

-Abuela wrote “for Usnavi” on her lotto ticket 😭

-They cut so many songs but kept Champagne=>I love their priorities

-The pause before “you outta stay”

-Everyone has such great chemistry; especially Usnavi and Vanessa

-The choreography in Champagne is what I’ve always imagined

-Usnavi didn’t have time to cash in because Vanessa came over

-Vanessa and Pete friendship for the win

-“Best days of my life” is said thrice=> good things come in threes

-Usnavi staring at the room where Vanessa kissed him

-Iris knows he stayed; she loves her dad so much

-Usnavi looking out his window in Washington Heights and seeing his friends on his dad’s beach

-When Usnavi talks about Kevin at the dispatch, the camera flashes to an abandoned building

-“Vanessa at the salon”=> Usnavi sheds a tear

-Vanessa being front and center during Usnavi’s decision to stay

-Hearing the sounds of the beach during the unveiling

-It’s all about Vanessa=> perfection

-Lin being at the ending is perfect no matter the context

-“Say it so it doesn’t disappear”=> the sad reality is your neighborhood probably will disappear

-Usnavi telling his daughter “you’re it” is everything

-Iris understanding all of the little details of her father’s store now that she knows his story

-Iris is the goddess of the rainbow like the light that appears when water appears on a sunlit day

-“Man, you talk forever”=> that’s so “How I Met Your Mother”

-Iris has a necklace of seashells, like the islands

-Vanessa would sooner get wet than let go of Usnavi’s hand

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librarified2004 · 8 years ago

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Here we go again...

This looked like fun. Hijacked from the amazing @the-random-fandom-one, so the actual title of this should be “@dammittmarie, you made me do another survey!” Reblog with your answers! I want to get more communication going in the writing community here. Answer one, answer some! Answer whatever you want to! 1. What was the first character you ever created? I’ve been writing stories since I could pick up a writing utensil. I think the first character I ever really put a ton of thought into, though, was this character I played in an MMORPG during undergrad. Her name was Lindarian, and her past was tragic: the half-elven child of an illegal union between a mortal and an elf princess, she was basically raised in seclusion only to watch her three older half-brothers and her parents be brutally murdered on her eighteenth birthday. Man, even before I knew what fanfiction was, I knew how to whump a character.

2. Is there a specific thing that made you want to start writing more? The MMORPG I played as an undergrad and grad student went down for good in about 2005, and after that, I stopped writing stories because there was no reason, really, to further develop that character. I got a job and started doing some professional writing--blogs and reviews and that kind of thing. Then I reconnected with an old friend who had written an entire book, and he started pushing me to do fiction again. I played around with some ideas, even published a short story, before I discovered fanfiction through a professional development class that I had to take. I can’t go back to school for my MFA in creative writing at this point, but I think writing fanfic is saving my sanity as well as giving me a sort of ad hoc, DIY MFA where I work at my own pace and set my own curriculum. Plus, some days it really saves my sanity. In the wise words of Lin-Manuel Miranda, I can pick up a pen and write my own deliverance.

3. Favorite character you’ve ever created? In the short story I published, “Swan Song,” I had this side character who existed simply to be my villain. I didn’t pay him much attention until very late in the creative process, when the editor said the big reveal was too abrupt. (He was right.) So I took that character out to coffee--literally, I took my laptop and a notebook to my favorite coffee place so I could have a distraction-free conversation with him--lit him a smoke (funny thing, I don’t smoke, but literally everyone in that story does and my smoker friends say I got that exactly right), and really, for the first time, tried to get to know him. I knew only the basics, but it turned out he had this whole past (tragic) and motivations that I’d never even seen. Knowing all this didn’t just change the reveal, it pivoted the entire story, and when I sat down to rework that reveal, the words just poured out. It turned out that he was rather an anti-villain and he ended up in an awesome place--if I ever write a sequel to that story, it will be his to tell. Nik, the villain of “Swan Song,” is my favorite because he taught me to look deeper, love harder, and never have a character unless you’ve taken the time to know them all the way down to their shoe size.

4. Do your stories tend to have only a few characters or a lot?

As few as possible. In fact, I kind of freak out a little bit when I realize I need another character to serve some purpose.

5. Do you sit down and plan out your worlds or just let them build themselves as you write?

Some of both, really. I tend to write a lot of fanfiction exchanges (or at least, that’s what gets published), and I always do a thorough canon review before I start plotting so I can get voices and world-building details right. My one published original short story is set in Moscow during WWII, and I did a bunch of research on that setting and time period before I went in, but I never really tried to force anything to fit. Interestingly, during revisions, I was able to go back and add date stamps to certain plot points based on my historical research. But that story also has a magic twist to it (it was for a fantasy anthology) and the magic part just came to me, no building required.

6. Do you ever meet people and want to write about them? Fictional characters, all the time. I love writing missing scenes. I don’t put much of real-life people into my characters (but I totally could--I work in a public library. Public libraries are literally the last remaining free resource in this country and my job is madness.)

7. What kind of environment do you do most of your writing in? Music or no music? Loud or quiet? In private or wherever? Depends on the day and the story. I have a novel in progress (which will never be finished, probably) and for that I have entire playlists of music for each character. But if there’s music, there can’t be words in a language I can understand, because I will end up singing along. No TV or movies, because I end up watching instead of writing. I like my backyard, and even better, my parents’ backyard. But when all else really fails, I’ll jot out whatever in the notes on my phone. I’m picky, but not picky at all. And if I’m on deadline, I will make that deadline come hell or high water or plague or fire or mass destruction.

8. Do the people in your life ever read what you write, or do you tend to not show them? Not fanfiction. I’m very, very protective of my writing in general. My mom was an English teacher (in fact, she was MY English teacher in tenth grade), and even when I was an undergrad getting my B.A. in English comp, she read all my essays with a red pen (after they’d been graded--and I graduated with a 4.0 in my major!). When I published my original short, she was so proud--and then she pointed out a glaring continuity mistake I had missed in about nine million rounds of editing. When I read my own stuff, I only see the mistakes, so I’m also shy about showing it to anyone else. That said, I have about a million partial fics rotting on my hard drive, phone notes, and Google docs, so someone might want to go after them if I ever shuffle off this mortal coil.

9. What inspires you? Oh my, so much. Music, other people’s stories, history, walks in the woods, the way the lights in the children’s room at the library change color. Literally everything. Probably the better question is who pushes me, and the answer to that is @dammittmarie, who got me into the school’s Dead Poets Society in undergrad (we met at midnight in the basement of the library and damn, we were cool) and the beautiful @rain-and-roses-in-the-city, who puts up with my crazy ideas, my headcanons, lets me play in her sandbox, and sometimes has even seen the partial stories I talked about earlier.

10. What’s the weirdest character you’ve ever created? Don’t really have one.

11. What’s the most boring character you’ve ever created? All of them, it feels like sometimes :)

12. Do you name your background characters? Do you even have them? I learned a hard lesson about knowing my characters, so now, if I can’t flesh them out, they don’t appear.

13. Are you one of the writers who writes in symbolism and specifically thinks about things like the color of a hat or that kind of thing? Or do you just pick those things at random? Sometimes. Not always.

14. Are there any authors you feel have influenced your style? Published authors, fanfic authors, ect. I learn things from everywhere. My gold standard for plot twists is the end of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which made me screech out loud on an airplane years ago. I think the Hamilton fandom in particular is full of talent, and the WhamFam especially (you know who you are). And going back to @dammittmarie, she’s the one who made me unashamed of being a whump writer.

15. Were you a story teller before you could write? Yes! I devoured books as a kid, and handwriting came super hard to me. You couldn’t read my penmanship until I was in junior high, so I learned storytelling in the oral tradition first.

16. How many characters have you created? Not too many. I tend not to write OCs in fanfiction for fear of them coming out like total, obvious Mary Sues. There are maybe a dozen characters in “Swan Song.”

17. Do your stories tend to take place in the real world or in a fantasy world? Both? Neither?

That depends on the story

18. Do you tend to set your stories in the present or the past or the future? Do you think about when it’s set or does that not factor into the story?

Whatever works on a given day for a given story, I guess. I love, love, love the canon era of Hamilton, but I also like modern AUs if they’re done well. So yeah, whatever works.

19. What kind of things do you like to write? Poetry? Short stories? Novels? Fanfiction? Children’s Books? Nonfiction? Something else entirely? Fan fiction for pleasure. My professional life includes writing book reviews, blog posts on various topics, and newsletters, so fan fiction is escapism for me.

20. Do you like to do events like NaNoWriMo or the Three Day Novel, or do you prefer to do things at your own pace? Yes and no. In my professional life, I’m a volunteer blogger and reviewer on top of the demands of my day job, so I’m almost always on deadline for something. (Right this second is actually an exception--I wrote two articles this weekend and I’m deadline-free until at least April 1.) I tend to write fan fiction at my own (snail on a strong sedative’s) pace, but I have signed up for NaNoWriMo a few times, and I might do Camp NaNo in April because I have a 5k exchange piece due at the end of the month. And the one piece that I’ve published that wasn’t fan fiction actually got finished because I went to a signing where there were like six people and ended up pouring my heart out to this poor author. I told her I had a story and no idea how to start, and she told me to write 100 words a day for 100 days and tweet her my word count every day. If I missed a day, I had to start over. I made it to 100 days, just over 11,000 words, and that piece is good--you can even buy it on Amazon.

#survey #dammittmarie #writer confession

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itsahamandjlaur-blog · 8 years ago

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New Year (Daveed Diggs x Reader)- Part two

Part One - Part Three . Masterlist

Summary: Daveed and reader think a lot about each others after they parted ways at Halloween. They meet again tho. My boi Lin appears too.

Warnings: probably swearing, sex is mentioned. Alcohol.

Word count: 1410

Enjoy and please give some feedback!!

-J. Laurens

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You still weren’t over with the fact that you had a famous rapper in your house, on Halloween night. Of course, you did your homework and got to know that he was starring in Hamilton, as Lafayette and Jefferson. You had listened to the musical before, because at the moment it was kind of a big deal, plus Lin-Manuel Miranda was known in the business for his genius. I mean, you owned a bookshop, you had to do with books. You just knew about the Pulitzer winners, even if you didn’t really follow them.

Weeks had passed, but his smile populated your dreams at night and your thoughts when the day at work was slow. You often felt yourself thinking what he was doing, if he was okay, and you fantasized that he waltzed in your bookstore by chance, maybe with one of his cast mates, in a moment of pure boringness.

Even though you dreamed about meeting him again, you were too shy to admit that you desperately wanted to see him again. Days passed, it was Christmas. You closed the shop and went home, you were originally from New York, but your family had moved upstate because they didn’t like the chaos of the city anymore; so you went to see them and spend some time with your parents and grandparents.

Your brothers were both married and had kids, which made you the subject of the family talks. Kind, isn’t it? You loved them, but sometimes it was a bit too much, so you stayed over for the last week of December, going back to New York only on the 30th, to spend New Year’s Eve alone, in Time Square, alone among thousands of people.

Daveed could not stop thinking about you. That nerdy girl who owned a bookshop and cooked a heavenly lasagna and wonderful cookies. You were always on his mind and he even knew where your workplace was, but he was too anxious to just go there and greet you. He had done that before, asked girls out, dated. But with you…it all seemed different. He wanted to get to know you, he wanted to do what he hadn’t done with the other girls. He felt something more than just butterflies in his stomach, and he didn’t even know you; so, after the last performance before Christmas break, he decided to leave the Big Apple and go back to Oakland, to spend time with his family and celebrate. He thought it was the best way, not being in the same city as you had its perks. He could think about you, talk about you with his best friend, Rafa, who wouldn’t go to the bookstore and tell you Daveed liked you; like Lin would’ve done.

Daveed came back the same day you did, almost at the same time. You had took the train, you liked the journey in the green, it helped your imagination and usually wrote good pieces to print out on bookmarks you gave freely in the shop; and then the subway. He had took the plane, then a taxi to his loft in the Village. You both were exhausted once arrived home. Your movement mirrored: you took a shower, put on a pyjama and then went to bed.

You spent New Year’s Eve at home, crawled on the couch reading, listening to music and watching tv; until it was 10 in the evening, when you finally decided to leave to go and see the concert in Time Square, only to come back 3 hours later, change again and go to bed.

Daveed was at a party with some friends. It was loud and people were everywhere. Normally, he would’ve loved the atmosphere, but he was off. You hadn’t left his mind in so long; it was the first time a girl had that effect on him. So he did the only thing he knew that would’ve silenced his mind: drank. Daveed started drinking some beer before getting on with the stronger beverages, only to set on tequila for most of the night. Only in that way, he could really have fun. He didn’t notice that, when the clock stroke 12, he kissed the first girl that was trying to get on with him and then brought her to his bed.

The morning after, he woke up with a stranger in his bed, a pounding headache and a sense of guilt on him. He sighed, then got some Advil to calm his head, and then went to wake up the girl, whose name ignored, who got up and slutry whispered a “call me” to him, who reluctantly nodded and closed the door once she was out.

You didn’t get any sleep all night. People were partying hard and you just felt lonely, and had no friends to attend parties with. You just spent all day curled in bed only to fall asleep again.

Why did a boy mean this much to you?

It wasn’t only the week after, when you had reopened the bookstore, that you two met again. It was a cold January morning and snow was everywhere. You were at the front desk, as usual, sitting on the little chair and sipping a cup of tea while reading a book; classical music was playing for the speakers and a smile was dancing on your face. You were in your happy place, and at the moment you weren’t worrying about a certain rapper that you barely knew and who had seen you at your worst.

You were lost in your trail of thoughts when the door opened and two really loud men entered the shop. “I’m telling you, man! This is really good! We should add it to the choreography. The kids are going to love it, trust me.” The shorter said. He spoke a lot and very fast, accompanying his words with gestures of his hands, that got faster when he grew more excited. You didn’t see his companion because was hidden by the shelves. They had a tour and moved their conversation in a part of the shop you didn’t see. You sighed and continued to read your book, until he spoke to you. “Hi! I’m looking for this book! It’s a very old one and I used to own a copy but I lost it, never trust the moving companies. I can’t find it anywhere. Do you have it?” the guy with the goatee was in front of you, smiling and ranting about this book, White Nights, by Dostoevsky; one of your personal favourites. You smiled and nodded, then got up and gestured him to follow you.

“I’m sorry, it’s a bit messy. I- uh. Here is where I keep the Russians. Let’s see… War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Idiot… Ah! Here it is! White Nights, by Fedor Michalovich Dostoevsky. One of my personal favourites,” you said, smiling to the man, who tanked you and took the book from your hands.

You turned to get to your desk, but you ended up into someone, the second man. “I’m so sorry I- Daveed?” you said, looking up from his chest. “[Y/N]?? Oh God I’m so happy to see you again! How are you? Is this your bookstore?” He said, a smile on his face. You nodded enthusiastically, stepping away from him, and blushing. “I’m so happy to see you too! I’m good, what about you? Yes it is…I know it’s not much but it’s homey enough for me.” You replied, smiling even more. You were back at the front desk. “I’m good too…I wanted to ask you something” He said, only to be interrupted by his friend saying “Daveed, I’m heading back to the theatre. How much for the book?” He asked, you shook your head “It’s on the house, no one ever buys Dostoevsky anymore and it makes me sad, so it’s a gift.” You said and saw the man smile, “Damn Diggs, I like her! I will see you around, bye!” He said, then he was off. You laughed at his behaviour and saw Daveed blush.

“Did Lin-Manuel Miranda just say that he likes me?!” “I’m pretty sure that he just did. And he will ramble about you for days because you just gave him a book important to you for free.” He chuckled. You smiled and got back to the main topic.

“So, you were saying?” “Do you want to go on a date, with me?”

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weekendwarriorblog · 6 years ago

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND December 21, 2018 - Mary Poppins Returns, Aquaman, Bumblebee, Second Act, Welcome to Marwen

This was going to be my last column for the year, but there’s just too much to write about, so I’m going to split it up and publish another, hopefully shorter, column next Monday. This is the last weekend before Christmas, and while there are a ton of big movies released – as well as a couple lower-key ones – most of these movies will just be doing a very small part of their overall business in the generally slower weekend before they explode next week with everyone off from school and most off from work all week.

MARY POPPINS RETURNS (Disney)

Opening on Wednesday is Walt Disney Pictures’ last prospective blockbuster of the year as well as a sequel to one of the company’s most iconic films over its entire history, 1964’s Mary Poppins, which was nominated for 13 Oscars, winning five. Mary Poppins Returns might also be Disney’s first big play for a Best Picture nomination since The Helpin 2011, which actually was a DreamWorks movie. Then again, Disney already seemingly has its stokes in the Oscar fire this year with Marvel’s Black Panther, so this family musical in the Walt Disney tradition might be suitable back-up.

It’s the latest movie directed by Rob Marshall, who helped Disney’s Miramax division win Best Picture with his theatrical directorial debut Chicago, then delivered a musical holiday hit for Disney four years ago with Into the Woods, which grossed $128 million from a Christmas Day release. Chicago grossed $170 million after its own Christmas Day platform release in 2002, and that got Marshall the gig directing 2011’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which grossed $241 million in North America but did even better with $800 million overseas.

Marshall reunites with a couple of his Into the Woods stars, most notably Emily Blunt, who is so perfect to step into the very big shoes of the original Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews. Blunt is already having quite a spectacular year after starring in hubby John Krasinski’s The Quiet Place, which grossed $188 million domestically, making it Blunt’s highest-grossing movie to date. A few years ago, Blunt starred in the movie based on the bestselling book The Girl on the Train, which also did decently with $75 million, and that was mostly based on her name (and the book, of course.) That should be enough to help place Blunt even closer to the A-list and playing Mary Poppins is likely to solidify that role. Who knows? It might even get her that Oscar nomination that has been so elusive despite having six Golden Globe nominations.

Of course, Blunt is ably helped by popular actor-rapper-songwriter Lin Manuel Miranda, whose Hamilton broke many records for Broadway musical and who is working on adapting his previous musical In the Heights for the screen. Miranda previously got involved with the Disney brand when he wrote songs and provided his voice for Dwayne Johnson’s Moana a few years back, and no surprise that he’s out there doing the most press and talk shows for Mary Poppins Returns. Then on top of those two stars, Marshall and Blunt also reunite with Into the Wood’s Oscar-nominated scene stealerMeryl Streep, clearly an A-list star who can bring people out to see almost anything she does, although she only appears for one song/musica number in this movie. The cast is rounded out by Ben Whishaw, James Bond’s Q, and Emily Mortimer, another great British actor, plus there are a couple highly-publicized cameos by original Mary Poppins stars that will be a thrill to fans of the original.

The thing is that there’s a whole generation or two that did not grow up watching the original Disney movie, so they won’t have the personal connection to the character/movie as their parents might. Also, one can expect that males of all ages will be more interested in checking out Aquaman or Bumblebee their opening weekend,

It’s important to remember a couple things – the first one being that the weekend before Christmas can be slower than usual, and the second being that opening on Wednesday means that really diehard fans who can’t wait until the weekend might try to see it before heading out of town for the holidays. On the other hand, some might just wait until the weekend or until Christmas week to see it with their families. Either way, these things will likely keep the movie’s weekend numbers to be too crazy.

Because of that, I can see Mary Poppins Returns making around $10 million on Wednesday and Thursday, getting a nice bump over the weekend to just over $40 million, but REALLY exploding in the week beginning with Christmas to the point where I can see it hitting $200 million by New Year’s Day, which would be quite amazing for a studio that is having their best year ever.

MY REVIEW OF MARY POPPINS RETURNS

AQUAMAN (Warner Bros.)

It’s hard to imagine the latest movie from Warner Bros’ DC Universe might be considered counter-programming to a Disney movie, but let’s face it, Warner Bros. has been struggling against the Disney-Marvel Studios titan for a bunch of years now, and they need a way back into fans’ good graces after last year’s Justice League and 2015’s Suicide Squad.

It’s hard to believe that anyone would ever make an Aquaman movie, especially after the famous Entouragegag – not to mention Saturday Night Liveand others making fun of the character. Jason Momoa’s Atlantean warrior from the Justice League movie is indeed getting his own solo movie, directed by James Wan of Furious 7 and three horror franchises: Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring.

Joining Momoa as Mera is Amber Heard, who also had a brief appearance in Justice League, but has mainly been off-the-grid with the long-delayed London Fields and in the tabloids for her issues with her ex Johnny Depp. Heard hasn’t really been in a major release since the Oscar bait The Danish Girl and Magic Mike XXL in 2015.

The cast also includes Oscar winner Nicole Kidman (as Aquaman’s mother), Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe (as Aquaman’s advisor) and Wan regular Patrick Wilson as his brother Orm aka one of the film’s main baddies, Ocean Master. It also stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Aquaman’s other bad guy, Black Manta.

Reviewsfor the movie have generally been mixed but on par with Mary Poppins Returns, maybe a little lower, but much better than Justice Leagueor Suicide Squad. (Thank, God!) Warner Bros. even gave the movie sneak previews this past Saturday for Amazon Prime users, in which it made $2.9 million. That might help get the word out on the movie, but it also might take some money away from the movie’s opening weekend, since many probably went to see it early from positive reviews.

The movie will also have to tackle the most direction competition from Paramount’s Bumblebee (see below) as well as last week’s well-received Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which is likely to have strong word-of-mouth business from last weekend going by its rare A+ CinemaScore.

Expect Aquaman to do decently over the pre-holiday weekend with $70 to 75 million, because as mentioned before, many people are travelling or doing last-minute shopping over the weekend, but expect it to continue to bring in repeat business over the holidays, so I could see it grossing $250 million or slightly more by the time it leaves theaters.

Also, make sure to check out my interview with director James Wan over at the awesome new VitalThrills.com! Very excited to have a byline on that relatively new site!

MY REVIEW OF AQUAMAN

BUMBLEBEE (Paramount)

The third big movie of the weekend -- and some will find it crazy that Paramount is releasing it this weekend against the two stronger movies above -- is the latest movie in the Transformers franchise, the prequel telling the story of Autobot Bumblebee.

Directed by Travis Knight, the CEO of Laika Studios and director of the stop-motion animated Kubo and the Two Strings, this is a prequel that shows the origin of the beloved Transformer character as he’s sent to earth during the Fall of Cybertron and ends up befriending a rebellious teenager (played by Hailee Steinfeld) in 1987.

Having a female lead in a Transformers is quite groundbreaking since women were mostly used as eye candy in Michael Bay’s movies, but Hailee Steinfeld has done a good job establishing herself with her debut role in the Coens’ True Grit, for which she received an Oscar nomination. Since then, she’s been in films like Ender’s Game, Begin Again, Pitch Perfect 2 and most recently, voicing the role of Spider-Gwen in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

On the plus side, having a female lead might help bring in younger girls that might not normally be interested in Transformers, but it could theoretically turn off the guys who have already been complaining about the female leads in the Star Wars saga. Both franchises are very male-driven, and both of the new movies above will be of equal interest to anyone who might be interested in Bumblebee.

Fortunately, Bumblebee is much better than most people are expecting, and some might be surprised that it currently has better reviews than both Aquaman AND Mary Poppins with 98% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, as of this writing. It does have a ton of competition arriving in theaters, but it’s fairly clear that Paramount and Allspark Films (the film division of Hasbro) are hoping to get some run-off over the holidays from people who have already seen the above two movies, as well as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The fact that Paramount gave a well-attended early sneak preview of Bumblebee on Dec 8 gives you some idea how confident they are that the fans will dig so.

Even so, Bumblebee will be lucky to make more than $20 million this weekend, although there might be enough room with most people off work and out of school on Sunday to see more than one movie this weekend. I can see this one making around $25 million over the weekend but it should also be able to exceed $100 million by New Year’s, and its overseas money should help Paramount stay in the Transformers business for some time.

MY REVIEW OF BUMBLEBEE

SECOND ACT (STXfilms)

And then we get to some big-time counter-programming, and in this case, it might be a movie that might have a hard time finding an audience, especially against Mary Poppins Returns.

Second Actcould just as well have been called “Jennifer Lopez Returns,” because it is in fact her first major non-voice role in theaters since 2015’s thriller The Boy Next Door. That movie was a bit of a joke, yet it still opened with nearly $15 million and grossed $35.3 million based on her role. Her previous movie Parker two years earlier didn’t fair particularly well, much of which may be attributed to her not being as much in the public eye in terms of movies anyway.

Directed by Peter Segal (50 First Dates), Second Actis more in vein of Lopez’s 2002 hit Maid in Manhattan, which grossed $94 million over the holidays after a moderate $18.7 million December opening. Lopez went on to have a few other romantic comedy hits after that including Shall We Danceand Monster-in-Law, but others like The Back-Up Plan (2010) and What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2012) barely made it to $40 million domestic.

That brings us to 2018 where Lopez hasn’t really been in a movie in some time but still has quite a few female fans, and maybe some of them might not be so interested in the mostly white Mary Poppins Returns. (Yes, I realize Lin Manuel Miranda is Puerto Rican-American … no need to write that angry letter/tweet!)

The movie offers a great premise which has Lopez making it in big business after a friend makes up a fake Facebook account, and it’s something that helps push the female empowerment conversation from the past few years even further. Earlier this year, STX released Amy Schumer’s I Feel Pretty, which did decently with $16 million opening, grossing nearly $49 million domestically, despite terrible reviews.

The trailers for Second Act have been received similarly well and Lopez has been doing her fair share of the talk show rounds, but otherwise, STX has only opened one movie with more than $20 million, and that was 2016’s Bad Moms, which was an easy sell even for its rushed-out sequel Bad Moms Christmaslast year.

Even though Second Actseems like a strong inspirational story, it also seems like the definition of a holiday movie that’s released in the bad weekend pre-Christmas, in which it probably couldn’t make more than $8 million. If the movie is as good as it looks, I can see women going to see it with female friends over the holidays to make it a sleeper with between $40 and 50 million total.

Mini-Review: I didn’t go into Second Act expecting much, even though Peter Segal did direct one of Adam Sandler’s better films (50 First Dates). I certainly didn’t expect that I’d relate to Jennifer Lopez’s Maya as much as I did. No, I’m not a Latina woman from Queens who works in a supermarket, but I have been having trouble getting a job since I don’t have a degree despite having 25 years of experience writing for the internet.

But enough about me, let’s get back to Second Act, a movie with such an up-front premise that you will pretty much get exactly what you might expect if you’ve seen the trailer and liked what you saw. Somehow, Maya finds herself as a consultant at a big-name corporation’s make-up department because her friend’s son doctored her resumé and Facebook page.

Lopez is definitely in her element with this sort of premise which falls somewhere between Working Girl and 13 Going on 30, and if you like those inspirational woman-empowerment comedies, then you’ll probably find elements to like about Second Act as well.

Much of that is due to Lopez’s supporting cast, a group of underrated funny women like Leah Remini (as Maya’s best friend) and Charlyne Yi (an office assistant) plus Vanessa Hudgens proving once again that she’s quite good at handling anything that’s thrown her way as Maya’s primary competition at the company. Some of the jokes work better than others, but whenever Remini is on-screen, you can expect to laugh.

Sure, the overall premise is one that’s already a little hard to swallow, but then it goes off the rails with a twist absolutely no one will see coming. And yet, it somehow finds a way to recover nicely and get its audience back.

Regardless, Second Act is a perfectly harmless and safe film that gives you more than a few laughs, might even have you in tears at times, but basically gives you exactly what’s advertised, which is something rather rare these days.

Rating: 7/10

WELCOME TO MARWEN (Universal)

Lastly, there’s the latest movie from Robert Zemeckis, which ten to fifteen years ago, may have been a huge deal, especially following the huge success he had with Tom Hanks inCast Awayand Forest Gump, both which were Oscar-nominated (and winning) mega-blockbusters.

Zemeckis’ last film, the WWII spy drama Allied, only made $40 million despite starting Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, and his real-life story The Walkstarring Joseph Gordon Lewis might as well have been thrown over the side of the World Trade Center, because it tanked so badly. Zemeckis’ last hit was Flight, starring Denzel Washington, which barely grazed $100 million domestic, but also received two Oscar nominations. The three movies before that were performance capture animated movies with had varying degrees of success.

Like Flight and The Walk, Welcome to Marwenis based on a true story, that of artist Mark Hogancamp, who was injured in a brutal attack and finds therapeutic solace in the models and dolls he builds in his backyard. Hogancamp’s story was previously told in Jeff Maimberg’s award-winning doc Marwencol in 2010, although I’m not sure that many people are aware that doc exists.

Like Nicole Kidman above, this is Steve Carell’s third movie of the year, including the Christmas Day opener Vice, and his last drama Beautiful Boy has only grossed $7.5 million… and that was with super-hot Timothée Calamet! Carell’s 2017 releases, Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying and Battle of the Sexes haven’t fared much better, and he’s generally done better voicing Gru in Illumination Studios’ Despicable Me and Minions movies. For this one, Carell is co-starring Leslie Mann (reuniting with Carell for the first time since his breakout film The 40 Year Old Virgin), Eisa Gonzalez from Baby Driver, Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie, Diane Kruger and Janelle Monae, a solid female supporting cast, for sure.

There have been many movies like this released right before Christmas in hopes for any sort of business over the holidays. Movies like Jim Carrey’s The Majestic opened with less than $5 million in 2001, and Will Smith’s Collateral Beautyonly did slightly better in 2016 with its $7 million opening. Also, there was the Tom Hanks movie Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which only got a platform release over Christmas, which is generally the way to go for movies looking for Oscar nominations.

In some ways, Marwen reminds me of Ben Stiller’s 2013 remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which opened on Christmas Day (a Wednesday) with $7.8 million and made another $12.7 million on its way to $58 million domestic. I don’t think Marwen could do that well since it’s opening before the Christmas holiday bump, because Universal is only opening Zemeckis’ latest in 1,900 theaters, and the movie has barely been screened for critics or awards groups before this coming week, which tells you that the studio doesn’t see it being an Oscar player.

Frankly, I’d be shocked if Marwen made more than $5 million this weekend, but if it’s any good, it could make upwards of $30 million but not much more. There’s just too much stronger competition in theaters.

Mini-Review: If you haven’t seen Jeffrey Maimberg’s doc – and I haven’t – then you might be even more puzzled by why Robert Zemeckis might want to dramatize the story of artist Mark Hogancamp who was beaten up outside an upstate bar and left in such a bad mental state, he lost all his memories. In order to get through the repercussions of such an assault, he began building a small town called Marwencol in his backyard, populating it with dolls that he would put into various hero scenarios.

Maybe this premise wouldn’t be so weird if the movie doesn’t start off with a WWII action scene involving Carell’s Captain Hogie in doll form taking on Nazis and being saved by a group of women… and the seeming cross between live action and animation just gets weirder and weirder as the movie goes along. There’s also Mark’s proclivity for collecting and wearing women’s high heel shoes, which also plays a pivotal role in the story, as does a “Belgian witch” named Deja (after the John Carter of Mars character), who is voiced by Diane Kruger, who doesn’t have a real-life counterpart like all of Hogie’s other women.

Sometime in the past ten years or more, you may have heard one woman or another complain about the body issues created by Barbie dolls that real girls couldn’t possibly live up to… so take that and then add a poorly-chosen Robert Palmer song, and you can understand why this movie might get many young women bristled.

It’s hard to completely hate a movie that features Leslie Mann in such a key role as Mark’s across-the-street neighbor Nicol, on which he has developed such a huge crush. This 40-Year-Old Virgin offers the movie’s sweetest and most emotional moments but then it’s soon lost in more silliness with dolls or once again showing Mark being beaten up on that fateful night. Janelle Monae and some of the other actors are wasted, barely appearing fully in human form.

The saddest part about this movie is that it’s painfully aware that Zemeckis has completely lost touch with the kind of movies that audiences might want to see, and Welcome to Marwen frequently has you asking, “Who was this movie supposed to be for?” Rating: 5/10

It certainly will be interesting to see how the top 3 movies fare in a busy pre-Christmas weekend, but even moreso to see how they affect the well-received Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Clint Eastwood’s The Mule, although the former will probably be more affected than the latter. Fox Searchlight will continue to expand The Favourite nationwide, this Friday into 775, as it racks up awards and nominations, although I’m not sure that will be enough to break into the top 10. It probably will end up with around $2 million or so, as will, Focus Features’ Mary Queen of Scots, starring Saoirse Ronan, which will expand into 700 theaters with Ronan doing the talk show rounds this week. It’s a battle of the costume dramas outside the top 10, but expect both of them to find business over the holidays.

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this… (and mind you, these are all for three days, Friday through Sunday)

1. Aquaman (Warner Bros.) - $73.6 million N/A 2. Mary Poppins Returns (Disney) - $41 million N/A ($10 million on Weds/Thursday) 3. Bumblebee (Paramount) - $25.5 million N/A 4. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (Sony) - $19.4 million -45% 5.The Mule (Warner Bros.) - $9.1 million -48% 6. Second Act (STXfilms) - $7.5 million N/A 7. The Grinch (Universal) - $7 million -40% 8. Welcome to Marwen (Universal) - $5 million N/A 9.Ralph Breaks the Internet (Disney) – $4.4 million -48% 10. Mortal Engines (Universal) - $3.4 million -55% -- The Favourite (Fox Searchlight) - $2.1 million -- Mary Queen of Scots (Focus Features) - $1.8 million

LIMITED RELEASES

Thankfully, things are slowing down as far as limited releases with only a few left this weekend and a couple more next week.

First up is the new film from Oscar-winning Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowsky (Ida), as COLD WAR (Amazon Studios), this one a love story between a young singer and older conductor and how that relationship evolves over the course of the years and a number of world events that try to come between them. I wrote about the film briefly when it played the New York Film Festival earlier this year and hope to rewatch it over the holidays, because it’s quite amazing. A wonderful story told in a tight 90 minutes, all in black and white with fantastic cinematography by Lukasz Zal, who received an Oscar nomination for his camerawork and lighting on Ida. It opens in select cities on Friday.

Opening in L.A. for a one-week Oscar consideration run is Kenneth Branagh’s ALL IS TRUE (Sony Pictures Classics), which I haven’t had a chance to seen myself, but it takes place during the final years of William Shakespeare in 1613 with Branagh playing the playwright, Judi Dench playing his wife Anne and Ian McKellen as the Earl of Southampton, who according to Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous, may have authored Shakespeare’s works. It follows the burning down of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater which sends him back to his family in Stratford. No word on when it will get a normal theatrical release, but from what I heard, it doesn’t have much of a chance for Oscars either.

Written by Luc Besson and Richard Wenk (The Equalizer) and directed by Steven Quale (Final Destination 5), American Renegades (Europacorp) follows a group of Navy SEALS who have hidden a vast treasure underwater in a lake in Sorbia. It stars Sullivan Stapleton (300: Rise of an Empire), JK Simmons, Sylvia Hoeks (Blade Runner 2049) and others, and I’m not 100% convinced it’s going to be in many theaters this Friday, but it will be on VOD and digital download on Christmas Day.

Maria Pulero’s psychological thriller Between Worlds (Saban Films), playing in New York (Cinema Village) and L.A. (Arena Cinelounge) following its VOD release earlier in the week, stars Nicholas Cage as truck driver Joe, who has an encounter with a fellow trucker Julie (Franka Potente, The Bourne Identity) who is able to travel through the astral plane to communicate with the dead. When her daughter Billie (Penelope Mitchell from Hemlock Grove) ends up in a motorcycle accident, Julie uses her power to try to bring her back but instead brings back Joe’s ex-wife and puts her spirit in Billie’s body. Sexual hijinks ensue.

This holiday’s special Bollywood film is Aanand Rai’s Zero (Yash Raj Films USA Inc.), starring Shah Rukh Khan as a young man from a wealthy affluent family who meets two women (Katrina Kaif, Anushka Sharma) who take him on a journey to broaden his horizons. It should be in a couple hundred theaters on Friday.

Also on Wednesday night is a special screening of Christina Kallas’ ensemble drama The Rainbow Experiment (Gravitas), which was the opening night film of this past year’s 13thAnnual Harlem International Film Festival and is currently on VOD. It will screen at the Xavier High School where it was filmed Weds. at 6pm, and you can find out more information and get tickets on the Facebook page.

STREAMING

Streaming on Netflix Friday is the post-apocalyptic thriller BIRD BOX, directed by Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier (In a Better World) and adapted from Josh Malerman’s novel with Eric Heisserer (Arrival). It stars Sandra Bullock as a woman travelling with two small children down a river, all three blindfolded to prevent them from being affected by a virus that has forced millions of people to commit suicide. Since I don’t have many limited releases, I’m going to go ahead and review the movie which I got to see Monday night.

I haven’t read the book, but this is a really interesting decision for Bier, who has done smaller dramas for the most part, and Bird Box really allows her to up her game with a couple action set pieces as well as a lot more involved story. Although much of the marketing has focused on Bullock’s boat trip with the two kids, the movie spends just as much time five years earlier as some kind of virus or event causes millions across the globe to kill themselves. It’s quickly determined that being outside with your eyes open causes you to become infected by the deadly virus.

Bullock’s character is pregnant and she ends up fleeing to a house full of a disparate group of characters played by John Malkovich, B.D. Wong, Trevante Rhodes from Moonlight, Rosa Salazar, Jacki Weaver, Lil Rel Howery (Get Out) and Machine Gun Kelly. They’re soon joined by an also-pregnant Danielle McDonald (Dumplin’), as the film cuts between this group trying to survive and get along with Bullock and the two kids rowing down the river with the blanks filled in as it goes along.

I really found this to be a fascinating high-concept premise that actually thrived from the interesting cast and Bier’s ability with pulling out great emotions from an audience through performances and the remarkable score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Of course, Bullock is as fantastic as always but I was equally impressed with Rhodes who is proving himself to be a heroic lead that audiences can root for. The film has lots of twists that keep you guessing a out what might happen as others are introduced in to the mix, and frankly, I found myself liking this as much or more than A Quiet Place, mainly due to the cast. I also have to say that it was very enjoyable seeing the movie with an audience as well, and it will play in a couple theaters Friday.

Rating: 7.5/10

Also streaming on Netflix Friday is Irek Dobrowolski’s doc Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski about the Polish surrealist who was rediscovered in 1968 by pop culture collector Glenn Bray who brought it to the attention of underground comic publisher George DiCaprio. (George and his famous son Leo are two of the producers on the film.)

REPERTORY

In some cases, this week is a continuation of series that began last week, so if you see your favorite repertory theater missing, then just go back and check last week’s column. Also, the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn will be showing René Manzor’s 1989 French genre holiday film Dial Code Santa Claus (a new 2K restoration via AGFA)on Dec. 19 (sold out!) and Dec. 23.

METROGRAPH (NYC):

In the Year of the Grifter continues, while the weekend’s Playtime: Family Matinee is The Muppet Christmas Carol, while the Metrograph will continue to show some popular holiday favorites in its series Holidays at the Metrotraph, which includes The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), Vincente Minell’s Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Joe Dante’s Gremlins (I984), John Landis’ Trading Places (1983), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread (2017) and of course, Todd Haynes’ Carol.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Beginning on Friday is a new 4k restoration of Marcel Pagnol’s The Baker’s Wife (Janus Films) from 1938, another French filmmaker who I know every little about, although this stars Raim, who also starred in Pagnol’s Marseilles Trilogy. This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is the late, great Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 filmThe Circus.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

The theater’s Holiday Spirit 2018 series continues with double features of Tim Burton’s Batman Returns and Joe Dante’s Gremlins, as well as the even odder double feature ofDie Hard(1988) and Trail of Robin Hood (1950). On Saturday night, there’s a “Cyberpunk Megazone” double feature of 1995’s Virtual Assassin and Hologram Man with introduction by Rob Schrab. And on Saturday… It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) but also another oddball holiday double feature of The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982) and The Oracle (1985).

AERO (LA):

American Cinemateque’s other L.A. theater is also getting into the Holiday Spirit with The Lion in Winter (1968) on Thursday night, Will Ferrell’s Elf (2003) on Friday, Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) on Saturday and It’s a Wonderful Life TWICE (!) on Sunday, because that seems to be the go-to for repertory theaters this season.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Visconti’s Death in Venice (1971) continues through Thursday and the theater’s vast Rated X series will continue into the new year with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981), the Japanese erotic drama In the Realm of the Senses (1976) playing over the weekend, as well as many more.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Yup, It’s a Wonderful Life will continue to play here as well, while this weekend’s Late Night Favorites will be David Byrne’s Eraserhead, the Weekend Classics Coen Bros. movie is The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) on 35mm, and this weekend’s Shaw Brothers Spectacular running Friday, Saturday and Sunday at midnight is Holy Flame of the Martial World (1983).

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Tarantino’s renovated theater continues its holiday celebrations with double features of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Scrooged on Weds. and Thurs. (sold out online but with tickets at the door). It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story play as double features on Friday and Saturday, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Jingle All the Way has matinees on Saturday and Sunday, and then Die Hard and The Silent Partner play as double features on Sunday and Monday’s Christmas Eve.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Also showing Bruce Willis’ Die Hard at midnight on Friday night.

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER(NYC):

The amazing Jacques Tourneur, Fearmaker series continues, and between this, the Quad’s Rated X series and all the great programming at the Metrograph, New York repertory-philes should be set for the weekend before Christmas and next week, as well.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Douglas Fairbanks Jr. continues with The Exile (1947) on Weds., Sinbad the Sailor (1947) and The Dawn Patrol (1930) on Friday.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

A Cher For All Seasons continues.

I was hoping this would be the last column of the year, but there are two new movies opening in wide release on Tuesday, Christmas Day,the Will Ferrell-John C. Reilly comedy HOLMES AND WATSON (Sony) and the Will Ferrell-produced Adam McKay semi-comedy VICE (Annapurna Pictures). Instead of bombarding you with more numbers and info, I will post another mini-column NEXT MONDAY. Something to read while you wait for Santa to bring you better presents.

#WhatToWatchThisWeekend MaryPoppins MaryPoppinsReturns Aquaman Bumblebee SecondAct JenniferLopez BirdBox Movies Reviews Streaming

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