Holiday trailer haul

We’re approaching the end of the year, which means holiday movie season, and while Wicked: For Good and Avatar: Fire Nation & Ash are expected to dominate the box office, there is plenty of other stuff coming down the pike, too. 

To wit, The Testament of Ann Lee dropped a new teaser yesterday. Check it out:

 

The film is directed by Mona Fastvold and is co-written by Fastvold and her husband/creative partner, Brady Corbet. It’s an historical musical about Ann Lee, one of the founding members of the Shaker religious sect. The film stars Amanda Seyfreid as Ann Lee, and Lewis Pullam as her brother, William Lee. Now, I am here for Amanda Seyfreid making a run at Oscar—which she very well could do on the back the rave reviews she is getting for this film—and you know I support Lewis Pullman Ascendency, but MUST I see TWO musicals this year? It’s two too many.

Speaking of musicals, another music biopic is coming, this time centered on Michael Jackson. This is Antoine Fuqua’s film which had to undergo reshoots after the production learned too late that Jackson’s estate made a deal with the family of one of the children who accused Jackson of molestation in 1993 to exclude the family from any film representation. Reportedly, the beginning of the film and the third act had to be heavily rewritten and re-shot to exclude the Chandler family. Now, we have a trailer for Michael. It looks very hagiographic.

 

Despite all the years of allegations and controversies, and his death at age 50, Michael Jackson remains perennially popular. His music is irresistible—I know a LOT of people who struggle with cutting him out of their playlists. Just like Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie itself does not have to be good to be a hit because the music is the real star, and people will turn up for the music. Also, Michael is a family affair as Jaafar Jackson, son of Jermaine Jackson, portrays his uncle on this big screen. People are going to love that bit. The trailer is doing huge numbers and there’s already talk of a sequel.

I am a little worried, though, that we’re inevitably going to learn the wrong lessons. Bohemian Rhapsody was a huge hit, I bet Michael will be, too, when it comes out next April. Meanwhile, the more serious, downbeat Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, is face-planting at the box office. It’s a good movie and there’s still Oscar buzz around it, but when executives look at the bottom line, which type of music biopic do you think they’ll be likely to greenlight, the thoughtful, introspective one, or the jukebox musical one? 

Also, Michael features Miles Teller looking like this:

 

Yikes.

Finally, a couple of holiday movies. One is literally holiday themed: Oh. What. Fun. comes from Michael Showalter and stars Michelle Pfeiffer as a does-it-all mom who burns out and flees her family during Christmas. 

 

Denis Leary is in a holiday movie I’ve always enjoyed, The Ref, so I want to give Michael Showalter credit for bringing one of comedy’s marquee assholes back into the holiday movie fold, but the dye job is just so distracting. The cast is solid, including Felicity Jones, Dominic Sessa, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Jason Schwartzman, though I do not buy any of these people are from the same family. It’s not like The Family Stone, in which I believe Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson produced Rachel McAdams, Luke Wilson, Dermot Mulroney, Elizabeth Reaser, and Tyrone Giordano. I believe they’re a family, mainly because their performances made me dislike all the Stones equally. Maybe Oh. What. Fun. will similarly convince me that there is a world in which Michelle Pfeiffer and Denis Leary coexist on the same plane of existence. 

The final trailer is the red-band edit for Fackham Hall, a British cozy mystery/period drama spoof that I am not 100% convinced is real. Supposedly, it is coming out in December. I don’t quite believe it. 

 

Every time I watch a trailer for Fackham Hall, I have to look the film up and make sure it’s real. According to IMDb and Wikipedia, it is, but…I don’t know. I still think it might be an elaborate joke. We can’t possibly be so lucky in this year of yuck to get two good spoof movies (The Naked Gun being the other one). Making the motto for an aristocratic family incestus ad infinitum is too good of a joke. I won’t believe it until I see it because the best joke of all would be to produce a series of high-quality trailers for a spoof movie that doesn’t exist.