As the year draws to a close, an intriguing collection of films comes to UK cinemas.
Violent Night
As if Santa Claus didn’t have enough to do each December… This black comedy action pic from Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow) sees Father Christmas turn action hero when a group of mercenaries attack a wealthy family’s home on Christmas Eve. Stranger Things‘ David Harbour gets into the red and white costume (and behind the beard), as he goes up against bad guy Mr Scrooge (John Leguizamo) and his henchmen. “Now I have a machine gun, ho-ho-ho” indeed…
White Noise
Another Netflix title sneaks onto the big screen ahead of its streaming premiere date, this time an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel by director Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story) that begins streaming on December 30. Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig star in the apocalyptic black comedy, following a professor of “Hitler studies” and his family, whose lives are upended by an “Airborne Toxic Event”.
The Silent Twins
Letitia Wright (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) and Tamara Lawrence (The Long Song) play twin sisters with an eerie past and an uncertain future in this uneasy Cannes-selected drama from the director of 2015’s bizarre (and excellent) mermaid musical The Lure. Based on a true story, the twins pull away from the world, rejecting communication with anyone but each other, retreating into a shared, private world of their own creation…
Avatar: The Way of Water
December sees the return of one of the greatest directors of all time—mid-month we’ll find out if James Cameron do it all over again, with this sequel to 2009’s smash. The first of four planned sequels, as the title (and the underwater filming) suggests, Avatar: The Way of Water explores the oceans of Pandora. Zoe Saldaña, Sam Worthington, Stephen Lang and Sigourney Weaver all return, joined by Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis and Jemaine Clement.
I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Naomi Ackie (The End of the F***ing World) plays the one and only Whitney Houston in this career-spanning biopic of the R&B pop legend. Stanley Tucci plays record mogul Clive Davis, The Wire‘s Clarke Peters is Whitney’s father, and Moonlight‘s Ashton Sanders is Bobby Brown. From Kasi Lemmons, director of Oscar-nominated biopic Harriet and BAFTA-winning Kiwi Anthony McCarten, writer of Bohemian Rhapsody (and a two-time Oscar nominee for The Theory of Everything and The Two Popes).
