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The Pod Generation (Hulu): The Pod Generation is interesting in concept if a little flawed in execution. It stars Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor as a couple who decide to have a baby using a new groundbreaking technology where the baby is grown outside the body in the pod. The film does not have a ton to say but Ejiofor has a strong performance and there is a lot of interesting production design. This will be available on Friday, February 16th.
Past Lives (Paramount+): Past Lives was the best movie of 2023 and tells a platonic love story between two people who come into and out of each other's lives over the course of decades. Greta Lee has a fantastic nuanced performance and is the biggest snub in the Best Actress category this year.
This Week In Theaters:
Madame Web (Wednesday): With the comic book movie bubble in a controlled implosion, Madame Web arrives this week to drop a nuclear bomb on the proceedings. This flick stars Dakota Johnson as the titular Madame Web who has to keep Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim) from killing Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), Julia Carpenter (Sydney Sweeney), and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor) before they can get their powers and become Spider-Women. If one is reading this and thinking “Why didn’t they just make a Spider-Woman movie with one or more of these talented actresses,” it’s because Sony is incapable of doing anything smart with the Spider-Man IP in live-action besides handing the reins to Marvel Studios. In seriousness, a Spider-Woman movie with any of these characters would have been a much smarter idea.
Bob Marley One Love (Wednesday): Continuing the trend of making big-budget releases out of biopics for famous musicians, Bob Marley One Love hits theaters this weekend. This film stars Kingsley Ben-Adir as the titular Bob Marley as the film chronicles his life and impact. The movie also stars Lashana Lynch and Michael Gandolfini.
Last Week At The Box Office:
Argylle: $6.2 Million
Lisa Frankenstein: $3.6 Million
The Beekeeper: $3.3 Million
Wonka: $3.0 Million
Migration: $2.9 Million
Programming Notes:
The trailer for Deadpool 3 (now officially titled Deadpool and Wolverine) has finally been released and there are really only two major things to note. To start with, the Super Bowl audience is the most casual audience that a studio can possibly present their movie in front of hence Wicked dropping the fact that its part one of two from the title, playing up connections to The Wizard of Oz, and omitting the key information that it is a musical from the trailer. The trailer devoting as much time as it does to the TVA from Loki, a show that did not pull fantastic ratings, obviously then seems like an unforced error when they should play up the Fox X-Men universe connections reportedly involved. The fact that Wolverine is in the movie was not exactly a secret (the movie was announced with a video and logo confirming Hugh Jackman’s reprisal) so making that the big reveal at the end does not feel like a great payoff to the trailer that will get the largest television audience possible. This would have been a stronger teaser during a regular season Monday Night ESPN game while this trailer should have featured characters beyond the two title characters. The other thing is, since the excuse people used to just not see The Marvels was that they didn’t want to watch two seasons of a Disney+ show to understand what’s going on in a movie, why spend so much time in this trailer linking it to Loki, or two seasons of a Disney+ show that the viewer will think they have to watch to understand what’s going on. Granted there is a major difference in the racial and gender makeup of The Marvels compared to Deadpool and Wolverine but it’s transparently hypocritical that one movie gets that conversation while the other doesn’t.
