Nic Cage, Tom, and Jerry crash a February of late Oscar hopefuls

By A.A. Dowd, Katie Rife, William Hughes, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Jesse Hassenger | February 4, 2021 | 12:00pm

Film Features Oscar

Nic Cage, Tom, and Jerry crash a February of late Oscar hopefuls

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Clockwise from top left: Tom & Jerry (Image: Warner Bros. Pictures), The United States Vs. Billie Holiday (Photo: Takashi Seida), Judas And The Black Messiah (Photo: Glen Wilson), To All The Boys: Always And Forever (Photo: Katie Yu/Netflix), Willy’s Wonderland (Photo: Screen Media Films) Graphic: Natalie Peeples

Another month, another slate of films hedging their bets between the slow reopening of movie theaters and the endless scroll of content available from home. This is a more prestigious February than most, what with studios angling to capitalize on the extended Oscar eligibility calendar; just about every week brings a potential contender, as well as belated wider releases of some of the previous year’s best-reviewed films (like Nomadland and The Father). Those with tastes that trend less respectable can look forward to Nic Cage in a Five Nights At Freddy’s riff, a classic cartoon animal duo on HBO Max, and the third installment in a Netflix rom-com trilogy. Keep reading to find out what’s coming to a living room—and, yes, some theaters—near you. And before trekking out to see a movie on the big screen, please read up on the health risks.

Malcolm & Marie

Another month, another slate of films hedging their bets between the slow reopening of movie theaters and the endless scroll of content available from home. This is a more prestigious February than most, what with studios angling to capitalize on the extended Oscar eligibility calendar; just about every week brings a potential contender, as well as belated wider releases of some of the previous year’s best-reviewed films (like and ). Those with tastes that trend less respectable can look forward to Nic Cage in a Five Nights At Freddy’s riff, a classic cartoon animal duo on HBO Max, and the third installment in a Netflix rom-com trilogy. Keep reading to find out what’s coming to a living room—and, yes, some theaters—near you. And before trekking out to see a movie on the big screen, please .

Netflix February 5

Like , Zendaya and John David Washington apparently kept busy enough during the pandemic to make a whole damn movie. This one doesn’t acknowledge COVID-19, but it plays more directly to its limitations: It’s a two-hander set in a single location, the well-appointed home where filmmaker Malcolm (Washington) has it out with girlfriend Marie (Zendaya) following the premiere of his new film. The onscreen strife was loosely inspired by writer/director Sam Levinson neglecting to thank his wife at the premiere of his film (in retrospect, maybe that was a kindness?). Levinson then workshopped the script with his star Zendaya, shot the whole thing in black and white, and completed it in time for last-minute Oscar consideration in the expanded 2020-plus eligibility period. —and not just because long stretches of the movie are a rant against film critics and their theories about artistic intent.

Most Popular

Amazon Prime February 5

Mike Cahill was an up-and-coming filmmaker in the early 2010s when he made the low-tech, sci-fi-tinged indie dramas and . Now Amazon seems to be giving him a belated bigger-studio break with Bliss, his first feature in almost seven years and his first to prominently feature name stars. Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek play characters caught between two realities—one drab and desaturated, the other a brighter utopia. Yes, it’s one of at least two films this month about simulations (keep scrolling)… and not the better one, despite a gamely dramatic turn from Wilson.

Select theaters and VOD February 5

Documentarian Rodney Ascher has carved out a nice little niche for himself shining a spotlight on people consumed by their wild beliefs, conditions, and obsessions. Having previously humored the interpretive gymnastics of Stanley Kubrick superfans in and offered a platform to those suffering from the terrifying hallucinations caused by sleep paralysis in , Ascher now turns to an outlandish conspiracy theory that’s grown in popularity the last few years: that all of us are living in a broken computer simulation of real life. Expect disturbingly persuasive talking heads and clips of Neo.

Select theaters and VOD February 5

Although it was finished in time to be submitted (and accepted) to the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, you’d be forgiven for thinking Little Fish was made in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The story blends the sci-fi romance of with a very relevant fear of contagion, taking place as it does in a world where a virus that causes panic, confusion, and memory loss is ripping through the global population. Enter Emma (Olivia Cooke) and Jude (Jack O’Connell), a newlywed couple whose relationship takes a melancholy turn when Jude is struck with the disease, forcing him to re-learn the story of their love affair. It’s the third feature from Chad Hartigan, who made the charming coming-of-age story .

Select theaters and HBO Max February 12

Last year’s gave relatively short shrift to the Black Panthers, despite the prominent role cofounder Bobby Seale played in the eponymous courtroom proceedings. For a deeper dive into the history of the organization, look instead to Judas And The Black Messiah, director Shaka King’s drama about Fred Hampton (’s Daniel Kaluuya), chairman of the Illinois chapter of the party, and how he was surveilled, undermined, and eventually assassinated by the FBI. LaKeith Stanfield plays the federal agent who goes undercover to infiltrate the Panthers and begins to have doubts about the mission. The cast of the film, from Kaluuya and Stanfield to supporting players Dominique Fishback and Jesse Plemons, is uniformly excellent. But director Shaka King also utilizes some sophisticated storytelling devices, including one our film editor A.A. Dowd calls a “masterstroke.”

The Mauritanian

Mohamedou Ould Salahi spent 14 years at Guantánamo Bay. His memoir, Guantanamo Diary—published with redactions while Salahi was still being “indefinitely detained”—is the basis for The Mauritanian. Director Kevin Macdonald (, ) and producer and co-writer Michael Bronner (best known for his work with Paul Greengrass) are reliable hands at this kind of ripped-from-yesterday’s-headlines geopolitical drama. The cast looks promising—even if it does involve Benedict Cumberbatch slithering his way through a Southern accent.

The World To ComeSelect theaters February 12; digital platforms March 2

If three makes a trend, then consider Norwegian filmmaker Mona Fastvold’s latest the official capstone on the . Fastvold’s variation on the theme transports viewers to the Northeastern U.S. circa 1856, where the wives of two frontier farmers find themselves drawn to each other in ways they don’t quite understand. The cast of the film is exceptional, featuring Vanessa Kirby and Katherine Waterston as the surreptitious lovers and Christopher Abbott and Casey Affleck as their husbands, alternately violently jealous and grief-stricken and withdrawn.

French ExitSelect theaters February 12

Michelle Pfeiffer nabs her juiciest role in years as Frances Price, a wealthy New York widow who blows through her whole fortune and then flees for Paris with her loyal twentysomething son (Lucas Hedges), eventually becoming surrounded by an ensemble of kooky supporting characters. The star’s withering performance is certainly the most recommendable element of this new comedy from writer-director Azazel Jacobs (, ), adapted from Patrick DeWitt’s acclaimed novel of the same name. The film closed last year’s mostly virtual , where our correspondent called it “arch and labored,” speculating that its mix of whimsy and melancholy must have worked better on the page than it does when fussily framed for the screen.

To All The Boys: Always And ForeverNetflix February 12

has made it all the way to a trilogy without ever resorting to sequel-title boilerplate like “Rise,” “Dawn,” or “Revenge,” but Always And Forever looks like it could have been called Age Of Graduation. After surviving crush mishaps and first-relationship growing pains, Lara Jean (Lana Candor) and Peter (Noah Centineo) are working their way through senior-year (and teen-movie) rituals: prom, senior trip, and college plans. But what does the future hold when they’re not quite on the same page for that last one? Pastel-inclined cinematographer and director Michael Fimognari writes his second Lara Jean letter after helming last year’s .

Breaking News In Yuba County Select theaters and digital platforms February 12

Tate Taylor continues to cycle through reunions with the cast of his 2011 hit : After showcasing Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain in soapy genre films and , respectively, he directs Allison Janney in a story that seems to mix melodrama, dark comedy, and death. Janney plays a woman whose cheating husband dies of a heart attack and gets mistaken for a missing person when she buries the body without telling anyone, lending her both local celebrity and unwanted attention from authorities. Maybe next Taylor can work on vehicles for Regina Hall, Mila Kunis, and Awkwafina, who all co-star here.

Willy’s WonderlandVOD February 12

What happens when you combine with Nicolas Cage? A throwback to more innocent days of meme-based entertainment, that’s what. (Is it too early for nostalgia?) Cage plays an apparently mute and nameless “loner” who is hired to clean up a dilapidated family restaurant that appears to have a problem with rogue animatronics. Some presumably expendable teens are involved, but we’re mostly here to see this most prolifically eccentric of stars with a lead pipe.

Dead PigsMUBI February 12

Three years after its debut at Sundance, director Cathy Yan’s debut finally sees the light of TV screens. Based on a real-life incident that saw 16,000 porcine corpses floating down the Huangpu River and into Shanghai’s drinking water, Dead Pigs is an ensemble dramedy that holds a funhouse mirror up to China’s explosive economic growth and the cultural shifts that accompany it. as “effervescent as an Alka-Seltzer,” the film blends dark comedy and vivacious color—no surprise to anyone who saw Yan’s kaleidoscopic entry into the normally grim DCEU.

LandSelect theaters February 12

After cutting her teeth helming multiple episodes of , Robin Wright directs herself in her first feature, centered on a woman who retreats into the pristine but lethal wilderness in an effort to come to terms with familial grief. Demián Bichir co-stars as a local hunter who tasks himself with teaching Wright the skills necessary to keep herself alive amidst all the lush scenery, metaphorical emptiness, and actual, non-metaphorical bears. The film premiered at Sundance earlier this week to mixed responses, with critics praising Wright’s performance while critiquing the film’s overly familiar plot.

Select theaters and Hulu February 19

Though her big studio debut, Marvel’s Eternals, was pushed back to this coming November, 2020 was still big for Chloé Zhao. After all, she made the most acclaimed movie of the year (). The writer-director casts Frances McDormand, in one of her best performances in ages, as a widow who flees the economic desolation of small-town Nevada, crossing the country in a camper in search of available work. Adapting a nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder, Zhao packs the margins of her movie with real nomads, supplying the kind of authenticity of environment and character that distinguished her previous feature, . After a brief qualifying virtual run in December, Nomadland is bound for U.S. theaters and Hulu. It should not be missed.

Blithe SpiritSelect theaters, digital platforms, and VOD February 19

Noel Coward’s 1941 play had a little fun with the then-waning spiritualism trend, spoofing the late 19th- and early 20th-century obsession with contacting the dead in this story of a frustrated novelist whose flirtation with mysticism sparks a love triangle from beyond the grave. The second film version of Blithe Spirit moves the action to 1920s Hollywood, where Charles (Dan Stevens) hires famous medium Madame Arcati (Judi Dench) for an in-home seance he hopes will inspire his next screenplay. Instead, Madame Arcati brings back the spirit of Charles’ deceased ex-wife, Elvira (Leslie Mann), whose bold personality provides a comedic contrast to his second wife, prim and proper Ruth (Isla Fisher). Let the supernatural rivalry commence.

I Care A LotNetflix February 19

If didn’t convince you never to mess with Rosamund Pike, perhaps I Care A Lot will do the trick. Pike stars in this black comedy as Marla Grayson, a con artist who couches her amoral self-interest in the guise of compassion. Marla’s scam of declaring elderly people incapable of caring for themselves, then selling their homes and possessions for personal profit, has made her millions. But now it’s also made her a powerful enemy, in the form of vicious gangster Roman Lunyov (Peter Dinklage). As we put it in from last year’s TIFF, the standoff between these two sociopaths “escalates to deliriously violent levels,” blending cutting comments with literal bloodletting.

The Killing Of Two LoversSelect theaters February 23

The title brings to mind a grotesque / crossover (presumably with a hooded Joaquin Phoenix twirling around with a rifle), but the subject matter of this drama from prolific short filmmaker Robert Machoian is more quotidian: the messy breakdown of marital relations. Clayne Crawford stars as a blue-collar, small-town Utahan who has recently separated from his wife. The film, which premiered pre-pandemic at last year’s Sundance, earned early praise for its performances and stark atmosphere.

Select theaters and HBO Max February 26

Chloë Grace Moretz, Michael Peña, and Rob Delaney are all on hand to cash paychecks for this latest revival of MGM’s infamous cat and mouse duo (who, bizarrely, appear to be the only animated animals in their entire world—it’s a bit like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? if the animators’ hands got tired 20 minutes in.) The plot sees the pair face off over Jerry’s residence in an upscale New York hotel. Hijinks, mayhem, and ubiquitous Lizzo songs will ensue.

CherrySelect theaters February 26; Apple TV+ March 12

Are all the principals involved in this adaptation of Niko Walker’s semi-autobiographical 2018 novel trying to get out from under the weight of their own success? In front of the camera, we’ve got Tom Holland, playing radically against boy-hero type as an army veteran who drifts into drug addiction to cope with his PTSD and bank robbery to support his opioid needs. And behind it, we find his old pals Joe and Anthony Russo, following up the with a far grittier, more personal story of addiction and loss. Holland and the Russos have proven they can make superheroes magic; it remains to be seen whether they can succeed on this more human scale, too.

The United States Vs. Billie HolidayHulu February 26

Lee Daniels has found a subject worthy of his saturated, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink soap opera sensibilities in Billie Holiday (Andra Day)—artist, addict, and victim of the Man. Scripted by Pulitzer winner Suzan-Lori Parks, this biographical drama focuses on Holiday’s relationship with Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), a Treasury agent who was tasked with building the narcotics case that ultimately landed her behind bars. The film appears to cover all the juiciest, most tragic, and infuriating details: the feds, the mob, the Red Scare, heroin, prison time, Holiday’s relationship with Tallulah Bankhead (Natasha Lyonne). Expect a lot of volume; the material calls for it.

Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little BlurryApple TV+ February 26

The teenage pop sensation with the spooky whisper gets her own Behind The Music equivalent. The World’s A Little Blurry recounts Billie Eilish’s rise to fame and the writing/recording, at just 17 years old, of her bestselling debut album, The trailer suggests something a little more intimate and revealing than the usual highly mediated PR campaign, though that might just be a reflection of Eilish’s ordinary-teen image. R.J. Cutler (The Kingmaker) shot and assembled what’s likely a fans-only affair.

Select theaters February 26

Caring for a parent with dementia is a common cinematic subject (there was even ), but not too many films approach it from the perspective of the parents themselves. French playwright Florian Zeller does just that with The Father, which he adapted from his own stage show about an elderly man (Anthony Hopkins) who’s begun to lose his grip on memory, reality, and the basic details of his life. Set entirely within a London apartment, the film uses editing and abrupt casting changes to thrust audiences into the character’s disoriented state of mind. Hopkins has never been as vulnerable on screen; recent Oscar winner Olivia Colman also does strong work as his concerned daughter. Like Nomadland, the film got a quiet qualifying run in December and is now opening wider.

Plus

Legendary apartheid-era bandit John Kepe is the subject of the South African action biopic Sew The Winter To My Skin (Crackle 2/1). A married couple find their third, with expected complications, in the indie comedy First Blush (digital platforms and VOD 2/2). Argentinian thriller 4×4 (digital platforms and VOD 2/2) traps a thief inside a high-tech death machine posing as a car. Gorō Miyazaki, son of the legendary Studio Ghibli founder, tries his hand at an unappealing CG animation style in the studio’s latest import, Earwig And The Witch (select theaters 2/3; HBO Max 2/5). A Nightmare Wakes (Shudder 2/4) is the latest film to dramatize the writing of Frankenstein, this time through a plot that finds Mary Shelley’s creations leaping off the page to torment her. There’s also an author bent to the rom-com The Right One (digital platforms and VOD 2/5), about a novelist who jeopardizes a budding relationship by writing her potential beau into her next book. Viggo Mortensen makes his directorial debut with Falling (select theaters, digital platforms, and VOD 2/5), casting himself as a son whose father, played by Lance Henriksen, has dementia. France’s submission for this year’s International Feature Oscar is (Virtual theaters 2/5), which stars screen veterans Barbara Sukowa and Martine Chevallier as elderly women who have carried on a romance for decades in secret. Meanwhile, Russia has submitted Dear Comrades! (VOD and Hulu 2/5), which depicts a 1962 massacre in a Soviet industrial town, and Serbia is running with the Holocaust drama Dara Of Jasenovac (select theaters 2/5). Rams (select theaters and VOD 2/5) is an English-language remake of the , featuring Sam Neill and Michael Caton as estranged brothers and rival farmers. Fresh off his firing from the Fantastic Beasts beat, Johnny Depp slips into the role of war photographer W. Eugene Smith in the factually based Minamata (digital platforms 2/5). Strip Down, Rise Up (Netflix 2/5), demands this documentary about the healing powers of pole dancing! The Descent director Neil Marshall goes back to plague times for the witch-hunt thriller The Reckoning (select theaters, digital platforms, and VOD 2/5). Spike Lee executive produced the drama Son Of The South (select theaters, VOD, and digital platforms 2/5), about a Klansman’s son who joins the Civil Rights Movement. More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story (digital platforms 2/5) looks back on the career of the beloved Hollywood character actor, while M.C. Escher: Journey To Infinity (select and virtual theaters 2/5) climbs a twisty staircase into the history of the Dutch graphic artist. Re-Animator’s headlines the cult horror movie Sacrifice (select theaters 2/5; VOD and Blu-Ray 2/23). breakout Julia Fox plays a cam-girl con artist in PVT Chat (select theaters 2/5; VOD and digital platforms 2/9). Supernatural horror film Sator (digital platforms and VOD 2/9) scared up some great buzz on last fall’s genre festival circuit. Self-described “modern day Western” Cowboy (virtual theaters and VOD 2/12) sends Steve Zahn into the Montana wilderness. This year’s addition to the ever-growing canon of Groundhog Day imitations is The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things (Amazon Prime 2/12), with Kathryn Newton and Kyle Allen as teen sweethearts caught in a time loop. Katherine Heigl and Harry Connick Jr. are the parents of a schizophrenic teenager in the thriller Fear Of Rain (select theaters and VOD 2/12). Following on the heels of and comes yet another movie about the late Supreme Court Justice, Ruth: Justice Ginsburg In Her Own Words (virtual theaters 2/12). Young Hearts (select theaters and VOD 2/12) is a romantic comedy with the Duplass brother stamp of approval. Visit an alternate-reality New York in the sci-fi drama Lapsis (virtual theaters, digital platforms, and VOD 2/12). Mickey Rourke plays a vicious crime boss in the ride-share thriller Adverse (select theaters 2/12; digital platforms and VOD 3/9). SoundCloud rappers set up shop in the desert in the True/False-selected documentary Crestone (VOD 2/16). Shook (Shudder 2/18) pits a social-media celebrity against a deadly web game. Jason Clarke is a DEA agent out to bust an online drug ring in Silk Road (select theaters, digital platforms, and VOD 2/19). Disney adapts Newbery winner Flora & Ulysses (Disney+ 2/19), about the adventures of a little girl and a super-powered squirrel. System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian gets his own bio-doc with Truth To Power (select and virtual theaters 2/19). Early reviews have been strong for the intense drama Test Pattern (Kino Marquee 2/19), about a couple navigating the aftermath of a sexual assault. Belle & Sebastian supplied the soundtrack to the awkwardly titled mother-son comedy Days Of The Bagnold Summer (select theaters, virtual theaters, and digital platforms 2/19). “Addiction is an industry” screams the tagline of Crisis (Select theaters 2/26; digital platforms and VOD 3/5), a opioid-epidemic drama with a big, high-profile cast. And The Vigil (select theaters, digital platforms, and VOD 2/26) unleashes ghostly forces upon Brooklyn’s Hasidic community.