From Wakanda Forever to Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, November is moviegoing month

The Roku Channel November 4Weird Al Yankovic, he of the super-frizzy hair, loud Hawaiian shirts, and ubiquitous accordion, is the biggest-selling comedy recording artist … ever. He’s won five Grammys and crafted blockbuster parody songs and videos, from “My Bologna” to “Amish Paradise.” He’s sold out concerts around the world for decades. It’s about time he got the biopic treatment, right? Back in 2010, Eric Appel directed a fake trailer for an imaginary movie called WEIRD: The Weird Al Yankovic Story. Now, is a legit major motion picture, directed by Appel, co-written and co-produced by Yankovic, and starring Daniel Radcliffe as Weird Al.As one might expect, WEIRD parodies the music biopic genre, spinning a tsunami of lies about Yankovic’s childhood, burgeoning career, the heights of stardom, his fall from grace, etc. Michael Jackson steals Al’s music, Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood) lusts for him, and he battles Pablo Escobar. Yankovic turns up as a record exec, Rainn Wilson plays Dr. Demento, and look for cameos galore, including Jack Black as Wolfman Jack and Conan O’Brien as Andy Warhol. It remains to be seen if WEIRD, premiering November 4 on The Roku Channel, will be spoken of in the same breath as the granddaddy of music biopic spoofs, , but it sounds promising. [Ian Spelling]

Theaters everywhere November 11We predict there won’t be a dry eye in the house when comes to theaters this month. The returning cast of the Marvel Studios sequel—including Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, and Winston Duke—have scarcely been able to hold it together in interviews, so emotions will definitely be running high on the screen. Losing Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman in 2020 was a shock that we’re still processing, so perhaps this film will give us all some kind of cathartic release.It’s also giving us some new heroes to add to the MCU’s ever-growing roster. the Sub-Mariner, will finally make his way to live action more than eight decades after his first comic appearance. Tenoch Huerta plays a slightly different version than the Namor you may know; he’s been given a new origin rooted in Aztec and Mayan culture rather than the underwater city of Atlantis. We’ll also get to meet the MCU’s version of Riri Williams, also known as Ironheart, played by Dominique Thorne. She’s a tech genius who could give Shuri a run for her money when it comes to creating fancy gadgets. Or maybe Shuri will be too busy taking over her brother’s mantle to spend much time in the lab? Marvel hasn’t confirmed exactly who will be stepping into T’Challa’s clawed boots yet, but we think she’d be a pretty good choice. [Cindy White]

Theaters everywhere November 11Of course, Steven Spielberg’s long been heralded as one of the greatest film directors ever, but with story or screenwriting credits on all-timers like Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Poltergeist, and The Goonies, his batting average as a writer is none too shabby either. With frequent collaborator Tony Kushner (Lincoln, West Side Story), he’s co-penned his latest directorial effort , a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale inspired by his formative years. Expected to be the filmmaker’s most personal project—he’s said it’s taken him ages to summon the courage to tap into his family history—the closely guarded storyline follows the postwar Arizona youth of Sammy Fabelman (played by Gabriel La Belle of Brand New Cherry Flavor) as he navigates painful territory, including anti-Semitism, his parents’ divorce and his sisters’ personal dramas, bolstered by the potent power of cinema and a deepening passion for filmmaking. The eclectic, impressively pedigreed cast includes and Paul Dano as Sammy’s parents, Seth Rogen and Judd Hirsch as uncles, Julia Butters as Sammy’s sister, and director David Lynch as legendary filmmaker John Ford. Behind the scenes, Spielberg is joined by several longtime collaborators: cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, editor Michael Kahn and—for their 29th film together—composer John Williams. “It was incredible to see how much of this [history] was in his work the whole time,” Dano . “He’s sharing a piece of himself that I find very moving.” [Scott Huver]

Theaters everywhere November 18While every year ushers a new crop of military films, it is exceptionally rare for one of these oorah, “drop and give me twenty,” camo-infused tales to center a queer character. , one of , follows Ellis French (Jeremy Pope), a gay man thrown onto the streets after coming out to his mother, as he enlists in the Marine Corps in an attempt to turn his life around. Joining during the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” era, Ellis must weigh the opportunities and camaraderie he may receive from the military against the ever-present danger he faces if he is outed. The story is a semi-autobiographical one for the film’s writer and director Elegance Bratton, who also joined the Marines before becoming the filmmaker behind a handful of shorts and the 2019 documentary feature, Pier Kids. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, Bratton’s directorial debut has received especially high praise for its acting. The momentous central performance from Grammy, Emmy, and Tony-nominated Pope is bolstered by the work of Gabrielle Union, who plays his venomous mother in a groundbreaking, de-glammed transformation. Bokeem Woodbine (Fargo) and Raul Castillo (Looking) are also well-cast as the officers leading Ellis and his compatriots through a rigorous (and often potentially life-threatening) boot camp/hazing experience. It’s a compelling queer narrative we haven’t seen before on the big screen, and one that demands viewers drop their preconceptions to take a second look. [Matthew Huff]

Theaters everywhere November 18If you could combine the major cultural trends of the past year into a tantalizing, unattainably expensive four-course meal, the menu would probably look a little something like, well, . A pinch of the über-wealthy playing their and a dash of Anya Taylor-Joy, all rounded out with direction from’s Mark Mylod and a tweezed on top? Table for two, please. After the runaway success of FX’s this past summer, Mylod’s entry into the “what if was really, really stressful actually” genre follows a young couple (Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult) as they embark to dine at an ultra-exclusive restaurant run by a mysterious auteur (the perfectly cast Ralph Fiennes) who maybe, definitely eats people. The trailer doesn’t reveal much else about the actual plot of the film, other than the fact that “the game is trying to guess what the overarching theme of the entire meal is going to be.” We certainly have some guesses but most of them involve the fact that everything is clearly going to descend into chaos, fast. Would we survive an evening at Hawthorne? Probably not. Will we be buying tickets anyway? Yes, chef! [Emma Keates]

Theaters everywhere November 18In the tradition of dramas like Spotlight, The Post, and All The President’s Men, follows the course of a major newspaper investigation and the intrepid reporters who fought the system to get out a story that would rock the world. This time there’s the added meta context of being a film about the film industry. It’s just the kind of Oscar bait that the convicted would have been pushing back when he was running Miramax, before the gross sexual assaults uncovered in She Said were made public. Maybe they’ll let him see it in prison.Although Weinstein looms large over this story, we’re mercifully spared his presence as a character. Director Maria Schrader only shoots a stand-in from behind, never showing his face. Instead, the film focuses on the two women who originally broke the story in The New York Times and later wrote the book that served as inspiration for the screenplay—Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Jodi Kantor (played by Zoe Kazan) and Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan). Weinstein’s victims get their say, too—including Ashley Judd, who plays herself—but he’s not the true villain of the piece; She Said takes direct aim at the system that allowed this kind of abuse to go on with impunity for so long. Even now, years into the #MeToo era that this case set in motion, we’re still grappling with its ramifications. [Cindy White]