“The Phoenician Scheme” (May 30)
Wes Anderson deserves props for a lot of things (the witty writing, the genius casting, the meticulous directing, etc.), and he certainly gets those props. Still, I think Wes Anderson deserves props for one more thing: his ear for music. He commissions great originals by Alexandre Desplat and Jarvis Cocker, and he knows how to compile a great soundtrack out of the back catalogs of classical music — e.g., Benjamin Britten’s “Noye’s Fludde” in his “Moonrise Kingdom.” The trailer for “The Phoenician Scheme” uses some exceedingly tasteful excerpts from Igor Stravinsky’s “Petrushka,” so it looks like Anderson will be putting together yet another great soundtrack. “The Phoenician Scheme” is really going to have the whole nine yards; it’s set to be chock full of elaborate sets and convoluted plots, arms dealers and nuns, fezes and Michael Cera, and — best of all — bold acting choices in the accent department.
“The Life of Chuck” (June 6)
The trailer for “The Life of Chuck” offers little to no indication of what its plot will look like; indeed, star Tom Hiddleston is only given a single line (“In this moment, I am wonderful”). If you really want to know what you’re in for before you see it in theaters, I guess you could read “If It Bleeds,” the Stephen King novella collection it’s adapted from. No matter what, though, it’ll probably be touching — the trailer insists it’s a movie not just by Mike Flanagan, but “from the heart and soul of Mike Flanagan.” Three actors will appear as younger versions of Tom Hiddleston, which I’m skeptical of. Child actors are always bad: They’re bad when they’re bad because they’re bad, and they’re bad when they’re good because they’re smug about it.
“Materialists” (June 13)
With “No Hard Feelings” and “Anyone But You,” 2023 was the year of the rom-com. In 2024, “Babygirl” delivered a harder-edged romance. Maybe 2025 will be the year of classic romances, because “The Materialists” plays it straight, with a suave executive (Pedro Pascal) and a lovable working-class guy (Chris Evans) duking it out for the love of Dakota Johnson, who plays a motivated but unfulfilled career girl. It’s a tale as old as time, and frankly, it’s a tale that’s Hallmark-esque, but in the hands of Celine Song — the director of the Oscar-winning “Past Lives,” now with a bigger budget and bigger names at her disposal — it’s sure to be well done.
“F1” (June 27)
It’s about Formula One. It stars Brad Pitt, and his character lives in a van and likes to gamble. It has guys drinking beer and calling each other “d-ckhead.” It’s got men shouting about respect while pushing and shoving each other. The score is by Hans Zimmer, and there’s a slowed and reverbed remix of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” in the trailer. It’s a movie about being the best, about driving fast, about winning. You have fun at “Materialists,” honey. I’ll be seeing “F1” because it’s a movie for dudes!
“Eddington” (July 18)
We know precious little about Ari Aster’s “Eddington,” which is set to premiere at Cannes Film Festival on Friday, May 16. So far, all we have to go on is a minute-long teaser trailer, a one-sentence synopsis (“In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico”) and an ominous poster which depicts bison tumbling off a cliff. Set in the midst of the pandemic, it’s obviously going to grapple with the current state of American political life. That’s a minefield, not because we shouldn’t make art about the current state of American political life, but because it’s all too easy to do so in a really annoying way — e.g., Adam Curtis’s homiletic documentaries and “Civil War” with its absurd dystopian prediction about a coming “antifa massacre.” (“Don’t Look Up” probably belongs on that list of shame too, but I found it silly enough to redeem itself.) Nonetheless, if there’s a director up to the task of making a movie that’s simultaneously societally aware and good to watch, it might be Aster.
“Diciannove” (July 25)
While 2024 was a two-movie year for Luca Guadagnino, we have to wait until October for more. As we wait for “After the Hunt,” we’ll need a substitute for the meantime. “Diciannove” (Italian for “Nineteen”) might do the trick. It was directed by young newcomer Giovanni Tortorici but was produced by Guadagnino, and he’s bound to have gotten his auteurial fingerprints all over it. “Diciannove” is a coming-of-age drama, but europhilic cinephiles might object to that appellation: Disney Channel original movies are coming-of-age dramas — “Diciannove” is an art film, allegedly. From what I can gather, our protagonist is a handsome and well-read zoomer of ambiguous sexuality who struggles with love and likes to surf the web. From the trailer, it looks well done (in that lovey-dovey summery Italian sort of way), but if anyone actually sees it, I can imagine “sensitive young men” latching on to it in an irksome way. Only time will tell!
“Together” (Aug. 1)
The trailer for “Together” begins like any other trailer for a marriage drama might, but 45 seconds in, it takes a sharp left turn toward body horror. Starring real-life husband and wife Dave Franco and Alison Brie, the movie follows a struggling couple forced to fight a paranormal phenomenon in their charming country house. I’m afraid it’ll make that move a lot of 21st-century horror movies make, where it’s smugly implied that the real ghost is generational trauma, is insecure attachment, is poor communication, is whatever — basically, I’m afraid the demonic force we see in the trailer is going to end up turning out actually to be marital strife or something.
“Honey Don’t!” (Aug. 22)
“Honey Don’t!” will be Ethan Coen’s third picture since the Coen brothers “divorced” from writing, directing and editing together. Joel was the serious one, apparently, because he used his freedom to make a black-and-white version of “Macbeth” — meanwhile Ethan made “Drive-Away Dolls.” That’s not a dig, though. While “Fargo” and “A Serious Man” are incomparable, there’s still room in my heart for the peppier Coen Brother style you can see in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” It looks like “Honey Don’t!” could prove just as much of a romp.
“The Roses” (Aug. 29)
“You are a bottomless pit of need.” That’s a line you could imagine Sandra Hüller screaming at her husband in an award-bait movie like “Anatomy of a Fall,” but nope, it’s a line Olivia Colman screams at Benedict Cumberbatch (who plays her spouse) in “The Roses” — a romantic comedy, or rather a divorce comedy, about a successful chef and her stay-at-home husband.
