Happy New Year, friends! I’m happy to report that 2018 brings with it the exciting revival of the site’s Now Playing section. Let’s dive right in.
The weekend’s sole new wide release is the supernatural horror film Insidious: The Last Key, the fourth installment (and second prequel) in James Wan’s haunted-house franchise. This entry — directed by Adam Robitel, who previously made The Taking of Deborah Logan — finds Elise Rainier (returning star Lin Shaye) investigating supernatural goings-on at a house in New Mexico where she once lived as a child. It’s become a tradition in multiplexes to start the calendar year with a low-budget horror movie (recent examples include The Forest and The Woman in Black: Angel of Death), and this year is no exception. This kind of film can make a significant profit with even middling box office success, and this has been a very profitable franchise. Indeed, I’ve read reports that last night’s previews for this title were the highest grossing to date for an Insidious film. Reviews are pretty grim thus far, though — and each installment in this series has been a big step down from the last — so we’ll see how it goes. I’ll definitely be checking this out.
Meanwhile, Molly’s Game (writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut) is making its wide expansion following two weeks in limited release. The film stars Jessica Chastain as Molly Bloom, a real-life woman who ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game for nearly a decade before being arrested by the FBI. Sorkin has assembled a really interesting and diverse cast here, including Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, and Michael Cera — and Chastain is of course a thrilling actress — but this subject matter sounds so, so dull to me. Reviews have been largely positive, however, and the film is finding some success in awards season; Chastain's performance and Sorkin’s screenplay have received the most accolades, but just today the film was nominated for the Producers Guild of America award, so it’s very much in contention for a Best Picture slot at the Oscars.
Are you seeing either of these this weekend, or are you still catching up on other late-year prestige films like Lady Bird or The Shape of Water or Call Me by Your Name?
