2022 Least Anticipated Movies (Page #41)

From celebrated writer and film historian Elvis Mitchell, Is That Black Enough for You?!? is both a documentary and deeply personal essay. The film examines the craft and power of cinema from a perspective often overlooked: the African American contribution to films released from the landmark era of the 70s.

There is no New York without Broadway. It’s both a landmark and a community, an industry and a people. During the pandemic, over 96,000 people lost their jobs, and an entire industry was brought to a standstill. Broadway Rising tells the story of the Broadway community and its harrowing journey back to the stage following the COVID-19 shutdown. Herculean challenges are not new to Broadway. It has weathered 9/11; the arrival of the motion picture industry; and the devastation of AIDS on a generation of artists. Even amidst the pandemic, many Broadway organizations helped forge a path towards racial equity in the wake of BLM movement. But when employees whose livelihoods depend upon Broadway found themselves unemployed – it was a steep hill to climb back to opening night. This is their story, from early quiet moments of anxiety and self-reflection, to the determination that “the show must go on,” and finally the triumph of September 12, 2021; opening night.

All drugs and alcohol are illegal except on the day of the Binge. Several years after their first Binge, best friends Hags, Andrew, Sarah, and Kimi face the realities of young adulthood as the annual Binge Day is moved to Christmas Eve. Amidst the chaos, Hags plans a proposal to Sarah while Andrew deals with his rocky relationships with his family and his girlfriend Kimmi. Will they survive this holiday season?

In Christmas with The Campbells, when Jesse (Brittany Snow) gets dumped right before the holidays by her boyfriend Shawn (Alex Moffat), his parents convince her to still spend Christmas with them, and Shawn’s handsome cousin (Justin Long), while Shawn is away.

One of the best trans films you’ve likely never heard of, Antonio Giménez-Rico’s landmark 1983 documentary Dressed in Blue (Vestida de Azul) explores the lives and loves of a group of six transgender women living in Madrid in the years following Spain’s transition to democracy.

Singer/songwriter Gail (Annelise Cepero) lands an opportunity to compete for a once-in-a-lifetime shot at the big time, and heads cross country—only getting as far as Harmony Springs, Oklahoma when her ride, her budget and all her hopes are stalled. With just two weeks to get to the iHeartRadio Christmas Eve performance of her dreams, she takes the advice of local Jack-of-all-trades, Jeremy (Jeremy Sumpter), and takes on a group of misfit kids hoping to perform in a Christmas Eve Gala of their own. Gail and Jeremy grow close, but if she’s going to fulfill her lifelong dream, she may have to leave him and the town she’s grown to love behind.

100 years ago, a strip of Santa’s magical jingle bells were discovered by a young boy in Shelter Bay, Oregon, bringing about a century of prosperity and peace for the small town. Now, just days before Christmas, the bells - the lifeblood of the town - are missing, and it’s up to a group of intrepid kids to solve the case, find the bells and restore the Christmas magic to Shelter Bay and its citizens.

Bruce Willis stars as Detective James Knight in this second film of the action-packed trilogy. In custody in New York, Knight finds himself in the middle of a jailbreak led by The Christmas Bomber, a brutal fanatic whose Santa Claus disciples are terrorizing the city. With the promised return of his badge in exchange for taking out the terrorists, the steely-eyed Knight doles out mercy for the just…and merciless justice for all the rest.

From documentarian Chris Smith (American Movie) comes a lovingly irreverent portrait of the life, career, and last days of maverick filmmaker Robert Downey Sr., whose rebellious spirit infused decades of counterculture movie-making. “Sr.” widens the lens from Downey's art to the life with which it was deeply intertwined, including an intimate examination of his relationship with son Robert Downey, Jr. Shot over the course of three years, the film truly honors Senior's nonlinear, outlaw-like approach, including capturing his decision to embark on his own concurrent and final film project. Smith’s portrait of a family and an artist is a meditation on life that’s as surreal as it is sentimental, a celebration of making art with no rules that tosses out its own rulebook along the way.

After breaking off her engagement, leaving a successful banking career behind in the city, and moving to New Jersey for a fresh start, Asha (Pallavi Sharda) couldn’t feel more alive. Her mother, on the other hand, thinks that her oldest daughter is about to miss a lifetime of happiness if she doesn’t take her focus away from her new startup job and place it on finding a husband instead. Taking matters into her own hands, Asha’s mother creates an online dating profile in order to set Asha up with a “perfect” match. Enter Ravi (Suraj Sharma) — or rather Ravi’s parents — who have the exact same idea for their son. Asha and Ravi’s reluctant first date is a bust, and they quickly discover that each is in a seemingly different place in their life right now. After realizing her mother is relentless and will not give up, Asha proposes a plan to Ravi that would be a win-win for both: a pretend relationship to be each other's date to get through the upcoming wedding season. Through countless invitations, dances and dresses in the next three months, Asha and Ravi slowly come to find that they might have more in common than they think. Maybe their parents were onto something after all.

For thirty-five years the ghost of Eddie Conway a passionate young pianist has haunted an old house in the Hollywood Hills, unable to move on without completing his piano concerto. What happens when a woman moves into his home?

Set in New York City, Pierre, who is a product of love between a hawk and a pigeon, is rejected by both communities. He sets out on a mission to find where he belongs, and finds unlikely friendships on his way.

In this raunchy romantic comedy, Adam whisks his new bride Sarah (Maria Bakalova) to Venice for a honeymoon. But when Adam brings best friend Bav along for the ride, Bav causes one gross-out disaster after another. When charming gangster Giorgio falls for Sarah, he gets rid of Adam and Bav by sending them across the border on a drug-dealing mission. Can they outrun the Slovenian cops, dodge bullets from the baddies, and get back before Sarah gets a rich new mobster boyfriend?

An artist in recovery meets a free spirited actress when he helps her out of a difficult situation at a casting studio. To thank him, she invites him to a party, kicking off a magical, all-night adventure through Los Angeles that shows him he has something more worth living for.

CHARLOTTE is an animated drama that tells the true story of Charlotte Salomon, a young German-Jewish painter who comes of age in Berlin on the eve of the Second World War. Fiercely imaginative and deeply gifted, she dreams of becoming an artist. Her first love applauds her talent, which emboldens her resolve. But the world around her is changing quickly and dangerously, limiting her options and derailing her dream. When anti-Semitic policies inspire violent mobs, she leaves Berlin for the safety of the South of France. There she begins to paint again, and finds new love. But her work is interrupted, this time by a family tragedy that reveals an even darker secret. Believing that only the extraordinary will save her, she embarks on the monumental adventure of painting her life story.

After her grandmother dies, Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) is taken to her mother’s childhood home. While her parents go about cleaning out the house, Nelly explores the surrounding woods. She encounters Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), a girl exactly Nelly’s age and to whom she bears a striking resemblance. The pair become fast friends, constructing a hut together, sharing lunches, and talking over the life transitions both are in the midst of. (Marion is only days away from going to hospital for an operation.) Incrementally, the girls’ eerie similarities yield revelations that merge events of the past with those of the present.

“Raymond & Ray” follows half-brothers Raymond and Ray who have lived in the shadow of a terrible father. Somehow, they still each have a sense of humor, and his funeral is a chance for them to reinvent themselves. There’s anger, there’s pain, there’s folly, there might be love, and there’s definitely gravedigging.

Upon receiving a terminal diagnosis, Sarah opts for a cloning procedure to ease her loss on her friends and family. When she makes a sudden and miraculous recovery, her attempts to have her clone decommissioned fail and lead to a court-mandated duel to the death. Now she has one year to train her body and mind for the fight of her life.