Best 5 films: quick view
Best 5 films to stream
1) Alien: Romulus – 1 Jan (Disney+)
Film (2024). This sci-fi horror-thriller takes the phenomenally successful Alien franchise back to its chest-busting, head-thrusting roots. While scavenging in a derelict space station, young colonisers come face-to-face with the most relentless and deadly life form in the universe.
That’ll teach them for being colonisers, and hopefully lead to some honest self-reflection on the desperately misguided hubris of colonisation, in deep space or otherwise … What about you just leave the space station alone? Don’t blame anyone but yourselves when things start climbing through your ribcage.
Starring Starring Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu.
2) Sidelined: The QB and Me – 1 Jan (Binge)
Film (2024). TikTok (and now movie) star Noah Beck makes his acting debut in this new romantic feature. It follows a headstrong dancer (Siena Agudong) and a cocky quarterback (Beck), who fight against their feelings for each other as their post-grad future threatens to keep them apart.
I mean, it sounds like it has all the originality of a kaftan shawl worn over clogs, but don’t let that put you off, the guy’s TikTok famous!
3) Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance is Most Fowl – 3 Jan (Netflix)
Film (2024). Everyone’s favourite claymation canine springs into action to save his master when Wallace’s high-tech invention (a robotic gnome – doesn’t seem all that high-tech tbh) goes rogue and sees him framed for a series of suspicious crimes.
(Surely everyone knows gnomes can’t be trusted)
Hopefully Wallace will say ‘cheese’ a hundred times like in all the other films so we can line up our viewing with a version of a drinking game, called cheese game, in which all those leftover cheeses from Christmas meet the crackers at the back of the cupboard before being fed unceremoniously into our mouths every time he says it and, oh, can’t wait …
Starring Ben Whitehead, Peter Kay, Lauren Patel, Reece Shearsmith, Diane Morgan and Adjoa Andoh.
4) IF – 3 Jan (Paramount+)
Film (2024). A ‘heartwarming and hilarious’ – according to the promo – family film about a girl who discovers she can see the imaginary friends who still exist, even though the adults they once belonged to have grown up and given over any sense of soulfulness and creativity to the grind of the capitalist machine.
Creepy, no … it’s a heartwarming and hilarious live-action/ animation blend that will suit families who have already tried showing their kids Who Framed Roger Rabbit but were told it looked too old-fashioned (the spoilt brats).
5) Burlesque – 4 Jan (Stan)
Film (2010). Not exactly a newie but a goodie. A small town girl, living in a lonely … (Oops, that’s Don’t Stop Believin’ – similar plot though!) finds herself (because she’s bought a one-way ticket) in LA and joins the troops at a neo-burlesque club run by a former dancer.
Big dreams, big costumes, big music numbers that make previously sceptical people take off their oversized shades slowly and mouth ‘wow’ …
Starring Cher, Christina Aguilera and Alan Cumming.
