Nominations for this year’s Academy Awards landed earlier this week. Whether you’re an Academy hater or an Oscar devotee, there’s no denying that Hollywood’s biggest night serves as a sort of line of demarcation in the movie world. The stretch between the holidays and the Oscar ceremony in March is typically the most cinematically erratic 10 weeks on the movie calendar. Nevertheless, some good stuff is coming to theaters during winter’s coldest days.
It’s worth noting that this year’s A Red Carpet Evening at the Belcourt is the Hillsboro Village arthouse’s 25th annual Oscar party. The 21-and-up event will feature the March 10 Academy Awards ceremony being broadcast on both of the Belcourt’s big screens, along with a silent auction, a cocktail buffet and loads of perks for VIP ticketholders. As always, the event serves as a fundraiser benefiting the 99-year-old theater and beloved independent film nonprofit.
The Belcourt has an impressive stack of upcoming releases hitting the screens this winter, beginning with Ava DuVernay’s already-heralded Origin — based on Isabel Wilkerson’s bestselling nonfiction book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents — opening in early February. Following that will be Belcourt openings for director Rachel Lambert’s anticipated Sometimes I Think About Dying (with Lambert scheduled for a post-screening discussion on Feb. 9) and the Mads Mikkelsen-starring period piece The Promised Land. Vietnamese French director Trân Anh Hùng’s award-winning The Taste of Things is scheduled for release on Valentine’s Day. Bhutanese filmmaker Pawo Choyning Dorji’s The Monk and the Gun, British coming-of-age drama How to Have Sex and legendary German director Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days will likely hit Belcourt screens in late February or early March.
The Promised Land
As ever, the Belcourt also has a number of repertory series scheduled in the coming weeks. The Winter Classics series is winding down this month with Doctor Zhivago (Jan. 27-28) and Misery (Jan. 28 and 30), and the Sunday Supper series draws to a close in advance of The Taste of Things’ release with Babette’s Feast (Jan. 28) and I Am Love (Feb. 4). Audiences can also count on ongoing repertory series Midnight Movies, Weekend Classics, Music City Mondays, Queer Qlassics and Staff Picks to continue. Expect some romantically themed offerings in those series, including Harold and Maude, Casablanca, The Notebook, Happy Together, Go Fish, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and all three installments of Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy. The theater’s annual Oscar-Nominated Short Films series and its Best Picture Marathon land in February. Also still screening at the Belcourt are buzzy recent releases All of Us Strangers, American Fiction, Poor Things and The Zone of Interest.
Meanwhile in the megaplexes, a couple of big tentpole releases are slated to keep audiences satiated before blockbuster season hits in the warmer months. Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn’s spy comedy Argylle is set for release on Feb. 2, with Sony Pictures’ Madame Web — starring Dakota Johnson as the titular hero, with Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced and Celeste O’Connor as separate iterations of Spider-Woman — landing on Valentine’s Day. Denis Villeneuve’s long-awaited Dune: Part Two, delayed for months by the film industry’s labor disputes, will hit screens everywhere March 1, with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire arriving on the first weekend of spring. On the horizon after that: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (March 29), Luca Guadagnino’s Zendaya-starring tennis-world love triangle Challengers (April 26) and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga in May.
Fathom Events has a number of repertory screenings coming to Regal and AMC locations this season as well, including The Wizard of Oz (Jan. 28, 29 and 31), My Fair Lady (Feb. 4-5), David Lynch’s Dune (Feb. 18-19) and iconic David Bowie fantasy vehicle Labyrinth (March 6 and 10). Meanwhile in Hermitage, delightful independent screening house Full Moon Cineplex will keep up its frequently freaky repertory offerings, including The Frighteners and Fatal Games in early February.
A look at the state of Nashville’s visual arts scene, along with previews of coming art, theater, dance, film and book events
