Box Office Weekend: February and January 2024

Two very good movies are out this month: Perfect Days, by Wim Wenders, and The Taste of Things, directed by Trần Anh Hùng and starring Juliette Binoche. I’ve seen ads for both on Instagram, which reaffirms the haunting idea that trailers are for Old People, because the younger generations don’t watch trailers unless it’s an ad on TikTok, and I think I need to lay down for a long, long time. (That’s what I’ve been doing since the last trailers post, actually.) I wish I could say I realized this on my own, but it was mentioned casually in a podcast episode of Culture Study (which I recommend, they unpack last month’s Mean Girls trailer).

For my fellow olds, your trailers are below:

In theaters now

Argylle stars Bryce Dallas Howard as a mystery writer who has–inadvertently?–written a series of startingly accurate spy novels. This movie was so bad people thought JK Rowling was involved. (She wasn’t.)

How to Have Sex is a coming-of-age drama about a teenage girl who feels pressure to have sex while on a summer-long vacation in Greece.

Somewhere Quiet is a horror film. A woman goes to Cape Cod after surviving a brutal kidnapping and finds her grip on reality to be…tenuous.

Scrambled is a comedy about a woman who hasn’t married or had kids and everyone is being a big jerk about it. Stop making me feel bad about being poor and single!

The Monk and the Gun is a Bhutanese drama. (It is a co-production between Bhutan, Taiwan, France, the United States, and Hong Kong.) As Bhutan prepares to transition to democracy in 2006 an old lama tries to arm himself through an American arms dealer.

Departing Seniors, a horror-comedy, follows a teenage boy who develops psychic powers after he’s bullied. He tries to stop a killer from murdering his bullies.

Fitting In is a Canadian coming-of-age drama starring Maddie Ziegler as a teen with MRKH syndrome. The film is a loose adaptation of writer and director Molly McGlynn’s teenage years.

Jungle Bunch: Operation Meltdown is a French-animated movie, adapted from the Jungle Bunch series and sequel to the 2017 Jungle Bunch movie.

Disco Boy tells two intertwined stories between a man who joins the French Foreign Legion and a guerrilla fighter in a village in the Niger Delta.

New in theaters Wednesday, February 7

Perfect Days, nominated for best foreign feature, is directed and co-written by Wim Wenders. The film stars Koji Yakusho as a man working for Tokyo’s Toilet Project. I can’t watch the trailer without crying!

New in theaters Friday, February 9

Lola is a drama written, directed, and starring Nicola Peltz Beckham as a young woman struggling to save enough money to move herself and her little brother out of her abusive mother’s home.

Skin Deep is a German sci-fi drama about a woman allowed to switch bodies with another woman–and refuses to switch back.

Ennio is a documentary about Ennio Morricone.

The Taste of Things, directed by Trần Anh Hùng, stars Juliette Binoche as a famously independent woman with a talent for cooking, and falls in love (again?) with her boss when he cooks for her. He is played by Benoît Magimel. Yes, of course, I want to spend a couple hours in late-1800s France!

Popular Theory is a teen film? about an unpopular girl who loves science. Let her love science, she’ll be cool in college!

Lisa Frankenstein is a teen romance for millennials about a girl looking for romance….and finds it with a corpse.

Float is a romance starring Robbie Amell and Andrea Bang. They end up together after he teaches her how to swim.

New in theaters Wednesday, February 14

Bob Marley: One Love is a Bob Marley biopic produced by his family and starring Kingsley Ben-Adir. The film will cover his rise to fame through his death.

Madame Web stars Dakota Johnson as a NYC EMT who has premonitions and saves the lives of a bunch of teen girls. They in turn become Spider-Women. They’re played by Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Marced, and Celeste O’Connor.

Adam the First is “…a coming-of-age story told in the vein of Homer’s Odyssey.”

New in theaters Friday, February 16

Altered Reality is a supernatural thriller starring Tobin Bell. Tobin! Star in a romantic comedy, please.

God & Country is a documentary that wants to remind you that Christian Nationalism is a threat to this country. I know!!

Land of Bad is an action film starring Luke and Liam Hemsworth and Russell Crowe. It’s American Army propaganda starring Australians, and we have Bush to thank for that.

Bleeding Love stars real-life father and daughter Ewan and Clara McGregor. A father drives his daughter to rehab.

New in theaters Friday, February 23:

The Stolen Valley is a Western thriller. A Mexican-Navajo woman trying to save her family–and reclaim her ancestral land–is joined by a runaway cowgirl.

Golden Years is a comedy. A couple on a retirement cruise grows apart.

Io Capitano is an Italian drama. Two teenagers leave Dakar to travel through Mali, Niger, and Libya to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Italy.

Stopmotion is a horror movie. People are excited about it.

Thabo and the Rhino Case is a children’s movie about an 11-year-old in Eswatini who wants to be a private detective.

The Invisible Fight is a kung fu comedy set in 1973 on the USSR-China border.

Isle of Hope, an adaptation of Dias Contados by Oscar Martinez, stars Mary Stuart Masterson as the beleaguered daughter of a famed actress (played by Diane Ladd).

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To the Hashira Training is an animated Japanese dark action film. An adaptation of the Hashira Training arc of Demon Slayer, it is a sequel to the third Demon Slayer film and a compilation of the second and third seasons of the anime.

Ordinary Angels stars Hilary Swank in a movie that is definitely about God and irritatingly compelling.

Drive-Away Dolls, written by Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke, and directed by Ethan Coen, is a “dark comedy caper.” It’s a road comedy with young lesbians, and sometimes, it seems like there are tiny gifts sprinkled throughout the year, a whisper in the year to say, “It’s going to be OK.” This is one of them.