The BeMovieSeeMovie Top 10 Popcorn Movies for Fall 2021
I love putting out reminders to everyone about the amazing movies coming out in the fall. I didn’t get a chance to do that last year because of the pandemic. Well, this year the movie industry went balls to the wall with releases. So I’m splitting the preview into 2 parts, the movies gunning for Oscars, and the movies gunning for People’s Choice Awards. Let’s start with the popcorn entertainments: there’s a lot since most of these event films studios have been waiting for vaccinations to have big wide releases. Before we get to the BeMovieSeeMovie Top 10, here are some other mini categories:
The 2021 Popcorn Movie Hate Watch Trio:
Cinderella – I hope the songs are good, because the rest of this looks like woke nonsense. Too bad, cause I like Camilla Cabello.
Dear Evan Hansen – I know there’s a solid Tony pedigree here, and I know Ben Platt won a bunch of awards as the lead of the play, but he gives Stockard Channing a run for her money as clearly a mid 30s man playing a high school student. Plus the story wants your tears TOO hard as its built on a pretty flimsy premise.
Halloween Kills – I really didn’t like the Halloween reboot last year; it was devoid of substance. Which means I have even less hope for its sequel, a seeming exercise to murder as many people as possible for no reason.
Now that that’s over onto the 2021 Popcorn Movie Honorable Mentions:
Let’s just go right to insane shall we? This one will depend on your unhinged Nicholas Cage tolerance, but if you were as big a fan of Mandy as I was, then this Cage flick should be a helluva ride. I struggle to even describe this one, but I guess its a Japanese Western post apocalyptic revenge flick? As long as this movie leans into its crazy (early reviews suggest it does), then we’re gonna be in for one fun ride.
Disney nailed it earlier this summer with Raya and the Last Dragon. They look poised to do it again taking their stories from Southeast Asia to Colombia with this latest feature, about a non magical girl from a magical family. The Lin-Manuel Miranda soundtrack is catchy as hell, and the movie looks like it’s gonna deliver that gorgeous, solid family entertainment Disney Animation has been churning out for 8 straight years since its management turnover.
I haven’t even seen the Sopranos and I’m super excited for this movie. A prequel to the amazing HBO series, this movie is basically Tony Soprano’s origin story. But with series creator David Chase on board, as well as James Gandolfini’s son and a super amazing cast, we could be in for a pretty great crime thriller about how antiheroes are forged through the fire of experience.
Apparently infinite budgeted Netflix pulled out all the stops for this one. A crazy set hopping heist film starring Gal Gadot, Ryan Reynolds, and Dwayne Johnson? By the big budget guy who did Skyscraper and Dodgeball?! Hell yeah! We might have our next great action comedy Netflix will find someway to turn into a franchise at a moment’s notice.
We’re at the end of Daniel Craig’s stellar run as James Bond. Reinvigorating the franchise with amazing action and elevated storytelling, Craig’s swansong looks like it won’t disappoint, with Rami Malek using that intense energy to creepy delight and Ana de Armas getting another well earned big breakout role as our new badass Bond Girl.
OK I cheated with this one. After a year of no movies whatsoever, Marvel bursts back into theatres with 3! releases this fall. The Spider-Man sequel No Way Home has the biggest buzz, thought I personally think it looks like the weakest one that’ll be fun but kinda empty. Eternals has the biggest variance of outcomes, a tougher character sell but being overseen by our most recent Best Director Winner. I’m most excited for Shang-Chi, as a sucker for martial arts films and, despite the controversy, spectacular early buzz for the movie itself.
No trailers yet, but the elements are there for this to be something special. Guillermo Del Toro, a master of spirits and suspense, with an all star cast (Toni Collette, Richard Jenkins, Ron Pearlman among others), making a famous novel (also made into a 1947 movie) about a carnival con man meeting a strange psychiatrist. This movie sounds scary, and if Del Toro is serious about the double R rating the movie will have we could have a great modern noir on our hands.
Lana Wachowski, Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss are back in the long awaited reboot of the Matrix franchise. We should get a trailer soon, but with a Wachowski back, and some fresh new faces like Yahya Abdul Mateen II and Priyanka Chopra Jonas, I’m pretty damn excited. The Wachowski’s always suck me in, even if their movies suck, so I can’t wait to see how they reprogram the Matrix for 2021. Remember, at her best, Lana made a top 50 movie of all time as far as I’m concerned.
I wasn’t a big fan of the original, but even I admit there are moments that take me to Berlin from that film. This one looks like they put more polish on the story, and amped up the aerial budget, making this a movie you’ll HAVE to see on the big screen. I remember my mouth almost drooling from the first trailer, as I saw stuff inside planes I’d never seen before on a movie screen, and can’t wait to see what else Tom Cruise, Glen Powell, and Miles Teller have in store for us as we jet across the sky.
Another must see big screen adventure, but with even bigger hype. Arrival/Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve gets an even bigger budget, even more amazing actors young (Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya) and old (Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin), and a story based on one of the great sci-fi novels of all time, so much so that it consumed other great directors who tried to make this before him (poor David Lynch). There’s high variance here, as this film has a strong chance of falling apart…but if Villeneuve pulls it off, we could be witness to one of the great science fiction films in recent memory, and maybe all time if we’re super duper lucky.
