While this time of year is often spotty for a theatrical experience, makers of streaming movies and series realize the first of year is actually a great time to launch the next breakout fi lm or show. Here’s a few to keep you in good winter company
BY DAN SALAMONE
January
SOCIETY OF THE SNOW NETFLIX
This highly reviewed new release based on extraordinary true events follows a flight carrying 51 people as it crashes in a remote part of the Andes. The survivors must next band together to survive and are forced to make extreme choices. (If you don’t know the story, we won’t ruin it for you, but be prepared to hold onto your seat.) Directed by J.A. Bayona of 2007’s deliciously terrifying horror fi lm, The Orphanage.
ECHO DISNEY+
2023 was a rough year for Disney. Its two big tentpole films (Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels) missed expectations (the latter even nabbed the dunce cap as the lowest-grossing fi lm in the MCU). Even its usually reliable streaming shows didn’t garner widespread acclaim. All this is preamble to say that this new spino series of the critically celebrated show Hawkeye has promise. It follows a deaf Native American girl forced to use her supernatural powers to evade a shadowy government organization.
GOOD GRIEF
NETFLIX
Dan Levy (of the comedic mega-hit Schitt’s Creek) writes and directs this story of a young artist (Levy) still coming to terms with the unexpected death of his famous writer husband (Luke Evans of Murder Mystery). Grappling with how to move on, he decides to take a group of his friends to Paris (including Booksmart’s Kaitlyn Dever), leading to the revelation of several messy secrets.
TED PEACOCK
Following the release of the breakout adult comedy smash Ted in 2012, it seemed safe to assume a massive viewing audience would’ve welcomed a series version showcasing the continued adventures of Seth MacFarlane’s wise-cracking teddy bear and his BFF. Then 2015’s Ted 2 came along and quickly alienated fans (half the movie was an inexplicably serious courtroom drama). But we’re confi dent – or at least modestly hopeful – that, in this new series, MacFarlane can return to the foulmouthed laughs that made the first so popular.
February
DARIO ARGENTO PANICO SHUDDER
Few modern filmmakers have had a bigger impact on the horror genre than Dario Argento. Classics like 1975’s Deep Red and 1977’s Suspiria (remade quite faithfully and surprisingly well in 2018) defined and brought much-missed gruesome gothic style to the slasher genre. Fans and novices have a chance to experience Argento in the first documentary on his life and work.
ORION AND THE DARK
NETFLIX
Few people who’ve watched one of Charlie Kaufman’s mind-blowing head trips (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, I’m Thinking of Ending Things) have probably thought to themselves, “He should write and direct a movie for kids!” Yet that’s exactly what Orion is, an intriguing take on a universally adored children’s book by Emma Yates. Young John Orion, who is afraid of the dark, meets the literal personification of the latter, who’s set on showing him how the things he’s afraid of hold no power. Sounds like another head trip, indeed.