Australian actor Cate Blanchett has already won two Oscars – for The Aviator in 2004 and Blue Jasmine in 2013 – and she could well be on the way to win a third after her stunning performance in Tár.
It hits cinemas on January 26 – two days after the Oscar nominations are released in the US.
Blanchett plays orchestra conductor Lydia Tár, the first female conductor of a major German orchestra. She is at the height of her career when her life begins to unravel over the ensuing weeks of the film.
Making a rare appearance in Sydney in November for a Q&A after a preview screening at the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace in Cremorne, Blanchett told her sold-out audience to let the film “wash over you”.
“I personally haven’t processed the experience of making this film and I couldn’t possibly tell what it’s ‘about’. Nor would I want to,” she said.
“It’s a film that has a conductor at its centre, but it’s not about the classical music world. You don’t need to know any terminology at all, just allow it to wash over you.
“Don’t try to make sense of it. I didn’t. Still can’t.”
Blanchett described working with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra as “a life-changing experience”.
When Tár launched at the Venice Film Festival in September, director Todd Field said the script was written for Blanchett.
“Had she said no, the film would have never seen the light of day. Filmgoers, amateur and otherwise, will not be surprised by this. After all, she is a master supreme.
“Even so, while we were making the picture, the superhuman-skill and verisimilitude of Cate was something truly astounding to behold.
“She raised all boats. The privilege of collaborating with an artist of this calibre is something impossible to adequately describe.
“In every possible way this is Cate’s film.”
And it’s a hot top that it may land Blanchett a third Academy Award for best actress.
Babylon: January 19
Fellow Australian Margot Robbie blazes her way onto the big screen in this 1920s Los Angeles three-hour epic, Babylon, alongside Brad Pitt, and it’s a film that also screams out for Oscar nominations.
Pitt and Robbie have already attended red carpet premieres in the US and been the face of the promo campaign. That included a chat with The Project’s Waleed Ali, who last spoke to Pitt about another “bonkers” film, Bullet Train.
He asks Pitt if Babylon beats that: “This is probably the most bonkers you’ve ever seen … even in just the first 30 minutes alone”.
Adds a smiling Robbie: “It’s a visual feast, but a visual assault on your senses”.
The trailers alone give viewers a taste of the decadence and depravity in early Hollywood, as film studios moved away from silent films to colour and talking.
The Fabelmans – January 5
Nominated for five Golden Globes including best film, The Fabelmans is written and directed by Steven Spielberg and is a semi-autobiographical story inspired by his family and upbringing.
Starring Gabriel LaBelle (The Predator, American Gigolo series) as 16-year-old aspiring filmmaker Sammy Fabelman and Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans has been described as a fictionalised origin story of the passion for filmmaking that led to countless classics from Jaws to Schindler’s List.
Spielberg provided mementos from his childhood to help inspire the actors, including family photos and video footage.
“They expose their children to their passions, their lives, overlapped with the way that they parented that wasn’t something that they left in another room,” Williams told the ABC7 cable network in LA recently.
“It’s something that they really brought into the centre. And they really lived a very creative life together as a family.”
Tweet from @abc730
A Man Called Otto – January 1
It’s never too soon for another Tom Hanks film.
Just as we move on from his performance in Elvis – where he played manager Colonel Tom Parker – Hanks is back with a far more genteel, feel-good summer holiday film the whole family can watch.
Based on the comical, yet moving No.1 New York Times bestseller, this is the story of Otto Anderson (Hanks), a cranky widower who is set in his ways, and still mourning the loss of his wife.
He doesn’t know how to shake the heartache.
When a lively young family moves in next door, Otto meets his match in quick-witted and very pregnant Marisol (Mariana Treviño), leading to an unlikely friendship that will turn his world upside down.
Her children help break his thick veneer along the way and it’s full of laughter and bonhomie.
Blueback – January 1
Director and writer Robert Connolly has turned Tim Winton’s novella Blueback into a feature film set on the beautiful Western Australian coastline.
It’s a story of a young girl who is inspired to save the local reef from developers after befriending a wild blue groper fish.
Don’t wait for it to hit a streaming service, it’s in cinemas now.
Go see it on the big screen and marvel as Connolly and his crew capture this unique landscape and the cast, who swim with marine life such as manta rays and sharks.
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre – January 12
Now for a change of pace. A movie that is less earnest, with more action, fast car chases, and a lead with a shoot-the-bad-guys approach who has perfect timing and wit.
Can’t go past Jason Statham, right? Think the Transporter franchise, The Fast and the Furious, The Expendables and The Meg (about a giant shark).
Cleverly written, with a supporting cast including Hugh Grant and Aubrey Plaza (The White Lotus), Operation Fortune is a perfect summer escape.
Statham plays super spy Orson Fortune, who has been tasked to track down and stop the sale of deadly weapons technology wielded by billionaire arms broker Greg Simmonds (Grant).
He’s no James Bond, but he comes awfully close.
Emily – January 8
Starring Emma Mackey (Sex Education, Death on the Nile), Emily tells the imagined life of one of the world’s most famous authors, Emily Brontë, a rebel and a misfit.
As Brontë finds her voice and writes the literary classic Wuthering Heights, Emily looks at the relationships that inspired her to become a writer, including her sisters Charlotte and Anne, her first lover and her care for her brother Branwell.
In a recent Vogue interview, Mackey said she watched lots of films about the Brontes. But instead of sticking to the biographical history of the middle sister, Mackey says she let go of the idea of Emily as a biopic.
“There are no rules in this film. Once I realised that, it became so much more fun,” she said.
Billie Eilish Live at the 02 – January 27
Superstar Billie Eilish has released a visual record of her live performance for one night only in cinemas, where the audience can experience the live concert film captured at The O2 in London in cinematic 4k with Dolby Atmos sound.
It’s a never-before-seen extended version of her record-breaking sold-out Happier Than Ever, The World Tour.
