This is the penultimate edition of our weekly streaming roundup and oh boy are there some good presents in store for you. Don’t believe us? Well, we’ve got a highly anticipated murder mystery that is finally hitting the airwaves to one of the year’s best animated films and a blockbuster that takes flight. So dig in with us as we wind down 2022 in style.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Release Date: Friday, December 23 on Netflix
We know that Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery has a mouthful of a title, but it still is a delightful treat to gobble down with all your friends this holiday season. Picking up with Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc as he spends his days in his bathtub during quarantine, we see the detective growing bored without a case to sink his teeth into. That all changes when a package arrives at his door and he finds himself caught up in a gathering at a remote island location where all the guests seem to be hiding something. The less that you know beyond this the better as the film has plenty of fun as it pulls us deeper into its layers of death.
Inu-Oh
Release Date: Tuesday, December 20 on VOD
We’ll forgive you if you slept on Inu-Oh, one of the most vibrant musical animations of the year, but that means you’re going to need to check it out for yourself this week. Set in 14th-century Japan, it follows the duo of the titular Inu-Oh and Tomona who come together to form a band that becomes a cultural phenomenon. Each has its own painful past, but their music proves to be a liberating form of expression that has the potential to challenge the powers that be. As such, they soon find themselves facing down threats to both their music and their very lives. A work of historical revisionism in radical and riveting fashion, it is one animated film that you’ll want to experience for yourself before the year is out.
Mack & Rita
Release Date: Friday, December 23 on Hulu
Remember Mack & Rita? It came out in theaters a few months ago and starred Diane Keaton as a body-swapped younger version of herself? Not ringing any bells? The story is that the thirty-year-old Mack, played by Elizabeth Lail in her younger version, is not all that thrilled about being young. Whenever she sees older people, they seem to have their lives together in a way that she does not. She then finds a man named Luca, played by Simon Rex in rare form, who offers her one wish. Mack decides she wants to be old and wouldn’t you know it, that is what happens. Well, that’s okay as the film itself isn’t the most successful of comedies you could see this year. However, with that being said, it is always to see Keaton on screen and having fun with a goofy role. Oh, and there is also Taylour Paigewho, while vastly underutilized as Mack’s friend Carla, is also a great performer. At the very least, the scenes that we get with the two of them are this comedy at its best.
Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge
Release Date: Thursday, December 22 on Shudder
A horror comedy anthology that is a little bit Saw and a little bit like five other horror films,Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge is about exactly what you would expect from this sequel. For those who didn’t see the first one, that is okay as it has an almost entirely new slate of directors though it also expands on where the original left off by placing the characters in another crisis when the titular Rad Chad returns from the grave to continue wreaking havoc on their lives.
Sharp Stick
Release Date: Friday, December 23 on Hulu
We have now arrived at the point where this here roundup is sure to get a little bit divisive. Sharp Stick, the latest film from writer-director Lena Dunham, is a story that explores the troubled process of growing up that is only further complicated by the affair that the film has at its center. It is an undeniably messy work in almost all regards that gets elevated by a strong cast who give it their all. Whether you connect with it or not will depend on your own interest in the way Dunham chooses to tell the story. It is the type of film to evoke strong feelings, be they love or hate, that have to be seen to be fully understood.
Strange World
Release Date: Friday, December 23 on Disney+
Okay, we know that Strange World was not the most popular of movies to get released this year. However, it is actually pretty good! Sure, there are a fair amount of cliches to sort through, but it is worth it for the more fun family science fiction story at the core of the experience. Plus, it has the Internet’s own Jaboukie Young-Whitewho is still wonderfully hilarious all on his own.
Top Gun: Maverick
Release Date: Thursday, December 22 on Paramount+
Last but definitely not least is the unchallenged box office bonanza that is Top Gun: Maverick. If you somehow weren’t one of the crowds of people who rushed to see it in theaters or just want to see it again, now is your chance to do so. The latest in the series of films where Tom Cruise risks life and limb for the spectacle where he basically plays himself, this one sees him take to the sky at supersonic speeds. It centers once more on Maverick (Cruise) who is called back to the infamous Top Gun program to train a new generation of pilots for a dangerous mission against an intentionally vague enemy. Along the way, he’ll reconnect with an old flame and grapple with a past that is steeped in tragedy. This is all window dressing to the main attraction which is seeing Cruise and company fly around doing death-defying stunts. It may not have the same impact as a theater, but the planes do still go zoom.