Arrival

This weekend’s box office was essentially the hangover from last week’s big holiday: the numbers are a little smaller, very little in the top 10 actually moved around, and the only new release didn’t even come close to threatening the dominion of Moana and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Today marks the first day of December, the month in which movie obsessives must succumb to awards-season fever and meticulously keep track of which nomination went to who, which organization snubbed which movie, and what the difference between AMPAS and HFPA is. As the New York Film Critics’ Circle deliberates on their picks for the year’s slate of awards, the Broadcast Film Critics Association has unveiled their full list of nominees for the Critics’ Choice Awards and kicked the festivities off. The Critics’ Choice Awards has historically held a fraction of the Oscars‘ or Golden Globes‘ prestige, but compensated with a more eclectic lineup of nominated films that adds a most welcome element of surprise. This year’s no different, mixing some unanticipated contenders with the usual heavyweights.

Denis Villeneuve’s outstanding Arrival has wowed audiences and earned critical plaudits with its philosophical approach to sci-fi, its unusually deft look at linguistics, and its fundamental Amy Adams-ness. But plenty of attention has also been paid to the unusual design of the aliens that land on Earth and set off the events of the film, dubbed ‘heptapods’ by Adams’ character due to their seven-legged squid-like physiology, and to a lesser extent, because Adams is one hep cat. The heptapods, all silent and faceless and ash-colored, must be the most memorable aspect of this marvelous film, and yet they did not always look this way.

It looks like the general public reacted to one of the most stressful weeks in living memory by flocking to the movies for a few hours of escape. Both Doctor Strange and Trolls, which debuted to solid numbers last week, held on strong. Arrival, the biggest newcomer of the bunch, also opened well, proving that it’s entirely possible to open in third place and still be a winner at the box office.

The 50th anniversary of Star Trek this week really put in perspective just how long we’ve been living with the concept of extraterrestrial. In 2016, there’s something downright familiar about aliens, maybe because in most situations our conception of them remains rooted in our conception of ourselves: They look like us with pointy ears or a ribbed nose, or they don’t look like us, but they behave like us, with motivations and actions that are easily recognizable and understandable. One of Arrival’s greatest achievements is the way it makes alien seem alien again: Strange and inhuman and beyond the limits of our comprehension. It readjusts our thinking about what life on other worlds might be like. And in doing so, it also readjusts our thinking about what life on our world can be like.

With all the recent hubbub surrounding Birth of a Nation, the mounting Oscar chances for late-year prestige pictures, and a handful of possible blockbusters left on the schedule, 2016's film conversation has shifted away from a project that ought to be far higher up on everyone's watchlist.

Adios summer, the fall festival season has begun! On the heels of the Venice and Telluride film festivals, the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival kicks off this week with a handful of films we can’t wait to see. The fall festivals are a time when we can finally put the ugly remnants of summer movie season behind us (especially this year), and get a look at the movies that may redeem the year in cinema.

Anticipation for Arrival to, well, arrive is pretty high, with several cinephiles eager to experience the latest effort from Denis Villeneuve — the director of last year’s exquisitely intense Sicario. If you’re feeling particularly anxious to see more from the new sci-fi drama, Sony has released two new clips that expand upon a couple of scenes from the trailer, in which Amy Adams’ expert linguist first meets our unearthly visitors.

If an alien species were to visit Earth with mysterious intentions, it just makes sense that we’d send Amy Adams to represent humankind. She’s empathetic, she’s approachable, she’s understanding, and she’s the total antithesis of the hostile and aggressive types we see facing off aliens in most sci-fi movies. (At least this is how I like to picture Amy Adams.)

The first photos from Denis Villeneuve‘s latest film Arrival debuted earlier this week, and they revealed a big oval shaped object behind Amy Adams. This is a movie about aliens so could it be a spaceship? Yup! The first teaser trailer for Arrival has arrived (I had to)...