Unconventional 2024 holiday films mostly not for families
As soon as Thanksgiving is behind us, it’s time to look forward to another crop of holiday movies, and this year offers some excellent ones – though most of them seem to have very little to do with the season itself.
Unfortunately, after the last year or so, when the number of queer-themed and queer-inclusive holiday films seemed to be increasing, this year’s selection is notably short on queer representation.
Of course, with a couple of exceptions, they’re also notably short on seasonal cheer, too. Nevertheless, there are several promising gems headed to theaters over the next month, all of which should be of interest to any movie fan, queer or not, and the Blade is ready to break them down for you. WICKED (Now in theaters) Our first preview also serves as a mini-review, since it jumped the holiday queue for an early release, but that’s OK, because it turns out we needed it more than we knew.
The first installment of director John M. Chu’s much-anticipated two-part adaptation of the Broadway phenomenon, in turn based on the eponymous book by queer author Gregory Maguire’s book of the same name, stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as the two iconic witches of Frank Baum’s classic “Wizard of Oz” (Elphaba, the formerly anonymous “Wicked Witch of the West” as named by Maguire in his novel, and Glinda, the “Good Witch of the North,” respectively), and, without hyperbole, truly surpasses all expectation.
