Blockbuster ‘Barbie’ arrives on streaming
“Barbie.” The blockbuster of the year is finally making its streaming debut, just in time for the holidays. Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” will premiere Friday on Max (formerly HBO Max) after its pink-festooned $1.4 billion bonanza in theaters. (The film also remains available on video-on-demand.) So prepare your Mojo Dojo Casa House now for the hit of 2023.
• After a tour through North American stadiums and a blockbuster debut in cinemas, Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” lands in homes, appropriately enough, on Swift’s birthday. “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” the concert film of Swift’s career-spanning spectacular, premieres on premium on-demand Wednesday. How much it will cost to digitally rent the film hasn’t been announced, but tickets to the movie cost $19.89, a reference to Swift’s album, “1989.” An already lengthy film (2 hours and 49 minutes) will also now run past three hours, with the addition of three songs: “Wildest Dreams,” “Long Live” and “The Archer.” In her review, AP Music Writer Maria Sherman praised the experience of seeing the Time Magazine Person of the Year up close in “The Eras Tour,” calling it “a near exact replica of her blockbuster concert performance.”
• More than two decades after the release of “Chicken Run,” Aardman Animations has returned to the adventures of its defiant feathered protagonist, Ginger, in the sequel “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.” The 2000 original remains the highest grossing stop-motion animation flick ever with more than $227 million in ticket sales. But “Dawn of the Nugget,” which introduces an allnew voice cast including Thandiwe Newton, Bella Ramsey and Zachary Levi, debuts Friday, Dec. 15, on Netflix. In it, Ginger has escaped from Tweedy Farm and found sanctuary elsewhere, but again must lead the flock to freedom.
• In writer-director Rodrigo Moreno’s “The Delinquents,” Morán (Daniel Eliás) has a clever scheme to steal from the bank he works in. He’ll steal only what he would be paid for 25 years of work, hide the money with a colleague (Esteban Bigliardi), confess to the crime and do three years in jail before having the rest of his life to himself. In the film, which streams Friday, Dec. 15, on Mubi, Moreno takes the hard genre apparatus of a heist movie and melts it into an existential meditation on life, work, and stolen time.