Rare Round-Up: Entertainment News of the Week (15/12/2023)

We’re racing to the close of 2023 and all the chit-chat of best (fill the blank) of the year is in full swing. Of course, we have some opinions of our own and so this will be our last news-focused Round-Up of the year. Big sad. From next week, we will be presenting you with our best movies, music, games and books of 2023, taking a look at why we loved them, the impact they had, and of course, why they have a place on our list!

For today though, please sit back, relax and let us take you through a few of the goings-on in the visual and musical realms this fine week.

Starting with some upsetting news, Andre Braugher, best known for portraying the stern-faced Captain Raymond Holt on the hit cop comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, has passed away this week at age 61. Rest easy, Velvet Thunder.

Onto lighter topics, leading filmic news this week is of course the nominee announcements for the 81^st Golden Globes! In not-so-surprising news, Barbie, Oppenheimer, The Holdovers and Killers of the Flower Moon dominate the film side of the awards with Succession and The Bear on the TV side. Along with the nominations, BFI, AFI, Empire and the like are participating in the aforementioned chit-chat of best of the year. With BFI placing Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon as their top film of 2023 and having Barbie and Oppenheimer in joint fifth position- surely a little nod to their joint theatrical release as “Barbenheimer.” AFI have no clear indication of an order, but they also included those 3 along with the likes of Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction and Celine Song’s feature directorial debut Past Lives, the latter of which landed the number 1 spot with Empire.

Tell us what your favourite film of the year is!

Moving onto upcoming films, for the first time in almost a decade, Jack Black’s butt-kicking panda Po returns in Kung-Fu Panda 4! The first trailer dropped this week revealing a new chapter for the world’s most unlikely kung-fu master. It sees Po tapped to become the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace despite knowing nothing about spiritual leadership, and also means that he needs to quickly find and train a new Dragon Warrior before he can assume his new lofty position.

Plus, Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron has made its US debut and immediately hit the number 1 spot, making it the first anime film to debut at number 1 on American soil. It makes its way to the UK on Boxing Day and we’re super excited- hopefully, the success from across the pond will be replicated!

As for physical media news, our friends at Arrow Films have announced today that two new titles will be joining their 4k library in March 2024: City of the Living Dead and Dark Water.

The former is an Italian supernatural horror by “The Poet of the Macabre” Lucio Fulci, whose extreme-gore giallo ventures have amassed a cult following and become an inspiration to fellow gore-enthusiast Quentin Tarantino. City of the Living Dead is the first in Fulci’s thematic “Gates of Hell” trilogy and is inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. It is the story of a psychic and a journalist who head to Dunvich to prevent an apocalypse after a priest commits suicide in a cemetery, somehow causing the gates of hell to open and allowing the dead to rise.

Dark Water is by Hideo Nakata, who is the filmmaker behind some of the most famous J-horrors of all time, most notably the Ringu franchise, which is based on the series of novels by Koji Suzuki. Ringu popularized Japanese horror in the West, which triggered a trend of English-language remakes. Of Ringu’s filmic adaptations, Nakata directed the first two, as well as the second of its English-language counterparts.

2003’s Dark Water was another success, also spawning an English-language remake in 2005. It follows a divorced mother who moves into a rundown apartment with her daughter, and experiences supernatural occurrences including a mysterious water leak from the floor above.

Bringing things back to the ongoing festive season, the Christmas Special of Doctor Who, titled The Church on Ruby Road will be coming to DVD and Blu-ray, with the release date to be confirmed. The special will be the Doctor’s first full outing in the form of Ncutti Gatwa, who will team with new companion Ruby, portrayed by Millie Gibson.

The Whoniverse is no stranger to goblins and the new special features some. But not just any goblins, singing goblins who have legitimately released a Christmas single. Raising money for Children In Need, “The Goblin Song” dropped this week and is led by the hilariously named Janis Goblin. What’s more is that it quickly rose to #1 on the iTunes UK chart, overtaking seasonal favourites by Mariah Carey and The Pogues. We’re sure that the rest of the episode will be just as fun, and just as horrifying!

What are you most excited about this week? Be sure to check back next Friday for our top 5 films of 2023!