NOW ENTERTAINMENT Dec. 00 7 - 13, 2025 Month - 00, 2023
Your Weekly TV Entertainment Brought To You By Olean Times Herald & The Bradford Era
“Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” is in select theaters now and makes its worldwide streaming premiere Friday, Dec. 12, on Netflix. Josh O’Connor and Daniel Craig in “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery”
Cover Story Waking the dead: Benoit Blanc returns in third ‘Knives Out Mystery’ By Dana Simpson The avid filmgoer or attentive pop culture aficionado has likely noticed a trending return toward gothic sensibilities over the past year or so. Sure, Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” (2024) and Guillermo Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” (2025) are firmly planted in the horror genre, but that doesn’t mean the gothic vibes need to stay sequestered with the monstrous forever. Rian Johnson (“Poker Face”), for one, had other plans, and now the newly repopularized aesthetic has expanded into the realm of whodunnit comedy. “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” is in select theaters now and makes its worldwide streaming premiere Friday, Dec. 12, on Netflix. The third film in Johnson’s Knives Out franchise, featuring suave Southern detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, “Casino Royale,” 2006), “Wake Up Dead Man” initially premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September.
Then described as “a seemingly impossible locked-room scenario involving a corpse” that remains “as strong, inventive and entertaining as ever,” Johnson trades in the sun-soaked luxury of the Grecian mansion in “Glass Onion” (2022) for the grim-yet-beautiful artistry of a Gothic-era church in soggy Upstate New York, a setting befitting of the themes at the film’s core. “Themes of guilt, mystery, morality and fallible humanity all feel right at home in a church, with a man of God in the center of the mix,” Johnson explains in an interview for Netflix’s Tudum. “I have strong feelings about faith: both my own personal experience and how it intersects with our country’s cultural and civic life, and the ways that intersection touches all of us differently. So it felt like rich ground for a good story.” And that story, per the trailer, goes a little something like this: “A man gives a ser-
mon. He then, in plain sight of everyone, walks into a sealed concrete box, and 30 seconds later, that man is lying dead. A classic impossible crime.” At the heart of the crime is, of course, the victim: Mons. Jefferson Wicks, played by “Weapons” (2025) and “Avengers: Endgame” (2019) star Josh Brolin. Upon the discovery of the priest’s body, the film series’ dapper Det. Blanc (this time with a luscious mane of hair) is called in to solve the unlikely crime. As always, Blanc is tasked with questioning a small group of would-be witnesses, any one of whom could be the killer. Among the rag-tag group of suspects are Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor, “The Crown”), who has taken up the mantle as Blanc’s assistant and right-hand man; devout Catholic Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close, “Fatal Attraction,” 1987), who is as shady as she is religious; local doctor Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt
Locker,” 2008); cynical bestselling author Lee Ross (Andrew Scott, “Ripley”); former concert cellist Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny, “Civil War,” 2024); the Dravens, including uptight lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington, “Scandal”) and aspiring politician Cy (Daryl McCormack, “Peaky Blinders”); as well as the church’s riskaverse groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Hayden Church, “Sideways,” 2004). Mila Kunis (“Black Swan,” 2010) also stars as small-town New York police chief Geraldine Scott. “We’ve been very lucky with each of these movies to have gathered some of my favorite actors on the planet, and that’s absolutely the case here,” Johnson reported to Tudum. “They’re also all lovely folks who get along,” the writer-director noted, adding, “When you’re making an ensemble movie like this, I think that’s key.”
In Focus
In Focus “Fallout” - Season 2 (Prime Video — Dec. 17, Season Premiere) The new season of this sci-fi series picks up in the aftermath of the first season’s epic finale, taking audiences along for a journey through the wasteland of the Mojave to the post-apocalyptic city of New Vegas. Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Walton Goggins, Kyle MacLachlan and Moises Arias star.
“Emily in Paris” - Season 5 (Netflix — Dec. 18, Season Premiere) Now the head of Agence Grateau, Emily (Lily Collins) faces professional and romantic challenges as she adapts to life in a new city. But just as everything falls into place, a work idea backfires and the fallout cascades into heartbreak and career setbacks. Seeking stability, Emily leans into her French lifestyle, until a big secret threatens one of her closest relationships.