Awards Season has begun, and there’s one new movie that is earning a lot of buzz. The Power of the Dog hit Netflix on December 1st and stars Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange), Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man), Jesse Plemons (Breaking Bad), and Kodi Smit-McPhee (X-Men Apocolypse). The drama/western was helmed by Jane Campion, who is best known for directing The Piano. Currently, The Power of the Dog has six nominations from The Hollywood Critics Association. It also won the Silver Lion award for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival and Best Ensemble at the Satellite Awards. There’s a good chance the movie will score some Academy Award nominations. There’s even buzz for Cumberbatch, who was previously nominated for Best Actor for The Imitation Game back in 2015. You can check out the synopsis for The Power of the Dog below…
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“Severe, pale-eyed, handsome, Phil Burbank [Cumberbatch] is brutally beguiling. All of Phil’s romance, power, and fragility is trapped in the past and in the land: He can castrate a bull calf with two swift slashes of his knife; he swims naked in the river, smearing his body with mud. He is a cowboy as raw as his hides. The year is 1925. The Burbank brothers are wealthy ranchers in Montana. At the Red Mill restaurant on their way to market, the brothers meet Rose [Dunst], the widowed proprietress, and her impressionable son Peter [Smit-McPhee]. Phil behaves so cruelly he drives them both to tears, reveling in their hurt and rousing his fellow cowhands to laughter – all except his brother George [Plemons], who comforts Rose then returns to marry her. As Phil swings between fury and cunning, his taunting of Rose takes an eerie form – he hovers at the edges of her vision, whistling a tune she can no longer play. His mockery of her son is more overt, amplified by the cheering of Phil’s cowhand disciples. Then Phil appears to take the boy under his wing. Is this latest gesture a softening that leaves Phil exposed, or a plot twisting further into menace?”
Of course, The Power of the Dog isn’t the only Cumberbatch movie to look forward to this month. The actor will also be reprising his role as Doctor Strange in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Recently, he revealed why he didn’t want to read the whole script.
“You know it’s a dead end, but I can tell you this: It’s a riotous film,” Cumberbatch told USA Today with a grin when asked about Spider-Man secrets. “I don’t want to give anything away – and I haven’t actually read the whole script! I did that on purpose because I just want the ride.”
The Power of the Dog is now streaming on Netflix. Spider-Man: No Way Home will be in theaters on December 17th.
