Damn, the cast of Miami Vice ’85 is shaping up to be pretty awesome, like an entire season’s worth of guest stars all in one movie. Following the recent news that Dominic Sessa was spotted on set, word has come that the always amazing Haley Lu Richardson has been added. What’s her role? I don’t really care, Richardson is great in everything.
Richardson broke out with roles in Split, The Edge of Seventeen, and Kogonada’s Columbus. She rejoined Kogonada for After Yang and Zi, as well. I would also point out how good she was in Montana Story, Unpregnant, Support the Girls, and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. She recently starred with Emilia Clarke in the short-lived Peacock series, Ponies.
The full cast of Miami Vice ’85 includes Austin Butler, Michael B. Jordan, John Leguizamo, Alden Ehrenreich, Walton Goggins, André Holland, Andrew Schulz, Dominic Sessa, Danny Ramirez, Whitney Peak, Camila Morrone, Edi Gathegi, and Richardson. It opens on March 19th 2028, and is directed by Joseph Kosinski.
“We always said we would only return to Girls if there was a specific story we were burning to tell. I’ve missed these characters, but for a long time I couldn’t quite picture them in the present day. Then, right around my fortieth birthday, they started talking to me in the shower. And, as you may remember, once this fivesome starts talking, it’s pretty hard to get them to stop…”
Yep, that was Lena Dunham, issuing a statement about the return of Girls, nearly a decade after the HBO show left the air. A five-episode revival of the polarizing Emmy-winning show will return, with production to begin in early 2027.
As part of the announcement, creator Lena Dunham is seen trying to recruit the show’s original stars, including Zosia Mamet, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, and Andrew Rannells. No word on whether other frequent co-stars, Adam Driver and Christopher Abbott, will be joining them.
I hate-watched Girls through the last few seasons of its six season run, getting some sort of strange pleasure at how tone deaf and badly written it got. That said, I’ve always admired Dunham’s creativity and openness. Hopefully, after some time away, Girls will return to the sharp, insightful show it was in the beginning.
Here we go! Netflix has revealed the first trailer for Greta Gerwig’s anticipated Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, and it’s definitely not the stodgy, British fantasy film most of us remember from childhood. In fact, Gerwig goes big by setting the whole thing to the sound of Led Zeppelin’s classic “Stairway to Heaven.” The expectations she’s setting are very high, but as she showed with Barbie, she’s more than capable of surpassing them.
Newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell star as Digory and Polly, with Emma Mackey as Jadis, the future White Witch. Along with Meryl Streep as the kingly lion, Aslan, there’s Carey Mulligan, Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Denise Gough, and Susan Wokoma. Excellent casting.
Gerwig previously said she wanted her vision of Narnia to be a “rock opera”, and it certainly seems that is the vibe she’s going for. “I wanted a rock opera. I wanted it to be big and transporting.”
She continued, “David Bowie saved my life. Paul McCartney saved my life. David Gilmour saved my life. Pete Townshend saved my life. Jimmy Page, Robert Plant…“When I heard their music, I had this deep sense of [thinking], ‘You’re gonna be okay.’”
Gerwig connects those artists and their music to C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, which was sung into existence by the Christ-like Aslan… “Narnia is literally a world made out of music. It is a world sung to life by Aslan, and rock ’n’ roll to me felt like a world made out of music.”
The music is also key to Gerwig’s biggest change from Lewis’ novel. Instead of the early 1900s, Digory and Polly find themselves in 1950s postwar London, part of the generation that helped change British culture through music. Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt provide the original score.
So yeah, it sounds like Gerwig is going all out with this one, and why shouldn’t she? Netflix has ponied up a hefty $200M, so they have faith in her create something fresh and groundbreaking as she did with Barbie. It has also promised Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew a 45-day theatrical window beginning February 10th with IMAX previews, followed by nationwide theaters two days later, and finally Netflix on April 2nd.
The truth is out there, and now we know where it is. Hulu has given a series order to Ryan Coogler’s reimagining of The X-Files, which will have Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel leading a new take on the paranormal franchise.
“I’ve loved ‘The X-Files’ for a long time, so getting the chance to write and direct the pilot has meant a great deal to me,” Coogler said in an issued statement. “What Chris Carter created is special, and we wanted to honor everything that made the original series connect with so many people while also finding our own way into that world.”
This is a ballsy move for Coogler, taking on a reboot of Chris Carter’s beloved The X-Files. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were ’90s icons for their portrayals of FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, who investigated paranormal events, extraterrestrials, government conspiracies, and more. Coogler has very big shoes to fill.
Carter is involved in the project as an exec-producer, while Ludwig Göransson is scoring the pilot episode.
Rumors are that Duchovny and Anderson show up in the pilot episode, which Coogler wrote and directed. To me, that sounds like an unnecessary passing of the torch. Jennifer Yale (See) is aboard as showrunner.
Hulu hasn’t revealed a premiere date, but sometime in 2027 seems like a good bet.
They say you should never meet your heroes, but Cilvarings did much more than that. The Dutch-Moroccan rapper and producer was a huge Wu-Tang Clan fan who made his mission to get in close with the hip-hop supergroup. Eventually, he did more than join its inner circle; he became part of one of the most controversial album releases ever. That journey is chronicled in the new documentary, The Disciple: A Wu-Tang Fable.
Directed by Oscar-winning producer Joanna Natasegara in her directorial debut, The Disciple centers on Cilvarings and his years-long association with Wu-Tang Clan. Eventually, he and RZA became creative allies and teamed up on Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. The controversial, specialty album wasn’t released commercially at all. To challenge the diminishing value of music in the digital age, Wu-Tang dropped only one copy of the album, which was bought in auction by the notorious Pharma Bro, Martin Shkreli, for roughly $2M.
What followed was a years-long ownership battle that tested whether exclusivity makes any art form more valuable.
The film debuted earlier this year at Sundance, and is set to premiere on Netflix on October 16th.
The cast of Miami Vice ’85 is better than we knew. Yesterday, we got our first look at Austin Butler and Michael B. Jordan as Crockett and Tubbs in the vintage cop flick. We assumed we already knew the full cast since shooting had begun, but one name was missing: Dominic Sessa. The Tony actor was spotted on set as well.
Sessa joins a stacked ensemble that includes John Leguizamo, Alden Ehrenreich, Walton Goggins, André Holland, Andrew Schulz, Danny Ramirez, Whitney Peak, Camila Morrone and Edi Gathegi. Sessa’s role is unknown. Maybe he’s the guy who makes Crockett and Tubbs’ cool outfits?
Few actors are hotter than Sessa right now, and a few are even mentioning his name this awards season for Tony, where he plays a young Anthony Bourdain. Sessa’s Hollywood career is only a few years old and he’s made the most of it. His breakout role fresh out of school was in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, which he followed with the Rose Byrne drama Tow, blockbuster Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, and Christmas comedy Oh. What. Fun.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski, Miami Vice ’85 hits theaters on May 19th 2028.
Godzilla has been around a long time, and most of us have seen more than our share of movies featuring the kaiju king. What made Godzilla Minus One so dope is that it showed Godzilla’s ferocity in leveling cities, but didn’t forget the real human cost of that destruction. Takashi Yamazaki’s anticipated sequel, Godzilla Minus Zero, follows in the same massive footsteps, based on early buzz from its world premiere at NYFF.
A new trailer has dropped for Godzilla Minus Zero, and it’s the same footage that audiences saw at New York Comic-Con over the weekend. The story takes place in 1949, two years after the events of the prior film, as postwar Japan faces the calamitous threat of King Ghidorah, forcing Godzilla to reemerge to defeat it. Ryunosuke Kamiki returns as pilot Koichi Shikishima, and Minami Hamabe as his wife, Noriko Oishi, who seems to be mentioned in the beginning of this trailer by Dr. Ogata, played by Jun Kunimura.
Godzilla Minus One was beloved not just for the city-destroying action, but for its emphasis on people and the power of community, so it’s good to see the continuation of that story because we genuinely have reason to care about it.
Yamazaki did something that’s never been done with a Japanese production before, and that’s shooting the entire film using IMAX cameras. If you thought the previous film looked great, which is why it won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, this one should look even better.
Godzilla Minus Zero hits IMAX theaters early on November 3rd, followed by a nationwide rollout on November 6th.
The Best Actress Oscar race is going to be exceptionally tight this year, with too many possible contenders to list here. But there’s one that I hope won’t get overlooked and it’s Ruth Madeley, who shines as trailblazing disability rights activist Judith Heumann in Being Heumann, the latest film from CODA director Sian Heder.
Being Heumann is based on Heumann’s memoir, Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist, published just three years before her death. The film will chronicle Heumann’s efforts as a disability rights activist beginning in the 1970s, often challenging the administration of President Richard Nixon. In 1977, Heumann took part in the 504 Sit-In, leading over a hundred disabled people in a 28-day sit-in at the San Francisco Federal Building, the longest sit-in at a federal building. The protestors vowed to stay until the government enforced Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, requiring accessibility for all federal programs or activities.
It’s that 504 Sit-In that serves as the basis of the film. Heder and Rebekah Taussig co-wrote the screenplay.
Joining Madeley in the cast is Mark Ruffalo as Joseph Califano, who was the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for the Jimmy Carter Administration. Califano often stood against the demands of the disability rights movement.
Also in the ensemble are Dylan O’Brien, Will Brill, Michael Patrick Thornton, Antwan Tolliver, Rein Barcel, Charlie Rush-Reese, D’Arcee Charington Neal, Andrew Pilkington, Rio Finnegan, Daniel Durant, Russell Harvard, Matthew August Jeffers, Jon Beavers, Roberta Colindrez, Siena Rafter, Ray Fisher, Rob Delaney, and Madeline Delp.
Being Heumann will open in select theaters on November 6th, then move to Apple TV on November 13th. It’s also playing this week at the Middleburg Film Festival (tickets here), so don’t miss your chance to check it out. You can also find my early review here.
The Mosquito Bowl combines two of director Peter Berg’s greatest passions: heroes of the gridiron, and heroes of the battlefield. The Friday Night Lights and Lone Survivor filmmaker brings them together in a WWII drama based on an incredible true story.
Directed by Berg, who co-wrote it with Mark L. Smith, The Mosquito Bowl centers on four promising football stars who set aside their careers to join the Marines following the Pearl Harbor attack. In 1944, they took part in the Mosquito Bowl, a game between two Marine regiments mainly comprised of soldiers who had been college football standouts.
The film stars Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis, along with Stacy Clausen, Brent Comer, Dominic Bogart, and Pat McAfee.
Berg reunites with author Buzz Bissinger, who also wrote the original Friday Night Lights book that he adapted into his beloved 2004 football drama, which also became a long-running TV series.
SYNOPSIS: Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, four of America’s top College Football stars set their fame aside to enlist in the Marines. As they prepare for the brutal invasion of Okinawa, they’ll play in a legendary game featuring some of the greatest players in history – a game that, for many, will be the last they ever play.
The Mosquito Bowl opens in select theaters on October 30th, before moving to Netflix on November 25th.
Jane Levy (Evil Dead) and Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day) are Scream Queens of the highest order, and it’s past time that they battle a masked killer together. That’s what Midnight Madness fans got to see at the world premiere of River at TIFF just last month. The film was a smash hit with the genre crowd, which is why Blumhouse Atomic Monster/Universal Pictures swept in to acquire it from Shudder, and now the first trailer has arrived.
River is set to hit theaters on January 15th 2027. The film stars Levy, Rothe, and Max Mattern as siblings reunited to spread the ashes of their dead fathe in the river he loved so much. Unfortunately for them, this somber reunion turns deadly when their boat breaks down, and they are stalked by a pair of masked killers.
A cool little note: playing the main attacker is Dane DiLiegro, who played the Feral Predator in Prey. He also played the most deadly lycan in Werewolves a couple of years ago. Hunting is in this guy’s DNA.
Joshua Giuliano made his directorial debut on River and also wrote the screenplay. You can check out the trailer below, and also my early review here!
