If you’re like me, your desire to go to the beach has been heightened lately. Well, thanks to Netflix, you can now go while staying at home in your PJs. Today, the streaming service released its trailer for Outer Banks, a teen drama centered on the lives and relationships of those living in the North Carolinian beach town. Giving off major East-Coast O.C. vibes, the show follows a group of teenagers who find a treasure map to $400 million worth of gold.
Led by John B., a young man whose father has gone missing, the group of misfits must compete with the police, the wealthy, and others in order to find the missing treasure first. “If they’re willing to kill for the gold, then it must be out there,” John shouts at one point. Murder, make-outs, and money seem to cause the most tension in this beach town. As the trailer’s tagline says, “Living in Paradise is no vacation.”
Check the trailer out below and catch Outer Banks on Netflix April 15th.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love, and Hulu had certainly provided it. In a truly explosive and passionate trailer, the streaming service gives us the first look at NormalPeople, a romantic miniseries exploring class and love in ’00s Ireland.
Based on Sally Rooney’s 2018 best-selling book, the show will follow the romantic ups and downs between Marianne and Connell, whose mother works as a housekeeper for Marianne’s family. As they become closer over time and come of age, their relationship becomes tested by outside sources and by the trailer, it won’t be easy. Angry brothers, money, secret relationships, and lots of kissing, all seem to complicate their relationship. Starring relatively unknown actors Daisy Edgar Jones and Paul Mescal as Marianne and Connell, I can’t wait to see how this all unfolds.
A co-production with BBC Three, the 12 episode series will be directed Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald. Abrahamson is best known for directing Room, which earned him an Academy Award nomination. Macdonald, who has been directing since 1996, has directed numerous episodes of TV, including Fortitude, Doctor Who, and Poirot.
Normal People will premiere on Hulu on April 29th. Watch the trailer below.
Although accolades have followed director Atom Egoyan throughout his career, it’s never translated to much beyond that. His highest-grossing film is still 2009’s Chloe with just $11M, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. Egoyan returns with Guest of Honour, a knotty family drama that has earned raves at Venice, Toronto, and elsewhere.
Guest of Honour stars David Thewlis, Laysla de Oliveira, Rossif Sutherland, and Luke Wilson. It centers on a complicated father/daughter relationship and the implications of a hoax that goes terribly wrong.
A theatrical release for Guest of Honour has been planned for Europe in April, but it’s unclear if that is going forward. Perhaps a VOD debut will be extended into the U.S., as well.
SYNOPSIS: Jim (David Thewlis) and his daughter Veronica (Laysla De Oliveira), a young high- school music teacher, attempt to unravel their complicated histories and intertwined secrets in GUEST OF HONOUR, the new film from Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) which weaves through time exploring perception and penance, memory and forgiveness. A hoax instigated by an aggressive school bus driver (Rossif Sutherland) goes very wrong. Accused of abusing her position of authority with 17-year-old Clive (Alexandre Bourgeois) and another student, Veronica is imprisoned. Convinced that she deserves to be punished for crimes she committed at an earlier age, Veronica rebuffs her father’s attempts to secure her early release. Confused and frustrated by Veronica’s intransigence, Jim’s anguish begins to impinge on his job. As a food inspector, he wields great power over small, family-owned restaurants. It’s a power he doesn’t hesitate to use. While preparing Jim’s funeral, Veronica confides the secrets of her past to Father Greg (Luke Wilson) who may hold the final piece of the father-daughter puzzle.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker had lofty expectations heaped on it, too much for any movie to achieve. That said, the overall consensus is that it leaves much to be desired, not just as the finale to the epic Skywalker Saga, but as an entertaining movie. In nearly every case, it’s the script where most problems begin, and that appears to be the case with The Rise of Skywalker.
We’ve heard the stories of multiple script revisions on The Rise of Skywalker, and writer Chris Terrio backs up those stories in the upcoming book The Art of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. In fact, Terrio says he’s never had to rewrite a movie as much as this one, which is saying a lot considering her also wrote Batman v Superman and Justice League.
“I’ve never rewritten a film as much as this one,” said Terrio (via Business Insider). “It’s like a tide. There’s a new script every morning. But we just keep going at it and going at it, loosely thinking that it’s not good enough. It’s never good enough.”
“Luckily, the production team is so good that they can shift and adjust. We’re course-correcting as we go – we’re trying things, and some things don’t work and some things aren’t ambitious enough. Some things are overly ambitious. Some things are too dense. Some things are too simple. Some things are too nostalgic. Some things are too out-of-left-field. We’re finding our balance.”
So did anybody stop to tell them to remove the shit that doesn’t work? Or did they just keep it all in? Seems like they kept them all in. Terrio basically just confirmed what many of us have felt about The Rise of Skywalker, which is that it was constantly tinkered with by multiple people all of the time, until finally JJ Abrams just shot the damn thing to get it over with.
Anyway, The Rise of Skywalker is available today on Bluray and DVD. I’m still debating whether to get it, the first time I’ve ever had to think about owning a Star Wars movie.
Alamo Drafthouse may be one of the larger novelty theaters out there, but it’s struggling like the rest of them right now. With theaters closed nationwide, all are looking for ways to keep their audiences engaged while earning a bit of revenue. Alamo has come up with a pretty cool way to do just that with Alamo-At-Home.
Alamo-At-Home basically seeks to bring the Alamo Drafthouse experience home to you. The biggest part of that is the Virtual Cinema program, a partnership with Kino Lorber, Magnolia, and Film Movement to screen their first-run films online. Just a few of the films immediately available are Oscar nominee Corpus Christi, documentary Once Were Brothers, and Brazilian Western Bacurau.
Drafthouse, of course, has a very committed base of genre fans and for them the long-running film series Terror Tuesdays and Weird Wednesdays will continue virtually. The first Terror Tuesday film will be tonight at 7pm EST, and will be a screening of 1982 Hong Kong creature feature Centipede Horror. Weird Wednesday picks things up on April 8th with a 4K restoration of Godmonster of Indian Flats.
For more info, check out Alamo Drafthouse’s website here.
The need for freedom and escape from reality strains at the edges of director Martha Stephens’ films (Land Ho!, Passenger Pigeons, Pilgrim Song), and that continues with her latest, To the Stars. Premiering at Sundance 2019, the film stars Liana Liberato, currently earning raves for her performance in comedy Banana Split (our review of that here), and Moonrise Kingdom breakout Kara Hayward, as two girls in 1960s Oklahoma trying to make themselves heard in a place where women tend to keep silent.
I remember hearing the strong buzz for this while in Park City, but didn’t end up seeing it because of there were just so many coming-of-age films. One thing in its favor at the time was the black-and-white photography which, sadly, Stephens appears to have ditched. Curious about the reason and if there will be a chance to see it as originally intended.
To the Stars hits VOD on April 24th and co-stars Shea Whigham, Tony Hale, Malin Akerman, Madisen Beaty, Adelaide Clemens, and Jordana Spiro.
It sucks pretty hard out there right now, so let’s just enjoy this rumor and hope it’s legit. Jamie Lee Curtis may have been spotted on the set of The Mandalorian season 2, which has fueled speculation she’ll be joining the Star Wars universe.
I wouldn’t even be posting this rumor if it weren’t from Making Star Wars, which has a pretty good track record. When it comes to a galaxy far far away, they tend to know their stuff. Still, they’re quick to call this a rumor so it’s hardly stone-cold fact. Curtis was reportedly spotted “multiple” times on the Mandalorian set, but it’s possible she was in town for something else. For instance, the Avatar sequels are being filmed there, as well. Might she have a role in that? Who knows?
Not that she ever truly went away, but Curtis has been experiencing a career renaissance. Her roles in Halloween and Knives Out have made her more popular than ever. Imagine how cool it would be to see her as a rebel leader in The Mandalorian, or perhaps a badass bounty hunter?
With news at a drip right now, we may not find out anything for some time. The Mandalorian season 2 returns in October, with Rosario Dawson and Michael Biehn among the new cast members.
Disney has yet to set a new release date for Black Widow, but clearly the delay is impacting production. Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat had been set to score the superhero film, much to fans’ delight, but now he’s reportedly out and replaced by Lorne Balfe.
Film Music Reporter has the news on Balfe’s coming on to score Black Widow, but has no info on why the change from Desplat was made. Balfe has an impressive resume, as well, particularly scoring big-budget action flicks. He most recently scored Bad Boys for Life, preceded by Mission: Impossible-Fallout, Gemini Man, 13 Hours, Pacific Rim: Uprising, and more.
Balfe’s got some pretty big shoes to fill, though. Desplat has won two Academy Awards, most recently for The Shape of Water. We’ll see if other creative changes are necessary as Disney stakes out a new date to release Black Widow.
The summer blockbuster season continues to fall apart, and now it’s Sony which has wiped out its entire slate until next year. Sony has moved Morbius, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Uncharted, and Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway to 2021, deciding to simply clear the decks rather than deal with the uncertainty left by the coronavirus outbreak.
Sony has pushed backMorbius from July 30th 2020 to March 19th 2021. Morbius is the second of Sony’s relaunched Spider-Man cinematic universe, following the success of 2018’s Venom. Jared Leto stars as Michael Morbius, a scientist with rare blood disorder who discovers a cure that is worse than the disease, turning himself in an antihero with vampire-like abilities. The move is interesting because Morbius, which has teased close links to the MCU and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, was to precede October’s release of Venom 2. Unless that sequel gets moved, a distinct possibility, then that will no longer be the case. It suggests very little connection between Venom and Morbius, if the two movies can swap positions so easily.
Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife has shifted from July 10th 2020 to March 5th 2021. The newest chapter in the classic franchise stars McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, and the classic Ghostbusters themselves: Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, and more.
Oh, the sad case of Uncharted. At least this time the oft-delayed, very-troubled video game adaptation isn’t being put on the shelf because of ongoing production problems. Due to the pandemic, Sony had put its development on hold indefinitely but now have officially moved its release date from March 5th 2021 to October 8th 2021. Tom Holland stars as adventurer Nathan Drake, joined in the cast by Mark Wahlberg. If you want to know how long this thing has been in the works, Wahlberg was originally set to play Drake back when this started. Ruben Fleischer (Venom) is directing.
Peter Rabbit (James Corden) in Columbia Pictures’ PETER RABBIT™ 2: THE RUNAWY.
And Sony has decided to move Peter Rabbit 2 yet again. The sequel to the surprisingly huge box office hit was moved from its original April date to August 10th, with hopes that theaters would be reopened by then. But Sony has decided not to take any chances and have set a new date of January 15th 2021. James Corden, Domhnall Gleeson, Rose Byrne, and much of the cast return, with Will Gluck once again directing.
After spending the last few years at Paramount and Netflix, Michael Bay is going back o where it all began: Sony Pictures. Per Deadline, Bay has inked a multyear first-look deal with Sony to develop and produce film and TV projects. Basically, they’ll be the ones paying for him to blow shit up for all of us to enjoy.
Sony is the place that gave Bay his first shot as a director with 1995’s Bad Boys. His next movie for them will be the ensemble action flick, Black Five, which reunites him with Transformers writer Ehren Kruger. Details on that are still being kept under wraps, but let’s hope it’s better than Netflix’s 6 Underground, which was pretty dumb and incoherent even by Bay standards.
Bay spent quite a bit of time with Paramount as the main guy behind the long-running, billion-dollar Transformers franchise. He also directed the military flick 13 Hours with Paramount, and produced a number of hits including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, A Quiet Place, and The Purge. We can’t sleep on Bay’s value on the TV side, either, as he’s behind the Jack Ryan series on Amazon, The Last Ship, and the small-screen version of The Purge.
