There are some people in this world that you just feel like you need to be friends with. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are definitely two of those guys for me, ever since Shawn of the Dead (and let’s be honest, ever since Spaced) these two have been giving best buds something to aspire to. While it’s been a while since we’ve seen them have a proper team up I would still watch them in anything, even a Coronavirus “Don’t Panic” PSA. Ok, ESPECIALLY a Coronavirus PSA if that PSA is done by recapping the plans that the duo went through in the aforementioned zom-rom-com. Honestly, I know it’s not saving lives but for those people out there that are really and truly freaking out seeing your two best buddies that you’ve never actually met making cautious light of the situation is sure to give you at least a minute and a half of levity in this pseudo-apocalyptic hellscape we find ourselves in (I’m dramatic, sue me).
Check it out below and join me in starting some kind of internet campaign demanding the return of the Cornetto trio, you know what? I’m too lazy…one of you good folks start it and I’ll promise to retweet
Death metal and Satanists go together like peanut butter and jelly, mix ’em up with horror and you’ve got the new film We Summon the Darkness. Starring a hard rockin’ Alexandra Daddario, it centers on a trio of women on their way to a metal concert, only to be interrupted by news of a series of grisly Satanic murders. Not that it stops them from going to the concert, or inviting the band back to their estate for a dark and devilish afterparty.
Daddario is joined in the cast by Johnny Knoxville, Keean Johnson, Maddie Hasson, Logan Miller, Amy Forsyth, and Austin Swift. Behind the camera is Marc Meyers, who previously helmed the weird serial killer film My Friend Dahmer.
With so many events being delayed or canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and no clear end to it in sight, we’re beginning to see the impact on events later in the year. The next big shoe to drop? The Cannes Film Festival, which has now been postponed until a later date.
Cannes was due to kick off on May 12th, but the prestigious French festival has been delayed with possible dates in June through July being considered. The benefit to coming later in the year is that Cannes doesn’t need to be canceled as SXSW and Tribeca have done.
This isn’t something Cannes has done lightly. The festival had been steadfast in staying put, even as films fell by the wayside around it. The plan had been to hold out until April to see what the landscape looked like, but obviously a decision needed to be made sooner rather than later with much of Europe on lockdown.
Here is Cannes’ full statement:
“At this time of global health crisis, our thoughts go to the victims of the Covid-19 and we express our solidarity with all of those who are fighting the disease.
“As soon as the development of the French and international health situation will allow us to assess the real possibility, we will make our decision known, in accordance with our ongoing consultation with the French Government and Cannes’ City Hall as well as with the Festival’s Board Members, Film industry professionals and all the partners of the event.
“In the meantime, the Festival de Cannes lends its vocal support to all of those who firmly call on everyone to respect the general lockdown, and ask to show solidarity in these difficult times for the entire world.”
This is shaping up to be a year when Simon Pegg really branches out beyond playing the goofball. While he’s had his share of dramatic roles, lately Pegg has been doing even more. Most recently he played a schizophrenic in Lost Transmissions (review here), and now in the trailer for Inheritance it’s tough to even recognize him.
Inheritance reunites Pegg with Terminal director Vaughn Stein. While that flick was pretty terrible, this looks far more promising. It stars Lily Collins as young district attorney whose wealthy father leaves her a mysterious key that unlocks a sinister past and a captive who thinks of himself as one of the family.
The cast includes Connie Nielsen, Michael Beach, Marque Richardson, Patrick Warburton, and Chace Crawford.
Inheritance comes to DirecTV in April, then theaters on May 22nd.
SYNOPSIS: Lauren Monroe (Lily Collins) is a rising young district attorney who has dedicated her life to being a public servant despite the expectations of her wealthy and powerful New York family. When her mogul father suddenly dies, he leaves her a flash drive and set of keys that lead to a shocking secret hidden beneath her family’s estate. Torn between protecting her father’s sinister past and exposing the truth in the name of justice, Lauren finds herself in an endless web of lies and deceit, uncovering secrets from her father’s life that threaten to destroy the very fabric of her influential family.
By the time this crisis we’re in is over, we all may be in need of a therapy session. Just try to find better help than Alicia Silverstone and Rob Corddry get in the upcoming comedy, Bad Therapy.
Silverstone and Corddry play a married couple in need of a little marriage counseling, and turn to therapist Judy Small (Michaela Watkins, last seen in The Way Back) for help. Turns out, Judy could use a mental health day herself, and uses her powers of persuasion to push the spouses apart.
The cast includes Anna Pniowsky, Haley Joel Osment, and David Paymer, with Bill Teitler directing.
SYNOPSIS: Married couple Bob and Susan Howard (Rob Corddry & Alicia Silverstone) decide to see a marriage counselor named Judy Small (Michaela Watkins), who recently relocated close to their home in Los Angeles. When Bob and Susan first meet Judy, she appears competent, intelligent, and trustworthy, with a track record of other couples that she’s treated successfully without incident. But Bob and Susan’s particular emotional dynamic is a trigger for Judy’s dark and conflicted impulses. Suggesting that she see them separately, Judy subtly puts them at odds with one another and brings their marriage to the breaking point in a comically escalating series of manipulations.
Bad Therapy will hit digital platforms on April 17th.
More than live-action blockbusters are being delayed by the pandemic, animated movies are feeling the sting, as well. Perhaps the biggest animated movie of the year, Minions: The Rise of Gru, is the latest to be delayed, although its situation is a little bit different than Peter Rabbit 2, which was only a few weeks away.
The anticipated Minions sequel wasn’t due to arrive until July 3rd, so theoretically there would be plenty of time to sit this one out. But the work stoppages around the globe have meant production can’t move forward, and so Illumination CEO Chris Meledandrihas had to take action…
“In response to the severity of the situation in France, we are temporarily closing our Illumination Mac Guff studio in Paris. With this decision we are abiding by the French Government’s guidelines and doing everything possible to slow the spread of the virus as we care for our artists and their families. This means we will be unable to finish ‘Minions: The Rise Of Gru’ in time for our planned global releases in late June and early July. While we all grapple with the enormity of this crisis, we must put the safety and protection of our employees above all. We look forward to finding a new release date for the return of Gru and the Minions.”
On a possibly positive note? Now that Minions has moved, the July 3rd date is wide open for another movie. Perhaps Marvel slides Black Widow into that spot? Maybe it’ll be when A Quiet Place 2 returns to scare up the summer blockbuster season?
I know, even bringing up Star Wars: The Last Jedi is like opening up a Pandora’s Box. I’m practically inviting a plethora of negative comments and the reopening of a pointless debate where everything that can be said has been said. But here’s the thing: Rian Johnson doesn’t think the movie is perfect, either. Some fans like myself think it comes pretty close, but Johnson’s mind doesn’t work that way. He still sees room for improvement.
In the Knives Out special features, Johnson talks a little bit about The Last Jedi. While he doesn’t specifically state which areas needed improvement, he does wish Lucasfilm had given him some test screenings to help figure stuff out…
“It was like a party in the theater, it was really fun,” Johnson said about his first Knives Out test screening. “It was like the first time I was like ‘Oh wow, this actually plays. This is good.’ Which is really nice and that’s something on ‘Star Wars,’ you can’t test ‘Star Wars’ movies for a lot of different reasons.”
“I’ve always hated test screening, and when we were making ‘Star Wars,’ at a certain point in the process you’re like ‘God, I would give my left arm to put this in front of 300 people in Burbank and just see how it plays.’”
Unfortunately, test screenings aren’t a thing for the latest crop of Star Wars movies. While concerns about leaked spoilers are legit, it’s really about the perception they are in control, unaffected by fandom’s whims. I would argue The Rise of Skywalker‘s blandness is due in part to JJ Abrams bending over for toxic fans who hated The Last Jedi, but it can’t be made to look that way.
It would be interesting to know how The Last Jedi would’ve changed if Johnson did have test screenings. Hopefully, he’ll get to answer that question in a future interview.
Vin Diesel’s Bloodshot has only been in theaters since last weekend, and already it’s coming home to digital. Sony has revealed a March 24th release for digital and VOD, making this the latest big movie to come home early due to the coronavirus that has shut down movie theaters across the globe.
Bloodshot didn’t exactly get off to a hot start at the box office last week, and with all major theaters closed it wasn’t going to do any better. So this makes the most sense, and perhaps more people will be likely to watch Diesel punch things from the comfort of their couch.
Add Bloodshot to a growing list of films hitting digital early, including EMMA, The Invisible Man, Birds of Prey, The Hunt, and Trolls World Tour.
Say what you will about the man, but Tom Cruise is not just one of the most iconic movie stars of all time but he’s a certified bad ass. Whether it’s dangling off of the tallest skyscaper in the world or piloting an F-18 in Top Gun 2: Maverick the man is constantly doing things that make insurance companies sweat and that no other actor of his caliber would think about doing. Why does he do it? Possibly a bit of an adrenaline addiction but the real reason is that he knows it just looks better on screen, he wants the audience to get what they pay for and that’s something I respect more then anything else. What about all the weird stuff in the tabloids? Number 1, who cares. Number 2, if it means I’ll be able to do half of what he’s doing at 57 maybe there’s something to all this Scientology jazz. Cruise recently sat down with Empire to talk about the upcoming film, he had this to say regarding the use of CGI and stunt pilots:
“…I REALIZED that there were things that we could accomplish cinematically. And I started getting excited about this big challenge of, ‘How do we do it?’ So I said to Jerry, ‘I’ll do it if…’ meaning, I’m not going to do the CGI stuff.”
Jerry, of course being another legendary name in the biz, Jerry Bruckheimer. It’s one thing to take this stance when you’re talking about a sword fight, or even jumping off a 2-story building, but flying freakin’ fight jets? No one else could do it, and not just physically, the amount of sway it takes to have a studio approve the insurance on something like this? It’s insane.
One thing’s for sure, this wasn’t just a late in life cash grab by the veteran actor, he’s setting out to do something that’s never been done before and the end result will be something that none of us will want to miss.
When the most compelling thing about Sally Potter’s stagnant melodrama The Roads Not Taken is figuring out how Elle Fanning could possibly be Javier Bardem’s daughter, you know something has gone terribly wrong. Potter’s unfortunate misfire is based on a deeply personal episode in her own life, but any intimate touches are lost in a dull, confusing narrative that makes the least possible use of its star-studded cast. This one is a drag from start to finish.
Bardem is mostly bedridden and virtually unintelligible as Leo, a writer left debilitated by a neurological condition. His existence is reduced to a crappy New York apartment where a maid cleans up after him, and phones his daughter Molly (Fanning) if problems arise. On this particular day, Leo hasn’t answered the doorbell, leading to a frantic Molly showing up on the scene. She was coming there any way to spend the day running errands with her father, and yeah, it’s as tedious as it sounds.
Molly and Leo’s slow-moving trek through the city is troubled from the start. Her childlike, obstinate father can’t perform even the simplest of tasks, and any outside stimuli either bounce off him or causes a fit of rage. One such case finds him receiving an accidental head wound, so the trip is interrupted by a stop at the hospital. There’s another stop at the dentist which doesn’t go well, and a completely unnecessary Costco run ends with security driving Leo’s face into the floor.
It’s unclear what Potter wants us to take from all of this. Molly is upset over the way people treat her father, but their reactions to him aren’t out of left field. She claims he can understand people, which makes his outright refusal to respond to basic instructions frustrating. Eventually, it even begins to wear on her, when the burden of caring for him threatens her so-called journalistic career. That aspect of Molly’s life is sorely underdeveloped, seen only in a series of one-sided, increasingly desperate phone calls.
The repetitiveness is broken up by a series of dry flashbacks to Leo’s past, representing unfollowed aspects of his life. A brief appearance by Molly’s mother (Laura Linney, sadly underutilized) clues us into the memories that keep him unhinged from reality. We see Leo in Mexico with his long-lost love Dolores (Salma Hayek), with whom he seems to share a fiery relationship. Then there’s a stint in Greece where he attempts to pick up a nubile young woman, perhaps to fill the void left by his estranged daughter.
The problem with these scenes is they don’t answer the only questions that truly matter. What caused Leo to become the invalid he is in the present? What were the cause of his estrangement from Molly and all of the women in his life? And why in the world doesn’t somebody get him the professional care he needs? The Roads Not Taken has no answers. Across 80-minutes that feel like 3-hours, we’re given little reason to care even if it did.
