For those who have been hoping Joe Carnahan’s remake of The Raid would go away, well, you’re sorta getting your wish. The movie is still moving forward, but according to an interview Carnahan did with Collider, it’s no longer a remake and is now something entirely new.
Carnahan says the film has been given a completely different title, Zeno, and has no association with The Raid‘s rights-holders, XYZ Films. The script Carnahan co-wrote with Adam Simon will continue to involve a group of police officers who must storm an apartment building and take out a crime-lord and his armed thugs, but this version has one major difference from The Raid…
“The version that I wrote, they don’t ever intend to actually go in [to the building],” Carnahan said. “They think that they’re gonna move this guy. So their whole operation is, ‘we’re gonna hit this guy in transit.’ It’s not until they realize, ‘Oh, they’re digging in, they’re not moving, we’ve got to now go in and get him.’ It’s a very, very different script…It’s really, really, really about the brothers.”
The Raid was led by Iko Uwais and his unique skill set, and there was never any hope of finding an actor who could hope of matching that. Carnahan says a “big name” is in talks for the lead role, though, and it’ll be interesting to see who that turns out to be. Someone has also been signed to play the villain, although Carnahan isn’t ready to reveal who that is.
Carnahan will shoot the Mel Gibson flick Leo from Toledo next, and will move on to Zeno after.
A great James Bond film has a few staple elements, action, one-liners, gadgets, beautiful women and, of course, an amazing theme song. Billie Eilish is the latest in a long line of recording stars tapped to kick-off one of Bond’s many adventures. This one is a bit more notable then most as it will officially be Daniel Craig’s final outing as the debonair agent of the Queen’s intelligence service. Craig has totally re-invented and re-invigorated a character that was on his way to be out-dated to say the least, he turned Bond into a tragic figure, so it’s only fitting that the theme for his final movie be as haunting as it is epic. Listening to the song I can’t help but to notice that they really should have played it with film footage in the background, while I can feel the cinematic nature of the song without the accompanied images is beautiful…but a bit boring by the 90 second mark. In any event I’m not sure this will be on any top 10 Bond theme lists but it seems totally fitting for the film that it was written for.
Well this is entirely unexpected! I had a feeling Robert Pattinson would surprise us as Batman, not that we really know how he’ll play it from this teaser but here’s the thing, the guy’s an amazing actor so we just needed to make sure he looked the part. This red drenched view of the Dark Knight proves that he looks pretty damn amazing in the cowl. This is a teaser in the truest form, nothing is said, just a scrolling look at our caped crusader, but it does tell us at least a bit about the film. The score and the lighting really invoke something dark, something, dare I say, gritty. This feels like he’s treading dangerously close to that anti-hero moniker that so many others, who behave pretty much the same way, get labeled with.
Enough of my jabbering, click the video and check it out!!
Can I tell you a secret? I’ve never read Dicken’s classic ‘David Copperfield’…I mean I’m sure it was assigned in 10th grade English class but I’m pretty sure the closest I got was watching the other David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear. I assumed it was dreary and boring like most of the classics tend to be. If the book is anything like the trailer for Dev Patel’s new film The Personal History of David Copperfield I may just need to crack that binding after all. I have such a weak spot for British indie films and this one hits all of the right notes. I’m not sure what I was expecting but this short clip really raised those expectations for the film quite a bit. A star-studded cast, beautiful scenery and just SO many oddball laughs. While we con’t yet have an exact release date we will make sure to let you know as soon as we do. Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think!
Marvel has taken a little bit of heat for the way it’s handled LGBTQ representation, which is to say they’ve sorta done it undercover. Whether it’s the is she/isn’t she status of Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie, or that lame scene at the beginning of Avengers: Endgame, let’s just say Marvel could do better. With The Eternals, we’ve known from the beginning that it would feature the first openly gay superhero in the MCU, and it seems they aren’t kidding because now we know which one of the cosmic characters it will be.
Actor Haaz Sleiman (maybe best known for The Visitor, in which he’s great) spoke to NewNowNext about his small role in Eternals, and revealed that he’ll be playing the husband to that openly gay character. Turns out it’ll be Brian Tyree Henry’s character, Phastos, the team’s cosmic-powered inventor…
“I just shot a Marvel film with the first openly gay superhero, ‘The Eternals,’” Sleiman said. “I’m married to the gay superhero Phastos, played by ‘Atlanta’s’ Brian Tyree Henry, and we represent a gay family and have a child.”
It’s easy to be skeptical given Marvel’s track record, though. But Sleiman confirms this won’t be ambiguous or kept in the background, and that we’ll actually see a kiss between the two male characters…
“Oh, yeah, absolutely, and it’s a beautiful, very moving kiss,” Sleiman said. “Everyone cried on set. For me, it’s very important to show how loving and beautiful a queer family can be. Brian Tyree Henry is such a tremendous actor and brought so much beauty into this part, and at one point I saw a child in his eyes, and I think it’s important for the world to be reminded that we in the queer community were all children at one point. We forget that because we’re always depicted as sexual or rebellious. We forget to connect on that human part.”
We’ll get to see how big of a step Marvel takes here when The Eternals opens on November 6th.
Everything old is new again! Yesterday we heard that Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls) would be joining the Disney+ continuation of it’s classic kids film series The Mighty Ducks. Today we learn that the key piece of the puzzle is in place, as Emilio Estevez aka Mr. Gordon “Freakin'” Bombay is officially signed on to return for the series. What kind of perk package is Disney offering these days? I mean one day they bring Rick Moranis back and now Emilio! Must be one hell of a dental plan. Though I wouldn’t get nostalgic just yet as the Ducks don’t appear to be the same scrappy underdogs we remember from the mid-90’s (and no I’m not talking about the legal problems of the guy that played Goldberg). It seems that the Ducks went the Two-Face route, you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.
Official Synopsis:
In present day Minnesota, the Mighty Ducks have evolved from scrappy underdogs to an ultra-competitive, powerhouse youth hockey team. After 12-year-old Evan (Brady Noon) is unceremoniously cut from the Ducks, he and his mom Alex (Lauren Graham) set out to build their own ragtag team of misfits to challenge the cutthroat, win-at-all-costs culture of competitive youth sports. With the help of Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez), they discover the joys of playing just for the love of the game.
Disney+ broke the news about Emilio’s casting on Twitter:
It’s pretty much universally accepted at this point that the MCU is about to get weird in phase 4, and since the roster is moving away from the OG’s it’s time to bring in some of the more awesome second and third tier characters. Rumors abound that the mystery film on Marvel’s slate for 2021 is going to be Spider-Woman, and really why not? Sure I see her as move of a Disney+ launch, or maybe even a Black Panther like introduction but I’m done questioning their possible motives. The honest truth is that none of us know what to expect after Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it’s starting to seem more and more like that film is going to be a tonal shift in the MCU on par with Endgame. The bottom line is Marvel is looking to expand into a more diverse roster and Jessica Drew fits the bill perfectly. Fan site The Illuminerdi claims to have some inside studio information that has Marvel looking at Alicia Viklander to strap on the web-slingers for Spidey’s gender-swapped counterpart. While this is the very definition of a rumor, it’s one I can get on board with. Viklander, who seems to have somewhat gone silent after blowing up a few years ago with Ex Machina and Tomb Raider, would definitely fit the bill. She’s got plenty of talent as an actor and definitely doesn’t lack the physicality needed for the role. Throw all your grains of salt at this one, but we’ll be standing by in case a confirmation comes!
While there has been a clear rise in studio romances featuring black stars, it speaks to the relative lack of them that we still reach back to 1997’s Love Jones as the prime example of black love represented on the big screen. The comparisons came quickly for The Photograph, a soulful, sultry film featuring the gorgeous, dark-skinned duo of Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield. As directed by Stella Meghie (Everything Everything), the film never shies away from the hues of her stars, instead she makes them glow in a mature love story that could’ve done with turning up the heat a little more.
If you’re wondering why such a big deal is being made about the movie’s brown-skinned stars, it’s because too often black romances have skewed towards the lighter side. That’s not a knock against the people in those movies, but Hollywood would rather give you Common and Paula Patton if they can keep getting away with it. So it’s definitely a refreshing change to see a cast that leans towards the darker side, and to give us a chance to see Stanfield and Rae in a way we’ve never had the chance to before.
The Photograph centers on the unlikely romance between Mae (Rae) and Michael (Stanfield), two busy New York professionals having their struggles with commitment. For Michael, a photographer frequently traveling between the city and Louisiana for work, he’s just coming out of a long-term, long-distance relationship. For Mae, staying committed is as unfathomable to her as it was to her estranged, recently-deceased mother, Christina (Chante Adams), a Louisiana photographer who fled the bayou for larger aspirations in the big city. Christina left behind at least one broken heart, Isaac (Rob Morgan), which is where Michael first sees her picture, and gets in touch with Mae to learn more about this elusive photog.
The story drifts somewhat clumsily between the 1980s, where Christina and a young Isaac (played by Rae’s Insecure co-star Y’lan Noel) grapple with their conflicting ambitions; and the present where Mae and Michael face similar problems. Mae worries that she is just like her mother, incapable of standing still, too committed to her work. But when she’s with Michael, those thoughts seem to melt away. Their first actual date actually looks and sounds like an actual date, where people talk about the things that connect us, in this case Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar. The conversation is natural, funny, and revealing. When Michael asks if it’s too early for a kiss, we already know that it isn’t.
Passion radiates from Rae and Stanfield together, including a steamy encounter during a raging hurricane (“Blame it on the storm”, he says.). But for those expecting a bit more sizzle, The Photograph keeps it to a minimum. The woman sitting next to me literally asked on multiple occasions “That’s it?”, expecting to see a lot more action between the sheets. I couldn’t help but agree. Instead, this is as much a movie about Mae’s reconciling with her mother, attempting to figure out if they’re both so broken as to be incapable of love. To illustrate the differences between the two women, Meghie spends an inordinate amount of time in Christina’s past in Louisiana, with the flashbacks given a surreal, Nicholas Sparks-esque quality. Unfortunately, those scenes are as emotionally thin as one of Sparks’ many adaptations, and are so somber it has us yearning for someone to spice things up. Lil Rel Howery and Teyonah Parris add a much-needed dose of humor as Michael’s married brother and sister-in-law, who try and fail to warn him against falling too quickly in love
The Photograph is a stunningly beautiful movie, with Rae and Stanfield always kept in tight, warm focus by Meghie and DP Mark Schwartzbard. While the central romance is just a snapshot of what it could’ve been, modern black love has rarely looked so good.
I don’t know much about Bacurau, but here’s one thing I absolutely do know; the buzz I’ve been hearing about it ever since Cannes only compares to one thing. That would be the clamor surrounding The Raid from those who had experienced it early. I’m not saying the two movies are the same, but there’s a certain violent, genre-defying style they share that audiences are finding undeniable.
The Cannes award-winning Bacurau stars Sônia Braga, Udo Kier, Karine Teles, Bárbara Colen, Thomas Aquino, and Silvero Pereira. Frankly, it’s impossible to breakdown exactly what the Hell is going on here, but it starts with the titular Brazilian town literally vanishing off the map, followed by random strange occurrences that explode into gunfire, alien invasions, stampedes, tiki masks, and some typically awful acting from Udo Kier. Hot damn I can’t wait.
Behind the camera is Kleber Mendonça Filho, whose previous acclaimed films Aquarius and Neighboring Sounds would not have you expecting this from him.
SYNOPSIS: A few years from now… Bacurau, a small village in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants notice that their village has literally vanished from most maps and a UFO-shaped drone starts flying overhead. There are forces that want to expel them from their homes, and soon, in a genre-bending twist, a band of armed mercenaries arrive in town picking off the inhabitants one by one. A fierce confrontation takes place when the townspeople turn the tables on the villainous outsiders, banding together by any means necessary to protect and maintain their remote community.
We didn’t get to see Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan share the screen during their prime; we didn’t get to see the action movie legends together in The Expendables, and now, as they’re struggling to beat back Mother Nature, we still aren’t really getting to see it. The new trailer for Russian-Chinese historical adventure The Iron Mask does feature a little bit of a fight between Chan and Schwarzenegger, but this movie isn’t about them and they definitely aren’t the stars.
Released last year under the title Viy 2: Journey to China, The Iron Mask is set in the 18th-century and stars Jason Flyming as an English cartographer on a magical journey to the Far East. Yeah, I don’t care anymore, either. We get about 30 seconds of a brawl between Chan and Schwarzenegger, in which the latter plays a London tower guard whose got beef with Chan’s apparent prisoner, but once that’s over so is pretty much everything involving them.
That Chinese money has some serious clout, though. The cast also includes Charles Dance, Helen Yao, and the late Rutger Hauer. Flyming and Dance reprise their roles from the 2014 movie, one of Russian’s all-time biggest hits.
The Iron Mask doesn’t have U.S. distribution, and who knows if it will? Neither Chan or Schwarzenegger is much of a draw anymore, and the last time we saw them in a big Hollywood movie together it was in 2004’s box office bomb Around the World in 80 Days.
