Even if 2016’s Ghostbusters had done better and been less divisive, chances are we’d still be talking about Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife. He’s got legacy on his side as the son of Ivan Reitman, director of the 1984 comedy classic, and nostalgia is clearly what they’re going for. You can see it in the new poster, images, and plot details revealed today, ahead of Monday’s debuting trailer.
The Ghostbusters: Afterlife poster features the Ectomobile going for a wild joyride through a cornfield, establishing the film’s folksy, midwestern setting. New details by Vanity Fair say the story centers on Callie (Carrie Coon), a single mom who moves to a small Oklahoma town with her science-obsessed daughter Phoebe (McKenna Grace) and gearhead son Trevor (Finn Wolfhard). They’ve left everything they know behind after inheriting property from a father Callie never knew.
Hmmm, got any guesses?
The kids discover the old Ectomobile in the barn, and begin to “discover their connection to the original Ghostbusters” and “whether they’re ready to pick up the proton pack themselves”, according to Reitman.
That should just about clear it up, I think, right?
Paul Rudd plays Trevor and Phoebe’s summer school teacher, Mr. Grooberson, who knows more than anybody about the Manhattan Crossrip, the paranormal event captured in the classic Ghostbusters film that saw the emergence of Gozer, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and more. In one of the below images, Grooberson looks ready to trap some ghosts himself.
Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, and Annie Potts are all set to return to their familiar ghost-busting roles. Harold Ramis sadly passed away a few years ago, but I think it’s safe to say his presence will be felt all over this story.
I don’t necessarily count myself among this group, but to a certain segment, a new film by Terrence Malick is a major event, almost a holy experience. The legendary director is receiving some of his best reviews in years for A Hidden Life, which just had a very special screening at the Vatican (!!!), and he’s already hard at work on what comes next. The Last Planet is a film we’ve always known would have a Biblical aspect to it, but anybody who expects a straight narrative must not be familiar with Malick’s work.
In a Variety piece with producer Karim Debbagh, we learn the film will also have a “dark genre twist”, which makes it sound like it could have horror aspects. Debbagh also described it as a “highly spiritual experience” which, frankly, some might’ve also said about Song to Song or To the Wonder, and I wouldn’t experience those again if you paid me.
The Last Planet will explore the life of Jesus Christ through a series of evangelical parables. Son of Saul‘s Géza Röhrig will play Jesus, with Mark Rylance as Satan, Matthias Schoenaerts as Saint Peter, and more.
According to La Repubblica (via One Big Soul), Malick provided an update on the film’s status while at the Vatican…
“We have just finished shooting, I am very happy,” he said. “A few days ago we finished shooting in the desert of Jordan. [It’s] a multicultural film with a cast that brings together Middle Eastern actors, a German troupe, and even Italian artists in the costumes department and set design (costume designer Carlo Poggioli and production designer Stefano Maria Ortolani). Now I go back to Texas to edit the film. It will take at least a year because we have a lot of material, and since we go digital, we end up with many more images. My favorite moment of the work is the editing. There is no longer the set pressure, the uncertainty of the weather on the shoot. I am very happy to be here at the end of this long journey. I would like to be able to stay longer in Rome. We have an early plane that takes us to Austin.”
The first image from the film was also revealed to tide us over for what will likely be a long post-production. Presumably, Malick will find a way to have The Last Planet ready sometime in 2020.
OMG ! Terrence Malick, à l’occasion d’une projection exceptionnelle de #UNEVIECACHEE au Vatican, s’est exprimé sur le film et est revenu sur le tournage, fraîchement terminé en Jordanie, de THE LAST PLANET dont une première photo non officielle a filtré→ https://t.co/CM1IgdT43Ppic.twitter.com/UteHIw60lD
On the latest episode of Smash Cut, we talk KNIVES OUT and how it must’ve been therapy for Rian Johnson after THE LAST JEDI; plus we somehow get hung up on DIRTY DANCING, before moving into reviews of DARK WATERS with Mark Ruffalo and Lena Waithe’s QUEEN & SLIM Plus, more recaps of THE MANDALORIAN!
You can catch the Smash Cut podcast live every Sunday on Twitch at 2pm. Please join us, follow, subscribe, and make your opinions known in the chat room! We encourage all of your takes and will respond to them on air! You can also find us and all of the Hashtag Studios podcasts here, and all other major podcast platforms!!
This is probably the only time a piece of news has been broken on an episode of WWE’s Total Divas, but The Wrestler 2 might be in the works. The info comes from WWE superstar Natalya, who said in a recent episode that Jason Momoa would be starring in the sequel to Darren Aronofsky’s acclaimed drama, and that he asked her to take a role as his ex-lover, with hopes that she will also have a match in it.
Natalya, daughter of WWE Hall of Famer Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, said this: “Once I found out who Jason Momoa is, I’m like, ‘this is pretty cool.’ He’s a really big star. He’s an actor who has been on Game of Thrones, he was in that movie Aquaman. So, the fact that he is now interested in having me in the movie is huge,”
I just think it’s funny she had no idea who Momoa was, and makes me wonder why he picked her of all superstars to be in his movie.
Of course, this is assuming she’s got her facts straight because nothing about this movie is confirmed. This would be a sequel to Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 drama, The Wrestler, which starred Mickey Rourke in an incredible performance as a popular wrestler now way past his prime and struggling to hold on to every moment he’s got in the squared circle. The movie earned two Oscar nominations and loads of other awards, and just so happened to be in my top 5 best movies of the prior decade. It featured a number of real-life pro wrestlers and showed just how hard it can be on them once the spotlight has faded. WWE even played into a little bit with a storyline involving Chris Jericho at WrestleMania 25. A sequel has been talked about before, but this long in the distance, and with no official confirmation from a reputable outlet, I have little faith this is true and hope it turns out to be Natalya getting her wires crossed.
Obviously, there will be more on this as it develops.
Few actors can capture extreme distress and human frailty better than Naomi Watts, which is why Alistair Banks Griffin’s claustrophobic film The Wolf Hour held so much promise. Watts is literally in every scene of this single-room thriller, as a woman withering from paranoia in a sweltering New York summer of ill repute. It’s largely because of her that the film holds together as well as it does, but a severe lack of urgency and an uncertain conclusion lead to more frustration than satisfaction.
Griffin, in his first feature in nearly a decade, has set The Wolf Hour during an especially vivid moment of time in New York City history. The summer of 1977, when the city was baking under the summer heat and tension was at an all-time high due to the infamous “44. Caliber Killer” aka the Son of Sam. Similar to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, the temperature is like a stove constantly set on high. Something is always about to boil over, and with a citywide blackout looming it most certainly will.
Into this sweatbox is author June Leigh (Watts), holed up in her dead grandmother’s shitty, disheveled apartment in a part of town charitably described as a war zone. It’s clear she hasn’t left the place in months, maybe longer; it looks like something out of an episode of Hoarders, and June is constantly on edge. Along with the heat, there’s an oppressive atmosphere that Griffin and Watts portray beautifully. The apartment’s buzzer keeps going off at odd times, random acts of brutality take place literally at June’s doorstep, the walls seem like they’re closing in, and it feels like maybe something more than just a stalker is the major cause of her trouble.
Whether it’s something tangibly dangerous or a break from reality that has affected June is kept tantalizingly at bay for most of the movie’s 90-minute runtime. Occasionally, the oppressive mood is broken up by a few supporting characters: Watts’ Luce co-star and 2019 breakout actor Kelvin Harrison Jr. as a grocery delivery boy with physical and emotional scars; Jennifer Ehle is excellent as June’s concerned sister; and Emory Cohen as a strangely kind-hearted gigolo. But it’s Watts who keeps this movie interesting enough to maintain our investment, wallowing in June’s sadness, fear, and anxiety, while flashing signs of the happy, successful woman she used to be.
So much weight is placed on Watts’ shoulders because Griffin, who also wrote the script, fails to give The Wolf Hour much narrative guidance. This is one of those films where people will complain that “nothing happens”, because it certainly seems that way for long stretches. Of course, this isn’t actually true, but Griffin spends nearly the entire movie setting up some big revelation or confrontation that simply never materializes, despite the blackout providing a perfect backdrop for Watts’ character to emerge from her personal darkness.
The conclusion of last week’s episode served to remind us, through an assassin’s crosshairs, that Mando and Baby Yoda are constantly under threat. And so, this week’s episode of The Mandalorian, titled “The Gunslinger”, kicks off exactly where it should, with an deep space dogfight between Mando and an over-eager bounty hunter. It’s a hot start for the show after the previous story kinda dragged along, and gives us a chance to check out our hero’s piloting skills. The Razor Crest does take its share of blaster fire, however, from the predator’s sleek ship, possibly of Naboo design? Hmmm….anyway, some trickery by Mando gets the jump on him, blowing away his opponent with relative ease. But the ship is damaged enough that they need to stop somewhere for repairs, and guess where they are going to get them?
Tatooine.
Yep, that Tatooine. Where this whole thing called Star Wars began for most of us. The birthplace of some Skywalker guy who might be rising in about two weeks at a theater near you. There is no planet in Star Wars history that fans recognize more than Tatooine, and no wretched hive of scum and villainy more infamous than Mos Eisley. After being hailed by the tower to come on in, Mando lands at a space port where he’s greeted by those pit droids (the ones that clam up into their helmets when scared) we liked the from the Prequels. Mando’s distaste for droids as evident as ever, he’s then welcomed by a mechanic named Peli, played to my great joy by Strangers with Candy‘s Amy Sedaris. She offers to fix the ship, but it’ll cost more credits than Mando has got on him. So he goes to find the one thing he knows is in plentiful supply on a place like Tatooine, some dirty work that pays big. Which way to Mos Eisley cantina?
Okay, at this point I have to admit this episode is already overflowing with fan service. To some it’ll be a distraction, seeing many of the same familiar images of Tatooine that we saw in The Phantom Menace and A New Hope. To me, it’s wonderful; nostalgic in all the ways I want Star Wars to be. Sure, it comes at the expense of some logic, but I get where writer/director Dave Filoni is coming from. You’ve got Tatooine and Mos Eisley cantina, two of the most recognizable places in all of Star Wars lore, so how can you not use them? Does it make sense that of all the planets in all of the galaxy this is where Mando would end up? Not really. Does it make sense that he’d take Baby Yoda to a place so well-known for being dangerous? Nope. Do I care? Also nope.
Mando walks into the long Greedo-less (“Mclunky!!!”) Mos Eisley cantina, and what does he find? Not a lot. It’s kinda barren, actually, except for the bounty hunter sitting in the corner over there. Sadly, it’s not Han Solo, but young upstart Toro Calican, who looks like someone cloned Bobby Cannavale. That’s because he’s played by Cannavale’s son, Jake. Toro tells Mando about big job he’s got, but it’s outside of the Guild. It involves capturing famed assassin Fennec Shand, played by Agents of SHIELD star and all-around badass Ming-Na Wen. Finally, she arrives. Between her and Gina Carano this series has two of the most awesome, toughest ladies in Hollywood. Love it. Anyway, Shand’s reputation precedes her and Mando turns the job down. Way too dangerous. But Toro convinces him to take it by appealing to Mando’s surprising sensitivity. Toro’s a newbie just trying to break into the Guild, and has never take on a bounty before. He needs the help, and Mando is the only one who can give it to him. Well, gosh darn when you put it that way!
A thread that I think is being established is Mando’s blind spot for the defenseless and the inexperienced. It’s brought him a lot of trouble up to this point, and is about to again. Speaking of which, if you’re wondering where Baby Yoda is all of this time, the little womprat is back at the ship being watched over by Peli like a babysitter, and she’s gonna charge for it. Part of me hopes for an Adventures in Babysitting-esque spinoff episode of what Peli had to go through watching the Child. Did it levitate her droids? Help out with the repairs? Begin a new Jedi Order? I just want to know. Maybe in the Bluray special features?
After securing a pair of swoop bikes, Toro and Mando race across the desert, crossing that familiar Dune Sea, encountering a Bantha and, because no trip through Tatooine would be complete without them, some Tusken Raiders. Mando negotiates with them to cross their territory, making the interesting comment that Tuskens see themselves as the natives, and everyone else as visitors. It’s a good point, and that understanding of their culture is why they don’t just attack the way Tuskens usually do. It’s also worth noting that you can practically see Filoni grinning as he recalls so much classic, gorgeous Star Wars imagery here. Even in the creation of Toro you can see him recalling the roguish Solo, right down to the blaster pistol he carries.
Finally reaching where they believe Shand to be, they instead find a lone, wandering Dewback with someone being dragged behind it. Might it be Shand herself? Going in to investigate, they find that it’s a dead bounty hunter, and Mando realizes too late that it’s a setup. Taking sniper fire straight into his Beskar-plated armor, he barely makes it to cover alive. They decide to wait until night to make their move on Shand, but even in the cover of darkness and the clever use of flares, Mando is shot off his bike and into the sand. Toro gets to Shand just in time to get his ass kicked by her, only for Mando to step in and take advantage of the distraction. Good work, kid.
With one of the bikes damaged, Mando agrees to go back and find that Dewback to serve as their second transport, but Shand says something interesting first. She mentions that Mandalorians were involved in something big that went down on the planet Navarro, which was weird because you don’t see many of them around at all. It’s at that moment I realized we had no actual idea where those first couple of episodes had taken place. I kinda thought it was Tatooine at first, but now realize she’s referring to Navarro where Baby Yoda was discovered, then rescued by Mando. Anyway, the handcuffed Shand uses this information to convince Toro that he ought to side with her to capture Mando and claim the bounty placed on his head by the Guild, who also want the mysterious Child he stole away with. Playing to the kid’s ego works, but instead of teaming with Shand he instead shoots her in the gut, leaving her for dead.
Does anybody think Ming-Na Wen was brought in for one episode? Come on, nah.
I don’t know why we’d expect a showdown between a Mandalorian and an inexperienced backbencher like Toro to be competitive, but this was pretty ridiculous. Mando returns to his ship to find Peli and Baby Yoda captured at gunpoint, with Toro planning to turn them over and become an instant legend. Capturing a Mandalorian, with a friggin’ Yoda to boot, would be pretty big shit. Instead, Mando easily distracts the stupid kid and shoots him dead. Done and dusted. Peli orders her droids to dispose of the body, with a shout to Beggar’s Canyon as a dumping ground, and that’s pretty much it other than Mando paying off what he owes her for the repairs.
This episode was purely enjoyable and doesn’t do much to stretch the story in any meaningful way. Threads are still dropped, however. Mando and Baby Yoda are earning a reputation big enough that trusting anybody would be foolish, and there’s also the introduction of Fennec Shand who I think has the staying power to be a lasting presence in the Star Wars landscape. I do think that opening space battle was indicative of the wider scope we could be seeing in the season’s final three episodes. We’ve yet to see the introduction of Giancarlo Esposito as Moff Gideon, an Imperial officer affected by the Death Star’s destruction, and episode seven’s proximity to The Rise of Skywalker has given rise to rumors of a potential tie-in aspect.
On a final note, I do think this episode puts to bed any theories of Mando secretly being Boba Fett. At this point in time, Boba is probably still being digested by Sarlacc, right? They’re slowly consumed for millennia, after all. While it’s possible he escaped, a return to Tatooine and the painful memory of what happened might have come up, or at least sent Mando to check out a different planet.
The works of Stephen King continue to be part of the pop culture discourse in ways we haven’t seen in years, and HBO is getting in on it with The Outsider. Somebody else who is also having a moment right now? Recent Emmy winner Jason Bateman, who will be directing and starring in the horror series along with a stellar cast that includes Ben Mendelsohn, Cynthia Erivo, and Bill Camp.
The Outsider is best on King’s 2018 bestseller about a murder investigation that takes on a supernatural edge. The 10-episode series also includes Julianne Nicholson, Mare Winningham, Yul Vazquez, and Paddy Considine, so incredible talent all around on this one. Mendlsohn (The King), Erivo (Harriet), and Camp (Dark Waters, Joker) are all key to some of the biggest awards season contenders, making this project even more impressive for Bateman and HBO.
SYNOPSIS: Based on Stephen King’s bestselling novel of the same name, The Outsider begins with a seemingly straightforward investigation into the gruesome murder of a young boy. But when an insidious supernatural force edges its way into the case, it leads a seasoned cop and an unorthodox investigator to question everything they believe in.
I feel like I should be over these TV spots for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, I mean literraly every day it’s another spot with some catchy one word title (I guess trailers have titles now?) and maybe 5 seconds of footage the last spot didn’t have. I feel like I should….but I’m not, those 5 beautiful seconds just make my longing for December 20th grow and grow. This spot in particular seems to set the tone for the movie, there’s not many people in each shot, alot of bad stuff is happening, but the music is uplifting and they are together. For the life of me I don’t know how they are going to accomplish all of the storytelling needed to wrap things up in a satisfying way, especially with all of the new cards in the deck on this one, but I have faith in JJ, and I’m sure he’ll deliver.
Just as comics such as Watchmen and The Boys took the traditional superhero narratives and seriously fucked with them, we’re seeing adaptations of those groundbreaking comics change the TV landscape, as well. The first season of HBO’s Watchmen is absolutely on fire, but over at Amazon they’re entering a second season of The Boys that promises to be pretty hot, as well. And also pretty damn messy.
The opening image of the privately-deranged, publicly heroic Homelander arriving on the scene like a blood-soaked Superman says a lot about this twisted series. Karl Urban is back as Billy the Butcher, who delivers his own brand of chaos to do what he thinks is right, namely exposing those phony supes for who they are. That also means more violence, more Terror the Bulldog (woot!!), tons of gore, some nasty milk-tasting, more gore, and Giancarlo Esposito. There can never be enough Giancarlo Esposito. I’m also pretty stoked to see what happens when The Female throws down with Homelander.
The sheer amount of stuff that happened in season one’s finale makes this next one all the more exciting. The powerful hero-making substance Compound V was exposed to the public; Butcher discovered that his wife and child, born from a sexual assault by Homelander, are both alive; A-Train gets his ass kicked by Starlight and suffers a heart attack; Hughie, Mother’s Milk, The Female, and Frenchie are forced to go on the run, and that’s just a part of it.
Joining Urban are Jack Quaid, Laz Alonso, Antony Starr, Karen Fukuhara, Tomer Capon, Chace Crawford, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott, and Jessie T. Usher, with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg back running things.
The Boys season 2 hits Amazon in 2020. Just a note, the trailer has been getting pulled from some outlets. If that happens here I’ll take this down and repost when a new one arrives, probably this weekend at Brazil’s CCXP.
Netflix has a little something for everybody, but a huge part of their rapid growth and success has been its appeal to sci-fi fans. A key part of that was the overwhelming response to the first season of Lost in Space. With each episode boasting visual effects of a Hollywood movie, the series made the Robinson clan relevant to a new generation of fans. And now they’re back for season two and more lost than ever.
The new trailer for Lost in Space season two finds the Robinsons stranded on a mysterious ocean world without their trusty Robot, and a dangerous plan to make their spaceship into a sailing vessel. Toby Stephens, Molly Parker, Maxwell Jenkins, Mina Sundwall, Taylor Russell, Ignacio Serricchio, and Parker Posey all return along with showrunner Zack Estrin.
SYNOPSIS: There’s more danger — and adventure — ahead for the Robinson family! With the Jupiter 2 stranded on a mysterious ocean planet without their beloved Robot, the Robinsons must work together, alongside the mischievous and manipulative Dr. Smith and the always charming Don West, to make it back to the Resolute and reunite with the other colonists. But they quickly find all is not as it seems. A series of incredible new threats and unexpected discoveries emerge as they look for the key to finding Robot and safe passage to Alpha Centauri. They will stop at nothing to keep their family safe… survival is a Robinson specialty after all.
Lost in Space season two hits Netflix on December 24th.
