We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend a free screening of Jumanji: The Next Level, the third film in the Jumanji series and sequel to 2017’s smash hit Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, and Nick Jonas return, joined by new additions Danny Glover, Danny DeVito, and Awkwafina!
SYNOPSIS: In Jumanji: The Next Level, the gang is back but the game has changed. As they return to Jumanji to rescue one of their own, they discover that nothing is as they expect. The players will have to brave parts unknown and unexplored, from the arid deserts to the snowy mountains, in order to escape the world’s most dangerous game.
The screening takes place on Tuesday, December 10th at 7:00pm at AMC Mazza Gallerie. If you’d like to attend, simply go to the Sony Pictures site here and print out a pass. Please remember all screenings are first come first served and you will need to arrive early to ensure seating. Enjoy the show!
Allison Janney and Viola Davis square off in the new trailer for Troop Zero, a film that debuted earlier this year at Sundance. Amazon Studios quickly picked up the rights and have been holding on to the camp comedy from rising star director duo Bert & Bertie.
While the chance to see screen greats like Janney and Davis go toe-to-toe is always welcome, the film is led Gifted and Captain Marvel star McKenna Grace. She plays the precocious oddball Christmas Flint, who joins other misfits to infiltrate a prissy all-girl troop and send a time capsule into space, which she hopes will help reconnect with her dead mother. Davis plays the tough-as-nails paralegal who leads Christmas’ group into a battle of wills against their prim and proper rivals, led by an especially unlikable Janney.
I remember not caring for this one too much, finding it a bit rough around the edges and lacking in enough humor to sustain it. But it’s the kind of easily digestible, good-natured movie that should do well on Amazon Prime, where it’ll arrive on January 17th 2020.
Issues of workplace discrimination and abuses of power by powerful media moguls won’t only be covered by Bombshell, but by a host of other films in the coming months. The Assistant will cover much of the same territory and draws inspiration from the downfall of Harvey Weinstein, once among the most powerful men in Hollywood until allegations of sexual abuse and rape surfaced, helping to give rise to the #MeToo movement.
Written and directed by Kitty Green, The Assistant features the always-terrific Julia Garner (Ozark, Grandma) in the lead role, playing a young woman with dreams of becoming a movie producer. Her goals seem to be on track when she lands a job as a movie mogul’s assistant, only to face harassment and abuse at every turn. The film also stars Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh, and Kristine Froseth.
SYNOPSIS: Follows one day in the life of Jane (Julia Garner), a recent college graduate and aspiring film producer, who has recently landed her dream job as a junior assistant to a powerful entertainment mogul. Her day is much like any other assistant’s – making coffee, changing the paper in the copy machine, ordering lunch, arranging travel, taking phone messages, onboarding a new hire. But as Jane follows her daily routine, she, and we, grow increasingly aware of the abuse that insidiously colors every aspect of her work day, an accumulation of degradations against which Jane decides to take a stand, only to discover the true depth of the system into which she has entered.
Each Star Wars trilogy has introduced new characters that would become integral to the Skywalker Saga, and this latest one is no different. But unlike in previous arcs, popular characters such as Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron have no clear path to a return after The Rise of Skywalker. You might ask, “Wait, why don’t they just return in a Disney+ series like Cassian Andor or something”? Well, John Boyega has an answer for exactly that question…
“You ain’t going to Disney+ me! I ain’t getting no Disney+! I’m watching it, though, but I’ll stay in the feature films”, Boyega said in an interview with Variety.
While he does promise to return if Daisy Ridley and Oscar Isaac join him, those two sound sure that their time in a galaxy far far away has come to an end…
“[I’m] happy and feeling fulfilled that the task is complete,” Isaac said. “So I can’t imagine what it would be that would make me want to redo this thing or revisit it.”
“I just don’t know if anything could top this one, honestly. I think it’s just a great story and a great close, and even though obviously the characters continue to exist, it would have to be so extraordinary [to return], and I don’t know if that’s possible”, Ridley added.
Hopefully, they’ll still return for voice portrayals as Isaac did in Star Wars Resistance and Ridley in Forces of Destiny.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens December 20th.
If you had a Disney animated favorite growing up the chances are a blast of nostalgia is soon to be coming your way. With Aladdin and The Lion King proving these live-action remakes are not not only popular at the box office but well-received critically, it bodes extremely well for the arrival of Mulan.
Based on the 1998 classic that gave Disney its first Asian “princess”, Mulan stars Liu Yifei as the woman who hid her gender so as to enlist in the Imperial Army and fight in place of her ailing father. Mulan’s exploits would become the stuff of legend, proving that a woman could be as tough and brave as any man.
Behind the camera is Whale Rider‘s Niki Caro, promising a martial arts epic on a huge scale and without the musical aspects of the animated version. The cast includes two of China’s greatest action stars, Donnie Yen and Jet Li, along with Gong Li, Jason Scott Lee, Yoson An, Tzi Ma, Jimmy Wong, Utkarsh Ambudka, and Rosalind Chao.
SYNOPSIS: When the Emperor of China issues a decree that one man per family must serve in the Imperial Army to defend the country from Northern invaders, Hua Mulan, the eldest daughter of an honored warrior, steps in to take the place of her ailing father. Masquerading as a man, Hua Jun, she is tested every step of the way and must harness her inner-strength and embrace her true potential. It is an epic journey that will transform her into an honored warrior and earn her the respect of a grateful nation…and a proud father.
I can’t whistle. Never really could, and have always marveled at those who can so easily. But did you know there’s an entire “secret” Spanish language, Silbo Gomero, based on whistling at different registers to communicate information? Neither did I, but it’s a crucial part of the Romanian crime film, The Whistlers, which has dropped a new trailer.
A Cannes favorite and Palme d’Or contender, The Whistlers centers on a group looking to pull off a high-stakes heist, but needing that one special thing to put them over the top. How learning to communicate through a secret whistling language originated in the Canary Islands? Would that maybe help?
SYNOPSIS: Not everything is as it seems for Cristi, a police inspector in Bucharest who plays both sides of the law. Embarked by the beautiful Gilda on a high-stakes heist, both will have to navigate the twists and turns of treachery and deception. A secret whistling language spoken on the Spanish island of La Gomera might just be what they need to pull it off.
The film is directed by Corneliu Porumboiu, whose previous film The Treasure was an award winner at Cannes in 2015.
The Whistlers opens on February 20th 2020, and is Romania’s entry for the Academy Awards Best International Feature category. I feel like this one is just begging for an American remake someday.
More than a year ago Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick began developing a movie based on the 2000 McDonald’s Monopoly scandal, based on a wildly entertaining Daily Beast article about a guy who figured out how to rig the game. Well, they’ve all been beaten to the punch by HBO who will get to tell that story first in an upcoming docuseries, titled McMillions.
The trailer for McMillions shines a light on former security chief Jerome Jacobson, who used his position to figure out a way to rig the system and supply winning game pieces to his friends and others, including figures in the mob. Mark Wahlberg is on board as exec-producer, and he and HBO have obviously been working together for years dating back to Entourage.
SYNOPSIS:
This documentary series chronicles the stranger-than-fiction story of an ex-cop turned security auditor who rigged the McDonald’s Monopoly game promotion for a decade, stealing millions of dollars and building a vast network of co-conspirators across the U.S. The series draws on exclusive firsthand accounts and archival footage, featuring: the FBI agents who brought down the gaming scam; McDonald’s corporate executives, who were themselves defrauded; the lawyers who tried the case; and the culprits and prizewinners who profited from the complicated scheme, as well as the individuals who were often unwittingly duped into being a part of the ruse.
This looks like a lot of fun, and may actually boost interest in Affleck’s feature film, assuming it gets off the ground. Check out the trailer for McMillions below, then look for it to hit HBO next year.
While Jessica Chastain isn’t in the awards discussion this year (What, no love for Dark Phoenix??), the sheer amount of projects she has coming up will likely change that before too long. And you may be able to add another to the busy actress’s schedule, as she’s entered talks to star in The Forgiven, which already has a stacked cast attached.
Variety reports Chastain is in talks to join Ralph Fiennes, Rebecca Hall, Caleb Landry Jones, Mark Strong, and Saïd Taghmaoui in The Forgiven, a drama from Calvary director John Michael McDonagh that was announced last year. Chastain will play Fiennes’ wife in the film exploring a tragic accident’s impact on a vacationing English couple, their friends, and Moroccan locals at a luxurious desert villa. McDonagh is adapting from a book by Lawrence Osborne.
Filming is set to begin in Morocco early next year. Chastain’s jammed slate includes the spy flick 355, the action film Eve, drama The Eyes of Tammy Faye, video game adaptation The Division, and dramedy Losing Clementine which she signed on to last month.
The Sundance 2020 lineup is here, and already there are a wealth of titles that we’ll be talking about throughout the year. My favorite aspect of this festival is being introduced to new talents with undiscovered films, and premieres of low-key projects with big names. One of those that has real breakout potential is Downhill, the remake of foreign language hit Force Majeure starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Sundance has delivered a first look at the film, which you can check out above. Below you can find new images from a few others that perked my interest.
The Sundance Film Festival runs from January 23rd-February 2nd. Check out the full lineup here.
Downhill is directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, but its biggest draw is the pairing of Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a married couple whose relationship is thrown into chaos after barely surviving an avalanche during a ski vacation in the Alps. Fox Searchlight already has their hands on this one and it will hit theaters less than a month later on February 14th 2020.
Sundance mainstay Jeff Baena (Life After Beth, Joshy, The Little Hours) returns with Horse Girl, starring Alison Brie, Debbie Ryan, John Reynolds, Molly Shannon, John Ortiz, and Jay Duplass. SYNOPSIS: A socially awkward woman with a fondness for arts and crafts, horses, and supernatural crime shows finds her increasingly lucid dreams trickling into her waking life.
Oscar winners Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins lead The Father, the debut film from acclaimed playwright Florian Zeller. The cast includes Mark Gatiss, Imogen Poots, Rufus Sewell, Olivia Williams. SYNOPSIS: Anthony is 80 years old. He lives alone in London and refuses the nurses that his daughter tries to impose upon him. Yet help is becoming more pressing, as she has decided to move to Paris. At once comedic and profound, this is a moving story of our human condition.
One of the most intriguing projects I’ll be looking to check out is Come Away, a live-action film from groundbreaking The Prince of Egypt and Brave director Brenda Chapman. It stars David Oyelowo, Angelina Jolie,Jordan Nash, Keira Chansa, Reece Yates, and Michael Caine, and reimagines Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland’s title characters as siblings. SYNOPSIS: Before Alice found Wonderland, and Peter became Pan, they were brother and sister. When their brother dies in an accident, they seek to save their parents from downward spirals until finally they’re forced to choose between home and imagination, setting the stage for their iconic journeys into Wonderland and Neverland.
Antiviral director Brandon Cronenberg makes his long-awaited genre return with Possessor, a sci-fi drama led by Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott. Joining them are Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sean Bean, Tuppence Middleton, and Rossif Sutherland. SYNOPSIS: Vos is a corporate agent who uses brain-implant technology to inhabit other people’s bodies, driving them to commit assassinations for the benefit of the company. When something goes wrong on a routine job, she finds herself trapped inside a man whose identity threatens to obliterate her own.
Ryan Reynolds has made a career out of not taking himself seriously. Michael Bay on the other hand seems to be the ultimate frat boy of film. Thankfully it looks like Reynolds is rubbing off on Bay and embracing the “Bay-ness” of it all. I love Bay as a director, everything he does is, at a minimum, fun to look at, he’s defined himself by sharp action and big explosions. This new, somewhat behind the scenes clip is presented in a PSA format and reveals that Hollywood scientists have concluded this to be the most Michael Bay movie ever. Personally, I can’t wait to check this out, if for no other reason then that it’s releasing in mid-December which, cinematically (new word, you can use it) speaking, is a time that always takes itself to seriously. Check out the clip below and let us know what you think!
