Jonathan Glazer is the opposite of prolific. He’s made as many movies since his 2000 film Sexy Beast as Takashi Miike makes in a month. Seven years have passed since Glazer’s haunting alien invasion film Under the Skin, and now he’s rejoining with A24 for a new project that will use the Holocaust as a backdrop.
Deadline reports Glazer will write and direct an untitled WWII film set during the Holocaust. There aren’t any hard details yet, but the story is said to be inspired by Martin Amis’ novel “The Zone Of Interest, which centers on a Nazi officer who falls for the wife of the camp commandant, with deadly consequences.
Glazer has been talking about this film for at least a year, and the partnership with A24 looks to be the thing that has finally moved it forward. This will only be the fourth movie directed by Glazer in nearly two decades, following Sexy Beast, the Nicole Kidman reincarnation thriller Birth, and Under the Skin.
Naomie Harris probably deserves a better movie than Black and Blue, a timely but fundamentally generic cop thriller straight out of the David Ayer playbook. She’s certainly earned it, with stellar performances in blockbuster films such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Skyfall, to her Oscar-nominated dramatic role in Moonlight. Harris has the goods to deliver on a potentially weighty, racially-charged premise, but the movie she’s given turns out to be just another cop-on-the-run flick.
Black and Blue stars Harris as rookie officer Alicia West, who has returned home to New Orleans’ Ninth Ward to find it overrun by drugs, violence, and a police force that couldn’t really give a shit about the people they are to serve and protect. The film begins promisingly enough. Alicia goes on her morning jog through one of the better neighborhoods, only to be pulled over and rough up by a couple of white cops demanding to know why she’s there. When they figure out she’s one of them, the closest thing to an apology is a dismissive “You know how it is.”
Peter Dowling’s script teases an exploration of the conflict faced by black cops, torn between loyalty to their people and their brothers in blue. But also as a black woman on a police force that appears to be nothing but men, Alicia is in an especially tenuous position. There’s a lot of potential in that story, one that has been explored frequently in films stretching as far back as The Glass Shield and as recently as Monsters and Men. That’s not the story screenwriter Peter Dowling tells, though.
What we do get is a suspenseful but ultimately forgettable cop movie, which finds Alicia on the run after capturing a police-involved homicide on her body cam. Alicia finds her inner struggle taken to deadly new levels as she is hunted by both the corrupt officers who have framed her for the crime, and the black residents who see her as just another cop who can’t be trusted. With help from Mouse (Tyrese Gibson), a former friend and local storeowner, Alicia must survive long enough to get the cam footage back to the precinct to clear her name and expose the real killers.
Harris is powerful and sympathetic, matched in sheer force by Frank Grillo as the dirtiest cop on Alicia’s trail. They lend weight to the material when there is none. Mike Colter, sporting a mouth grill and evil sneer that’ll make you forget Luke Cage real quick, is a scarily dominating presence when he needs to be. Gibson’s out of place, though. I know his role is underplayed so as not to take away from Harris, but he’s not the right actor for that kind of role.
Directed by Deon Taylor, who had the campy home invasion film The Intruder just a few months ago, Black and Blue says little about life in New Orleans post-Katrina, other than it’s apparently swarming with stereotypical gangbangers and drug dealers. There’s plenty of kinetic action, however, shot appropriately enough by legendary Heat cinematographer Dante Spinotti. He knows a thing or two about capturing shootouts between the cops and bad guys. It’s enough to keep Black and Blue entertaining, but certainly not substantive in the arresting way it could have been.
After years of fans trying to conjure up a sequel to the 1993 Halloween classic Hocus Pocus, the spell appears to have finally worked. Collider reports Hocus Pocus 2 is in the works for Disney+, and already has a writer in place.
Jen D’Angelo, a writer/producer on short-lived series Happy Together, will pen the new film with a hope that original stars Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy will return. That will go a long way in figuring out if this is a true sequel or not. No word on who will direct, so this is still pretty early on in development.
The 1993 movie didn’t do much at the time, but has become a favorite during the spookiest time of the year. Originally directed by Kenny Ortega, the film centered on three villainous witches who are inadvertently resurrected in Salem, Massachusetts.
There seems to be at least one every single year. Last year it was Green Book and If Beale Street Could Talk. In 2016 it was Moonlight, Loving, and Hidden Figures. In 2014, Selma. In 2013, 12 Years a Slave. Every single year there seems to be a film about race and oppression that captures the Academy’s attention. These films are effective in varying degrees, some accused of being emotionally manipulative and driven by stereotypes, some quietly brilliant, pushing cinema forward as a whole. This year’s contender could very well be Just Mercy, a film that pushes the race conversation from the black vs. white narrative and into one about systemic racism, bookended by powerful but subtle performances and effective direction.
Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx) is driving home from work on an old Alabama back road when he is arrested for the murder of 18-year-old white woman Ronda Morrison. Despite his pleas that he was innocent, Walter, called Johnny D., is sentenced very quickly sentenced to death row in 1988. The film opens up about six years later after Yankee lawyer Bryan Stevenson moves to Monroeville Alabama, (ironically the home of To Kill A Mocking Bird author, Harper Lee, as all the townspeople like to point out) to open up the Equal Justice Initiative (EPI), a law firm dedicated to the representation of death row inmates. As Bryan tries to assimilate to rural Alabama with the help of white woman and EPI office manager, Eva Ansley, Bryan comes across Johnny D.’s case and finds a stunning revelation. The career criminal (Tim Blake Nelson) whose testimony is the sole reason Johnny D. was implicated in the crime, contradicted himself on the stand and received a reduced sentence.
As Bryan runs around rural Alabama looking for the truth, more questions come to the surface about just how badly the justice system failed Johnny D., and how many will do anything to keep him on death row, including a cowardly District Attorney (Rafe Spall) and a manipulative and bigoted sheriff (Michael Harding). Based on true events and Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, the film version reveals the horrors of being on death row and a broken justice system, wrapped up in an emotional and powerful, at times too predictable, narrative.
Providing the same sensitivity and quiet force shown in 2013’s Short Term 12, director and co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton’s subtle direction doesn’t exploit the subject matter. The film doesn’t feel emotionally manipulative, that’s in part to Cretton staying away from the conventions of the genre, using newscasts to push the drama forward and giving the characters room to breathe. The script, co-written with Andrew Lanham, does feel too sweet at times and certain lines, especially the ones spoken by a racist individual, seem cliche.
While Michael B. Jordan provides a strong and stable presence as a young lawyer taking on the racist establishment, this movie is really Jamie Foxx’s. He doesn’t overplay Johnny D., instead, bringing disillusionment and a quiet hope to the forefront of his heartbreaking performance. He steals the show, making an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor possibly imminent.
Though Brie Larson isn’t given too much to do, she still plays Eva as a determined calming force, providing comedic relief and guidance as needed. Becoming a familiar face in Cretton’s work, this is her 3rdcollaboration with the director and though she has very much a supporting role, Cretton knows how to use her effectively as the film’s emotional anchor, despite little screen time. Tim Blake Nelson and O’Shea Jackson Jr. shine in supporting roles, each begging for their own spinoffs.
Just Mercy doesn’t feel like the race movie that we are used to. There’s no lead white character who learns the error of their ignorantly racist ways. There is a white prison guard that goes on this journey, but because he is not the focus of the film and his realization comes from seeing how systemic racism within the prison system affects predominantly black individuals, this storyline doesn’t seem tired. By taking whiteness and white feelings out of the redemption arch, the film shines a light on our own American institutions and how they have set up an entire demographic of people to fail. If Ava DuVernay’s 13th was the factual story of how the modern American prison system is unfairly stacked against people of color, Just Mercy is the emotional narrative, bringing awareness to the death penalty, racial bias, and wrongful convictions.
Holy sh*t this is trailer for Antlers is messed up. When a trailer begins with a creepy kid killing a skunk and taking it home as food for a mysterious captive, you know you’re in for a crazy ride. It’s exactly the kind of twisted horror you’d expect Guillermo Del Toro’s name to attached to. He’s on board as a producer, with Out of the Furnace and Hostiles director Scott Cooper making his first real foray into the genre.
Something evil has begun to infect a small Oregon town, while that same weird kid (played by Jeremy T. Thomas) gets a hobby capturing, killing, and carving up animals to serve whatever that thing is being kept in his house. Keri Russell plays a schoolteacher involved in this grotesque situation, with Jesse Plemons as her sheriff brother.
Cooper removes virtually all dialogue in favor of building the ominous atmosphere, including a truly horrific shot of someone transforming into a creature with, yep, huge antlers! I have a feeling Cooper may have found his calling.
Also starring Graham Greene, Scott Haze, and Rory Cochrane, Antlers hits theaters on April 18th 2020!
Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has been a big hit for him and Sony Pictures, earning more than $350M worldwide. Over the last few weeks there’s been a lot of talk of Tarantino re-editing the film, putting back in a ton of unused footage, and releasing it to Netflix in episodic format. He might still do that, but an extended edition of the movie is going to play in theaters first, and it’s happening very soon.
Sony will re-release Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in over 1000 theaters this weekend with more than 10 minutes of additional footage spread across 4 brand new scenes. We don’t know what this footage entails they’re expected to act as bookends.
“Audiences have shown tremendous support for this movie, and we look forward to offering them another opportunity to see the film as it’s meant to be seen – in theaters on the big screen – with more sights and sounds of the sixties from Quentin Tarantino as an added treat,” said Sony exec Adrian Smith.
Earlier stories had Tarantino holding back footage of actors who were publicized as being in the movie, but were almost entirely removed, such as Damon Herriman as Charles Mason and Damian Lewis as Steve McQueen. Perhaps some of this new footage will include that, or maybe Tarantino will save them for a more extensive cut later on
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood returns to theaters this Friday.
You might be wondering why the world needs yet another Les Misérables, one of the most recognizable and oft-adapted Broadway plays ever. It hasn’t been that long since Tom Hooper’s musical earned eight Oscar nominations and won three. At least this latest version from Mali filmmaker Ladj Ly appears to be altogether different from any recent take on Victor Hugo’s 19th-century novel.
Ly jettisons the musical component and finds inspiration in the 2005 French riots. The story follows Stéphane, played by Dunkirk actor Damien Bonnard, who joins an anti-crime brigade in Paris only to discover that tensions among the neighborhoods are at an all-time high.
The film made quite a splash at Cannes earlier this year, competing for the Palme d’Or and winning a Jury Prize. The response to it has been so great it was chosen as France’s Oscar selection in the Best International Feature Film category.
SYNOPSIS: Stéphane, has recently joined the Anti-Crime squad in Montfermeil, a sensitive district of the Paris projects. Paired up with Chris and Gwada, whose methods are sometimes unorthodox, he rapidly discovers the tensions between the various neighborhood groups. When the trio finds themselves overrun during the course of an arrest, a drone begins filming every move they make.
Les Misérables will be released by Amazon next year on January 10th.
If I had told you Shia LaBeouf and Mission: Impossible-Fallout‘s Vanessa Kirby would be two of the hottest stars of 2019 you might think I was wildly off-base. LaBeouf starred in the heart-warming indie hit The Peanut Butter Falcon, and has his semi-autobiographical drama Honey Boy opening next month. Kirby did what few others could and stole Hobbs & Shaw away from her much bigger (literally and figuratively) stars. Now Kirby and Shaw are hoping to keep their streaks going together in the latest film from White God director Kornél Mundruczó.
Kirby and LaBeouf will star in Pieces of a Woman, the latest movie by Mundruczó and writer Kata Wéber.
Here’s a brief synopsis: When a home birth goes tragically awry, a grieving woman is thrust into an emotional inner journey by trying to come to terms with her loss while also dealing with the ramifications in her interpersonal relationships with her husband and estranged mother.
No word on when filming begins, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this ready by the start of Cannes where Mundruczó had critically-acclaimed premieres of White God and Jupiter’s Moon. [Variety]
Kanye West’s new film Jesus is King is coming to Smithsonian Theaters this weekend, and we are offering 10 of our readers the chance to check it out!
SYNOPSIS: Filmed in the summer of 2019, “JESUS IS KING” brings Kanye West’s famed Sunday Service to life in the Roden Crater, visionary artist James Turrell’s never-before-seen installation in Arizona’s Painted Desert. This one-of-a-kind experience features songs arranged by West in the gospel tradition along with new music from his forthcoming album “JESUS IS KING”.
Jesus is King will be playing at the Lockheed IMAX at Air and Space Museum beginning this Friday, October 25th through Sunday, October 27th. The first 10 of our readers to send an email to punchdrunktrav@gmail.com with their full name and “Kanye West Contest” in the subject line will receive an Admit-Two pass for the showing of their choice.
Hate and bigotry are a part of the fabric of this country, sadly, and that’s not likely to change. And even if it did, we’d still see movies about racism, especially movies about those who learn to overcome the prejudice in their heart. Burden tells just such a story, and with a cast led by Garrett Hedlund, Andrea Riseborough, and Forest Whitaker it has a chance to make a hard-hitting statement.
Burden tells the true story of a man who was raised within the Ku Klux Klan, with much of his family part of the hate group. With the love of a woman and the help of a Reverend seeking to shut down a KKK museum, he takes the first steps to turn his life around. The film marks the directorial debut of Andrew Heckler, and includes Tom Wilkinson, Crystal Fox, Usher, and Tess Harper in the supporting cast.
SYNOPSIS: When a museum celebrating the Ku Klux Klan opens in a small South Carolina town, the idealistic Reverend Kennedy (Academy Award®-winner Forest Whitaker) resolves to do everything in his power to prevent long-simmering racial tensions from boiling over. But the members of Kennedy’s congregation are shocked to discover that his plan includes sheltering Mike Burden (Garrett Hedlund), a Klansman whose relationships with both a single-mother (Andrea Riseborough) and a high-school friend (Usher Raymond) force him to re-examine his long-held beliefs. After Kennedy helps Mike leave behind his violent past, the Baptist preacher finds himself on a collision course with manipulative KKK leader Tom Griffin (Tom Wilkinson). In the face of grave threats to himself and his family, the resolute Kennedy bravely pursues a path toward peace, setting aside his own misgivings in the hopes of healing his wounded community. From Oscar®-nominated filmmaker Robbie Brenner (Dallas Buyers Club) and writer/director Andrew Heckler comes this dramatic true story of compassion and grace in the American South.
Burden has been on ice since Sundance 2018, which is when I saw it. It didn’t do much for me at the time but maybe it’s worth giving a shot. The performances from Riseborough and Whitaker are strong, although Hedlund annoying sounds like he has styrofoam in his mouth.
