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‘Speed Kills’ Trailer: John Travolta Races Boats And Runs Drugs

By
John Nolan
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“My name is Ben Aronoff! I’m a self-made millionaire and and an offshore boating champion! My boats have won hundreds of races. And oh yeah, they’ve also moved 100 million pounds of cocaine through Miami!”


John Travolta is the  Cigarette Boat King in the new trailer for Speed Kills, a film that looks like a cousin to Tom Cruise’s American Made, only set on the water rather than the air. And like that film, this one is based on a true story set in the 1980s, of a man whose skill with a vehicle got him in deep running drugs.

In this case, Travolta is playing Ben Aronoff aka Don Aronow, a speed boat racing champion and businessman who started the Cigarette Racing Team. His boats were so fast they drew the attention of drug cartels, which very rarely turns out well in the long run. All you need to know to recognize his fate is see the title of the book which this film is based, Speed Kills: Who killed the Cigarette Boat King, The Fastest Man on the Seas?


So don’t go in expecting a happy ending. Travolta is joined in the cast by Katheryn Winnick, Jennifer Esposito, Michael Weston, Jordi Mollà, Amaury Nolasco, Matthew Modine, with James Remar and Kellan Lutz. Not bad.  Behind the camera are Texas Chainsaw 3D director John Luessenhop and newcomer Jodi Scurfield. There’s also a VR experience you can check out somewhere which features the cast in a fully immersive VR experience “split across eight episodes each running for around seven to nine minutes in length.”

Travolta hasn’t made a good movie in years, and it’s reached the point when his involvement is a red flag. That said, Aronow’s story is pretty wild and this trailer looks like a good representation of it. I’ll be looking to check out Speed Kills when it hits theaters and VOD on November 16th.

Box Office: ‘Halloween’ Sinks ‘Hunter Killer’ With $32M To Stay #1

By
John Nolan
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1. Halloween– $32M/$126.6M
Halloween continues to slice up the competition in its second week, dropping 58%, which ain’t bad for the genre, on the way to $32M and $126M domestic, making it the biggest stateside slasher movie ever. Take that Freddy and Jason! We should expect it to get a nice bump with Halloween right around the corner, too,  Given the box office and the $10M budget, this has been an incredibly successful revival from Universal and Blumhouse, so don’t be surprised if talk of a sequel gets louder over the coming weeks.
2. A Star is Born– $14.1M/$148.7M
3. Venom– $10.8M/$187.2M
4. Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween– $7.5M/$38.3M
5. Hunter Killer (review)- $6.6M
The submarine thriller Hunter Killer stayed below the surface with just $6.6M. I thought it would do better since Gerard Butler saves the U.S. movies tend to do alright, but I’m getting the sense this will make its money overseas. Long in the works and co-starring Gary Oldman, Common, and Linda Cardellini, Hunter Killer stars Butler as a submarine captain who must team up with Russia to save its kidnapped President. The premise is silly, of course, but that’s pretty much necessary with our real-life foreign policy such an insane fiasco. Butler attracted some attention for refusing to participate in the film’s tour of Saudi Arabia following allegations the government had a Washington Post journalist murdered. Not sure how that will affect its international box office, and by the time we find out it will long be out of mind here.
6. The Hate U Give– $5.1M/$18.3M
7. First Man– $4.9M/$37.8M
8. Smallfoot– $4.7M/$72.5M
9. Night School– $3.2M/$71.4M
10. Mid90s– $3M/$3.3M

Chris Rock, Kevin Hart, And Will Packer Team For Comedy ‘Co-Parenting’

By
John Nolan
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It’s been four years since Chris Rock directed Top Five, and while there were some rumblings of a sequel they never came to pass. Rock has been pretty quiet ever since, appearing with his buddy Adam Sandler in a few movies, but certainly nothing behind the camera. Well that’s changing finally as Rock is coming back big time by joining Kevin Hart and uber-producer Will Packer on a new comedy titled Co-Parenting.

Deadline reports Rock will direct Hart in the film, which has a script by black-ish writer Yamara Taylor. Based on an original idea by Rock and Hart, the story follows a stay-at-home dad trying to figure out his life while raising the kids, only to have his CEO wife boot him from the house. A bitter divorce and custody battle ensues, and somewhere in there I assume there will be some laughs?

The Packer/Hart combo has been unstoppable, most recently earning $86M for Night School and that’s on the low end of their collaborations.  Next up for Rock is the fourth season of FX’s Fargo, while Hart has The Upside, an English remake of French comedy The Intouchables.

Aaron Sorkin To Direct Sacha Baron Cohen In ‘The Trial Of The Chicago 7’

By
John Nolan
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For more than a decade Steven Spielberg has been trying to get The Trial of the Chicago 7 off the ground. He thought about directing it himself, other projects got in the way and a writers’ strike held things up. In 2013 Paul Greengrass took over, but that didn’t last long and he soon departed the project. Only Aaron Sorkin and his screenplay have been there from the beginning, and now that he’s made his directorial debut with Molly’s Game, Sorkin is looking to make this his official followup.

Sorkin will direct The Trial of the Chicago 7, and he isn’t coming alone. Sacha Baron Cohen, who Spielberg wanted to play activist Abbie Hoffman since the very beginning, is now in talks for the role. The film follows the trial of seven defendants in the wake of anti-war protests during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Spielberg sticks around as a producer, with Sorkin directing from his own script.

This will be Cohen’s first major screen role since 2016’s Grimsby. He was originally attached to play Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody before leaving that film and the role going to Rami Malek. Next up for him is Netflix’s The Spy, and he recently finished his latest Showtimes series, Who Is America? [Variety]

The Solo ‘Boba Fett’ Film Is Dead At Lucasfilm As Focus Moves To ‘The Mandalorian’

By
John Nolan
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This should’ve been obvious once Jon Favreau’s live-action Star Wars TV series was revealed to be The Mandalorian, but if not Kathleen Kennedy has confirmed it: the Boba Fett movie is no more.

Kennedy was speaking at a special screening of Black Panther, and she confirmed the solo Boba Fett film that has been in various stages of development for years is off, and the focus will shift towards The Mandalorian and making it great.

A Boba Fett film has been in the works ever since Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm, and in 2015 it was set into motion with Josh Trank at the helm. Of course, things blew up from there when Trank’s Fantastic Four flopped and he had a breakdown or something. The project was sortof in limbo until Rogue One proved to be a massive success, then it was reported James Mangold was working on the film with shooting to begin imminenently.  That was thrown off the rails after the disappointing response to Solo, and Lucasfilm decided to slow down any standalone Star Wars projects.

Here’s What’s Up With ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy 3’ And An ‘Avengers 4’ Trailer

By
John Nolan
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We’re still a few months away from the release of Captain Marvel, and shortly after that we’ll have Avengers 4. It took a few weeks after Ant-Man and the Wasp before we got a Captain Marvel trailer, and now we’re all on pins and needles in anticipation of the first footage from Marvel’s next big Avengers movie. So when is it coming? Well, we won’t have to wait long.

Kevin Feige attended an Oscar screening of Black Panther and had a mixed bag of news. Let’s start with the good: Feige says that Avengers 4 trailer will be here “before the end of the year.” Okay, great. Hopefully by then it will have an actual title? At this point they should just hold that reveal until the trailer drops, rather than giving in and answering all of the fan speculation out there.

And now the bad: Feige confirms Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has been officially put “on hold.”  Yeah, we kinda knew that already thanks to a chatty Dave Bautista but it doesn’t mean anything until it comes from Feige’s mouth, and now it has. All of this is the fallout from James Gunn’s sudden dismissal over the summer, and the lack of search for a director to replace him in time for an early 2019 shoot. At this point who knows when or if Marvel will ever get around to it. There’s a small part of me that thinks if they wait long enough Gunn could end up coming back, especially since they are sticking with his script (for now), but that might be wishful thinking.

‘Avengers 4′ Adds ’13 Reasons Why’ Star Katherine Langford In A Mystery Role

By
John Nolan
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In some unexpected news, 13 Reasons Why star Katherine Langford has joined the Avengers 4 cast in a, you guessed it, unspecified role. According to The Wrap, Langford has already finished shooting her scenes and it’s unclear how long she has been involved.

So what’s the deal? Was Langford a last second addition brought in during the most recent round of filming? Or was she there all along and nobody knew? Ultimately I guess it doesn’t matter, right? Not until we find out who she is playing. If rumors of a jump forward in time are true, it’s possible she’s a young Cassie Lang? Or maybe she’ll be part of Marvel’s plan to introduce the Eternals?

Next up for Langford is a return to Netflix for their horror series, Cursed.

Let the speculation continue!  Avengers 4 opens May 3rd 2019.

Mr. Plow Takes Revenge in the Debut Trailer for Liam Neeson’s ‘Cold Pursuit’

By
John Nolan
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Rule #1 for getting me to like your trailer: Play ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper” in the background throughout.

It must have been two years ago when we first got word that Liam Neeson was going to star in a movie about a snow plow driver in Alaska that takes revenge against a local drug cartel. I mean, if that doesn’t sound like a parody movie from an episode of The Simpsons then I don’t know what does.The reaction was unanimous, “The Liam Neeson action hero days are over”. Then we didn’t hear much…then we got a trailer.

Well I’ll be DAMNED. I love it! There’s a very important rule in Hollywood, you can do whatever you want no matter how outlandish or silly as long as you know what you are. It’s clear from this clip that those involved know exactly the level of absurdity that that synopsis evokes. The trailer starts out quite seriously but quickly moves into just the right amount of “off” that something like this would need to be in order to work. From the overly stylized gun fights to the jokes about Neeson being new to the world of revenge killing, it just seems fun. Neeson has been known to not take himself too seriously, despite outward appearances so this could be the perfect cap to the end of his action career. I’m all in.

Bonus Points: Emmy Rossum plays a local sheriff, how can she be so damn hot even while wearing a parka and furry hat?

Check out the trailer below and look for Cold Pursuit in theaters on February 8th, 2019

Review: ‘Mid90s’, Jonah Hill’s Directorial Debut Starring Sunny Suljic And Lucas Hedges

By
John Nolan
-

As we get toward the end of the twenty-tens it feels like
the nostalgia for the nineties is growing stronger,even as the
time for2000s nostalgia looms great. With middle age staring many in the face
it’s time for filmmakers to look back on past times just like others have
before withGeorge Lucas’ American Graffiti, or The Wedding Singer, and even a
later film like Adventureland. Jonah Hill who rose to fame as a teen actor in
the 2000s puts his talents behind thecamera for his first film looking back
on the things and feelings he had of his childhood in the mid-1990s.
Mid90s is about a young kid named Stevie (Sunny Suljic), growing up in LA
with his single mom Dabney and his mean older brother Ian. Even though Ian is a
complete and utter abusive asshole to Stevie, Stevie still looks up to his
brother. Stevie ends up enamored with a skate shop and the teens who hang out
and work there. He ends up getting into their clique through the youngest
member Ruben and soon is taking a liking to by the whole group especially the
older members Dab and Fuckshit. From there the young Stevie now christened
Sunburn falls into the life of these skater kids who are much older. He ends up
failing at hard skating tricks, smoking and drinking and all types of partying.
This puts Stevie on a path that destabilizes his home life as he doesn’t take
to the abuse by his brother and puts a serious strain on his relationship with
his mother as she tries to figure out what’s going on with her sweet baby boy.
Hill made a movie that is very good at grasping the feeling of the 90s. Not the early 90s that you’d think was Fresh Prince stylings
and Zack Morris looks but that time of baggy clothing, fashion label logos,
SNES controllers and the beginning of the PlayStation era. You never know the
year this is supposed to take place but you never really care much. This time
before mobile phones and before the internet was really popping for folks. This
movie is very much a love letter to Hip Hop music of that time and for Skating.
I’m not an expert on skating but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that
handles the subject matter well of that time of skating when Tony Hawk was
king. Jonah Hill does a good job with his directing and most of the interactions of the kid actors feel natural and almost improvised. The cinematographer
Christopher Blauvelt does a good job here with the look of the film,
sun-drenched and warm and also at times have a great blurry feel that adds to
Stevie’s adventure as he’s dealing with being 13 and coming into his own. Nick
Houy, the editor cuts the film in places that reminds you a bit like old skate
videos and has a sequence at the end that was very interesting in how it
captured a major moment. The final standout is the use music, this is a rap
nerd’s soundtrack – DJ Premiere, Wu-Tang, Tha Pharcyde and much more weaves its
way through the film dragging you, the viewer along with this air of memories
of those times you were most likely listening to these songs on Discman
grooving along to your summers or endless days and nights. Or you can try and
live on your imagination of what those times were like through this movie if
you’re too young or too old. If Hill can continue with films like this then
he’ll be something to watch in the future.
3.5 out of 5 

Jamie Lee Curtis The Latest To Join Rian Johnson’s ‘Knives Out’ Cast

By
John Nolan
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It looks like Jamie Lee Curtis’ return as Laurie Strode in Halloween will lead to even bigger opportunities. Curtis is now the latest to join the extraordinary cast of Rian Johnson’s modern day mystery, Knives Out, joining Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Lakeith Stanfield, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, and Ana de Armas.

We could be looking at a resurgence in Curtis’ career following a few years where we mostly saw her on the small screen. As for her character in Knives Out, we don’t know anything about it as Johnson is keeping the plot under wraps. It’s considered to be an Agatha Christie-style mystery, and one of the characters is a detective played by Craig.  With this cast it doesn’t really matter what the story is about, does it?  Knives Out will be Johnson’s first film since Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and he’ll start production in November before tackling his new Star Wars trilogy at a later date.

Next up for Curtis is An Acceptable Loss, which is directed by Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers director Joe Chappelle. [Variety]

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