So much of Sam Boyd’s directorial debut In a Relationship will look familiar. Whether you were in a long-term relationship while in your 20s, or have just seen a lot of romantic comedies, it’s a film that many will find something to relate to as it charts two relationships at opposite ends of their life cycle. What separates this film from the rest is the exciting cast of young stars, led by Emma Roberts, Michael Angarano, Patrick Gibson, and Dree Hemingway.
Roberts and Angarano play Owen & Hallie, whose long-term relationship (presumably it’s long-term, but what does that really mean when you’re young?) has hit a rut. She’s ready to take the next step and move in together, while he’s got cold feet. Meanwhile their best friends Matt and Willa are in the exciting honeymoon phase of their relationship, and the contrasts are startling. The film was written and directed by Boyd, based on his own short story.
Roberts and Angarano are reliably charming faces at this point, but Gibson and Hemingway could be new to a lot of people. He had his breakout role in Netflix’s The Oa, and recently impressed as the villain in The Darkest Minds. Hemingway is a model who made her acting debut in Sean Baker’s Starlet, and turned a lot of heads in Michelle Morgan’s Sundance comedy, It Happened in L.A.
In a Relationship hits theaters and VOD on November 9th.
I’m surprised it took this long for an Amy Winehouse biopic to happen, but the talented singer’s tragic life is about to become a feature film. The Wrap reports Kinky Boots writer Geoff Deane will pen the script, and exec-produce but no director has been named.
Certainly, no star has been named who will play Winehouse. I imagine that search will take quite some time, although you may recall Noomi Rapace was attached to play her in a different film back in 2015. Not quite sure what happened to that project.
Winehouse made an incredible impact on the music scene in 2003 and again in 2006 with her second and final studio album, “Back to Black” which won her five Grammy Awards. She was praised for her unique voice and mix of sounds, combining R&B, soul, and jazz. Unfortunately, her life was plagued by personal demons and in 2011 she was found dead due to alcohol poisoning. Many of her troubles were chronicled in the Oscar-winning 2015 documentary, Amy, which you should definitely check out if you haven’t already.
Amy father, Mitch, wasn’t portrayed in such a great light in that documentary, but he’s the guy handling her estate. He put this latest film deal in motion, and he has an idea of the kind of actress he’d want to see play Amy. He recently said at a Winehouse gala and captured by The Sun…
“We have been approached many times. [A biopic is] obviously something that we are going to do, 100 per cent. What we want is somebody to portray Amy in the way that she was… the funny, brilliant, charming and horrible person that she was. There’s no point really me making the film because I’m her dad. But to get the right people to do it, that’s very important, and we will.
If you’re thinking Lady Gaga seems like a natural fit given her singing ability and rave reviews for A Star is Born, well, Mitch would disagree…
“It wouldn’t be Lady Gaga. She doesn’t speak our kind of English. I wouldn’t mind betting it would be an unknown, young, English — London, Cockney — actress who looks a bit like Amy.”
Arrow returns for a 7th season, and things aren’t going well for Oliver!
Last season ended with season big baddie Ricardo “The Dragon” Diaz finally defeated by Team Arrow. However, it did not come without a cost. In order to “save the city” from Diaz’s control, Oliver enlisted the help of the FBI, which forced him to finally reveal the truth that he is in fact, The Green Arrow. Upon Diaz’s defeat (and subsequent escape) Oliver turned himself in. He charged the rest of Team Arrow to carry on and continue serving the city in their own way while he was to go and serve a prison sentence for being a vigilante for the past 6 years.
Picking up 5 months later, the episode starts with Oliver going through his routine. He has the same nightmare in which Felicity and his son William being killed by Diaz (since he’s still at large). When he wakes up, he has to carry on in prison and keep his head down. Of course, those there with him are not going to make his life easy. His guard addresses him mockingly as “Inmate 4587” (hence the title), and him being the Green Arrow is not doing him any favors. For one, a few people he put away are in the same prison as he is. He has a few runs in with Bronze Tiger, Brick, and Derek Sampson, and they continue to try and find an excuse to fight him. A newbie prisoner needs Oliver’s help, but he knows he can’t get a parole if he’s constantly fighting, so he totally keeps to himself and goes through his daily routine.
While Oliver is in prison, Felicity and William are in their own type of prison. Forced to go into witness protection since Diaz is still at large, Felicity is a local barista and William is going to a school he cares not for under an assumed name. she feels just as isolated from how her life was in the same manner that Oliver was.
The rest of Team Arrow has moved on from the life of being a vigilante. Curtis is a researcher for ARGUS, and Diggle in an operative for them as well. Dinah is now the captain of the Star City police department. Renee is trying to do his part by leading a self-defense class for kids who live in The Glades. Renee is the only one who really misses the life, and he’s reminded of it by one of the people in his classes who reminds him that their life is still rough, and at least the vigilantes kept them safe. That all changes when someone wearing the Green Arrow outfit starts attacking criminals. Renee sees him as a hero while Dinah knows that with the anti-vigilante bill, she now has to be the one to bring him in.
Meanwhile, Diaz has found out where Felicity and William are hiding and tries to kill them. Felicity to her credit goes in full mama bear mode and manages to fend off against Diaz as she beats him with a pipe in their struggle. At the same time, Oliver is getting attacked in prison by people connected to Diaz, who the tell Oliver the bad news that Felicity and William have been killed. To Oliver’s surprise and relief, Felicity visits him in jail the next day telling him that she’s done hiding and wants to take the fight to Diaz. She sends William away to boarding school so he can remain safe. With Felicity fighting back, Oliver decides it’s time for him to do the same thing. He finds the prisoner who attacked him and proceeds to beat him within an inch of his life.
Thanks to Curtis and Diggle’s intelligence, Dinah is able to lure a trap for this new Green Arrow imposter by staging a sting on a criminal he was tracking. When the police seem to have the drop on the new Green Arrow, Renee decides to create a diversion to help him escape. It’s revealed later that this Green Arrow is a modern-day Robin Hood, as he robbed the criminal and used the money to invest in the community as evidenced by Renee’s gym receiving new equipment. That was the last straw for Dinah though and she tells Renee the next time he tries something like that, she will take him down too.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Arrow without its famous flashbacks. Throughout the episode, we see a young man head to Lian Yu. It appears that whoever this person is, they are going on some sort of pilgrimage and retracing all the steps that Oliver did while stranded on the island way back in season one. The clever twist is that these are not flashbacks, but instead flashforwards (taking a cue from Lost). The young man is revealed to be a much older William who runs into of all people, a much older Roy Harper as he reveals who he is.
Next week’s episode is titled “The Longbow Hunters” after a group tasked with hunting down the Green Arrow in the comics. It’ll be interesting how they show up in the Arrowverse.
Viggo Mortensen is one of the finest actors working today, but can he also be one of Hollywood’s top directors? The Green Book and Captain Fantastic star is set to make his directorial debut on Falling, an intimate family drama that he will also write and star in.
Falling will find Mortensen in one of the two leading roles, and will be joined in the cast by Lance Henriksen (Aliens) and Sverrir Gudnason (Borg vs McEnroe). Deadline describes the plot as centering on “John Petersen who lives with his partner Eric and their adopted daughter Monica in Southern California. His father Willis (Henriksen) is a farmer whose attitudes and behavior belong to a more traditional era and family model. When Willis travels to Los Angeles for an indefinite stay with John’s family in order to search for a place to retire, the two different worlds collide.”
This seems like a logical next step for Mortensen, always an actor’s actor who can adapt to any role. He’s worked with some great directors and we’ll see if he’s picked anything up along the way.
No word on a start date as the film is going out to buyers soon. Next up for Mortensen is Green Book, which hits theaters in November and co-stars Mahershala Ali.
Warner Bros. has all sorts of problems getting their solo Flash movie up to speed, and they’ve hit another hurdle. At least this one comes with a light at the end of the tunnel, far off though it may be. The Flash solo film, that would star Ezra Miller as the speedster, has been pushed back to late 2019 and may not hit theaters until 2021.
The issue is mostly about scheduling, as Miller is very much involved in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise, as well. Warner Bros. isn’t going to fuck that up for a Flash movie. A third chapter in the Harry Potter prequel saga is said to launch in July 2019, and the Flash script isn’t quite ready for production to start in March as originally planned. So rather than try to rush it, they’ve made the wise decision to push back shooting.
It does appear that Spider-Man: Homecoming‘s John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein are still on board to write and direct. They joined earlier this year to replace Rick Famuyiwa, whose exit really sent this project into a tail spin. The Flash is just one of a handful of solo films to spin out of the failed Justice League movie. An Aquaman movie arrives later this year, and then there’s sequel Wonder Woman 1984 arriving in 2019. No Superman or Batman movies are on the docket, though, and it’s expected Ben Affleck will be replaced as the Dark Knight before long. The DCEU also has a Suicide Squad sequel and Birds of Prey in the works.[Variety]
What could possibly be worse than half the universe being wiped out at the end of Avengers: Infinity War? I suppose the entire universe being wiped out would be worse, but really, I’m not sure people could take things taking a harsher turn. There were people sobbing at some of the screenings I attended.
Those folks might want to buckle up.
According to Elizabeth Olsen, who as Scarlet Witch was forced to kill her android lover Vision in a bid to save the universe, only to have Thanos hit the rewind button and do it anyway, Avengers 4 is going to turn the screws even tighter. She told audiences at ACE Comic-Con over the weekend that
“It’s only going to get worse.”
She also sorta debunks a fan theory that the dream Scarlet Witch placed in Tony Stark’s head in Avengers: Age of Ultron was a tease of Avengers 4.
“It wasn’t something that I remember someone was saying that we’re going to go full circle to Infinity War — there wasn’t an Infinity War at that time [laughs]. But I think I always thought of it being what would happen if Ultron won. But I think it’s more interesting the way you’re thinking about it.”
With production wrapped, we should start to see the veil lifted a little bit. The first thing would be to get an official title, right? I mean, haven’t we had enough of the stupid teases already? Well, here’s one more enigmatic tease by the Russo Brothers, and honestly I don’t even care what it is. Others can speculate about that shit if they want. It’s just a damn title, it’s not this serious.
If you’re thinking that it’s too soon to remake the 2003 horror Wrong Turn, well, think about this. The franchise, which originally starred Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and more as college students who stumbled upon a murderous clan of inbred cannibals, consists of six movies over the course of fifteen years. That’s a lot, and so it makes sense to go back to the drawing board, so to speak.
Original screenwriter Alan McElroy will pen a Wrong Turn remake, and presumably it will find another group of good-looking kids terrorized in the wilds of West Virginia. Although to be fair I think that premise is a bit dated so maybe a more contemporary approach is needed? The new version is described as “a timely and topical meditation on society and its issues. A cross-country hiking expedition puts a group of friends in the land of an inclusive society, where they soon discover they are under a different rule of law, and may not be the victims they thought they were.”
Hmmm…sounds like a cult. And producer Robert Kulzer suggests things could get political.
“Alan’s re -interpretation of his own work and Mike’s vision are a frightening reflection of our world today: one person’s American dream is another’s worst nightmare.”
Okay, this could be right up my alley. I’ll be keeping an eye on this to see where it goes, if anywhere. [Deadline]
Hmmm..there’s something about that bright yellow. HBO is still a long ways off from debuting Damon Lindelof’s “remixed” Watchmen series, but the mystery can officially begin thanks to the show’s official Instagram account, which has offered a first glimpse at one of the new characters. Or perhaps a different version of a familiar one?
There isn’t much context here other than the caption “Who Watches the Watchmen?” seen in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic graphic novel. It looks to be a police officer of some kind, sporting a bright yellow mask that completely obscures the face, so it’s impossible to tell which of the cast is under it. Also take note of the Instagram account’s logo, which is reminiscent of the blood-spattered Comedian logo we know, but not quite.
Something tells me this character is no enforcer of the law, at least not in any official capacity. And the color scheme, so much a part of the comic, suggests this might be a different take on a character we know. We shall see.
Watchmen stars Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., and Don Johnson, and is expected to hit HBO next year.
This timing can’t be a coincidence, can it? With Richard Madden’s name on everybody’s mind thanks to rumors he might be the next James Bond, suddenly there arrives a new trailer for his upcoming Netflix series, Bodyguard. I don’t believe in coincidences, so somebody in the Netflix marketing department is on the freakin’ ball.
Not a remake of the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston flick your mom loved in the ’80s, this Bodyguard stars Madden as David Budd, an ex-soldier and former police officer hired to protect the Home Secretary (Keeley Hawes) whose politics he opposes. The six-episode series has already aired in the U.K, and Madden has received some pretty good notices for it. This is his latest foray into the streaming service after playing the sexy DJ chased around by Gillian Anderson in Ibiza.
In horror movies it’s never a good idea to be the only one in a morgue full of dead bodies, especially if you just had some fresh intake. Something awful is bound to happen, and it certainly does to Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell in The Possession of Hannah Grace, a rather unusual exorcism horror movie.
Mitchell plays Megan Reed, working the unfortunate graveyard shift at the city morgue. Based on the trailer it’s clear she’s got some past issues she hopes to get beyond, but instead she’ll have to deal with the morgue’s latest arrival, a mutilated young woman named Hannah who died in the middle of an exorcism. Locked inside with the body Megan starts to believe the demon that possessed Hannah is out to get her next.
The film is directed by Diederik Van Rooijen and looks like a spiritual successor to The Autopsy of Jane Doe, but we’ll have to wait and see if it achieves the same level of cult status. The Possession of Hannah Grace hits theaters on November 30th.
