We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend a free advance screening of Jacques Audiard’s The Sisters Brothers, starring Joaquin Phoenix, John C. Reilly, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Riz Ahmed.
SYNOPSIS: Based on Patrick Dewitt’s acclaimed novel of the same name, follows two brothers—Eli & Charlie Sisters—who are hired to kill a prospector who has stolen from their boss. The story, a genre-hybrid with comedic elements, takes place in 1851 Oregon.
The screening takes place on Wednesday, September 26th at 7:00pm at AMC Mazza Gallerie. If you’d like to attend, simply go to the Annapurna Pictures ticketing site here and download an Admit-Two pass. Please remember that all screenings are first come first served and you’ll need to arrive early to ensure receiving a seat. Enjoy the show!
1. The House with a Clock in its Walls (review)- $26.8M
Maybe we’ve found the niche where Jack Black was always meant to be. Following on the $26M opening weekend of Goosebumps and $36M of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Black has another kid-friendly hit on his hands with The House with a Clock in its Walls. The Eli Roth-directed, very Goosebumps-esque film opened with $26.8M, and that’s with considerably less name value than those others had. Yes, I know the ‘Clock’ books by John Bellairs and renowned horror illustrator Edward Gorey are very popular, but household names they ain’t. The film arrived at just the right time, with a lull in the number of family-friendly offerings out there, and it got a reasonable jump on Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween which would have taken much of its audience. Universal has been busy this year, but they have to look at this as a big feather in their cap. They only shelled out $40M to produce what could be the start of a lucrative all-ages franchise.
2. A Simple Favor– $10.4M/$32.5M
In one of the year’s best stories in my humble opinion, Paul Feig’s stylish dark comedy A Simple Favor is proving to be a resilient, popular favorite. The film slipped only 35% from last week for $10M, giving it $32M domestic and $42M worldwide. It’s just a fun, twisted movie with two great performances by Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, and I’m happy to see the good reviews are helping out.
3. The Nun– $10.2M/$100.8M
4. The Predator– $8.7M/$40.4M
Okay, so it’s a mixed bag for The Predator, Shane Black’s sequel to the long-running action franchise. The $8.7M total is part of a huge 65% tumble from last week, and the $40M cume sucks when you factor in the $88M budget. The better news is overseas where the $54M total isn’t so bad, giving the film a $94M worldwide haul. Big picture, this is another example of a sci-fi franchise’s revival that has totally collapsed. Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and Alien: Covenant weren’t really sustainable in the long run, and the same goes for Blade Runner 2049. These movies have loyal, diehard fans but they aren’t huge in number, and their extensive mythology makes it hard to draw in new audiences. I don’t want the Predator movies to go away but clearly there needs to be an examination of how they must be done in the future.
5. Crazy Rich Asians– $6.5M/$159.4M
6. White Boy Rick– $5M/$17.4M
7. Peppermint– $3.7M/$30.3M
8. Fahrenheit 11/9 (review)- $3.1M
The unfortunate side effect of Michael Moore titling his latest inflammatory political doc Fahrenheit 11/9, is that it will be compared to his record-breaking 2004 anti-Bush film, Fahrenheit 9/11. That film destroyed box office records for documentaries, earning $222M worldwide and an incredible $23M opening weekend on just 868 screens (!!!). This is not 2004, and as much as Trump is a disaster that has polarized the nation, there isn’t necessarily a demand for anybody to pay to hear him babble out a bunch of lies. We get that on TV for free every day. So the $3.1M debut in a whopping 1719 theaters does not look great, when it’s actually perfectly fine for a doc on the big screen, an increasing rarity nowadays.
9. The Meg– $2.3M/$140.5M
10. Searching– $2.1M/$23.1M
Waitaminute, wasn’t there another big, star-studded release this week? Sure enough, Amazon dropped Dan Fogelman’s Life Itself into 2600 theaters and it was dead on arrival with $2.1M. The film stars a terrific cast: Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Mandy Patinkin, Annette Bening, Olivia Cooke, and more, but the reviews hammered it so bad Fogelman had to come out and start blaming others, specifically white male critics, for the poor reaction. He was so blinded by rage he failed to notice that women hated it, too, and so did black guys like yours truly. It’s a bad movie.
Although Galveston may have been yanked from the TIFF lineup, the film’s credentials are undeniable and worth getting excited over. Based on a book by True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, and directed by Beginners and Operation Finale actress Melanie Laurent who has been making a name for herself behind the camera, the film’s biggest draws may be stars Ben Foster and Elle Fanning. The new trailer promises a stylish and sexy crime thriller that could be one of next month’s biggest surprises.
Both a revenge flick and a road trip movie, Galveston stars Foster as a dying criminal, set up to take the fall after a job goes south, with Fanning as the prostitute he kidnaps on the way to Galveston. There he intends to exact revenge on those who betrayed him. It’s a simple and familiar premise but the vibrant colors and more dramatic flourishes I think are indicative of Laurent’s French background. The film played at SXSW earlier this year and the reviews weren’t great, but I want to see this and judge for myself.
Here’s the synopsis: Roy Cady is a taciturn tough guy whose day is spiraling from bad news to worse news before it ends with him being set up during a heist. Barely escaping with his life, he notices a young woman named Rocky, who was also left behind in the bloodshed, and takes her with him. This unexpected duo hits the road trying to find a respectful space between them as they grapple with personal demons and brutal showdowns.
Also starring Lili Reinhart, María Valverde, Beau Bridges, Robert Aramayo and Adepero Oduye, Galveston hits theaters and VOD on October 19th.
Todd Haynes’ most recent film Wonderstruck didn’t have the awards season impact as many thought, but at least he isn’t sitting around waiting on what to do next. Variety reports Haynes will direct Dry Run, a film that has a very interesting connection to the movie Foxcatcher from a few years ago.
Dry Run is based on the New York Times article The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare, and centers on attorney Robert Bilott, a former corporate defense attorney for eight years before he took on a landmark environmental lawsuit against the DuPont chemical company. If the name “DuPont” sounds familiar, it’s because the 2014 movie Foxcatcher starred Steve Carell as John du Pont, heir to the du Pont family fortune. That movie also starred Mark Ruffalo as the man du Pont eventually murdered, and now Ruffalo, a well-known environmental activisty, is producing Dry Run and may star.
The script was written by Matthew Carnahan (House of Lies) with Mario Correa doing the latest draft. Participant Media, the group behind the journalistic film Spotlight, are behind this one, making this the rare case of Haynes not developing his own project.
Matthew Vaughn was never a director interested in sequels until he did Kingsman: The Secret Service. The bombastic spy flick turned out to be a surprise hit, and helped introduce the world to breakout stars Taron Egerton and Sofia Boutella, along with giving us the coolest Colin Firth since…ever? The film spawned last year’s sequel, The Golden Circle, which had bigger stars (Jeff Bridges, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry), a nearly identical box office, and somewhat worse reviews. We knew a third film was in the works and that Vaughn would likely return to direct it, but now it’s been given a date that is sooner than we thought.
Exhibitor Relations confirms Kingsman 3 for November 8th 2019, with Vaughn getting back behind the camera. That date should sound familiar because it was where Bond 25 used to be before it got bumped to February 2020. Still, that date finds it arriving just a week after Wonder Woman 1984 and on the same day as Sonic the Hedgehog and Roland Emmerich’s Midway. Lots of competition, in other words, but Kingsman’s audience has been remarkable consistent through two films.
Just how loyal that audience is will be tested, though, because Vaughn has previously talked about expanding the franchise in a major way. He’s talked about the third film as “the conclusion of the Harry Hart-Eggsy relationship“, and after that he would explore the organization’s origins in a prequel film, Kingsman: The Great Game, which may find the two film shot back-to-back. Along with that would be an 8-part Kingsman TV miniseries, and a possible movie centering on Statesman, the American agency introduced in The Golden Circle.
The holy trinity has been confirmed. Fox’s UNTITLED KINGSMAN MOVIE drops Nov. 8, 2019. And yes, Matthew Vaughn returns to write and direct.
With all of the seemingly random projects littering the DCEU you’d be forgiven if Joker & Harley Quinn slipped your mind. Already we have Margot Robbie and Jared Leto’s maniacal duo appearing in Suicide Squad 2, while she also has Birds of Prey casting up now, and he has a solo Joker movie in the works. But there’s also that Todd Phillips/Joaquin Phoenix Joker film that has nothing to do with anything. It’s all really weird right now, and that doesn’t even touch on the Batman/Superman situations, which may require entirely new stars in those roles.
So the Joker and Harley Quinn movie understandably has fallen through the cracks, but it is apparently happening. Or at least writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa are talking to Metro like it is, and that their script for it is already finished. The screenwriting pair have a long track record with Crazy Stupid Love, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Focus, and more. However, it’s their past on the vulgar comedy Bad Santa and NBC weeper This is Us that has inspired their take on the DC Universe’s psychotic couple…
“The whole thing starts with Harley kidnapping Dr. Phil. Played by Dr. Phil hopefully. Because [she] and the Joker are having problems with their relationship. We had so much fun. I don’t know if we have had more fun writing a script in our career.”, Ficarra said.
It’s unclear if he was being serious there in describing the opening scene, but it sounds pretty crazy. My gut telsl me Ficarra feels free enough to give something like that way is for two reasons: either it’s not true in the least, or he knows the movie isn’t ever going to happen. In any case, he goes on to mention their work on Bad Santa and This is Us and how that influenced their approach…
“It was sort of like, we wrote ‘Bad Santa’ a couple of years ago, and it was that sensibility mixed with our ‘This Is Us’ sensibility. We kind of meshed them together. We were doing a relationship movie but with the sensibility of a ‘Bad Santa,’ f***ed up, mentally deranged people. It was a lot of fun.”
More to my earlier point, when asked Requa and Ficarra don’t sound like they know when the movie will get a green light. My guess is “never”, but we shall see…
“I don’t know where it is on the queue of DC movies,” Requa insisted. “We handed the script in and everybody loved it, but I don’t know when they are going to do it,” added Ficarra.
Ok, enough of the kiddie horror flicks, it’s time for the real thing. Michael Myers returns in the new Halloween from David Gordon Green, and fans of the long-running franchise can expect a true sequel to the 1978 original. No spinoffs or remakes, this one keeps Myers’ history of murder intact, and the mythlogy surrounding it is recounted in the latest trailer.
Done retro style with grainy archival footage of Myers’ murderous rampage on those infamous night, we’re then introduced to an older Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), who is ready to go on the offensive against the one who terrorized her years ago. It’s a pretty cool way to flip the tables and put a woman in the position of predator and, maybe, Myers on the defensive? We shall see, but this looks pretty great and I’m not really given to these movies most of the time.
Also starring Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, Virginia Gardner, and Nick Castle with Danny McBride a co-writer, Halloween opens October 19th.
Gilda Radner is a bit before my time watching SNL, my earliest memories are of the time of Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscipo running the late-night comedy staple. Later on, I learned more about the first cast of the show, the OG Not Ready for Prime Time Players and even then Gilda stood out in all the tellings of that era. In director’s Lisa D’ Apolito new film Love, Gilda we get the story of the late Gilda Radner told mostly through her own words. The film uses audio recordings along with comedians reading from her diaries to tell her life’s story. The film also has some thoughts from her peers and younger comedians she’s inspired about her work. The film uses old home film footage and picture to visualize these stories of her past. D’ Apolito infuses her film with a lot of heart and love of Gilda in this film. You can feel it as you’re watching the film, how it’s edited and how the pictures of used and focusing on images of Gilda happy.
If there was something you could say is a flaw is that it’s a movie CNN Films is involved in and it has that feel of a TV documentary, and one that you’ve probably seen on CNN before like their decade tributes (1960,70s, the 80s, 90, 00s) or History of Comedy or 1968. It feels very informative rather than intimate at times, and also feels like it was edited to include commercial breaks. This doesn’t really harm the piece but it does make one long for a bit more from the film and it’s easy to be distracted from it watching it at home. The interview scenes with comedians Radner’s influenced are good but feel like they could be longer to really get a better taste of the impact she’s had on them. There is a bit more with the people she worked with about her and that’s very important but it feels part of this film was is about her place in the comedy pantheon and it makes a viewer want to see more of what they saw in her work.
This might sound like I don’t really like it but that’s far from the case, I enjoyed it a lot. There is a lot that people who didn’t get to see her in her prime on tv breaking new ground each week with comedy. It also humanizes her greatly and gives a window on comedic greats that aren’t really around anymore like John Belushi and her husband Gene Wilder in that time. Love, Gilda is a solid piece of documentary filmmaking but it could be great with some more space to breathe and showcase more of Radner’s impact.
When Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige promised there would be more female directors in the very near future, he wasn’t kidding. THR reports acclaimed director Chloe Zhao, who received tremendous praise for her soulful western drama The Rider (my review here), has been hired to direct their long-developing Eternals film.
This is an interesting move because Zhao had been short-listed for Marvel’s Black Widow movie, but that ultimately went to Berlin Syndrome’s Cate Shortland. Clearly somebody in the Marvel offices likes Zhao’s work, and who can blame them? The Rider is going to end up on a lot of “Best of 2018” lists when all is said and done, perhaps even mine.
While Marvel hiring another woman filmmaker is great, especially on a property as huge as The Eternals, it’s another example of why they are such a success. They very easily could have hired a bigger name, perhaps one more experienced in studio blockbusters, but chose to go with an indie talent with a unique creative vision. It’s worked for them in the past (the Russo Brothers, Taika Waititi, etc.) and here’s hoping it works out again.
Zhao is going to have her hands full, though. The Eternals is based on the trippy characters created by legendary Marvel artist, Jack Kirby, and follows a race of immortal beings, offshoots of humanity, designed by the ancient Celestials to be defenders of humanity. They are engaged in an ongoing war with their destructive and grotesque cousins, the Deviants. Kirby’s stories were dense in mythology, and that’s going to be paired down by screenwriters Matthew and Ryan Firpo into a love story between “Ikaris, a man fueled by cosmic energy, and Sersi, who relishes moving amongst humans.”
No word on a release date, but expect that to change once Marvel lifts the curtain on their plans post-Avengers 4.
There’s something about the Joker that inspires extreme reactions in fans. While I appreciate Heath Ledger’s performance in The Dark Knight, can we stop talking about it like it was the greatest thing ever? And on the flip side, Jared Leto’s gangsta take on the Clown Prince in Suicide Squad doesn’t deserve nearly so much hate. Now, I think we’re going to get another very divisive response, this time to Joaquin Phoenix in Todd Phillips’ Joker.
After teasing us with a boring first image some days back, we now have the first look at Phoenix in full Joker makeup. And it’s…well, kinda plain? Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to run into this clown in a dark alley but his appearance is far from shocking and not really comics accurate. That said, I should probably consider this is an origin story, and perhaps Arthur (as the character will be named as a civilian) hasn’t perfected his look yet. The only thing that really matters is Phoenix’s performance, and already I can tell this is going to be creepy as f**k. It’s just a “camera test” but probably indicative of how Phoenix is going to look in the final version.
What do you think? Joker hits theaters on October 4th 2019.
