*NOTE: This is a reprint of my review from the Sundance Film Festival*
All due respect to the many Nicolas Cage movies that find him going unhinged, they’ve got nothing on Mandy. This deranged horror/revenge thriller from Panos Cosmatos, the director behind the bizarre, cultish Beyond the Black Rainbow, will appeal to fans of the filmmaker and of Cage, with everyone bursting into applause each time the actor lost his grip on sanity.
Which is often.
Cage, channeling a little bit of the rugged luberjack he played in Joe, takes on the role of Red in the 1983-set film. Red lives in the Shadow Mountains with the love of his life, Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), off in their own little world, a calming, peaceful existence that is just the two of them. She’s into reading macabre, supernatural horror novels, and talking about the universe. Red, he just seems happy to be around Mandy. She is his everything.
It can’t last. A chance encounter with a roving band of demented religious extremists leads to Andrea becoming the obsession of their leader, Jeremiah (Linus Roache). Blowing on some extra-dimensial horn, a foursome of leather-clad biker goons attacks Red and kidnaps Andrea so she can be inducted into Jeremiah’s odd little band of circus freaks. When tragedy strikes, Red is forced to embrace the darkness within himself and go primal on the “hippie religious freaks.”
Fans of Cosmatos will recognize what is becoming his signature style, luminous but ominous colors that transport you into an unrecognizable abstract world. Heavily influenced by rock musicals, Cosmatos uses the film’s soundtrack to drag you deeper into the abyss from which his characters exist. The first hour of the movie belongs to Roache, whose Jeremiah is like all of the worst cult leaders rolled into one, then given an extra dose of crazy juice. As he rants and raves about higher powers and otherworldly realms, most of what he’s going on about will fly over your head. It’s enough to know that he’s not exactly playing with a full deck, and will put his wacko beliefs into action.
But he’s got nothing on Red. The second half of the film is all Cage as it transforms into an Army of Darkness-esque splatter fest. Proving he can go full gonzo as well if not better than Bruce Campbell, Cage unleashes madness like nothing we’ve ever seen from him. Armed with a vicious crossbow dubbed “The Widowmaker” and a nasty bladed weapon he forges himself (not unlike what we’ve seen from Bruce Campbell’s Ash), Red shows no mercy and it would be impossible to do justice to the level of face-melting carnage on display.
For all of the violence on display Cosmatos and Cage combine to make a movie that is actually pretty funny, if you have a seriously sick, demented sense of humor. In what i think is the film’s funniest, pure Cage moment, Red locks himself in a bathroom, howling with rage, anger, and grief. Covered in deep, bloody wounds, Red grabs a bottle of vodka and begins to chug. Between gulps his howls continue, growing louder as he pours the liquor over his shredded body. The scene goes on for minutes, and with every swallow it gets more ridiculous. Only somebody like Cage could pull it off.
Mandy will appeal to those who are down with Cosmatos’ embrace of the grisly and grotesque. It reaches such a level that some may not be able to handle a full two hours of it. But the wait is well worth it to see Cage in a psychotic performance that will certainly mark a highlight of this stage of his career.
The story of Richard Wershe Jr., known on the street at “White Boy Rick,” was a well-known cautionary tale that many in Detroit are somewhat familiar with. Coming from a lower-middle class white family in the almost predominantly black Detroit scene of the 1980s, he quickly fit in with his peers in his neighborhood. Through unfortunate circumstances, he ended up becoming an FBI informant at the tender age of 14. While trying to stay under the radar as a snitch, he had to step up and become a drug dealer himself while helping the feds. After helping the FBI, he still was poor and continued his street activities and eventually found himself arrested and serving life under the harsh draconian laws of the time by the age of 17. While he finally was paroled some 30 years later, he served as a significant reminder of this country’s harsh laws, as well as a warning to many the consequences of working with the cops, as they ultimately will not have your back in the long run.
Wershe’s story almost feels like a gritty Hollywood movie and his entire life while being an informant feels right out of Goodfellas. So it’s no surprise that this story would end up on the big screen in White Boy Rick. Director Yann Demange (known mainly for directing British TV shows like Dead Set and Top Boy and the critically acclaimed IRA drama ’71) takes a stab at 1980s urban America for the feature film. Rounding up an impressive cast, which includes Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brian Tyree Henry, Rory Cochrane, and newcomer Richie Merritt (his first acting role at the titular character), this seems like lightning in a bottle. A gritty urban drama from not too long ago, that has an almost noir feel, with a very likable antihero as we follow him and his family as they go through the trials and tribulations of the 1980s crack epidemic.
Rick lives with his father Rick Sr, who makes his living by going to gun shows to purchase weapons and reselling them to… whoever is willing to buy them. Whether that be young suburbanites wanting protection from abusive boyfriends, or criminals who need some “fries with that burger.” With dreams of opening a chain of VCR stores (yeap the 1980s), Rick and his father seem to have found a semi-legal hustle that can help them achieve their goals. In addition to the father/son duo is Rick’s sister Dawn (Bel Powley), who after their mother left became involved with an abusive boyfriend and eventually hooked on drugs as well as Rick’s grandparents Ray and Vera (the always great Bruce Dern and Piper Laurie). Rick and his father try to remain under the radar, they eventually catch the eyes of two FBI agents (Jennifer Jason Leigh and Rory Cochrane). While they first try to lure in the elder Rick, they find it’s easier to work on the younger one under the promise that his father will go to jail if he doesn’t play ball as an informant.
Realizing he’s gotta be a snitch (and not one that will get caught), the FBI enlists local Detroit police officer (Brian Tyree Henry) in their investigation and the three begin to work Rick. Needing him to be above board with his local friends (all drug dealers under a local boss), Rick has to start buying and selling drugs. The buying’s not so bad as Rick knows the players and how things work in the neighborhood. It’s when Rick has to get in deeper, he has to start working on his own and he starts Nino Browning things himself. Rick is forced to toe the line as he’s getting in deep with both the cops as well as the gangsters. At the same time, he’s now enjoying the high life and everything that comes with it. He now can wear the big fur coats, as well as rock some serious jewelry as his profile continues to rise. What more could an unemployed 14-year-old ask for? Of course, the deeper he gets in on the criminal side, the more he realizes that it’s going to be problematic as his bosses are prone to not only beating people with champagne bottles, but shooting up houses. The case is eventually built and Rick is able to get out, almost unscathed.
Unfortunately, he’s still poor and needs to do something to maintain his lifestyle and help his family. He’s got the connections, why not continue the drug game? This is where he creates his own undoing. Those same Feds that wanted to team up with him before, aren’t just going to give him a get out of jail free card (even though they did before) now that they don’t need him. As a result, his unfortunate fall comes just as fast as his rise.
The film does a great job at capturing the 1980s very well. Music-wise, White Boy Rick is exceptional. Everything from urban disco for when they are at skate parties with his fellow drug dealers, and the late 1980’s hip-hop including Run DMC and Eric B and Rakim as Rick starts to rise to kingpin status. Matthew McConaughey does a great job as Rick Sr., a down on his luck father who just never got that big break and give a great and honest performance. For his first starring role, Richie Merritt gives a great performance as Rick. However, it’s a little hard to believe he’s 14 in the movie, but that’s small nitpicking as he still gives a great performance.
However, there are many things that don’t work 100% well in this film. First off, the movie basically starts in the second act, which causes problems with pacing and script for the movie. We really aren’t introduced to the characters in a meaningful way and spend most of the movie trying to play catch up to learn about their backstory and motivations, which is usually done via exposition. For example, the FBI just “start” tailing Rick Sr, and we really don’t learn much about their case and how it was shaped up. The local police officer who joins the FBI also comes out of nowhere as well. It feels as though there are chunks of information that were either edited out of the film, or the writers/director just didn’t feel was necessary to include. Also, the structure of the film tries to juggle various moments and doesn’t coherently go from one storyline to the next. At first, we are watching Rick and his father in the gunrunning business, and then they get swept up in the drug dealing business with almost no transition whatsoever. The FBI closing in on Rick’s boss is done very abrupt and instead of showing how they figured out everything and arrested the key players, it’s done via exposition by the Feds overlaid with footage of the raids. The side plot surrounding Rick’s sister Dawn as she has to go through rehab feels as out of place as the crack storyline was in Jungle Fever. It was probably done to showcase the downside of the drug game and not just to glorify Rick and the dealers, but it feels really out of place. A baby gets thrown into the mix out of left field, but they never establish if Rick is with the mother beyond the one time he and the mother get together as he’s constantly been chasing a corrupt politician’s girlfriend/wife the whole movie. The movie focuses almost exclusively on Rick and his family, and while the other 80% of the cast are members of Rick’s black friends (played by rappers YG, Danny Brown IshDARR, and actor RJ Cyler). They don’t really add much to the story other than playing background characters, who are so insignificant that we forget their names as soon as they are off-screen. Much of this plot mishaps could have been better handled with either a better script or a more seasoned director. Ultimately, you are supposed to feel bad for Rick in the end as he received the short end of the stick from the Feds who basically used him for their own ends, but his willingness to get back in the drug game was his ultimate downfall. While his story in real life is probably more tragic, the film doesn’t capture the drama until the last few moments when both Merritt and McConaughey get the chance to flex their acting chops and make the scene work. While the movie does try to tackle the justice system as evidenced by how lax the gun laws are, or explaining “black and white jail time,” the truth of Rick eventually getting “black jail time” undercuts that message a little.
Overall, White Boy Rick is still a decent outing. Strong performances by the lead characters as well as an exceptional supporting cast allow you to look past some of the narrative tones of the film and still be entertained by an otherwise abysmal story about the drug game and how a young 14-year-old Rick was abused by the powers that be. Even the people he testified against were out of jail before he was, and that’s the true scandal about the hundreds of other Ricks in the world.
We may or may not know who the villain of Bond 25 will be. Wonder Woman actor Saïd Taghmaoui was recently cast in the film, a role that would have been the most prominent of his career as a solid supporting player. The only problem is that was when Danny Boyle was still attached, and with the director out that obviously puts his situation in limbo.
Taghmaoui explains his current situation to The National…
“I’m supposed to do the next James Bond, playing the lead bad guy. I was cast by Danny Boyle, and just now he left the project, so of course there’s some uncertainty.”
This whole situation stems from a dispute between Boyle, star Daniel Craig, and the franchise’s producers over casting. Boyle and writer John Hodge clearly had a specific idea in mind when it comes to the movie’s villain, but it’s Craig who gets the last word. Clearly, he and Boyle were unable to find common ground, and it looks like Taghmaoui may have been caught up in the shrapnel…
“We don’t know who the director will be, and the producers don’t know if they’re going to go Russian or Middle East with the baddie right now. I literally just received a message saying: ‘If they go Middle East, it’s you. If they go Russian, it’s someone else.’ It’s the story of my life. Always on that line between something that could change my life and something that disappears.”
Taghmaoui is a versatile actor, appearing in everything from The West Wing to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra where he played Breaker, but I don’t think he’d be able to pull off playing a Russian terrorist. A decision on a new director should be coming soon, and with it some idea of Saïd Taghmaoui’s involvement.
Marvel’s Big Hero 6 universe is one of the most distinct they’ve ever created. A futuristic blend of San Francisco and Tokyo, it looks like nothing else and I’m still upset we haven’t seen it in a live-action film as part of the MCU. Fortunately, we’ll be able to experience it in a whole new way as part of SquareEnix’s long-awaited Kingdom Hearts 3, and it’s featured in the latest trailer.
I’ll be honest, as hyped as I am to see Big Hero 6 in this footage, I’m sick to death of waiting on this game. It’s been years, far too many years, and every time we fans reach peak frustration they put out some gameplay footage to appease us. That said, this looks so fun I can hardly stand it. We get to see Baymax and Hiro teaming up with Sora, Goofy, and Donald as they teamup to save the world. Even here Baymax can’t help introducing himself as a personal healthcare companion.
Kingdom Hearts 3 hits PS4 and XBox One on January 25th 2019. I’ll believe it when I’m actually booting the game up to play.
It used to be that one of the big draws of The Walking Dead was that characters would die unexpectedly without any kind of advanced warning. It gave the show a seat-of-the-pants, anything can happen feel that was both attractive and scary. However, all of that has changed with season nine, because we seem to know exactly who is leaving, and in the case of Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes it’s even become part of the marketing strategy.
Perhaps it’s a ploy to lure back some of the fans who peeled off in recent seasons, but AMC is using Lincoln’s final season as a key part of this brand new trailer. “Rick Grimes’ Final Episodes” are going to feature a lot of jumping around through time, presumably to hide the full nature of his exit, but the point is he’s going to be gone and I hope that’s not the only thing creatively this season has going for it. Hopefully there are other ideas for this season beyond writing off Rick. I’m not so sure.
The Walking Dead returns to AMC on October 7th at 9pm EST.
I still think it was bad timing that hurt Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters when it opened in 2016. A year later Wonder Woman would help spark a revolution of successful female-led films, and that trend continues today with the nearly $300M box office of Ocean’s Eight. While we won’t get a sequel to Feig’s film, the director hit up the Happy Sad Confused podcast to talk about what one would have looked like, and he says the ghostbusting ladies would have taken on the paranormal globally…
“I definitely wanted us to go to another country. Because when we were doing the press tour, the international press tour, every country the reporters would come with these drawings or artist renderings of that country’s ghosts. And every country has these really wild ghost stories and ghost characters that they scare kids with or keep people in line with. I really loved the idea of the Ghostbusters going to like Asia. Yeah, so there’s a lot of fun stuff what we could have done.”
The Ghostbusters franchise is pretty much dormant right now, but maybe some of Feig’s ideas will be rolled over into a different project? It just seems like there’s so much potential in the team going international that it’s disappointing we may never see it.
Feig’s latest film, A Simple Favor, hits theaters this weekend and stars Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively.
When Predator hit the scene in 1987 it landed in the thick of the most macho era for action movies in Hollywood history. Grim faced, muscle-bound, silent action stars laid waste to their enemies with weapons bigger than their entire bodies, and we loved those movies for letting us turn our brains off for a while. But Predator was something different. Directed by ’80s staple John McTiernan, it put the protagonist on the defensive against a seemingly unstoppable alien force, and demanded the hero use more than big guns and strength to emerge victorious. The film was not only a hit, but became an instant classic that spawned sequels (all of which are successful in different ways), some unfortunate spinoffs, and an entire multimedia franchise.
The Predator is like somebody reached back into the ’80s and brought the movies of that era into the now. Violent, vulgar, and scary, it’s exactly the kind of movie we would expect from director Shane Black, who had a small role in the original Predator film back when he was just a pup in the Hollywood business. He talked his way into some uncredited scriptwork on that film, as well, and you can tell he’s been itching to get back into the Predator business. Without rebooting the franchise, he uses Predator and Predator 2 as springboards to a bigger, more contemporary story. But in its guts this is a story rooted in 1987, and that’s why it’s so much fun.
Black, who co-wrote the script with Monster Squad writer Fred Dekker, isn’t averse to blockbuster filmmaking. While he may be known for his snappy Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and The Nice Guys scripts, he’s still the guy who gave us Marvel’s Iron Man 3. Black opens The Predator with an intergalactic dogfight between two warships. One is damaged, and opens a wormhole that leads it straight to a crash-landing on Earth, right in the middle of a black ops mission led by sniper Quinn McKenna, played by Charlie Hunnam-esque star Boyd Holbrook. The creature that emerges from the ship is one we recognize; ugly, fanged, oddly indigenous for a being so technologically advanced. It mops the floor with Quinn’s team, but he escapes with some of the alien’s tech. Stealing from a Predator? Not smart.
Even less smart? Sending said alien tech to your house. That’s where Quinn’s genius son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) finds it and accidentally tips the Predator to its whereabouts. But there’s an even bigger Predator out there, a souped-up hybrid the size of a friggin’ tank, that’s on the first one’s trail. Yes, there be Predator politics, but also some government conspiracy nonsense involving Sterling K. Brown as the Nicotine-gum-chewing bad guy, some mumbo-jumbo about genetic modification, a whole lot about the Autism spectrum, and even a little bit of climate change philosophizing. It’s all just cover for what Black really wants to do, which is recreate the manly camaraderie that was so much a part of the first movie.
While Olivia Munn does play a scientist caught up in this Predator mess, she’s surrounded by Quinn and a rag tag group of miscreants who call themselves “The Loonies”. Moonlight‘s Trevante Rhodes, comedian Keegan-Michael Key, Game of Thrones’ Alfie Allen, perennial tough-guy Thomas Jane, and Augusto Aguilera play the team of oddball soldiers Quinn gets lumped in with as the government tries to discredit him. They end up becoming his closest allies in the fight against the Predator and Super Predator. Of them all, it’s Rhodes who has the greatest presence as the super-cool Nebraska. He and Holbrook aren’t quite Carl Weather and Arnold Schwarzenegger, but honestly? Who the f**k could be? Black, who has always been at his best when he’s got multiple characters that can ping pong one-liners, gives each man quirks to spare. Jane’s character, the Tourettes-afflicted Baxley, has a habit of saying the wrong thing at…well, every time. When he first encounters Munn’s Dr. Casey Brackett, he blurts out “Eat your pussy!”, which isn’t the best first impression to make. This suicidal band of brothers give the film a large part of its personality and charm, because Holbrook…well, he doesn’t have a ton of it. I always feel as if he’s snoozing through every line of delivered dialogue. He’s certainly no Schwarzenegger, but he’s not even Danny Glover or Adrien Brody. Imagine what this movie might have been if Benicio Del Toro had stuck around as originally planned!
The original Predator design is one of the coolest, most iconic in movie history. It was a terrifying force of nature in that first movie, but subsequent films have sapped some of that haunting power. The abundance of CGI in The Predator doesn’t help the cause; somehow the gigantic creature is less intimidating than the one we saw leaping through jungles 30 years ago. It works much better when the Predator is seen in shadow, or camouflaged and on the hunt, than when involved in direct confrontation.
Quibbles aside, The Predator is a worthy addition to one of the most reliable action/sci-fi franchises in history. It doesn’t come close to surpassing the original movie, but it’s nearly everything a fan of these movies could ask for, and will have you hoping the Predators pay another visit to our planet soon.
For a stretch in the early 2000s Uwe Boll was one of the most talked-about directors around, and not necessarily for good reasons. He was the man behind a string of really crappy low-budget sci-fi/horror flicks, like Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne, In the Name of the King (starring Jason Statham and Burt Reynolds!!!) and House of the Dead. He made other, less revolting movies but in general if Boll’s name was attached then shit was what you were getting. Eventually he grew angry with the Hollywood system, began challenging critics to literal fist fights, making movies intended solely to shock, and proclaimed himself the only “true genius” in the business. Suffice it to say, it didn’t earn him any fans.
Boll’s chronic arrogance eventually led to his inability to get movies made, in particular the anticipated-by-nobody Rampage 3, and he retired from directing. But not before dropping an infamous “Fuck You All” video in 2015. That tirade was clearly the inspiration for documentary Fuck You All: The Uwe Boll Story, which gives the egotistical filmmaker a platform to thank his fans and shit on his perceived enemies.
I honestly don’t know who this movie is made for but if the ravings of a madman are your thing then this might be the doc for you.
YouTube isn’t sitting around letting Netflix and Amazon have all of the streaming fun. They’re the biggest producer of video content in the world and have tried, with some success, to capitalize on that with YouTube Premium (formerly YouTube Red), a paid subscription service with original series and feature content. Later this year they’ll release the Eminem-produced battle rap flick Bodied (which is great, by the way), but their first real crack at film legitimacy is Viper Club, led by Oscar winner Susan Sarandon.
The YouTube original stars Sarandon as a mother working tirelessly to free her journalist son, kidnapped by terrorists and held in Syria. When it’s clear the government isn’t going to be much help, she turns to a clandestine group of journalists, philanthropists, and advocates who can go much further. It looks like a legit, well-made film and surrounds Sarandon with plenty of talent. Matt Bomer, Lola Kirke, Julian Morris, Shelia Vand, Adepero Oduye and Edie Falco co-star, with Maryam Keshavarz (Circumstance) directing.
Viper Club will get a brief theatrical run on October 26th followed by YouTube Premium later in the year.
If this rumor seems like it’s coming out of left field, it is, and we should treat it as such. Ain’t It Cool News, which hasn’t really been much of a factor over the last few years, is reporting that Marvel wants Guy Ritchie to direct a Captain Britain movie, which I guess makes since given the whole U.K. thing. The film would be titled Captain Britain and the Black Knight because this is looking to be a teamup movie.
A source has told the site that space has been booked at Pinewood Studios for November and December for Marvel to hold auditions for the movie. The director whose name is attached for that booking is Guy Ritchie. Apparently that was the time previously set aside for Danny Boyle’s Bond 25, and is now available since that film has gone back to the drawing board.
If you don’t know Captain Britain, his name is Brian Braddock and he was gifted with incredible powers by the wizard Merlyn and his daughter Roma who is an “Omniversal Guardian”, meaning she guards the multiverse or something. I can’t remember. Braddock must use his powers to protect Britain, and in some stories his powers only worked when he was within its borders. He’s also the older brother to the X-Man known as Psylocke, and led the X-spinoff team Excalibur, which was my favorite book during the Alan Moore run.
There have been multiple characters known as the Black Knight but the most prominent is Dane Whitman, who carries the cursed Ebony Blade. The sword has been passed down through generations since the days of King Arthur, but Whitman has decided to use it for good, although the weapon compels him to do otherwise at times.
Definitely take this with some salt. It’s possible Marvel is looking to fill the gap left behind by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and have moved up some projects that were scheduled for later. But this seems dubious at best and I have my doubts it’s true.
