After years of watching her in domestic mommy roles, there was a genuine thrill to see Jennifer Garner back in Alias kick-ass mode for her new film, Peppermint.
That thrill lasted all of about five minutes. A bland Death Wish riff with the expected racial stereotypes, grim cinematography, bumbling cops, and anti-hero nonsense, Peppermint can’t even be saved by Garner’s obvious enthusiasm to be packing heat rather than packing school lunches.
The film is directed by Pierre Morel, who peaked with District B13 years ago and has been aping himself ever since he hit it big with Taken. Peppermint looks like it was run through the Taken filter, beginning in utter gloom as Riley North (Garner) beats the snot out of then kills some Mexican gangbanger in a car before dumping his body. Flashback a few years and we see a very different Riley; longer hair, smiling, happy with her young daughter Carly (Cailey Fleming) and mechanic husband Chris (Jeff Hephner). Not everything is great, though. They’re toughing it out financially, and the wealthier moms aren’t shy about isolating Carly from their own kids. “You should’ve punched her lights out”, Carly says after one particularly snotty mother causes a fuss.
Don’t worry, kid. It’s coming.
Unfortunately, it comes a little too late for Carly and Chris who are gunned down at a Christmas carnival by, you guessed it, a bunch of Mexican thugs. They may not say the word “Mexican” but I bet their license plate had “MS-13” on it. All of this just moments after Carly ordered a double scoop of Peppermint ice cream. Riley, who had been shot as well, saw the killers’ faces and reported it to the cops, but did they face justice? Of course not. They get off scott free, Riley flips out, gets tased for her drama and sent to a psych ward. She busts free and vanishes for five years, where she apparently traveled the world learning how to fight and kill like a pro. How does a normal suburban mom with seemingly zero experience in the art of wetwork figure out where to even look for such training? It would be nice if the script clued us into that.
It would also be nice if Peppermint had taken more of a Blue Ruin approach to Riley’s quest for vengeance, because the setup is actually quite similar. Her inexperience in exacting revenge would have been seen as a virtue, and we could follow Riley as she stumbles through this killer phase of her life and deals with the motional fallout. But instead she’s friggin’ Batwoman, dispatching entire rooms full of tattooed brown guys, stringing them up on ferris wheels (!!!) or worse. It just doesn’t make any sense and there’s never any attempt to make it even remotely plausible.
Of course there are a pair of cops always a step behind Riley’s trail, Carmichael and Beltran, played by John Gallagher Jr. and John Ortiz, both too good for these vanilla characters. They’ve figured out that Riley’s family was killed on a hit put out by cartel boss Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba), and those who cross him usually end up dead. He’s got people inside the police force, too, because don’t they always? Even so, the cops are unprepared for the lethality of Riley’s attack against the cartel, or the support she gets from the locals and on social media, who see her as a hero. Down on Skid Row they’ve even painted a giant mural of Riley as their guardian angel, which makes me think they’ve got too much time on their hands. You think all those drugs will smoke themselves?
Peppermint fails to make the best use of the one thing that separates it from the millions of other generic revenge flicks out there, and that’s Riley herself. Other than a scene where she uses a tampon to staunch a nasty knife wound there’s practically no female perspective at all. She might as well be Charles Bronson or Bruce Willis, and we’ve been down that road before. A lot. Garner does her best with the material and she makes you feel for Riley and her need for closure, but the screenplay doesn’t afford her a lot of opportunities. Garner can still bring it, and hopefully she gets another chance in a movie that’s worthy of her.
Well, the timing of this news couldn’t be worse for Shane Black. Just ahead of The Predator‘s premiere at TIFF, and with reports of Netflix scooping up his long-shelved action flick Cold Warrior, comes word that a scene from The Predator had to quickly be removed because an actor in it was a registered sex offender. Worse, Black knew about it the whole time.
The actor in question is Steven Wilder Striegel, who shares a scene with Olivia Munn where he hits on her character. Something about him must have irked her because it was Munn who brought the information to Fox executives, who took swift action to have his character, a very minor one, edited out of the movie.
“Our studio was not aware of Mr. Striegel’s background when he was hired,” a Fox spokesperson said in a statement to The LA Times. “We were not aware of his background during the casting process due to legal limitations that impede studios from running background checks on actors.”
Striegel and Black have been friends for years, however, and the director knew of the conviction when he hired him, saying he “personally chose to help a friend” that he thought he was “caught up in a bad situation” rather than something “lecherous.”
Check out the report for yourself and what Striegel did actually sounds VERY lecherous.
Munn said she found it “both surprising and unsettling that Shane Black, our director, did not share this information to the cast, crew, or Fox Studios prior to, during, or after production.”
“However,” she added, “I am relieved that when Fox finally did receive the information, the studio took appropriate action by deleting the scene featuring Wilder prior to release of the film.”
Standing up for his friend but not necessarily making things better, Striegel said “I’ve known Shane Black 14 years, well before this incident, and I think it’s worth noting that he was aware of the facts. Shane can speak for himself, but I’m quite certain that if he felt I was a danger in any way to have around, he would not have. If I had even an inkling that my involvement with ‘The Predator’ would be a point of difficulty for Shane Black, or cast any kind of shadow over a movie that I wish only great success for, I would, of course, never have been involved in any capacity.”
Black has since released a statement on his decision to hire Striegel, saying that he did not know all of the facts until the LA Times report. He now regrets hiring Striegel for the film…
“Having read this morning’s news reports, it has sadly become clear to me that I was misled by a friend I really wanted to believe was telling me the truth when he described the circumstances of his conviction. I believe strongly in giving people second chances – but sometimes you discover that chance is not as warranted as you may have hoped.”
“After learning more about the affidavit, transcripts and additional details surrounding Steve Striegel’s sentence, I am deeply disappointed in myself,” the director continued. “I apologize to all of those, past and present, I’ve let down by having Steve around them without giving them a voice in the decision.”
Not the best way to launch a franchise. I don’t think this will hurt The Predator at the box office or anything, but there could be repercussions for Black professionally down the road.
The feel good family film of the year, this is not. Wildlife, the directorial debut of the perfectly odd Paul Dano, feels like it has “Awards Contender” written all over it. The film, which follows a boy watching his family fall apart as his parents drift and infidelity ensues, certainly has the cast for an awards season favorite. The thing that struck me the most about this clip is that I didn’t realize how much I missed Carey Mulligan. She had huge years between 2009 and 2013 but has been pretty under the radar since then. Mulligan has always been a critical darling, she’s one of the few that I can totally agree with…she has a presence that’s magnetic, gravitational even. Her roles up to this point have been good, but nothing that feels quite as meaty as this could be. It looks like Dano has done some solid work with his debut as well, perfectly capturing that Rockwellian look but shooting it in such a way that you can just see the cracks exposing the darkness underneath. Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think!
Wildlife Debuts in Limited Release October 19th, 2018
The reaction to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences introducing a Popular Film Category into the Oscars mix was somewhere between “yuck” and “Oh Hell no!!”, and that is likely playing a big role in today’s decision. The Academy has decided to delay the implementation of the award so that it will not be part of the upcoming 91st Academy Awards, although they remain “committed to celebrating a wide spectrum of movies.”
Uh huh, sure. Fancy a mulligan on this one?
The statement by Academy CEO Dawn Hudson adds, “There has been a wide range of reactions to the introduction of a new award, and we recognize the need for further discussion with our members. We have made changes to the Oscars over the years—including this year—and we will continue to evolve while also respecting the incredible legacy of the last 90 years.”
Well, not such a “wide range”, actually. The backlash to the announcement on August 8th was swift and furious, with few coming to its defense. Hudson continues, “The Academy recognized that implementing any new award nine months into the year creates challenges for films that have already been released. The Board of Governors continues to be actively engaged in discussions, and will examine and seek additional input regarding this category.”
The move was initially criticized for arriving at the same time that superhero films such as Black Panther were seen as justifiably deserving Best Picture consideration. That argument still holds, and will when/if the Academy decides to finally act upon this move. The Academy has claimed Popular Film nominees could still be considered for Best Picture, but the likelihood of that actually happening is extremely slim.
The suggestion of seeking “additional input” will likely mean polling the group’s 8,000 voting members in hopes of convincing them to support the category. Failing that, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the entire idea gets nixed quietly and we never hear from it again.
The 91st Academy Award will take place on Sunday, Feb. 24th 2019 on ABC.
The film world was dealt a mighty blow today as legendary actor and screen heartthrob Burt Reynolds has died at the age of 82. According to his agent, Reynolds died of cardiac arrest.
You say the name Burt Reynolds and it conjures up the swaggering, sexy cool of the 1970s. He was often positioned as the charismatic and funny lead in films such as The Cannonball Run, Smokey and the Bandit, and The Longest Yard. When he starred in the tense thriller Deliverance it was a change of pace for him and h careiser off in a different direction. While his star eventually faded, he still kept plenty busy, earning his first and only Oscar nomination for his role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights.
Reynolds also made moves behind the camera, directing his first movie, Gator, in 1978. He would go on to helm four more films, with his most recent being 2000’s The Last Producer. While his activity level dropped for a time, Reynolds picked it back up by starring in five movies over the last two years, and was set for a role in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
We send our condolences to Reynolds’ friends and family for their loss.
Antonio Campos really made a splash with his first two films, Afterschool and Simon Killer, marking him immediately as a director with a special voice. But he was saving the best, so far, for his third film, the powerful real-life drama Christine, which featured Rebecca Hall as chronically-depressed news reporter Christine Chubbuck. It earned Campos the greatest accolades of his career, and has apparently opened the door for him to do something even bigger with his next film.
Campos is at TIFF shopping around his upcoming film, The Devil All the Time, and check out this cast: Chris Evans, Mia Wasikowska, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, and Tracy Letts. Damn, son. The story, which Campos co-wrote and adapted from Donald Ray Pollock’s novel, takes place in “a place called Knockemstiff, Ohio, a forgotten backwoods of this country – a storm of faith, violence and redemption brews. Out of desperation to save his dying wife, our protagonist Willard Russell turns to prayer which succumbs to sacrifice. His son Arvin (Holland) is growing from a kid bullied at school into a man who knows when to take action. The cast of characters includes a serial killer couple, a faith-testing preacher and a corrupt local sheriff (Evans) in a story told across two decades.”
A lot of reunions here, too. Evans and Holland are Marvel alums, obviously, while the latter starred with Pattinson in The Lost City of Z. Pattinson and Wasikowska recently led the Western-comedy, Damsel, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year.
The plan is for production to kick off next February, and hopefully by then that plot description will get a little clearer. [Deadline]
You’ll find no greater supporter of Assassination Nation than yours truly. I probably had the most glowing reviews for it after the Sundance premiere in January; I’ve hyped up every trailer, tweeted at the cast so much they probably think me a stalker, and generally just been a cheerleader for this wildly provocative and topical film. But do I think it needs another trailer so soon before it hits theaters? Not really.
The first trailer really said everything the marketing needed it to, by shocking viewers with a series of trigger warnings. They let you know this movie was there to provoke, and any snowflakes might want to go next door and check out some Pixar shit. So everything that followed has been redundant, and that includes today’s unnecessary red band trailer. The film is still awesome, but they don’t need to grind it into the ground before anybody has had a chance to find that out for themselves.
Anyway, Assassination Nation is a modern parallel to the Salem Witch Trials, only this time the “witches” are four high school girls (Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, Abra) accused of releasing all of the town’s personal info as part of a widescale hack. With everybody’s private business out in the open, all bets are off and the townspeople start showing their true colors, which turn out to be red…blood red. The film co-stars Bill Skarsgard, a truly creepy Joel McHale, Bella Thorne, Colman Domingo, Maude Apatow, and more.
ONE SHALL STAND! ONE SHALL FALL! A very special event will take place on September 27th when Fathom Events hosts for one night only the return of Transformers: The Movie, the 1986 animated classic that featured Optimus Prime, Hot Rod, and a whole new generation of Autobots against Galvatron and the threat of Unicron!
We’re happy to offer our readers the chance to win a pair of free passes to the Fathom Events screening of their choice. To enter, simply send an email to punchdrunktrav@gmail.com with “TRANSFORMERS Screening” in the subject line. Please include your full name, favorite Transformer (Autobot or Decepticon), and your preferred movie theater and backup theater. You can find the theater closest to you by going to the Fathom Events site here and inputting your zip code.
Winners will be selected on Friday, September 14th and notified by email. Good luck!
Transformers: The Movie returns to theaters on September 27th, 7:00pm local time!
Back in 2010, a few years after Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and shortly before Iron Man 3, Shane Black was still finding his way through a Hollywood comeback. One of the projects he settled on was an action film titled Cold Warrior, which would have seen him reunited with his Lethal Weapon star, Mel Gibson. The project fell into limbo over at Universal and hasn’t been heard from since, but now Black is on something of a roll, and suddenly Cold Warrior is close to becoming a reality.
Collider reports that Netflix quietly acquired the rights to Cold Warrior from Universal last year, and nobody thought to make a big deal out of it, apparently. The story is pretty lean in description, centering on a retired spy who joins with a younger agent to stop a Russian terrorist threat. The script was penned by Chuck Mondry, who has also been attached to Black’s long-developing Doc Savage movie. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Black took a pass at the script himself, to give it the flavor we’re used to from him.
Also, I have my doubts Gibson will remain involved, not when there are so many other options available to Black at this point. And if The Predator turns out to be the hit fans of the franchise are hoping, he will be able to make offers to other stars less polarizing than Gibson.
Marvel and Netflix’s partnership was mostly been a successful one. With such “street-level” shows like Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones, it made sense. While in the comics, those characters have been known to make various Avengers-type of appearances, they were mostly grounded to New York City. However, when it was announced that Iron Fist was going to be the fourth Defender, that immediately raised some concerns. First off, Iron Fist is more mystical than street-level, he has a glowing fist and fought a dragon in a city that is only available on our dimensional plan every 88 years (or 10 depending on what comic you are reading), doesn’t really mesh theme-wise with the other shows right? However, we all bit our tongue and waiting to see how Marvel and Netflix would continue catching lighting in a bottle. Secondly, the casting of Finn Jones made some fans vexed that (while staying true to the comic) the best fighter in the world was a white guy instead of an Asian one and considered it a missed opportunity. Still, we held our tongue and awaited the final product. Unfortunately, it was a colossal mess. The plot didn’t make sense, Finn Jones’ acting was wooden, and the fight scenes were downright laughable. It was the first time Marvel hit a roadblock in both movies and TV shows. Despite being universally ridiculed by both fans and critics, Marvel and Netflix moved forward with a second season, promising that there would be improvements.
So, did they learn the right lessons? Is season two of Iron Fist going to be better than the first one?
Abso-f*ck!ng-lutely!!!
Thanks in part to his guest appearance on the second season ofLuke Cage, we already saw a new and improved Danny Rand. No longer the Episode IV whiney Luke Skywalker-esqe persona, Danny Rand had matured, was more confident, and seemed to have more of a purpose than just blurting out “I am the Immortal Iron Fist” every two seconds. In fact, he served as the Obi-Wan wise master to Luke Cage when he was having problems that needed to be addressed character-wise. This continues for the most part in Iron Fist season 2. The first season, Finn Jones acted as if he had just gotten the script the day of shooting and didn’t really understand how his character was to function. After hearing the criticisms, he and the production team took their time, and honed in on just what comic fans loved about the character, and did what they should have done the first season: make him a badass and much more likable, and it pays off big time.
Picking off after the events of the second season of Luke Cage, Danny is continuing to fulfill his promise to Matt Murdock and taking over as the guardian of Hells Kitchen, although most of his vigilante activities take place in Chinatown. He and Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) are living together. He is still a 51% owner in his family business and filthy rich, but his true passion is ridding the city of crime. While Colleen is also a skilled fighter, she has hung up her sword (thanks to the events of the Defenders miniseries) and opts now to help the community by doing social services. That doesn’t mean that she won’t play his “guy in the chair” from time to time, and even get involved when things heat up between different Triads in Chinatown.
In addition to trying to clean up Chinatown, Danny has his own personal threat to deal with. As evidenced by the end of the first season, Joy Meachum (Jessica Stroup) and Davos (Sacha Dhawan), two people Danny has known since childhood, have teamed up to take him down. She has the finances, he has the insane fighting skills to do just that. Each of them feels “betrayed” by Danny from the first season. Joy, angered by Danny and her brother Ward (Tom Pelphrey) keeping the secret of her father Harold’s resurrection from her (and Danny killing him), has caused her to make a deal with the devil, well, two devils (or 3-4 depending on how you look at it… more on that in a bit) to enact her revenge on Danny.
This also leads to them partnering up with a new and equally dangerous character “Typhoid Mary” Walker (Alice Eve). Comic fans will know Typhoid Mary as a character who mostly has dealt with Daredevil and the X-Men. In the comics, she was a mutant who suffers from dissociative identity disorder (DID) and depending on what personality is manifested, she has different levels of telekinetic powers. Since Fox isn’t 100% technically owned by Disney (at least in the MCU yet), there’s a retcon of the character for the show. She still has multiple personalities, but no powers. That doesn’t mean she’s not a danger to pretty much everyone. One personality “Mary” is an innocent woman, who befriends Danny and really doesn’t have any problems at all. However, “Walker” is another story. Walker is a former black ops soldier who cut her teeth in Sokovia (good MCU reference) with a heavily redacted file, who is skilled in fighting and weapons and proves to be a problem for everyone she encounters throughout the season. there’s a hind of a third personality as the season progresses that is even more dangerous as evidenced via flashbacks. Comic fans will know that as the “Bloody Mary” persona, who we will probably meet in either a future Daredevil orIron Fist season.
While Joy and Mary are worthy antagonists, it’s Davos that carries this season of Iron Fist. Davos believes that Danny is the “worst Iron Fist ever” as he stated in season one, and wants what he feels is rightfully his: the ability to use the power of the Iron Fist. Davos teams up with Joy to take the power of the Iron Fist away from Danny and become his comic book counterpart, the Steel Serpent. Davos has an almost Killmonger type of way, as in his eyes (as with most good villains), he thinks he’s the hero, who will use the power of the Iron Fist the “right” way, since he thinks Danny has failed at it. Through flashbacks, you get to see his backstory as he has pretty much trained his whole life to be the Iron Fist, the defender of K’un-Lun, only to have failed in a fight with Danny to the shame of his parents. In his mind, an outsider defeated and humiliated him, and then that outsider rejected his post, and then K’un-Lun disappeared. He’s out to right these perceived wrongs, and goes to extreme lengths to right them.
All the players return for a second season as well. Ward Meachum is back on the side of the angels after being clouded in a gray area for the first season. Finally realizing that he has a drug an alcohol problem, Ward has gone into counseling. That, and trying to make amends with Danny and Joy is where he spends most of this arc this season. Although he is still the snobby, Donald Trump Jr. type of character from the first season, he slowly realizes that money can’t buy you everything, and self-respect is priceless. Joining the team is Misty Knight (Simone Missick), who as a seasoned officer investigates everything coded “616” (nice Marvel reference), meaning anything related to people with superpowers. As Misty is always ready to tow the line, she ends up teaming with Colleen and Danny, and having a Rand-sponsored bionic arm doesn’t hurt to have in a dangerous situation. In the comics, Danny and Misty ended up as a romantic pair. While Danny and Colleen’s relationship goes through the ringer, Misty and Danny shippers will probably have to wait a little longer for their eventual hookup. However, fans of the “Daughters of the Dragon” are in for a treat, as we get to see plenty of action with Misty and Colleen kicking plenty of ass. Instead of one awesome bar fight like in season 2 of Luke Cage, we get to see them go toe to toe with many bad guys.
But are the fights good? Um, yeah! The first season was such a misfire on the fight choreography department and it was clear as day that there was no time and energy devoted to making believable realistic fights. Now we weren’t asking for stuff from The Raid, but Into the Badlands proved that you can do high-quality fighting on the small screen on a weekly basis. Learning the lessons from the first season, new showrunner Raven Metzner brought in Black Panther fight coordinator Clayton Barber to train the actors and make believable fight scenes. To say it’s a vast improvement is a complete undersell. While it doesn’t get to Into the Badlandslevel or fight choreography, it’s better than 90% of what is on TV nowadays. The flashback fight between Danny and Davos is animalistic, raw, and brutal, and the kitchen fight between Danny, Colleen, and the Triads was expertly filmed, the same goes for when Misty and Collen face off against a trio of women who help Davos get his powers. Suffice to say, there’s a lot of good fight scenes!
Despite the complete 180, that doesn’t mean that this season is perfect. Some of Joy Meachum’s motivations have to be taken with a grain of salt. She blames Danny Rand for killing her father last season, kickstarting her revenge plot, but her father was a zombified version of himself and a puppet for The Hand, not necessarily someone you really want to fight for. Those critical of Danny Rand’s “white savior” role will still have plenty to complain about. While it fits the way the comic was, it’s still a white billionaire usurping Asian culture and beating up countless faceless Asian bad guys. Like most Marvel Netflix shows, that 10-episode requirement hurts the show. The final episode tries to cram a lot in it to resolve plotlines as well as set things up for the eventual third season. It does some things character-wise that although may be true in a sense to the comic, don’t really fit the narrative of the show very well and end up not making a lot of sense. The final scene comes out of left field with no explanation as to how it came about, which will leave many confused. Basically, the entire last episode needed a serious script rewrite before filming.
That said, Iron Fist season 2 is a substantial step in the right direction. Danny is more likeable, the supporting characters also help him carry the show and level it up so that it is now no longer the “weak” Marvel Netflix show and can compete with all the other ones. And you can’t stress how much better the fighting is!
