Are you ready for a grown-up Dora the Explorer? It sounds like something that should be an SNL skit (CollegeHumor already plumbed those depths), not a major feature-length movie, but it is a real thing and now we have the first look at star Isabela Moner in the title role. Apparently Dora only keeps one set of clothes in her closet. For her entire life.
Moner is the scene-stealer most recently seen in Sicario: Day of the Soldado and Transformers: The Last Knight. She’s joined in Dora’s “most dangerous adventure ever” by Mexican superstar Eugenio Derbez, last seen in the Overboard remake, plus Micke Moren;, Nicholas Coombe, Madeleine Madden, Adriana Barraza, and Temuera Morrison. The Muppets’ James Bobin is behind the camera. Here’s the synopsis:
Having spent most of her life exploring the jungle with her parents nothing could prepare Dora for the most dangerous adventure ever – High School. Always the explorer, Dora quickly finds herself leading Boots (her best friend, a monkey), Diego, and a rag tag group of teens on a live-action adventure to save her parents and solve the impossible mystery behind a lost Inca civilization.
“Hope, you’re so brave being here. Must be depressing seeing people aspiring to have a career” Zoe, the bully of the movie, patronizingly says to Hope, the lead character, who’s cancer remission is something unbeknownst to Zoe.
This line along with many others in this garden-variety, cancer, teen flick called Hope SpringsEternal about a girl whose terminal cancer goes into remission, left a really sour taste in my mouth. I didn’t know if I should take everything that happens in this movie as some kind of meta commentary on the melodramatic teen drama or serious writing that is meant to get at the underlying internal conflict of “how I do begin to live when I’ve been living in preparation for death” that Hope is experiencing due to her illness no longer being able to define her.
There is something admittedly demented about how invested everyone, who is not Hope, is in her cancer. Because of her illness the popular girl, Zoe, wants to hang out with her and give her mani pedis because it’s “therapeutic”; her boyfriend, Kai, as a way of honoring her, puts up “Hope” stickers (reminiscent of Obama’s 2008 campaign) so that “when [she’s] gone, there will be a piece of [her] around the city”; and her posse of fake friends casually say that they have to replace Hope after finding out that she is no longer sick.
I understand that these things could help illustrate Hope’s mildly irrational, first-world problem of feeling like she won’t get the same special attention that she has gotten since being diagnosed with cancer, but that’s all that it feels like. Any kind of sympathy that one could muster up for Hope is null and void as soon as one looks at this entire situation through the lens of “this little girl is just plain ungrateful” which is inevitable. I think that the internal conflict that I mentioned earlier is something that would be interesting to explore; it’s a good base with which to build off of, but this “girl with cancer” storyline was executed horribly.
Speaking of “the girl with cancer” storyline, because this movie so obviously is aware of the histories of the two genres that it takes its inspiration from: the genres of teen, and more specifically, cancer, melodramas – complete with the unnecessary addition of video recorded narration – there were are also times where I found its usage to be rather perplexing.
There are a lot of preset expectations to the two genres that this movie follows beat for beat, but the movie also at the same time gives a lot of knowing winks to the genres through allusions and jokes that come off more as a lazy mockery more than anything.
This then leads the movie to ultimately feel like an exploit of sorts where you find yourself trying to understand where a certain emotion, conclusion, or lecture comes from. None of the resolutions to the many conflicts of this movies felt particularly earned and the 1 hr 15 min runtime for movie doesn’t help.
Because it feels like the filmmakers were ok with pretty much creating a surface level presentation to a story that could’ve met its potential accompanied with lazy self-aware jokes, unrelatable characters, and mediocre acting the result is a movie that does nothing positive to distinguish if from the crowd.
Disney’s Jungle Cruise wasn’t a film I was terribly interested in…until now. While the cast of Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Edgar Ramirez, Paul Giamatti, Jack Whitehall, and Jesse Plemonms is pretty great, it looks like the massive, jaw-dropping set is going to be the real star.
In a new set video, Johnson teases the extravagant set that has been totally built from scratch. No green screen in this baby. The camera zooms out to reveal an incredible, hand-crafted set the likes of which we simply don’t see anymore. Disney spared no expense building this right in the heart of the Hawaiian jungle, and it’s fitting for a film based on one of their first and most popular theme park attractions.
Johnson would probably be posting social media vids of the production, anyway, but Disney is smart to have him out there. A month ago he and Blunt did a cutesy vid that showed some real on-screen chemistry, and now this time Johnson is just being the charismatic, and enthusiastic, cheerleader that he always is.
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and penned by Michael Green, the film is set in the 1900s and centers on a boat captain (Johnson) who takes a sister and her brother (Blunt and Whitehall) on a mission into a jungle to find a tree believed to possess healing powers. All the while, the trio must fight against dangerous wild animals and a competing German expedition.
Jungle Cruise opens October 11th 2019.
“*watch ’til the end and see one of the most awe inspiring & massive sets ever built from scratch. Walt Disney, this one’s for you buddy! ???” (via @TheRock) pic.twitter.com/1eEf7fYRiW
Idris Elba has added Ricky Staub’s directorial debut, Ghetto Cowboy, to his list of upcoming projects. The novel by Greg Neri will be adapted, with Elba playing the estranged father of a 15-year-old North Philadelphia boy who discovers the redemptive power of urban horseback riding. Staub will not only direct but co-wrote the script with Dan Walser. Elba is currently working on his Netflix series, Turn Up Charlie, and recently joined the Hobbs & Shaw spinoff’s cast. [Variety]
Adam Pally, who can be seen right now in Dog Days, and Legends of Tomorrow‘s Neal McDonough, have joined Paramount’s live-action/CGI Sonic the Hedgehog film. Ben Schwartz was just named as the voice of Sega’s iconic blue speedstar, while Jim Carrey will play the villainous Dr. Robotnik, and James Marsden is Tinm a cop who helps Sonic foil Robotnik’s plans of world domination. Tika Sumpter, and Natasha Rothwell also co-star, with Pally as Tom’s fellow officer. Directed by Jeff Fowler, Sonic the Hedgehog opens November 15th 2019.
Patrick Wilson will be seen later this year battling Jason Momoa in Aquaman, but after that you’re going to be seeing a lot more of him. Deadline reports he has joined the casts of two films that will make him tough to miss. First, Wilson will be part of Roland Emmerich’s WWII film, Midway, which already has Woody Harrelson, Mandy Moore, and Luke Evans on deck. As you probably guessed, the film will center on the crucial Battle of Midway, seen as a turning point in the fight against Japan. Wilson will play Edwin Layton, a rear admiral and key intelligence officer who specialized in code-breaking operations.
Wilson has also joined the latest Stephen King adaptation, In the Tall Grass, replacing James Marsden whose schedule is suddenly busy with blue hedgehogs named Sonic. He’ll step in to star in the film about a brother and sister who venture into a field of tall grass in Kansas after hearing a boy’s cry for help. The siblings soon discover there may be no way out, and that something terrible lurks in the tall grass. Vincenzo Natali (Splice) is directing, with Laysla De Oliveira, Rachel Wilson, and Harrison Gilbertson co-starring.
It’s Shark Week of a different variety, with The Meg hitting theaters and now the first trailer for sequel 47 Meters Down: The Next Chapter. Last summer’s hit was something of a surprise, earning $61M on a meager $6M budget, a sequel was quickly ordered and put into production, as you can see by the quick turnaround on this footage.
Don’t be fooled by the title, because it doesn’t seem as if there’s any connection to the prior film, which starred Mandy Moore and Claire Holt as friends who go cage diving in Mexico, only to get trapped inside while surrounded by great white sharks. Neither actress is involved in the sequel, and the action has moved to Brazil where “a group of girls looking for adventure in the coastal metropolis of Recife. Hoping to get off the well-worn tourist trail, they hear about some hidden underwater ruins only to find that the turquoise waves of their secret Atlantis aren’t completely uninhabited.”
Director Johannes Roberts and screenwriter Ernest Riera are back so there is at least some continuity here. 47 Meters Down: The Next Chapter opens June 28th 2019.
Jeremy Saulnier is one of my favorite directors working today, having impressed with his indie revenge thriller Blue Ruin and Nazi siege flick Green Room. It helps that I’m always the guy who gets called to do his Q&As when he’s in town. Anyway, his next film, Hold the Dark, was due to premiere at Cannes but because of their feud with Netflix we have to wait for it a while longer.
Fortunately, the first image has arrived featuring star Alexander Skarsgard and young co-star Beckham Crawford, who plays his character’s son. The film takes place in the remote Alaskan village of Keelut where a series of child disappearances have been suspected to be the result of wolf activity. Jeffrey Wright plays a wolf expert brought in to track the wolves down, but he’s being followed by the grief-stricken father of one of the missing children.
Saulnier spoke with Empire and says this is the darkest work he’s ever done, which is saying something given the violence of his first two features…
“This film has so many firsts for me. It has my record number of intimate dialogue scenes and my highest body count. It has my first war scene, my first aerial sequence, my first time working extensively with animals. So in that regard it was a huge challenge.”
Well, we thought Venom would be R-rated. It certainly looked R-rated and the way it’s been talked about has suggested a darker, more aggressively violent film than we’re used to from a Marvel property, but Sony has other plans. They have a Spider-Man cinematic universe to build, and they feel the best way to do that is by softing Venom’s edges to appeal to a wider audience.
According to Variety, Sony is working to make Venom a PG-13 experience when it opens this October. Well, that’s disappointing. Apparently missing what Logan and two Deadpool films were able to accomplish, Sony feels an R-rating will limit the potential box office too greatly.
The second reason also has to do with money, but from a different angle. Sony and Marvel are pretty tight right now, with their partnership leading Tom Holland to star in Spider-Man: Homecoming as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Holland isn’t slated to appear in Venom or any of Sony’s flicks right now, but they hope that will change in the future. Sony feels if that’s going to happen then they can’t start things off by having Venom rated ‘R’. Sony also hopes to see greater crossover between their characters and the MCU, especially as they branch out to more Spidery-Verse spinoffs.
How does this affect your interest in Venom? Will you still be there to see it on October 5th?
The situation with James Gunn and Disney seems to be changing on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times daily, with his chances of staying aboard as Guardians of the Galaxy 3 director rising and falling with each update. The latest comes from Deadline, who say that Marvel Studios is making a final run at bringing Gunn back.
While there are ongoing negotiations between Disney and Gunn about the terms of his exit, we’ve heard virtually nothing from Marvel and its vocal head, Kevin Feige. This could be part of the reason for his silence, if he’s trying to persuade Disney execs to change their minds quietly behind the scenes.
Deadline makes it clear Marvel isn’t trying to strong arm Disney or anything, they just want to figure out where everybody’s head is at right now and make the decision that is clearly best for everybody. The backlash from fans, and the movie’s cast, has been considerable. Plus, there’s concern the sequel won’t be able to hit its target early 2019 start date if a new director is hired, and with Chris Pratt’s tight scheduling that could cause bigger issues.
So this story is far from over and we’ll probably hear something new tomorrow.
Maggie Gyllenhaal is one of the best at playing well-meaning but self-destructive women, and in her upcoming film The Kindergarten Teacher she looks to excel at it again. The drama debuted at Sundance earlier this year and I remember hearing rave reviews about her performance in a disturbing role. Netflix agreed and picked up the film soon after, and now the trailer is here and it looks fantastic.
Directed and written by Sara Colangelo and based on a 2004 Israeli drama, The Kindergarten Teacher stars Gyllenhaal as a teacher who is realizing that her job isn’t all that it was supposed to be. She wants to mold and shape the young minds of the future, but she’s more like a babysitter. All of that changes when she discovers that one of her students may be a prodigy, and when the child’s father doesn’t want to pursue that (think Chris Evans in Gifted), she goes to extreme, even dangerous measures to nurture his talent.
Also starring Parker Sevak, Anna Baryshnikov, Rosa Salazar, Michael Chernus, and Gael Garcia Bernal, The Kindergarten Teacher hits Netflix on October 12th.
Sony’s first film in their Spider-Verse, Venom, doesn’t open for a couple of months and already the cinematic universe is getting a facelift. One of the first films announced to follow it was Silver & Black, a teamup of secondary Spider-Man characters Black Cat and Silver Sable. The film has faced problems with the script that put it on the shelf with no clear start date, and now we know that start date is never going to arrive.
Variety reports the Silver & Black film has been abandoned by Sony, who will instead break up the two characters into separate solo movies. As for director Gina Prince-Bythewood, who was attached to direct Silver & Black, the trade says it’s “unlikely” she will return to direct either film, but will stay on board as exec-producer on both.
The most promising film of the two is Black Cat, and that’s the one Sony plans to move forward on first. Also known by her civilian identity Felicia Hardy, the character is a cat burglar and occasional love interest for Spider-Man, although her criminal nature clashes with the hero constantly. If that sounds like the Batman/Catwoman relationship you’re spot-on, although creator Marv Wolfman insists that was never his plan.
“We believe Black Cat is enough of her own character with a great backstory and a canon of material to draw from to justify her own film,” said Sanford Panitch, president of Columbia Pictures.
Silver Sable is a mercenary and leader of the assassins-for-hire kown as the Wild Pack. She’s frequently called on to hunt war criminals, and has teamed up with Spider-Man on multiple occasions. The character has had her own series on a few occasions but isn’t as recognizable as Black Cat, so her film is going to take longer to develop, assuming it happens at all.
Along with the previously-announced Silk, the two films join Sony’s growing slate of female-led superhero projects.
