Undoubtedly there are greater numbers of people who know Julian Dennison now that he’s played Fire Fist in Deadpool 2, but for us fans of Hunt for the Wilderpeople he’ll always be known for that film. So it’s good to see him getting more attention and even bigger roles, and it doesn’t get much bigger than his next one as part of the mega-crossover, Godzilla vs. Kong.
We haven’t been hearing much about the giant monster battle, which serves as a crossover sequel to Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, and next year’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters. The film will be directed by Adam Wingard (You’re Next) from a script hashed out by an extensive writers’ room that includes scribes from Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Trek, and more.
It’s expected that characters from the Godzilla sequel, which means we could see Dennison alongside Kyle Chandler and Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown.
This October Sony will launch their Spider-Man cinematic universe with Venom, and so far it looks pretty promising if you ask me. There’s been a snag in what is supposed to be its followup, Silver & Black, which would team up antiheroes Silver Sable and Black Cat. The film had been set to open in February 2019, but as the weeks passed that date seemed less likely, and now Exhibitor Relations confirms it won’t, as Sony has pulled it completely off the release schedule.
That’s not a good sign as typically these situations would see the movie bumped a few months, but not yanked as a whole. There is good news, though, because the project isn’t dead. Director Gina Prince-Bythewood was interviewed by Collider and she says they are going back to the drawing board in order to get the movie right…
“With Silver and Black, when you’re doing a film of that magnitude, it’s gotta be right. And if it’s not right, we actually collectively decided to go back to the drawing board and start over. That’s gonna take time. So obviously, I’d love to be shooting right now, but to be shooting something that I know is not as good as it can be, I’m not the type that wants to shoot something you’re rewriting, as you’re shooting. So, we have to get the script right, and I’m okay to wait. I may be shooting something before that, but it really is just get the script right before we go on that journey.”
It’s the right attitude to take, if you ask me. Last we’d heard, Captain Marvel writer Robertson-Dworet and Chaos Walking scribe Lindsey Beer wrote a script which Prince-Bythewood took a pass at. Apparently it wasn’t quite up to snuff either for Sony or the director to move forward on.
Waiting is the smart move for Sony, who really need to make sure every step of this Spider-Man universe succeeds, especially since Spidey is currently housed over at Marvel Studios and can’t make an appearance. A misstep could set them on the same disastrous course as their failed attempts with The Amazing Spider-Man.
Anywhere Idris Elba goes he tends to make headlines, and he did so again at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. He was there, not to promote some film he had a role in, but to premiere his directorial debut, Yardie. a crime drama infused with the Jamaican rhythms of London’s black British culture of the ’70s. It makes for an intriguing clash of styles that you can pick up in the film’s latest trailer.
Based on the novel by co-writer Victor Headley, Yardie follows a young Jamaican man named D (The Maze Runner‘s Aml Ameen), who witnesses the murder of his older brother in 1970s Kingston, but still gets swept up into a life of crime. Sent to Hackney in the 1980s, D struggles with breaking free of his past or getting revenge on the man responsible for his brother’s death.
Since Sundance there hasn’t been a lot of talk about the film, which is a little bit troubling. But every time there’s something new on it I’m reminded of how confident a debut this appears to be. Elba has clearly put a lot of himself into this movie and I’m excited to see how it turned out. Yeah, some of the story beats look very familiar to the gangster movie genre but we’ve rarely seen them from this cultural perspective and that to me is fascinating.
Also starring Stephen Graham, Everaldo Creary, Sheldon Shepherd, and Shantol Jackson, Yardie opens in the UK this August. No US date just yet.
The first time I interviewed director Leigh Whannell it was more than a decade ago. At the time he was here with James Wan for Saw, this low budget horror that none of us knew would change the genre landscape. Whannell’s done a lot of movies since then, mostly horror, some comedy, even starred in a few, but when I saw him this time for his new film Upgrade it was like nothing has changed. He had the same excited energy to talk about his movie that he had all of those years ago.
Maybe it has to do with all of the buzz Upgrade has had since it debuted at SXSW. Maybe it’s Whannell finally getting the chance to make a movie that springs 100% from his own imagination. And it shows just how twisted and weird Whannell’s mind works. The film stars Logan Marshall-Green as Grey Trace, a salt of the earth type of guy living in a technologically advanced world. When his wife is murdered and he is paralyzed by what appears to be a random mugging, he agrees to be “upgraded” by an experimental A.I. that turns him into a killing machine capable of getting revenge.
Check out my interview with Whannell below, in which we talk about what it was like getting to make Upgrade the way he wanted to, what Blumhouse brought to the table, and what he said when they asked him to direct Insidious 4.
Upgrade is in theaters now, and you can check out our review here.
There’s a SPOILER ahead late in this post, so beware.
So there’s been some really crappy buzz swirling around about X-Men: Dark Phoenix (or just Dark Phoenix, depending on who you believe), and it’s easy to see why. First of all, the plot of the movie may have been leaked and if you read the write-up on it…well, it seems shit. Who knows if that leak is legit it or not because it doesn’t really matter. The film was supposed to be opening this November but was pushed back significantly into 2019 for extensive reshoots, which sends a really bad signal. The warning signs are lighting up like fireworks from Jubilee’s fingertips.
We’ve not seen or heard much of the movie at all, and what has been revealed could have been dropped during reshoots. Evan Peters, who reprises his role as Quicksilver, tried to shed some light on it to Collider, but if you ask me he sounds like he has no idea what kind of movie first-time director Simon Kinberg is making…
“I think it’s the classic ‘X-Men: First Class’ tone, where there’s a bit of humor thrown in there, but it’s much darker than the previous one, ‘Apocalypse.’ ‘Apocalypse’ was the ‘80s, so there was a lot of room for goofy stuff in there. This one is a much more serious film about the internal struggle of Phoenix and Jean, so it’s a dramatic film. There’s nothing very comedic about it, other than the few moments that are in there. I think it’s gonna be a powerful one. It’s ‘Dark Phoenix.’ I think it’s gonna be darker than we’re used to. It’s gonna be a change, but it’s gonna be fun for everybody.”
A darker move than we’ve seen before, and yet it’s still fun like First Class? Yeah, okay. And how do you get darker than X-Men: Apocalypse? And why would you want to after the way that one was received? Ugh.
Someone who hopefully has a better grasp on things is Alexandra Shipp. She has given fans a glimpse at how she looked in her brief (and amazing!) cameo as Storm in Deadpool 2. For those of you who haven’t’ seen it, I won’t give away how or why she appears, because that’s really the best part, isn’t it? Anyway, we’ll just have to wait until X-Men: Dark Phoenix opens in February 2019 to see if she keeps this style.
The movie Social Animals was a bit of weird conundrum for me. While it does a great job of setting itself a part from the run of the mill indie, romantic comedy by creating a worthwhile story, decently developed characters, and good acting; the movie does, at the same time, fall into a lot of the same tropes that can be found within the genre that aren’t necessarily executed well.
The movie mainly follows the intertwined lives of three characters: Zoe, a stoner, who is operating a failing business, and has never been in love; Paul, a stay-at-home husband and father who is trying so desperately to salvage any bit of attraction that is left in his marriage (and also the marriage itself); and his wife Jane, a rigid, full-time Lawyer that supports the family, who in all seriousness one night suggests to her husband that he go out and have an affair after turning down his advances for the umpteenth time.
Noël Wells, as Zoe, does a phenomenal job of bringing to life her quirky, wayward, and quick-witted character without it feeling over the top and/or inauthentic – I think that she’s truly in her element when it comes to playing these kinds of roles. As the movie progresses and we get to see her character letting her guard down, becoming more open to the idea of actually loving someone, by way of her relationship with Paul, the seemingly effortless performance that Noël has given up until that point is only amplified as we get to see her then playing off of someone else in this flirty, teenaged girl-crushing kind of way; the chemistry between the two was unmistakable.
In terms of Josh Radner and Aya Cash as the troubled couple Paul and Jane, I found myself to be incredibly enthralled by their story because of how honest and real it all felt. Though, one may not necessarily hear of a partner suggesting to their significant other that they go out and have an affair, I can appreciate the rawness of the emotions and thoughts that accompanied and followed that decision. Watching their relationship play out over the course of the movie, while at times was frustrating, also gave for a more complex and nuanced look at the kind of married life that we know happens way too often, but that we would rather not look at and/or discuss.
With all that being said, as I previously mentioned, the movie still does have it flaws and those flaws, I believe, more so stem from the fact that the filmmakers felt the need to add in elements from the romantic comedy genre simply because the movie itself is a romantic comedy.
Every rom com is meant to have that tell it like it is and extroverted friend that is meant to bring the comedy. In this movie, that role went to Fortune Feimster, but unfortunately much of her scenes did anything but. Her acting wasn’t that great; the jokes (I could tell) relied too much on improv or the “because we know she’s a comedian in real life, we’ll just let her go and edit it down in post” strategy; and her character, in all honesty, didn’t add much to the story itself.
Every rom com, if children are involved, and aren’t the bane of the parent’s existence, also must include a montage that showcases the loving relationship dynamic between parent and child; in this movie that task was of course left to Paul and his kids. Paul is meant to be a stay-at-home dad, but before a montage of Paul tending to his kids that have randomly come down with lice, you wouldn’t really think that that was the case. If anything, this scene and any other that followed that included the children made them appear as huge plots devices that were forgotten about until a lot later in the writing process.
There’s also a subplot that deals with Zoë’s best friend, Claire, and her boyfriend that is withholding sex from her that mirrored too closely to the conflict between Paul and Jane that also didn’t add anything to the story itself and was pretty much forgotten about by the end of the movie. I also, found the editing to be a bit confusing; I didn’t know where we were or what was happening at times. There was too much jumping form scene to scene without a real grounding in the setting of those scenes.
I think that both of the main stories could have worked as separate, standalone movies; and I think that that is a testament to how great of a story that the writers were able to craft when it came to this movie. Yes, it has it’s flaws, but overall I think that the filmmakers did a decent job of creating a genuinely humorous, authentic, and enjoyable look at modern day relationships.
Atonement author Ian McEwen will soon have two of his books adapted for the big screen in the same year. The first is the Saoirse Ronan-led On Chesil Beach which is in theaters now, and at least in the U.K. there will also be The Children Act. The courtroom drama has been on the festival circuit since last year’s TIFF without making a ton of waves, but perhaps that will now change the release of this new trailer.
Directed by Richard Eyre (Notes On a Scandal) and adapted by McEwen himself, the film stars Emma Thompson as a high court judge married to her job, which is beginning to cause cracks in her marriage. Or a full-scale breakage after her husband (Stanley Tucci) says, “I don’t know how to say this, but I think I want to have an affair.” Her response is to go in to work and become emotionally invested in the case of a young boy (Dunkirk‘s Fionn Whitehead) who is refusing a blood transfusion due to religious beliefs.
The Children Act hits U.K. theaters this August but has yet to secure a U.S. date. This looks like a film that would find a tough audience over here, but I hope the quality of stars and McEwen’s past successes are enough to bring it our way.
I learned long ago that Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur’s survival thrillers would be designed to prey upon my two greatest fears: drowning in deep water, and towering heights. Just keep me here on firm, level ground, thank you. The director behind The Deep and Everest is fit to fray my nerves again with Adrift, a man vs. nature romance that finds Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin battling against the elements to keep their love alive on the high seas.
Sounds fairly traditional, right? Didn’t we just see this “love conquers all” narrative in the cheesy The Mountain Between Us? Thankfully, this isn’t that movie. Adrift, which is based on the true story of Tami Oldham (Woodley) and Richard Sharp (Claflin), employs a non-linear narrative structure to tremendous effect in capturing the adventurous spirit that forges their relationship. It also helps make this a movie about more than just surviving through to the end, which is what often makes these stories so bland in the first place.
Kormakur doesn’t waste any time, opening just as Tami is regaining consciousness on a sinking yacht in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Her first thought isn’t of herself, but to yell out Richard’s name and frantically begin searching for him. Finding nothing, she goes topside and gets a full accounting of her dire situation. The boat is a shambles, there’s no land for possibly thousands of miles, and Richard is nowhere in sight.
The urge to think we’ve stumbled into Shailene Woodley’s version of All is Lost begins to creep in, but then Kormakur switches things up on a dime. From the horror of the present we’re swept months earlier to a much happier time when the free-spirited, nomadic Tami first meets yachtsman Richard in Tahiti. They hit it off because of their mutual wanderlust, her vitality mixing well with his sensitivity, and they agree to sail the world together. It’s all exotic beaches, rainbows, and overtures of love for a time, until a massive storm hits them while sailing a friend’s boat to San Diego.
What could have been a monotonous journey is rescued by frequent leaps through time, with Kormakur’s judicious use of flashback a welcome escape from the slow monotony of Tami’s predicament. But those moments are necessary, too, and Woodley perfectly captures the desperation Tami feels as her situation worsens. Eventually her concerns grow beyond just caring for herself, and that adds a whole new level of anxiety. It only deepens as the food rations grow low and the water dries up.
Those who have already read the true story of Tami and Richard’s journey may be confused by their portrayal here as it differs from public knowledge, but there is method to the apparent madness and it becomes clear much later on. Both Woodley and Claflin get plenty of moments to shine here, but in truth this is Woodley’s movie. Tami’s fierce, flawed, and determined, but also a woman who had an exciting life long before she met Richard, and Woodley embodies all of that life experience. Meanwhile, Claflin’s best moments are when Richard is undeniably falling head over heels for Tami. He’s less defined of a character than she is, which takes some of the luster off of them as a romantic pair. There aren’t any true conflicts between them that arise, and not much in the way of external threats other than…oh, starvation. It’s not a movie where Tami is forced to fend off a school of sharks. The drama is more internal, and is made more engaging as she fights against her own fears and doubts to make it through another day. That said, there are lulls that can’t even be fixed by Woodley, or by Robert Richardson’s gorgeous cinematography which captures the beauty of the ocean and its terrible potential for destructive power. It’s naturally unsettling to go from the calming shores of Tahiti to the heart of a raging Hurricane Raymond, but it works in keeping us on our toes.
Kormakur could very easily have made your standard survival story and that might have been enough to coast on by. But due to a cleverly-plotted script and a captivating Shailene Woodley, Adrift sails against the tide and charts a better way forward.
“Alright, ya’ll. My new movie #NightSchool has a trailer coming out tonight at 9pEST. And, yeah. Damn right I’m the teacher,” teased Tiffany Haddish earlier this evening on social media. And you know what? Who are we to turn away a gift horse like a new movie featuring the hilarious Girls Trip star?
Night School pairs Haddish up with Kevin Hart, who plays one of a group of misfits attending adult evening classes in the longshot hope they’ll pass the GED. And yep, Haddish is their no-nonsense teacher who has some unusual education techniques, like battling it out in the octagon MMA-style.
Directed by Malcolm D. Lee and co-starring Romany Malco, Rob Riggle, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Taran Killam, Yvonne Orji, Ben Schwartz, and Megalyn Echikunwoke, Night School opens September 28th.
High concept on a low budget. That’s been Blumhouse’s whole
thing for a long time now, and it only gets stronger with every passing film.
Last year’s brilliant Happy Death Day and the acclaimed Get
Out deconstructed the horror genre while providing enough subversive
thrills and humor to rake in big money without the need of big name stars or
splashy effects. They’re small movies with big ideas that don’t hold back. The
studio continues this streak with their latest film Upgrade, a sci-fi action genre
hybrid which is one of the wildest rides I’ve experienced this year.
Set in a tech-driven distant future, the film follows Grey (Logan
Marshall-Green, doing his best grumbly Tom Hardy voice) an old-fashioned mechanic
who refuses to get with the times. While his wife works for a big tech company,
he prefers his simple analog lifestyle. However, after a horrific attack leaves
him paralyzed from the neck down and his wife dead, he opens his eyes to the
possibilities of his modern world in the form of STEM, an artificial
intelligence implant that could potentially restore his mobility. The only
catch is that it’s so experimental, he’d have to keep the procedure top secret,
and remain paralyzed in the eyes of the public and the police. Able to walk
again, Grey discovers that his implant can also communicate with him, and
provide him with superhumanly fast reflexes and strength. Using his new powers,
Grey goes on a path of revenge, seeking out the people who shot his wife and
ruined his life. And it’s awesome.
Written and directed by Leigh Whannell (Saw), this film is the
most fun I’ve had with a movie all year. While its setup is heavy, it doesn’t
take itself too seriously, and understands that you’re here for a fun ride. And
the audience I saw it with loved it too. There were countless moments of
cheering and whooping as we watched our half-robot protagonist take down bad
guys.
While on the topic, it should be noted, if you hadn’t
already pieced together, that this is a very violent, hard-R movie. The action
is intense and visceral, which should be somewhat expected from a movie made by
the mind behind Saw.
The film feels both incredibly new and endearingly
old-fashioned. The story and tone are both huge throwbacks to the gritty world
of 80’s action, from Robocop to Death Wish , while the
insane, kinetic camerawork and “dudes fighting in hallways” plotline makes it
almost feel like a video game, but in the best possible way. If this weren’t an
original property, this would be the best video game movie ever made.
Which bring me to the biggest aspect of Upgrade that I
appreciated: its originality. If you’re sick of all the big fun summer movies
being sequels, remakes, and adaptations, Upgrade is the movie you’re waiting
for. While it could feasibly get sequels, it’s not a franchise starter. And
while it pays heavy homage to the genre pieces that came before it, it’s
definitely original and has an, admittedly really weird, voice of its own.
While it isn’t a terribly smart movie, it is clever and
incredibly well made. It can be predictable at times, but that’s honestly part
of its deep-dive genre charm. I genuinely had more fun with Upgrade than I have with any other movie this summer.
