Anna (Bel Powley) doesn’t realize her life is a horror show even before the hair-raising events of Fritz Bohm’s Wildling really kick into high gear. The film begins with her “Daddy” (Brad Dourif) recounting an old folk tale about the wildling, a creature that has devoured all of the world’s girls. It’s because of the wildling that he keeps Anna locked away in captivity and heavily medicated, or so he tells her. His stories are elaborate, scary, and convincing. Unfortunately, Wildling is considerably less so.
The werewolf could use some Hollywood love. Other than the odd Underworld movie, werewolves have largely been ignored in favor of other classic monsters, but they’ve found a comfortable home on the art house circuit where reimaginings of the lycan mythology make easy coming-of-age fodder. Wildling is another attempt to equate lycanthropy with the changes in a woman during puberty, similar to Ginger Snaps but not nearly as entertaining or substantial.
When tragedy strikes, Anna finds herself thrust into the public eye and into the care of Ellen (Liv Tyler), a small-town sheriff who seems to be a genuinely nice and caring person. It isn’t long before weird things start happening. An aversion to carbs is one thing but Anna’s diet of bloody raw meat should be an indicator of trouble and that she’s undergoing an unusual transformation, but writer/director Fritz Bohm rarely takes her growing pains anywhere interesting.
That said, Powley, who is one of today’s great young talents, makes the most of the material she’s given. She’s basically portraying an accelerated, twisted version of her breakout role in Diary Of A Teenage Girl. Anna is having all of the emotional experiences and awkward social interactions that come with growing into womanhood, only she’s unprepared for them on an unfathomable, even supernatural level. Powley’s wide-eyed glare captures the awe of Anna’s many first discoveries, such as sunlight and animal attraction to Ellen’s younger brother (Collin Kelly-Sordelet), but once again we’re left with a situation in which the actress is better than the movie she’s in. Anna’s characterization is wildly inconsistent, veering from nearly extraterrestrial in her astonishment to normal depending on the story’s needs.
Plodding and shallow, Bohm only dares pick up the pace in the final act as Anna’s true nature emerges and she becomes a target. Unfortunately that’s also when Wilding is the most generic, forgettable, and without claws.
Fresh off the herculean feat of turning Peter Rabbit into a $300M (!!!) smash hit, Domhnall Gleeson is about to turn up the heat. The Star Wars actor is in talks to join mob film The Kitchen, an adaptation of the graphic novel that will star Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Elisabeth Moss.
The directorial debut of Straight Outta Compton writer Andrea Berloff is based on the Vertigo Comics series about a trio of mob wives who take over their husbands’ corrupt business when they are sent to jail. The ladies prove themselves to be just as brutal and ruthless as their husbands ever were. Also in the cast are Margo Martindale, Brian d’Arcy James, and Bill Camp. Gleeson will play Gabriel O’Malley, an intense Vietnam vet and former mob hitman who leaves town to avoid being arrested but returns later to settle old scores.
Gleeson will be seen next in this summer’s The Little Stranger, a reunion with Frank director Lenny Abrahamson. The Kitchen opens September 20th 2019. [THR]
As the sun sets on Season 8 of The Walking Dead, it rises on Season 4 for its spin-off show Fear The Walking Dead. We last left off on Fear The Walking Dead with water being the most valuable commodity, the Proctors were going to take the dam by force. Strand, always the cunning businessman had betrayed the Clarks to protect them and led them to the damn to avoid further bloodshed. While he did do them dirty, he also helped them out in a big way as the dam was rigged with explosives. Nick then held a detonator and threatened to kill them all. Proctor at first though Nick was bluffing, but once the explosive was let off, we saw that he wasn’t meeting around. While the Clarks and Strand were able to escape, the destructive tidal wave caught their boat trying to escape. While the season 7 ending of The Walking Dead left us wondering who was killed, the season 3 ending of Fear The Walking Dead left us to ponder who was still alive.
Meanwhile, the ending of The Walking Dead has some direct consequences for Fear The Walking Dead in the form of a newcomer. Morgan, whose life has been essentially hell since the apocalypse began, has found his way out west. At the end of season 8 of The Walking Dead, he’s barely holding onto his sanity. Even though Rick and company defeated Negan and the Saviors, Morgan knows there’s no going back to being regular and with people. The episode begins as a semi-crossover as Morgan has left the Alexandria/Hilltop area and is now on his own at Jadis’ former garbage lair. Everyone tries to talk to him and tell him to come back. He gets a visit from Jesus, Carol, and finally Rick. However, their pleas fall on deaf ears as he just wants to remain alone. Realizing that his friends will continue to try and get him to come back to them, he opts to leave everything behind. He walks, he runs, he steals cars, until he finds his way in Texas where he meets new people.
The first person that Morgan meets is John Dorie (newcomer Garret Dillahunt), a genuine cowboy who seeming has been on his own for quite some time. Although he’s used to talking to himself, and actually enjoys it, he really enjoys talking with Morgan after he meets him. Morgan being Morgan, really doesn’t want to be around people in general, and isn’t interested in making new friends. The two are forced to bond together after a couple bandits corner Morgan and John come to his defense, leading them both to be captured. Lucky for the two of them, new person #2 is introduced to save their necks. A woman named “Al” (Maggie Grace) drives up in a souped-up SWAT vehicle that is able to deploy machine guns and the press of a button. After saving them, Al reveals that she’s a journalist who wants to interview people on the road she meets. John is more than happy to talk about him missing his love. Morgan, not so much. He’s his usual reclusive self, but Al wants her scoop.
It doesn’t take long for the bandits to run back into the newfound friends. This time, they don’t have Al’s armored vehicle to help them as they were away form their car when they were cornered. Lucky for Al, she has her own “Wolverine” type of claws, John’s got his six-shooter, and Morgan is a monster with his staff, plus some zombies get involved in their fight as well. They manage to take out the bandits, but Morgan gets shot so he will need Al and John’s help for a little longer. He gives her his interview, but doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty, but he basically reveals that he “loses himself” when there are people around. He tries to leave them but with his injuries, John and Al decide to tag along. It’s not long before they see an injured woman in the middle of the road. While they keep their guard up as one cannot be too trustworthy, they are still taken by the decoy as Alicia (our Clark family Alicia) then takes a knife to Al’s throat, and out comes Nick, Strand, and Luciana with guns pointed at them. Ever the journalist, Al is intrigued with who they are.
The Good:
Fear The Walking Dead is back! Of course, that’s a good thing!
While we don’t get to see much of our core group of heroes, we instead are introduced to a new group of characters who will eventually join with the Clarks. While we know Morgan already, we get to see how he will interact with a new group of people. In The Walking Dead, he’s been with Rick, his Zen master, or on his own. With these new faces, will he be a leader and work as an equal, or will he once again be their silent assassin when it hits the fan? John is also an interesting character. Actor Garret Dillahunt has always played either bad guys or weird guys in most of his roles, this time he seems like a genuinely nice guy. One thing that feels a bit off is his love for whoever he is searching for. Something tells me that whoever his long lost love is, she really isn’t reciprocating the same feelings he is. Al seems interesting. First off, she has that kickass SWAT van complete with automated machine guys that are quick to mow down anyone she pleases. She also seems to be interested in journalism. Was she a journalist before the world went to hell? Or like many in the world of The Walking Dead, did she change and evolve for the new world.
Zombies!!! While the world of The Walking Dead mostly deals with humanity when it can be at its worst, and the true monsters are those who result to their basest instinct, there are still undead monsters that east flesh that we have to deal with, something that was placed on the back burner in The Walking Dead. When Morgan and company are fighting off against the bandits, they also have to do it while also facing off against a small swarm of zombies. Speaking of which….
These new guys can fight. John, as stated before, is a genuine cowboy complete with his six-shooter, and although he doesn’t like to kill the living (like Morgan), he also can shoot with the best of them. Al, while she has the SWAT fan, also has little fist daggers to take out the undead (and presumably the living as well. Of course, Morgan is our warrior monk insane terminator assassin with a bo stick and dispatches zombies and humans with ease. That scene where he took out the trailer full of zombies and that one bandit with the grenade was awesome as well.
While we only got to see Alicia, Strand, Nick, and Luciana at the end of the episode, they appear to now be desperate bad guys. We know that there is a time jump between this season and the previous, but how bad did things get for them to turn into “The Saviors” and try to rob people on the road. And where is Madison?
The Bad:
For this episode to be billed as a “crossover,” it really wasn’t. While I wasn’t expecting Rick and the Alexandrians to meet up with the Clarks, it was basically a cameo of Jesus, Carol, and Rick while talking to Morgan for a brief period of time. Something tells me that eventually, worlds will collide between the two shows, but for now, geography separates them. The Clarks have gone from California, to Mexico, to presumably Texas, they are finding their way east. Expect them to eventually end up in Virginia and then we will get a genuine crossover.
While Texas was teased last season as being within John Proctor’s reach as he has a multi-state-wide network, there was no trace of him in the first episode. Hopefully, they don’t remove him as a formidable foe with the time jump of the show. By the way, how much time has really transpired?
The Dead:
We got our share of zombies this week as stated before. Now that we are caught up with the parent show timeline-wise, and in the current time zombies are more of a nuisance than something that’s a genuine danger, hopefully, we will still see more of what we saw this week zombie-wise as they were still a threat. It would be kinda cool if we did get a Whisper-related threat (they will probably save them as the big baddies for The Walking Dead), or at least a peep of the same thought process of Alpha, Beta, and their crazy army that believe humans are animals and can seemingly control the dead.
Next week, we get to see how the Clarks survived the dam explosion and survived all this time.
Jason Clarke is going wheels up away from the scandalous Chappaquiddick and taking up residence on the Indian burial ground of Stephen King’s Pet Semetary. A new adaptation of King’s horror novel is in the works and Clarke is in talks for the lead role according to THR.
Clarke would be playing Dr. Louis Creed, who was portrayed rather terribly by Dale Midkiff in the 1989 film. Hey, that movie might be grim fun but it’s not because of Midkiff, alright? The story finds Creed and his family moving to a small town in Maine, where a nearby burial ground for pets is said to be able to resurrect the dead. Of course, things go terribly when the Creeds’ pet cat is killed and then buried there.
Pet Semetary has been eyed for a remake over the last few years. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) and Alexandre Aja (Horns) were attached at different points, but right now it’s Starry Eyes duo Kevin Klosch and Dennis Widmyer at the helm. Good choices, and so is adding Clarke who has the kind of winning appeal that makes you root for him no matter what. Just look at his recent films Chappaquiddick and Winchester as examples of his everyman charm.
That James Gray is keeping himself very busy is a good thing for all of us. He received some of his best reviews for last year’s The Lost City of Z, and is now wrapping up his epic sci-fi film, Ad Astra. Already Gray has his eyes on another project, spy thriller I Am Pilgrim, an adaptation of the book by Terry Hayes.
If this sounds a little familiar you may recall Matthew Vaughn had his sights set on it a few years ago, but focused his energies on a Kingsman sequel. Hayes will adapt his own novel, the first of a trilogy, that follows a retired intelligence agent codenamed “Pilgrim” called in to crack the case of a killer using a book he wrote to commit untraceable murders. Deadline breaks the plot down even further…
“Pilgrim is the code name for a man who doesn’t exist. The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed a secret U.S. espionage unit. Now in anonymous retirement, he is called upon to lend his expertise to an unusual investigation but ultimately is caught in a race against-time to save America from oblivion.”
This will be next on Gray’s docket once he finishes up with Ad Astra, which opens in January 2019.
After a LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG hiatus, Supergirl returns!
While the Worldkiller threat still looms, this week, we instead focus Winn as he has his own threat to deal with that not only will require the DEO’s help, but there’s also flying monkeys! It opens up with Kara giving everyone a pep talk. Are they about to go into battle with the Worldkillers? Is there a new alien threat looming? No, it’s karaoke night! After all, when you’re not saving National City, you can still get your drank on! Kara starts off doing Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic” as the rest of the team get’s their share of singing, even J’onn’s father M’yrnn gets in on the fun. James and Mon-El discuss happiness, and you can tell that whatever Saturn Girl told him, it’s bothering him. Winn is about to sing again, when out of the corner of his eye he notices a news report that his father Winslow Schott Sr., AKA “Toyman” was killed in prison. Talk about a damper for the night!
The next day, everyone is at Toyman’s funeral. Winn just wants to get it over with, as evidenced by him nonchalantly throwing dirt on the casket as his father is being lowered. Also at the funeral is his mother, and Winn isn’t happy to see her either as we’ll find out later on what his problem is with her as well. Meanwhile, as his body is being lowered, Kara hears a jack in the box theme and realizes that there’s a bomb in the casket. After rushing Winn and his mother to safety, they realize that Toyman’s legacy may live on.
Back at the DEO, Kara asks Win if his father is really dead. Win, being the bookworm that he is, has already triple and quadruple checked by multiple medical examiners to verify that his father is in fact dead. An angry and hurt Winn chalks it up that his father wanted one last hurrah of spectacle at his last funeral. This leads them to believe that Toyman has an accomplice. Meanwhile, Mon-El, still distraught over his wife’s reveal to him, tries to confide in with Kara. It’s clear that he still has love for her, as evidenced by his big smile when seeing her at the karaoke bar. He apologizes to her for lying about him being the prince of the Daxamites as he’s not on the end of a lie by his wife and Brainiac 5. Kara promises that the two of them will discuss, but they are later interrupted before they can talk.
Winn’s mother somehow finds her way into the DEO, they will tackle pizza delivery people, but not sweet old ladies I guess. Winn still isn’t interested in talking to her. Turns out, she left him twenty years ago, forcing him into foster care. With a supervillain for a father, and abandoned by his mother, it’s clear he has some unresolved issues. Wanting nothing to do with his mother, she still presses on to try to get involved in his life, warning that his father’s revenge isn’t done, despite the fact that he’s dead. Just when that happens, a bunch of flying monkey toys appear at the DEO and spell “Surrender Mary” in the sky before they attack everyone in the DEO. Everyone at the DEO crunches down and fights off the toy monkeys, even James (who also has access to the DEO) as they all fight the monkeys off.
Alex and J’onn, however, weren’t there during all this. Alex hasn’t gone to his house since he and his father got their own place to live in and pretty much peer pressured him into having a housewarming dinner. While M’yrnn wanted to have pizza as he loves “tomato pie”, J’onn cooked for them. They have a very interesting discussion about being black in America, which was refreshing for Supergirl. The show has always been progressive as Alex’s sexuality has been at the forefront of the storyline of the show. It’s good that they are also addressing the hard issues of being a black man in America. J’onn tells Alex that while he took over Hank Henshaw and didn’t have a choice to appear as a black man, he easily could have shape-shifted into a white man if he chose to. He feels that he should not have to change his color for society to accept him. Bravo Supergirl, bravo! Another problem that arises is that while Alex is talking with M’yrnn, she realizes that he’s being forgetful. It’s not just forgetting that he and his son were supposed to cook instead of order pizza, he’s forgotten the fact that he previously had grandchildren. He reveals to Alex that he is suffering from the Martian equivalent of dementia or Alzheimer’s. He doesn’t want J’onn to know because they just got connected, and if he finds out that he’ll lose his father all over again, it would hurt him deeply. Alex protests that he needs to tell his son and she will not lie to him, causing M’yrnn to yell at her and kick her out of the house, surprising J’onn.
In the aftermath of the flying monkey toy attack, Winn is examining one of the toys. His mother tries to offer some assistance, much to his annoyance. He finds out that his mother does have some experience with toys and mechanical things, much like he and his father did. This causes him to warm up a little to her. When she tells him about their “Disneyland” vacation, which he remembers and not going to the theme park because his mother got in a car accident. She reveals that his abusive father tried to kill the both of them as they were trying to escape to a domestic shelter. This makes Winn realize that he may have been too hard on his mother. Winn’s mother recognizes something from one of the monkeys and lets herself out. There, she goes to one of her ex-husband’s warehouses as she remembers the toy design. There, she finds the real culprit, but is taken hostage.
Winn and everyone at the DEO receives a hostage video of his mother in one of the woman’s toys, threatening her life unless Winn shows up at the warehouse. Kara offers to go and save her, as does Mon-El and James, but Winn insists that he goes as well as he now realizes that he cares for his mother. At the warehouse, there are legions of deadly toys. Everything from toy airplanes, toy bombs, even a life-size toy T-Rex attack the group. Kara gets encased in a life-size Toy case, but is freed by Mon-El before she can suffocate. Winn finds his mother, who is being held hostage by his father’s protégé. Just as the woman is about to shoot Winn, he uses a reprogrammed toy flying monkey to knock her down, saving his mother.
With his mother saved, the group heads back to the karaoke bar for some drinking and singing. There, Winn insists that he and his mother do a duet, which she agrees to do despite her hesitance. At the bar, Mon-El finally gets his chance to talk with Kara about what his wife did that bothered him. Kara interjects telling him that she doesn’t want to be in the middle of their drama. Mon-El reassures her that he was not going to tell her about his wife, but about the plans as they directly affect her and the DEO. Turns out, the third Worldkiller was the reason that the Legion came to National City thousands of years ago as it is responsible for their horrible future. They will need to team up together to stop the Worldkillers. Kara and Mon-El even offer to help each other train to be better to take them on. Sparks still seem to be going for those two. J’onn comes to the bar, but is distraught. Turns out, his father finally told him the truth about his mental condition. Alex immediately goes and gives her father-figure a much-needed hug. James finally gets a hold of Lena Luthor, who he has been trying to call all episode. She tells him that her “startup” has kept her busy, but she found out that Sam was the Worldkiller and has her in a prison.
Next week, Mon-El helps the DEO take the fight to the Worldkillers. He even has his old school costume form the comics.
A few weeks ago while other sites furiously claimed Danny Boyle was directing the next James Bond movie, we decided to play it safe. Why? Because he didn’t actually say that he was, just that he really was aiming to. As he is currently prepping a musical comedy with Richard Curtis it was a question whether Boyle could fit both movies in, and now it’s looking like the answer is no. Universal has set a September 13th 2019 release date for Boyle’s comedy, just two months before Bond 25 is due to open.
The timing is significant because there’s zero chance he can do both if those dates stick. MGM expects Bond to open on November 8th 2019 and that date has been in place for a while. We’ve heard rumors they could be willing to delay it but only if Boyle is definitely going to direct. So far he is simply overseeing a script but nothing has been made official about him doing more than that. The only other option is that Boyle simply isn’t doing the movie, and Bond producers will need to look elsewhere.
Salty grits, cultural appropriation, and cocoa butter, it doesn’t get more controversial than that for us black people. Obviously I’m kidding, but Justin Simien’s Dear White People, both the movie and the first season of Netflix’s series, know that issues of all sizes are important to African-Americans, and carry with them considerable cultural weights. And now we see that shying away from controversial topics still isn’t in the playbook in the new trailer for season two, which is arriving sooner than expected.
Dear White People Vol. 2 (Can everything not use Vol. now?) hits Netflix on May 4th, bringing more racially-charged hilarity. Logan Browning, Brandon P. Bell, Antoinette Robertson, DeRon Horton, John Patrick Amedori, Ashley Blaine Featherson and Marque Richardson are back to star. Here’s the season synopsis followed by the new trailer:
Set against the backdrop of a predominantly white Ivy League university where racial tensions bubble just below the surface, Dear White People is a send-up of the now post “post-racial” America that weaves together a universal story of finding one’s own identity and forging a wholly unique path. The satirical series — based on the acclaimed 2014 film by the same name – continues to follow a group of Winchester University students of color as they navigate a diverse landscape of social injustice, cultural bias, political correctness (or lack thereof) and activism in the millennial age. Through an absurdist lens, Dear White People utilizes biting irony, self-deprecation and sometimes brutal honesty to hold up a mirror to the issues plaguing society today, all the while leading with laughter.
Okay, now this is some big news, especially if you’ve read DC’s incredible comic book series, The American Way. Think Watchmen with politics that ring more contemporary and you’ll get the idea. Anyway, it’s being reported that John Ridley, Oscar winning writer of 12 Years A Slave, will pen and direct a movie version of the comics sequel The American Way: Those Above And Those Below for Blumhouse. That’s right, Blumhouse is getting into the superhero business, and the project does for the genre what The Purge does for horror.
Ridley created and wrote the 6-issue series with artist Georges Jeanty, taking place in a parallel version of the United States. In the 1940s the U.S. government created the Civil Defense Corps, a team of public superheroes who would fight manufactured supervillains, alien invasions, communism, all of the country’s biggest battles in front of an adoring public through the use of television. When African-American hero Jason Fisher is discreetly inserted into the group as the New American, problems begin to arise within the team.
The story will be set in 1972, picking up the story a decade later when racial tensions and being exposed as a propaganda sham have split the team apart, sending them off in different directions. Fisher is still living the life of a crimefighter, although he is conflicted about helping a system rigged against the African-American people.
A few years ago Ridley was supposed to be developing a Marvel TV series that would reinvent a popular character. Obviously that never panned out but it may have been for the better. And it’ll be interesting to see if Blumhouse can find the same magic with superheroes that they have with horror.
We have a pretty good idea of the dozens of heroes that will be vying for space in Avengers: InfinityWar, but one thing Marvel has done a good job of keeping secret is Thanos’ “children”, the Black Order. Up until now we’ve only had rumor to go by as to who would be playing the powerful team of villains, but now directors the Russo Brothers have pulled back the veil on one of them, while confirming two more. I have a pretty good guess about the fourth member.
The Russos tell Radio Times that The Leftovers and Gone Girl‘s Carrie Coon will voice Proxima Midnight. They also confirm that legendary motion capture actor Terry Notary (War for the Planet of the Apes) will suit up and voice the bruising Cull Obsidian, while Tom Vaughan-Lawlor (Fargo) will do the same as Ebony Maw.
There still remains the role of Proxima Midnight’s husband Corvus Glaive, the cruelest and most loyal member of the team. I’m guessing that’s where Peter Dinklage, who has been part of the cast since early last year, will fit in. Marvel has been keeping his part secret and this makes the most sense, at least to me.
