Let’s be real, Nate Parker got royally screwed when Birth of a Nation, the film he wrote, directed, starred in, and put his entire career on the line for, was ignored during the awards season a couple years ago. After looking like the odds-on favorite for months, years-old controversies emerged and Parker did not handle the public response well at all. We haven’t heard anything from him since, but now he’s back with a new project and hopefully it will be the start of a comeback.
According to Deadline, Parker will write and direct Black & Blue, a film based on the story of decorated LAPD officer Ralph Waddy. Waddy was involved in some of the most high-profile cases in the city’s history during a racially charged time as it dealt with the Watts riots, Robert Kennedy’s assassination at the Ambassador Hotel, the rise of the Black Panthers, the capture of the Skid Row Slasher and the Manson Murders (which Waddy connected to Charles Manson and his followers). The film will mostly deal with Waddy’s battle to gain his father’s approval, and struggle with identity between being black and being a cop in such a racially charged climate.
No word on if Parker will take a role but he would seem to be a good fit to play Waddy. Or perhaps he figures it’s best to keep out of the public spotlight for a while longer. He will rewrite a script previously penned by Jim McGrath, and hopes to begin filming in July.
We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to win an Admit-Two ROE (Run of Engagement) pass to Steven Soderbergh’s thriller Unsane starring Claire Foy!
SYNOPSIS: A young woman is involuntarily committed to a mental institution where she is confronted by her greatest fear – but is it real or is it a product of her delusion?
The passes are valid Monday-Thursday at any Regal Theater in the Washington, DC area. If you’d like a chance to win, simply send an email to punchdrunktrav@gmail.com with your full name, mailing address, and favorite Steven Soderbergh movie. Be sure to title it “Unsane ROE”. Winners will be selected Sunday, March 25th and contacted by email. Good luck!
There was a Hell of a lot going on in yesterday’s Deadpool 2 trailer, but the biggest is what appears to be the full reveal of X-Force. The X-Men’s military squad are due to have their own movie at some point, and now we have a pretty good idea what the membership will look like. I can’t believe these are the characters they came up with, but I’m going to withhold too much judgement.
First off, Terry Crews isn’t playing G.W. Bridge as I and many others had thought. He’s actually playing Jesse Aaronson aka Bedlam, a very minor member of X-Force who hasn’t been seen much in years. Jesse arrived with his brother Chris from the Age of Apocalypse timeline and is gifted with the power to project bio-electromagnetic fields.
Seen in a stack of photographs is Rob Delaney as a pretty basic looking dude named Peter, and that would appear to be a version of Pete Wisdom, one of my favorite characters from Warren Ellis run on Excalibur. Wisdom is a member of MI:13, a secret superhuman wing of British intelligence, and has the power to project hot knives from his fingertips. Wisdom would later join Excalibur and basically co-lead them along with Kitty Pryde, who he had a long romantic relationship with for a while, making Colossus pretty angry. I think he punched poor Pete.
Shiori Kutsuna’s role does look to be that of Surge, who was never actually part of the X-Force team to the best of my memory, but was a key member of the New Mutants and New X-Men. Her electric powers are on full, dazzling display and they look pretty cool, making her the most visually exciting new character of the bunch. She’s also apparently Negasonic Teenage Warhead’s girlfriend!
A look in the background of an X-Force team shot reveals that the other-dimensional warrior Shatterstar is also on the squad. You can see the headgear he used to get made fun of for wearing all of the time (Rob Liefeld loved drawing his characters with ridiculous headgear). Shatterstar has a very complicated backstory but basically he’s an artificial mutant from the planet Mojoworld (a place where TV rules everything) and a skilled hand-to-hand combatant. He has a very special place in my heart for a few reasons: his romantic relationship with Dazzler, his eventual romantic relationship with Rictor (Shatterstar’s people don’t care about labels), and his genetic connection to my favorite X-Man of all-time, Longshot.
And we may have confirmation of the mystery character played by It star Bill Skarsgard. No, he’s not a mutant version of Pennywise the clown. He appears to be playing Zeitgeist, the former leader of an alternate X-Force squad that eventually became the X-Statix. Zeitgeist has the power of acid vomit, and in the comics he was only around for a short time, after betraying his team and dying in the same massacre that killed nearly everyone else. A very weird choice for Deadpool 2 and I have a feeling he won’t be sticking around long.
Of course we already know about Zazie Beetz as the luck-manipulating Domino, and Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Stefan Kapicic is back as the steel-skinned Colossus but I can’t tell if he’s part of X-Force or not. He does join the team for a while during an awful run of the comic, so maybe he will here, too.
They’ll be teaming up with Deadpool to fight Josh Brolin’s Cable, who is normally the team’s leader. Either they kill him or they become friends. I’m betting on the latter. Deadpool 2 opens May 18th.
As a part of both the Terminator and Avatar franchises, Aussie actor Sam Worthington has already made his mark on the sci-fi genre even if everything else he’s done has been forgettable. Speaking of forgettable, or at least potentially so, Worthington stars in Netflix’s new sci-fi movie The Titan, which looks like it’s cribbing from a bunch of different movies. At least it has a solid cast, though.
A familiar plot finds Earth needing to be abandoned after a nuclear disaster, only rather than sending humanity to a far off planet the choice is made to move to Saturn’s moon of Titan. But first a group of cadets must undergo a radical evolutionary change in hopes that they can survive Saturn’s harsh atmosphere.
Surely there was a better option then?
Of course, the process goes wild and Worthington transforms into something from a John Carpenter movie. The film co-stars Taylor Schilling from Orange is the New Black, Tom Wilkinson, and Nathalie Emmanuel from Game of Thrones and The Fate of the Furious, although none of them appear to have much going on. Lennart Ruff directs from a script by Max Hurwitz (Hell on Wheels).
Surprising that there’s even a Sherlock Gnomes movie to talk about, given that it’s been seven years since the surprisingly charming Gnomeo & Juliet. The prior film had a clever idea to recast Shakespeare’s classic with a bunch of garden gnomes, infused with a healthy dose of music by a very heavily-involved Elton John, and spot-on use of sound effects (the *tink* of the porcelain gnomes was wonderful) to accompany solid animation. It was an enjoyable movie, not mind-blowing by any means, and clearly there was no rush to do a sequel.
Sherlock Gnomes arrives and unless you knew about the previous film you’d be hard-pressed to see any connection. It feels like an afterthought, and the characters we liked before are also treated like afterthoughts, jammed into an ill-fitting caper like a garden gnome into backyard soil. The same characters are in it, but they are B-players in a story that has its attentions elsewhere, and the mystery isn’t fun or compelling enough to compensate.
James McAvoy and Emily Blunt are back voicing porcelain lovers Gnomeo and Juliet, now leaders of their tribe of gnomes. It’s been seven years so the older couple that owns them are downsizing from their vast country home to a tiny flat in London, and with it come new troubles for the animated lawn ornaments. Gnomeo feels Juliet has been so consumed with her garden plans that she’s overlooked him, a dynamic that parallels the relationship between detective duo Sherlock Holmes (voiced by Johnny Depp, apparently obsessed with playing goofy detectives) and Watson (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Watson feels he has gone unappreciated after all of these years, even as he was invaluable in defeating the criminal mastermind/pastry mascot Moriarty (Jamie Demetriou). When garden gnomes all across London begin disappearing, including Gnomeo and Juliet’s families, they team up with the detectives to solve the case.
Incoming director John Stevenson and writer Ben Zazove lean heavily on the Sherlock story, while Gnomeo and Juliet are hanging on to the plot for dear life. Although the idea for this film was hatched in 2012, it really does look like they wanted to tell a Sherlock Gnomes mystery rather than have to deal with all of the Shakespeare stuff. While there are a couple of obvious nods to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels and characters, others are just plain strange like a bizarre Mary J. Blige musical performance as Sherlock’s ex-girlfriend Irene (based on Irene Adler). Most would fly over kids’ heads and the rest aren’t going to add much for Sherlock Holmes fans. Even the Robert Downey Jr. action movies make better use of Conan Doyle’s canon.
The split focus might have been acceptable if the movie were funnier and more creative, but neither is the case. There’s still plenty of Elton John music to hear but it’s used less imaginatively, mostly saved for big party scenes and the occasional chase. Most of the “best” gags are visual and involve either Mankini, the dancing gnome in the shockingly showy swimsuit, and the lowly gnome stuck on a toilet. Your mileage may vary with both but for me it was a very short distance.
It’s possible Sherlock Gnomes will find an audience out there and we’ll get another adaptation with a silly title. A Gnome at the End of the World? The Lovely Gnomes? Hopefully not, and these gnomes can stay packed away in the shed where they belong.
Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi may be the most divisive Lucasfilm has ever put out, upsetting those who felt it overturned the apple cart a little too much. Some of those folks are the same ones who felt The Force Awakens was too beholden to the past…but I digress. Despite the reaction, Johnson isn’t letting the vocal minority affect his approach to the new Star Wars trilogy he’s working on, and he’s a pretty good reason why.
Johnson tells Fandango’s Erik Davis, “I feel like every Star Wars thing that’s made has a big, loud response because Star Wars fans are passionate and that’s what makes them awesome. I don’t think it’s possible when you’re telling a story and it comes from your heart…it’s kind of not possible to be intellectually processing what everyone else wants. Nor would it be a good thing; I don’t think that’s a healthy way to tell a story.”
He’s got the right idea. I don’t believe in fan service when it comes to franchises, but most especially with Star Wars. The Force Awakens was fan service and while it was still great we weren’t being introduced to anything new. The Last Jedi upset our expectations and I hope Johnson keeps surprising us with his new set of movies. Besides, J.J. Abrams will probably reset the fuck out of everything with Episode 9 anyway.
Straight Outta Compton and Mudbound star Jason Mitchell has dropped the first teaser trailer for Superfly, a remake of Gordon Parks’ 1972 classic Super Fly (two words) starring Ron O’Neal. With beats by Future and Director X at the helm you probably guessed that it looks and sounds nothing like the original crime flick, but instead like a music video or an episode of Power.
Contrary to my earlier report on this movie (dyslexic much, Travis?), Mitchell is not playing Youngblood Priest, the Atlanta drug kingpin looking to get out of the game and survive to tell the tale. That role goes to singer/actor Trevor Jackson, while Mitchell plays Eddie. The rest of the cast includes Lex Scott Davis, Andrea Londo, Jacob Ming-Trent, and Omar Chapparo with room for plenty of celebrity cameos.
Not gonna lie, I laughed out loud when I saw Jackson’s tall hair and ridiculous beard, but I guess that’s the style for cartel bosses nowadays? The original movie took heat for glorifying drug dealers and this footage won’t quiet those who fear a remake might do the same. Mitchell is one of the dopest actors around, though, so I expect it’ll be a better movie than it looks right now.
Hey, remember Josh Trank? He was a hot director in Hollywood, hitting the ground running with superhero origin flick Chronicle. Then he had a pair of epic flame outs, starting with 2015’s disastrous Fantastic Four relaunch, followed by a dismissal from a Star Wars spinoff due to his strange actions on and off set. Perhaps the lights got a little too bright too fast for the young director and a turn towards something smaller is needed. A couple of years ago he began putting together a mobster film, Fonzo, that would see Tom Hardy in the role of Al Capone. Now that film is starting to round into shape.
Joining Hardy in the film is a pretty good cast that includes Linda Cardellini as Capone’s wife, plus Katherine Narducci, Matt Dillon, Jack Lowden, and Kyle MacLachlan. Trank also penned the film which centers on the infamous gangster at the age of 47 after he’d been imprisoned for nearly a decade. Dementia has begun to rot Al’s mind and his past becomes present as harrowing memories of his violent and brutal origins melt into his waking life.
Pretty cool premise and a different spin on territory that has been explored to death. Production on Fonzo begins next month, and here’s hoping it’s the start of a rebound for Trank. He’s a talented filmmaker should work well with Hardy who previously played real-life gangster twins the Kray Brothers in Legend. [Deadline]
Okay, so who’s got muscles and a mustache big enough to play Hulk Hogan? Kevin Nash, phone call on line 1! Hogan’s infamous court case against Gawker is about to become a dramatic flick, and the guy to direct is Modern Family director Jason Winer.
While there’s already been a great documentary on the case in Netflix’s Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press, this film will give it a narrative spin. Titled Thiel vs. Gawker, the courtroom drama will focus on the lawsuit brought by Hogan, aka Terry Bollea, against Gawker, the once-popular news/gossip site. Without Hogan’s permission the site posted a sex tape he was in, causing the former wrestler to sue them for $100M. He won and was awarded $115M plus $25M in damages, sending the site into bankruptcy and eventually out of business.
The most disgusting part of the case was the involvement of multi-billionaire mogul and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who invested millions of dollars supporting Hogan’s case as a means of finally shutting Gawker down. He had been backing various lawsuits against them in hopes of doing exactly that, out of revenge for a 2007 article they published that publicly outed him. This tactic of trying to sue rival news outlets into oblivion has become standard practice of late, stretching all the way up occupants of the White House who see it as a way of silencing the press.
John Gary wrote the script, reportedly tapping 23 sources for information. Still, this has the whiff of being a TV movie so who knows? We’ll see how that works out and how long it takes for financing and a cast to come together. Maybe they can borrow some money from Hogan? [Variety]
Unsane is unlike any movie I’ve ever seen. Legendary director
Steven Soderbergh has decided to abandon typical Hollywood filmmaking styles
with this movie. Instead, he shot it all on an iPhone 7 with harsh natural
lighting, and bizarre angles you can only accomplish by throwing your phone
across a room. Now, I’ve seen weird iPhone projects before, just never on this
scale. This is a big, studio-backed, wide-released feature length film. Its
leads are The Crown’s Clair Foy and SNL’s Jay Pharaoh, two big stars in
their own right, and it’s shot by the man who once beat himself for the Oscar
for best director. This high profile nature is part of what makes Unsane so bizarre,and ultimately rather
off-putting.
Foy stars as a young woman who accidentally commits herself
to a shady mental health facility after attempting to seek help for PTSD
symptoms she’s faced following a stalking incident in her hometown. Once there,
she begins experiencing firsthand how the hospital mistreats their patients and
staff, and she learns that they’re more interested in collecting insurance
money than in helping people. A few spooky asylum movie tropes later, Foy now
finds herself face to face with her stalker once more, only this time in the
form of one of her doctors, and Hamlet-style game of “is she crazy
or is she telling the truth” ensues. At the same time, the movie pushes on
through with more bonkers imagery and mental-patients-are-scary story beats
we’ve seen in countless schlocky exploitation movies before.
The thing is, though, Unsane doesn’t think it’s an
exploitation film most of the time. Being a modern thriller about abuse and
mental health, it has to walk the typical egg shell tightrope of “is this in
poor taste” that all these types of movies have to tread. In the case of Unsane,it’s kinda hard to tell if they
stick the landing. The tone shifts wildly back and forth between handling the
subject matter with care and treating it like a campy grindhouse-style B-horror
movie. It’s ultimately hard to pin down exactly what it is this movie’s trying
to say about mental health, if anything. It honestly might just be using it to
be a spooky setting, which is fine if that’s the tone it’s going for. It just
needs to decide. There’s a difference between an exploitation genre movie and
one that’s just exploitative.
The camera work is straight-up nuts, which I mostly appreciated.
This is an experimental film, and so it experiments with how a scene can be
shot and edited. Sometimes that lands, sometimes it doesn’t. But that’s okay.
For Soderbergh, it seems to be less about results and more about figuring out
how far we’ll let him go. A typical not-shot-on-a-phone movie might cover a
scene with two close ups and perhaps a wide shot for perspective. Maybe some
flashier camera moves as well if it’s a particularly stylized project. In Unsane,
scenes are covered with a shot/reverse shot, wide shot, wide shot from the
other side of the room, and a semi-obscured close up shot where the phone is
just sitting on the table between the actors, all of which are cut to rapidly
and seemingly at random. It’s almost dizzying and at times hypnotic, like the
cameras were being directed by squirrels. Considering that this is a film about
insanity and stalking, it seems right that it feels like the camera has been
hidden in places it doesn’t belong. Sometimes it feeds into the style nicely. Again,
this movie is, more than anything, an interesting experiment.
The performances are fine. Foy swings wildly for the fences,
which sometimes works for her character and other times aggressively doesn’t.
Her American accent is also distractingly off. Jay Pharaoh, on the other hand,
is charismatic as hell and absolutely shines with every second he’s on the
screen.
It’s honestly baffling to me that this movie is getting a
wide release. I can’t imagine general audiences enjoying this at all, let alone
being able to even watch it, considering how strange it looks. This is in every
way and experiment and should be treated as one. There are a few conventionally
thrilling moments, and the campier spooky hospital segments were fun, but
ultimately the biggest takeaway for me was how it looked. And it looked nuts.
