Arriving on DirecTV tomorrow ahead of its theatrical premiere next month is the political thriller with the cool name, Backstabbing for Beginners. The film stars Theo James, Ben Kingsley, and Jacqueline Bisset, based on the memoir by Michael Soussan about the corruption in the Oil-for-Food Programme set up by the United Nations.
James, who has been keeping a low profile since 2016’s Allegiant and Underworld: Blood Wars, plays an idealistic U.N. employee hoping to do some good in the world. Instead he uncovers a vast global conspiracy, investigates the murder of his mentor, and deals with a corrupt boss that you knew just had to be played by Kingsley.
“You and me, kid, we can save the world,” Kingsley says in the new trailer. “Trust me.”
That’s one of those things that can sound really nice or really menacing depending on who says it. If it comes from a Ben Kingsley character it’s probably not such a good thing.
Directed by Danish filmmaker Per Fly from a script by The Manchurian Candidate‘s Daniel Pyne, Backstabbing for Beginners hits theaters and VOD on April 27th, preceded by DirecTV on March 22nd.
The folks at IFC Midnight have a great eye for what their audience likes, and just before it debuted at SXSW they picked up the werewolf horror, Wildling. The film played and was met with enthusiastic response from the genre crowd, and based on the new trailer it’s easy to see why. It has Diary of a Teenage Girl star Bel Powley in what looks like a role with some real teeth to it.
Marking the directorial debut of Fritz Böhm, the film stars Powley as a girl who discovers that she may or may not be a werewolf. Maybe it’s just raging teen hormones? The film co-stars Liv Tyler, Mike Faist, and Brad Dourif. Here’s the full synopsis:
A teenage girl’s coming of age comes with a terrifying twist in this spellbinding take on the werewolf legend. Since birth, Anna has been raised in isolation by a man she knows only as Daddy who has done everything possible to conceal the truth about the girl’s origins from her. But when the teenage Anna is suddenly thrust into the real world under the protection of no-nonsense police officer Ellen, it soon becomes clear that the young woman is far from ordinary. Unable to adjust to a normal life, Anna finds herself drawn instead to the wild freedom of the forest while struggling to resist the growing bloodlust that has awakened inside her. This moodily atmospheric thriller combines supernatural scares with a myth-like tale of self-discovery.
The Avengers may be about to save the world in their corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but over in Cloak & Dagger land, the stakes are mostly over teenage angst. And that’s just fine for Freeform, the network which will be launching the Marvel series this summer, based on the popular comic book duo and not the 1984 Dabney Coleman spy movie for kids. The series was given a prominent debut spot at this year’s SXSW and was greeted with solid reviews, and a new trailer, I must admit, has it looking like a potential hit.
Starring Olivia Holt and Aubrey Joseph, Cloak & Dagger centers on two teens from opposite sides of the tracks as they deal with their newfound super powers and the difficulties caused by their romantic relationship, high school, and a prophecy that has doomed one of them. The pilot episode was directed by the great Gina Prince-Bythewood and you can tell just from this footage how improved this looks over something like Inhumans. Here’s the synopsis:
Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger is the story of Tandy Bowen and Tyrone Johnson two teenagers from very different backgrounds, who find themselves burdened and awakened to newly acquired superpowers which are mysteriously linked to one another. Tandy can emit light daggers and Tyrone has the ability to engulf others in darkness. They quickly learn they are better together than apart, but their feelings for each other make their already complicated world even more challenging.
The thought of Quentin Tarantino doing a Star Trek movie, an R-rated one at that, is still kinda mind-blowing. And perhaps it’s also a little too good to be true. All that we really know is that Tarantino pitched an idea, one he’s had for quite a while, to producer J.J. Abrams who dug it, or at least is considering it enough that Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) was brought in to work on a script. That in itself was weird because Tarantino always writes his own movies. And maybe we should be focused on that one little oddity, because Simon Pegg, who both stars in the franchise and wrote Star Trek Beyond, has an update that doesn’t sound so promising.
Pegg spoke with HeyUGuys and offered an update on Tarantino’s Star Trek film…
“I don’t think he’s written an R-rated Star Trek script. I think what happened is he went to J.J. [Abrams] with an idea that he has had for a while – I remember he told us about it a long time ago. I think he told me and Edgar [Wright], about it a long time ago. He just put it to J.J. and J.J. is considering putting it into a writing room. We got an email just saying ‘Guess who came in the office the other day!’ So, I don’t know much about it, other than the fact that it is sort of in the mix. So, we will see.”
Yeah, that doesn’t sound like much of a confirmation, does it? Then again, Pegg is talking about how he heard of Tarantino’s plot idea “a long time ago” and he may not be up on the latest developments. He doesn’t mention Mark L. Smith being brought in as a writer, either. So he could be out of the loop.
That said, it kinda sounds like Abrams and Paramount are still figuring things out and Tarantino’s idea is just one of many they are considering.
Are you ready to journey into the OASIS? We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend a free early screening of Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One. The film is based on Ernest Cline’s beloved novel and stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Mark Rylance, Ben Mendelsohn, and more.
SYNOPSIS: From filmmaker Steven Spielberg comes the science fiction action adventure “Ready Player One,” based on Ernest Cline’s bestseller of the same name. The film is set in 2045, with the world on the brink of chaos and collapse. But the people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world. When an unlikely young hero named Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) decides to join the contest, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery and danger.
The screening takes place on Monday, March 26th at 7:00pm at AMC Mazza Gallerie. If you’d like a chance to attend, simply complete the required steps in the Rafflecopter form below. Winners will be selected on Thursday, March 22nd and contacted by email. Good luck!
Picture a perfect bowl of ramen: the steaming broth and noodles and toppings, the slurping sound you relish making as you eat it, the warmth in your belly after a bowl. Koki Shigeno’s debut documentary, Ramen Heads, will tantalize you with gorgeous shots of ramen as it’s being made by the best chefs in Japan, the nation that gave us this delicious food, with a look at its history and the kind of work that goes into making little shops nationally and internationally acclaimed.
The movie starts with, and focuses on, Osama Tomita, Japan’s “King of Ramen” who is earning the prestigious Tokyo Ramen of the Year award for the third year in a row. We see how much obsessive work he puts into perfecting the broth (a combination of 3 different broths started at 3 different times comprised of a veritable cauldron of ingredients chock full of pork bones and a straight-up pig’s head) and noodles (a mix of 4 specific flours that changes seasonally). The love and care he has for his ramen and his customers is clear: the shop is closed if he isn’t able to personally make the broth and flour mixture for the noodles, he makes his noodles extra long and wide and smooth for maximum slurpability, and if one of his apprentices loses focus for a moment he sends him outside. He even designed the seating ticketing system for customers, which reduced the length of the line for Tomita to just a quarter of what it was a year prior. Even on his days off, he is visiting other ramen shops. Towards the end of the film, he is planning a 10th anniversary celebration for his ramen shop with ramen heavyweights Shota Iida, whose noodles are agreed to be the best, and Yuki Onishi, the first ramen chef to earn a Michelin star. Watching these three men at the top of the culinary game working together with premium ingredients to make a special bowl of ramen for customers gave me goosebumps, because they really cared about the ramen and the taste above all else. I envied the 200 customers who were able to enjoy the final product.
In the middle of Tomita’s story was an animation about the history of ramen, a dish brought to Japan by Chinese immigrants and embraced as a post-war comfort. We learn about where shio and shoyu and tonkotsu and miso ramen come from, and about several other renowned bowls of ramen to add to your food bucket list: the clean shio made with just red snapper, one of almost a thousand of bowls of shoyu served daily at the Tsukiji fish market, the homey miso ramen served at a shop owned by a woman (a rarity in the ramen world), and the ramen made in a historic shop the same way it was made there 50 years ago.
While the middle section of the film was strange as far as the momentum of the story, and the scoring and typographical choices at times puzzled me, I really loved learning about the history of ramen and its cultural significance, as well as about other famous ramen shops and what made them famous. Watching these chefs lovingly prepare hundreds of bowls of ramen a day made me crave a bowl myself while still feeling warmed through inside, knowing that there are so many chefs putting so much care into a food they truly love and know their customers truly love as well. In this post-Jiro Dreams of Sushi era, I’m glad that the beautiful food documentary momentum hasn’t slowed down. Watch Ramen Heads if you love food, ramen, or watching masters at their craft.
Michael B. Jordan is a busy man. That’s what happens when you’re starring in the #1 movie in the world, Black Panther, and shooting Creed 2 at the same time. Despite all of that he’s still got time to create new opportunities for himself, like the upcoming WWII film Liberators that Jordan is set to produce and possibly star in.
Penned by Madison Turner, Liberators tells the story of the 761st tank battalion in WWII, which was comprised almost entirely of African-Americans. By federal law they weren’t allowed to serve alongside whites, but their heroism helped lead the way to the desegregation of the military.
Jordan is producing through his Outlier Society label, but it hasn’t been determined if he will star yet. If he does it would be a huge boost to the film, and you know Warner Bros., who secured the rights after what Variety calls a “highly competitive situation”, want him to be the face of this project.
When an old enchanted video game sucks it’s four young
players into the game, they’re not only stuck as the avatars they chose (Dwayne
Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Karen Gillan), they’re also left stranded
in its dangerous jungle setting. A followup to the original Robin Williams
classic, this Jumanji is one of the year’s biggest family hits.
We Said: “Jumanji:
Welcome to The Jungle is full of enough laughs, action, and adventure
that it would have been able to stand on its own as an enjoyable Hollywood
blockbuster. We’ll never know how it would have done as its own separate film,
but regardless of that, it is an entertaining ride that children and adults of
all ages should be able to appreciate.”
Following a disappointing hiatus, the Bells reunite for one
last acca-awesome job: an overseas USO tour. The friends come together one last
time for more music, more dancing, and more questionable decisions.
We Said: “Director Trish Sie
struggles with the severe shifts in tone, but nails it when the girls do what
they do best, which is banter and sing.[…] Pitch Perfect 3 delivers a swansong
worth listening to, but it probably won’t be a favorite on your playlist.” Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Set in a future where shrinking yourself down to five inches to
combat overpopulation is a hot new trend, overworked everyman Paul (Matt
Damon) and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) decide to abandon their stressful lives
in order to get small and move to a new downsized community — a choice that
triggers life-changing adventures. Equal parts funny and soul-searching, Downsizing is an emotional roller coaster of a movie.
We Said: “Like the disillusioned characters we’ve become so familiar
with in Alexander Payne’s movies, Downsizing ends in a very different
place than where it began. From a kooky idea ripped from a B-movie plot emerges
an engaging love story and humanist tale. Payne’s ambitions may get away from
him a little bit, but there’s no downsizing how big the film is on ideas,
heart, and sincerity.” Rating: 3 out of 5
Fred Rogers has left an indelible impression in most of our hearts, due to the simple kindness and happiness he showed every day on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for 30 years. At Sundance this year there was one documentary that I heard about more than others and it was Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, which takes a look at the life and legacy of the nicest guy on all of our blocks.
Directed by Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom), the film takes an intimate look at the man who would become America’s favorite neighbor. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood debuted in 1963 and right away it was clear this was a show that would go against the grain of other education programs. One of the things I was most happy to learn about the film is that it shows Rogers to be the genuine article, not some guy with a hidden dark side that needs to be exposed.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor? opens June 8th. Check out the trailer below, released today on what would have been his 90th birthday.
So Jeremy Renner may not be getting any love from the folks at Marvel right now, but in the new comedy Tag he is the man. The film is loosely based on the true story of a group of friends from Spokane who have been playing the same game of tag for over 20 years, and if you look up some of their antics you’ll see that they’ve pulled some crazy stunts to keep the game going, and it looks like a bunch of them have found their way into the movie.
Renner’s gaming buddies include Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Buress, Ed Helms, and Isla Fisher, with Rashida Jones, Annabelle Wallis, and Brian Dennehy co-starring. It looks like Renner’s character has gone 30 years without ever being “It”, and his boys are going to make sure that changes. There’s one scene in this trailer that made me snort water and it’s when Helms is tagged while grieving at a funeral, and y’know what, it seems like that particular moment was ripped from reality.
