The Star Wars saga is growing by leaps and bounds, even as the latest trilogy wraps up with J.J. Abrams’s Episode IX. We know that Rian Johnson will be launching his own trilogy of movies completely separate from the Skywalker clan, and now a controversial duo of directors are getting their own shot at the house George Lucas built.
Game of Thrones creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff will write and produce a series of Star Wars movies. All we know about them is that they’ll be separate from the “main” storyline and from whatever Johnson is doing. Here’s what Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy had to say about the news…
“David and Dan are some of the best storytellers working today. Their command of complex characters, depth of story and richness of mythology will break new ground and boldly push Star Wars in ways I find incredibly exciting.”
You can bet there will be an uproar over this. The duo have been under fire for their planned HBO series Confederate, which takes an alternate-reality look at slavery. But they’ve also taken some heat for the excessive violence and misogeny on Game of Thrones, and already I’m seeing some people make the assumption their Star Wars will be exactly the same. I think that’s a pretty ignorant, close-minded stance to take this early on.
Deadpool had some of the best and weirdest marketing ever for a superhero movie, and Deadpool 2 looks to be no different. The latest poster, which star Ryan Reynolds debuted on Twitter, features the Merc with a Mouth striking a very familiar pose to fans of Flashdance. Somebody get Jennifer Beals on the phone right now.
The image finds Deadpool dousing himself with bullets rather than water as Beals’ dancer character did in the most iconic scene from Flashdance. Reynolds captioned the image with a line from the film’s signature song, Cara’s “Flashdance…What a Feeling.”
Here is the official synopsis: After surviving a near fatal bovine attack, a disfigured cafeteria chef (Wade Wilson) struggles to fulfill his dream of becoming Mayberry’s hottest bartender while also learning to cope with his lost sense of taste. Searching to regain his spice for life, as well as a flux capacitor, Wade must battle ninjas, the yakuza, and a pack of sexually aggressive canines, as he journeys around the world to discover the importance of family, friendship, and flavor – finding a new taste for adventure and earning the coveted coffee mug title of World’s Best Lover.
I’m not sure they’re being totally serious there.
Directed by David Leitch with Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Zazie Beetz, Brianna Hildebrand, TJ Miller, and Leslie Uggams co-starring, Deadpool 2 opens May 18th.
Thus far Justin Kelly has directed two intentionally provocative films featuring James Franco, the gay conversion drama I Am Michael and the Brent Corrigan crime drama King Cobra. Kelly moves on from Franco with his latest, Welcome the Stranger, but the mystery film’s trailer is still designed to generate a very strong reaction.
There’s a great cast for this one, too, with Abbey Lee, Riley Keough, and Caleb Landry Jones headlining this chiller about estranged siblings, a mysterious girlfriend, and a potential break from reality. The moody atmosphere is enhanced by the complete lack of dialogue, leaving you alone with the eerie soundtrack.
Count me in for this one. Here’s the synopsis: Alice arrives unannounced at her estranged brother Ethan’s house in an attempt to reconcile, but bizarre visions, the return of his strange girlfriend, and Alice’s paranoia and suspicion force the siblings to cling onto reality amidst mysterious circumstances.
Welcome the Stranger hits VOD on March 20th. Check out the trailer below courtesy of IndieWire.
In this new holiday sequel to the original comedy hit, the
moms Under-appreciated and overburdened moms (Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and
Kathryn Hahn) are back, this time taking on “the Super Bowl for moms”:
Christmas. To make matters worse, their moms
(Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines, and Susan Sarandon) come to visit for the
holidays.
We Said: “This being a
Christmas movie, it naturally devolves into an endless stream of heartfelt
monologues, tears, and sappy apologies. As if it wasn’t toothless enough
already. But hey, this is Christmas; a time for giving, right? And so I feel
I’m being generous by saying A Bad Moms Christmas is like getting socks as a
gift.” Rating: 2 out of 5
From the minds of the Coen Brothers and Director George
Clooney comed the new crime dramadey thriller Suburbicon. Set in the
summer of 1959, the idyllic town titular community is turned upside down when
Gardner (Matt Damon) and his wife (Julianne Moore) discover the dark
undercurrent of prejudice, deceit and violence that lies just beneath the
surface of their quiet town.
We Said: “Somewhere lost in
the middle of Suburbicon is a really funny crime story, and a potentially
powerful one about racism. Put together they make for a watchable, if mediocre
entry for both the Coens and Clooney.” Rating:
2.5 out of 5
Inspired by the life of Lyndon B Johnson, the film follows LBJ
(Woody Harrelson) as he transitions from powerful Senate majority leader to vice
president and finally to the leader of the free world after the assassination
of John F. Kennedy.
We Said: “In a year that has
seen portrayals of LBJ hit a fever pitch, Harrelson’s is by far the most
entertaining in his colorful use of vulgarities. But it’s also the least
authentic, as Harrelson always looks like he’s about to rip off the pounds of
prosthetics and start reenacting scenes from Zombieland. It reminded me of Bill
Murray’s performance as FDR (…) in Hyde Park On Hudson; a lively outlier in
what is ostensibly an Oscar-worthy drama. But despite Harrelson’s best efforts,
LBJ doesn’t offer enough insight to ascend to that level.” Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Reviews are starting to trickle out for Marvel’s Black Panther, and while I don’t read any before writing my own everything I’ve heard has been wildly positive. The film, which is shaping up to be the biggest thing to happen to Black History Month since…well, Black History Month, opens in a little over a week and Marvel has dropped the official IMAX poster, along with a promo reminding you to buy those tickets early. Preferably the big-money IMAX tickets. Do us a solid and pre-order your tickets here, you might get some free stuff out of it!
The image is done up in comic book style and it looks great, although I’m not sure who the artist is. Chadwick Boseman is dead center as T’Challa aka Black Panther, with Lupita Nyong’o by his side as former lover and Dora Milaje member, Nakia. We also see Latitia Wright as T’Challa’s brilliant younger sister Shuri; Forest Whitaker as Wakandan elder Zuri; Angela Bassett is seen as Ramonda, the Wakandan Queen Mother. Finally we get Danai Gurira as Okoye, deadly leader of the Dora Milaje, Daniel Kaluuya as W’Kabi, T’Challa’s best friend and head of security; and Winston Duke is M’Baku, the Man-Ape and challenger to the Wakandan throne.
Directed by Ryan Coogler, Black Panther opens February 16th.
There wasn’t much that was worth a damn about X-Men: Apocalypse, but one thing I really enjoyed was seeing the return of Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert. She had been missing since X-Men: First Class and her presence was a fond reminder of one of the best X-Movies. We hadn’t heard anything about her coming back for the latest, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, even though it takes the action ahead a few more years. And it turns out there’s a reason we haven’t heard much, because Byrne says she isn’t coming back. She tells CinemaBlend…
“Unfortunately, Moira is not showing up. I wish she was. I had such fun on X-Men: Apocalypse. I love that cast. It is a really fun, what do you call it? Superhero film… ensemble exactly. I can’t wait to see what [Jessica Chastain] does, cause I’m such a fan.”
I hope this is her pulling our leg and that Moira will pop up unexpectedly as a Skrull or something. This is especially sad because, with Fox being sold to Disney (or possibly someone else, the deal ain’t done yet) we may have seen the last of her in the X-verse.
It was only a matter of time before Quentin Tarantino weighed in on the latest bombshell allegations put forth by Uma Thurman last weekend. The actress claimed sexual assault committed by the disgraced Harvey Weinstein, but also revealed a video of a serious car crash she had while filming Kill Bill, a stunt that she says Quentin Tarantino put her up to. And naturally, he took heat from all corners for that, although she clarified that it was actually Tarantino who gave her the footage to share, and absolving him of guilt for what happened. She did, however, accuse Weinstein and others of trying to cover up the incident.
Tarantino gave a lengthy Q&A with Deadline, and there’s a lot to sort through that you’re best doing yourself. However there are a few key moments worth highlighting, like his version of events on the day the crash occurred…
I remember this day very well. It was one of the last days of the shoot, and up until this point it was a great day. It was the second day of filming the Michael Parks scene, the Esteban Vihaio scene. He was amazing in the scene and so was Uma. Literally, the last shot of the day was going to be this driving shot. We wrapped up the Esteban Vihaio scene and we were very happy about it. It was in a weird dubious Mexican Cantina, and that was kind of exciting. We even had a New Yorker reporter, Larissa MacFarquhar, who almost went with us to the next shot. But since it was the last shot, and none of us thought it would be a big deal, she went home.
I start hearing from the production manager, Bennett Walsh, that Uma is trepidatious about doing the driving shot. None of us ever considered it a stunt. It was just driving. None of us looked at it as a stunt. Maybe we should have, but we didn’t. I’m sure when it was brought up to me, that I rolled my eyes and was irritated. But I’m sure I wasn’t in a rage and I wasn’t livid. I didn’t go barging into Uma’s trailer, screaming at her to get into the car. I can imagine maybe rolling my eyes and thinking, we spent all this money taking this stick shift Karmann Ghia and changing the transmission, just for this shot. Anyone who knows Uma knows that going into her trailer, and screaming at her to do something is not the way to get her to do something. That’s a bad tactic and I’d been shooting the movie with her for an entire year by this time. I would never react to her this way.
So Tarantino took it upon himself to test drive the car after hearing the “trepidation” in her voice, but he only drove the stretch of road going from east to west and found it to be safe and straight. However, the shot was ultimately done from the opposite direction, and that’s where trouble began…
I came in there all happy telling her she could totally do it, it was a straight line, you will have no problem. Uma’s response was…”Okay.” Because she believed me. Because she trusted me. I told her it would be okay. I told her the road was a straight line. I told her it would be safe. And it wasn’t. I was wrong. I didn’t force her into the car. She got into it because she trusted me. And she believed me.
So, it’s decided she would get in the car. I had not heard about anything about a guy from transpo saying that the car didn’t work. Which would be a strange thing for a guy from transpo to say, because they’re the ones responsible for delivering safe vehicles. If a guy from transpo had something to say about an unsafe car, he should be telling the First AD, the production manager or the producer. Uma goes off to get ready. I go off, after my trip and talking to Uma, to number one, ready for her to show up. I arrive and then a question develops.
Would it be okay if we had the car drive the opposite direction? Because the lighting would be better because it was the end of the day. I’m guessing on this, but let’s say we were going to do the car from east to west? Could we go from west to east? It didn’t affect the shot. I didn’t see how it would affect anything. A straight road is a straight road.
We changed our number one, so the car would be driving in the opposite direction from the way I had gone down. And that was the beginning of where the crash happened.
I thought, a straight road is a straight road and I didn’t think I needed to run the road again to make sure there wasn’t any difference, going in the opposite direction. Again, that is one of the biggest regrets of my life. As a director, you learn things and sometimes you learn them through horrendous mistakes. That was one of my most horrendous mistakes, that I didn’t take the time to run the road, one more time, just to see what I would see.
She showed up, in a good mood. We did the shot. And she crashed. At first, no one really knew what happened. After the crash, when Uma went to the hospital, I was feeling in total anguish at what had happened. I walked the road, going the opposite direction. And in walking the road, going in the other direction…I don’t know how a straight road turns into an un-straight road, but it wasn’t as straight. It wasn’t the straight shot that it had been, going the other way. There is a little mini S-curve that almost seemed like it opened up to a mini fork in the road.
And that had a severe impact on Uma and Tarantino’s friendship, which had been strong before that moment…
It affected me and Uma for the next two to three years. It wasn’t like we didn’t talk. But a trust was broken. A trust broken over a year of shooting, of us doing really gnarly stuff. Doing really big stunt stuff. I wanted her to do as much as possible and we were trying to take care of her and we pulled it off. She didn’t get hurt. And then the last four days, in what we thought would be a simple driving shot, almost kills her.
Tarantino addresses a lot of issues in the piece, including details on what happened with Harvey Weinstein and his “complacency” that made the situation worse. He also discusses the criticism he’s received for the scenes in Kill Bill in which he spits on and chokes Uma, explaining that it was her idea and that the responsibility really fell on him to do it right…
Naturally, I did it. Who else should do it? A grip? One, I didn’t trust Michael Madsen because, I don’t know where the spit’s going to go, if Michael Madsen does it. I talked to Uma and I said, look. I’ve got to kind of commit to doing this to you. We even had a thing there, we were going to try and do it with a plunger and some water. But if you add snuff juice to water, it didn’t look right. It didn’t look like spit, when it hit her when we tried that. It needed to be that mix of saliva and the brown juice. So I asked Uma. I said, I think I need to do it. I’ll only do it twice, at the most, three times. But I can’t have you laying here, getting spit on, again and again and again, because somebody else is messing it up by missing. It is hard to spit on people, as it turns out.
Now, I love Michael, he’s a terrific actor, but I didn’t trust him with this kind of intricate work, of nailing this. So the idea is, I’m doing it, I’m taking responsibility.
And that’s only a small part of what Tarantino had to say. It makes for an interesting and thorough read so you should definitely check it out to get a fuller picture of the story that has everyone in Hollywood talking right now.
I’ll say this for Basmati Blues; it’s not the dreadful white savior comedy that I had feared it to be. It’s instead the dreadful Bollywood meets Wilson Phillips music video nobody asked for and certainly don’t need. Original musicals are all the rage right now thanks to La La Land and The Greatest Showman but doubtful anybody signed up for one that combines rom-com with pointed commentary on the GMO industry. That it stars Oscar-winner Brie Larson is concerning rather than comforting, although her reasons for starring in this misguided effort are forgivable even if the movie is borderline unwatchable.
Larson may be a huge star now with a Marvel run right around the corner, but back when Basmati Blues was shot she had yet to have her breakout (and still best) performance in Short Term 12. I’m inclined to think some of the opportunities that followed might have dried up if this had ever hit screens back then, but Larson is at least deeply committed to the role of Dr. Linda Watts, a nerdy scientist who has developed a super strain of basmati that uses less water and yields greater crops. The film opens with a buoyant song and dance number that sees Linda twirling exuberantly from laboratory to apartment to New York streets. It’s a tone-setter, because I’m not sure anybody knew how much this was going to try and emulate your typical extravagant Bollywood musical. And the answer is that it will try mightily up to a point, but is too poorly constructed and unsure to be anything other than cringworthy.
Linda’s super crop, known as “Rice 9” (which sounds like a food pill they might give you in The Jetsons, or Soylent Green), is owned by the obviously-evil corporation known as MOGIL (clearly a riff on Monsanto), run by a mustache-twirling Donald Sutherland with Tyne Daly basically in the Iago role. They latch on to her do-gooder spirit and whisk her away to India so some cross cultural hijinks can ensue, and when it’s all over they hope she’ll convince all of the farmers to use Rice 9. Upon arriving Linda is dazzled by the sights, the sounds, and the cultural differences, captured by director Dan Baron in a flurry of quick cuts to a confused Larson surrounded by as many brown people as can fit in a single shot.
The locals have their fun with the silly white American girl, too, convincing her they all greet one another with slaps to the face (Has she not seen The Three Stooges??). It should say something that Linda falls for it, but then she proves to be pretty clueless for a supposed intellectual. The only thing she seems sure about right away is that she really digs Rajit (Utkarsh Ambudkar, of Pitch Perfect fame), a farmer on sabbatical from university who has his own counter crop to Rice 9. Linda is also pursued by William (Saahil Sehgal), an attractive but ambitious corporate stooge for MOGIL. Whatever awkward love triangle this is supposed to form never really takes shape as it should. Baron’s co-written script is hamstrung by cloudy character motivations and clichés. While it’s clear Linda and Rajit are into one another right from the start (He Spider-Mans her some tea from atop a train as an introduction), they run hot and cold for the duration of the movie for inexplicable reasons. They don’t lack for chemistry, but Baron is artificially keeping them at a distance as if holding out for some big romantic payoff moment. Along the way Linda learns the most important things about Indian people, like how they dance, and how they can eat so much spicy food.
Not only does Baron prove inept at building the proper romantic tension, but the musical numbers are seriously lacking. Poorly choreographed and resembling bad music videos, the worst is “Love Don’t Knock At My Door” which has all three leads singing separately about one another and the beauty of growing rice under a starry night sky, trying ever so hard to look serious through lines such as “It’s cataclysmical, but she’s very beautiful!” The songs never occur with any rhyme or rhythm, as if Baron wasn’t fully committed to the idea of making this a full-blown musical, and you can see it in the editing which is the most haphazard before and after each number. Few of the acts actually stand out but I have to give special props to Sutherland and Daly’s villainous “Working for the Greater Good”, because heels always get the best songs, you know. As the screen veterans grunt through the virtues of corporate greed it’s impossible not to crack a smile at how much fun they seem to be having. They can’t sing a lick (And sound oddly similar) but dammit they’re going to give it the old college try. I went in thinking Basmati Blues would be culturally insensitive and offensive, but it’s just not very good and everyone involved probably wishes it had stayed locked away.
We may consider the DCEU landscape an evolving thing, but that hasn’t stopped them from moving forward with some of their biggest projects. Shazam! has kicked off production, with direction from David F. Sandberg and stars Zachary Levi and Asher Angel, and with it comes a brand new synopsis:
We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart—inside a ripped, godlike body—Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he’ll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana.
As Warner Bros. continues to try and pull the DCEU from the doom ‘n gloom of the Zack Snyder era, Shazam! sounds like the movie that will appeal most to a young audience. Co-starring as other members of the super-powered Marvel family are Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy aka Captain Marvel Jr; Grace Fulton is Mary aka Mary Marvel; Faithe Herman is Darla Dudley; Ian Chen is Eugene Choi; and Jovan Armand as Pedro Pena. Mark Strong is set to play villain Dr. Sivana, with Ron Cephas Jones as the Wizard.
The new film The Neighbor stars William Fichtner
(the bad guy in everything) as a lonely older man going through a midlife
crisis in the form of obsessing over his attractive young neighbor. It’s not
exactly a thriller, and not exactly a drama; more than anything this movie is
perfectly awkward. It revels in the strange nature of a midlife crisis and
attempts to explore it from every angle. We watch each cringey attempt at
interaction made by the soft-spoken protagonist as he tries everything he can
to make a connection with his new neighbor.
While the film is not bad by any means (it’s well acted and
interestingly shot) I did find myself having a hard time with the way it
handles sensitive subject matter. The young woman who lives next door is in an
abusive relationship, and in an attempt to protect and impress her, Fichtner is
driven to intervene. I would honestly be really invested in a film about using
your own personal crisis as motivation to help another person who is also
suffering in their own way. The only problem is his romantic obsession with
her. It seems to suggest that he would have just ignored the problem if she
wasn’t attractive, which is a bit of an unsettling character flaw that goes
unaddressed in the movie. When you factor in that his character is also married
and fantasizing about infidelity and mistreating his own wife, it only muddies
the waters further. Honestly, his wife is the only character who acts sensibly,
wanting to call the police and not personally involve herself. The few moments
where we explore the perspectives of the other characters involved were actual
really interesting and helped to settle these types of morally grey areas. I
just wish there were more of them.
Additionally, while the majority of the film is rather quiet
and slow-burning, toward the end it does pick up a bit of an oddly ominous
pacing that I recognized from other films I’ve seen before. Without spoiling
anything, there are some films where I just get this sense that there’s only
one way to end the story, and it’s a bit of a wild turn. Very often, my
assumptions aren’t correct and the movies just fizzle out to an ending, but I’m
happy to report that with The Neighbor I was right. The
bonkers corner that this film writes itself into is solved in exactly the way I
hoped and anticipated. So, for what it’s worth, the last third of this film is
very unique.
Overall, I had a pretty mixed reaction to the movie. I
didn’t especially like or dislike any major parts of it. I wish they had
handled the subject matter a bit more delicately, and the ending is a real
trip. Past that, it just didn’t leave much of an impact. The Neighbor is a fine,
if forgettable, film.
