Suicide Squad may have been killed by critics, but the film was still one of DC Films’ greatest successes. Audiences responded to it to the tune of $750M worldwide, and it even won an Oscar which few superhero movies can tout. So of course the sequel is on the way, with much of the cast returning and Gavin O’Connor behind the camera. Clearly, there can be some improvements, and Joel Kinnaman, who played team leader Rick Flag, has some thoughts on how to make Suicide Squad 2 better.
Kinnaman starts by telling Yahoo! where he thinks things went wrong in the first film, and I agree with him…
“In the third act. It was a great set-up, great characters. I think when we do the second one I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a more grounded version of the film. The characters are so extreme it could be more effective if we saw less sorcery. I think the characters become more extreme if you see them in conjunction with real people.”
Yeah, the finale was a huge disaster. I love Cara Delevingne but her depiction of Enchantress was laughable and took the edge off the film in a big way. If the plan really is to “ground” the Suicide Squad to make them more real, O’Connor makes even more sense as a director, and I have to say I’m kinda excited to see where things go.
I don’t know what Netflix is doing with Irreplaceable You, but I can only guess their marketing strategy matches the mixed emotions of the movie itself. Y’see, the film, which boasts a rather great cast with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Huisman, Christopher Walken, Brian Tyree Henry, Jacki Weaver, Kate McKinnon, Steve Coogan, and Timothy Simons, is a romantic comedy centering on on soulmates whose perfect life is ruined when they learn she has cancer. The tagline for the movie?
“Fall in love with childhood sweethearts Abbie and Sam, just in time to watch them try to say goodbye.”
I can scarcely think of a better way to celebrate than watching a perfect couple torn apart by cancer. And as you might expect, the trailer is pretty awkward as it tries to balance the sadness of their predicament with light-hearted gags. Everybody’s joke meter is cranked up to 11, especially Abbie (Mbatha-Raw) as she goes to extreme lengths to find Sam a new woman so he won’t have to fend for himself.
So prepare to laugh and cry, I guess. Directed by longtime Veep producer Stephanie Laing, Irreplaceable You hits Netflix on February 16th.
There are times when real life provides enough suspense,
drama, and action that it can seem like fiction. Throughout The Cage Fighter, I kept having to
remind myself that the film was indeed a documentary, and that we were
following Joe Carman’s real-life trials and tribulations. Director Jeff Unay presents
Joe’s life masterfully, in a way that flows smoothly and tells a concise story.
The film could easily pass as a fiction story created for the big screen, and
the fact that it is real makes it all the more enjoyable.
Joe Carman is a seasoned Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter, with
numerous fights on his resume. However Joe is much more than just an MMA
fighter – he is also a husband, father of four girls, works in a boiler-room,
and happens to be 40 years old. MMA has been a part of his life for decades and
even though his body and family beg him to stop fighting, he is not ready to
give it up just yet. Joe has made several promises to his wife and children
that he will retire from fighting, promises that he keeps breaking. There is
something inside Joe that makes him yearn to fight, so much so that he ties his
self-worth to being in the ring. He does not want to upset his family, so
everything related to MMA he now does in secret. He goes through a majority of
his training at night, he doesn’t have the chance to have his family at his
fights, and he tries to take care of his wounds without raising suspicion. Joe somehow
manages to balance working long shifts in a boiler-room, trying to be a good
father and husband, spending time with his family, and succeeding in a brutal
sport that takes a tremendous toll on one’s body.
Unay takes us behind the scenes of MMA, giving us a glimpse
into a world where people are putting everything on the line to try and capture
the glory of winning in the cage. Especially in Joe’s case, where he is
competing against much younger men – some that may be close to half of his age.
Competing at this age has earned him respect and admiration from fans, but is
an ever-growing challenge. His years of fighting are compiling and he is
beginning to see increasingly worrisome side effects from all of his past
injuries. Joe takes longer to heal, and he suffers more severe side effects –
including dizziness, loss of balance, and memory loss. The Cage Fighter shows us how much more is being put on the line
than just Joe’s body. We see the devastation that his fighting is causing his
family, tearing them apart at times. His wife has a chronic illness that
doctors are struggling to identify, he is caught in the middle of a custody
battle, and his relationship with his father is rocky (no pun intended) – at
best. Yet none of that matters when Joe is training, preparing, and finally in
the ring for a fight. Joe is an extremely likeable person, and it is nearly
impossible to not root for him. The Cage
Fighter successfully shows a different side of MMA, and gives the audience
a chance to follow Joe’s incredible story – one nighttime training session at a
time.
Steven Spielberg famously said that superhero films will die out just how Western film did after their heyday, well what about a post-apocalyptic Western featuring a Black Widow-ish superheroine who kicks a whole lotta ass for 90+ minutes?
That’s pretty much what we get in Lighthouse Pictures’ Scorched Earth. Relying on heavy-handed liberal message about climate change, sometime in the future, living on the planet has become a hellscape, thanks to a global environmental collapse, billions have died. In the aftermath, we have our standard Mad Max environment where there are loose feudal societies, people have to wear specialized gas masks to breathe the air, silver is the currency (as it is used to purify the air and water). Oh, and the world’s not so nice, to the point that if you drive a gas guzzler, it’s a capital offense.
Kickass former MMA fighter turned action heroine Gina Carano continues building up her film cred (she was awesome in Deadpool) is Gage, a local bounty hunter who earns her living killing “belchers,” people who still drive cars that rely on fossil fuels, while everyone else gets around either on foot or horseback. After taking out a few undesirables, Gage has a new task by the mayor of her town: she has to capture/take out the local mayor/warlord of a neighboring town for a big payday. But does she have another motive as well?
Assuming the identity of one of her former bounties, Gage is able to enter the town where she tries to win the trust of her potential bounty Jackson (Ryan Robbins of just about every awesome Canadian sci-fi show/movie you’ve ever seen), this is where the film shines the best. The second act of the film is when it excels best. It’s not about crazy lightning storms, wearing breathing masks, or any of the post-apocalyptic stuff going on in the film. Instead, it’s about a cowboy (or in this case cowgirl) with no name, who comes into a new town with the purpose of getting her man. As she has to pretend to be someone else, and hope no one from the town can realize that she’s an imposter, all while trying to gain her mark’s trust.
Unfortunately, the final act of the film reveals Gage’s true motivations, and it becomes quite predictable in where it’s going to go, complete with the final showdown where she needs to call on her “posse,” her mentor Doc (the always great John Hannah) who warned her about going on her mission has to come and bail her out in a big shoot ‘em up.
Robbins does a decent job at the villain for the film and has a certain level of charisma, he also hams up the mustache-twirling for most of the film, especially towards the end. The film is not gun or blood shy, and we not only get to see plenty of headshots, but the makeup department does a pretty good job showing people ravaged by the poisonous atmosphere. Scorched Earth does a decent amount of world-building to help orient the viewer to the post-apocalyptic wasteland, it’s also one of the weak parts of the film as it squarely rests on Carano’s shoulders as she does her best to be Clint Eastwood without being Clint Eastwood. There are times throughout the film where she nails, it, other times where she comes across a little flat. For the most part, this is a decent Western disguised as an action sci-fi shoot ‘em up, even if you can see the ending through the lightning storm a mile away.
Let’s see…what’s a cool way to introduce an entirely new generation to the joys of Communism? I got it. A young hot version of that well-known rabble rouser, Karl Marx! The Young Karl Marx is a real movie that is actually happening, and it doesn’t look the least bit as enjoyable as Young Sherlock Holmes. Nothing is as fun as Young Sherlock Holmes.
The French-German production has a couple of names attached that should perk your ears up. First is director Raoul Peck, who helmed the amazing James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro. The second is Vicky Krieps, who starred alongside Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread and practically stole the entire movie away from him. August Diehl (Allied) plays Karl Marx with Stefan Konarske as his friend Friedrich Engels who helped him write The Communist Manifesto.
Here’s the synopsis: At the age of 26, Karl Marx (August Diehl) embarks with his wife Jenny (Vicky Krieps) on the road to exile. In 1844 Paris they meet young Friedrich Engels (Stefan Konarske), son of a factory owner and an astute student of the English proletariat class. Engels brings Marx the missing piece to the puzzle that composes his new vision of the world. Together, between censorship and police raids, riots and political upheavals, they will preside over the birth of the labor movement, which until then had been mostly makeshift and unorganized. This will grow into the most complete theoretical and political transformation of the world since the Renaissance – driven, against all expectations, by two brilliant, insolent and sharp-witted young men.
The Young Karl Marx opens February 23rd in New York at The Metrograph and Los Angeles at Laemmle Royal with a national rollout later. [ThePlaylist]
With all the talk of diversity in front of and behind the
camera, and with seeing some change happen in the award space, it’s still pretty tough to find much change in the land of Feature Animation. . While this past year we’ve had Coco from Pixar with its
Mexican/Latin focused story and characters the most are still very white
focused when it is about human characters and still mostly about the Western
world besides the occasional release of something from the animation mecca of
Japan. Here we have a new entry from Dubai by Ayman Jamal and his company
Barajoun Entertainment. With all of the excitement for Black Panther, I hope
some people take some of that pre-hype energy and take a look at Bilal: A New
Breed of Hero, an animated epic with a black hero based on stories from history
within the Middle East and North Africa.
Bilal: A New Breed of Hero is based on the life of Bilal ibn
Rabah, an important historical figure in the religion of Islam. Bilal is an
imaginative young boy who dreams of adventure and being a great warrior but all
that ends as his home is raided and his mother is killed, ending with him and his
sister being taken into slavery. Bilal and his sister grow up in slavery, owned
my Umayya ibn Khalaf, a rich and powerful trader who runs the city of Hijaz.
After Bilal becomes a man he meets the master of merchants, Abu Bakr he sees
hope through a new faith that is not the same as the many idols the leaders of
the city use to the control the people. Bilal’s new faith and restored hope in
freedom cause him to clash with Umayya as he seeks freedom for him and his
sister.
This is a very pretty film, it’s use of color and character
designs. All the characters have great costume looks and silhouettes. The film
also has captivating scene transitions, while that might seem like a weird
thing to say they took the time to edit and think of ways to make this story
epic as much as they can. While watching this I couldn’t help but think of an
animated feature by Dreamworks almost 20 years ago, The Prince of Egypt
because of the way in which they show and humanize their hero character. You
root for Bilal from the moment you see him as a small boy playing hero outside
of his house. You root for him through every indignity he suffers through and
every step he makes toward freedom. One thing though it’s pretty easy to root
for slave getting free from a slave master though. The voice acting in here is
solid with the main characters have the more famous actors like Adewale
Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr. Eko, Adebisi, Killer Croc) as adult Bilal and Ian McShane
as Umayya who have the most stand out performances.
One thing that could’ve been done better is the
character of Bilal’s sister. She really only does a few things to do; worry about
Bilal or get in danger for Bilal to either save or fail at saving. There are only two women characters, to
be honest, his sister and his mother. His mother’s memory
is a constant part of the story as Bilal constantly remembers her words of
wisdom so while she doesn’t do a lot she is handled better and has a bit more
importance to the plot. In the end the Bilal: A New Breed of Hero was a very
good and entertaining and needed animated feature in these times. It has the
lens on a hero who’s not the usual white American or even European character
and it’s from a voice that is rarely heard of in the west in film and pretty
absent in animation. Parents should also know that there is violence and implied
violence even if there is no real gore or blood even with that it’s worth
seeing and taking your older elementary or up children to see this as well.
Steven Soderbergh may not have any interest in making mainstream studio movies anymore, but he’s finding plenty of other projects to keep himself busy. Soderbergh will produce and possibly direct Planet Kill, an action-thriller recently acquired by Studio 8.
The script was co-written by two guys Soderbergh knows quite well, Contagion writer Scott Z. Burns and Unsane screenwriter James Greer. Unsane is the psychological thriller Soderbergh shot totally on his 4K-powered IPhone, making him the first filmmaker to take on that challenge. You can find a trailer for it right here.
It wouldn’t be a shock if Soderbergh decided to shoot Planet Kill the same way, or find some brand new way test himself with newer technology and techniques. [Deadline]
Old friends Octavia Spencer and Tate Taylor have made sure to keep that friendship going strong through their Hollywood careers. They’ve worked together on two features already, their breakout film The Help, and then again on Taylor’s James Brown biopic Get On Up. Now they’re going for a third, and this time they’re drastically switching up gears. Spencer and Taylor will team up for the Blumhouse horror pic, Ma.
Details are super thin right now, with Taylor describing the “dark material” as “definitely the most complex character she’s ever played, if I may be so bold as to say that.” Taylor says he wouldn’t call Spencer’s character a villain, though, but it sure sounds like she might be. Deadline says the script by Scotty Landes follows “a lonely woman who befriends a group of teenagers with torturous consequences.” Juliette Lewis, Luke Evans, Diana Silvers, Corey Fogelmanis, McKaley Miller, Dante Brown, and Gianni Paolo
will co-star.
Shooting begins this month in Mississippi on Taylor’s own property. I’m guessing Blumhouse digs that because it’ll help keep costs down, but also because Taylor and Spencer probably know where all the creepy crawlspaces are.
Just yesterday I posted my review of Sebastian Lelio’s wonderful trans drama, A Fantastic Woman, not that he needed my praise added to the cacophony of acclaim it’s received. The Chilean filmmaker hasn’t slowed down to bask in its success as an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language film; instead he’s busy shooting a remake of his breakout movie Gloria, while preparing for the release of Disobedience, which debuted at TIFF last year and now has a trailer.
Starring my two favorite Rachels, McAdams and Weisz, the film is tonally very different from either Gloria or A Fantastic Woman. It centers on Ronit and Esti, two women in an Orthodox Jewish community who share a forbiden romance. Years after Ronit has been forced out, she returns home and finds the passion between her and Esti hasn’t diminished, which causes problems in her former lover’s new life.
I remember hearing about this one and the complexity of its narrative which isn’t just a straight indictment of religion and the conservative mindset. There may not be a director around who is doing richer, deeper dramas about women than Lelio is right now.
Incredibly with only three months until the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story there is still not a single bit of promotional…well, anything. Not even an official photo. We’re still showing that cast image with former directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller in it! News started to surface that we could see some footage during this weekend’s Super Bowl, but now we have an official date for a full trailer.
According to Trailer Track it will be on Monday’s Good Morning America that the trailer will be revealed. Since Disney owns both Lucasfilm and ABC I expect they’ll make a whole show out of it, perhaps bringing some of the cast or Ron Howard in to talk about the footage. It’ll be a good way to do some damage control because buzz isn’t too good right now. An air of mystery over such a major production is fine until directors start getting replaced, then it’s not such a good thing.
