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Punch Drunk DVDs: ‘Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween’, ‘Last Flag Flying’, ‘Professor Marston & The Wonder Women’, and More!

NEW THIS WEEK



Tyler Perry’s latest go as the titular lady puts her once
again at the center of a Halloween adventure. When young Tiffany leaves for a midnight
Halloween party in the woods, its up to Madea, Aunt Bam, and Hattie to save her
from the same monsterous fate that befell the group of teens from the original Madea
Halloween
.  





Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, and Laurence Fishburne star as
three friends and former soldiers who reunite to burry one of their sons who
just died in battle himself. Instead of the standard Arlington National
Cemetery funeral, the three men take the casket on a bittersweet road trip of
sorts out to the coast to New Hampshire, reminiscing and coming to terms with
their shared memories of the vietnam war along the way.

We Said: ““We were all
something once. Now we’re something else,” says [the character] Sal at one
point during the film. Last Flag Flying embodies these
simple words as it examines the lives irrevocably changed by war.” Rating: 3 out of 5



Inspired by the true story of the creation of Wonder Woman,
this new film focuses on the eponymous Professor and the two women who isnpired
his greateest work, his wife Elizabeth, and their mutual lover Olive, who
together perfect the lie detector test, and bring one of the greatest comic
book characters of all time to life.

We Said: “It feels like Professor
Marston and the Wonder Women
is trying to do too much without quite
enough; it is, by the filmmaker’s own admission, creating a narrative for which
little historical data exists. And although the movie does a good job
contextualizing Wonder Woman’s iconography and presenting a different kind of love
story onscreen, it also cuts too many corners in its formulation to feel like
the origin story this story truly deserves. 
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

‘Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan’ Super Bowl Spot: John Krasinski Fights For America’s Freedom

This weekend the biggest televised event of the year takes place when the New England Patriots face the Philadelphia Eagle in the Super Bowl. But for some of us whose team never had a chance at the big game (Next year, Chicago. Next year…), the night is all about the trailers and TV spots, as studios will spend big bucks to get their latest projects in front of the most eyes possible. With so little room in the busy nigh to stand out, Amazon has taken the step to just release their Super Bowl spot for Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan now. Why wait?

John Krasinski plays the author’s titular field agent, who used to have his own movie franchise until Chris Pine messed it up with Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Now he’s relegated to Amazon Prime but the gunfire, explosions, and scenes of Middle Eastern terror have followed. Wendell Peirce and Abbie Cornish co-star. Here’s the synopsis or the eight-episode series:

When CIA analyst Jack Ryan stumbles upon a suspicious series of bank transfers his search for answers pulls him from the safety of his desk job and catapults him into a deadly game of cat and mouse throughout Europe and the Middle East, with a rising terrorist figurehead preparing for a massive attack against the US and her allies.

You can hear the words of great historical figures like Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, and *grumble* Ronald Reagan, setting an atmosphere of patriotism and defiance in the face of our enemies. It’s a good way to go, and suddenly my interest in this show is piqued when I couldn’t care less before.

Tom Clancy’s Jack  Ryan hits Amazon on August 31st, with the pilot episode directed by Morten Tyldum.

Denzel Washington Eyes Directing ‘A Journal For Jordan’ From ‘Mudbound’ Co-Writer Virgil Williams

Denzel Washington may have found his next film to direct after the Best Picture-nominated success of Fences, and it would see him teaming up with the Oscar nominated writer of Mudbound. Deadline reports Virgil Williams, who co-wrote Mudbound with Dee Rees, will adapt bestselling memoir A Journal for Jordan with Denzel possibly directing.

This would be another strong move for Denzel, who is coming off a Best Actor nomination for his performance in Roman J Israel, Esq. The memoir tells the tragic but inspiring story Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dana Canedy and her romance with First Sgt. Charles Monroe King, who began a journal of life lessons for their newborn son. After he was deployed to Iraq and killed by a roadside bomb in 2006, those lessons were passed down to the boy who was only 7 months old at the time.

Certainly sounds like the stuff Oscars are made of, but I’m interested in seeing if Denzel will also take an acting role in this.

Emily Blunt Goes On A ‘Jungle Cruise’ With Dwayne Johnson

Disney’s Jungle Cruise may have sounded awful on paper, like so many of their theme park-based movies do, but it may end up being pretty good. Already set to star Dwayne Johnson with Jaume Collet-Serra (Non-Stop) directing from a script rewritten by Oscar-nominee Michael Green (Logan), the latest passenger on the ship is Emily Blunt.

Blunt is back working with Disney for the third time after Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns. The ride takes passengers on a tour through some of the great rivers of the world, and having been on it myself it’s one of those Disney attractions that is a pleasant way to pass a little bit of time. Which I guess is how most of Disney’s rides are. I expect the movie will have a lot more adventure going for it, seeing as how inspiration is being drawn from John Huston’s 1951 film The African Queen, which starred Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn.

Shooting begins in May so this will probably be next up for Blunt.  She’ll be seen later this year opposite her husband John Krasinski in the horror, A Quiet Place. [Variety]

‘Mute’ Trailer: Duncan Jones Brings His Long-Awaited Sci-Fi Film To Netflix

While Netflix has a ton of original movies that have helped pad their inventory, recently they’ve gotten into the blockbuster game, finding success with the critically-acclaimed (Overrated in my opinion) Okja and subscriber favorite Bright. Now they’re at it again with Mute, the long-awaited pet sci-fi project from Source Code and Warcraft director, Duncan Jones.

Following the teaser released just a couple of days ago, the full trailer is here and it’s gorgeous, resembling in style and tone to Blade Runner, which is exactly what Jones was gunning for.  Set in Berlin 2052, and in the same universe as his debut film Moon, the story follows Leo, a mute bartender played by Alexander Skarsgard, who is in search of his missing girlfriend played by Seyneb Saleh.  Paul Rudd plays a surgeon named Cactus Jack (paging Mick Foley) while Justin Theroux goes by Duck Teddington.

Here’s the synopsis: Berlin, the future, but close enough to feel familiar: In this loud, often brutal city, Leo (Alexander Skarsgård) – unable to speak from a childhood accident – searches for his missing girlfriend, the love of his life, his salvation, through dark streets, frenzied plazas, and the full spectrum of the cities shadow-dwellers. As he seeks answers, Leo finds himself mixed up with Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd) and Duck (Justin Theroux), a pair of irreverent US army surgeons on a mission all their own. This soulful sci-fi journey from filmmaker Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code, Warcraft) imagines a world of strange currencies in which echoes of love and humanity are still worth listening to.


Honestly, I think Jones is so much more comfortable with sci-fi than anything else. I hope he stays making movies like this, rather than doing another Warcraft movie.  Mute hits Netflix on February 23rd.

Disturbing Trailer For ‘Hereditary’, This Year’s Breakout Sundance Horror

When The Witch hit Sundance a few years ago it not only took the chilly audience by storm, it set the stage for what many thought was the scariest movie of the year. Since then, I’d say Park City has been the place to be for splashy new genre flicks of that nature, and this year the talk of the town was Hereditary, which the fine folks at A24 quickly snapped up seeing $$$ in its future release.

And they aren’t wasting time building up hype as the first trailer has already arrived. Written and directed by Ari Aster, the film stars Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, and Gabriel Byrne in the story of a family haunted by something terrible in their past.

From what I’ve heard and what I see from this footage, this is easily the most grim and violent of some of the other Sundance horrors out there. I’m seriously regretting not catching up with it while I was there. Here’s the synopsis:

When Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, passes away, her daughter’s family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry. The more they discover, the more they find themselves trying to outrun the sinister fate they seem to have inherited. Making his feature debut, writer-director Ari Aster unleashes a nightmare vision of a domestic breakdown that exhibits the craft and precision of a nascent auteur, transforming a familial tragedy into something ominous and deeply disquieting, and pushing the horror movie into chilling new terrain with its shattering portrait of heritage gone to hell.


Hereditary opens June 8th.

‘Ant-Man And The Wasp’ Trailer Promises Twice The Pint-Sized Action

If you need to see the biggest difference between how Marvel and DC do things on the big screen, look no further than Ant-Man. That was about as rough of a production as it gets for Marvel, but the whole Edgar Wright fiasco didn’t hamper things one bit. Peyton Reed, not exactly a fan favorite filmmaker, stepped in and took over, producing a fun, enjoyable movie that fit in with what Marvel was doing. And now he’ll attempt to do the same with Ant-Man and the Wasp, which had one of the quietest productions for a superhero movie ever.

The first teaser arrived this morning and it gives us exactly what we hoped for, more of Paul Rudd as Scott Lang and a lot more of his new partner in crime, Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne aka the Wasp. The adventure, which brings back Michael Douglas as Hank Pym and introduces Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne and Laurence Fishburne as Bill “Black Goliath” Foster, finds the duo venturing into the Quantum zone, just as Ant-Man did in th first movie. We only get a tiny glimpse of it here, though, in-between a lot of jokes at Lang’s expense. We also hear Lang and Hope bickering over Civil War, and catch a glimpse of Hannah John-Kamen as the villainous Ghost.

Also starring Michael Pena, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Abby Ryder Fortson, Tip “T.I.” Harris, David Dastmalchian, Hannah John-Kamen, Walton Goggins, and Randall Park, Ant-Man and the Wasp opens July 6th.

‘Deep Blue Sea 2 Trailer: If The Sharks Don’t Get You, The Bad Acting Will

It’s taken nearly 20 years but now with the arrival of Deep Blue Sea 2, LL Cool J’s awful line “My hat is a like a shark’s fin” means something again. Last summer we learned that a sequel to Renny Harlin’s campy shark flick was already shooting, and now we have the trailer. Jaws, your title as the king of all shark movies is safe for now, I think.

It only makes sense that Syfy would be all over this. Without Deep Blue Sea there would be no Sharknado, after all. The original movie had a fairly starry cast led by Samuel L. Jackson, and most of them ended up as food stuck between a Mako shark’s teeth. The sequel has considerably less going for it, with Michael Beach and somebody named Danielle Savre starring in a movie that appears to have remote-controlled sharks in it. Do they have freakin’ laser beams attached to their heads?

I love the passion with which Beach says “They’re problem solving, learning to learn…AND THEY LIKE IT!!!”  Dude, settle down. It ain’t that serious. Synopsis for ya:

In Deep Blue Sea 2, shark conservationist Dr. Misty Calhoun (Danielle Savre) is invited to consult on a new, top secret project run by pharmaceutical billionaire Carl Durant (Michael Beach). When science meddles with the time-tested process of nature and nurture, the outcome can be deadly.

On the one hand it’s shocking that a Deep Blue Sea sequel hasn’t been tossed into the VOD/DVD market like chum long before now. On the other, I would have been perfectly fine if this weren’t happening except Beach’s death scene, and you know there will be one, is bound to be spectacular.

Dive into Deep Blue Sea 2 in July.

Fox’s ‘Gambit’ Film May Have Been Pulled From The Schedule

Let’s face it, Fox’s Gambit movie has been a complete joke. Channing Tatum has been attached to star as the Ragin’ Cajun for years now, while directors have been easy to find, harder to keep around. Remember, the film was supposed to be in theaters back in fall 2016, and here we are in 2018 with nothin’. The most recent setback came when Gore Verbinski pulled out from directing the film, following the previously-departed Rupert Wyatt and Doug Liman. Why keep going with this?

Well, maybe Fox has had enough finally. A report from Omega Underground (judge accordingly) says Gambit has been pulled from the production schedule. Plans had been for a New Orleans launch in March, but that’s clearly not going to happen. A new director needs to be found, he’ll likely want to take a look at whatever script has been put together, and then there needs to be a lot of additional casting. The only other name we’ve heard is Lizzy Caplan in the female lead of Bella Donna Boudreaux.

It’s possible Gambit could still make a summer shoot in Montreal, and that should be early enough to hit the June 7th 2019 release date Fox has it pegged for. We’ll see if that sticks. At this point I’m just waiting for Tatum to throw in the towel.

‘Dundee’ Trailer Reveals Hugh Jackman, Margot Robbie, And Russell Crowe In The All-Star Aussie Cast

If you’re an Aussie and not in the upcoming Super Bowl spot for Dundee: The Son of a Legend Returns Home, then you should fire your agent. While it may not be a movie as previously thought, the ad has loaded up so much talent that I kinda wish it was. On top of Danny McBride as the son of Paul Hogan’s Crocodile Dundee we already knew Chris Hemsworth would be joining him, but that is just the start.

A new trailer introduces the full cast which includes Hugh Jackman, Ruby Rose, Liam Hemsworth, Isla Fisher, Russell Crowe, Margot Robbie, Luke Bracey, and Jessica Mauboy. Damn.  McBride plays the previously unknown son of Crocodile Dundee, and may be the only one who can find his missing father in the Australian Outback.  Still no sign of Paul Hogan but we can bet he’ll turn up sooner or later because he’s all over Robbie’s Instagram.

Watch the Dundee Super Bowl spot during the big game, of course.