Remember when you couldn’t go a day without there being some new YA franchise being launched? Twilight started it, The Hunger Games pretty much ended it, and others that have tried to start since, like Divergent, Beautiful Creatures, The Host, and others, have pretty much died on the vine. All except for The Maze Runner, which featured something those movies didn’t have; a mostly-male cast, and a mystery unlike any other. Now after a delay so star Dylan O’Brien could recover from an injury, the trilogy wraps up with Maze Runner: The Death Cure, and a new trailer has arrived.
O’Brien is joined by Rosa Salazar (Also in the new Alita: Battle Angel trailer), Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ki Hong Lee, Patricia Clarkson, Aidan Gillen, Giancarlo Esposito, Barry Pepper, Walton Goggins, and more. Frankly, the synopsis can do a better job of explaining this thing than I ever could, but it’s really not about mazes anymore, is it?
In the epic finale to the Maze Runner saga, Thomas leads his group of escaped Gladers on their final and most dangerous mission yet. To save their friends, they must break into the legendary Last City, a WCKD-controlled labyrinth that may turn out to be the deadliest maze of all. Anyone who makes it out alive will get answers to the questions the Gladers have been asking since they first arrived in the maze.
Directed by Wes Ball, Maze Runner: The Death Cure opens February 9th 2018.
I find it difficult to believe, even now as the first trailer has arrived, that Alita: Battle Angel is actually happening. In the works for years and initially one of the projects James Cameron was going to do before deciding his future was all about Avatar, it now finds him in a producer/co-writer capacity and Robert Rodriguez of all people in the director’s chair. It’s the biggest project of Rodriguez’s career, even bigger than his Sin City movies, and it doesn’t look like anything he’s done previously.
Based on the cherished manga by Yukito Kishiro, the story centers on a broken down cyborg named Alita (played by Rosa Salazar, who is suddenly everywhere) who is discovered by and taken in by scientist Ido (Christoph Waltz) and raised as his daughter. The whole thing takes place in a dystopian future where Alita’s incredible fighting abilities prove useful.
The trailer looks great, although Alita’s giant manga eyes are super creepy, like one of those paintings from Waltz’s Big Eyes movie. I’m not sure how it’ll play with audiences who may feel burned by American adaptations of Japanese manga after the disappointing Ghost in the Shell.
Also starring Mahershala Ali, Keean Johnson, Eiza Gonzalez, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Skrein, Michelle Rodriguez, Lana Condor, and Jackie Earle Haley, Alita: Battle Angel opens July 20th 2018.
Sad news, Guillermo Del Toro, whose The Shape of Water is in theaters now and you should see it, has dropped out of his planned adaptation of Alvin Schwartz’s teen horror novels, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. The good news is that his replacement is pretty great.
Deadline reports Del Toro has been replaced on the CBS Films project by Trollhunter and The Autopsy of Jane Doe director, Andre Ovredal. The Norwegian filmmaker has knocked it out of the park with both of his movies, and knows how to make scary things…well, scary, but also fun. This could be great.
Del Toro has a problem in that he tends to attach himself to so many projects he can’t possibly do them all. He and Ridley Scott are the same in that way. But if it opens up a chance for Ovredal to get a major studio project to work with, that’s cool. He’ll be working from a script by John August (Big Fish) that “follows a group of young teens who must solve the mystery surrounding sudden and macabre deaths in their small town.” Not sure how that squares with the short story aspect of Schwarz’s novels, but I’m sure it’ll work out.
Merry Christmas! And just in time for the holidays, Disney is releasing the first look at next year’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, and it kinda looks like Cinderella meets Mirror Mirror. I guess that’s what they’re going for.
You may recall The Nutcracker played a part in Disney’s animated classic Fantasia, so this counts as yet another of their live-action remakes and will probably gross $1B. But at least it means you won’t have to sit through another performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet, either in person or on TV. The images reveal star Mackenzie Foy as Clara, who is whisked away to a magical new world where she encounters, among others, Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy. Clara must retrieve a magical key that unlocks a special gift from her godfather Drossmeyer, played by Morgan Freeman. She must venture into Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers, Land of Sweets and the dangerous Fourth Realm ruled by Mother Ginger, played by Helen Mirren. World class dancer Misty Copeland is lead ballerina for all of the dance sequences.
Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms opens November 2nd 2018. [EW]
Not every film needs to have explosions or high speed chases
to be entertaining. Telling a good story is more than enough to sustain a film
without any of the extracurricular nonsense that tends to be thrown in
haphazardly. Sometimes it feels like that can be hard to find these days, not impossible,
but harder than it should be. The Pirates of
Somalia certainly delivers an interesting story and Bryan Buckley, who
wrote and directed the film, manages to find numerous ways to keep the audience
engaged.
The Pirates of Somalia
is based on Jay Bahadur’s biography “The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden
World.” The film tells the story of Jay Bahadur (Evan Peters) – who is a young,
aspiring journalist from Toronto, trying to find his big break. Jay is living
in his parent’s basement going from grocery store to grocery store conducting
market research about napkins. He knows that he is meant for greater things,
all he needs is an opportunity. As fate would have it, he crosses paths with
Seymour Tolbin (Al Pacino), a retired journalist who Jay has looked up to for
years.
Seymour is the one that convinces Jay that he needs get in
the thick of the action and that journalism is innate and cannot be taught in
school. Jay takes this advice to heart and settles on going to Somalia to tell
the story of their Democracy as well as Pirates that still have power there.
Jay makes some phone calls and is eventually put in contact with the President
of Somalia’s son. Before he knows it, this young writer with no experience to
fall back on has placed himself in the middle of a country that has been
virtually untapped by journalists before him. During his time in Somalia, Jay manages to build relationships with some locals, including his translator Abdi (Barkhad Abdi) and one of the Pirates wives Maryan (Sabrina Hassan). Jay must find a way to juggle the dangers of dealing with Somalian Pirates and dwindling funds all while trying to write a book that will lead to a publishing company giving him a chance.
Throughout The Pirates of
Somalia I found myself impressed with various stylistic elements that
Buckley incorporates. He uses hallucinations, stories, and dreams sequences to
be able to add scenes to the film including brief animations. These moments proved
to be very effective, both in continuing the narrative and helping ThePirates of Somalia stand out. As the
film progresses, Buckley does a masterful job of integrating music and camera
angles to help build tension within scenes. The entire situation that Jay has
placed himself in is a very dangerous one and Buckley makes sure that the
audience is made constantly aware of this.ThePirates
of Somalia is not an Earth shattering film that will be talked about for generations
to come, but it is a solid movie that successfully manages to convey a story
while mixing in original elements.
It’s hard to believe that an adaptation of Joy Nicholson’s once red-hot bestseller The Tribes of Palos Verdes is arriving with such little fanfare. I remember studios and filmmakers frothing at the mouth to bring her coastal coming-of-age story to the big screen, but that was years ago. It arrives now with music video directors-turned-filmmakers Emmett and Brendan Malloy, whose surfing expertise gives them a valuable insight into those who crash the waves as a way of life. It’s a competent effort that captures the mood and atmosphere of a gilded paradise that may as well be on another planet.
The brilliant Maika Monroe takes center stage as Medina, a troubled young girl who moves with her family from the Midwest to the west coast, settling in the beachside suburban glow of Palos Verdes. Imagine the setting of HBO’s Big Little Lies and you’ll get the picture; rich, competitive families in mansions overlooking the surfers on the beaches below. They’ve come for a fresh start; so their father (Justin Kirk) can be cardiologist to the seaside town’s rich and affluent. But trouble has only followed them. Medina’s mother Sandy (Jennifer Garner) was unstable before, and settling in a new and unfamiliar town has only made it worse. When her husband soon leaves them for a new woman (Alicia Silverstone), it sends Sandy spiraling into one of her “black hole moods” that she may never recover from.
But Medina has support in the form of her twin brother, Jim (Cody Fern), who has endured the rigors of their household right along with her. Medina feels bonded with Jim, and the two of them find an escape the way most kids their age do in Palos Verdes, by surfing. While Jim becomes friends with the local bullies (including one played by Mel Gibson’s son) who ward off outsiders, Medina takes to the waves like a champ. This is truly her story, and we see her take the delicate first steps into womanhood in a place where privilege has overtaken passion. Meanwhile, her brother has taken to hard drugs to cope with the pressures put upon him by Sandy, who has become unhinged from reality in a scary way.
Everyone hurtles through life adrift in this story, and the Malloys capture that feeling of west coast lethargy in their softly-lit, hazy camerawork. They employ a few visual tricks to convey Medina’s growing disconnect, and her desperation to find some small corner of happiness for herself and Jim. If atmosphere alone were enough then The Tribes of Palos Verdes would be among the year’s most effective coming of age films, but too much of it comes across as shallow and ultimately meaningless. Medina’s flirtation with an older surfer happens randomly and goes nowhere; and that type of surface level experience is all that we are ever treated to. Even when tragedy strikes and devastates the family it almost feels like an afterthought, with Medina’s narration frequently used to explain their emotions rather than the actors showing them. We never come to fully understand the so-called connection between Medina and Jim, other than they are twins which just seems inadequate. Many of the relationships in this movie go unexplored, which may be an intentional way of showing the family’s lack of unity, but then you can’t expect us to care about them falling apart.
While most of the cast are forgettable, Monroe and Garner deliver contrasting performances of equal ferocity. Monroe, who has shined in everything from At Any Price to horror It Follows, relays Medina’s quiet anguish, but also the freedom she feels when she hits the waves. Monroe excels at playing tough young women, but she allows room for us to see Medina’s barriers crumbling down when she surfs or when she connects with someone new. Garner, who doubles as a producer on the film, goes volcanic in ways we’ve never seen from her before. I like seeing her do something other than play the perfectly pretty and loyal housewife as she’s done in far too many films already. She should challenge herself more like this, hopefully in a film that is a little more challenging than The Tribes of Palos Verdes has any ambition to be.
We in the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association have put our heads together and come up with our picks for the 2017 WAFCA Awards. In a surprise move, surprising even to me and I’m a voter, we decided Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, Get Out, was the Best Film of the year. The brilliantly biting social satire also came away with Best Original Screenplay.
Leading the way with three wins overall was Martin McDonagh’s pitch black dramedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which earned Frances McDormand an award for Best Actress, Sam Rockwell for Best Supporting Actor, and Best Ensemble. Christopher Nolan was named Best Director for his thrilling WWII film Dunkirk, while Gary Oldman won Best Actor for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, which works as a perfect companion piece to Nolan’s film. And young Brooklynn Prince defeated a talented group to win Best Youth Performance for her funny and heartbreaking turn in Sean Baker’s The Florida Project.
The full list of winners is below:
Best Film: Get Out
Best Director: Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk)
Best Actor: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
Best Actress: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Best Supporting Actress: Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird)
Best Acting Ensemble: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Best Youth Performance: Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project)
Best Voice Performance: Anthony Gonzalez (Coco)
Best Motion Capture Performance: Andy Serkis (War for the Planet of the Apes)
Best Original Screenplay: Jordan Peele (Get Out)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Virgil Williams and Dee Rees (Mudbound)
Best Animated Feature: Coco
Best Documentary: Jane
Best Foreign Language Film: BPM (Beats Per Minute)
Best Production Design: Production Designer: Dennis Gassner; Set Decorator: Alessandra Querzola (Blade Runner 2049)
Best Cinematography: Roger A. Deakins, ASC, BSC (Blade Runner 2049)
Best Editing: Paul Machliss, ACE; Jonathan Amos, ACE (Baby Driver)
Best Original Score: Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch (Blade Runner 2049)
The Joe Barber Award for Best Portrayal of Washington, DC: The Post
One of the reasons I love Marvel so much is the outreach they do to try and expand the comic book readership. They’ve reached out to women and readers in other countries by introducing new female characters and heroes from different cultures. I hasn’t always worked, but in the times that it has, like with Ms. Marvel, the diversity is a benefit to the entire industry. And I see them taking that same approach with their upcoming animated initiative, Marvel Rising, which will lead to a feature film titled Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors.
Launching in 2018, it will begin as a series of animated short films featuring lesser known Marvel characters. That will lead to an eventual feature film titled Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors. The shorts will all be centered on Gwen Stacy aka Spider-Gwen, going by the new name of Ghost Spider. She’ll be joined by other characters like the popular Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel, Squirrel Girl, Quake, and more. And in many cases they’ll be voiced by their live-action counterparts. For instance, Quake will be voiced by Agents of SHIELD‘s Chloe Bennett. Squirrel Girl gets New Warriors star Milana Vayntrub.
And no, it isn’t part of the MCU, even though you have Bennett voicing Quake this is a much younger version of the SHIELD agent and powerful Inhuman.
Check out this introductory teaser followed by a breakdown of the heroes you can expect to see:
•Gwen Stacy aka Ghost-Spider (formerly Spider Gwen) voiced by Dove Cameron – a free spirited teen who found her calling to be a super hero after being bitten by a radioactive spider and gaining spider-like powers. As Ghost-Spider, she aids those in need, but has to keep her alter-ego a secret from her father, Captain George Stacy, who sees Ghost-Spider as more of a menace than a hero.
•Daisy Johnson aka Quake voiced by Chloe Bennet – a leading agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. whose tendency for rule-breaking gets her into trouble now and then. Daisy befriends the young group of heroes and through them discovers how to become a better leader. She can generate powerful vibrational waves, which produce effects similar to earthquakes.
•Dante Pertuz aka Inferno voiced by Tyler Posey – a brooding, dark loner on the run. Dante has the power of pyrokinesis, which makes him capable of generating flames – however, he is not fully in control of his fiery abilities. It’s a thin line between good guy and villain for the unpredictable Inferno.
•Victor Kohl aka Exile voiced by BooBoo Stewart – a charming, handsome, and troublesome young Inhuman whose quest for superiority places him into the wrong crowd. He can use Darkforce energy to create weapons and portals that allow him to teleport.
marvel-rising-secret-warriors-poster
Image via Marvel
•Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel voiced by Kathreen Khavari – a devoted fan of Super Heroes, especially of her mentor Captain Marvel; she is determined that she too can be a great hero! If only she’d be taken seriously. Kamala is equipped with metamorphic powers that allow her to stretch, enlarge, or shrink her overall size, parts of her body, or alter her physical appearance. She is especially fond of “embiggening” her fists.
•Doreen Green aka Squirrel Girl voiced by Milana Vayntrub – the uber-positive, hilarious best friend and teammate of Ms. Marvel. With advanced computer skills, enhanced strength, agility, durability, and senses of a squirrel, Doreen (along with her squirrel partner, Tippy Toe!), is primed and ready to become a successful hero.
•America Chavez voiced by Cierra Ramirez – a strong, independent young hero whose painful past drives her to reject leadership and remain a loner. America’s powers include superhuman strength, speed, and durability, plus the ability to fly.
•Rayshaun Lucas aka Patriot voiced by Kamil McFadden – a natural born leader who is quick to leap into action to impress his colleagues at S.H.I.E.L.D. Rayshaun strives to live up to Captain America’s legacy with integrity, honesty, and order above all. His skills include heightened strength, speed, stamina, and durability.
•Gloria “Glory” Grant voiced by Skai JacksFron – Gloria, or ‘Glory,’ is Gwen Stacy’s friend and member of their garage band “The Emm-Jays.” Gloria is a smart, hard-working girl that genuinely cares for Gwen, but has felt a distance growing between them ever since their friend, Kevin, was murdered. When being casual, Gloria’s known to be funny, sarcastic and sassy.
•Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel voiced by Kim Raver – a bold leader who doesn’t sugar-coat and is guided by a strong sense of duty and honor. She’s the ultimate inspiration for our band of misfit heroes. She is equipped with superhuman strength, can fly at high speeds, and can project intense energy blasts.
•Hala voiced by Ming-Na Wen – Hala is a Kree Accuser bent on galactic domination. She’ll go to any length or treacherous means to achieve what she, and the entire Kree race, wants: Power. Hala is cold, cryptic and nefarious, often challenging those who try to oppose her.
•Captain George Stacy voiced by Steven Weber – Chief of the NYPD and Gwen Stacy’s loving, but fiercely protective father. Captain Stacy is a very disciplined, hard-working man that will stop at nothing to obtain justice – who unfortunately sees Ghost-Spider as a menace and a threat to society.
•Lockjaw and Tippy Toe are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker. Two lovable and heroic sidekicks: Lockjaw is Kamala’s trusty, teleporting mutt and Tippy Toe is Doreen’s partner in crime and best squirrel friend.
While we’ve already seen how dangerous powerful young Jack-Jack might be in Pixar’s long-awaited sequel to The Incredibles, it’s good to know his family is around to make sure he doesn’t do too much damage. EW has revealed a new look at The Incredibles 2, featuring the super-heroic Parr family preparing for action. Most of them, anyway. Jack-Jack looks pretty happy about the whole thing.
Craig T. Nelson is back as powerhouse Bob aka Mr. Incredible, Holly Hunter is voicing stretchy matriarch Helen aka Elastigirl, Huck Milner is speedy son Dash, and Sarah Vowel as Violet. Samuel L. Jackson returns as their icy friend Frozone, with Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener voicing undisclosed characters.
We still don’t know much about the plot except it picks up where the last movie left off, and may turn much of its attention to Helen while Bob is on parental duty. I think you can see a little bit of that in this photo, with Helen stepping up to take the lead. Perhaps the villain is someone she shares a personal history with?
It was inevitable that Justice League‘s disastrous box office would lead to some heads rolling over at Warner Bros. and DC Films. I mean, how could it possibly earn less than the other DCEU movies? It takes a screwup of epic proportions to pull that off, but so far that’s what they’ve done. And all of this comes just as a new initiative to lighten things up and make the movies fun, a good idea in theory, has fallen flat. The damage may have been too far gone.
So the axe has come down and it has hit the head of DC Films, Jon Berg, who is moving into a producer capacity. They say this plan has been in the works for months, but I guess it was just a coincidence it happens right after the company’s biggest failure. Slightly less certain is the future for Chief Creative Officer, comic book pro and all-around swell guy Geoff Johns. While he is staying at his current position, Variety suggests his role could “evolve” into something lesser, like an advisory position.
Neither Berg or Johns is expected to get full producer credits on future films, either. They’ve been hit hard for sticking with Zack Snyder, who will remain in a producer capacity for a while, even though his films have been disappointments overall. An early cut of Justice League alarmed studio execs for being too bleak, prompting a lighter tone from Joss Whedon that never quite meshed into a cohesive movie.
All is not lost, though. The studio, while disappointed in the numbers, is happy that Justice League effectively introduced both Jason Momoa’s Aquaman and Ezra Miller’s Flash into the DCEU. That should set them up for future movies down the line that they hope will be as successful as Wonder Woman. We just had the first look at Momoa in the film which will be directed by James Wan and opens next year. The Flash’s movie, titled Flashpoint, has had a difficult time getting up to speed and currently has no director attached.
Speaking of Flashpoint, it’s expected that Ben Affleck will appear as Batman, but he’s not likely to have anything to do with Matt Reeves’ standalone The Batman. Reeves wants somebody new in the cape and cowl, with recent rumors suggesting Jake Gyllenhaal as the frontrunner.
The point of all this is that DC Films is a mess and desperately needs a singular hand guiding the ship. I noted how ridiculous it was having Margot Robbie, in the middle of a random TV interview, announcing a brand new Harley Quinn movie, which is like the third or fourth movie featuring the popular Suicide Squad character. None of them have gone anywhere yet, but she’s already announcing another. That’s just nuts, and you don’t see this kind of sloppiness over at Marvel where Kevin Feige is the only voice you hear on these matters. I’m not saying Warner Bros. should ape the Marvel way, but this is one are where they should.
