The landscape of the DCEU is shaky, to say the least. Justice League currently sits at $296M worldwide, which may sound good but is a far cry from expectations. And with that disappointing number, we expect there will be some changes to the future of the franchise. Rumors began making the rounds that one of those changes would be Joss Whedon’s departure from his upcoming Batgirl movie, but that’s not actually case.
Far from it, according to EW, who confirm that Whedon is still on board for Batgirl and is currently working on the script. The film will be based on the Barbara Gordon character introduced in 1967 as the daughter of Commissioner James Gordon. Presumably that would mean a role for J.K. Simmons? Who knows? It’s way too early to know anything sold about the story, like if perhaps The Joker, who famously crippled Batgirl in “The Killing Joke” storyline, will also appear.
There’s always the possibility things could change. Counting on anything to go as previously planned might be foolish at this point.
Jude Law has become quite franchise happy all of the sudden. A current social media obsession is his upcoming portrayal of a young Albus Dumbledore in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, sparked by his suave look in the recent cast photo. Harry Potter fans are some of the most fanatical, but Marvel may have them beat, and now Law can say he’s part of the Potterverse and the MCU.
Law has joined the cast of Captain Marvel in the role of Mar-Vell, the original hero to bear the Captain Marvel name. It’s a huge role because Mar-Vell is one of the most important characters in the history of the Marvel Universe, and a member of the alien Kree who are meant to be the movie’s chief villains. His death in the 1982 “Death of Captain Marvel” comic is still considered a landmark moment that shook the industry. In the film Mar-Vell will be serving as a mentor of sorts to Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers, while Ben Mendelsohn is in talks to play the chief bad guy. Samuel L. Jackson is also on board as a pre-eyepatched Nick Fury.
Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Captain Marvel opens March 8th 2019. [Variety]
*NOTE: This is a reprint of Mae’s review from the Sundance Film Festival.*
If there’s one thing that director Luca Guadagnino is exceptionally good at, it’s making the location of his films just as much a part of the story as his characters. Call Me by Your Name is no exception. Based on the novel by Andre Aciman, Guadagnino’s film is sensual, visually ethereal, all-encompassing and vivid. The story is one of love, but even more than that it’s a moment in time during a young man’s life that will shape the rest of his life and teaches him to be open and revel in his feelings, not hide from them. Guadagnino’s storytelling is fluid and the narrative simple and filled with humanistic moments that transcend the script and pull you in. Call Me by Your Name is a stronger film than the director’s last film, A Bigger Splash, and employs touches of pure emotion that will tug at your heart.
In the summer of 1983, Oliver (Armie Hammer), an archaeology student from America comes to study with Professor Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg). While staying in Perlman and his wife’s, Annella (Amira Casar) Northern Italy home, Oliver meets the couple’s teenage son, Elio (Timothee Chalamet). A deep and unexpected romance blossoms between the pair. They spend the summer together, first as strangers, then as friends, before becoming lovers. Their relationship is generally honest, if a little awkward and stumbling on Elio’s part at first. Guadagnino focuses on the very natural human interaction as Oliver and Elio spend their summer in the sun, engaging in conversation, activity, and the authentic ebb and flow of life.
There’s an organic feel to Call Me by Your Name. It has a runtime of around two hours, but it carries its pace well and moves along in a way that makes it seem as though you’re on this summer trip with the characters. The film’s cinematography is beautiful and striking. Like the book, the narrative makes important the presence of the peaches and apricots. Whether it’s the fruit, the trees, the house, and surrounding land of the family’s residence, the setting is like another character in the story, shaping and quietly being a part of the characters’ journey.
Timothee Chalamet as Elio gives a truly standout performance. The film has good dialogue, but there isn’t as much of it as in other films. This allows the actors to better express themselves through facial expressions and other forms of body language. Chalamet allows Elio to be a fully formed character and, although he isn’t always too keen on expressing himself verbally, Chalamet allows the audience to interpret his thoughts through other means. He takes on an emotionally mature performance and it’s able to allow us to feel for him and understand him at every turn.
Armie Hammer as Oliver condescends to Elio at first and Elio takes it personally because he thinks Oliver doesn’t like him. Hammer has a less complicated character, but he seems to intrinsically understand Chalamet’s character before Elio himself realizes his own feelings. The two actors have wonderful chemistry and their relationship generally well-developed.
Call Me by Your Name is a simple, but wonderfully told story of two people who find a special connection and love with each other. Set in beautiful Northern Italy, the film is like watching a moment in time. One that is significant and allows Chalamet’s character to flourish, learn about himself, and feel more than he ever has before. The film looks exquisite and its storyline moving, its characters treated with a sense of maturity, and the relationship explored in a nuanced fashion. The film is sensual and does a great job in keeping itself grounded in the human experience. Moving and fluid, Call Me by Your Name is gorgeous to look at and natural in its romantic narrative.
Is it too early to call Barry Jenkins’ followup to Best Picture winner Moonlight an early Oscar contender? Jenkins has begun filming on an adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk, and he’s assembled an ensemble to match his prior effort. According to my homie Wilson Morales at Blackfilm.com, the latest to become part of that amazing cast is Diego Luna.
Luna joins Kiki Layne, Stephan James, Teyonah Parris, Regina King, Colman Domingo, Brian Tyree Henry, Dave Franco, Ed Skrein, Michael Beach, Aunjanue Ellis and Finn Wittrock in the film centered on two young lovers in Harlem. Tish (Layne) is newly engaged to Fonny (James), but their nuptials must be put on hold when he is arrested and she must prove his innocence. The race to free him becomes more urgent when she learns she is carrying their unborn child. Luna will play Fonny’s friend, Pedrocito, who works in a Spanish restaurant.
Luna was recently seen in the Flatliners remake and last year’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. I expect we’ll see ‘Beale Street’ during the next awards season run.
We’ve got a holiday treat for all of you, the gift of movies. Well, the gift of one movie in particular. We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to win a pair of Run of Engagement (ROE) passes for The Man Who Invented Christmas, starring Dan Stevens and Christopher Plummer.
SYNOPSIS: The Man Who Invented Christmas tells of the magical journey that led to the creation of Ebenezer Scrooge (Christopher Plummer), Tiny Tim and other classic characters from A Christmas Carol. Directed by Bharat Nalluri (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day), the film shows how Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) mixed real life inspirations with his vivid imagination to conjure up unforgettable characters and a timeless tale, forever changing the holiday season into the celebration we know today.
These passes are valid beginning Monday, November 27th at Landmark E Street or Landmark Bethesda. They can be used from Monday-Thursday through the film’s theatrical run.
The first 20 readers to email punchdrunktrav@gmail.com with their full name, mailing address, and favorite Christmas movie will win. Please put ‘Christmas ROE’ in the subject line. Winners will be notified tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, and the passes mailed over the weekend. Good luck!
The Man Who Invented Christmas is in theaters now.
We’re so used to Andy Serkis being hidden behind motion-capture performances that when he plays an actual human it can be jarring. Of course it does happen, like in his role as Ulysses Klaue in Black Panther and Captain America: Civil War. Well now he’s landed another “normal” role, and it will be in Flarsky, the new comedy featuring Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron.
The oddly-titled film was on the Black List a few years ago, which may explain why it’s attracting so many big names to it. Along with Serkis, the film co-stars O’Shea Jackson Jr., June Diane Raphael, and Ravi Patel, with the story centering on Fred Flarsky (Rogen), a struggling political journalist who decides to drop everything and pursue the woman of his dreams, his childhood babysitter, who happens to be the Secretary of State and way out of his league. Serkis will play an international media mogul and Flarsky’s employer.
Serkis is coming off his well-received directorial debut, Breathe, and will be seen as Supreme Commander Snoke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Next time you’ll recognize his face will be in February’s Black Panther.
Flarsky opens February 9th 2019, directed by Jonathan Levine. [Variety]
Are we absolutely certain 12 Strong wasn’t directed by Michael Bay? Because the combination of flag-waving jingoism with yo bro action looks a lot like 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. And it also has an equally unwieldy subtitle, The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers. Everything’s so damn secret! That is except for the various obvious stories within, but I guess when you’ve got Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon galloping on horseback into the War on Terrorism, deep thinking isn’t what’s to be expected.
All that to say that 12 Strong looks like a perfectly reasonable war movie, with an amazing cast that should make its corniness worth it. Alongside Hemsworth and Shannon are Michael Peña, Trevante Rhodes, Geoff Stults, Thad Luckinbill, Austin Stowell, Ben O’Toole, Elsa Pataky, William Fichtner and Rob Riggle, starring in the true story Task Force Dagger. The elite Special Forces unit was among the first sent into Afghanistan to take on the Taliban after the events of 9/11. And we know the World Trade Center attacks are fresh on their mind because one scene shows them carrying pieces of the rubble into battle. Here’s the official synopsis:
“12 Strong” is set in the harrowing days following 9/11 when a U.S. Special Forces team, led by their new Captain, Mitch Nelson (Hemsworth), is chosen to be the first U.S. troops sent into Afghanistan for an extremely dangerous mission. There, in the rugged mountains, they must convince Northern Alliance General Dostum (Navid Negahban) to join forces with them to fight their common adversary: the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies. In addition to overcoming mutual distrust and a vast cultural divide, the Americans—accustomed to state-of-the-art warfare—must adopt the rudimentary tactics of the Afghan horse soldiers. But despite their uneasy bond, the new allies face overwhelming odds: outnumbered and outgunned by a ruthless enemy that does not take prisoners.
Directed by Danish helmer Nicolai Fuglsig and based on the book by Doug Stanton, 12 Strong rides into theaters on January 19th 2018.
Oh, how I want to love Roman J. Israel, Esq. On paper it has many of the same qualities that made Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler such a thrilling takedown of our predatory media culture. It has Denzel Washington giving yet another remarkably persuasive performance in his historic career, and Gilroy seems to be delivering a chin check to the imbalances in our legal system that favor the wealthy but herd the less-fortunate through the process like cattle. But whatever it is Gilroy is trying to say gets muddled in a story that is at once bizarre and strangely passive.
That Roman J. Israel, Esq. is a passive, restrained film is strange because there are so many potentially combustible elements. Denzel, in what may be the performance that sees him go furthest out on a limb, plays the title character, a former 1960s radical who has worked the last 30 years as the behind-the-scenes man in a small law firm. With his wild unkempt afro, dorky glasses, ancient suits, strange mannerisms, and encyclopedic legal knowledge, Roman is best suited to leaving the actual trying of cases to his partner, William Henry Jackson. True to their pasts as activists, the firm takes on clients that may get chewed up by the system, but they also aren’t the most financially stable. When William suddenly has a heart attack, Roman steps up represents their clients in court. But he’s still too much of a firebrand to play the game, and the actvist movement has passed him by, leaving Roman at a crossroads.
Colin Farrell steps into the picture as the unintentionally-mysterious George, who arrives to help close out the firm when it’s revealed that it has been losing money for years. A former student of William’s and now a high-powered attorney at a major firm, George sees the law as a volume business. Get the clients in using slick terminology and grandiose promises, and then keep it movin’. After struggling to find a job on his own, Roman reluctantly agrees to work at George’s firm, even though it goes against everything he stands for.
What Gilroy lays out is a classic morality tale with a central question: Will Roman be able to maintain his ideals working within a system he has always fought against? That’s an interesting story to tell but Gilroy veers off in a different direction that feels manufactured and less fully-developed. When an unexpected windfall comes his way, one that places him in a very dangerous position, Roman gets a taste of the high life for the first time. Moreover, he begins to have a change in attitude unrecognizable to the people who know him best…
“I’m tired of doing the impossible for the ungrateful”, he says to Maya (Carmen Ejogo), an attorney for a non-profit advocacy group and one of Roman’s admirers. This sudden shift in personality might have worked if Gilroy bothered to explore it all the way through, but he’s never committed to following through on much of anything. Even the small stuff skirts by without examination. In an early scene, Roman declares that he will “find out” why William left everything to George, who at that point was a complete stranger. That thread is never followed up on, nor do we ever truly understand why George puts up with Roman’s frequent acts of defiance. Other than the pictures hanging on his wall we don’t find out much about Roman’s activist past, which might have helped explain his mercurial behavior. He carries with him a massive leatherbound case, containing the framework for a legal brief that could change the entire system for generations. Gilroy introduces this potentially intriguing detail, and even has Roman pay lip service to it a time or two, but there’s nothing at all that develops from it.
While Gilroy is never fully committed, he’s fortunate that Denzel is always on top of his game. I’ve always said that no matter what the movie no matter the role Denzel is always the coolest the guy in every shot. That streak ends here, and it’s absolutely amazing to see him go so far outside himself to play such a special character. Roman’s awkwardness is often funny but Denzel is smart enough never to play it up as comedy, and it leads to some truly powerful moments that come when you least expect them. During one scene, Roman’s desperation and anguish during a failed job interview slowly begins to shatter his confident façade, with Denzel delivering some of the most heartbreaking work he’s ever done. Farrell and Ejogo are good, as well, but I felt like something was missing from their characters that should have been included. Perhaps they were part of the footage apparently trimmed from the cut scene in Toronto just a couple of months ago. George is particularly baffling; he’s always coming to the rescue or letting Roman off the hook, but his motivations are never made clear.
The film never comes together as it should, sad because Gilroy is better than this. But he seems to be pulling his punches everywhere, and the ones the does throw simply don’t connect. Despite Denzel giving it his best shot, Roman J. Israel, Esq. never passes the bar.
I think there’s been enough time spent looking back at Justice League‘s underwhelming box office, when the only thing that matters now is what comes next. Warner Bros. has a decision on their hands, and it’s whether to move forward with the whole DC Films experiment or blow everything up and start over. The latter decision seems very unlikely, but a surprising number actually think it could happen. Well, if that’s the case nobody told Shazam director David F. Sandberg or Aquaman‘s Jason Momoa.
A regular user on Reddit has claimed sources within Warner Bros. have told him their plan to shut down production on any and all comic book movies for a period of five years. That will, presumably, give them time to reevaluate their next move. I’d call it implausible but I wouldn’t put anything past any studio at this point, especially with money on the line.
One guy who doesn’t believe it is Sandberg, a frequent Reddit user himself, who replied with “Nobody told me. Can I take the day off tomorrow then? I really want to sleep in.”
Yeah, the DCEU isn’t going anywhere. Too much is already set in motion. Shazam has Sandberg, who has already assembled a cast led by Zachary Levi and young Asher Angel, with Dwayne Johnson starring in a film based on Shazam’s nemesis, Black Adam.
But next out of the gate is Aquaman, and Momoa, who played the hero in Justice League, isn’t listening to all of the negative buzz from critics. He tells EW…
“I try to stay the f— away from what people say. Some of my friends said, ‘Justice League isn’t doing well’ and it kind of bummed me out. But I didn’t want to look it up. I don’t want to look up the bad and the negativity. I don’t think that’s useful; it doesn’t help.
I’ve seen [Justice League] twice. I loved it the second time even more. I’m actually going to watch it again with my kids and my godchild. I’m going to see it with the perfect crowd of people — a regular crowd instead of at a premiere. So I’m excited. You can’t get into the whole ‘why this, why that.’ I went to [Wizard World Austin fan convention] this weekend and got great praise. Now obviously, that’s a positive place, and I’m not only interested in the positive. But if people love what we did with Aquaman, it’s all [director Zack Snyder] — it’s his brainchild. He came in with, ‘I’m going to make Aquaman a badass and I’m going to change stuff, and change the myths about this guy.’ And I busted my ass.”
He adds that a lot of Aquaman’s scenes were cut from the final version, which pretty much confirms that Zack Snyder had a much longer film in mind before Warner Bros. mandated it be only two hours…
“The challenging part is [the ‘Justice League’ story] is only about a weekend in Author Curry’s life,” “[Fans] might be like, ‘Why is he that grumpy? Why’s he hiding up there?’ We had it all planned out. A lot of things got cut. But it’s not my movie. It’s a huge movie introducing three new characters, and for myself and The Flash and Cyborg, there was a lot that was there we just couldn’t get in. It could have been two movies. We had some stuff with Willem Dafoe. The whole Atlantean part, about me being this reluctant king. There was no need for it because you’re going to see it in ‘Aquaman.’ It’s not an Aquaman movie, it’s a Justice League movie.”
And if there was so much that got cut, maybe there is a director’s cut out there somewhere? Fans are already petitioning to see his version of Justice League which, really, shouldn’t exist since it was never finished. But now cinematographer Fabian Wagner, who only worked on Snyder’s production but not Joss Whedon’s, says there is a lot that got left out and he would like to see it.
“This one was even shorter than I expected, so there are scenes that aren’t in there. I really hope we get to see a director’s cut, which will give us everything that we shot that didn’t make it in. What I love about his [Snyder’s] director’s cuts is they are long, but he takes his time to tell the story. I’ve never watched any of his directors cut and thought ‘This is long.” Whether they are three hours long, or three hours and ten minutes, they always seemed to go quick.”
I know there are some who disagree but I do think Snyder’s Ultimate Cut of Batman v Superman was superior to the theatrical one. Whether that could be repeated with Justice League, I don’t know, but I do know it wouldn’t change the predicament Warner Bros. finds itself in. [CBM/THR]
*WWE Studios has announced that The Miz will be starring in The Marine 6: Close Quarters, directed by James Nunn who was at the helm for The Marine 5: Battleground. Joining the cast are WWE Hall of Famer “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michael, and WWE Smackdown Live’s Becky Lynch. Here’s the official synopsis:
When Jake Carter (The Miz) and fellow Marine Luke Trapper (Shawn Michaels) stumble upon a kidnapped girl being held prisoner by a dangerous gang of international criminals, they find themselves in the crosshairs as they try to save the girl and bring her kidnappers to justice.
Original story can be found below.
I love it when wrestling and movies intersect, even when it’s obvious the end result will be something crappy. On Monday Night Raw those of us who are wrestling dorks saw The Miz lose his Intercontinental Championship, rather suddenly, to the polarizing Roman Reigns, who happens to be a relative to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. While I mourned the “Must-See” superstar’s defeat, I was mostly confused why it was happening when Reigns does not need a secondary title right now. And now we have the reason, because Miz is taking time off to shoot The Marine 6.
And all is right in the world.
Actually, nah, because The Marine movies have stunk since the first one starred John Cena eleven years ago. This will be Mike “The Miz” Mizanin’s fourth time starring as ex-Marine Jake Carter, and who knows what kind of trouble he’ll stumble into. In The Marine 5: Battleground he became a paramedic, and somehow that led him into a war against a bunch of killer bikers inside of a parking garage. The bikers were played by WWE superstars Curtis Axel, Bo Dallas, Naomi, and Heath Slater, with two of them eventually joining Miz’s on-air stable, The Miztourage. The film also found a brief, kinda ridiculous cameo performance by Miz’s wife, Maryse, who is off television due to her pregnancy. No doubt that will be captured on an episode of Total Divas, which Maryse and Miz are also a part of. Miz is also hosting the upcoming season of MTV’s The Challenge, returning to his days as a member of The Real World.
So this is bad news all around. I’ve reviewed every single movie in The Marine franchise (even that super shitty one with Ted DiBiase Jr.) and will be compelled to do so again, and The Miz, who is the best part of WWE every week, will be off TV for far too long. Somehow I must endure. [PWInsider]
