Last week on The Gifted, Director Turner turned up the heat on the Mutant Underground. Nothing like knowing the mutants messed with your mind and erased the memory of your dying daughter to into you into Captain Ahab. After striking a deal with independent contractor Campbell, he was back in play at Sentinel Services and laws be damned. Because Sentinel Services was cracking down on everyone who was even remotely possible of being a mutant, many people who thought they were safe were shacking up at Mutant Underground headquarters. While Caitlin was striving for some normalcy for the young mutants by teaching them studies, Polaris was training them to be the next generation of X-Men. Lauren befriended one of her fellow trainees while her brother Andy went with their father Reed and Marcos on a mission to Baton Rouge to find out what was going on with the government using mutants to fight against other mutants. After the successful caper, Marcos received a call from former girlfriend-now-Cartel-boss Carmen that he had to pay her what is due, meaning he has to use his mutant powers for her illegal activities.
This week was an interesting episode. We got to see a darker side of Marcos as he’s forced to revisit his past life for the sake of Polaris and keeping his promise to his ex. However, given how normal it was for him to go back to death and destruction, him doing this on a consistent basis will probably force him back to the dark side. Blink and John went on their own adventure as well. While this was good as she finally is back with the Mutant Underground, it seems that it’s John who now is starting to develop feelings for her, complicating things with him and Dreamer. We got to see a little bit of what Campbell is doing and how he is using mutants for his own nefarious means, to the point where it even disturbs Turner. Reed gets the chance to play controlling father as he comes in between Laura and her new crush as well.
Let’s take a look at a few highlights from this week’s episode “eXtreme Measures:” Flashbacks:
As usual, the episode opens up with a flashback. This time we focus on Marcos before he joined the Mutant Underground. This was before Polaris was rocking her green ‘do as she and John Proudstar try to recruit him to join the Mutant Underground. The comment that even though he was in the employ of the Cartel at the time, he helped coyote mutants across the border. Why not do that full time and not work for a murderous drug dealing organization and give your life some meaning? In the past, it seemed as though he and Polaris were polar opposites, but given current events, we know that this was the beginning of a strong relationship as the two of them
Blink and John Go On A Road Trip:
Last week Blink left the Mutant Underground thanks to Dreamer messing with her memories and John keeping it a secret. And who can blame her? Not only does she feel violated for Dreamer implanting a memory in her head for the sole purpose of making her focus and control her teleportation powers, but John opts not to tell her. From her perspective, she’s just a tool for them and not a group that actually cares about her and her well-being. However, she hasn’t gotten really far. Thanks to his tracking abilities, John is able to find her quickly and despite her pushing him away, he feels he owes her. When she was going through her kamikaze teleportations a few weeks back, she kept trying to teleport to a random country road. John decides that he will help her find that place. Good thing he’s a tracker.
The place is a former safe space for mutants who could not fit in and appear “normal” and a place that she had been at in her younger years. When they finally find the place, someone else has been there before they have. Turns out that the Sentinel Services already got there. It looks like they did not take any prisoners as inside it was properly sprayed with bullets and there’s blood everywhere. This causes Blink to break down as her family that she depended on have been killed. The Mutant Underground’s battle with the Sentinel Services might not have been hers before, but now it is. She opts to go back with John and they give each other a warm hug. Later on, when John runs back into Dreamer and kisses her, he has some concern on his face. Looks like a new love triangle is brewing.
Reed Gets Involved In Laura’s Relationship:
As Reed and Sage are going through the hard drives taken from the Baton Rouge location, he sees files on mutants that Sentinel Services have been tracking. One face/power set catches his eyes: Wes, the young mutant that is wooing Laura. Turns out, Wes has a criminal file. Who would want their daughter dating a criminal? Reed steps in and tells his daughter about Wes’ background. Still, head over heels for Wes, Laura rejects her father saying that he is just being his usual prosecutor, prosecuting mutants for being mutants.
It’s only until she confronts him out of curiosity. Wes tells her that he did commit crimes when he was revealed to be a mutant, he had to fend for himself. Having the ability to create illusions is a great gift for anyone wanting to pull off a con, so he did what he had to do to in order to survive. This makes Laura mad with her. Seeing the consequences of his actions, Reed talks with Wes and they come to an understanding. Wes fesses up to the rest of the Mutant Underground about his past and they forgive him. By the end of the episode he leaves to go to another Mutant Underground location, but not before he and Laura finally get the chance for a passionate kiss.
Campbell Employs Mutants In A Dangerous Way:
Now that Turner is back in the fold at Sentinel Services and trying to track the Mutant Underground, he has a new enemy: legal rights and government bureaucracy. Since Turner is going after the Mutant Underground without warrants, this attracts the attention of the Department of Justice. When he is confronted by one of the lawyers, she warns him that he will have a fight on his hands.
During a meeting discussing options, the lawyer steps up to confront him. It is then that she starts feeling pain in her head. One of Campbell’s associates was concentrating hard during the meeting, meaning that he was a mutant Campbell is controlling and using his powers to telepathically attack her. Turner is the only one who notices this and in a later phone conversation confronts Campbell about this, but Campbell assures him that nothing bad will come out of it. Even if a new Justice Department official comes forward, it’ll be a few weeks, so they have breathing space to do whatever they want. Campbell, later on, shows Turner a secret room where brainwashed mutants are being held, meaning they have their own army to take on the Mutant Underground.
Marcos “Breaks Bad:”
Much of the episode focused on Marcos as he had to pay his due to Carmen, his former Cartel Girlfriend. Since Carmen helped him find out where Sentinel Services was holding Polaris, he now has to do what she wants, and what she wants his him to be her muscle.
Marcos lies to Polaris and says he is going on a run to help another Mutant Underground location (are we going to see these other places?). Before he leaves, he puts on his Cartel signature necklace “Santa Muerte” (Holy Death). When he meets up with Carmen, she’s goading him to embrace his dark side, recalling their “good old times” together. He tells her that he’s not going to kill anyone in her name. She doesn’t need him for that. She wants him to use his “Eclipse” powers to destroy a rival’s drug supply. She tells him that others will do the killing as she has another mutant in her employ.
When Marcos goes into the action, he lights up all the drugs and when he attacks the Russians, there’s a certain glee in his face. He may not want to go to that lifestyle, but he seemingly enjoys it. Polaris arrives just when she sees him in action, and seen Carmen give him a kiss on the cheek, further angering her. When she asks him how everything went at the other Mutant Underground place, he continues the lie until she catches him forcing him to fess up. He tells her he did it for her, but she’s not too happy about it.
Next week, Reed confronts his father, who it turns out is responsible for some of Sentinel Services’ activities.
Quentin Tarantino is still in search of a new home for his upcoming film, which was previously described (via Thompson on Hollywood) as being about the Manson Family. That’s not actually the case, as we recently learned, and now Tarantino describe it this way, “It’s not Charles Manson, it’s 1969,” which makes it sound like a period piece rather than a crime movie. That’s perfectly fine, and both A-list stars and big time studios are falling over themselves to be a part of it. The latest name you can add to this? Well, it’s the biggest name of all: Tom Cruise.
Deadline reports that Cruise can be added to the group of contenders that includes Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio. Can’t they all join, pretty please? Cruise is said to be up for one of two male leads, one of which probably won’t be Charles Manson. Sounds like he’s barely a part of the story at all.
Sony, Paramount, and Warner Bros. are all taking their best shots to land this thing, with Tarantino keeping online distributors such as Netflix and Amazon out of the mix. Apparently the bidding war is getting a little contentious, according to Variety…
….with Warners engaging in some splashy wooing in hopes of landing the film. When Tarantino arrived at the studio’s Burbank lot, he found the circular entrance in front of the administration building adorned with cars from the late 1960s. The Warner Bros. logo circa 1969 was on the marquee outside the studio, and the executive conference room was outfitted with vintage furniture from the era and mock posters for the movie.
Not to be outdone, Sony cooked up a multimedia presentation discussing how it would handle the release of the film, as well highlighting what it saw as its competitive advantages. Studio chief Tom Rothman used his time in front of Tarantino to talk up Sony’s marketing team and to take the director through the efforts that the company has made in recent years to bolster its international distribution. He emphasized that Sony could help the film succeed at the domestic box office, as well as internationally. Rothman was flanked by the studio’s senior staff, including Columbia Pictures President Sanford Panitch.
Considering Tarantino’s movies are hardly massive blockbusters why are studios falling all over themselves to get him? My guess is that his movies are basically instant classics at this point, and will live long lives on Bluray, subscription services, etc. Tarantino is one of the few directors left whose films command that level of respect, and you can’t put a price on having someone like that in-house.
Atomic Blonde is a vehicle for Charlize Theron to beat up bad guys to an 80’s
pop soundtrack, and it’s every bit as awesome as it sounds. This Cold War
thriller sees Theron as a mysterious and morally ambiguous British spy, sent to
the East side of the Berlin Wall to retrieve a loose-cannon rouge agent (James
McAvoy) and protect the information a Soviet defector has the only known copy
of.
We Said: “Atomic
Blonde isn’t lacking for style, attitude, and sex appeal, especially
with a heavy European punk/synth soundtrack vibing throughout. Too bad nearly
all of it is embodied by Theron, and not enough of it can be found anywhere
else.” Rating: 3 out of 5
Written and directed by the acclaimed screenwriter of Sicario,
and Hell
or High Water, this cold and intense thriller follows Cory Lambert (Jeremy
Renner), a lone-wolf wildlife officer who will stop at nothing to avenge the
murder of an 18 year old Native American woman in the snow covered reservations
of Wyoming. Helping him solve the case is young FBI agent Jane Banner
(Elizabeth Olsen), who wants nothing more than to solve the case and bring
justice to the isolated and overlooked community.
We Said: “The rhythm between
violence and cultural reflection is where [Writer/Director Taylor] Sheridan
continues to make his mark, not only as a writer but as a director to keep a
close eye on.” Rating: 4 out of 5
From the twisted mind of SNL’s Kyle Mooney, this comedy-drama
is just as bizarre as it is heartwarming. When a sudden and traumatic
realization thrusts sheltered young man James (Mooney) into the world of
adulthood, he’s shocked by several aspects of modern life; particularly that Brigsby
Bear, his favorite children’s TV show, is no longer making new episodes.
Fearing the saga he loves would be left incomplete, James sets out to make his
own Brigsby Bear movie that would serve to wrap up loose ends. Helping him in
this quest are his estranged sister and her misfit high school friends, who
grow to love the joys of filmmaking, Brigsby Bear, and most of all James.
We Said: “Brigsby Bear is unapologetically
and aggressively weird […] This is a subversive, dark, and unusual movie. It
may not a big crowd-pleaser, but I personally loved it.” Rating: 4 out of 5
Wait, I thought the whole “Somali pirates” phase was done? Hollywood is still making movies about them? A few years ago we hit a sudden wave of them with A Hijacking, Captain Phillips, and Fishing without Nets, but I guess when the story is as strange-looking as in The Pirates of Somalia, it’s okay to give them one more go.
Directed by Bryan Buckley, who directed the critically-reviled gymnastics comedy The Bronze, (seems like an odd hire, right?) The Pirates of Somalia stars a fuzzy Quicksilver…er, Evan Peters, as a journalist who is inspired by his hero to drop everything and investigate Somali pirates. The film also features an appearance by Al Pacino, who looks to be dialing it in during his brief cameo, and co-stars Barkhad Abdi, who earned an Oscar nomination for Captain Phillips. While the tone of this one is all over the place, it’s actually based on a true story chronicled in Jay Bahadur’s book, The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden World.
Here’s the synopsis: When rookie journalist Jay Bahadur (Evan Peters) has an inspiring chance encounter with his idol (Al Pacino), he uproots his life and moves to Somalia looking for the story of a lifetime. Hooking up with a local fixer (Barkhad Abdi), he attempts to embed himself with the local Somali pirates, only to find himself quickly in over his head. The Pirates of Somalia tells the incredible true story of one reporter’s risk-taking adventure that ultimately brought the world an unprecedented first-person account of Somali Pirates the first close-up look into Somalia’s rich culture.
Also starring Melanie Griffith, The Pirates of Somalia opens December 8th.
There’s nothing wrong with a movie that is unabashedly meant to make you feel good. There’s nothing wrong with a movie whose sole mandate is to encourage everyone to just be kind to one another. Of course, how said movie goes about it is where the wheels so often come off. If you’ve seen the trailers for Wonder then you already know it’s a movie that demands you bring a box of Kleenex; in fact I think they were giving them away at the screening I attended. It’s going to make you cry, that much is a given. And while there are moments of sadness and perhaps a little bit of regret at our own treatment of those who are different, it will be tears of joy rolling down your cheeks.
Based on the bestselling novel by R.J. Palacio, Wonder boasts direction from The Perks of Being a Wallflower‘s Stephen Chbosky. I don’t know if there’s another filmmaker out there who so fluently speaks the language of school-aged kids, whether they be teens or slightly younger. The film centers on Auggie Pullman, played by adorable Room breakout Jacob Tremblay. Auggie is just your average 10-year-old kid; he likes video games, science, playing with his dog. Oh yeah, but he was also born with a congenital disorder that caused severe facial disfigurement, so bad that he’s endured 27 surgeries just to be able to breathe. As a result, Auggie likes to keep his face hidden under an oversized astronaut helmet, and he’s been homeschooled by his mother Isabel (Julia Roberts) since he was old enough. Now it’s time for that to change and for Auggie to get out there into the big bad world, and the even more terrifying world of public school.
Auggie may be the centerpiece of this story, or as his older sister Via (Izabela Vidovic) puts it, “Auggie is the sun”, but it isn’t just about him. What’s beautiful about Wonder is how deeply it fleshes out the important people in Auggie’s life. We get to not only see him through their eyes, but them through his. One of the most vital is Jack (Suburbicon‘s Noah Jupe), a scholarship kid who may be made of better stuff than most of the other students, in particular Julian, a bully who makes Auggie’s life miserable. We also see what it’s like living in Auggie’s shadow, as Via has been forced to do her entire life. While most of the kids in school stop, stare, or avoid Auggie outright, it’s important to consider that they too have problems to contend with.
Compassion and empathy are Wonder‘s heart and soul, and it’s a message that isn’t forced upon us in a heavy-handed manner, but with subtlety and grace. For the most part, anyway. While these lessons reverberate throughout, the schmaltzy score and a couple of manipulative storylines threaten to be a wet blanket on the whole thing. Let’s just say this is a movie that has enough tear-jerking moments that it doesn’t need to include the family pet in any of it. And one story, which involves Via’s best friend pretending to have her life, is undercooked and unnecessary to say the least. There also could have been more time spent with Owen Wilson as Auggie’s “cool Dad” Nate. He pops in and out, acts relatively immature in the way we expect from Wilson, but we learn precious little about him compared to Isabel, who gave up her career to take care of Auggie. What has been Nate’s sacrifice? It’s not to say Wilson isn’t good in the role, heck, he and Roberts are basically the parents any kid could ever want, but his connection to Auggie doesn’t seem as tight as the other characters.
Wonder is one of the best family films of the year, and as we enter the season of charity and giving it’s arriving at just the right time.
“Rotten Tomatoes Causes Controversy By Announcing Score Reveal For JUSTICE LEAGUE This Thursday”
That’s the headline over at Comicbookmovie.com, where I guess the fanboys are up in arms over Rotten Tomatoes’ decision to delay their score for Justice League an entire day. And I get it; the website has been a prime target for scorn as its scores have been given greater importance and influence. For comic book fans this has been especially true; a hit film like Suicide Squad was publicly ripped for its 26% Tomatometer score from critics, when in fact audiences liked it enough to give it a 61%. There’s a wide disparity between what the fans approve of and what critics do sometimes.
But is Justice League‘s score delay really a big deal? Not really. Despite the embargo being lifted later today, Rotten Tomatoes is holding the score reveal until 12:01AM Thursday not as part of a vast Warner Bros. conspiracy, Alex Jones, but so it can debut on their awful “See It/Skip It” TV show that runs on Facebook.
I can see where the paranoia comes in, though. Warner Bros. owns a minority stake in Rotten Tomatoes, right? But nah, the site actually did this before with A Bad Moms Christmas, and will probably keep doing so with major releases. To be fair, I thought it was a conspiracy at first, too, until I remembered they needed to hype that shitty show with the shitty hosts. While I understand the need to do that, Rotten Tomatoes runs the risk of alienating those who really do rely on the site. Make them wait and they’ll just go someplace else to find out what critics think. It’s not like there are a shortage of options out there.
Agent 47 has found his new mark. There have been two movies based on the popular Hitman video games, Hitman and Hitman: Agent 47, and neither really set the world on fire. So when that avenue fails, what’s the best way to keep the property alive? Make more games? Well…sure, yeah. That. But also to bring the world’s deadliest assassin to the small screen.
A Hitman TV series is in the works for Hulu, and it’s being penned by John Wick writer Derek Kolstad. The games and subsequently the movies are all pretty simple, following a genetically-engineered assassin known as Agent 47. He’s known for his trademark bald head, bar code tattoo on the back of his neck, and an icy efficiency in completing his missions.
Presumably the TV series won’t stray from the formula too tough, and it’s easy to see how this could be the most successful adaptation of Hitman yet. The premise lends itself to the serial format, and if something like Transporter or Nikita can stick around on air for multiple seasons, there’s no reason why this can’t. Hulu has hopes of it becoming a flagship show for them, and who knows? Maybe it will. [Deadline]
Thanks to the success of The Wire and Breaking Bad, now’s a great time to take a look at drugs, drug dealers, the police who investigate and prosecute them, and see just how they are all intertwined and affected by each other. Thumper does a great job of navigating the fine line for all characters who live in this miserable world controlled by drugs and addiction.
Director Jordon Ross (True Life) sits in the directors’ chair for the first time (while writing as well) introducing us to this world where drugs are deeply infesting this small Southern California town. From the first scene, we are introduced to Wyatt (Pablo Schreiber). He seems like a normal family man who may be down on his luck. He takes care of his children, makes sure they don’t watch too much TV to “rot their brains,” and has a great relationship with his children’s’ mother. Not even one scene later, you see he is a cutthroat drug dealer, untrusting of new faces, and quick to exert his dominance when he feels necessary. This is a prime example to show that there are plenty of gray lines for the characters in this movie.
New to town is Kat Carter (Eliza Taylor), who lets the local boy Beaver (Daniel Webber) cheat on her for an exam he clearly studied for. To show his thanks (and because he really is attracted to her), he wants to ask her out at the nearby hangout spot where the local teen drink and do drugs. However, Kat is holding on to her own dark secret. Whenever she is offered a hit of anything, she has an excuse. Is she skittish? Is she “not cool?”
Turns out Kat is an undercover police officer, whose goal is to try and get in close with the local high school drug dealers, in order to bust their supplier. While a film like 21 Jump Street took a comical approach to cops infiltrating high schools to bust drug dealers, Thumper takes a much darker turn. Kat has already ruined her marriage because of her dedication to her job. Her son doesn’t even recognize her and calls his father’s fiancé “Mom.” Kat also is starting to develop sympathy for Beaver, who is a small-time dealer she knows she has to bust, who has a terrible home life complete with a mentally challenged brother he has to take care of and an abusive father to neglects and beats both of them. On top of that, Kat’s boss Ellen (Lena Headey) just wants busts, not caring for those caught in the crosshairs. Kat is good at her job, but it’s at the cost of her conscience and her soul.
Everyone in the film brings their A game acting-wise. Taylor, who most people know from the CW series The 100 goes through plenty of emotions. She deals with getting too close to those she’s investigating as well as the turmoil of what’s going on with her home life and the fact that she’s slowly losing her son, and a piece of herself.
The true standout is Pablo Schreiber as drug kingpin Wyatt Rivers. He plays menacing perfectly. There is a scene where he cannot get his medication thanks to his insurance company, and you realize that he’s a victim of our economy and health care problems like anyone else. He becoming a drug dealer is not a choice, but a necessity. He is also angry that as a veteran, he’s not getting the necessary care he feels is owed to himself. He also shows extreme ruthlessness in one of his suspicious confrontations with Kat, which has extreme results for the remainder of the film.
Webber also has the most to work with as Beaver. He has his troubled life to deal with, and he’s only being a drug dealer for taking care of his brother who he wants to save enough money to put him in a school that will address his needs the best, as his current living situation won’t help them much. Beaver first starts off as some druggie loser but throughout the film gets fleshed out into a living, breathing character that Kat (and audiences) end up caring for.
Like the real world, Thumper doesn’t have a happy ending. There are some winners, some losers, as everyone has to make the best of their situations and how they play off. The film tries to come off as your normal crime thriller, but it does a pretty good job being a case study for the drug war showing how no one gets out clean.
Charlize Theron was the year’s most kickass spy in the hit action flick, Atomic Blonde, and now we’ve joined with Universal so you can own it for yourself! We’re happy to offer our readers the chance to win a copy of Atomic Blonde on Bluray/DVD/Digital HD as it hits home release!
SYNOPSIS: Oscar®-winner Charlize Theron stars as elite MI6’s most lethal assassin and the crown jewel of her Majesty’s secret intelligence service, Lorraine Broughton, in ATOMIC BLONDE. When she’s sent on a covert mission into Cold War Berlin, she must use all of the spycraft, sensuality and savagery she has to stay alive in the ticking time bomb of a city simmering with revolution and double-crossing hives of traitors.
Broughton must navigate her way through a deadly game of spies to recover a priceless dossier while fighting ferocious killers along the way in this breakneck action-thriller from director David Leitch (Deadpool 2, John Wick). Theron is joined by James McAvoy (Split, X-Men: First Class), Sofia Boutella (The Mummy, Star Trek Beyond) and John Goodman (Transformers: The Last Knight, Patriots Day)
To enter, simply complete the required steps in the Rafflecopter contest form below. Winners will be selected on Friday, November 17th and contacted by email. Good luck!
Don’t let the title fool you. Django is neither about Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained or the Westerns of Franco Nero. It’s about renowned jazz musician Django Reinhardt, who in Nazi-occupied France became an enemy of the state for two reasons: he was both a jazz musician and a Gypsy.
Etienne Comar’s film stars Reda Kateb (Zero Dark Thirty) as Reinhardt, who finds the Nazis have banished jazz music from his beloved city of Paris. As other German Gypsies were being herded into settlement camps and sterilized, Reinhardt makes a daring attempt at survival, finding strength in the music that he cherished above all else.
It’s a incredible story and buzz since the film debuted in Berlin has been strong, particularly for Kateb’s performance. No offense to La La Land, but if you really want to open people up to the history of jazz, this is the kind of movie they should be checking out.
Also starring Cecile de France and Bea Palya, Django opens in New York on January 5th with a wider rollout to follow.
