Quick, what was Ryan Coogler’s last non-Marvel movie? That would be Creed way back in 2015. Fortunately, the working partnership with actor Michael B. Jordan has remained intact, and they are coming together again for Coogler’s first horror movie, Sinners, which has debuted a new trailer and poster today.
Written, directed, and produced by Coogler, Sinners stars Jordan as twin brothers who return home to try and leave their troubled lives behind. But when they arrive, they discover that something evil has taken over. Based on early reports, Coogler has made a vampire movie and that should be pretty cool to see.
Also in the cast are Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Miles Caton, Li Jun Li, Delroy Lindo, and Omar Benson Miller. Lots of Marvel vets in this one.
Sinners opens in theaters on April 18th.
SYNOPSIS: Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers (Jordan) return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
The DC Studios series Lanterns is gearing up to start production, but you can’t do that going in with nothing but heroic Green Lanterns having been cast. You need their ultimate opponent, one of the great DC Comics villains, to be cast as well. Deadline reports that Ulrich Thomsen will play former Green Lantern Corps member Sinestro in the upcoming series.
Thomson is best a Dutch actor known for his roles in the Showtime series Banshee, and the films Brothers and The Celebration. He joins a cast led by Aaron Pierre as John Stewart and Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan. Other cast members include Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, and Poorna Jagannathan.
James Hawes (One Life) will direct the first two episodes.
Lanterns follows intergalactic cops Stewart and Jordan as they investigate a murder on Earth in a small town. DC Studios co-chief Peter Safran has said this investigation will lead to the central storyline throughout the DCU, so this is a show that vitally important.
Sinestro was once of the great champions of the Green Lantern Corps, but he began abusing the use of his power ring and was kicked out. He turned to evil, utilizing a yellow power ring that feeds on fear, going so far as to create his own Sinestro Corps.
Production on Lanterns begins in February, with the series expected to arrive around the same time as Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow in 2026.
Clint Bentley’s contemplative rodeo drama Jockey established a natural realism that led to a standout performance by Clifton Collns Jr. It can be seen again in the Bentley-scripted prison drama Sing Sing, allowing Colman Domingo to deliver his second Oscar-nominated performance in a row. That same authenticity and immersion can be felt in Train Dreams, and like Bentley’s previous films it offers a showcase turn for its star, Joel Edgerton, as an Idaho logger grappling with a changing world and his place in it in the early 20th-century.
A soulful, thoughtful Edgerton plays Robert Grainier in Bentley’s adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novel. Grainier is an ordinary man, trying to keep his head down while the world plots furiously against him. Beginning in 1917 Idaho, Robert, who never knew his parents and has been alone as long as he can remember, works as a day laborer before finding steady but dangerous work as part of logging crews. It’s there that he meets people from all across the country and beyond; rough ‘n tumble working class stiffs who don’t mind taking out their aggression on the immigrants in their midst. As a child, Robert witnessed the casual violence of the forced deportation of the Chinese. As an adult, the random murder of a Chinese co-worker would come to haunt him for the rest of his life.
Robert comes to believe that doom, some kind of tragedy, is following him. He meets all sorts of people on his journeys, whether feeding the industrial boom’s need for lumber or hammering away on the railroad. An old, superstitious explosive expert Arn Peeples (William H. Macy) is one of a few who make a considerable impression. Arn knows the dangers of these woods, where a fallen branch or errant timber can snuff a man’s life in an instant.
It’s not all bad, though. Robert’s life takes an upward swing when he meets Gladys (Felicity Jones), who sweeps him off his feet. Everyone should have a love as pure and joyful as these two. In true Malick-ian fashion, nature and love are heavily romanticized and wind-swept, with Robert and Gladys building their life together in the frontier. They build a cabin, a small farm, and have a daughter, Kate, while dealing with his frequent absences from home to work. Every time he returns, his daughter has grown up a little bit more, and he’s missing it. He fears that one of these logging seasons will end badly for him. He has no idea how right he is.
The amount of calamity in Robert’s life can become tough to bear. He’s such a quiet, reserved soul that to see him endure so much pain is difficult. Much of the film is reflective, zen-like, as Robert sees the world evolving, usually for the worse for someone like himself. Bentley, working with his Sing Sing and Jockey partner Greg Kwedar, becomes a little too preoccupied with the stillness of Robert’s day-to-day. While his life is always compelling, it can also get a bit repetitive and saccharine. When Kerry Condon arrives as Claire, a ranger in the newly-created U.S. Forest Service, it’s a welcome breath of fresh air that the film could’ve used more of.
Train Dreams is small in scope but deeply resonant. Robert never does anything profound in all of his days. His life is measured in the people he’s loved, the friends he makes, the trees he’s chopped, the animals he’s rescued, and so much more. It all adds up to a life well-lived that will be remembered, just as Train Dreams will linger long in the memory.
Whether you know him from his groundbreaking first album, Grace, or can only recognize his iconic cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, Jeff Buckley was a force in the rock and folk scenes in the early 90s. Taken from us too soon in a 1997 drowning incident, his legacy is one that is marked by his famous yet absent father, Tim Buckley, and Jeff’s own obsession with music. Documentarian Amy Berg explores his life, his loved ones, and the music that still endures today in the film, It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley.
Named after a lyric in “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” the film opens with personal testimonies from the women who knew him. We meet Rebecca Moore, who first encountered Buckley at a memorial concert for his late father and entered into a two-year relationship with him. Joan Wasser, former violinist for The Dambuilders and his partner when he died, reveals that she still can’t listen to his unfinished second album. Of course, Buckley’s mother talks about raising him, hinting that he was often the parent in the relationship. This comes up a few times but is never explored thoroughly.
This film is for Buckley experts and novices alike, offering a closer look at his notes and drawings while filling in the blanks for those less familiar. The talking-head interviews really bring the subject to life in a way I haven’t seen before in a documentary. I hesitate to give Berg credit for that because every single person lights up when they talk about Buckley, but her choice of interviews, edited by Brian A. Kates and Stacy Goldate, are perfectly curated. Berg spends some time talking about Jeff’s connection to his father, how he met him for the first time two months before Tim died of a heroin overdose at 28. She walks a fine line between addressing the history between them and having the event define him, something Buckley pushed back against during his career. Using the aforementioned interviews, animation, and of course, his music, Berg builds a full picture of the artist, one both flattering and real, showing just how funny and dickish he could be.
If the goal of It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley is to shine a new light on an artist gone too soon or reiterate the talent and potential we lost, Berg succeeds at it. You leave the film in a state of mourning, in awe of Buckley’s talent but still wondering why he died. Berg doesn’t try to stray from the family’s story that the death was an accident, but she still leaves you wondering if it wasn’t intentional. We may never know the answer, but Buckley is one of the 90s’ most iconic and mysterious figures. People have been trying to make a biopic about him for years, including Brad Pitt, whose Plan B produced the film. If this is our last goodbye to Bluckley on the big screen, this is a good way to go.
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley currently does not have a release date.
Having come into this year’s Sundance a bit saddened at no John Carney (Once, Sing Street) film on the slate, The Ballad of WallisIsland arrived and made me feel all warm inside in much the same way. A story of love, loneliness, connection, and of course, music, this cheeky British comedy is the brainchild of co-writers and stars Tim Key and Tom Basden, building from their 2007 short. It’s for sure a breakout performance by Key, whose lovably open-hearted fanboy Charles is the note that brings this melody together.
It would be so easy to dislike Charles, and admittedly I thought I would in the beginning, too. He’s the kind of guy with no filter and little self-awareness. He says what’s on his mind and what typically comes out of his mouth are an array of Dad jokes and praise for his all-time favorite band, the Swell Season-esque folk duo McGwyer-Mortimer. Charles is so lovable we don’t even mind that he’s won the lotto….twice, after spending it all the first time on an international journey (“Kathmandu? More like Kathman-did”) before retiring to the fictional island hideaway. With more money than he can possibly spend, Charles does the one thing he’s always wanted, which is hire the band for a private gig on the island.
The problem is that McGwyer-Mortimer broke up years earlier, as musical and romantic partners. It’s Herb McGwyer (Basden) who shows up on Wallis Island first, surly and in a creative funk. Also very wet…there’s no dock at this harbor, either. Charles hasn’t been completely upfront with him about everything, either. While Herb is doing this gig to pay for the next album, a misguided mainstream effort, he’s curious as to why Charles would pay him an exorbitant amount to do a solo show for “less than 100” people. He’s also shocked to find out that he’ll be staying in Charles’ home, with a constantly-running tap (“it works too well”), zero amenities, and no privacy.
Producer and star Carey Mulligan enters the picture as Nell Mortimer, who has given up her music career to make chutney with her bird-watching husband, Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen), who seems like a fine if slightly dorky chap. Charles had conveniently forgotten to mention that part of the arrangement (“she accepted late!”), and Herb is not ready for the rush of emotions that come with her arrival. At first, things are quite icy between them. There are still a lot of hurt feelings, professional and personal, but they still click musically. You can feel it when they start playing together, it’s like you’re watching something magical being brought to life right in front of you.
These moments between Herb and Nell are even more beautiful when seen through Charles’ eyes. Yes, he’s a bit of a pest but a well-meaning, kind-hearted one. His devotion to their music (and hope of a reunion) is what starts to bring them closer, but that comes with even more complications. While is this is a film about a fanboy’s love of his favorite band, it’s also a film about grief and the loss of love. There’s more to Charles’ wish than meets the eye. He’s struggling with moving forward from something, too, which is why he’s so awkward around Amanda (Sian Clifford), the funny and occasionally clueless shopkeeper who could be Charles’ love interest whenever he’s ready.
Gorgeous natural landscapes and the romantic crashing of waves bring an added layer of whimsicality to this delightful fable. The screenplay is never short on puns, some hilarious and others groan-worthy, but still coming from Charles you smile at them nonetheless. Michael gets lost in the story as the focus shifts to Herb and Nell, but that’s to be expected. Their relationship has its ups and downs in a rather short amount of time but it always feels genuine, lived-in, and resolves in a way that’s bittersweet and honest without Hollywood gloss. The Ballad of Wallis Island is a film that’s so easy to fall in love with. It hits all of the right emotional notes.
Focus Features will open The Ballad of Wallis Island on March 28th.
You don’t come to Sundance expecting a splashy, jazzy, A-list powered musical like Kiss of the Spider Woman, with its glitzy performance by Jennifer Lopez and producers in Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. To be honest, the festival could use more projects sure to draw in audiences attracted to the star power and promise of something that feels larger than life and not like a film designed only to play in shoebox-sized arthouses. The second major film adaptation of Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel following the 1985 Oscar winner is a reminder of the showstopper Lopez can be when given the right role and the right director, in this case Dreamgirls filmmaker Bill Condon.
Set during the military dictatorship of 1980s Argentina, Kiss of the Spider Woman largely takes place in a decrepid cellblock, where left-wing revolutionaries and other undesirables are held in inhumane conditions and tortured for information on others threatening the regime. It’s there that Valentin (Diego Luna) has been kept in hopes that he will eventually grow tired of the torture and the mistreatment and give up others in his movement. His ideology and masculinity are challenged by his new roommate, Luis (a revelatory Tonatiuh), a flamboyantly gay window dresser and movie fan who is locked up presumably for deviancy but for other reasons he’d prefer to keep secret. While Valentin is a realist who sees the horrors of the time, Luis would rather retreat into fantasy and his love of movies.
Kiss of the Spider Woman is about how entertainment can be the escape we need when real life is too harsh to deal with. Luis is obsessed with golden age Hollywood beauties; his favorite being the fictional Ingrid Luna, a Latin diva who starred in his favorite movie, the cheesy camp musical Kiss of the Spider Woman. To pass the time, and to get Valentin to open up a little, Luis begins telling him the film’s story of a glamorous magazine editor, played by Luna, who falls in love with a political activist but makes an ill-fated bargain with a mysterious spider woman, also played by Luna. Her ability to play both villain and hero has Luis swooning every time he says her name. Valentin is less easily impressed, and fights back against these little diversions, mostly out of skepticism about Luis’ true motivations. But as the conditions worsen and the two men (Luis thinks of himself as a woman, which Valentin hates to hear) grow closer, Valentin finds himself needing the stories more and more.
It’s been a long time since Condon’s last great work, 2006’s splashy musical Dreamgirls, while his 2017 live-action Beauty an the Beast was a monster blockbuster hit. Most of his work has been forgettable in the time since, but he finds a groove with Kiss of the Spider Woman. The musical setpieces are vibrant and powerful, with Lopez twirling and hamming it up for the camera, owning every bit of her femininity and celebrity. The songs themselves aren’t especially memorable, though, even as Lopez, Luna, and Tonatiuh deliver solid vocals. Lopez has been on a good run of roles recently, including the Prime Video sports drama Unstoppable, but Luna is the role she was destined to play and the marketing will be built around it, as it should.
Things are less assured when Condon pulls away from the surreal and back into the lock-up. The film’s glossy sheen puts too fine a polish on the true horrors of the era, making the celllock scenes feel a bit too slight. It’s understanable why Condon, who also wrote the screenplay, would want to avoid getting too dark but it makes the transitions from fantasy to reality less definitive. Kiss of the Spider Woman arrives at a time when two blockbuster musicals, Wicked and Emilia Perez, delivered heartswelling and crowd-pleasing numbers wrapped around themes of identity. Kiss of the Spider Woman has more in common with the latter, and is similarly messy and thematically overstuffed while Lopez and Tonatiuh are the knockouts that will audiences demanding an encore.S
If you’ve seen Alison Brie and Dave Franco together, you already know they have incredible chemistry. That much should be obvious, the two are a real-life couple who have shared the screen before. In interviews, they can practically finish one another’s sentences. They’re cute. Almost too cute. Well, that chemistry they hold is at the heart of Michael Shanks’ Sundance-debuting rom-com/body horror Together, one of the first body horrors I can think of that I could easily see as a film everyone could enjoy.
Most body horrors are so disturbing they can appeal only to the most hardcore of gore fans, but Together is entertaining and funny first, with a couple of effective jump scares to boot. But it’s the relationship between Franco and Brie’s characters, aspiring musician Tim and elementary school teacher Millie, that resonates most as they try to navigate their many years together and taking their partnership to the next level. Tim seems sorta lazy and adrift. He’s no longer on a record label and doesn’t know how to push forward. When Millie gets a new job at a new school hours away from the big city, Tim is more afraid than he lets on. Moving away means saying farewell to his dreams, once and for all. A disastrous farewell party ends with the two nearly throwing in the towel, but after a decade together neither can imagine being without the other.
Is that love? Or is it codependency? “We can split now, or it’ll be much harder later.” Little does Millie know how on-the-nose her suggestion will be soon after.
The new home sits in a mostly isolated neighborhood. While the place is nice, it also triggers some of Tim’s worst fears about his mental health, something possibly passed down by his mother. The discovery of a dead rat king cooking in the light of a ceiling fan is an ominous sign of things to come. While on a hike through the woods, they tumble into a hole and are trapped by a terrible rainstorm. Inside, they make a terrible discovery foreshadowed by a sinister mythological tale involving Zeus and the splitting of people in half so they are forever left to wander the Earth searching for the one who completes them.
Kinda puts a different spin on the idea of someone as your “better half” or “soulmate.” As Tim and Millie begin to be drawn together in a way that resembles a terrible curse, they are forced to confront whether they are truly meant to be together forever, and how far they’re willing to go to make that possible.
Shanks paces Together wonderfully, dropping in enough scares for the Midnight crowd, including some deft use of practical effects and lighting. But this isn’t a movie that gets too gross for its own good like many body horrors do. That doesn’t mean there aren’t scenes that are wildly uncomfortable. One, a sexual encounter in a school bathroom, will make everyone whince and cover their eyes. But much of what Millie and Tim go through is rooted in rooted in rom-com tropes, so the film is always entertaining first and foremost.
It’s Brie and Franco’s physical and comedic synchronicity that is so enjoyable to watch. They play off one another so well as their characters embark on a crazy, fantastical roller coaster of emotions, driven by their intense emotional connection. By the time Together makes clever (and apt) use of the Spice Girls hit “2 Become 1”, you just want to see these crazy kids stick together no matter what.
No one can say that Mark Whalberg isn’t still a box office winner but I don’t really think Flight Risk is going to be an opening weekend he cites to prove that fact. We all know January is historically slow in terms of box office receipts but 2025 has been exceptionally slow, for the second week in a row the #1 film made less than $15M
2. Mufasa: The Lion King– $8.7M/$221M
Say what you will, but films like Mufasa: The Lion King just prove that the internet is an echo chamber. As it’s $200M+ box office proves, people really don’t mind Disney’s live action takes on animated properties as much as you hear.
3. One of Them Days – $8M/$25M
4. Sonic the Hedgehog 3– $5.5M/$226M
Three hits later and it’s hard to remember a time when Sonic was a dead property walking. A true testament to what happens when you listen to the fans, I had almost totally forgot about the “Ugly Sonic” scandal until I saw a YouTube video discussing it the other day. Personally, I’m just happy James Marsten is still making big films, I’ve always had a soft spot for the guy.
5. Moana 2– $4.3M/$450M
Yeah, the audience has spoken that live-action remakes are fine, but as Moana 2 show us, nothing beats that classic Disney animation as the girl from Hawaii breaks the $450M mark on her 9th week in release.
Despite a heavy marketing push leading up to release the Stephen Soderbergh/Lucy Liu ghost story came in dead on arrival failing to make even $5M in its opening weekend. It should be noted that it only opened on 1750 screens, about half of what a major release usually sees, but with these numbers it’s unlikely to expand much past that.
7. Wolf Man – $3.4M/$17.8M
Oh I had SUCH hopes after the amazing Invisible Man that my beloved Universal Horror Icons were going to be back in a big way. Welp, a disappointing opening and a soul crushing 68.8% drop in ticket sales in only it’s second week makes the future look not so bright for my gruesome fivesome.
If you thought COPS blurred the line between entertainment and law enforcement, that’s nothing compared to what the Dateline NBC spinoff To Catch a Predator did. The undisputed king of sensationalistic ambush TV, the series became part of the national lexicon, and host Chris Hansen a celebrity for the casual way he would greet newly-entrapped child predators: “Why don’t you have a seat over here?”, “What were you thinking?” “What was the thought process?”
It’s been eighteen years since To Catch a Predator left the air, and now David Osit’s documentary Predators seeks to look at the infamous show’s legacy. To be fair, the show has always had a certain yuck factor to it. Not just because the men (and it was always men) were a bunch of creeps, but because of this sleazy, lowbrow, exploitative form of entertainment the series delivered week after week. That it was turning potential child molestation into a ratings-grabbing spectacle was one of many reasons some rejected it, while others saw the harm these pedophiles were planning to commit and defended it to the hilt. It’s easy to see why. Who doesn’t like to watch a bad person get what’s coming to them? But we’re also effectively watching someone’s life get destroyed on national television, and who knows the circumstances, mental health issues for instance, that led them to fall for the charms of a hyper-sexualized decoy.
For those who may have missed the show during its heyday between 2004-2007, To Catch a Predator followed a relatively simple formula. At a time when the Internet was still fairly new and dangerous, a group called Perverted-Justice lured online predators to a home, using a decoy who is older than they seem, for sex with a minor. The men know what they are showing up for, and they almost always go in ready for action. Then Hansen comes stepping out of a backroom and the men start clamming up, or begging for mercy, all swearing they’ll never do this again. Hansen hits them with the “You’re free to go” and they leave, only to be tackled to the ground by police and arrested.
Osit splits the film into three parts. The first establishes quickly that Predators is in no way an attempt to forgive these creeps for what they were trying to do. It begins with a chilling audio recording of a 37-year-old man and the disgusting conversation with a child he thought was 13-years-old. The second part follows Hansen copycat Skeeter Jean, a YouTuber without Hansen’s journalistic credibility or connection to law enforcement. He’s essentially doing this for clicks; his promises to these men are complete bullshit, his warnings are bullshit, too. His decoy, a woman named T-Coy, seems broken inside. She’s getting way too much pleasure out of what she’s doing. Osit, smartly sensing more, pushes her a bit and finds that she, like him, was a past victim and quietly yearns for understanding.
But understanding was never what To Catch a Predator was about. We also meet some of the young decoys used by the show, including a young man, David, who was part of the notorious Texas episode that concluded with an assistant district attorney’s suicide. Somehow that show still aired, and in its own way led to the show’s cancellation, as it should’ve.
The third chapter finds Osit confronting Hansen directly. His disappointment in Hansen’s answers matches our own. Osit is looking for something specific and he’s not going to get it from Hansen, who has built a career out of this type of attack journalism. I think we all hope that everyone involved with To Catch a Predator had the best of intentions, and I believe Hansen does even if his approach is flawed and destroys people. One of the biggest strikes against To Catch a Predator was that it made prosecutions practically impossible, so there’s no proof that it met Hansen’s intended goals of keeping pedophiles off the street.
A big problem with Predators is in Osit’s filmmaking style, which largely relies on a bland ethnographer (someone who studies a society’s culture, in this case media culture) to be a sounding board for the director. Later, in the interview with Hansen, Osit finally shows his face so we can see his disappointment at not getting what he wants. The conversation Osit wants to have about To Catch a Predator is one that has been going on for years and even while the show was on air, so it’s not presenting anything particularly new. Hansen has also spoken about it and defended it. The most interesting thing Osit could’ve done more of to truly show the series’ impact would’ve been to catch up with those most directly affected by it. Osit dabbles in this with the story of an 18-year-old boy exposed by Hansen for dating a 15-year-old classmate. That kid’s life was destroyed, and Hansen is still out there doing what he does and being celebrated for it at true crime festivals. For many, the consequences were very real and long-lasting, and Predators could’ve done more to show that rather than toiling around in gray areas.
If there’s something we can take away from what we’ve seen of James Gunn’s Superman, it’s that his film will be very different than Zack Snyder’s. Gone are the grim themes and tone, and dark, foreboding colors. Gunn’s film is bold, bright, colorful, and soaring with heroism. A new teaser offers another look at the DC cinematic universe relaunch, with bits of new footage of the Last Son of Krypton in action.
David Corenswet suits up as the Man of Steel, in what could be a career-definining role if things turn out well. The latest TV spot mostly contains shots that we’ve already seen, but there’s new footage of Superman flying through icy terrain, close-up on Corenswet’s face. We also see Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, lifted off her feet by a kiss from Superman; Krypto the Super-dog coming to his fallen master’a aide, and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. There are also fire-breathing monsters, kids waving flags, damaged robots, and more packed into a 30-second clip.
Also in the cast are Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner (aka the best Green Lantern), Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, Maria Gabriela de Faria as The Engineer, Sara Sampaio as Eve Tesmacher, Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, Wendell Pierce as Perry White, Pruitt Taylor Vince as Jonathan Kent, and Neva Howell as Martha Kent.
Written and directed by James Gunn, Superman rockets into theaters on July 11th via Warner Bros.
