Shark Week is happening right now, and what better time for Prime Video’s The Devil’s Mouth to swim to the surface? Sure, there are an abundance of shark flicks out there, some good, some bad, so I can appreciate one that offers a little something different. First, there’s the fresh young cast led by Kathryn Newton and Lana Condor, and a story where the threat isn’t just the angry bull shark looking to feed on Gen Z morsels. It’s about the complicated, even toxic, friendship between these two men that threatens to doom everyone in their party. If the shark doesn’t get them, mistrust and long-standing feuds might do it.
I had the chance to speak with Kathryn Newton and The Devil’s Mouth director Jeff Wadlow for a few minutes. Newton has been the spark of so many films in her young career, and we talked about the challenges and the fun of shooting a movie like this in beautiful Thailand with Condor, who she clearly loved working with. Wadlow has been a favorite director of mine since his debut horror, Cry Wolf, and we talked about his horror experience and how this film changes the genre formula. Of course, I also had to know how they think they’d do if trapped in a cave with a deadly shark in pursuit.
The Devil’s Mouth is streaming now on Prime Video. You can check out my review here, and the interview below.
The haters have been coming out in droves against Street Fighter since the beginning. Even some of my friends in the Fighting Game Community are talking shit about the film, saying it looks like a silly mess, the cast is crap, and it’s going to be worse than the Mortal Kombat movies. And my response to that is, “Fuck off. Street fighter is going to be awesome.” The world of Capcom’s legendary video game IS insane, it IS wild, it IS a mess, and cartoonish IS what the characters are meant to be. So to me, the movie is everything I want it to be and more.
And that is made even clearer with the release of this goofy new clip, which shows Jason Momoa acting like an unchained gorilla as the green-skinned, electrified Blanka, in a fight against an imprisoned Ryu, played by Andrew Koji. Cool thing about this clip; some of the prisoners that you see are some of the best Street Fighter players in the world, invited to be part of the movie. Probably only folks in the FGC would recognize it, but an awesome Easter Egg for us nonetheless.
Give me every bit of this. I laughed more than once at Momoa’s ridiculous dialogue, and his dismissive reaction to Ryu’s Hadoken fireball. While this is obviously meant to be funny, the action looks pretty solid, too. It’s going to be a careful balance.
Directed by Kitao Sakurai and starring Noah Centineo, Callina Liang, Roman Reigns, David Dastmalchian, Cody Rhodes, Andrew Schulz, Vidyut Jammwal, Eric André, and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Orville Peck, Olivier Richters, Hirooki Goto, Rayna Valladingham, Alexander Volkanovski, Kyle Mooney, and Mel Jarnson, Street Fighter hits theaters on October 16th.
Sony once had the Spider-Man movie rights all to itself. But when the numbers just weren’t big enough, they farmed it out to Marvel Studios which has taken the ball and run with it with Tom Holland in the suit. Sony then launched its own Spidey spinoff universe with characters such as Venom, Morbius, and Madame Web, but they never quite took off without him around. Turns out, Sony had a plan to fix all of that.
Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Holland revealed that Sony had come up with a plan to merge the MCU Spider-Man with the spinoff universe…eventually. Obviously, that never happened.
“I think that Tom Rothman is a really smart guy, and I think that he was building this universe, and they had this plan to kind of merge the worlds at some point,” Holland said. “And I think that they just never found the right time to do so. I think it was on the cards.”
Holland also shot down rumors that he was standing in the way of crossovers with the likes of Tom Hardy’s Venom. However, he did tease the possiblity that it could still happen someday…
“I mean, look, anything could happen. Anything could happen,” Holland said. “Who knows what the future of my Spider-Man looks like?”
While fans obviously want to see Spider-Man and Venom meet, who they really want to see is Miles Morales in the MCU. Holland sounds as if he wants that to happen as much as anyone, and says a whole plan for it has already been laid out…
“Oh yeah, there’s a whole plan that we have been working on for, I would say, since we finished ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home,’ and it’s laid out. It’s going to change for sure, but I have a really clear vision the passing on of the baton, and I think it’s really exciting. I know I get really excited when we have these meetings and chat about it.”
“That is the thing that I want to do most in this character,” he added. “Yeah, for sure.”
It’s worth noting that Kevin Feige and producer Amy Pascal basically agreed with Holland on everything, including their love for Miles. For now, Miles remains in Sony’s animated Spider-Verse movies, and Holland is not-so-safely in the MCU, facing down one crisis after another.
All I’ll say is, keep your eyes open during Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which opens tomorrow!
One of the strangest films to debut at Sundance was Wicker, the latest from Save Yourselves! filmmakers Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer. Perhaps that’s not so odd coming from those two. Anyway, it stars Olivia Colman as an ostracized fisherwoman ridiculed for being smell and perpetually single. So she commissions the basketmaker to literally create her the perfect man, wouldn’t you know, he looks just like Alexander Skarsgard!
Skarsgard’s Wicker Husband causes all sorts of turmoil, jealousy, and excitement throughout the village, as it should.
The geniuses at Wētā Workshop crafted the Wicker Husband using mostly practical effects, which made the love scenes between Skarsgard and Colman pretty interesting to shoot.
“Most male actors dream of playing Hamlet at some point in their career. I never did,” Skarsgård told EW. “My dream was always to have nipples made out of wicker. Thanks to our wonderful directors, Eleanor and Alex, and the brilliant artists at Wētā in New Zealand, my dream has finally come true.”
Also in the cast are Peter Dinklage, Elizabeth Debicki, Marli Siu, and Richard E. Grant. Dev Patel was originally cast in Skarsgard’s role before having to exit. The film is adapted from Ursula Wills-Jones’s short story.
Black Bear will release Wicker in theaters on October 30th.
Shudder may have scored the steal of Fantasia with Penny Lane is Dead. The Aussie horror by director Mia-kate Russell, in her debut feature, is the film I’ve heard the most buzz about from my friends who attended. And now, just a month ahead of its release, the first trailer has arrived, full of blood, gore, retro vibes, queer love, and female rage.
Set on a hot summer’s night in 1986 Australia, Penny Lane is celebrating getting into college with her longtime girlfriends Toni and Amy. The night, however, does not turn out as planned. After Penny’s jealous and troubled cousin Kat decides a cruel prank is in order, what begins as a thoughtless spiked cupcake game spirals into a night of bloodshed. In the Ozploitation tradition, Mia-kate Russell’s debut feature is a blood-soaked descent into love, betrayal and survival, infused with dark comedy and rage.
Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn, Tahlee Fereday, Alexandra Jensen, Bailey Spalding, Ben O’Toole, Steve Le Marquand, and Fletcher Humphrys lead the cast. Russell directs from her own screenplay.
Shudder will begin streaming Penny Lane is Dead on August 28th.
Maika Monroe might be the ultimate scream queen working today, starting with her role in It Follows and multiple horrors all the way up to Longlegs. Unlike in those films, where she is often the one being terrorized, Zachary Wigon’s Victorian Psycho puts the killing all in her bloody hands.
Bleecker Street has dropped the first Victorian Psycho trailer. The film is based on the book by Virginia Feito, who adapted the screenplay herself so you know it’s a faithful take on the murderous material.
Set in 1858 England, the film stars Monroe as Winifred Notty, an eccentric governess who arrives at the remote Ensor House manor to teach the children. But when people suddenly start disappearing, they begin to wonder what kind of psycho they just let into the house.
Monroe is joined in the cast by Thomasin McKenzie, Jason Isaacs, and Ruth Wilson, along with Jacobi Jupe and Evie Templeton.
Wigon is the talented filmmaker behind two previous thrillers, The Heart Machine and Sanctuary. He was originally meant to reunite with Margaret Qualley on this film until she had to drop out, and Monroe stepped in. A lateral move, if you ask me.
Gregg Araki has been at the forefront of expanding our horizons around sex, and I can say he definitely did that for me. I was an early fan of his “Teenage Apocalypse” trilogy, Nowhere being a longtime personal favorite. Those films were definitely niche and, to this day, remain criminally underseen. But I’ve always appreciated most when he dabbles in efforts that present as more mainstream, because if there’s one thing Araki won’t do, it’s hold anything back. He forces us to confront our feelings around sexual kink, queer love, consent, and more issues that Hollywood still considers taboo. I think back to a screwball romcom such as Splendor, which explored a three-way sexual relationship. Araki’s latest, I Want Your Sex, feels like a cousin to that movie. A sexually-charged comedy starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman, it centers on a young man who becomes the willing submissive to his boss, a powerful, infamous artist.
Hoffman stars as Elliot, an aimless guy with no real prospects or career ambitions, other than to do a podcast or something. But he also needs work, because his best friend Apple (Chase Sui Wonders) is sick of carrying the rent load. So he lands a gig as assistant to Erika Tracy (Wilde), a gorgeous, sexual dynamo and renowned artist known as much for her carnal appetite as her notorious cruelty. Elliot, who has a prudish, absent girlfriend (Charli XCX), is incredibly attracted to Erika. He can’t believe his luck when she, after noting that Elliot had signed his NDA, recruits him to be her personal sex slave.
In true Araki fashion, I Want Your Sex breaks all sorts of norms that you wouldn’t see in a comedy like this. It presents as a fairly straight-forward sex comedy, and many people will go in believing that’s what it is. But Araki uses it to cover a number of hot button issues. Early on, as Elliot is being questioned by a pair of detectives (played by Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville), the question of grooming comes up. But Elliot dismisses it almost immediately because what guy wouldn’t want to submit themselves to a stunner like Erika? That the power dynamic is wildly in her favor is barely an issue. This almost certainly wouldn’t be so easily dismissed if things were reversed.
Also, Araki ponders why so many Gen Z guys seem to be so afraid of sex. For that matter, Hollywood movies, at least those that aren’t distinctly LGBTQ, seem to be afraid of sex altogether. How many blockbuster movies from major studios have you seen lately that place it front and center? It’s one reason why Araki is such a vital voice, perhaps more now than ever, because he can attract such A-list talent to a film like I Want Your Sex.
This marks what is a career-turning Sundance for Wilde, which also sees her direct and star in the riotous comedy, The Invite (review here), another movie about the breaking of sexual norms. As Erika Tracy, she’s given one of the best roles she’s ever had. You can see her come to life as this wicked, conniving femme fatale who Elliot rightly calls a sociopath. And yet, she’s utterly irresistible. One of the most believable things about Elliot is how utterly addicted he is to Erika even though he knows she’s awful for him. She’s like a drug that he can’t pull himself away from. Sure, he comes across like a naive fool, but as a guy who has been that naive fool more than once in his life, I bought every second of it.
There’s a murder subplot that intrudes on the story, and it’s the one aspect that feels out of place. Araki doesn’t seem to be that invested in it, either, even though it’s crucial to the plot. It sends the final act into a tailspin, with so much going on that the premise gets lost and so do the jokes. Still, I’ll take a thousand provocative Gregg Araki comedies like I Want Your Sex over another bland retread from Tinseltown. Araki is unflinching at pushing buttons to evoke the reaction he wants, and while that may turn some off, it’s good to have your limits tested every once in a while, whether that be in the movie theater or in the bedroom.
Hilariously, the trailer for Fall 2: Deadpoint contains a scene in which the characters watch a recording of what happened in the first movie, when Shiloh (played by Virginia Gardner), having climbed a tower with her best friend, plummets to her death. You’d think they’d take this little warning message to heart, but then we wouldn’t have this sequel to look forward to, would we? Plus, one of the ladies making the ill-advised climb this time is Shiloh’s sister, Jax, played by Harriet Slater.
The Spierig Brothers take over as directors on Fall 2: Deadpoint, with original filmmakers Scott Mann and Jonathan Frank writing the script. The Spierigs are well-known for films such as Predestination, Jigsaw, Daybreakers, and Winchester.
Picking up from events in the first film, the sequel finds two friends tackling a dangerous plank walk at the top of a mountain in Thailand, as a tribute to Shiloh. Naturally, it goes disastrously wrong. These tributes are going to get someone killed. Oh wait, they already have. Can’t these people buy flowers? Spread some ashes at sea or something?
It strikes me that this franchise might be an endless cycle of climbers attempting to pay tribute to previous climbers who failed fatally. If that’s the case, then this could be a pretty awesome series of movies. Where will they fall from next?
Slater is joined in the cast by Arsema Thomas and Tom Brittney, based on characters created by Mann and Frank.
When Rinko Kikuchi has a new film at Sundance, it’s always worth taking note. The Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter and We Are Little Zombies actress returned to Park City earlier this year with a real crowd-pleaser that had audiences buzzing. Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty, set in Tokyo’s ballroom dancing scene, won the Directing Award for Drama at the festival, and Sony Pictures Classics has dropped a fun teaser ahead of its release in September.
Directed and co-written by Joseph Kubota Wladyka (Catch the Fair One), Ha-Chan Shake Your Booty stars Kikuchi as a competitive ballroom dancer who retreats into isolation after the sudden, tragic death of her partner. But when her frisky friends coax her back onto the dance floor, she becomes infatuated with the charismatic, sexy new instructor who could be the one to get her past the grief.
I saw this movie a short time after the festival (hence, no review) and it’s a quirky charmer, perfect for Kikuchi, who has been a favorite of mine since her performances in Babel and Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom. Kikuchi is joined in the cast by Alberto Guerra, Alejandro Edda, You, Yoh Yoshida, and Damián Alcazar.
SYNOPSIS: Haru and Luis love competing in Tokyo’s ballroom dance scene, but after tragedy strikes, Haru withdraws into isolation. When friends coax her back to the studio, she develops an infatuation with the new instructor. She must face what comes next as sparks fly.
The Thomas Crown Affair is one of my favorite movies of all-time. I’ve spent entire days watching both the original and the John McTiernan version from 1999. Michael B. Jordan is like me in that he prefers McTiernan’s take. Amazon/MGM Studios have revealed the anticipated first teaser for Jordan’s reimagining, which he both directs and stars in alongside Adria Arjona, Lily Gladstone, Kenneth Branagh, Danai Gurira, and Pilou Asbæk.
Written by Drew Pearce and Jason Hall, The Thomas Crown Affair stars Jordan as a billionaire businessman with a lust for life who gets his kicks by stealing works of art, until he falls for the insurance investigator hired to follow him.
The chemistry between Jordan and Arjona is going to make or break this movie, just as Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo’s lit the screen on fire. Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway were pretty hot in the 1968 film, as well.
My gut tells me something is missing from this trailer. Why doesn’t this look all that…fun? This is supposed to be a slick game of cat and mouse, but it looks way too serious.
The film marks Jordan’s sophomore effort behind the camera, following Creed III. His inexperience showed in the tone of that film, but I’m hopeful for improvement here.
SYNOPSIS: Academy Award® winner Michael B. Jordan directs, produces, and stars in a visually breathtaking, sensual, and unexpectedly moving heist thriller, where the most dangerous man in the room is the one nobody’s watching.
The Thomas Crown Affair hits theaters on March 5th 2027.
