We’re happy to offer our readers the chance to win a pair of Fandango passes to see the new science-fiction film Reminiscence, starring Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, and Thandiwe Newton! The film is written and directed by Westworld co-creator, Lisa Joy.
SYNOPSIS: Nick Bannister (Jackman), a private investigator of the mind, navigates the darkly alluring world of the past by helping his clients access lost memories. Living on the fringes of the sunken Miami coast, his life is forever changed when he takes on a new client, Mae (Ferguson). A simple matter of lost and found becomes a dangerous obsession. As Bannister fights to find the truth about Mae’s disappearance, he uncovers a violent conspiracy, and must ultimately answer the question: how far would you go to hold on to the ones you love?
These passes are good for you and one guest to see the film at the theater of your choice. To enter, simply send an email to punchdrunktrav@gmail.com with your full name and favorite Hugh Jackman film where he isn’t playing Wolverine! Winners will be selected tomorrow, August 20th, and notified by email. Good luck!
Reminiscenceopens in theaters and HBO Max on August 20th.
The New York Film Festival just announced a raft of huge films for the upcoming festival, including The French Dispatch, Dune, and Sean Baker’s Red Rocket. But another that’s part of the lineup that we haven’t heard much about is C’mon C’mon, the new film from Beginners and 20th Century Women director Mike Mills. Well, that changes today with the reveal of a first image, featuring star Joaquin Phoenix.
In the photo, we see Phoenix alongside young co-star Woody Norman. Phoenix plays an journalist who bonds with his nephew while on a cross-country doing interviews. This looks like the sort of kind-hearted film that Mills is known for, and it’s sure to be a major player during this awards season if A24 has anything to say about it.
Also in the cast are Gaby Hoffmann and comedian Jaboukie Young-White. Check out the full description below:
After gracing audiences with Beginners and 20th Century Women (NYFF54), writer-director Mike Mills returns with another warm, insightful, and gratifyingly askew portrait of American family life. A soulful Joaquin Phoenix plays Johnny, a kindhearted radio journalist deep into a project in which he interviews children across the U.S. about our world’s uncertain future. His sister, Viv (a marvelously intuitive Gaby Hoffmann), asks him to watch her 8-year-old son, Jesse (Woody Norman, in one of the most affecting breakout child performances in years), while she tends to the child’s father, who’s suffering from mental health issues. After agreeing, Johnny finds himself connecting with his nephew in ways he hadn’t expected, ultimately taking Jesse with him on a journey from Los Angeles to New York to New Orleans. Anchored by three remarkable actors, C’mon C’mon is a gentle yet impeccably crafted drama about coming to terms with personal trauma and historical legacies. An A24 release.
As the book industry has changed, so too has movies about the professions. Thankfully, we’re no longer as awash in films about the aspiring writer struggling with a first or second novel, or the reclusive author locked away in their den. Today, books are all about the sell sell sell! You have to be a celebrity and put yourself out there, and not every author is cracked up for that sort of thing. Such is the deal in Best Sellers, which pairs up the unlikely duo of Aubrey Plaza and the great Michael Caine.
The film from debuting director Lina Roessler stars Plaza as an editor who has inherited a publishing house from her deceased father. To help boost sales, she drags a cantankerous author out of hiding and on a book tour, which goes disastrously wrong but also has the potential to make some big money and change their lives for the better.
Also in the cast are Ellen Wong, Scott Speedman, and Cary Elwes.
Best Sellers opens in theaters and VOD on September 17th.
Lucy Standbridge (Aubrey Plaza) has inherited her father’s publishing house, and the ambitious would-be editor has nearly sunk it with failing titles. She discovers she is owed a book by Harris Shaw (Michael Caine), a reclusive, cantankerous, booze-addled author who originally put the company on the map decades earlier. In a last-ditch effort to save the company, Lucy and Harris release his new book and embark on a book tour from hell that changes them both in ways they didn’t expect.
Part of the premise of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Rear Window, and every film that has emulated it in decades since, is the idea that there’s no such thing as privacy. If your windows are open, it’s all public and fair game. In the movies, such snooping tends to lead to mischief or murder, and such is the case for the aptly titled The Voyeurs, which hits Amazon next month.
The leading duo for this is pretty great. Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu) and Sydney Sweeney (The White Lotus, Euphoria) star as a couple who get a little too nosey with their neighbors across the street, and kick-off something they’ll really wish they hadn’t started.
Behind the camera is Michael Mohan, best known for the Netflix hit Everything Sucks!. Ben Hardy (X-Men: Apocalypse) and Natasha Liu Bardizzo (Guns Akimbo) co-star.
The Voyeurs hits Amazon Prime Video on September 10th.
When Pippa and Thomas move into their dream apartment, they notice that their windows look directly into the apartment opposite – inviting them to witness the volatile relationship of the attractive couple across the street. But when they attempt to intercede in their lives anonymously, they unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that will lead to disaster.
Beware! If you loathe the plodding pace and head-scratching mind-fuckery of HBO’s Westworld, chances are you’ll feel the same about Reminiscence. A creation of one of that show’s masterminds, Lisa Joy, Reminiscence always looked like it had the potential to be a clunky misfire, with uncertain promos pushing a movie they clearly didn’t quite understand. True to Joy’s nature, the film presents itself as a giant puzzle box, with memories and dreams blurring reality in a noir-ish landscape, but even with a cast that reunites The Greatest Showman duo Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson, along with Westworld star Thandie Newton, this is one memory you’ll want to scrub from the brain.
In what is basically one part Waterworld, and a complete ripoff of Strange Days, Lisa Joy’s Reminiscence stars Jackman as Nick, who utilizes a special machine known as Reminiscence so that his customers can relive their most nostalgic memories. During the day, he and his fellow ex-military vet partner Watts (Thandiwe Newton) use the device to assist the district attorney solve crimes. His world is turned upside down when Mae (Ferguson) slinks into their shop looking for her keys. Her memories unspooling before him like scenes from a sexy movie, Nick is mesmerized. Using what he saw as a guidepost, he follows her to the lounge club where she works as a singer, regaling the audience with a tune that is very dear to Nick’s heart. How did she know it? The two engage in a months-long romance, much to Watts’ annoyance, until one day Mae just up and disappears. We learn this as Nick comes swimming up to the surface of the watery Reminiscence machine, where he’s spent every waking moment looking for clues about her whereabouts.
Water plays a major role throughout Reminiscence. In this world, flood waters have drowned the land, separating the haves from the have-nots and creating a place that always seems to be a reflecting upon itself. It also comes to symbolize the ebb and flow of memories, and the loose grip that we have on them. To be fair, Joy does a good job in building this film noir-esque landscape, pulling from romanticized classic films to create a moody atmosphere. But the film has no energy, no momentum whatsoever, and never feels certain about what the Hell it’s trying to get across.
This lack of narrative clarity is made explicit through really terrible, superfluous narration by Jackman that drops info on the audience like a ton of bricks. It pops up at unusual times, too, as if the film went through a number of different edits to try and figure out which version works best. As a result, there’s very little about Reminiscence that makes a connection, and that includes the on-screen chemistry between Jackman and Ferguson.
I fully expected that, even if Reminiscence was a mess, at least Jackman and Ferguson would be solid. But damn, that’s not the case here at all. Joy tries to shoehorn him into the classic film noir protagonist role, that of the cynical man who becomes obsessed with the film fatale who dupes him. No matter how many times Jackman emerges, soaking wet in his tanktop growling at the world, he’s no Wolverine here. Ferguson’s wispy role as Mae suits her better, but the swooning romance she shares with Jackman is too icy for us to understand his desperation to find her. Of the performances, only Newton adds some excitement as Watts, a high-functioning alcoholic badass who feels like she wandered in from a completely different, and much better, film.
Nick’s journey takes him into the Miami underworld (underwater world?), where we’re introduced to colorful criminals like St. Joe (Daniel Wu) and Cyrus Booth (Cliff Curtis), who are meant to be integral but are too thinly-drawn to matter. There’s also a pervasive illegal drug that is introduced solely as an excuse to uncomplicate certain characters’ motives, thus robbing the film of a great deal of its complexity.
The worst thing about Reminiscence is that it’s just painfully dull, and Joy seems to recognize that after a while by injecting a couple of action sequences that completely cut against the film’s style. To be fair, they are really well done fights, including a latter one, slickly edited and shot to show Nick and his opponent battling across multiple locations. As cool as this might be, it doesn’t really feel part of Reminiscence, but instead like a treat meant to appease Jackman’s fans. Otherwise, there isn’t enough here that will linger on the mind for very long.
Reminiscence opens in theaters and HBO Max on August 20th.
While there’s still some debate about the release strategy for Eternals, that hasn’t stopped Marvel Studios from dropping a very revealing new trailer, along with a poster to go with it. What’s revealing about this footage is that it finally attempts to explain why these powerful cosmic beings, who were sent to Earth thousands of years ago to protect humanity, did nothing while Thanos snapped half the universe into oblivion.
To be fair, the answer provided is pretty lame, but at least it’s something and helps to introduce the Eternals’ greatest foes, the Deviants. Ironically, in the comics Thanos himself is a member of the Deviants, so perhaps that isn’t the case in the MCU? Otherwise the Eternals could have interjected himself into the Avengers: Endgame fight, correct? Anyway, this trailer also gives us a look at the Celestials, beings who helped shape the fabric of the entire universe.
A star-studded cast is led by Richard Madden, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Kumail Nanjiani, Gemma Chan, Kit Harrington, Brian Tyree Henry, and more. Behind the camera is Oscar winner Chloe Zhao, lending this film instant credibility that no Marvel film has had before.
Eternals is currently set to open on November 5th.
This is straight up wonderful news for any fans of the horror genre. I was gushing all last Halloween season as we got one of the most plentiful slates of new horror films in a very long time across Hulu, Shudder, and Amazon Prime Video. Of the three streaming powerhouses Amazon’s Welcome To The Blumhouse lead the pack in quality as Blumhouse tends to do in the genre. Well, we don’t know yet about the others but we have confirmation that the House that Jason Blum built is bringing a months worth of new horror (one a week) to Amazon’s streaming waves this October. The film’s on the schedule are about as diverse in theme as you can get, making sure to have something for everyone.
Four films in total will be released, starting on October 1st with Bingo Hell and Black as Night. The second round comes one week later with Madres and The Manor releasing on October 8th. The rundown for each film is below, but one thing is for sure….It’s beginning to look a lot like Halloween!!
BINGO HELL Synopsis:
When a sinister figure threatens the residents of a low-income community, a feisty senior citizen tries to stop him in Bingo Hell , a wickedly original horror movie with a fiendishly funny twist. After 60-something neighborhood activist Lupita (Adriana Barraza) discovers that her beloved local bingo hall has been taken over by a mysterious businessman named Mr. Big (Richard Brake), she rallies her elderly friends to fight back against the enigmatic entrepreneur. But when her longtime neighbors begin turning up dead under grisly circumstances, Lupita suddenly discovers that gentrification is the least of her problems. Something terrifying has made itself at home in the quiet barrio of Oak Springs, and with each new cry of “Bingo!” another victim falls prey to its diabolical presence. As the cash prizes increase and the body count steadily rises, Lupita must face the frightening realization that this game is truly winner-takes-all.
Directed by : Gigi Saul Guerrero Written by : Shane McKenzie, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Perry Blackshear Starring : Adriana Barraza, L. Scott Caldwell, Richard Brake and Joshua Caleb Johnson Executive Produced by : Jason Blum, Lisa Bruce, Jeremy Gold, Marci Wiseman, Raynor Shima and Lauren Downey
BLACK AS NIGHT Synopsis:
A resourceful teenage girl leaves childhood behind when she battles a group of deadly vampires in Black as Night , an action-horror hybrid with a strong social conscience and a biting sense of humor. Fifteen years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, a new threat leaves its mark on the Big Easy in the form of puncture wounds on the throats of the city’s vulnerable displaced population. When her drug-addicted mom becomes the latest victim of the undead, 15-year old Shawna (Asjha Cooper) vows to even the score. Along with three trusted friends, Shawna hatches a bold plan to infiltrate the vampire’s mansion in the historic French Quarter, destroy their leader, and turn his fanged disciples back to their human form. But killing monsters is no easy task, and soon Shawna and her crew find themselves caught in a centuries-old conflict between warring vampire factions, each fighting to claim New Orleans as their permanent home.
Directed by : Maritte Lee Go Written by : Sherman Payne Starring : Asjha Cooper, Fabrizio Guido, Mason Beauchamp, Abbie Gayle with Craig Tate and Keith David Executive Produced by : Jason Blum, Jeremy Gold, Marci Wiseman, Lisa Bruce, Maggie Malina and Guy Stodel
MADRES
Synopsis:
Beto (Tenoch Huerta) and Diana (Ariana Guerra), a young Mexican-American couple expecting their first child, move to a small town in 1970’s California where Beto has been offered a job managing a farm. Isolated from the community and plagued by confusing nightmares, Diana explores the rundown company ranch where they reside, finding a grisly talisman and a box containing the belongings of the previous residents. Her discoveries will lead her to a truth much stranger and more terrifying than she could have possibly imagined.
Directed by : Ryan Zaragoza Written by : Marcella Ochoa & Mario Miscione Starring : Tenoch Huerta, Ariana Guerra, Evelyn Gonzalez, Kerry Cahill, and Elpidia Carrillo Executive Produced by : Jason Blum, Jeremy Gold, Marci Wiseman, Lisa Bruce, Sanjay Sharma and Matthew Myers
THE MANOR Synopsis:
A malevolent force preys upon the residents of a sleepy nursing home in The Manor , a gothic tale of terror with a modern twist. When a mild stroke diminishes her ability to care for herself, Judith Albright (Barbara Hershey) moves to Golden Sun Manor, an assisted living facility with a sterling reputation. But despite the best efforts of the staff, and a budding friendship with fellow senior Roland (Bruce Davidson), strange occurrences and nightmarish visions convince Judith that a sinister presence is haunting the massive estate. As residents begin to die mysteriously, Judith’s frantic warnings are dismissed as fantasy. Even her devoted grandson Josh (Nicholas Alexander) thinks her fears are the result of dementia, not demons. With no one willing to believe her, Judith must either escape the confines of the manor, or fall victim to the evil that dwells within it.
Written and Directed by : Axelle Carolyn Starring : Barbara Hershey, Bruce Davison, Nicholas Alexander, Jill Larsen, Fran Bennett and Katie Amanda Keane Executive Produced by : Jason Blum, Jeremy Gold, Marci Wiseman, Lisa Bruce, Sandy King and Richard J Bosner
We’ll bring you the latest and all of the trailers released as soon as they become available!
For some reason, when we learned that Falcon and the Winter Soldier would lead into a Captain America 4 on the big screen, there was some question whether Anthony Mackie would be in it. I mean, did you all not just watch the same show I did? Of course, some of that had to do with Mackie downplaying the whole thing himself. While a deal might not have been official back then, according to THR it is now and Mackie will indeed suit up in the stars and stripes.
Mackie is set to star in Captain America 4, which will be co-written by Falcon and the Winter Soldier creator Marcus Spellman and staff writer Dalan Musson. While details on the story are unknown, they’ll continue the journey of Sam Wilson that finds him fully taking over the role of Captain America following Steve Rogers, who was played by Chris Evans for more than a decade.
No word if Sebastian Stan will return as his pal, Bucky, or if other regulars from the series will join him, such as Daniel Bruhl’s Baron Zemo or Emily VanCamp’s Sharon Carter.
If anybody is going to give us a true superhero horror movie it’ll be James Wan. While his Aquaman spinoff about The Trench isn’t going through, he’s found a way to incorporate horror aspects into Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, by drawing inspiration on a classic film you might not have heard of.
“‘Aquaman 2’ is very heavily inspired by ‘Planet of the Vampires,’” Wan told Total Film. “You can take the boy out of horror but you can never take the horror out the boy.”
As the creator of Saw, The Conjuring, and other hit horrors, Wan is a guy who knows his stuff. He’s pulling from a pretty deep well referencing 1965’s Planet of the Vampire, an Italian horror about the crews of two spaceships that crashland on a desolate planet where the disembodied natives possess the bodies of the deceased. They proceed to use those possessed corpses to try and kill the remaining survivors. It’s some crazy shit and I’m constantly surprised someone hasn’t remade it yet.
“Well, the first movie took a lot of people by surprise, right? And that’s partially because they were not familiar with the comic book, which deals in this very lurid, strange world. People were taken aback that I didn’t throw all that stuff away and make a dark, heavy film. But I didn’t feel that would have been right for it. So with the second film, I feel it will be easier for people to accept where we go because I’ve already laid the foundation.”
This only makes me want to see Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom even more. The film hits theaters next year on December 16th.
The wait for No Time to Die has been a long one. Originally due to open in April 2020, the film has been repeatedly delayed by MGM due to COVID-19, and as we’ve seen, they have struggled with the costs associated with that. Attempts to unload the film onto streaming have failed, even as Amazon has swooped in to buy the studio. But as the Delta variant erodes what little confidence moviegoers had in returning to theaters, MGM might not be able to risk delaying the film again.
In a THR piece, it’s stated that marketing costs that compound with each No Time to Die delay could be too much for MGM to consider another delay. Again, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of the money MGM is losing each time they have to push back the film’s release. But what other option is there with no streaming platform to capitalize on? While Amazon does have their Prime Video streaming service, the deal isn’t quite finalized yet.
With Sony recently delaying Venom: Let There Be Carnage, it’s clear studios are again fearing shutdowns. For now, it looks like MGM is going to move forward with No Time to Die‘s theatrical release on October 8th. But don’t be surprised if something happens between now and then.
