I don’t know if there’s been a Marvel movie with as much speculation and mystery around it than Spider-Man: No Way Home. A few secrets may have spilled out in the Funko’s first wave of Pop! Vinyl figures for the upcoming sequel, with some very revealing character designs.
The line of six figures includes multiple versions of Spidey, each boasting a brand new, upgraded version of his costume. The real eye-popper for me is the black and gold suit that is going to look awesome on the big screen. Most intriguing, though, is the integrated suit that seems to have magical powers just like Doctor Strange. There’s also an upgraded suit with Spidey spreading his webbing out for gliding.
Also included are figures for Doctor Strange, carrying a shovel for some reason, plus Peter Parker’s pals MJ and Ned. For those interested in something a bit bigger, a jumbo-sized black & gold Spider-Man is available at Target.
All of these are available for pre-order now. We highly recommend our friends at Entertainment Earth and Amazon for your Funko Pop! buying needs! Any commission that we earn from purchases through our affiliate links goes back into the site. We are a small group and every little bit helps. Thank you so much for all of your support!
First dates are always tough. In the movies, they tend to be catastrophic and the basis for great coming-of-age stories. Earlier this year at Sundance I had the chance to check out First Date, a new comedy from the duo of Manuel Crosby and Darren Knapp. The film, about an introverted high schooler who finally works up the courage to ask out his kick-ass neighbor Kelsey, has a crazy cat lady, a missing drug stash, bad cops, and more! It also features breakout performances by stars Tyson Brown and Shelby Duclos.
I had the chance to speak with Tyson Brown and Shelby Duclose about First Date. We talked about this being the first major film for them both, their favorite scenes and date night movies, and more.
First Date is available now in theaters and Apple TV. Check out my review here and the interview below!
Many people have figured out their relationships were toxic while being stuck with their partner during COVID quarantine. The new film Till Death takes that concept of being stuck in a bad marriage to a whole new level. Starring Megan Fox, Callan Murphy, Eoin Macken, Jack Roth, and Aml Ameen, this sleek slasher thriller has the potential to be a sleeper hit like Ready Or Not but is ultimately weighed down by a lacking script written by Jason Carvey.
Emma (Megan Fox) is stuck in a loveless marriage with Mark, an intimidating and skeevy lawyer. Clearly emotionally abusive, her husband takes her to their lake house in the middle of winter for their 10th anniversary. After the facade of resolving their marriage wears off, Emma literally wakes to find herself handcuffed to her soon-to-be-dead husband. Caked in his blood, Emma tries to escape when two criminal brothers break in to steal diamonds locked in a safe. One brother just so happens to be Emma’s attacker a robbery gone wrong 11 years before. Forced to free herself from the physical and mental chains of her marriage, Emma is pushed to her limit trying to survive.
From the opening shot, Till Death takes itself too seriously. The overhead tracking shot of a foggy New York City quickly turns into water droplets rolling off the window of a car. The film’s first lines share this same sentiment. “Everything looks so beautiful from up here.” The lines that follow are often quippy and hollow. The lack of chemistry between the cast makes the dialogue feel hokey and performances wooden.
As baddies, Callan Murphy and Jack Roth probably have the most stable performances out of the entire cast (though it is Fox’s movie). Roth’s Jimmy, the reluctant brother who is clearly in over his head, doesn’t feel like the bumbling criminal archetype like he could have been. Instead, his tiny character arch of realizing how far gone his brother is one of the script’s few redeeming qualities and Roth does a stellar job taking those moments when he can.
Adding to the script’s problem is that Fox’s Emma feels completely underwritten. We know she was in a crappy marriage, had an affair, was once a photographer, and was brutally attacked long before the start of the movie. But at Till Death’s start, Fox isn’t given much of a character to start with besides a depressed miserable woman stuck in a loveless marriage. However, once the action picks up at the lake house, Fox makes interesting and moving choices that not only endear the audience to her but moves the story along.
While the script is trite and dialogue cliche, the plot doesn’t drag at all. Part of this is due to Fox’s aforementioned performance and some smart directing choices. Director S.K. Dale builds tension pretty seamlessly and makes some interesting visual choices along the way, adding to the setting’s starkness. Like Fox’s performance, Dale’s directing improves over time and shines brightest in Till Death’s final 35 minutes.
A cross between Gerald’s Game and a domestic abuse version of Home Alone, Till Death tries to be a biting thriller when in reality its script transforms into something void and hollow. With an absurd premise like hating your spouse so much, you die, you’d think the film would have more of a sense of humor.
You can catch Till Death on demand and in theaters. Watch the trailer below.
Available on Amazon Prime Video right now is The Tomorrow War, a blockbuster sci-fi film starring Chris Pratt as a man drafted to travel into the future to fight a losing battle against a deadly alien race. Many of those enlisted have no idea what they’re in for, and have even less experience on the battlefield, but the same can’t be said for the characters played by actors Keith Powers and Jasmine Matthews.
Powers plays Major Greenwood, with Matthews as Lt. Hart, both experienced soldiers in combating the extraterrestrial threat. It’s up to them to get the new recruits mentally and physically ready for the fight of their lives, while keeping their own fears in check.
I had a chance to talk with Powers and Matthews about starring in The Tomorrow War. Similar to my earlier conversation with Chris Pratt and Edwin Hodge, we talked about the physicality demanded from the intense shoot, their thoughts on the creature design, and more.
Check out my review of The Tomorrow Warhere and the interview below!
The Alien franchise has been in need of a revamp for decades. While Ridley Scott has done a marginally successful job with his recent prequels, the entire thing needs to be looked at from a different angle. Fortunately, Noah Hawley has built his career expanding our understanding of established properties with his Fargo series and X-Men spinoff Legion. And now he’s going to do the same with his Alien series on FX.
What little we knew about it before Hawley’s interview with Vanity Fair, is that his Alien will be set on Earth and focus on the people who launch those doomed missions into space. Hawley expands on that idea, in the context of the films that came before…
“Those are great monster movies, but they’re not just monster movies. They’re about humanity trapped between our primordial, parasitic past and our artificial intelligence future—and they’re both trying to kill us. Here you have human beings and they can’t go forward and they can’t go back. So I find that really interesting.”
One thing that his show won’t be about? Ripley. So don’t expect any Sigourney Weaver cameos or anything…
“It’s not a Ripley story,” Hawley said. “She’s one of the great characters of all time, and I think the story has been told pretty perfectly, and I don’t want to mess with it. It’s a story that’s set on Earth also. The alien stories are always trapped… Trapped in a prison, trapped in a spaceship. I thought it would be interesting to open it up a little bit so that the stakes of ‘What happens if you can’t contain it?’ are more immediate.”
“On some level, it’s also a story about inequality. You know, one of the things that I love about the first movie is how ’70s a movie it is, and how it’s really this blue-collar space-trucker world in which Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton are basically ‘Waiting for Godot.’ They’re like Samuel Beckett characters, ordered to go to a place by a faceless nameless corporation. The second movie is such an ‘80s movie, but it’s still about grunts. Paul Reiser is middle management at best. So, it is the story of the people you send to do the dirty work.”
“In mine, you’re also going to see the people who are sending them. So you will see what happens when the inequality we’re struggling with now isn’t resolved. If we as a society can’t figure out how to prop each other up and spread the wealth, then what’s going to happen to us? There’s that great Sigourney Weaver line to Paul Reiser where she says, ‘I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t fuck each other over for a percentage.’”
I’ve never watched Fargo despite the critical acclaim, and enjoyed what he did with Legion for the most part. But is Alien something people will want to watch if there isn’t the chance of a xenomorph bursting out of someone’s chest? I’m not so sure.
Cocaine Bear, a movie about a real-life coked-out bear that became the stuff of legend, deserves a top notch cast. And for director Elizabeth Banks, she’s definitely assembled one. Deadline reports Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson, Alden Ehrenreich, Ray Liotta, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson will star.
Based on the insane true story, Cocaine Bear follows events that took place in Kentucky in 1985, when a bear swallowed a cache of cocaine thrown from a plane by Andrew Thornton, a former Lexington narcotics agent who became a drug smuggler. Thornton died while parachuting out of the plane carrying $15M in cocaine over Knoxville.
Banks will direct, making this her third effort following Pitch Perfect 2 and the Charlie’s Angels reboot. She’s working from a script by Jimmy Warden, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller on board as producers.
There’s a ton of star power here, including a trio of Star Wars actors in Russell, who played Zorii Bliss in The Rise of Skywalker, Ehrenreich who is the other Han Solo guy, and Jackson who has a role in the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Liotta is a screen legend who can be seen right now in Steven Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move, while Ferguson is coming off a decade-long stretch on Modern Family.
Marvel has found another Disney+ hit on their hands with Loki, earning raves from fanboys and critics alike. While all of the Marvel shows have been great in their own way, I think Loki deserves special credit for just how damn good it looks, with a style that seems to combine the best aspects of Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange. The person to thank for that is cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, and it looks as if she’s moving on to something much bigger.
Arkapaw recently posted an Instagram video of Black Panther writer/director Ryan Coogler showing off his b-ball skills. While this is hardly firm confirmation of anything, it tells us Arkapaw is with Coogler right now while the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is in production. We can put two and two together to get four, can’t we?
As for previous Black Panther DP Rachel Morrison? She’s busy on another film, and can be seen in Arkapaw’s comments giving her and Coogler well wishes.
Arkapaw has previously worked on films including Palo Alto, The Sun is Also a Star, and most recently Gia Coppola’s Mainstream.
Eventually, Marvel will get around to making this official. For now, keep enjoying Arkapaw’s work on Loki every Wednesday, then see what she can do on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever which opens on July 8th 2022.
Chris McKay’s The Tomorrow War opens with Chris Pratt hurtling through a hazy sky, landing in the middle of a war zone. His character, mild-mannered family man and ex-military dude Dan Forester, looks as dumbfounded as he should given the circumstances. Fortunately, the film about a futuristic battle against an invading extraterrestrial force keeps its windy time travel premise pretty simple, focusing on action and the human ability to fight back against overwhelming odds.
The Tomorrow War isn’t a complicated movie, like so many dealing with time travel machinations tend to be. Instead, McKay and screenwriter Zach Dean boil it down and find the human drama within the alien warfare. While it stumbles into familiarity eventually, it’s a big, exciting summer blockbuster with a surprising amount of heart.
Dan is a guy in need of a job. He’s a brilliant guy with a caring wife Emmy (Betty Gilpin) and equally smart daughter Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong). All he wants to do is take care of them, and to ensure they have a bright future. But that future is literally threatened with the sudden arrival of soldiers from the year 2051, who teleport into the middle of a televised soccer match with a dire warning. Humanity will be destroyed in thirty years if they don’t do something now. And that means all able-bodied people need to come and fight against space aliens seeking our destruction.
What’s interesting about The Tomorrow War is that it actually looks at the impact such an ultimatum would have. Thirty years isn’t that far ahead; most people living in the present would see the end come. While that drives some to be gung-ho about fighting the good fight, such as veteran soldier Dorian (Edwin Hodge), for much of the country it causes a depression to sink in. What’s the point of doing anything with your life if there’s no hope you’ll get a chance to enjoy it?
Similar to Starship Troopers, minus the satirical edge, The Tomorrow War takes us into the drafting, the training, and yes even the propaganda that goes into launching such an effort. With only 30% of draftees surviving their first tour, it takes a lot to keep up morale. Another thing causing a ripple effect of malaise is that anyone drafted must be people who are dead before 2051, in order to prevent any screw-ups with the timeline.
How’s that for a selling point? “You’re gonna die anyway!” Put that on the Uncle Sam poster.
The actual aliens are kept at bay until it’s time to fight, and they’re quite a tenctacled, dagger-shooting sight to behold. Appropriately called the “white spikes”, they have unparalleled speed and attack in overwhelming numbers. When Dan, who takes on the role of leader like a man born for it, first gets a look at the enemy he’s as stunned as anybody, and takes to protecting his squadmates like the terrified Charlie (scene-stealer Sam Richardson, having a very good year). Still, a lot of characters we get to like don’t survive those opening assaults, and even fewer make it to the final battle.
The Tomorrow War benefits from having such extremely high stakes, while also showing the personal cost for those enlisted in this suicide mission. Practically every alien invasion movie puts the fate of humanity on the line, but it’s an abstract notion. What makes that threat so meaningful here is that Dan and others are literally fighting for the next generation, their own children, who run the risk of growing up in a world that no longer exists. Dan can look into his daughter’s eyes and know that he either did everything he could to save her, or not.
Pratt, who takes on a producer role for the first time, is the reliably likable action star we’ve come to expect, shifting from comedy to serious to sensitive with ease. There’s more to him here than he’s usually called upon to do, and nails it. He’s joined by JK Simmons who plays Dan’s estranged father, and Yvonne Strahovski who plays a future military leader who grows close to Dan in a surprising way that shouldn’t be spoiled here. If there’s a complaint about the casting at all it’s that Gilpin doesn’t get to be part of the cool shit. We know from The Hunt how well she can handle a gun!
While so much of The Tomorrow War works as thrilling popcorn fun, you also wish some of the action set pieces were more creative. McKay, who is best known for directing The Lego Batman Movie, keeps the major sequences simple and easy to follow, but they aren’t especially memorable and might have played better on the big screen. The Tomorrow War throws a lot at you: deadly space invaders, complicated family dynamics, planetary annihilation. It can get a little bit out of control, and I have to admit it took a couple of viewings for me to decide if there was just too much going on. But you have to admire the ambition to offer something more, and still just be a really entertaining movie where we get to see Chris Pratt make a lot of things go BOOM!
The Tomorrow War hits Amazon Prime Video on July 2nd. Be sure to check out my interview with Chris Pratt and Edwin Hodge here!
As the title suggests, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania is all about change. Not only is this the first of the blockbuster animated franchise to be directed by someone other than Genndy Tartakovsky, and the first to not feature Adam Sandler as the voice of Dracula, but the monster-ific cast of characters have all been transformed into their non-monstrous selves.
The story finds Drac (now voiced by Brian Hull) and his buddies in the Drac Pack attempting to return to their original form after being transformed by Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan).
SYNOPSIS: Drac and the pack are back, like you’ve never seen them before in Hotel Transylvania: Transformania. Reunite with your favorite monsters for an all-new adventure that presents Drac with his most terrifying task yet. When Van Helsing’s mysterious invention, the ‘Monsterification Ray,’ goes haywire, Drac and his monster pals are all transformed into humans, and Johnny becomes a monster! In their new mismatched bodies, Drac, stripped of his powers, and an exuberant Johnny, loving life as a monster, must team up and race across the globe to find a cure before it’s too late, and before they drive each other crazy. With help from Mavis and the hilariously human Drac Pack, the heat is on to find a way to switch themselves back before their transformations become permanent.
The voice cast includes Brad Abrell who replaces Kevin James as Frankenstein, Selena Gomez (also an exec-producer) as Mavis, Andy Samberg as Johnny, Steve Buscemi as Wayne the wolfman, plus Keegan-Michael Key, Kathryn Hahn, David Spade, Asher Blinkoff, Fran Drescher, and Molly Shannon.
With Tartakovsky moving over to a co-writing role, the gig as director went to Jennifer Kluska (DC Super Hero Girls) and Derek Drymon (Rocko’s Modern Life).
Hotel Transylvania: Transformia opens October 1st.
How does a movie led by John David Washington and Oscar winner Alicia Vikander fly under the radar? When that film is Beckett and it’s lost in the shuffle of Netflix’s “new movie a week” pledge. The trailer is here now and I dare say it will go unnoticed no longer because it looks pretty good.
Originally titled Born to be Murdered, the Greek-set thriller stars Washington as an American tourist swept up in a conspiracy after a devastating accident. The only hope for saving himself is to reach the American embassy in Athens, but political tensions and a manhunt complicate matters.
Alongside Washington and Vikander are co-stars Vicky Krieps and Boyd Holbrook. Not a bad group.
The film is directed by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino, best known for his work with Luca Guadagnino on Call Me By Your Name, Suspiria, and A Bigger Splash.
Beckett hits Netflix on August 28th, but will have its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival on August 4th.
