Legendary German actor Udo Kier has had one Hell of a weird career. Many of the great auteurs seek out his eccentric talents on the regular, leading to a prolific run of over 200 starring and supporting big screen roles. He’s worked with everyone from Gus Van Sant, Werner Herzog, Lars von Trier, and many more, while also stealing scenes in movies for up and coming directors. But true shots at the spotlight are rare, and filmmaker Todd Stephens (Another Gay Movie) has afforded Kier one in his latest, Swan Song, which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival.
The film is as bizarre as Kier himself, centering on a flamboyant ex-hairdresser who takes a long walk across town to style the hair of an old client for her funeral. Kier is joined in the cast by Jennifer Coolidge, Linda Evans, Michael Urie, Ira Hawkins, and Stephanie McVay, a real showcase for character actors. .
Swan Song is opening in theaters on August 6th, followed by VOD a week later.
SWAN SONG follows retired hairdresser and local bar performer icon Pat Pitsenbarger (Kier), who has given up on life from the confines of his small-town Sandusky, Ohio, nursing home. But when Pat gets word that a former client’s dying wish was for him to style her final hairdo, he sets out on an epic journey across Sandusky to confront the ghosts of his past – and collect the beauty supplies necessary for the job. SWAN SONG is a comical and bittersweet journey about rediscovering oneself and looking gorgeous while doing so.
Get ready to give your eyes and ears a real treat! We’re happy to offer our readers the chance to attend a free early screening of Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s directorial debut, Summer of Soul.
SYNOPSIS: In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary—part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). The footage was never seen and largely forgotten–until now. SUMMER OF SOUL shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present. The feature includes never-before-seen concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Ray Baretto, Abbey Lincoln & Max Roach and more. Summer of Soul premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award.
The screening takes place on Tuesday, June 29th at 7:00pm at AMC Potomac Mills. If you’d like to attend, simply register at the Searchlight Pictures screening site here. Please remember all screenings are first come first served and you’ll need to arrive early to ensure seating. Enjoy the show!
Summer of Soul opens in theaters and Hulu on July 2nd.
Those calling for a Call Me By Your Name sequel? Those calls are going to go unanswered, I’m afraid. However, if it’s a reunion between director Luca Guadagnino and star TimothéeChalamet that you want, then take a look at the upcoming film Bones and All which Deadline has just revealed the first image to.
Shooting on Bones and All is underway now, and Guadagnino has revealed a shot of Chalamet along with Waves and Escape Room star Taylor Russell. The film is described as a horror/love story following two young lovers as they travel across Reagan-era America.
It was just four years ago that Chalamet broke out with Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name. He was a discovery then, and now Chalamet’s one of the most sought-after actors in the world. Russell is herself a rising star, and I can’t wait to see what these two can do together under Guadagnino’s guidance.
Bones and All will likely open in 2022, but I wouldn’t be surprised at a festival premiere first.
Like any true musical act, the second tour is bigger than the first. Illumination’s Sing was a huge $600M hit in 2016, giving the studio another franchise to join Despicable Me and Minions. This Christmas brings the arrival of Sing 2, which boasts more talented singing animals, more songs, and Bono as a rock legend who also happens to be a lion.
McConaughey returns as Buster Moon, who wants to put on an even bigger show in the city with all of his newly-discovered friends and stars, but he’ll need a real showstopper of an act to do it. Buster will need to find a way to convince the reclusive Clay Calloway out of his self-imposed exile.
Returning to their prior roles are Reese Witherspoon as Rosita, Scarlett Johansson as punk rock porcupine Ash, Taron Egerton as Johnny the gorilla, Tori Kelly as timid elephant Meena, and Nick Kroll as Gunter the rambunctious pig. Joining the cast are Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Pharrell Williams, Letitia Wright, Eric Andre, and Chelsea Peretti,
Garth Jennings, who wrote and directed the first film, is doing an encore on this one. He even has a voice role as Miss Crawley.
Sing 2 has bounced around the schedule, partly due to COVID-19 but also Universal’s decision to set Minions: The Rise of Gru for the month of July. The sequel will now open in theaters on December 22nd. Check out the trailer below and a batch of new character posters.
After a full year in quarantine, single people are ready to mingle, take advantage of a “hot girl” summer. However, some people don’t always have the best intentions. To remind us of this fact, Netflix is releasing Good On Paper, a comedy fable directed by Kimmy Gatewood and written and starring comedian Iliza Shlesinger. While the comedy does a lot of things right, like the boyfriend lurking in the shadows, this comedy isn’t as advertised.
Based on a real boyfriend the standup actually had, Good On Paper follows Shlesinger’s Andrea who has a steady standup career while trying to break into the film and tv industry. While returning home from a gig she meets Dennis (Ryan Hansen), a nerdy, slightly schlubby guy, to who she is not sexually attracted to. However, Andrea likes him as a person and starts hanging out with him while seeing other people. That changes, however, after a drunken night out.
Soon head over heels with “Dennis from Yale,” Andrea and her friend Margot (Margaret Cho) start to see the cracks in her perfect boyfriend. This leads our heroine on an emotional and physical goose chase around LA, to find out what things Dennis said were true and what were lies.
Shlesinger’s writing moves fast. We see Andrea say she will never be more than friends with Dennis, but in the next scene, she relents without really showing the reasoning behind her decision besides a drunken night out. The same goes for the speed of their relationship. Once she says yes, we don’t see the couple in a honeymoon period. The plot moves right along to Dennis’s cracks starting to show. While this story certainly works as a standup special (which the whole movie is framed as), the actual execution of the script doesn’t build tension or enough of an emotional connection to make Good On Paper work.
As a leading lady though, Shlesinger hits the mark. Relatable, sexy and not too much, the comedian proves that she can handle a leading role. Up until this point, she played bit and supporting roles in films like Instant Family, Spenser Confidential,andThe Opening Act. This past awards season, she surprisingly played Vanessa Kirby’s sister in the miscarriage drama Pieces Of A Woman, opposite Shia LaBeouf, Ellen Burstyn, and Benny Safdie. With the right script and direction, Shlesinger has real leading lady potential and it is a testament to her raw talent that she found the charm in a less than stellar movie.
Playing against type is Ryan Hansen, best known for playing douchey, bro guys like Dick Casablancas in Veronica Mars. He does the job the first part of the movie, playing a “sweet guy,” happy and in love. He even handles the lead up to the reveal really well, subtly dropping hints in his performance. Once the truth drops in the third act, he morphs into a cartoon villain, ala Promising Young Woman. The acting choice doesn’t fit the tone of the film and makes the ending feel off.
Like most things in life, this movie needed more Margaret Cho. The chemistry between her and Shlesinger was electric the few moments they had together. Maybe if her character had a larger role and the focus shifted slightly on their character’s friendship, there would have been an emotional payoff.
Overall, Good On Paper seems like it would be a laugh-out-loud, girl power-infused, feminist morality tale. In reality, the film tries its best with what it has, but with a jumbled script and a lousy third act, Good On Paper is not what it could be. Watch the trailer below.
The most irresistible film at Sundance this year? Unquestionably it was CODA, or Child of Deaf Adults, Siân Heder’s terrific coming-of-age film that featured a breakout performance by star Emilia Jones. The list of accolades it received from the festival is impressive, winning the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, U.S. Dramatic Directing Award, U.S. Dramatic Audience Award, and a U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award. Apple TV+ scooped up the rights and I think they have a huge hit on their hands, and now you can get a look at it in a new trailer.
Jones stars as Ruby, the only hearing member of a deaf family in a small Massachusetts fishing town. Her early mornings are spent on the water working for her family’s fishing business, by day she’s a regular teen girl in high school, and in the evenings she’s back at work as a much-needed interpreter. But fishing isn’t Ruby’s passion, music is. So she joins the high school choir, which puts her at odds with the people closest her.
The film co-stars the great Oscar winner Marlee Matlin, Eugenio Derbez, Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant, and Sing Street‘s Ferdia Walsh-Peelo.
CODA hits Apple TV+ on August 13th. I absolutely loved this movie, and you can check out my review of it here.
Netflix isn’t playing around when their upcoming “new school Western” The Harder they Fall. The cast put together for writer/director Jeymes Samuel’s feature debut is enough to knock you off your horse. The film stars Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo, LaKeith Stanfield, Regina King, Idris Elba, Danielle Deadwyler, Edi Gathegi, R.J. Cyler, Damon Wayans Jr., and Deon Cole. Not only that, but Jay-Z is on board as a producer.
Damn.
Co-written by Samuel Boaz Yakin (Remember the Titans), the film is based on the real-life cowboy and former slave Nat Love and his experiences in a post-Civil War America.
Here’s the synopsis: “When outlaw Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) discovers that his enemy Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) is being released from prison he rounds up his gang to track Rufus down and seek revenge. Those riding with him in this assured, righteously new school Western include his former love Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), his right and left hand men — hot-tempered Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi) and fast drawing Jim Beckwourth (R.J. Cyler)—and a surprising adversary-turned-ally. Rufus Buck has his own fearsome crew, including “Treacherous” Trudy Smith (Regina King) and Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield), and they are not a group that knows how to lose.”
Love is one of the most famous Black cowboys in history, and has been depicted in movies before by Ernie Hudson in The Cherokee Kid and Michael K. Williams in They Die By Dawn.
Netflix will release The Harder They Fall in theaters and streaming this fall.
Anne Hathaway is making herself quite a home at Amazon Studios, where she can be seen right now in the anthology series Solos, and previously starred in Modern Love. She’s staying put for her next film, an adaptation of romance novel The Idea of You, from Friends with Kids director Jennifer Westfeldt.
The Idea of You is based on the popular novel by Robbin Lee which “centers on Sophie, a 40-year-old divorced mother. Sophie’s husband Dan left her for a younger woman, and now he has cancelled his Coachella trip with their 15-year old daughter. Sophie picks up the pieces and braves the crowds and desert heat. There, she meets 24 year-old Hayes Campbell, the lead singer of the hottest boy band on the planet, August Moon.”
Hathaway will star as Sophie. No word on other casting. Westfeldt, an actor/director best known for indie favorites Kissing Jessica Stein, Ira & Abby, and Friends with Kids, will write the script and direct. Gabrielle Union is attached as a producer, but it’s unclear if she is also taking a role.
Next up for Hathaway are a Sesame Street movie with Bo Burnham, Shane Carruth’s long-awaited The Modern Ocean, Rebecca Miller’s comedy She Came to Me, and Armageddon Time from James Gray. She also has thriller Mothers’ Instinct alongside Jessica Chastain. [Deadline]
How do you like your Pop-Tarts? Me, I like ’em frosted and fruity. Preferably strawberry or blueberry. Jerry Seinfeld, he likes his Unfrosted, the title of his upcoming Pop-Tarts movie at Netflix. This would be Seinfeld’s first feature since 2007’s animated Bee Movie.
Deadline reports Seinfeld will direct, star, and co-write Unfrosted, based on a Pop-Tarts joke that we saw him develop and unpack in this New York Times video…
The film will be co-written by Seinfeld, Spike Feresten, and Barry Marder and will be about the invention of Pop Tarts, first introduced in 1964.
“Stuck at home watching endless sad faces on TV I thought this would be a good time to make something based on pure silliness. So we took my Pop-Tart stand-up bit from my last Netflix special and exploded it into a giant, crazy comedy movie,” Seinfeld said.
This continues the lucrative relationship between Seinfeld and Netflix, the latter having won a hotly-contested auction for the film. The comedian and creator of the titular sitcom “about nothing”, took his short series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee to Netflix a few years ago, and has done comedy specials for them since.
Breaking out of his father’s shadow has never been a problem for Brandon Cronenberg. As the son of the legendary filmmaker David Cronenberg, he’s faced extremely high expecations and has met them with his two films, Antiviral and last year’s Possessor. The latter was released by NEON and clearly they were impressed enough to be part of his next film, Infinity Pool, that will star Alexander Skarsgard.
NEON has announced they will co-finance and exec-produce Cronenberg’s sci-fi film, Infinity Pool. Alexander Skarsgard will star, with shooting to begin this September. Here’s the description:
James and Em are young, rich, in love, and on vacation. Their all-inclusive resort boasts island tours and gleaming beaches. But outside of the hotel gates waits something much more dangerous and seductive, beyond the edge of paradise.
Skarsgard is coming off the Stephen King adaptation of The Stand, plus the blockbuster hit Godzilla vs. Kong. For more on Cronenberg, check out my interview with him here. It sounds like Infinity Pool will take precedent over Cronenberg’s adaptation of JG Ballard’s Super-Cannes, which has yet to get a start date.
