If there’s one sure fire way to put a smile on your face today the trailer for Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway is it. I’ll be the first to admit I was absolutely and completely pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the first runaround with Peter and his group of partying patio dwellers. It was just a ton of family fun with a great cast. Voice acting was a veritable who’s who, with Peter and his sisters played by James Corden, Elizabeth Debicki, Margot Robbie and Aimee Horne. Meanwhile the human side was no slouch, being fronted by Domnhall Gleeson and the amazing Rose Byrne. The story was sweet and there were a lot of genuine laughs to be had.
Whenever I get caught by surprise on one of these family films I know two things are coming, a sequel, and my disappointment at said sequel not re-capturing that same magic. I hit play on the trailer for Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway with a bit of trepidation and while one aspect gives me pause, it seems that much of that magic is still in place. The next installment of Peter’s adventures sees him getting bored with life in the country and venturing out to the city. While that is a pretty standard setup for films like this, it strips the film of one of my favorite aspects of the original, the zen-like beauty of the English Countryside. I’m sure we’ll still get plenty of antics from McGregor’s garden it will be interesting to see where they go with the whole “big city rabbit” bit. We got to see a preview of this in the third act of the first movie, so it’s not uncharted territory. Regardless, I’m sure Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway will end up being a sweet, fun, family film that gives us some bit of that joy we all so desperately need.
Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway Hits Gardens Theaters On June 18th, 2021
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Netflix may not have Star Wars or Marvel in their arsenal but it doesn’t look like they need it. The streamer has unveiled a teaser for their huge summer slate, offering looks at some films we’ve already seen a little bit from like Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, The Woman in the Window with Amy Adams, and Oxygen starring Melanie Laurent.
Also glimpsed here is the Kevin Hart comedy Fatherhood, the She’s All That remake titled He’s All That, and The Kissing Booth 3, and the Jason Momoa action flick Sweet Girl. All this plus a lot more such as the Guillermo Del Toro-produced Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, plus The Last Letter from Your Lover with Shailene Woodley and Felicity Jones, R-rated animated historical fiction America: The Motion Picture with Channing Tatum, Olivia Munn, and more, and The Ice Road with Liam Neeson.
Over the past couple of years, Zeno Mountain Farm has become a hotspot for the film industry. In 2014, the non-profit centered on providing a traditional camp experience for disabled and non-disabled kids and young adults were the subject of the well-received documentary Becoming Bulletproof. It was at their Vermont headquarters that the Peanut Butter Falcon filmmakers first met their star Zack Gottsagen, before making a movie for him. Now the camp has released their first feature on their own with the musical comedy Best Summer Ever, produced by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Amy Brenneman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen.
After meeting at a performing arts camp, dancer Tony (Rickey Alexander Wilson) and musician Sage (Shannon DeVido) must go their separate ways to start the school year. Unsure when they will see each other again, the pair leave camp keeping secrets from each other. Of course through comedic complications, Sage ends up attending Tony’s high school and the two have a rocky reunion. Trying to navigate a relationship outside of camp, with mean cheerleaders and teammates and plenty of parental pressure, proves to be no easy feat for Sage and Tony
As an inclusive musical, Best Summer Ever seamlessly incorporates people of all abilities into its cast. The film refuses to diagnose anyone or even address disability on screen. They don’t ignore it but instead propose the idea that movies with disabled characters can center on issues other than disability. It’s not “inspiration porn” but people literally living on an equal and equitable playing field and existing as they are. It’s honestly disappointing it’s taken this long for an inclusive film to be made and hopefully, its impact is reflected in future productions.
Taking center stage is Shannon Devido (Difficult People). Not only can she belt like Patti LuPone, her comic delivery and timing are spot on. Acting as her perfect foil is musician MuMu, who also wrote eight original songs with Peter Halby. Playing the deliciously mean cheerleader Beth, MuMu squeezes every ounce of comedy in every scene she’s in, working best with the uproariously funny Jacob Waltuck, a vengeful football player who is a terrible quarterback. Peanut Butter Falcon breakout Zack Gottsagen can be spotted as one of Tony’s friends, while producers Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard make small but hilarious cameos. Benjamin Bratt and his daughter Sophia also appear.
Directors Michael Parks Randa and Lauren Smitelli, take elements of Grease, Footloose (yes there is an angry dance), and High School Musical and infuse them into a modern self-aware modern musical. Like all good high school and end-of-summer movies, Best Summer Ever is very campy. Its cheerful earnestness could easily overshadow the entire film if it wasn’t for its comic bite. It knows it’s over the top and silly at times and plays into that. The script leans into its hokiness and, with perfect delivery from actresses Shannon DeVido and MuMu, ends up working really well. It’s no wonder Randa, Smitelli, Will Halby, Andrew Pilkington, and Terra Mackintosh won the “2020 Final Draft Screenwriters Award” at SXSW last year.
At the end of the day, Best Summer Ever is a joy to watch all throughout its breezy eighty-minute runtime. Though slightly unpolished, this film is a testament to what screen representation can do.
Best Summer Ever is available on DVD and on-demand. Watch the trailer below.
Amazon Prime has revealed the first official images from sci-fi action flick The Tomorrow War (formerly Ghost Draft), starring Chris Pratt and marking the live-action directorial debut of The Lego Batman Movie‘s Chris McKay. The film was acquired for a huge sum from Paramount earlier this year, in hopes of making it part of Amazon’s stable of summer blockbusters.
Penned by Zach Dean, The Tomorrow War takes place after a group of soldiers arrive from the future to inform humanity they are losing a war against an alien invasion in the year 2051. Pratt plays a high school teacher drafted into the battle so he can fight to have a future for his young daughter.
The film also stars Yvonne Strahovski, J.K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodge, Jasmine Mathews, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, and Keith Powers.
Amazon Studios will release The Tomorrow War on Amazon Prime on July 2nd.
Glenn Close, just recently seen doing “Da Butt” at the Oscars ceremony where she was nominated an eighth time for her performance in Netflix’s opioid drama Hillbilly Elegy, is back in similar territory with Four Good Days. Like that previous effort, this too is based on a true story, captured in a Washington Post article by Pulitzer Prize winner Saslow. The close proximity between the two films doesn’t do it any favors, however, in terms of offering any new insights. However, what it does have are two powerful lead performances by Close and Mila Kunis, the latter as her daughter whose decade-long battle with addiction has left the family in tatters.
Kunis, looking gaunt, frail, and extremely unhealthy with rotted out teeth and sores, plays 31-year-old Molly. In the film’s opening moments, Molly arrives at her mother Deb’s home seeking help. She wants to kick the habit but needs a place to stay so she can do it. Having been through this scenario far too many times, Deb refuses, literally leaving her daughter on the front porch overnight. In those moments we see that Deb has been burned by Molly too often; getting her hopes up that this time will be different, only to have those hopes dashed.
This is a cycle that most movies about addiction grapple with, as well, which is why they can be so repetitive and by-the-book. Credit to Saslow and director Rodrigo Garcia, who previously worked with Close on Albert Nobbs and Nine Lives, that this story keeps a tighter focus to avoid that, while also throwing in a couple of new wrinkles.
It’s clear that, even under the best of circumstances neither Deb or Molly is a saint. Both are combative personalities and we can see them clashing even before the misdiagnosis that hooked Molly on painkillers at an early age. The drugs have only made things worse, and it’s spread to their other relationships. Deb takes out her frustrations with Molly on her husband (Stephen Root), who is supportive but clearly fatigued by the situation. No matter how she’s feeling, the love Deb has for Molly is always present, and being unable to watch her child in such pain, allows her into the home but only to be taken to rehab again, this for the 15th attempt. The doctor says Molly is a perfect candidate for a drug that, when taken in a clean body, will neutralize the effects of getting high and kill the cravings. Since she’s been off the drugs for a little while already, Molly only needs four clean days before she can beat this habit forever. But, if she were to get high and try to take the drug, there would be severe physical consequences.
Four Good Days hits most of the expected, familiar notes of every drug abuse drama. Molly goes through horrible withdrawal, the uncomfortable fevers and chills that accompany it, but also the feeling of being a zoo animal in a cage. She bristles at living under her mother’s roof, and years to get out, a very real danger to her recovery. Furthermore, she has a touchy relationship with her young daughter that needs mending, and an ex (Josh Leonard) who quietly enables Molly’s bad habits. An encounter at a flophouse yields a life-changing secret, but the film doesn’t give it the space it needs to be as meaningful as it should, coming across as a bit of forced drama to make up for conventionality in the script.
Giving Molly something to shoot for, a definable goal, separates Four Good Days from other drug addiction films that go through the same ol’ cycle of rehab and relapse. Every temptation, every quirk in Molly and Deb’s personalities, like the former’s trusting streak, are a potential hurdle to her recovery, and if she fails this time that could be it. Kunis and Close do an outstanding job depicting the high stakes for everyone involved. What would happen to Deb if she were to lose her daughter? Chances are she would never recover, and Close shows the ramped-up anxiety she deals with while that weighs on her mind. A perfect example is a breakfast scene in which Deb chats with another daughter who isn’t hooked on drugs, and she simply doesn’t know how to do anything that isn’t about Molly.
As for Kunis, this is the meatiest role she’s had in ages and she commits to it, not just physically but emotionally. She’s believable as someone who has been so transformed by the years of drugs they no longer recognize themselves, and must now fight to become that person again. But Molly is also imperfect, and besting addiction is tough. Four Good Days makes no bones about how hard this is, and the compromises that might need to be made to accomplish it.
There’s little that the film has to add to any discussion on the opioid crisis, it’s been attacked by pretty much every angle in the last few months. But Four Good Days has remarkably lived-in performances by Kunis and Close that invest us in this sensitive story of self and familial healing.
Self-help and improvement is easily a billion dollar a year industry. If you need any proof as to the out there things people will accept (and pay for) in an effort to be their best selves just google Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness site that advocates some of the most out there things you can possibly imagine. Any time people desperately want for something, there will always be snake oil salesman out there to twist and take advantage of these poor peoples hopes and dreams.
This amazing cast, including Tiffany Boone, Bobby Cannavale, Luke Evans, Nicole Kidman, and Melissa McCarthy is probably enough to get most people in the door. Hulu doesn’t “do” probably, so we have a promo trailer today for Hulu’s upcoming adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s novel, Nine Perfect Strangers. It’s not clear yet if Nicole Kidman is that snake oil salesman, or something much more sinister. One thing is for sure, those who go to Tranquilm House are promised that they’ll be transformed in 10 days. What’s not so clear is what that transformation entails, and the trailer below doesn’t do much to bring that into focus. What this trailer does, however, is leave you with a feeling that, one way or another, these 10 days are not going to be what the visitor anticipated.
Nine Perfect Strangers | A Hulu Original is coming soon to Hulu
Y’know, we joke about Hollywood’s quick reaction to an acclaimed Oscar-winning film by immediately launching into an English-language remake, but this is ridiculous. Mere hours after director Thomas Vinterberg accepted Another Round‘s award for Best International Feature, a remake with Leonardo DiCaprio is already in the works.
Deadline reports DiCaprio is behind an American version of the acclaimed film, Another Round, which starred Mads Mikkelsen. DiCaprio will produce through his Appian Way banner, after winning a high bidding war for the rights. With DiCaprio on board, he’s also being eyed to star, naturally.
Another Round centers on a group of four men, all teachers, who decide to see if their lives can be improved by staying drunk throughout the day. Life lessons abound as they learn more about themselves and grow closer to their families…all except one who has become an alcoholic.
Mikkelsen is tremendous, too. He easily could’ve been a Best Actor nominee and been a frontrunner under different circumstances.
Last night, as Vinterberg was giving his acceptance speech, the filmmaker talked about the tragedy that befell his family and how much making Another Round meant to them. Honestly, I find it a little distasteful to have this news come out so soon after such a heartfelt speech, and wonder if any remake can have the same depth of feeling as what Vinterberg and Mikkelsen brought to it.
So, you think Marvel Studios isn’t committed to Anthony Mackie as Captain America? They’re putting that thought to rest today with the release of a new poster that puts Sam Wilson front and center in the stars & stripes costume he was sporting at the end of six episodes of Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
It serves as a nice “Welcome to your new Captain America!” message for fans, and the perfect way to wrap up a series of character posters featuring the show’s cast.
As we already know, Captain America 4 is in the works with Falcon and the Winter Soldier showrunner Malcolm Spellman as writer. The series finale ended with a possible title, Captain America and the Winter Soldier, although some think this implies a season two. I’m not so sure about that.
Last night’s Oscars ceremony ended on a strange note. Typically, the show concludes with the Best Picture winner, but for whatever reason they decided to end on Best Actor. That led many to believe a shocking upset or some crowd-pleasing victory was coming, like Chadwick Boseman winning for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Well, that didn’t happen. Instead, it went to Anthony Hopkins for his riveting performance in The Father. The actor wasn’t even there, and the night closed with a simple black & white graphic of his face.
Um, okay? Just think; if they had stuck with the traditional format the show could’ve conclusion on a Frances McDormand howl! What a closer!
I’ve been amused at the people who are legit upset over it, though, as if an 83-year-old man in Wales was supposed to stay up until the early hours of the morning for an award he might win. Nah. Hopkins went on to deliver his acceptance speech, while paying tribute to Boseman in a truly classy move.
Anthony Hopkins' #Oscars acceptance speech from Wales: "I want to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who was taken from us far too early…" pic.twitter.com/XTakrEAq2w
Judging by the last couple of blockbuster films that have opened in theaters, things are slowly starting to return to normal. But, we aren’t quite there yet, and maybe F9 will be the one that turns the corner. Vin Diesel and Universal sure hope so, and the actor has dropped a new teaser encouraging fans of the two-decade-old, multi-billion-collar franchise to get ready to strap in and buy themselves a ticket…
“It’s been a while. The roads were a little empty. Places where we used to gather went quiet. We’ve gone through a year that tested us,” Diesel says. “But we’re starting to see the promise of a new day. For more there a hundred years, there’s one place where we all came together to be entertained. To escape, to go someplace new. The movies.”
“There’s nothing like that moment when the lights go down. The projector ignites. And we believe. After staying apart for so long, it’s time to come back together. To laugh, to cheer. We’re ready to make you believe again. Cause nobody does a comeback like the movies. We’ll see you soon.”
In the run-up to F9, Universal has announced “Fast Fridays”, in which fans can check out eight straight weeks of free screenings of each Fast & Furious movie in theaters. Beginning on April 30th in 500 theaters, expanding eventually to more than 900 nationwide, you can see every film starting with 2001’s The Fast and the Furious to 2017’s The Fate of the Furious, leading up to the June 25th release of F9. That’s pretty dope.
