A sugar baby runs into her married sugar daddy at a funeral, with her ex and all her judgmental family members glaring at her from across the room. If this awkward premise sounds intriguing then you will love the new trailer for Shiva Baby from Utopia Media.
Playing the sugar baby Danielle is newcomer Rachel Sennott. Dianna Agron (Glee) pops up as Danielle’s sugar daddy’s wife, complicating matters and bringing Danielle a different kind of grief at the shiva. Molly Gordon (Booksmart), Fred Melamed (Wandavision, In A World…), Polly Draper (Obvious Child), and Jackie Hoffman (Feud: Bette and Joan) also star.
If this film isn’t on your radar, it should be. The first feature of writer/director Emma Seligman premiered online at the 2020 South by Southwest festival. It also competed at Toronto Film Festival and was rated the second-best screenplay by critics at the festival, after One Night in Miami. With critics’ support and festival exposure, Shiva Baby already has a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. This film has indie darling written all over it.
Shiva Baby streams On Demand and in theaters April 2nd.
SYNOPSIS: A near college graduate, Danielle, gets paid by her sugar daddy and rushes to meet her neurotic parents at a family shiva. Upon arrival, she is accosted by various estranged relatives about her appearance and lack of post-grad plans, while her confident ex-girlfriend, Maya, is applauded by everyone for getting into law school. Danielle’s day takes an unexpected turn when her sugar daddy, Max, arrives at the shiva with his accomplished wife, Kim, and crying baby. As the day unfolds, Danielle struggles to keep up different versions of herself, fend off pressures from her family and confront her insecurities without completely losing it.
Ron Livingston took his iconic role as the irresponsible Peter in Office Space and parlaid it into a career of mostly playing guys you could trust. Never quite understood that. Anyway, he’s just landed another such role, only this time it’ll be in the DCEU as he’s replaced Billy Crudup as Barry Allen’s father in The Flash.
Variety reports Livingston will take over the role vacated very recently by Crudup, who has scheduling conflicts. He’ll play Henry Allen, falsely-imprisoned father to Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen. The deal with Crudup probably had something to do with the movie’s many delays. To get an idea just how long the film has been developing, we just saw Crudup in the role as part of Zack Snyder’s Justice League in some pivotal scenes for Flash. Clearly, they would have factored into the superhero’s solo movie. Who knows if that will still be the case.
Livingston joins Miller, Kiersey Clemons as Iris West, Sasha Calle as Supergirl, Maribel Verdu as Barry Allen’s mom, plus we’ll see Ben Affleck suit up as Batman one final time, and Michael Keaton put the Bat-suit back on (maybe) for the first time in 30 years. Other new additions to the cast include Ian Loh as young Barry Allen, plus Saoirse-Monica Jackson (Derry Girls) and Internet personality Rudy Mancuso in undisclosed roles.
The Flash opens November 4th 2022, directed by Andy Muschietti.
James Bond is now headed to the world of superheroes. Pierce Brosnan is joining the cast of Black Adam, taking on the role of the DCEU’s resident sorcerer supreme, Dr. Fate. No, he’s not Doctor Strange although the two are very similar.
THR has the news of Brosnan making his first foray into the DC Films universe as part of Black Adam. This is new territory for Brosnan, and while he’s played his share of super spies and super thieves, never an actual superhero.
Many have carried the mantle of Dr. Fate, but Brosnan will be playing the original, Kent Nelson, who was trained in the ways of sorcery by the wizard Nabu. He also dons the powerful Helmet of Fate, an amulet, and a cloak. Really, he’s not Doctor Strange.
The character joins other members of the Justice Society of America that are in Black Adam. Aldis Hodge plays Hawkman, Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher, and Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone. Dwayne Johnson takes on the title role, the god-like antihero and rival to Shazam, making this a sortof spinoff.
Black Adam is expected to arrive in 2022, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.
Over the past year, many couples have broken up, only to be forced to live with their exes due to COVID-19. Having to spend anytime with an ex, especially right after a break up, seems torturous. Well, actors Aya Cash and William Jackson Harper are taking us through that journey in the new trailer for We Broke Up.
Cash and Harper play Lori and Doug, a couple together for ten years before ending it all after a botched proposal (and yes, there’s vomit involved). With bad timing and such a long history together, the pair decides to fake it for three more days for Lori’s sister’s wedding. But holy matrimony only makes things more complicated and new loves and conflicting feelings get in the way.
The trailer is reminding me of two indie romantic comedies released in the last couple year. The charming Plus One with Jack Quaid and Maya Erskine and Happy Anniversary starring Ben Schwartz and Noel Wells both epitomized this new era of romantic comedies where we shifted away from the hilarious hijinks of falling in love to finding the funny in traumatic relationships.
Whatever ends up happening with Lori and Doug, you can bet they are in safe hands with Aya Cash and William Jackson Harper. Cash is best known for her take as the villainous Stormfront on Amazon Prime’s The Boys but found her footing in the underrated (and dare I say brilliant) anti-romantic comedy You’re The Worst. Last fall’s Scare Me also showcases Cash’s ability to revel in the chaos around her while staying grounded in the moment. William Jackson Harper appeared in 2019’s horror hit Midsommar, but is best known as the lovably flawed Chidi on The Good Place. For some reason, we feel like We Broke Up might tonally feel like a crossroads between those two projects, but we will have to see.
We Broke Up hits theaters and On-Demand April 23rd.
To get an idea just how we’ve been waiting for No Time to Die, Cary Fukunaga wrapped shooting on the James Bond film back in late 2019. Since then, it’s been one COVID-related delay after another, with the film finally due to hit theaters this October. But with that kind of wait, Fukunaga has had plenty of time to mull over what he’ll do next on the big screen. Today we’ve learned what that’ll be; an adaptation of the cyberpunk comic book series Tokyo Ghost.
THR reports Fukunaga will direct a film adaptation of Rick Remender’s popular Image Comics series Tokyo Ghost for Legendary. The story is set in 2089 when humanity has become fully addicted to technology as an escape from reality. The story follows peacekeepers Debbie Decay and Led Dent, who are working in the Isles of Los Angeles and are given a job that will take them to the last tech-free country on Earth: the garden nation of Tokyo.
Remender, whose comic Fear Agent is also being adapted into a series by Seth Rogen, will write the Tokyo Ghost script.
Next up for Fukunaga is directing the first three episodes of Apple series Masters of the Air, Tom Hanks’ followup series to Band of Brothers and The Pacific.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World should’ve been a gigantic blockbuster smash. Released in 2010 by Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright, the film combined video games and coming-of-age Canadian quirk, geeky pop culture humor, along with a cast of rising stars including Michael Cera, Chris Evans, Brie Larson, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and so many more. And yet…it just wasn’t the right time. The world wasn’t ready. Superhero movies weren’t where they are now, and the whole thing just came across as an oddity.
To be fair, although the film would go on to become my #1 favorite movie of the decade, even I didn’t really get it the first couple of times around. And I had read the comics from which it was adapted.
Well, the time for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to get its moment to shine on the big screen has arrived. Wright has announced a new deal to re-release the film into AMC theaters beginning April 30th, using the peak audio/visual technology of Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision.
Hell the fuck yes. And as part of that announcement, Wright has dropped a new trailer.
So, this has long been in the works #ScottPilgrim fans, but I'm pleased to say that in North America on April 30th, the film will come back to the big screen, looking and sounding better than ever in @DolbyCinema, Watch the epic new trailer & get tickets: https://t.co/Jiy4OoY6vQpic.twitter.com/gOK5QapLLI
If you don’t know the plot of Scott Pilgrim, basically it follows the titular slacker Canadian dude as he deals with the relationship baggage of Ramona Flowers, the new girl who has caught his eye. If Scott wants to win her heart, he’ll need to defeat her seven evil exes, who are played by actors including Chris Evans, Mae Whitman, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman, and more.
Not only will the film return to theaters, but Wright confirmed a new 4K Ultra HD Bluray release is in the works, too.
What’s cool about the film is how easily it blends video game tropes (save the princess!!) into a teen romantic comedy. It also has some amazing music, including the track Black Sheep that I still hit up on a regular basis. Work it, Brie!
There’s that D.C. saying that everybody moves here and that no one is really from here. Well one notable exception to that rule is cinematographer Matt Jensen. From going to movies on Wisconsin Avenue to taking advantage of the Smithsonian filmmaking camps, Jensen’s future film success is rooted in our capital city.
After high school, Jensen graduated from the University of Southern California and worked on independent and short films in-between working on shows like N3mbers, CSI, and True Blood. Eventually he gained the attention of Game of Throne’s production team, shooting four episodes of the hit show. His work on 2013’s Filth caught the eye of director Patty Jenkins who was gearing up to shoot the first Wonder Woman film. Since then, he reteamed with Jenkins on the Black Dahlia miniseries I Am The Night and Wonder Woman 1984.
Having grown up in the area in the 80s and with Washington D.C. being a major part of the film, Jensen was the perfect person to shoot Wonder Woman 1984. I had the opportunity to chat with Jensen about his earliest filmmaking memories, filming in Landmark Mall, and recreating a beloved D.C. shop.
Matt, you’re from DC, I’m from DC. You actually first discovered your passion for filmmaking through taking classes here at the Smithsonian Institute as a child. Talk to me a bit about that experience. What was that like starting out here.
Matt Jensen: I think I can pinpoint the moment I started loving movies. I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark at the K-B Studio on Wisconsin Avenue. I remember I waited in a block-long line and it was a hot day in May or June of 1981 and I was young. I was a kid and that was just a huge auditorium and you would walk on street level and then go down into the theater. It was in 70 millimeter and it was a packed audience. I think not only did I love the movie, but the experience of watching it was so transformative and the crowd was really into it and laughing and, and cheering. It just was such an overwhelming experience for me, that I really got interested in the power that a movie can hold over a collective audience like that. As I got interested, my mom was a member of this Smithsonian associates program and they had the Young Associates Program where they offered classes for kids in filmmaking. So I signed up and took several over the course of four or five years and they were all amazing and interesting classes. We made stop motion animation, you science fiction movies…
You made one about time travel, right?
MJ: Yes! We did. I think that was the last class I took.I think I was 14 or 15 at the time. It was a summer camp and we would spend time, not only learning about performance and doing kind of acting classes, but we also were learning about film and how to understand how each shot propels the narrative forward. Then the last two weeks of the class, we all made this movie together. It was fantastic and a great learning experience for me, but also gave me the confidence to know that maybe I could do this in film school and maybe beyond. I didn’t think much beyond film school and college really, but those early experiences certainly laid the foundation for what I do now.
What was it like coming back? You’ve made a career for yourself working with James McAvoy, on Game of Thrones and the first Wonder Woman film, and now you’re filming in the Smithsonian Institute on Wonder Woman 1984. I imagine that was kind of like a full circle moment for you.
MJ: Absolutely. It was an incredibly emotional time for me when I was back there. You know, I took classes in the basement of the Natural History Museum, which was great. It was sort of behind all these doors that had access to all these classrooms. Then cut to 2018 and I’m lighting the rotunda of the Natural History Museum early in the morning. You know, I’m shooting Kristen Wiig on her way to work. And I thought, “Who gets to do this?” I almost wish that, as an adult, I could sort of reach back in time and tell my 12 year old self that everything was going to be okay and that “you are going to get to do what you love doing.” That would have been amazing. But to sort of realize that, at the time, was huge.
Talk to me a little bit about pre-production and location scouting. Obviously you’re a DC native. How did you, your team and Patty Jenkins decide which parts of DC you wanted to feature?
MJ: Well, Patty had grown up in DC or had spent some time in DC as well. I think she was here in her late teens and early twenties, so she knew DC and she had a very distinct idea of what pockets of DC she wanted to shoot. We were looking for the sort of iconic buildings on the National Mall and wanting to go to the Hirshhorn – the Hirshhorn was really Patty’s idea – and the Natural History Museum and also the Air & Space. All these things were woven into the script because of what Diana and Barbara do, so the locations were kind of natural to the characters.
Then we had very good local location people who were instrumental in showing us pockets that maybe we had overlooked. I think it was one of our location people and Patty that kind of had the same idea at the exact moment to bring back Commander Salamander (a popular 80s punk rock boutique in Georgetown that closed in 2010). I remember we were walking up Wisconsin Avenue at night scouting and they said “What do you think about Commander Salamander?” And my eyes just bugged out of my head. I was like, “We got to do it! We gotta do it! We absolutely have to do it.” You know, it was stuff like that. There were a lot of people involved in making those decisions and we have an amazing production designer (Aline Bonetto, Amélie) who’s French and then the whole art department was from England. So they were seeing DC with new eyes and they were very struck by the architecture and how the city works and how beautiful it was. They offered some insight to what was striking to them visually.
Landmark Mall in Alexandria, Va is heavily featured in Wonder Woman, 1984. Did you frequent there much as a kid and talk me through the process of filming that action scene there?
MJ: Ironically, I didn’t ever go to Landmark. I used to go to Springfield mall, Beacon mall and Tyson’s corner, that sort of thing. So Landmark was one that I never frequented, but what it did [for the film], because it was closed, it offered us full control. The ability to bring back all these periods stores on three levels and give us this sense of scale and scope. It provided us just full access because we knew we were doing a big stunt and action sequence. We needed a lot of infrastructure in order to pull that off. At one point the producers were like, “Maybe we should look at a mall back in England, because we shot the rest of the movie in London. And we looked at one mall and Patty kind of looked around and went, “Nope, there’s no way.”
Is there a big difference between English malls and American malls?
MJ: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. They do not have the scale and the scope that our malls do and particularly those malls that were built at that time [the 80s]. So Patty won that fight and we had a great time recreating that whole place.
I think it surprises people to know that DC, along with being the politics hub of the nation, has quite the art scene. Dave Grohl is from this area and obviously Dave Chappelle and Patton Oswalt, and now you – so many other notable People from this area. DC also has a very, very rich film history from The Exorcist steps in Georgetown. All the president’s Men and Forrest Gump and many political dramas were filmed here as well. Besides Wonder Woman 1984, what is your favorite film depiction of DC?
MJ: There are so many really. All The President’s Men, of course. It’s such a brilliant movie. The Exorcist steps of course, and The Exorcist has special meaning to me because I went to a Catholic middle school right across the street from those steps. From fifth through eighth grade, I walked by those steps being terrified of them for years. Of course I love D.C. Cab!St. Elmo’s Fire kind of holds a special place in my heart because of some of the locations. Although I was always upset that they all went to Georgetown in the movie, but they shot Georgetown at the University of Maryland. So that was always weird. Oddly enough, there’s one point where Ally Sheedy is outside of an antique furniture store and where that location was is right off of Wisconsin. And it’s kind of in the exact area, the exact place where we shot Diana having her dinner alone in Georgetown. [St.Elmo’s Fire] happened to be trending on Twitter the day that we were shooting. So I have a bizarre connection we didn’t know and to think that we were there at the same, at the same place so many years later! It was great.
Wonder Woman 1984 is still playing in select theaters and available for digital download and DVD purchase.
There’s already quite a bit that we know about Amazon’s billion-dollar Lord of the Rings series, such as the cast, and the setting which is in the Second Age, making it basically a prequel to Peter Jackson’s movies. We also know that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom‘s J.A. Bayona is directing the first two episodes. But what happens after he’s gone? That’s one question that has lingered until now.
Amazon has revealed that Wayne Che Yip will take over as director on Lord of the Rings once Bayona has completed his episodes. Yip is a veteran TV filmmaker, having worked on such shows as Preacher, Hunters, the British version of Utopia, and Doctor Who. He’s a known commodity at Amazon since he also helmed multiple episodes of the upcoming fantasy series, The Wheel of Time.
“It is a true honor to be invited into the world of Tolkien by J.D. & Patrick and Amazon Studios,” said Yip. “Every day I look forward to working with the incredible team here in New Zealand as we humbly contribute to the legacy of the greatest stories ever told.”
Lord of the Rings has yet to be given an official release date for the first season.
SYNOPSIS: Amazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.
Anna Kendrick and Toni Collette enter a spaceship. It may sound like the start of a really lame joke, but it’s actually part of the plot of Stowaway, the upcoming Netflix film from director Joe Penna. The sci-fi thriller also stars Lost alum Daniel Dae Kim and Wynonna Earp‘s Shamier Anderson.
As we see in the debuting trailer, Stoway centers on a crew bound for Mars on a two-year mission, only to face dwindling resources when a stowaway is discovered aboard the ship. Kendrick plays the ship’s medical researcher and the lone dissenting voice against a grim outcome decided by the rest of the team.
“A production designer once told me, ‘never do a movie in a submarine or in space,” Kendrick recalled to EW.“It was so simple and so lean, but totally compelling.”
“I had never really read anything like it,” Collette added. “It is contained and the characters are confined but the questions posed, moral and otherwise, are vast and wide open.”
Netflix will release Stowaway on April 22nd. You can go here to learn more.
On a mission headed to Mars, an unintended stowaway accidentally causes severe damage to the spaceship’s life support systems. Facing dwindling resources and a potentially fatal outcome, the crew is forced to make an impossible decision.
What do you get when one of the creators of the John Wick franchise teams up with the director of brutal action-comedy Hardcore Henry? I know I know, there’s a crucial missing ingredient and that’s unlikely action star Bob Odenkirk, about as far from an ass-kicker as one is likely to see. Well, when you put those things together you get Nobody, a fun-but-forgettable shot of adrenaline that never aspires to be more than that.
The most obvious thing you’ll take away from Nobody is Odenkirk, who has come such a long way from the Mr. Show days. The Better Call Saul star is about as “everyman” as it gets, which is precisely what the film wants you to think about its lead character, Hutch Mansell. A seemingly dull, ineffectual suburban dad with a hot-but-bored wife (Connie Nielsen), two kids including a son who barely acknowledges his existence, and one of those lame number-crunching jobs that screams “middle management”.
Hutch doesn’t have much going on, and shit only gets worse when a pair of armed criminals bust into his home. One of them slugs Hutch’s son right in the face, and at one point he has a chance to take the robbers out but instead backs off. Hutch lets them escape, making him look like even more of a loser in the eyes of his family. The cops who come to investigate don’t mince words about how weak Hutch looks, and the same goes for the guys at work.
But here’s the thing: Just as you don’t fuck with John Wick’s dog, you don’t fuck with Hutch Mansell’s daughter’s kitty cat bracelet. The theft of it triggers something within Hutch, something he had been holding back for years. It’s time to get violent again, and embrace that primal side he’s been hiding since his days as the most lethal government assassin ever.
While imperfect, Nobody is a damn sight better than the Bruce Willis Death Wish remake in capturing a normal man’s vengeful rampage and inner conflict. Perhaps it’s because Odenkirk is just a better actor than Willis is right now. But also, it’s that Nobody better balances Hutch’s turmoil with a heavy dose of comedic violence. Sure, it’s really quite gory as well, such as in a grisly fight on a bus that finds Hutch bloodying his fists against a group of trouble-makers. This being public transportation, the quarters are cramped and a lot of faces gets rammed into steel poles, strung up in “stop” chords, and slung into chairs. The best thing about it is that Hutch isn’t some indestructible superhero; he’s just a guy, and one who is woefully out of practice. He gets his ass beat, too.
The plot is ramped up when one of Hutch’s early victims happens to be the son of karaoke-singing Russian mobster Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksei Serebryakov), who wants some revenge of his own. Honestly, Yulian is pretty weak and the goons he sends after Hutch even more so, with the exception of one guy, a black Russian Olympic athlete, who is constantly called-out for being…well, black and Russian. I guess that’s rare?
Behind the camera is Hardcore Henry‘s Ilya Naishuller, with a script by John Wick franchise writer Derek Kolstad. He’s also one of the guys behind Marvel’s Falcon and the Winter Soldier and the little-seen action film The Package with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Dolph Lundgren, which is when I first heard of him. He makes testosterone-fueled movies for bros, and that’s cool. When Hutch returns home after indulging in his darker side, he’s suddenly Mr. Machismo to his family again. He’s found renewed vigor by tapping in to that primal urge. This is a theme Kolstad has often embraced in his scripts, but he seems at a rush to get past it here and on to the next fight. Naishuller knows how to balance vicious brawls with a dash of light humor, and of course, Odenkirk is a comedian whose timing is perfection. None of this would work if it weren’t for him and whatever fight training he underwent to get in shape for the role.
However, it’s impossible to escape how thin Nobody is. At a slight 90-minutes there’s little time to create the kind of lived-in world that we got in John Wick. A great deal about Hutch’s past is teased, but not much else. We’re introduced to Hutch’s father (Christopher Lloyd), a retiree who has own violent urges to contend with; while RZA plays an old friend who shows up out of nowhere to save the day. We learn nothing about either of them and it’s like they’re planning a sequel that may or may not ever happen. Some details now would’ve served Nobody quite well, because there’s already a lot to like. It just needs a bit more detail to go from a nobody into a somebody of the action genre.
