Sometimes there’s no shame in lowering the bar, or in case lowering the hoop. In the new date announcement clip for the Netflix animated show Hoops, Jake Johnson tries to show a high school basketball team how to shoot a basket – and fails miserably.
The 1:12 clip is just attempt after attempt of coach Ben Hopkins trying and failing to make it into the basket, throwing around expletives before he lowers the hoop to make his point. The date announcement also serves as our first real look into the series. Running the show is its creator Ben Hoffman, who wrote on The Late Late Show with James Cordon, the FX hit Archer, and a few Comedy Central Roasts. Johnson starred in New Girl, Stumptown, Tag, and a few blockbusters like Jurassic World and 2017’s The Mummy.
The streaming service describes the show as, “A foul-mouthed high school basketball coach is sure he’ll hit the big leagues if he can only turn his terrible team around.” Though considered a Netflix Original Series, the show comes from 20th Century Fox Television and Bento Box Entertainment (Bob’s Burgers) and will have 10 thirty-minute episodes.
Alongside Johnson, Ron Funches, Rob Riggle, A.D. Miles, Cleo King, and Natasha Leggero all lend their voices to the Netflix animated series. Johnson will serve as executive producer on the series along with Hoffman, Seth Cohen, and Phil Lord and Chris Miller of Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, 21 Jump Street and Lego Movie Fame. Johnson starred in 2018’s Spiderverse as Peter B.Parker and even talked a bit about Hoops during the film’s press junket.
Watch the date announcement below and catch Hoops on Netflix Aug. 21st.
There’s about to be a lot more Grease in your diet. A year ago we learned a prequel film, titled Summer Lovin’, was in the works at Paramount. With so much going on it was probably pretty easy to forget about, or perhaps you were hoping it died a quiet death. Well, sad day for you, because the movie is still happening. The good news is it’ll have a great director in Hearts Beat Loud filmmaker, Brett Haley.
I’ve said it a bunch of times on this site that Brett Haley is among the best directors working today, and his involvement is worth making Summer Lovin‘ worth monitoring. Deadline says he will direct the prequel film, which could launch a potential Grease franchise. More on that in a bit. The movie will follow the summer of love between good-girl Sandy and troublemakin’ greaser Danny, played by Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta in the classic 1978 film. After meeting and falling head over heels, they go their separate ways…unaware they’ll be going to the same school.
As for the franchise aspect, it’s unclear if this will connect with the spinoff series, Rydell High, that we learned about last fall. It would make sense if they were, but nothing has been confirmed at this point. Because if not, that’s an awful lot of Grease coming from different sources.
Haley had his breakthrough with 2015’s I’ll See You in My Dreams, followed by 2017’s The Hero. He followed that up with the music dramedy Hearts Beat Loud, and earlier this year had the Netflix film All the Bright Places. He tells love stories with a lot of heart and humor to them, and that’s perfect for what a Grease movie should be.
Last week we reported that Christopher Nolan’s Tenet would likely be delayed again as the coronavirus continues to affect the country. Well, that likelihood has become a reality.
Warner Bros. has officially removed the blockbuster from its release calendar, putting any hope for a summer movie season in theater in hold. The film has already been pushed back multiple times, from July 17 to August 12. As of now, no other release date has been given.
Studio Chairman Toby Emmerich released the following statement:
We will share a new 2020 release date imminently for Tenet, Christopher Nolan’s wholly original and mind blowing feature… We are not treating tenet like a traditional global day-and-date release, and out upcoming marketing and distibution plans will relect that…Our goals throughout this process have been to ensure the highest odds of success for our films while also being ready to support our theater partners with new content as soon as they could safely reopen. We’re grateful for the support we’ve received from exhibitors and remain steadfast in our commitment to the theatrical experience around the world. Unfortunately, the pandemic continues to proliferate, causing us to reevaluate our release dates.
One thing is for sure, nothing about Tenet‘s release date has been traditional but it is unclear what the studio officially means by “traditional global day and date release.” It could mean it will roll out slowly as more theaters open, but with the Coronavirus’ first wave bleeding into the second, its unlikely theaters will open in the US in the next couple months. It could also mean foreign markets such as China, Japan, and the UK release the film in theaters well-before it’s released here, maybe even months before.
Whenever Tenet comes out, where ever it comes out, be sure to check back here for all the latest news.
Hop on Twitter right now and you might see #ReleaseTheAyerCut and #OpSKWAD trending pretty high. Fans of Suicide Squad are making a concerted effort to convince Warner Bros. to do the same for David Ayer’s cut of the film that they did for Zack Snyder’s Justice League. In theory, it seems like a logical decision. Not only was Suicide Squad more successful at the box office, but critically it was treated less harshly. So why not?
So what brought all of this on today? Well, David Ayer is fanning the flames by teasing scenes from his cut of Suicide Squad. In a morning tweet, he shows a scene that appears to be taken outside of Harley Quinn’s prison cell. He doesn’t say anything about it, but presumably, this is one of those scenes tinkered with by WB execs, who wanted the movie to be funnier after the box office failure of Batman v Superman and success of Deadpool.
It’s the second that has fans especially amped up. Ayer released what appears to be an unused script page, featuring Jared Leto’s Joker as he holds the team’s lives literally in his hands. Leto’s version of the character was shit on by most people, but we also know his scenes were drastically edited and barely fit into the overall narrative. This might’ve gone a long way to fixing it because the scene as written is pretty cool. Ayer would later admit that he did, in fact, shoot the scene.
Yet another tweet reminds us that Justice League villain Steppenwolf was also meant to be the big-bad of Suicide Squad, but when he got pulled Ayer had to come up with something else on the fly. Let’s just say the Enchantress thing didn’t really work.
— Andrea Abbatista #ReleaseTheSnyderCut (@Andrea24976180) July 20, 2020
So is WB truly listening as they were during the #ReleasetheSnyderCut craze? Only time will tell, and we may need to wait to see how that film does on HBO Max next year before a decision on Suicide Squad is made.
Innovation is often a double-edge sword. For the positive progress that lends value to a society, there can be negative unforeseen consequences. This was especially true for Marie Curie and her groundbreaking work in the field of radiation, which has cost as many lives as it has saved. Marjane Satrapi’s biopic Radioactive shows a Curie who grapples with the impact of her work, while always seeking the proper credit she’s due for it.
Rosamund Pike plays Curie, in the latest in a career’s worth of roles as strong, brilliant women navigating a field dominated by men. Admittedly, she’s terrific at it (see also her underrated performance in A Private War) and I’d be happy if she continues bringing light to stories such as these. Radioactive does start off a bit slow, and suggests the typical paint-by-numbers approach we’re accustomed to from historical biopics. We’re introduced to Curie in the final moments of her life, flashing back to the people and moments that led her to this moment. Fortunately, this is not a traditional biopic by any means.
As much about sacrifice as it is discovery, Radioactive follows the ebbs and flows of Curie’s life, and how it intersects with the personal connections she makes with others. There are the typical biopic moments, beginning with her many fights over funding with her male colleagues. Curie was always fighting to get the respect she was due, and it wasn’t until she encountered her future husband, scientist Pierre Curie (Sam Riley, fantastic), that she started to receive it. Pierre was just as brilliant as she, but their courtship and eventual marriage was unusual for the time. He saw her as an equal, and fought to make sure she was treated as such. But their relationship was not without cost, on an emotional and physical level.
Satrapi, who has favored adapting graphic novels since her own Persepolis in 2007, captures the vivid colors and images of the page. The full radioactive spectrum ebbs and flows throughout this film’s visual palette, reflecting the benefits and curses brought about by their discoveries. Seamlessly woven into the narrative are practical applications of radiation across time; sometimes they are for the good, like reducing cancerous cells in a young patient; other times they are awful, like the use of radiation to create the atomic bomb and the devastating effect it would have for decades.
What Radioactive shows is a Curie who carried the burden of her great discovery through every moment of her life. When people start to get sick from radiation poisoning, the world at large turned on her. Other indiscretions helped poison Curie’s public image further, but she also carried around the knowledge that her work was also killing her physically, and was doing the same to the people she loved. Her decision to plow ahead, despite the risks, paints her as a more complex figure than virtually all depictions of Curie have ever dared to tackle.
That’s not to say Radioactive isn’t a bit rough around the edges. While Curie’s marriage to Pierre is beautifully rendered, with Pike and Riley showing chemistry I’d like to see again in the future, other aspects of her life don’t get enough treatment. In particular, we get very little of how her decisions have impacted her children. Anya Taylor-Joy doesn’t get nearly enough to do as Curie’s adult-aged daughter Irene, who often worked beside her mother and became a Nobel Prize winner, as well. During dry spells, Satrapi and screenwriter Jack Thorne fall back on genre tropes. Fortunately, these times are few and far between, driven by Pike who is captivating throughout.
Pike does something rare which is to show the sensitive and human side to Marie Curie, when scientists are so often depicted as indifferent to the world around them. It’s interesting, though, to wonder how her performance will be received. In a non-COVID year Pike’s performance would probably be overlooked. She is so consistently good that I think we take her for granted. But now, with so many movies on the shelf until next year, she emerges as a possible Oscar contender.
With Satrapi and Pike, Radioactive has the benefit of two women at the top of their game, and who are much like Marie Curie in that they demand your attention and your respect. They are the essential ingredients in an experiment that succeeds in crafting a compelling biopic about a person many of us already felt we knew from schoolbooks.
As if anybody is going to miss something new dropped by Beyonce, Disney is making sure you don’t forget about her visual album, Black is King. Just a few weeks after revealing the teaser, a full trailer has been released featuring the Queen B herself on narration.
“You were formed by the heat of the galaxy. What a thing to be, both unique and familiar,” Beyoncé says. “To be one and the same, and still unlike any other.”
The film, which arrives little more than a year after The Lion King‘s release, reimagines lessons from the Disney hit “for today’s young kings and queens in search of their own crowns.” The result is what appears to be the story of Simba brought into the real world.
Special guests include some guy named Jay-Z, her mom Tina Knowles-Lawson, fellow Destiny’s Child member Kelly Rowland, Pharrell Williams, Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o, supermodel Naomi Campbell, models Aweng Ade-Chuol and Adut Akech, and more.
While Beyonce is credited as writer, director, and exec-producer, she’s joined by a host of international filmmakers including Emmanuel Adjei (Shahmaran), Blitz Bazawule (The Burial of Kojo), Pierre Debusschere (Beyoncé’s music videos “Mine” and “Ghost”), Jenn Nkiru (BLACK TO TECHNO), Ibra Ake (creative director on Childish Gambino’s “This is America”), Dikayl Rimmasch (CACHAO, UNO MAS), plus frequent collaborators Jake Nava (Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love”) and Kwasi Fordjour. I was surprised to see Blue Caprice director Alexandre Moors also on the list of contributors, but shouldn’t be considering his past work with J-Lo, Kanye West, and others.
It’s been a booming couple of weeks for director Gina Prince-Bythewood, and it all began with the release of The Old Guard. The Netflix action flick was met with strong reviews, but more importantly, it was instantly one of the most buzzed-about movies of the year. And while we suspected it would be a big hit, Netflix is letting us know just how big it actually was.
So Netflix has done something they rarely do, which is give us a breakdown of viewership numbers for their original movies since they began with 2015’s Beasts of No Nation. The Top 10 list they released is jammed full of action movies, with Extraction at #1 with 99M viewers. The Old Guard managed to crack onto the list but only after it was released. The streamer says it’s already on its way to 72 million viewers in its first four weeks.
THE OLD GUARD is breaking records! The Charlize Theron blockbuster is already among the top 10 most popular Netflix films ever — and Gina Prince-Bythewood is the first Black female director on the list.
Others on Netflix’s list released to Bloomberg included Bird Box with 89M, Spenser Confidential at 85M, 6 Underground and Murder Mystery tied at 83M. Notice any similarities between those? Yeah, they all feature A-list stars. Triple Frontier, which features a star-studded ensemble that included Ben Affleck and Oscar Isaac, is on the list with 63M
Martin Scorsese’s much-touted and hugely expensive The Irishman was viewed by 64M households. The rest of the top 10 includes indie genre film The Platform at 56M, David Spade “comedy” The Wrong Missy with 59M, and Noah Centineo rom-com The Perfect Date at 55M.
It’s been a little quiet on the Marvel front lately, which shouldn’t come as any surprise. COVID-19 has most things in a holding pattern right now, but not everything. On the Disney+ side, there are mixed updates on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and the Hawkeye series. One is moving right along, and the other not so much.
The first one should be a no-brainer at this point. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which was to premiere on Disney+ in August, has been delayed. A full list of the network’s programming lineup was released and the series was simply not on it. This was expected back when production halted in March due to the coronavirus. Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan reprise their roles as Sam “Falcon” Wilson and Bucky Barnes, in a new mission taking place after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Daniel Bruhl returns as Baron Helmut Zemo, as well as Emily VanCamp as Sharon Carter and Wyatt Russell as John “USAgent” Walker. A new release date has yet to be set but expect an announcement soon.
Meanwhile, directors have been recruited for Marvel’s Hawkeye series starring Jeremy Renner and MAYBE Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop. It’s outside-the-box thinking, too, as female writing/directing duo Bert & Bertie, best-known for the Amazon comedy Troop Zero, will direct a block of episodes. Joining them as director of another batch of episodes is Rhys Thomas, an SNL veteran who also gave fans the John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch comedy special. Jonathan Igla (Mad Men) is the series’ head writer, with a release date planned for 2022. [EW/THR]
With Netflix having recently set a September release for Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things, now it’s time to finally get a look at his anticipated return to directing. The image shown doesn’t reveal much, but it doesn’t have to when it includes stars Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons, Toni Collette, and David Thewlis.
Based on the Ian Reid novel, I’m Thinking of Ending Things centers on a woman with identity issues who goes with her boyfriend to meet his parents at their remote farm. The relationship is already on the rocks, and that only makes things more difficult as things take a disturbing turn.
For fans of Kaufman’s psychological mind-benders like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, New York, and Being John Malkovich, it should be exactly what they’re looking for. However, the director says that’s not all he sets out to do…
“I don’t set out to do a mindfuck,” he told EW. “I’m not setting out to do something that ‘tops’ some sort of brainteaser I might have done before. But there’s no question that I’m trying to build on the stuff that I’ve already done.”
I’m Thinking of Ending Things hits Netflix on September 4th.
Nobody is going on any road trips across the American South right now but that doesn’t mean you can’t take one from home. In the new film Easy Does It, director and co-writer Will Addison takes us on an unconventional road trip if you will, full of crime, war paint, radio commentators, and Linda Hamilton in cornrows. Based on Will Addison’s 2013 short film, writer Addison takes this opportunity to expand on that story, but often finds himself in the pitfalls of a first-feature director.
When his mother dies and tells him where to find some buried treasure, Jack (Ben Matheny) and his numbskull best friend Scottie (Matthew Martinez) decide they have to skip out on their debts and run to go find it. The problem is they don’t have any money and their boss King George (Linda Hamilton) is hell-bent on getting their money back. After they rob a convenience store and take pushover Collin (Cory Dumesnil) as a hostage, the three men head across the south, robbing gas stations and diners, running from George’s henchwoman, and avoiding the police, all in pursuit of their American dream.
However, Martinez and Matheny, who also served as co-writer, come off less as loveable rascals and more as annoying, imposing pricks. It’s really hard to root for anyone in this movie, but when you have two idiots that keep making the same mistakes over and over again, it’s not only tedious to watch, but you keep hoping their next misadventure will be their last. A character has to have some endearing quality to make the audience suffer fools gladly and unfortunately, Jack and Scotty just don’t have it.
Linda Hamilton milks everything she can out of her character King George and gives a well-crafted performance. However, as the androgynous, ruthless owner of an entire town, her story seems more interesting than any of the other characters, but her character’s origin is never really explained. Any explanation for those cornrows would also be appreciated. A butch crew cut would have been just as effective and not as culturally appropriative. This alludes to a larger trend within Easy Does It where elements exist purely for aesthetic value without a connection to a larger narrative purpose.
Besides Hamilton, it’s two other credited leads aren’t really leads. This isn’t uncommon with a low budget independent film but we are talking maybe 10 minutes of screen time combined for Bryan Batt and Dwight Henry. Batt, best known for his role on Mad Men nearly steals the whole movie as the determined and fame-hungry police officer set on apprehending Scottie and Jack. Dwight Henry (Beasts of the Southern Wild) isn’t given much to do as a small Texas police chief but does his best with what he has.
While the pieces don’t always fit together, some of the people involved are quite impressive. Besides Terminator legend Linda Hamilton, John Goodman and Harry Shearer of Spinal Tap and Simpsons fame lend their voices as two radio announcers. The Black Keys’ drummer Patrick Carney wrote original music for the project. Speaking of, the music is one of the best parts of the film, incorporating folk, rock, and even Funkedelic’s “Can You Get To That?” The soundtrack lifts the sophistication of the film, especially when Addison pairs a montage or slow motion shot with just the right song.
Easy Does It floats between indie Southern crime comedy and film school thesis film. It doesn’t always go down easy but some of its layered elements make it an enjoyable ride for the most part.
Now available on on-demand. Watch the trailer below.
