Jay Pharoah Is Out To Stop A (Fake) War In The Trailer For ‘How to Fake a War’

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July 15, 2020

Comedian Jay Pharoah is out to stop a (fake) war in this new trailer for Rudolph Herzog’s aptly titled How to Fake a War. Hot take: This looks hilarious, or at least it would if it wasn’t something that could actually happen. You see, Jay plays Harry Hope a recording star who has a charity concert that can’t go on because there’s no current conflict he can use as the poster child. So he brings in his PR manager Kate, the amazing and under-seen Katherine Parkinson (The I.T. Crowd), to drum up a fake conflict that he his concert can use as it’s benefit. That’s where it gets sad, you’d think something so ridiculous couldn’t possibly fall in the realm of “this could happen”, but in the age of headline readers and Facebook facts I could see something like this spiraling…maybe not to the level this trailer shows it getting, but close.

All that aside this looks like a genuinely funny and original flick that I’ve officially put on my watch list.

Starring: Jay Pharoah, Katherine Parkinson, Daryl McCormack and Lily Newmark,
Directed By: Rudolph Herzog

For more trailers click here

A24 Unveils ‘The Green Knight’ Fantasy RPG Game, But Still No Release Date

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Travis Hopson

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July 15, 2020

So what’s going on with David Lowery’s The Green Knight? Uhhh, your guess is as good as mine. The A24 release, which stars Dev Patel in a new take on the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain, was an unfortunate victim of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the original May release pulled, and no new date in sight, A24 has gone in a different route to keep the film in our thoughts: a tabletop RPG game.

In the new trailer for Green Knight, we see the unveiling of The Green Knight: A Fantasy Role-Playing Game. Clearly inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, it looks like the perfect way to lure in some of the nerds I know who are seriously into the Knights of the Round Table.

Here’s a description: “From the hallowed halls of Camelot to the mysterious wilds of the fabled Green Chapel, embark on a mythical journey across Arthurian lands in search of the Green Knight. Prepare to face highwaymen, ghostly damsels, mystical creatures and more. Your quest begins with the Game Master’s Guide, Map of the Realm, 5 Character Sheets, and a 20-sided die. With Honor at stake, will you rise to meet the challenge?”

A24 doesn’t throw around blockbuster dollars, so they’re always finding unique ways to promote their films. Considering the success of Midsommar, Uncut Gems, and The Witch, all of which had some nifty promo campaigns (Bear in a Cage!!!), here’s hoping the Markting dept. gurus are getting a raise.

‘Feels Good Man’ Trailer: Pepe The Frog Creator Tries To Reclaim His Character From The Alt-Right

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Travis Hopson

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July 15, 2020

What do you do when something you created, a piece of art, is co-opted by forces of hate and no longer means what you originally intended? That’s what artist Matt Furie has had to deal with as his character Pepe the Frog became a symbol of hatred and racism during the 2016 Presidential election. And how he coped with that is the subject of documentary Feels Good Man.

Feels Good Man follows Furie as he attempts to reclaim Pepe the Frog from the alt-right who have turned it into a hate symbol. The film is directed by Arthur Jones, and made its debut at Sundance earlier this year where it won U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker.

Feels Good Man opens on September 4th.

SYNOPSIS: In November 2016, a nasty election cycle had exposed a seismic cultural rift, and the country suddenly felt like a much different place. For underground cartoonist Matt Furie, that sensation was even more surreal. Furie’s comic creation Pepe the Frog, conceived more than a decade earlier as a laid-back humanoid amphibian, had unwittingly become a grotesque political pawn. FEELS GOOD MAN is a Frankenstein-meets-Alice in Wonderland journey of an artist battling to regain control of his creation, while confronting a disturbing cast of characters who have their own peculiar attachments to Pepe. Now, as Pepe continues to morph around the world – FEELS GOOD MAN offers a vivid, moving portrait of one man, one frog, and the very strange reality we’ve all found ourselves living in.

‘Fletch’ Reboot In The Works With Jon Hamm And ‘Superbad’ Director

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Travis Hopson

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July 15, 2020

Fletch. If you know the name, you’re either a big fan of Chevy Chase movies, or you’ve heard Kevin Smith tell that Fletch reboot story one too many times. Either way, the goofball journo who is basically Chevy Chase boiled down to his hilarious essence, is long overdue for a comeback. So once more with feeling, Fletch Lives!!!

Deadline reports that a reboot of Fletch is in the works, with Jon Hamm set to produce and star. The film will be directed by Greg Mottola, best known for Superbad, Clear History, and Keeping Up with the Joneses, those last two both having featured Hamm. So Mottola and Hamm have a pretty good working relationship already, which they’re going to need if Fletch is going to go off with flying colors.

Fletch is based on the character created by author Gregory Mcdonald, with the new film based on his second book, Confess, Fletch. Fletch, aka Irwin M. “Fletch” Fletcher, is a journalist and ex-Marine who becomes prime suspect in a murder.

The books led to the popular 1985 film, Fletch, which was punched up with more comedy to better suit star Chevy Chase. A less successful sequel, Fletch Lives, arrived in 1989 using an original story and not one by Mcdonald. There have been numerous attempts to revive the character, including the aforementioned shot by Kevin Smith.

Hamm is a funny dude, and when he’s particularly goofy he sorta reminds me of Chase. This could finally be the combo that brings Fletch back to some semblance of glory.

‘Project Power’ Trailer: Jamie Foxx And Joseph Gordon-Levitt Fight A Superpowered War On Drugs

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Travis Hopson

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July 15, 2020

Readers of Marvel comics will know one of the most frequently-used storylines involves man-made drugs that grant superhuman abilities. While the illegal narcotics may give you some cool powers, they ALWAYS prove to be deadly to the user. Well, that’s the basic premise behind Project Power, and while it isn’t a superhero movie or anything, it does star a pair of superheroic actors in Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Project Power stars Foxx as a man out for revenge, with Gordon-Levitt as his cop partner. Both are willing to take the super-powered pills so they can find and stop the person resposible for creating the drug. Also in the cast is Dominique Fishback, who is probably best known for her role as Darlene in HBO’s The Deuce. She also starred in a great little drama Night Comes On.

The film is directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. whose names you might remember from their documentary and MTV series, Catfish. They went from there to directing a couple of Paranormal Activity films, Nerve, and Viral.

Project Power hits Netflix on August 14th.

SYNOPSIS: On the streets of New Orleans, word begins to spread about a mysterious new pill that unlocks superpowers unique to each user. The catch: You don’t know what will happen until you take it. While some develop bulletproof skin, invisibility, and super strength, others exhibit a deadlier reaction. But when the pill escalates crime within the city to dangerous levels, a local cop (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) teams with a teenage dealer (Dominique Fishback) and a former soldier fueled by a secret vendetta (Jamie Foxx) to fight power with power and risk taking the pill in order to track down and stop the group responsible for creating it.

Gina Prince-Bythewood To Direct Viola Davis In Historical Epic ‘The Woman King’

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Travis Hopson

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July 15, 2020

How about more good news for Gina Prince-Bythewood? Suddenly, coming off the hot debut of The Old Guard, the director’s name is on everybody’s lips. And now she’s landed a new gig that will find her working with Oscar-winner Viola Davis.

Variety reports Prince-Bythewood will direct The Woman King, which Davis has been attached to produce and star in for a couple of years. The film is a historical epic, inspired by true events in the Kingdom of Dahomey, a powerful state in 18th & 19th century Africa. Davis will play Nanisca, a general in the all-female fighting force. Together with her daughter Nawi, they fight the French and neighboring tribes that threaten to enslave them and destroy everything they’ve lived for.

Lupita Nyong’o had been eyed to play the daughter, but that appears to no longer be the case. It’ll be interesting to see who they get for the role now. Perhaps another Black Panther star, Letitia Wright?

Before The Old Guard, Prince-Bythewood wasn’t known for action movies at all, but it’s clear now that her career has taken off in a new direction.

Gina Prince-Bythewood Says ‘Silver & Black’ Would’ve Been Edgier Than Other Marvel Films

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Travis Hopson

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July 15, 2020

Known for films such as Love & Basketball and Beyond the Lights, Gina Prince-Bythewood isn’t a director who immediately came to mind for big studio action flicks. That all changed this past week with The Old Guard, which is shaping up to be the blockbuster film Netflix had been hoping for. But to hear it from Prince-Bythewood, it was the work she did on shelved Spider-Man spinoff Silver & Black that proved she could thrive doing more than dramas.

Silver & Black was to be a film featuring Marvel’s resident cat burglar Black Cat and mercenary-for-hire Silver Sable. It was among the first spinoff titles announced as part of Sony’s renewed superhero efforts, but could never get off the ground. Prince-Bythewood was to direct, and spent a year and a half rewriting the script to get the movie’s tone, because she planned on going in a different route than other Marvel films at the time…

“I wanted to go edgier than some of the Marvel films,” she said to Indiewire. “It was a question of how far could I push it in that Marvel universe.”

And maybe she pushed it a little too far? The film seems to be on the way to becoming a TV series, with Prince-Bythewood in a producer role. So while that one didn’t quite work out as she planned, she does think it the reason for landing her The Old Guard…

“‘Silver & Black’ put me in the conversation. I was one of those couple of women people go to for these big films. I knew what kind of movies Skydance make. It was exhilarating and nerve-racking. I knew I loved this project, partly because I could do everything I wanted to do from the other film: an edgy superhero film with two women.”

She added, “Everything happens for a reason. I learned so much in that year and half. All the stuff I was learning about doing a film of that scale I could transfer over to ‘The Old Guard.’ So it didn’t feel like a gigantic leap.”

So who needs Spider-Man, anyway? Prince-Bythewood may have a franchise all to herself with The Old Guard, and now studios know they can trust her to do a lot more.

‘Tenet’ Set To Continue The Trend Of Shorter Films

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John Nolan

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July 14, 2020

It looks like Tenet is set to continue the trend of shorter films that we’ve seen happening this year. If you tuned into this week’s Cinema Royale you know that Travis and I discussed this very phenomenon on Sunday, I did not, however, expect Christopher Nolan to be a part of it. Now, to avoid click-bait type headlines let me point out now that the film is by no means short, just shorter then Nolan’s previous efforts clocking in at just over 2 hrs and 20 minutes. Christopher Nolan started, or at least greatly contributed to the uptrend in run times over the last 20 years with each of his Batman movies clocking in at over the two hour mark, sometimes well over. I, for one, am not really for one or the other but more for having the runtime fit the story. Necessary story shouldn’t be cut but you also shouldn’t be padding your film just to fit into some box that a top-tier flick has to be over 2 hours.

There’s still time enough for this all to change. While Tenet is still reportedly due out on August 12th, word around the playground is that another delay is imminent. With COVID-19 currently having it’s comeback tour all over prematurely opening states and businesses I think we should just call it a lock that we won’t see the next mind-blowing Nolan foray for some time to come.

‘The Shadow Of Violence’ Trailer: Barry Keoghan And Cosmo Jarvis Star In The Irish Crime Drama

By

Travis Hopson

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July 14, 2020

Originally titled Calm with Horses, the Irish crime drama The Shadow of Violence premiered at TIFF last year. While its debut was overshadowed by bigger films, it arrives later this month to a very different landscape and boosted by strong reviews for stars Barry Keoghan and Cosmo Jarvis.

The Shadow of Violence is led by Jarvis, playing a former boxer who now works as an enforcer for a drug cartel. But his loyalty is pushed to the limit when he’s asked to kill someone rather than just beating some sense into them.

Keoghan is a known commodity at this point, with his roles in ’71, Dunkirk, and American Animals. Jarvis may be unfamiliar, although he’s appeared in big films including Hunter Killer, Annihilation, and Lady Macbeth.

Directed by Nick Rowland, The Shadow of Violence hits theaters on July 31st.

SYNOPSIS: In the dark underbelly of rural Ireland, ex-boxer Douglas “Arm” Armstrong (Cosmo Jarvis, Hunter Killer) has become a feared enforcer for the drug-dealing Devers family. When his ruthless employers order him to kill for the first time, his loyalties are tested in this powerful thriller costarring Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk) and Ned Dennehy (“Peaky Blinders”).

Possible ‘Dirty Dancing’ Film In The Works With Jennifer Grey Set To Star

By

Travis Hopson

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July 14, 2020

No good franchise stays in the corner forever, and the only real surprise is that Dirty Dancing has been on the shelf as long as it has. That said, there’s no confirmation in Deadline‘s report that Lionsgate is DEFINITELY doing a Dirty Dancing movie, but it sure sounds like it and Hollywood is rumbling at the possibility.

The report goes that Jennifer Grey, who is known for three things: Ferris Bueller, Dirty Dancing, and her nose, has signed on to exec-produce and star in a ’90s-set dance movie for Lionsgate. The film is being overseen by producers Jonathan Levine (Long Shot, 50/50) and Gillian Bohrer, with a script by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis, who most recently wrote horror The Curse of La Llorona.

Those who are baffled, perhaps even a little angry about a new Dirty Dancing movie have plenty of reason. The last time this was attempted was with 2004’s Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. Suffice it to say Diego Luna and Romola Garai didn’t have quite the same chemistry as Grey and the iconic Patrick Swayze, the latter playing hunky dance instructor Johnny Castle. Swayze had a minor role in Havana Nights (and pocketed a hefty sum to do it), but if a true Dirty Dancing sequel is happening with Grey I would expect a proper tribute to him.

A TV remake was completed in 2017 that starred Abigail Breslin and Colt Prattes as the dancing duo, but it was pretty bad and moving on from it probably a good idea.