Tis the season to be jolly! Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu was a Christmas treat for his fans last year, and now the director is returning to the holiday. Deadline reports Eggers and Warner Bros. are teaming up for a new take on Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. While there’s no official casting, Eggers is expected to turn to a familiar face, Willem Dafoe to play Ebenezer Scrooge.
Dafoe and Eggers are joined at the hip, having worked together three times already on The Lighthouse, The Northman, and Nosferatu. This might seem like an unusual project to tackle, though, until you look at it a bit closer. Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a ghost story, where supernatural forces disrupt the life of a cold-hearted miser who cares more about money than the people around him. It’s also a period piece, which all of Eggers’ films have been up to this point.
Eggers has had a loyal fan following since his breakout feature, The Witch, in 2015 (!!!), but he’s been quietly gaining at the box office, as well. Each film has earned more than the last, with Nosferatu topping out at $181M. It’s obvious why WB wants to work with him on A Christmas Carol even though it’s been remade and adapted more than almost any movie ever.
All of that said, Eggers has a lot on his plate. His next film, Werewulf, is set to shoot this Fall, and he also has a sequel to Labyrinth in the works.
Mike Flanagan has become sortof the go-to guy for Stephen King adaptations. There are plenty of others, obviously, but the best ones lately have been by Flanagan, The Life of Chuck being the third following Gerald’s Game and the excellent Doctor Sleep. Flanagan’s latest isn’t the typical King adaptation. It’s not a horror at all, and is a reminder that King could tug at your heartstrings with sweetness as much as scare the crap out of you. The Life of Chuck is also a reminder of how good and grounded Tom Hiddleston can be when separated from the Marvel machine.
The Life of Chuck is a three-act story told in reverse chronological order. In one of those quiet small towns that King loves so much, the film follows Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a lonely schoolteacher, and Felicia (Karen Gillan), an anxious, equally lonely nurse and Marty’s ex-wife. Both struggle to make life make sense as the world is undergoing an apocalyptic event. The Internet is gone (including PornHub, the true disaster!), many of America’s biggest cities are simply no more including all of California which has simply fallen into the ocean. As the planet crumbles around them, Felicia and Marty forget the problems they once had begin to reconnect, while all around them mysterious signs thanking an accountant named Chuck for his 39 years of great service begin to appear across the city and even in the sky.
So who is Chuck, anyway? And why does his life seem tied to this coming cataclysmic event? The next two chapters begin to unravel that mystery, and it’s also where Hiddleston comes in. Chuck seems like an ordinary guy, and, well, he is. That’s what’s initially so confusing about it. We discover that Chuck, aged 39, has an inoperable brain tumor with only a short time left to live. As he begins to reflect on his life and all of the people he’s met and places he’s been, Chuck also starts seeing the real beauty in the world. The centerpiece sequence offers Hiddleston, a born showman, to show off his dance moves as Chuck surprises himself by dancing with Janice (the lovely Annalise Basso, reuniting with Flanagan after Oculus) to a street drummer’s beats.
The Life of Chuck is a lovely little film, a melancholic crowd-pleaser that won the People’s Choice Award at TIFF. Melancholy and crowd-pleasing might sound antithetical, but that’s the delicate balance that King and Flanagan are walking here. The film is undeniably sad once you catch on to what’s happening and how it connects to Act 3. But for all of its gloom there are just as many moments of pure happiness. Such as the joy a young Chuck (played by Jacob Tremblay, Benjamin Pajak, and Cody Flanagan) gets learning how to dance with his grandmother, played by a returning Mia Sara in a nice nod to her Ferris Bueller’s Day Off heyday. There’s Chuck taking that knowledge and dancing with the most beautiful girl in school. There’s also Mark Hamill as Chuck’s depressed, alcoholic grandfather who teaches him the joy of numbers. The ensemble as a whole is fantastic and also a source of light in the film, with great performances given by Matthew Lillard, Kate Siegel, Carl Lumbly, David Dastmalchian, and A Nightmare on Elm Street vet Heather Langenkamp as a gossipy neighbor.
Horror fans wondering where the creepy stuff comes in will be disappointed. While it does take a turn towards the paranormal eventually, The Life of Chuck is mainly a poignant parable about living life for all that it’s worth, loving as much as humanly possible, and passing that joy around so that it lasts long after you’re gone.
The Life of Chuck is in select theaters now, and opens wide on June 13th via NEON.
Have you been out there on the dating scene? It’s rough. You don’t need me to tell you that swiping right on dating apps has made us evaluate potential partners differently. When all you need to do is swipe right or left, what kind of value are you putting on that person? Or on yourself? People become only about their stats: how much money they make, how tall they are, how young they are, how “fit” they are. Stats are for baseball, not for dating. Celine Song’s follow-up to her brilliant, soulful Past Lives has been pushed as a ’90s-style rom-com, but Materialists isn’t really that. It’s Song taking yet another deep dive at modern dating, only through the prism of matchmakers whose sole job it is to find true love by digging through said stats like Brad Pitt in Moneyball.
Materialists is a much bigger, slicker film from Song, and one designed to be more mainstream. That’s a bit of a double-edged sword, though. While it guarantees Song a lot more attention, the film is also less substantial, feeling thinned out to affect the right crowd reaction, which is to have everyone leave happy. The characters are also slight, lacking the depth to truly be authentic. That said, it also has an abundance of charm thanks to the casting of Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal, playing familiar characters in a romantic scenario we’ve been watching play out since we were kids.
Johnson plays Lucy, a romantic matchmaker so good at her job that she’s seen nine of her couples tie the knot. But don’t think this is like one of those speed dating services or some cheapy matchmaking outfit. Lucy’s clientele is the rich and elite, and they all are looking for the perfect match, someone who “checks all of the boxes” as we hear so often. Lucy is a lot like her clientele. She sees relationships as transactional, a business deal, so to speak. Her job is to find people whose interests, wealth, and looks align; she has to find value in each person even when they seemingly have little. Both genders come across looking like shallow a-holes. The men, they tend to only want women who are young and hot, literally refusing in some cases to see a woman who might be a year outside of their target. Heaven forbid she be 30! Women don’t look good in this, either. They want men who are fabulously wealthy and extremely tall. On this note I can agree with them. There’s nothing uglier than a couple where the woman is much taller than the guy. Ugh.
At a wedding for one of her clients, Lucy meets what they call in her trade a “unicorn”. Henry Castillo (Pascal), a handsome, grotesquely rich wiz in private equity. He comes from old money. He begins flirting with her immediately. She dismisses the idea of them being together, noting that she has nothing of material value to contribute. She talks of dowries…”Do I look like I need a dowry?” he asks. Henry already has everything of material value that he could ever need. He genuinely likes Lucy, but she would rather he become a client. Just then, Lucy encounters her ex, John (Evans), a waiter with the catering company, a failed actor, who lives with roommates in a shitty apartment and still drives the same old car he’s always had. Without saying a word, he brings her favorite drinks, a Coke and a beer.
We’ve all had those pangs of what was comfortable and familiar. Lucy, who is eventually won over to date Henry after he lavished her with fancy gifts and expensive dinners, nevertheless keeps in touch with John after their encounter. What emerges is something like a love triangle, and one that we have a pretty good idea of how it’ll play out. Lucy is going to have to choose between the financial stability and practicality of Henry, or being with John whom she clicks with in every respect except for one. He’s poor, and will probably always be poor. It’s why they broke up. While she loves him, arguing with John over $25 gets tired really quickly.
This love triangle scenario isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. Shit, even John Hughes used to do it in high school comedies. Not to say that Song’s narrative is juvenile or anything. It’s actually quite refreshing that she offers this modern, if jaded, look at modern dating where love never factors into the equation, only business transactions. Song doesn’t play gender favorites, either. Lucy doesn’t always come across great. She can be cold, ruthless, too businesslike with matters of the heart. And John, as much as we might want to root for the working-class underdog, is bitter and angry. Henry is safe, and…well, who wants to be constantly comparing themselves to someone who appears to be so perfect?
Song’s graceful visual style is a real plus. New York City has rarely looked so beautiful, and like a place where fairy tale romances can indeed happen. It doesn’t hurt that the Materialists cast is also gorgeous. Although, and maybe this is just me nitpicking, but I don’t think any of the three leads had to stretch very much for this one. They all are playing character types we’ve seen from them before and that in itself is kind of soothing, too. We already like these actors coming in, and they’re telling a fairly breezy love story.
Song tries to throw a monkey wrench in the design with a subplot involving one of Lucy’s hopeless clients, Sophie (Succession‘s Zoe Winters), who devalues herself and endures the cruel reality of modern dating in New York. It pays off better in the end than the build-up would suggest, although it also doesn’t jibe with the tone of the movie which is pretty light.
It’s unfair to compare Materialists to Past Lives, although that’s what most people will do. Heck, even I did it when I first sat down to watch it, then again after it was over. Materialists is also a story about love and following our heart, even when it’s hard, but it’s simply a less meaningful, enduring movie. However, it’s also more marketable, lighter on its feet, and shows that Song can skillfully maneuver her way through anything as a storyteller. No matter what, Song is always going to be a filmmaker who checks most of the boxes.
A24 releases Materialists in theaters on June 13th.
The wait is almost over! Next month, James Gunn officially kicks off the DCU with Superman, starring David Corenswet as the latest actor to portray the Man of Steel. If the film is a smash, then a new cinematic universe is born. If it goes the way of recent Superman movies…well, then Gunn’s got a lot o’ splainin’ to do!
With tickets available for preorder, Warner Bros. has dropped a final Superman trailer. With the film so close to arriving, it might be a good idea to start holding back on how much footage you consume, if preserving the experience is something you want to do. I know that’s what I’m doing.
Recent reports of poor test screenings have hampered the buzz on this film somewhat, but overall I think there are still a lot of high hopes that Gunn can pull this off.
Joining Corenswet is a gigantic cast including Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, along with Wendell Pierce, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Skyler Gisondo, María Gabriela de Faría, Sara Sampaio, Terence Rosemore, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Neva Howell, Beck Bennett, Mikaela Hoover, Christopher McDonald, and Alan Tudyk.
SYNOPSIS: “Superman,” DC Studios’ first feature film to hit the big screen, is set to soar into theaters worldwide this summer from Warner Bros. Pictures. In his signature style, James Gunn takes on the original superhero in the newly imagined DC universe with a singular blend of epic action, humor and heart, delivering a Superman who’s driven by compassion and an inherent belief in the goodness of humankind.
For fans of action movies and martial arts films in particular, it has to bring a smile to their faces to see Scott Adkins and Marko Zaror at the top of the Diablo callsheet. The longtime friends and combatants recently worked together on John Wick: Chapter 4, and it was decided it was long past due for them to take control of a movie just for them. And they’ve done it with Diablo, from hammering out the story to producing to fight choreography, the duo were involved with everything. The result? Exactly what we want to see, Adkins and Zaror going all out, hard, fast, and brutal in a familiar, no bullshit kick to the teeth.
Adkins, also a producer on Diablo, plays Kris, a newly-released ex-con who has just snuck into Colombia inside the trunk of a car. Kris is the kind of guy who means well but can’t walk two feet without getting into a fight. The guy he paid to drive him tries to extort him for more cash and, well, Kris has to teach him a lesson. Kris is there to kidnap Elisa (Alana De La Rossa) from her powerful father, the gangster Vicente (Lucho Velasquez) who he shares a deadly past with. Snatching her from her hapless bodyguards, Kris suddenly has a bounty on his head that has every hired killer and criminal on his trail. But the biggest problem is a psychotic nutjob named El Corvo, played by Zaror.
Zaror has created an awesome new character with El Corvo. The one-handed assassin is clearly inspired by No Country for Old Men‘s Anton Chigurh. When we first meet him, he’s sitting alone at a diner with a slice of cake. He forces the waitress to sit, asking if she’s treated herself to a gift, then forces her to take a bite of the dessert. The whole time, he’s removed the stump to reveal a terrifying blade, which he uses to make her eat. El Corvo is always this creepy, and with his metal hand that he uses for both offense and defense, he’s virtually unstoppable. And boy, does he have a serious hate for Vicente. He doesn’t actually give a damn about Kris initially. He just wants Elisa for his own twisted purposes.
Diablo was written by Mat Sansom, who helped concoct the story, but it was directed by someone Zaror is quite familiar with, Ernesto Díaz Espinoza. They have worked together numerous times, most recently on the amazing Fist of the Condor, which readers of this site will know I raved about to a ridiculous degree. Zaror and Espinoza just have this vibe goin’ on. Zaror looks faster and more lethal when shot by Espionoza than with any other filmmaker. And considering El Corvo routinely tears through dozens of killers with ease, Zaror looks great in this movie a lot.
While action is what we all signed up for, there’s a surprising amount of heart, too. Much of this comes from the tenuous relationship between Elisa and her kidnapper, Kris. We’ve seen Adkins act as security before, but here he’s called on to be protective and that’s a bit different. It’s a chance for him to show a softer, funnier side and he has terrific chemistry with La Rossa. Figuring out why Kris is so invested in Elisa is pretty easy, and you’ll likely have it sussed out after a few minutes. That’s fine. Nobody signed up for Diablo to be a complex mystery, but they do manage to find a way to make us care about these two and whether they can reconcile their significant differences.
That’s great and all, but how often do Adkins and Zaror get to punch one another? Well, quite a lot, actually. Diablo is a small-scale movie and it starts off pretty modest, but I was impressed by how the fights got bigger and more intense. There’s a fantastic brawl in the middle of the movie featuring Zaror just wiping the floor with dozens of folks in all manner of unspeakable ways. The camera twisting at crazy angles to show every broken bone, all of the bloodshed. It’s a scene that looks like something Gareth Evans might’ve done, and that is about as high of a compliment that I can give. The cool thing is, the scene gets better at the end because that’s when Adkins shows up out of nowhere and the fighting spills out into a different arena. The scope of Diablo is surprisingly large, and that includes a great final showdown and rescue where Adkins and Zaror punch, kick, and slam one another so hard you’d swear someone must’ve spent time in a hospital afterwards.
Diablo isn’t breaking new ground for the genre or anything. The plot is by-the-numbers and you can see every turn coming a mile away. But so what? It does what it promises to do and that’s deliver intense martial arts action from two of the best in the game. What more is there to ask for other than a sequel?
Lionsgate releases Diablo in theaters, VOD, and digital on June 13th.
The harsh climate and terrain of South Dakota’s Badlands give way to something gentle and warm in Kate Beecroft’s stunning directorial debut, East of Wall. Debuting earlier this year at Sundance, Beecroft’s docu-feature follows Tabatha, a rugged, grief-stricken horse trader as she tries to juggle caring for wayward teens, financial insecurity, and a rebellious daughter who is a little too much like herself. Oh, and did I mention she’s in a business dominated by men, and they look to try and take advantage of her every chance they get.
The thing about Tabatha, though, is that she’s the best there is at what she does. To look at her, all covered in tattoos and with a permanent scowl on her face, you’d think her to be someone to be avoided. But underneath that intimidating exterior is a heart of pure of gold.
In case you can’t tell, I was a huge fan of East of Wall, a sensitive film that reminded me of other movies centered on horse culture, such as Buck, Jockey, and The Rider.
While Tabatha and her daughter Porshia play versions of themselves, Scoot McNairy and Jennifer Ehle play fictional characters as part of their story.
SYNOPSIS: EAST OF WALL is an authentic portrait of female resilience in the ”New West” inspired and played by the women and girls who live it. Set in the Badlands of South Dakota, Tabatha, a young, rebellious rancher, who rescues and resells horses, must make hard decisions to deal with her fractured family, financial uncertainty, and unresolved grief, all while providing refuge for a group of wayward neighborhood teens.
Damn you, Gareth Evans! While the filmmaker teased having a story in mind for The Raid 3, he won’t be looking to direct that sequel which fans are on pins and needles waiting for. Instead, Evans will turn his attention to the yakuza and the 1967 film noir, A Colt Is My Passport. Ok, this should be pretty awesome, too.
According to Jeff Sneider, Evans will direct a remake of Japanese Yakuza noir A Colt Is My Passport for Amazon MGM’s Orion Pictures . The original, directed by Takashi Nomura and starred legendary actor Joe Shishido in one of his dozens of yakuza roles. Heavily inspired by the French New Wave movement, the film centered on a contract killer and his partner who are hired by a yakuza boss to assassinate a former partner, only for the job to go south.
This is a project Evans has been circling for a few years, ever since he first saw the film during the pandemic. I have to agree, it’s fondly remembered for a reason and probably Shishido’s best film.
Evans recently directed Tom Hardy in the Netflix actioner, Havoc, which shared some spiritual connection to The Raid and The Raid 2. He also directed Apostle, which was a departure. There’s no start date for A Colt Is My Passport, but expect Evans to take his time to get it right.
While Pixar is launching new films, such as Elio, in hopes of one catching fire and launching a franchise, Disney still expects them to crank out hit sequels. One of those coming is Incredibles 3, and while Brad Bird wrote and directed the first two superhero movies, the next one will have someone new behind the camera.
THR reports Peter Sohn will direct Incredibles 3, with Bird still involved as screenwriter and producer. Sohn is a Pixar veteran, having directed the underwhelming The Good Dinosaur in 2015, and the more successful Oscar-nominated film Elementalin 2023.
Bird’s schedule working on Skydance’s Ray Gunn and Disney’s 1906 prevented him from directing Incredibles 3 himself. That he’s still involved creatively is crucial. This is one of Pixar’s legacy brands and audiences have high expectations, especially since these movies don’t come out very often. He also voices the Parr family’s superhero suit designer Edna Mode, one of the most popular characters. The two Incredibles movies have combined for over $1.8B globally.
Sian Heder, the filmmaker who taught millions what being the child of deaf adults was all about with her Best Picture-winning film CODA, is staying with the subject of disability. Heder’s next project, Being Heumann, centers on the trailblazing disability rights activist Judith Heumann, who will be played by Ruth Madeley . THR reports that Mark Ruffalo has also joined Madeley in the cast.
Being Heumann is based on Heumann’s memoir, Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist, published just three years before her death. The film will chronicle Heumann’s efforts as a disability rights activist beginning in the 1970s, often challenging the administration of President Richard Nixon. In 1977, Heumann took part in the 504 Sit-In, leading over a hundred disabled people in a 28-day sit-in at the San Francisco Federal Building, the longest sit-in at a federal building. The protestors vowed to stay until the government enforced Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, requiring accessibility for all federal programs or activities.
Ruffalo will play Joseph Califano, who was the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for the Jimmy Carter Administration.
Heder and Rebekah Taussig co-wrote the screenplay.
Madeley is a British actress best known for her roles in Doctor Who, Years and Years, and The Almond and the Seahorse opposite Rebel Wilson.
Ruffalo is…well, he’s Mark Ruffalo. You know what he’s done. Coming up he has Crime 101 opposite his Marvel pal Chris Hemsworth. He recently joined another Marvel alum, Natalie Portman, in Lena Dunham’s film Good Sex.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has already been part of some big franchises. The Matrix, Aquaman, Watchmen, Candyman, and he’s got Marvel’s Wonder Man series coming up. Now he’s adding another huge role, as Deadline reports he’s joining David Fincher’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood follow-up starring Brad Pitt.
The film, reportedly titled The Adventures of Cliff Booth, has Pitt reprising his role as the Hollywood body double and stuntman as he becomes a fixer. Quentin Tarantino had planned to direct it himself, but when he decided against it, Pitt convinced him to let Fincher give it a go as a film for Netflix.
Abdul-Mateen’s role is unclear, but the report says he could be playing a Jim Brown-esque character, which fits the 1960s-1970s era. Brown began acting during the 1964 season of his Hall of Fame NFL career, and went on to star in big films such as The Dirty Dozen, Ice Station Zebra, and Three the Hard Way.
This keeps Abdul-Mateen under the Netflix umbrella as he’s also starring in the streamer’s Man on Fire series.
With the recently cast Elizabeth Debicki and Scott Caan, The Adventures of Cliff Booth is shaping up nicely. Expect more big names to be added soon.
