If you’re not already a fan of Zoey Deutch (We can’t be friends if you aren’t.), the actress is doing everything in her power to change your mind. She’s been everywhere lately, from Before I Fall to James Franco’s The Disaster Artist to the underrated Flower. And that’s just the start because she has two more films arriving in the next couple of months. The first is her mother Lea Thompson’s directorial debut, The Year of Spectacular Men, and the one we’re here to get a look at now, Netflix’s rom-com Set It Up.
Marking the directorial debut of Claire Scanlon, whose credits include TV episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Modern Family, the comedy finds Deutch paired up with Glen Powell (Hidden Figures, Scream Queens). They play overworked office-assistant who try to get their demanding bosses (Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs) off their backs by tricking them into a romance with one another.
Also starring comedians Pete Davidson and Jon Rudnitsky, Set It Up hits Netflix on June 15th.
Tyrese would probably tell you this is just another example of Dwayne Johnson ripping the Fast & Furious franchise apart, but it could end up being a good thing. Longtime writer Chris Morgan, who has been writing the adventures of Dominic Torretto and crew since Tokyo Drift in 2006, will be replaced by writer Daniel Casey on Fast & Furious 9.
The reason for the change is Morgan’s commitments penning the Hobbs/Shaw spinoff starring Johnson and Jason Statham. That film was recently pushed back a week to August 2nd 2019. Casey is the writer behind the upcoming sci-fi movie, Kin (trailer here) which stars Carrie Coon, James Franco, and Zoe Kravitz. He’s coming aboard the Fast & Furious franchise after a few tumultuous months in which stars Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel openly feuded. They shared no scenes together in Fate of the Furious as a result, but the film still went on to earn $1.2B. Having a new writer on board could be a good way to wipe the slate clean and take these characters in a new direction.
Fast & Furious 9 opens April 10th 2020 directed by Justin Lin.
Deadpool 2 hits theaters in a few days (my review here), but attention has long since turned to what is next for the mouthy mercenary. Ryan Reynolds has teased fans with the possibility of an X-Force movie that supplants a true Deadpool sequel, but that is really going to depend on how audiences react to the team’s first appearance. It’s…unconventional, I’ll say that much. But now Reynolds is opening up about the future of Deadpool and X-Force in a new interview with Collider, and it sounds like plans are in the very earliest stages.
Reynolds talks about his desire to work with Drew Goddard, who came aboard to write and direct the X-Force script last year but has been busy with directorial debut Bad Times at the El Royale…
“I just wanna work with Drew. I mean, I love him and he has such an interesting take on where he wants to take that world. I see it being a real ensemble on a lot of levels just because I think it’s interesting for Deadpool to kinda function in the way he does in his own universe. You always get to sort of find some way to position him as the underdog or take everything away from him, but for him to function in an ensemble [in ‘X-Force’] is a lot of fun. I think there’s a real opportunity to not burden the narrative by shattering Wade’s life, so then at the beginning our movie you get to have him just be part of the team, which is obviously a very challenging prospect for someone like Wade Wilson. So, I’m really excited about that. I’m excited about a couple new characters that we’re talking about. And I’m really especially excited to work with Drew. He’s just amazing.”
The wait should give Drew time to finish up his current project, and Fox the chance to see how fans react to Deadpool 2. It’s got some pretty big shoes to fill. Reynolds adds that there “isn’t a script yet” but a storyline that everybody digs, which is a good start.
Meanwhile, there’s still some doubt that an X-Force movie would be R-rated. It should be a given that Deadpool’s violent/vulgar activities would warrant it, but this is something different. Fox may want the teamup flick to set Deadpool in an all-ages appropriate setting, Reynolds has an idea on what may happen but says it’s too early to know anything…
“It’s all story first. I don’t think anybody’s thinking about the rating. I mean, my sort of wild guess would be that it would be an R-rated movie, but again, right now we’re just assembling the troops to figure out what story we would tell. And it’s a ways away from shooting still, and I don’t even have an idea as to the exact date. But yeah, we’ll see. Story first though.”
I think with Goddard writing the script rather than Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick there is a much better chance to see a PG-13 X-Force film.
Reynolds was also asked about the pending sale of Fox to either Disney or Comcast, but of course had nothing new to offer. It’s “business as usual” at Fox, which has been obvious to anyone paying attention. They are proceeding ahead like nothing will happen and honestly? It might not. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Rock music biopics tend to follow the same narrative trajectory, which is why it’s tough to make one that stands out. Humble beginnings, rise to stardom, and then that whole “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll” thing sends them on a downward spiral. Fox’s Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody promises to follow a similar path, but there’s a reason why they’ve stuck with this project through troubles that would have got another movie canned. And now today we’re starting to see what that reason is.
Rami Malek rocks in the role of Freddie Mercury, the Queen frontman who became a counter-culture icon and a rock music legend. Ever since he took over the role from Sascha Baron Cohen (both share an eerie resemblance to Mercury) there has been a ton of excitement to see the Mr. Robot star in such a high-profile role. Unfortunately, the film faced problems when original director Bryan Singer got booted for his erratic behavior on set and lingering questions about his personal conduct. He was replaced by Dexter Fletcher, the actor-turned-director who can seen right now in Terminal and previously helmed Eddie the Eagle.
Here is the film’s synopsis: Bohemian Rhapsody is a foot-stomping celebration of Queen, their music and their extraordinary lead singer Freddie Mercury, who defied stereotypes and shattered convention to become one of the most beloved entertainers on the planet. The film traces the meteoric rise of the band through their iconic songs and revolutionary sound, their near-implosion as Mercury’s lifestyle spirals out of control, and their triumphant reunion on the eve of Live Aid, where Mercury, facing a life-threatening illness, leads the band in one of the greatest performances in the history of rock music. In the process, cementing the legacy of a band that were always more like a family, and who continue to inspire outsiders, dreamers and music lovers to this day.
Also starring Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aiden Gillen, Tom Hollander, and Mike Myers, Bohemian Rhapsody opens November 2nd.
One of the year’s biggest movie’s finally comes home! Set in
the secluded African Utopia of Wakanda, Mravel’s latest, Black Panther picks up
after the events of Civil War, with T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) returning home to
accept the throne and become king. Unfortunately for him, Killmonger (Michael
B. Jordan), a mysterious mercenary with shadowy ties to his family’s past, arrives
and upsets the balance of Wakanda, testing T’Challa’s place as king — and as
Black Panther – in a conflict that puts the fate of Wakanda and the entire
world at risk. Brilliantly directed by Ryan Coogler (Creed), Black
Panther is the blockbuster of the year that you don’t want to miss.
We Said: “Black
Panther is a comic book movie like no other. All props to Blade,
the Marvel film franchise Wesley Snipes carried and laid the groundwork for a
lot of what we see today, but Black Panther is a completely
different animal that explores topics the genre has never scraped the surface
of. Colonialism, racial identity, technology vs. legacy, nativism, all of these
and more are tapped into by the brilliant, complex script by director and
co-writer Ryan Coogler (working with Joe Robert Cole). Some of these themes are
familiar to Coogler from his breakout drama Fruitvale Station, which
he then brought into the mainstream with Creed. Now on the biggest platform
of his career Coogler has set out to education and entertain, while staying
firmly, and sometimes frustratingly, within the Marvel framework.[…] Black
Panther proves that you can make a movie that is significant to the
black audience, and just a damn good superhero movie that everyone can enjoy.
Marvel has a new ruler on the throne. Long live the king!” Rating: 4 out of 5
Remember when Mark Wahlberg and David O. Russell used to be a package deal? That ship has long since sailed and now Wahlberg is best bros with Peter Berg. Together they have made Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriots Day together, all solid-to-great films in their own way. And now they’ve teamed up a fourth time on the action flick, Mile 22, which looks like a blast.
“Do you want to live in a world where everybody feels cozy, validated all the time? Or do you want to live in a world that works?”
Yeah, Wahlberg is one of those guys. He plays an off-the-books agent for a top secret organization known as Overwatch, tasked with keeping a live an informant whose identity has been exposed. The buzz around this film has been pretty high because of its supporting cast which includes future WWE champion Ronda Rousey, soon-to-be ex star of The Walking Dead Lauren Cohan, and the best screen fighter in the business, Iko Uwais of The Raid movies. John Malkovich also has a role, but it looks like most of the fun belongs to Uwais which is how it should be.
Here’s the synopsis: In this heart-racing action thriller, a CIA agent stationed in Indonesia is tasked with transporting an informant whose identity has been discovered, from the center of the city to an awaiting getaway plane at an airport 22 miles away. While en route, they must battle corrupt police, criminal overlords and heavily-armed locals, all hell-bent on taking them out before they reach their plane.
In 2016, Hidden Figures shared with audiences a story we should known decades ago: that dozens of black women, including mathematician Katherine Johnson, engineer Mary Jackson, and computer specialist Dorothy Vaughan, worked for NASA during the space race with the USSR and helped American astronauts like John Glenn reach the moon. That is awesome and inspirational! We never learned that in school textbooks! The movie, starring Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monae, Octavia Spencer, and Mahershala Ali, was great!
And now the documentary Mercury 13 offers another bit of space race history that you may not know, and that is as infuriating as the racism and dismissal faced by the women in Hidden Figures: that 13 women were identified as being physically and mentally suitable to be U.S. astronauts, and NASA refused.
“It was a good old boy network, and there was no such thing as a good old girl network” says one of the women interviewed in Mercury 13, currently airing on Netflix. The original Netflix documentary from filmmakers David Sington and Heather Walsh focuses on Project Mercury, NASA’s program to send a man into space, which began in 1958. The men were subjected to a series of strenuous physical and mental tests administered by physician and surgeon William Randolph Lovelace, and when the seven participants were selected, many of the Mercury 7 would go on to become household names, like Glenn.
But at the same time, Lovelace was also putting out a call for women to take the same tests. Mercury 13 puts a spotlight on Lovelace’s daughter, Jackie Lovelace Johnson, who remembers the Mercury 7 coming to her home for dinner and shares how her father, after spending time with the selected men, began to feel strongly about having a group of female astronauts as well. So he invited more than two dozen women who were decorated pilots to take the test at his clinic, without the knowledge of NASA or the U.S. government, to determine whether his hunch that women would have some stronger physical and emotional attributes than men was correct.
And the women, enthralled with the idea of getting to space, were thrilled to be there. Mercury 13 features interviews with a number of them: Wally Funk, of the “good old girl network” quote, who talks about feeling her most free at 20 years old in California, flying her own plane; Rhea Woltman, who shares that her parents didn’t like the idea of her becoming a pilot, but she “knew better” and did it anyway; and Sarah Ratley, who shares the story of her first flight as being the first “new adventure” of many. Also included are Bob Steadman, husband of the late “B” Steadman, whose accomplishments he speaks of with deep pride and love, and Jim and Ann Hart, two of the eight children of pilot Janey Hart, whom they refer to as “Mother” while speaking of her determination and pluck.
Mercury 13 does a good job explaining the origins of women in aeronautics, using archival footage of women in day dresses and pearls getting in and out of cockpits, fixing their makeup while sitting in planes, and generally juxtaposing their ‘50s feminine aesthetic with machines they weren’t expected to fly. And the movie also goes the next step of pointing out how Project Mercury’s specifications for potential astronauts were particularly engineered to keep women out, instead resulting in, as Ratley says, “cookie-cutter males” with no difference in religion or state of origin, “all exactly the same.”
How the dreams of the Mercury 13 ended isn’t necessarily a surprise, but the documentary effectively links the story to more-recent times by tracking how the experiences of these women, including their testifying before Congress, shaped the future of NASA and the astronaut program in years to come. But what is a little lacking is that the film doesn’t include any commentary from NASA or any government officials; none of the people the women identify as standing in the way of the Mercury 13 is questioned. It’s enlightening to hear their opinions on the Mercury 7—especially their sexist stories about Glenn, who was portrayed so positively in Hidden Figures—but disappointing that the filmmakers don’t take the next step of interrogating the individuals who let sexism get in the way of progress.
Nevertheless, Mercury 13 is a must-see for anyone who saw and enjoyed Hidden Figures, and who may not have known about the contributions of these women to our space race success. They were denied an opportunity that could have changed American society for decades afterward, and their story needs to be known.
With the reveal last week that Naomi was the “Laura” person that Joe has been searching for since he was first introduced, it’s no surprise that this week on Fear The Walking Dead, we get to see “Laura” and Joe’s backstory. Told primarily in flashback form, we get to see how the two met, and why Joe is so gung-ho on finding her and getting back with her as we see a genuine post-apocalyptic love affair unfold. Not since we have watched Glen and Maggie (or “Richonne” finally hook up) fall in love have we seen the gentler side of the end of the world.
The episode starts in the past as we see Joe carry out his daily activities. He lives on a secluded property. He has working electricity (or a working generator), and he lives a life of solitude. Surrounded by water, the only way zombies can get to him is if they cross the river to and cross his makeshift moat, which gives him more than enough warning to then go outside and take an ax to their heads. There’s plenty of fishes, and he grows his own crops. He’s content watching movies during “movie night” and killing zombies as they come to his home. One night, instead of a zombie showing up to his moat, it’s a person. It’s Naomi.
When he rescues her, she’s delirious as she’s in extreme pain. After rescuing her, Joe sees that she’s not bitten, but instead stabbed. Naomi immediately wants to leave as she exclaims she has to go back. Joe tells her that she’s in no position to leave, which she agrees. He takes care of her, sewing her wound and making food for her. Naomi is to herself during this time and won’t even reveal her name. Joe says she “looks like a Laura,” so that’s her name going forward. Joe comes home from doing chores and sees his home ransacked and finds Naomi trying to start his car. He wants to leave as she reveals her daughter died and she just needs to get away. Joe advises her to stay with him until she fully heals, which she agrees.
As time continues, Joe teaches Naomi how to live on his property. He teaches her how to fish, they go through their routines. Joe notices that the zombies are coming more and more often to his property. Turns out, there’s a crack at the bridge that is allowing them to fall into the water, where they then make their way to Joe’s property. Joe decides that they need some supplies from the local store (as the owner hasn’t been back since the apocalypse) to patch up the fence. Naomi accompanies him on their run. Afterward, they place a truck in the way to stop the zombies. Joe had the chance to kill one zombie that snuck through with his gun but ops instead to use his knife where he almost got killed. Naomi talks with him afterward about not shooting his gun and he reveals that he doesn’t want to use his guns out of him shooting a suspect when he was a cop before the world went to hell. When he shot the suspect, he was labeled a “hero” yet all he felt was the guilt over taking a life, and he swore not to use his guns again.
The next night, zombies found a way through the barrier and there was a full-on horde attacking Joe’s property. They tried to fight them off to the best of their abilities, but Naomi ended up surrounded. Joe immediately broke his vow and pulled his shooters out to killed all the zombies. The next day, Naomi prepares to leave. Joe is cold and distant to her. As she confronts him, he tells her his true feelings for her and that he loves her. She walks up to him and they embrace in a passionate kiss. The next morning Joe wakes up to find out that Naomi has disappeared. Joe sees his scrabble table that the two have played on and the words “I love you too. I’m sorry” spelled out.
The episode ends, revealing that Joe was telling Morgan everything about his time with Naomi. He reveals that he holds onto the scrabble pieces. Morgan affirms him that she still loves him, which gives him hope to continue looking for her.
We still have The Vultures to deal with in next week’s episode of Fear The Walking Dead…
When ABC shuts one door on the foot of Marvel’s Inhumans, they crack open the window for Agents of SHIELD. The latter series had been on the bubble going into its fifth season finale later this week. The ratings haven’t been great although creatively it’s running on all cylinders. Well now ABC has confirmed Agent Coulson and the gang will be back for another season, albeit a much shorter one.
The usual full season order of 22 episodes has been reduced to 13. Presumably the network could order more of those episodes perform well. Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen will likely return as showrunners as they’ve been around since the beginning. This is their baby and will see it through to the end. It’s expected that Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennett, Henry Simmons, and the rest of the cast will return but nothing is set in stone.
The fifth season finale airs on May 18th and is ominously but erroneously titled “The End”, and it has some crossover with Avengers: Infinity War if folks want to check it out. The synopsis is below:
“Coulson’s life or death is the challenge the team finds themselves in, as the wrong decision will cause the destruction of Earth, in the spectacular season finale of ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’”
Fox’s Gambit movie with Channing Tatum has been a joke for a couple years now. Every time they get their ducks in a row and start planning for it to shoot, the director drops out and does something else. So far we’ve seen Doug Liman, Rupert Wyatt, and Gore Verbinski exit, but Fox still plans to move forward with the film and a start date is rapidly approaching.
According to X-Men producer and X-Men: Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg, the current plan is for Gambit to shoot later in the summer. He tells Variety…
“We have a script that we love — that Channing loves. We’ve met with a bunch of directors in the last couple of weeks, and we’re hoping to actually pick one in the next couple of weeks and shoot the movie maybe the end of this summer.”
So the good news there is that they have a script in place, because that was also a major stumbling block. If a decision on a director is a couple of weeks away that suggests there are some names already in the mix. Still, it’s tough to get too excited because we’ve been here before with this movie and nothing has happened. At this point I think if it doesn’t meet the summer shoot Fox should just scrap the whole idea and come back to it some other time.
