I think it’s fair to say that Warner Bros. has totally fucked up the DCEU. They’ve got the most popular comic book heroes in the world, but have managed, at best, one undeniably good movie and a bunch of mediocre to bad ones. But if there’s a definite highlight it’s the performance of Margot Robbie in the surprisingly robust Suicide Squad. She’s been pegged for a number of different spinoffs ever since, but now the “main” one has just taken a big step forward with an actual director.
In an unexpected move, indie filmmaker Cathy Yan has been set to direct the Harley Quinn spinoff based on the Birds of Prey comic. Yan is a newcomer to the biz, having made her directorial debut at Sundance with Dead Pigs, a Chinese film that starred Deadpool 2‘s Zazie Beetz. The film was well received and Yan eyed as a potential breakout. Well, here she is with a much bigger gig.
Birds of Prey is an all-female team created in 1995 and has usually included Oracle/Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, Huntress, and Black Canary as the core membership. Just how close to the comic the movie will stick is unclear but expect Harley Quinn to be the central figure. Christina Hodson, the red-hot writer recently hired to pen Batgirl, will write this as well.
There have been so many shakeups within the DCEU that I can’t keep track but I think this is the project formerly known as Gotham City Sirens? Or maybe not? Last we heard of that it was being replaced by a David Ayer-directed Harley Quinn/Joker spinoff that nobody’s talking about anymore. So maybe somebody else can clue me in if I went off-course here.
I think this is a really brilliant move on WB’s part. Yan becomes the first Asian woman to direct a DCEU film, which is sure to get them some attention, and you can see them moving further away from the Zack Snyder era with this move. That’s what people want to see more evidence of. [THR]
Meryl Streep stars in Speiberg’s acclaimed new drama as Katharine
Graham, the real life first female publisher of a major American newspaper —
The Washington Post. With help from editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), Graham
races to catch up with The New York Times to expose a massive cover-up of
government secrets that spans thirty years of lies concerning the Vietnam War. Is
the truth worth the danger publishing the papers would put them in? This
exciting political thriller tells a story just as relevant today as it was
when it happened over four decades ago.
We Said: “While its
imperfections glare like the marker corrections of an overworked copy editor, The
Post is an important, necessary statement on journalism’s place in
strengthening democracy by speaking truth to power.” Rating: 3 out of 5
This winter’s Liam Neeson thriller stars America’s favorite
Irish action icon as a lowly insurance salesman named Michael, who, on his
daily commute home, finds himself wrapped up in a dangerous puzzle that
threatens the lives of every other commuter on the train. When a stranger (Vera
Farmiga) offers him a large sum of money to identify a hidden passenger on the
train before the last stop. Unfortunately, her offer is darker than it seemed,
and soon turns into a deadly race against the clock.
.We Said: “Ever
since [Liam Neeson] became an unexpected action star with Taken, he’s delivered one
easily disposable diversion after another, particularly alongside Spanish
helmer Jaume Collet-Serra. That’s fine, they’re effective for what they are
meant to be, but even so we deserve better than The Commuter, which is
like the dumb cousin to Murder On the Orient Express.” Rating: 2 out of 5
Is Hereditary the next great indie horror? A24 certainly think so, and quickly snapped up the rights after it made a splash at Sundance earlier this year. The art house distributor has shown a skilled hand at finding just the right movie at the right price and releasing them at the right time, just as they did a few years ago when The Witch became a sensation. If you’re looking for big scares to go along with your blockbusters this summer, the new trailer for Hereditary needs to be seen.
The chilling clip focuses heavily on the child at the center of the film, the creepy Charlie played by newcomer Milly Shapiro. He’s drawn some kind of connection to an evil spirit terrorizing the family in the wake of the matriarch’s death. Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Gabriel Byrne, and Ann Dowd also star in the film about family secrets that come with a terrible price. Here’s the synopsis:
When Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, passes away, her daughter’s family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry. The more they discover, the more they find themselves trying to outrun the sinister fate they seem to have inherited. Making his feature debut, writer-director Ari Aster unleashes a nightmare vision of a domestic breakdown that exhibits the craft and precision of a nascent auteur, transforming a familial tragedy into something ominous and deeply disquieting, and pushing the horror movie into chilling new terrain with its shattering portrait of heritage gone to hell.
Written and directed by Ari Aster, Hereditary opens June 8th.
You’d better buy the latest wave of Black Panther Pops from Funko or M’Baku will feed you to his children! That’s right, the almighty gorilla M’Baku is finally getting his own Funko Pop! Vinyl collectible, along with Andy Serkis’ Ulysses Klaue and a new version of Erik Killmonger.
Played brilliantly by Winston Duke in the film, M’Baku is the leader of the feared Jabari tribe, and now he can lord over your Funko collection, too. We also get villain Ulysses Klaue with his special sonic hand cannon. And we also get a new version of Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger, in which he shows off the scars that represent the people he’s killed on the way to trying to overtake Wakanda.
So how long do we have to wait for an Everett Ross? Make it happen, Funko!
If you’re as Pop! Vinyl obsessed as me, the best places to go are our friends at Entertainment Earth. Our friends have the deepest inventory of Pops, including exclusives, at the best prices anywhere on the Internet. When you click on any of our below links and make a purchase we get a small commission that helps us keep the lights on, at no cost to you at all. Every little bit helps, and we thank all of you continue to support us and our sponsors. Thanks!
I think I might have just seen the weirdest movie of the
year. Krystal tells the story of Taylor, a clean-cut 18-year-old with
a heart condition (Nick Robinson) who meets and falls in love with the titular
Krystal (Rosario Dawson), a recovering addict and former prostitute. Taylor does
everything he can to impress her, including lying about his own non-existent
alcoholism and addiction. In short, this is a comedy in which the kid from Love, Simon fakes a drug problem in
order to get with Rosario Dawson, and therefore, is the year’s weirdest movie.
The film begins on a terrible yet fateful day in the lives
of our protagonists, as Taylor narrates to us the story of his heart condition,
which he blames at least partially on the literal devil following him around. Meanwhile,
Krystal and her partner have a violent breakup, which is shown out of focus and
in the background. She comes to Taylor seeking help, triggering an episode with
his condition, and the two wind up at the hospital. Now Taylor is obsessed with
the woman who saved his life, and Krystal wants nothing to do with the kid who
almost died in front of her.
It’s a very interesting opening that really brought me into
what I assumed the world of the movie was going to be. However, Taylor then
begins his borderline stalker-like pursuit of Krystal’s affection, pretending
to be a bad-boy rebel addict himself to impress her. The film seems to expect
us to find this really funny.
Honestly, I think the comedy element of the film is its
weirdest aspect. This movie is trying to be a wild, madcap farce… but it’s about
emotionally manipulating and further abusing a recovering addict, which is,
inherently, one of the least funny things in the world. So that being said, Krystal is a little hard to watch.
The film is confidently and clearly shot and edited, with
serviceable performances from everyone, particularly Dawson. What doesn’t work,
however, is the script, which is so deeply strange I can’t wrap my head around
its existence. It kind of feels like the game Exquisite Corpse, where you can
only see part of what someone drew, and yet you have to blindly add to it. It’s
a fun exercise that creates surreal images or poems. Not films, though. Yet Krystal is just so freaking bizarre in its plot structure, it feels as if a
round of Exquisite Corpse is the only sensible way it could have come into
creation.
Maybe if the subject matter where handled more delicately, a
film like this could have worked. Or maybe it was being handled with an awkward
amount of restraint, and needed to go even further. Regardless, there’s
something really off about Krystal, a movie where (I truly
can’t emphasize this enough) the kid from Love, Simon lies about a drug
problem to seduce a woman 20 years older than him, while the literal devil follows
him around. Oh, it also stars Kathy Bates, the rapper T.I., and Willim H. Macy, who also directed it.
If you read those last few sentences and still haven’t given
up, then by all means check out this weird as hell movie. Maybe it’ll turn out
to be your kind of odd. For me, however, it just felt in poor taste.
Anna (Bel Powley) doesn’t realize her life is a horror show even before the hair-raising events of Fritz Bohm’s Wildling really kick into high gear. The film begins with her “Daddy” (Brad Dourif) recounting an old folk tale about the wildling, a creature that has devoured all of the world’s girls. It’s because of the wildling that he keeps Anna locked away in captivity and heavily medicated, or so he tells her. His stories are elaborate, scary, and convincing. Unfortunately, Wildling is considerably less so.
The werewolf could use some Hollywood love. Other than the odd Underworld movie, werewolves have largely been ignored in favor of other classic monsters, but they’ve found a comfortable home on the art house circuit where reimaginings of the lycan mythology make easy coming-of-age fodder. Wildling is another attempt to equate lycanthropy with the changes in a woman during puberty, similar to Ginger Snaps but not nearly as entertaining or substantial.
When tragedy strikes, Anna finds herself thrust into the public eye and into the care of Ellen (Liv Tyler), a small-town sheriff who seems to be a genuinely nice and caring person. It isn’t long before weird things start happening. An aversion to carbs is one thing but Anna’s diet of bloody raw meat should be an indicator of trouble and that she’s undergoing an unusual transformation, but writer/director Fritz Bohm rarely takes her growing pains anywhere interesting.
That said, Powley, who is one of today’s great young talents, makes the most of the material she’s given. She’s basically portraying an accelerated, twisted version of her breakout role in Diary Of A Teenage Girl. Anna is having all of the emotional experiences and awkward social interactions that come with growing into womanhood, only she’s unprepared for them on an unfathomable, even supernatural level. Powley’s wide-eyed glare captures the awe of Anna’s many first discoveries, such as sunlight and animal attraction to Ellen’s younger brother (Collin Kelly-Sordelet), but once again we’re left with a situation in which the actress is better than the movie she’s in. Anna’s characterization is wildly inconsistent, veering from nearly extraterrestrial in her astonishment to normal depending on the story’s needs.
Plodding and shallow, Bohm only dares pick up the pace in the final act as Anna’s true nature emerges and she becomes a target. Unfortunately that’s also when Wilding is the most generic, forgettable, and without claws.
Fresh off the herculean feat of turning Peter Rabbit into a $300M (!!!) smash hit, Domhnall Gleeson is about to turn up the heat. The Star Wars actor is in talks to join mob film The Kitchen, an adaptation of the graphic novel that will star Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Elisabeth Moss.
The directorial debut of Straight Outta Compton writer Andrea Berloff is based on the Vertigo Comics series about a trio of mob wives who take over their husbands’ corrupt business when they are sent to jail. The ladies prove themselves to be just as brutal and ruthless as their husbands ever were. Also in the cast are Margo Martindale, Brian d’Arcy James, and Bill Camp. Gleeson will play Gabriel O’Malley, an intense Vietnam vet and former mob hitman who leaves town to avoid being arrested but returns later to settle old scores.
Gleeson will be seen next in this summer’s The Little Stranger, a reunion with Frank director Lenny Abrahamson. The Kitchen opens September 20th 2019. [THR]
As the sun sets on Season 8 of The Walking Dead, it rises on Season 4 for its spin-off show Fear The Walking Dead. We last left off on Fear The Walking Dead with water being the most valuable commodity, the Proctors were going to take the dam by force. Strand, always the cunning businessman had betrayed the Clarks to protect them and led them to the damn to avoid further bloodshed. While he did do them dirty, he also helped them out in a big way as the dam was rigged with explosives. Nick then held a detonator and threatened to kill them all. Proctor at first though Nick was bluffing, but once the explosive was let off, we saw that he wasn’t meeting around. While the Clarks and Strand were able to escape, the destructive tidal wave caught their boat trying to escape. While the season 7 ending of The Walking Dead left us wondering who was killed, the season 3 ending of Fear The Walking Dead left us to ponder who was still alive.
Meanwhile, the ending of The Walking Dead has some direct consequences for Fear The Walking Dead in the form of a newcomer. Morgan, whose life has been essentially hell since the apocalypse began, has found his way out west. At the end of season 8 of The Walking Dead, he’s barely holding onto his sanity. Even though Rick and company defeated Negan and the Saviors, Morgan knows there’s no going back to being regular and with people. The episode begins as a semi-crossover as Morgan has left the Alexandria/Hilltop area and is now on his own at Jadis’ former garbage lair. Everyone tries to talk to him and tell him to come back. He gets a visit from Jesus, Carol, and finally Rick. However, their pleas fall on deaf ears as he just wants to remain alone. Realizing that his friends will continue to try and get him to come back to them, he opts to leave everything behind. He walks, he runs, he steals cars, until he finds his way in Texas where he meets new people.
The first person that Morgan meets is John Dorie (newcomer Garret Dillahunt), a genuine cowboy who seeming has been on his own for quite some time. Although he’s used to talking to himself, and actually enjoys it, he really enjoys talking with Morgan after he meets him. Morgan being Morgan, really doesn’t want to be around people in general, and isn’t interested in making new friends. The two are forced to bond together after a couple bandits corner Morgan and John come to his defense, leading them both to be captured. Lucky for the two of them, new person #2 is introduced to save their necks. A woman named “Al” (Maggie Grace) drives up in a souped-up SWAT vehicle that is able to deploy machine guns and the press of a button. After saving them, Al reveals that she’s a journalist who wants to interview people on the road she meets. John is more than happy to talk about him missing his love. Morgan, not so much. He’s his usual reclusive self, but Al wants her scoop.
It doesn’t take long for the bandits to run back into the newfound friends. This time, they don’t have Al’s armored vehicle to help them as they were away form their car when they were cornered. Lucky for Al, she has her own “Wolverine” type of claws, John’s got his six-shooter, and Morgan is a monster with his staff, plus some zombies get involved in their fight as well. They manage to take out the bandits, but Morgan gets shot so he will need Al and John’s help for a little longer. He gives her his interview, but doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty, but he basically reveals that he “loses himself” when there are people around. He tries to leave them but with his injuries, John and Al decide to tag along. It’s not long before they see an injured woman in the middle of the road. While they keep their guard up as one cannot be too trustworthy, they are still taken by the decoy as Alicia (our Clark family Alicia) then takes a knife to Al’s throat, and out comes Nick, Strand, and Luciana with guns pointed at them. Ever the journalist, Al is intrigued with who they are.
The Good:
Fear The Walking Dead is back! Of course, that’s a good thing!
While we don’t get to see much of our core group of heroes, we instead are introduced to a new group of characters who will eventually join with the Clarks. While we know Morgan already, we get to see how he will interact with a new group of people. In The Walking Dead, he’s been with Rick, his Zen master, or on his own. With these new faces, will he be a leader and work as an equal, or will he once again be their silent assassin when it hits the fan? John is also an interesting character. Actor Garret Dillahunt has always played either bad guys or weird guys in most of his roles, this time he seems like a genuinely nice guy. One thing that feels a bit off is his love for whoever he is searching for. Something tells me that whoever his long lost love is, she really isn’t reciprocating the same feelings he is. Al seems interesting. First off, she has that kickass SWAT van complete with automated machine guys that are quick to mow down anyone she pleases. She also seems to be interested in journalism. Was she a journalist before the world went to hell? Or like many in the world of The Walking Dead, did she change and evolve for the new world.
Zombies!!! While the world of The Walking Dead mostly deals with humanity when it can be at its worst, and the true monsters are those who result to their basest instinct, there are still undead monsters that east flesh that we have to deal with, something that was placed on the back burner in The Walking Dead. When Morgan and company are fighting off against the bandits, they also have to do it while also facing off against a small swarm of zombies. Speaking of which….
These new guys can fight. John, as stated before, is a genuine cowboy complete with his six-shooter, and although he doesn’t like to kill the living (like Morgan), he also can shoot with the best of them. Al, while she has the SWAT fan, also has little fist daggers to take out the undead (and presumably the living as well. Of course, Morgan is our warrior monk insane terminator assassin with a bo stick and dispatches zombies and humans with ease. That scene where he took out the trailer full of zombies and that one bandit with the grenade was awesome as well.
While we only got to see Alicia, Strand, Nick, and Luciana at the end of the episode, they appear to now be desperate bad guys. We know that there is a time jump between this season and the previous, but how bad did things get for them to turn into “The Saviors” and try to rob people on the road. And where is Madison?
The Bad:
For this episode to be billed as a “crossover,” it really wasn’t. While I wasn’t expecting Rick and the Alexandrians to meet up with the Clarks, it was basically a cameo of Jesus, Carol, and Rick while talking to Morgan for a brief period of time. Something tells me that eventually, worlds will collide between the two shows, but for now, geography separates them. The Clarks have gone from California, to Mexico, to presumably Texas, they are finding their way east. Expect them to eventually end up in Virginia and then we will get a genuine crossover.
While Texas was teased last season as being within John Proctor’s reach as he has a multi-state-wide network, there was no trace of him in the first episode. Hopefully, they don’t remove him as a formidable foe with the time jump of the show. By the way, how much time has really transpired?
The Dead:
We got our share of zombies this week as stated before. Now that we are caught up with the parent show timeline-wise, and in the current time zombies are more of a nuisance than something that’s a genuine danger, hopefully, we will still see more of what we saw this week zombie-wise as they were still a threat. It would be kinda cool if we did get a Whisper-related threat (they will probably save them as the big baddies for The Walking Dead), or at least a peep of the same thought process of Alpha, Beta, and their crazy army that believe humans are animals and can seemingly control the dead.
Next week, we get to see how the Clarks survived the dam explosion and survived all this time.
Jason Clarke is going wheels up away from the scandalous Chappaquiddick and taking up residence on the Indian burial ground of Stephen King’s Pet Semetary. A new adaptation of King’s horror novel is in the works and Clarke is in talks for the lead role according to THR.
Clarke would be playing Dr. Louis Creed, who was portrayed rather terribly by Dale Midkiff in the 1989 film. Hey, that movie might be grim fun but it’s not because of Midkiff, alright? The story finds Creed and his family moving to a small town in Maine, where a nearby burial ground for pets is said to be able to resurrect the dead. Of course, things go terribly when the Creeds’ pet cat is killed and then buried there.
Pet Semetary has been eyed for a remake over the last few years. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) and Alexandre Aja (Horns) were attached at different points, but right now it’s Starry Eyes duo Kevin Klosch and Dennis Widmyer at the helm. Good choices, and so is adding Clarke who has the kind of winning appeal that makes you root for him no matter what. Just look at his recent films Chappaquiddick and Winchester as examples of his everyman charm.
That James Gray is keeping himself very busy is a good thing for all of us. He received some of his best reviews for last year’s The Lost City of Z, and is now wrapping up his epic sci-fi film, Ad Astra. Already Gray has his eyes on another project, spy thriller I Am Pilgrim, an adaptation of the book by Terry Hayes.
If this sounds a little familiar you may recall Matthew Vaughn had his sights set on it a few years ago, but focused his energies on a Kingsman sequel. Hayes will adapt his own novel, the first of a trilogy, that follows a retired intelligence agent codenamed “Pilgrim” called in to crack the case of a killer using a book he wrote to commit untraceable murders. Deadline breaks the plot down even further…
“Pilgrim is the code name for a man who doesn’t exist. The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed a secret U.S. espionage unit. Now in anonymous retirement, he is called upon to lend his expertise to an unusual investigation but ultimately is caught in a race against-time to save America from oblivion.”
This will be next on Gray’s docket once he finishes up with Ad Astra, which opens in January 2019.
