It’s about time Angourie Rice got her own movie to lead. She broke out last year as Ryan Gosling’s quick-witted daughter in The Nice Guys, which led to notable roles in Spider-Man: Homecoming and The Beguiled. Now she’s the romantic lead in the unconventional teen love story, Every Day, about learning to look beyond things like race and gender.
Directed by Michael Sucsy (The Vow), the film stars as 16-year-old Rhiannon, who falls in love with ‘A’, a bodyless entity that assumes another person’s form each day. The connection Rhiannon feels to ‘A’ is so strong that she feels it no matter the body it possesses. Justice Smith (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), Owen Teague (IT), and Ian Alexander (The OA) are just a few of the actors who get to play Rhiannon’s soulmate. The film reunites Rice with her Spider-Man: Homecoming co-star Jacob Batalon.
Also starring Maria Bello, Debby Ryan, Michael Cram, and Colin Ford, Every Day opens February 23rd 2018.
The 1936 children’s book “The Story of Ferdinand” is a timeless one. Released shortly before the Spanish Civil War, the story focused on a pacifist bull who was more interested in smelling the flowers than engaging in brutal bullfighting against a vain matador. Walt Disney even did a short film back in 1938, Ferdinand the Bull. The message of the story has resonated over the years and the book has continued to capture the hearts and minds of people over the years. It’s actually surprising that a modern retelling of the story didn’t come out sooner than 2017. But in a year marked with partisanship and aggression across the world, now’s the perfect time for such a retelling.
Director Carlos Saldanha took the original story, and gave it some extra padding and character development (as well as some stellar animation) in Ferdinand. The young calf (John Cena) is raised on a farm to be bred for bullfighting. All the bulls old and young on the farm dream for the glory of facing off against the Matador. However, Ferdinand just wants to smell the flowers. He even does so in secret, not to come off as weak in the eyes of his fellow bulls (who not only pick on him because of his frail size, but also because he doesn’t want to fight), and most of all to impress his father (Jeremy Sisto). Ferdinand even pleads with his father if there is anything else he can do as a bull beside fight. His father, although supportive, knows the lay of the land and tries to impart words of wisdom and love for his son, before he goes off for his own fight against the Matador, never to return.
Through a bizarre sequence, Ferdinand does get his wish for a different life as he escapes the farm and finds his way to a flower farm where he spends his time under the loving care of Juan (Juanes) and Lily (Lily Day). There, he’s not a brute to train up and fight. He’s just a loveable pet of Lily and spends all his time either with her, smelling the flowers, or getting into common bickering with the family dog Paco (Jerrod Carmichael). For a peace-loving bull like Ferdinand, this is the life, as long as he remains on the flower farm.
The movie is split into two main parts. One, where he’s enjoying the tranquil life on the flower farm with his newfound human (and dog) family, the other is when he (through yet another bizarre circumstance) has to go back to the ranch and once again be forced to be a fighter. There’s a reason the family kept the (now grown and HUGE) bull on their farm in secret. His presence welcomes strife as people at large don’t know or accept him the way they do. After causing a ruckus, he’s sent back to the farm to become a fighter.
Now, all the young calves that he spent his childhood with are now big bulls themselves. Ferdinand, the gentle giant, meets new animals on the ranch, as well as deal with his childhood rival Valiente (Bobby Cannavale). Lucky for Ferdinand, he has a Lupe (Kate McKinnon) and old goat (and most of the comic relief), who’s determined to be his manager. Still not wanting to be a fighter, Ferdinand has to figure out a way to avoid becoming the Matador’s (Miguel Ángel Silvestre) opponent of choice.
Like Coco, the movie Ferdinand is very steeped in culture. While not all of the voices in the film are Spanish (after all, they have David Tennant playing a Scottish bull and a series of German horses), the film is hip deep in Spanish culture. After all, the film takes place in Spain and is very much involved in bullfighting culture. Unlike Coco, this film will not leave you crying your eyes out for the rest of the afternoon as it has a much lighter and more relaxed tone throughout the film. The film does go into dark territories at times, as the bulls only have two choices: be good enough to fight the Matador (and most likely die in the ring), or go to the slaughterhouse. There is a sequence at the farm’s meat factory where Ferdinand uses his brute size to rescue one of his friends doomed to be hamburger meat.
While there are no songs sung by the impressive celebrity cast, there is a pretty good soundtrack, including “Home” by Nick Jonas that shows Ferdinand growing up from a young calf to the gentle giant he is as an adult. The animation is stunning as well. As Ferdinand goes on his two journeys, you get to see some breathtaking shots of the countryside.
The film has a great amount of comedy. Ferdinand’s fish out of water sequence when he goes into town for the first time is laugh out loud funny. There is also a “dance off” between the bulls and the horses that somehow found a way to incorporate Pitbull into it. Kate McKinnon as Lupe, a trio of hedgehogs (Gina Rodriguez, Daveed Diggs, and Gabriel Iglesias), Bull the bull (Anthony Anderson) and Peyton Manning of all people lend their voices for some great scene to give you a great laugh. Cena, of course, continues to ooze charisma as the titular character. Like Dwayne Johnson, the on and off again wrestler continues to have a good acting career.
While Ferdinand is based on a book from more than 70 years ago, the story remains timeless. The film did some necessary padding to help flesh out the story to more contemporary times with a great amount of heart. As this is the holiday season, and we all love a good feel good film, Ferdinand is a film that the whole family can enjoy.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is in theaters now and most of you were probably up late checking out a midnight screening like any true fan would. What better way to make this glorious event even better than with Funko’s line of Pop! Vinyl figures for the new movie, featuring all of the characters both old and new.
I’m pretty sure I have all of these, minus anything Porg. Our friends at Entertainment Earth have the widest assortment of Funko’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi figures at the best prices anywhere on the web. If you’re a fan of the light side of the Force you can get Rey and her trusty lightsaber or Luke Skywalker looking like he’s been holed up in a cave somewhere. If the dark side is more your speed then Kylo Ren, either in his personalized Tie Fighter or carrying his vicious red lightsaber can be yours. New characters like Rose and Laura Dern’s Admiral Holdo have been included in this wave of figures, as well.
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!
The Safdie Brothers have been plying their trade on the indie circuit for years, but it was with 2014’s powerful Heaven Knows What that the rest of Hollywood started to take notice. Then with this year’s surprising Palm d’Or-nominated crime drama Good Time they fully broke through, and offers for much bigger projects started to roll in. Now the directing duo have taken on a project that, under normal circumstances, would make us all groan distastefully, but under their guidance could be pretty exciting.
Benny and Josh Safdie will direct a remake of the buddy cop classic, 48 Hrs., the film that helped turn Eddie Murphy into a megastar. Josh will co-write the script with usual collaborator Ronald Bronstein, joined by comedian Jerrod Carmichael (The Carmichael Show, Transformers: Age of Extinction) and you have to wonder if perhaps he’s being groomed for Murphy’s old role.
Walter Hill directed Murphy and Nick Nolte in the original 1982 film about a veteran cop and a street-wise convict who team up to catch a pair of cop killers within 48 hours. It’s a stone cold classic and, like I said before, this type of story is usually awful news. We’ll have to see where this lands on the brothers’ schedules because next up for them is the Martin Scorsese-produced Uncut Gems. [THR]
Hopefully the release of this snazzy poster (with a great tagline) for Ocean’s 8 means a trailer is right around the corner. Seriously, check out that coat game. All of these ladies are on point. The film, which some have mistakenly called a reboot, is actually a sequel or a continuation of the trilogy of heist movies that starred George Clooney as high-class thief Danny Ocean. Only in this one we’re following his thieving sister, Debbie Ocean, played by Sandra Bullock. She’s joined in her team of crooks by Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Anne Hathaway, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna, and Helena Bonham Carter.
What’s the big crime these ladies are trying to pull off? All we know is that it’ll take place at New York City’s star-studded Met Gala, and will apparently get under the skin of Debbie’s ex, played by Damian Lewis. Richard Armitage also has a role, and there will be celebrity cameos galore, including Matt Damon and Carl Reiner returning from the previous movies.
Directed by Gary Ross, Ocean’s 8 opens June 8th 2018.
Seriously, why do they keep putting out trailers for The Commuter? Liam Neeson punching people on different forms of public transportation is a genre unto itself, and frankly you probably knew if you were going to see this months ago. And yet here we are with another that gives away new footage when I’m sure there isn’t much to spare, and recycles stuff we’ve seen that was kinda hard to discern from other Neeson movies. If they mixed in footage from Non-Stop would any of us know?
Once again enabled directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who has worked with Neeson on multiple similar-looking films at this point, the story follows a regular guy who stumbles into an action-packed conspiracy while the commuter train from work. So you get Neeson racing from train to train, by leaps and friggin’ bounds like Superman, and screaming for the train to stop like he was Sylvester Stallone in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.
Honestly, this will probably be perfectly fine and forgettable. It just didn’t need this one final trailer. Also starring Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Sam Neill, and Elizabeth McGovern, The Commuter opens January 12th 2018.
In 2011 Iowa City’s West High School volleyball team suffered a devastating loss their star player, Caroline Found, was killed in a moped accident. But the town, Caroline’s friends and teammates rebounded by finding faith in one another. The story was previously chronicled in an episode of HBO’s Real Sports, and was beautifully captured in Bill Hoeft’s book, “Live Like Line, Love Like Ellen”, taken from slogans about Caroline and her mother, who died a couple of weeks after her daughter.
Now Caroline’s story comes to the big screen with The Miracle Season, and the first trailer for it is here. Directed by Sean McNamara, who directed the hit faith-based film Soul Surfer (which I love), and starring the excellent Erin Moriarty of The Kings of Summer, it centers on Caroline’s teammates and how they overcame the odds with the help of a tough-love coach played by Helen Hunt. William Hurt, Danika Yarosh, Tiera Skovbye and Nesta Cooper co-star.
We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend a free advance screening of Father Figures, starring Owen Wilson, Ed Helms, Glenn Close, and JK Simmons.
SYNOPSIS: Wilson and Helms are Kyle and Peter Reynolds, brothers whose eccentric mother raised them to believe their father had died when they were young. When they discover this to be a lie, they set out together to find their real father, and end up learning more about their mother than they probably ever wanted to know. The film also stars Oscar winner J.K. Simmons (“Whiplash”), comedian Katt Williams, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback-turned-actor Terry Bradshaw, Ving Rhames (the “Mission Impossible” films), Harry Shearer (“The Simpsons”), and Oscar nominee June Squibb (“Nebraska”), with Oscar winner Christopher Walken (“The Deer Hunter”), and Oscar nominee Glenn Close (“Albert Nobbs,” “Guardians of the Galaxy”) as the twins’ mother.
The screening takes place on Wednesday, December 20th at 7:00pm at AMC Mazza Gallerie. If you’d like to attend, simply register at the Warner Bros. ticketing site here and download a ticket. Please remember that all screenings are first come first served and you’ll need to arrive early to ensure receiving a seat. Enjoy the show!
While fans are understandably jumping for joy at the deal struck between Disney and Fox that puts the vaunted X-Men franchise back under Marvel’s control, there are a ton of questions left unanswered. One of the biggest, which I addressed a bit in a Facebook rant a little while ago, is whether Disney will force an unquestioned hit like Deadpool to be more family-friendly.
Disney CEO Bob Iger addressed this very question to investors, and at least for now he’s saying the right thing and leaving Deadpool to be as filthy as ever…
[‘Deadpool’] clearly has been and will be Marvel branded. But we think there might be an opportunity for a Marvel-R brand for something like ‘Deadpool’. As long as we let the audiences know what’s coming, we think we can manage that fine.”
Awesome, but would he say the same about a movie similar to Logan? For instance, what about the X-23 movie that James Mangold is said to be working on? Surely that one, even with its child protagonist, would warrant the R-rating? Think Disney would lets something like that get by? I’m not so sure. Disney isn’t known for taking a lot of risks, especially when it comes to branding.
I think Mark Millar, creator of the Kingsman comics that have now seen their film rights move over to Disney, puts it the right way:
Good for Disney, bad for Fox as extra levels of bureaucracy creep into creative. Also bad for talent as agents have one less studio bidding for projects. I see zero upside to this, beautiful gambles like Deadpool never happening at Disney. https://t.co/pGJjDbC8YN
On the Run. A bland title for what will hopefully be another successful and funny collaboration between Kevin Hart and producer Will Packer. The action-comedy from Brooklyn Nine-Nine writer Ayesha Carr start Hart as an assassin whose target turns out to be a surprise. No word on a director just yet but I’m guessing there will a line to work with Hart and Packer, who have had hits with the Ride Along and Think Like A Man movies. [Deadline]
Finn Wolfhard might be the busiest of the Stranger Things kids. The IT star will star in Amblin’s horror film, The Turning, alongside Blade Runner 2049‘s Mackenzie Davis. The film, originally penned by The Conjuring writers Chad and Carey Hayes, is based on Henry James’ novella The Turning of the Screw and centers on a young woman who is nanny to two orphans in a haunted country mansion. Madness ensues. If this sounds familiar it’s for a reason. It was put into development last year under the title of Haunted, with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo directing and Rose Leslie starring. The film was scrapped by none other than Steven Spielberg just weeks before shooting. It has since been given a new director in Floria Sigismondi (The Runaways) and screenwriter Jade Bartlett. [Variety]
