Here’s an unexpected but of filmmaking news. According to Deadline, Chris Rock is in talks to produce and direct an adaptation of Jonathan Eig‘s Martin Luther King Jr. biography, King: A Life. Not only that, but Steven Spielberg is aboard as exec-producer. Universal Pictures recently acquired the rights to Eig’s book.
Rock is a completely competent filmmaker. His last directorial effort, 2014’s Top Five, was a hilarious comedy effort and one of my favorites of that year. Rock also directed 2003’s Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife in 2007. But those are all comedies and a biopic on MLK is something vastly different, so this is quite a turn for Rock.
A New York Times Bestseller and National Book Award nominee, King: A Life uses a wealth of previously unavailable sources and newly declassified FBI documents to present a never-before-seen account of King’s life.
It’s going to be very interesting to see who Rock casts to play King. There are a ton of great options out there, but until the SAG-AFTRA strike ends (hopefully soon) we won’t know anything.
Could Kevin Costner be the guy to make the Western relevant on the big screen again? The man behind such films as Dances with Wolves, Open Range, Wyatt Earp, and former star of Taylor Sheridan’s popular Yellowstone has spent the better part of three decades developing his frontier magnum opus, Horizon: An American Saga. And the long-awaited passion project finally arrives next year in two parts.
The first teaser doesn’t reveal much, but it does show Costner in his natural element, on horseback and unloading his rifle. Costner is joined in the cast by a huge ensemble that includes Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Giovanni Ribisi, Jamie Campbell Bower, Luke Wilson, Thomas Haden Church, Jena Malone, Tatanka Means, Alejandro Edda, Michael Rooker, Isabelle Fuhrman, Ella Hunt, Jeff Fahey, and Tom Payne.
Here’s the synopsis: In the great tradition of Warner Bros. Pictures’ iconic Westerns, “Horizon: An American Saga” explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won—and lost—through the blood, sweat and tears of many. Spanning the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Costner’s ambitious cinematic adventure will take audiences on an emotional journey across a country at war with itself, experienced through the lens of families, friends and foes all attempting to discover what it truly means to be the United States of America.
Even through the synopsis, which calls back to the great Western tradition of past Warner Bros. classics, you can see that Costner’s got grand ambitions for this project. With three sequels already in the works, we could be talking about a huge long-running franchise.
Horizon: An American Saga Part One hits theaters on June 28th 2024, with Part Two coming on August 16th.
The Jimmy Stewart Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life is pretty much unavoidable during the holiday season. But if you’re one of those who’s bored of all of that good cheer, then perhaps slasher-comedy It’s a Wonderful Knife is more your speed, especially if you like your Christmas fare good and bloody.
It’s a Wonderful Knife comes from Freaky writer Michael Kennedy and Tragedy Girls director Tyler MacIntyre, and if you know those two horror comedies you can see the same tone reflected in the new trailer.
A combination of Scream and It’s a Wonderful Life, the film centers on a young woman who saves her idyllic hometown from a psychotic killer on Christmas Eve, only to lose her best friend in the process. Racked with guilt, she wishes she’d never been born and causes a nightmarish parallel universe to emerge, discovering that without her things would be much much worse.
The film stars Yellowjackets’ Jane Widdop, plus Cassandra Naud, Joel McHale, Justin Long, Jess McLeod, and Ginger Snaps actress Katharine Isabelle.
Here’s the synopsis: A year after saving her town from a psychotic killer on Christmas Eve, Winnie Carruthers’ life is less than wonderful — but when she wishes she’d never been born, she finds herself in a nightmare parallel universe and discovers that without her, things could be much, much worse. Now the killer is back, and she must team up with the town misfit to identify the killer and get back to her own reality. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE by way of SCREAM.
RLJE and Shudder will release It’s A Wonderful Knife into theaters on November 10th.
Veteran character actor Luis Guzmán has always been underrated. In the last two years, he stole scenes in Peacock’s The Resortand Poker Faceand played the iconic Gomez Addams in Netflix’s Wednesdayacross from Catherin Zeta-Jones and Jenna Ortega. In his newest showcase, Story Ave, Guzmán and director/co-writer Aristotle Torres take what could be a reductive surrogate parent and turn him into a captivating character.
Opposite Guzmán is lead Asante Blackk, as talented artist, high school student, and aspiring gang member Kadir Grayson. When we first meet him, he is haunted by his disabled brother’s death, which he was present for. His mother is resentful of his presence, overwhelmed by her living son’s current appetite for trouble, and eventually kicks him out.
To cope with the death, Kadir joins a graffiti gang led by Skemes (Melvin Gregg), the older brother of his best friend, Mo (Alex R. Hibbard). The young protege likes tagging street signs and walls more than the actual fighting and violence that Skemes requires of him. On one such night, Kadir holds up Luis, a middle-aged MTA worker (Guzmán) who not only dazzles him with his quick wit and a Cuban sandwich but pays him the money he needs. As tension rises, the teenager finds himself without a home and on Luis’ doorstep, with his future hanging in the balance.
The beats of Torres and fellow writer Bonsu Thompson’s script feel like something out of Boyz in the Hood or Finding Forrester. What could feel like tired troupes, feels fresh in Torres’ hands as he applies an arthouse, surreal style to his directing. Nothing about the script or his visual choices feels cliché.
Blackk, who’s best known for When They See Us, handles the lead role with a nuanced and calculated performance. He doesn’t overact or weigh down the script with emotion. Instead, he gives a compelling portrait of a talented kid trying to figure out which crossroad he should take.
Story Ave is really Guzmán’s movie. Just as you think he is taking on the witty mentor role, he delivers beyond expectations. Sure, his line delivery brings the film’s comic relief, but there’s a hidden sadness to Luis. He adds layers and builds upon his character, adding a rich, felt backstory.
The last 30 minutes or so of the film brings unneeded melodrama and angst that weighs down the plot. However, Story Ave is a valiant first effort from first-time filmmaker Aristotle Torres. It gets extra credit points for finally showcasing Kuis Guzmán at his best.
It’s still somewhat odd to me that, somehow, Aaron Eckhart has stumbled out of A-list territory and into straight-to-VOD land. And like so many whose careers take this trajectory, Eckhart is also somehow busier than ever. He can currently be seen in the K-9 revenge movie Muzzle (review here), and now comes the trailer for his upcoming boxing drama, Rumble Through the Dark, which sees him paired up with co-star Bella Thorne.
Set in the Mississippi Delta, the film stars Eckhart as Jack Boucher, a down ‘n out bare-knuckle fighter forced to retire due to concussions. Now riddled with debt to the local crime kingpin, and a family legacy to protect, he’s forced back into the ring for the fight of his life. Thorne plays Annette, a carnival worker who has her own ideas of Jack’s redemption.
The film is directed by Graham Phillips and Parker Phillips, based on the novel The Fighter by Michael Farris Smith. The Help director Tate Taylor, a Southern boy himself, is aboard as exec-producer.
Also in the cast are Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Joe Hursley, and Liz Fenning. Ritchie Montgomery, Mike McColl, and Susan McPhail.
Rumble Through the Dark hits theaters and streaming on November 10th.
*NOTE: This review was originally part of our 2023 Sundance Film Festival coverage.*
In 2017, writer Kristen Roupenian published a short story in the New Yorker that didn’t just get the attention of older white liberals. It captivated a younger audience that debated the current realities of modern dating. It was funny. It was uncomfortable. It featured one of the most awkward kisses ever written, the kind that curls your toes and makes you cringe.
Director Susanna Fogel’s adaptation of Cat Person has a similar effect. When we meet our 20-year-old protagonist Margot (Emilia Jones), she is trying to flirt with the much older Robert (Nicholas Braun) while working at a movie theater concession stand. She teases him about his rare love of red vines which he takes as an insult. Instead of taking this as a red flag, Margot continues to flirt until she gets his number, imagining their interactions along the way.
Emilia Jones gets more believable as the film goes on, but starting out, you don’t fully understand why Margot is so interested in Robert. The story expects her to be head-over-heels obsessed with this guy as we’ve seen in plenty of teen movies. Instead, Jones shows ambivalence in scenes where she shouldn’t.
As her interactions with Robert increase, his awkward and forceful nature comes to light, but not enough to throw Margot off. He is supposed to have cats after all, an endearing fact that she and her friends fawn over. This is contrasted by dream-like visuals that show her inner monologue. When he shows up at her college to drop off snacks and “locks” them in the anthropology storage closet, Margot starts to envision him in a violent light.
Encouraging her to ghost him and follow her gut is her roommate and best friend Taylor, perfectly played by the impeccable Geraldine Viswanathan. A progressive feminist who runs a female-centered subreddit, she is the voice of comedic reason, saying what we as the audience are all thinking.
Braun, who is best known as the charmingly awkward and sweet Cousin Greg on Succession, plays Robert with intentional clumsy ignorance, one that rings eerily familiar. Though he still looks a bit young for the part, his baby face shines through his beard. Braun gives a menacing and brilliant performance, one that you can’t help but watch.
When the power dynamics shift with cinema’s most awkward and long kiss, Jones settles into the part. This leads to one of the most hilariously real sex-scene that is just as uncomfortable and drawn-out as their kiss. Fogel, who co-wrote Book Smart and directed Life Partners and The Spy Who Dumped Me, is at her best in this scene, carefully choreographing each shot to create the most cringe-worthy shot. Margot goes out of body during their sexual encounter, literally talking to herself, cracking jokes and asking “Is this what you really want?” It’s a thought that many women have had throughout their dating histories, saying yes to every decision that brought them to a place they don’t want to be.
Michelle Ashford is an interesting choice to pen the script for a snappy psychological satire. His past credits include Operation Mincemeat, Masters of Sex, and the lauded biographical miniseries. Nowhere does her filmography scream, “I have the capacity to fully capture the horrors of modern dating,” but sure enough here we are.
She packs the film with many pop-cultural references from Into the Woods to Spirited Away to Kujo. Nowhere is this connection more prevalent than in Robert’s worship of Harrison Ford, one that Margot just can’t understand. Some of her best work is done dismantling our culture’s idea of romance.
The end of the short story appears about 70% of the way through Cat Person, leaving Fogel and Ashford to take the story to an absurd but frightening pace. Whether this ending works is debatable, as the moral ambiguity Roupenian established in the short is less murky here.
Like Promising Young Woman and Fresh, the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Portraying similar themes and tones, Cat Person explores the same ideas of “the nice guy” and consent in a more grounded way. Despite its small missteps, the film not only has bite, it has claws.
When Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman get together to tell stories from the battlefields of WWII, you know you’re in for something special. The trio behind Band of Brothers and The Pacific are together again for Masters of the Air, and Apple knows they have a big deal miniseries on their hands. They’ve just dropped the first image from the series, which will premiere on the streamer on January 26th, 2024 with two episodes.
The ensemble cast is led by Austin Butler, Callum Turner, and Barry Keoghan, three of the hottest actors working today, two of them recent Oscar nominees. The series is based on Donald L. Miller‘s 2007 book about young men in the 100th Bomb Group during WWII.
Here’s the synopsis: Based on Donald L. Miller’s book of the same name, and scripted by John Orloff, “Masters of the Air” follows the men of the 100th Bomb Group (the “Bloody Hundredth”) as they conduct perilous bombing raids over Nazi Germany and grapple with the frigid conditions, lack of oxygen, and sheer terror of combat conducted at 25,000 feet in the air. Portraying the psychological and emotional price paid by these young men as they helped destroy the horror of Hitler’s Third Reich, is at the heart of “Masters of the Air.” Some were shot down and captured; some were wounded or killed. And some were lucky enough to make it home. Regardless of individual fate, a toll was exacted on them all.
”Masters of the Air” is a salute to the brave men of the 8th Air Force, who, through their courage and brotherhood, helped defeat Nazi Germany in World War II,” Goetzman said in a press statement. “Tom and Steven have always wanted to visualize cinematically what our author Don Miller has called, this ‘singular event in the history of warfare.’ We’re thrilled that Apple TV+ has given us the opportunity to combine the efforts of so many talented people, on-screen and behind the camera, to tell this important story.”
Hanks, Spielberg, and Goetzman serve as exec-producers, a collaboration between Apple, Playtone, and Amblin Television.
Directors on the series include Cary Joji Fukunaga, Dee Rees, Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, and Tim Van Patten.
James Wan and Blumhouse are teaming up for a new horror that definitely won’t be for those with a fear of water. Night Swim is based on the 2014 short film by writer/director Bryce McGuire, and stars Oscar nominee Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Wyatt Russell (Falcon and the Winter Soldier) as a married couple who enjoy their nightly backyard swims in the pool, until they come under threat by a malevolent force.
Also in the cast are Amélie Hoeferle and Gavin Warren. James Wan, creator of Saw and The Conjuring Universe is aboard as a producer, alongside Blumhouse’s Jason Blum. Blumhouse’s horror rep speaks for itself, just as Wan’s does.
One of my deepest fears, one that I still have nightmares about, is drowning. I hate deep water in real life, video games, and especially in movies. This one’s going to be a tough sit for me!
Night Swim opens in theaters soon! Check out the trailer below followed by the synopsis.
It has been exactly 50 years since Friedkin brought possession horror to the forefront with The Exorcist. Since then, multiple sequels and prequels have come to pass and no one has ever really been able to capture that fear that the original instilled in all of us. Director David Gordon Green and Blumhouse have stepped in to try to fill that void. Green, who recently came off of the Blumhouse Halloween trilogy, utilizes the same method of foregoing all canon beyond the original for The Exorcist: Believer. This first installment in a trilogy leans heavy on nostalgia while trying to make sense of religion in the modern world but the thinly veiled plot and lack of character development drags it down.
After a devastating earthquake in Port Au Prince, Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) is forced to choose between saving his wife or the unborn child she carries. Thirteen years later, he and his daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) live in a peaceful Georgia suburb. While looking for a way to connect with the mother she never knew, Angela and her friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) venture into the woods after school one day to perform a ritual. The girls disappear, prompting a frantic search only to reappear 3 days later, barefoot and 30 miles away from where they were last seen with no recollection of what transpired. This kickstarts a series of events that leave Victor questioning his faith and reliving old traumas.
Starting fairly strong in the first act with a Haitian Vodou ceremony setting the stage for what’s to come followed by jump scares and overall creepiness once the girls disappear and re-emerge. Green seems to know his Friedkin too, tapping into the playbook of the original film with flashes of demonic imagery and distorted faces. He plays on the lore while adding his own twist, bringing the horror of the 1973 film to the modern day and he does that well. That quickly takes a backseat though and the film becomes a story of drama between families and various religions. That doesn’t mean that the horror element completely disappears. It’s still present but feels like background noise compared to the warring factions of faith.
Once the possession narrative is established, the film shifts away from that and instead becomes focused on the surrounding religious influences. I can see where he was headed with that trying to breathe modern life into an aging franchise but I feel it just distracts from an already flimsy story. From Katherine’s holier-than-thou Christian parents played by Jennifer Nettles & Norbert Leo Butz to the fringe religious neighbors Ann (Ann Dowd) and Stuart (Danny McCarthy). They all just feel like ways to push the plot forward. There’s no substance. Then there’s skeptic Victor, who only deals in absolutes and is the voice of reason. Victor is really the only character that feels fully fleshed out in a story full of one-dimensional people. Then there’s our returning character, Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) who just feels shoehorned into the plot as a way to force nostalgia. Almost as if she was an afterthought. Her appearance garnered some ooh’s and aah’s in the screening but there was really no reason for her to be included other than to say “Look, we brought back one of the original characters”.
Look, I get it, though. Some horror movies aren’t supposed to have deeper meanings. They’re just meant to elevate the heart rates of the people in the seats. This will do that. Just don’t go in expecting something more. Green is attempting to make some bold statements about modern belief systems but doesn’t really establish the threat we’ll be facing moving forward. We really don’t know anything about the entity other than it remembers Chris. I guess we are supposed to just go along with the entity being the one that possessed Regan and that’s it? The film culminates in an exorcism that is so chaotic and random that it just felt rushed and had me audibly saying “huh, I guess that’s it”.
I didn’t hate this movie, nor did I love it. It’s middle-of-the-road fare that just feels like an average genre horror film made to capitalize on the success of the original. For me, what made the original Exorcist scary was the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of the people on the screen as they battled an ancient evil. The characters felt relatable…it all felt believable. This film just feels like it skips right over that. None of the characters are given enough time to develop and allow us to feel empathy toward them. Don’t get me wrong, It will get butts in seats this month and probably have quite a few fans along the way but for the hardcore horror lovers of this franchise, this one just felt…lacking. Exorcist: Believers will be in theaters this Friday, October 6th.
Dicks: The Musical. The name is stupid, intentionally so. You already know going in that this is going to be a proudly dumb movie, and it definitely is. The two lead characters, Trevor Brock and Craig Tittle, played by writers Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp in an expansion of their musical Fucking Identical Twins, proudly sing to the rooftops about the size of their massive genitalia and sexual prowess with women. They want you to know they are VERY heterosexual and not at all overcompensating for anything. That Jackson and Sharp are gay men playing “straight” is about as clever as this loud, uncomfortably unfunny film gets as it makes the case for the worst comedy of the year.
Trevor and Craig are identical twins, and despite God’s (a very flamboyant Bowen Yang) insistance, they look absolutely nothing alike. However, they quickly come to realize just how alike they are in personality. Both work as salesman at the same vacuum parts company, run by a bossy Megan Thee Stallion, and are hyper-competitive at work and with the ladies. When they learn that they really are long-lost siblings, they put their beef aside in order to get their parents back together and have the family they were denied as kids.
So yeah, Dicks: The Musical is basically a perverted Parent Trap. Getting the parentals reunited is going to be a problem, though. Megan Mullally plays their mother, Evelyn, a weirdo in a wheelchair, a broken back, the voice of annoying child, who thinks she’s more than 90-years-old, and…oh yeah, her vagina literally got up and ran away. She has no vagina. Well, she does have one. It’s just kept in a bag. >sigh<
Nathan Lane is their father, Harris, a dapper chap who, at this late stage, is only now realizing that he’s gay. That he’s been fucking men for years wasn’t enough of a clue, apparently. Oh, and he keeps and cares for a pair of heinous monsters, his Sewer Boys, that he found and adopted while sailing in the sewers of New York City.
None of this is particularly funny. Some of it is extremely odd, sure, and brash as Hell. Mullally and Lane are clearly having a blast being as vulgar and weird as possible. But Jackson and Sharp are especially horrible, and instantly overshadowed in the presence of the veteran actors. If this wasn’t a musical backed by A24, the boutique distributor that usually has its finger on the pulse of what’s hot or will be hot, then nobody would give this movie a second look. But the pulse is weak here, so weak somebody should’ve pulled the plug prematurely. Sharp and Jackson’s musical numbers, which seem designed in the hope they’ll be performed at the Oscars, don’t feature anything nifty in terms of choreography and the lyrics pile on as many uses of the word “dick” as possible, but little else.
At only 86-minutes in length, Dicks: The Musical should have enough momentum to go the distance. But instead, it’s a one-note joke that wears out its welcome early and dies flat whenever Mullally and Lane are elsewhere. They have the best moments by far, and appear to be improvising a lot of the best jokes, catching one another off-guard. Not even Megan Thee Stallion, with her crass alpha female rap about destroying all men and walking them like dogs, is enough to pull this movie out of the dumps.
The thing is, Dicks: The Musical has elements that could’ve worked if a bit more thought had gone into it. By the end of the movie, Jackson and Sharp have thrown out what little civility they were holding onto, embracing the wildest and most offensive plot twists possible while God normalizes them in real time. It’s goofy and ridiculous, but a lot more effective than simply shouting at us the way Jackson and Sharp had been doing, in an attempt to convince us how transgressive their movie is. Sure, maybe it is. And maybe Dicks: The Musical is a crude and rude home run swing from the first-time filmmakers, but it’ll be remembered for that swing missing by a country mile. You know it’s a problem when the outtakes get the biggest laughs at the screening you’re at. In them, Lane frequently jokes about this as the most humiliating point of his career, and while he’s saying it as a joke, he also isn’t far from the truth.
Dicks: The Musical opens in theaters on October 6th.
