Tom Holland is a busy dude, having starred in multiple blockbuster studio projects in his very short career. And yet he still finds time to fit in smaller projects that allow him to explore different kinds of roles. One of those that apparently hit him quite hard was Apple TV+ series, The Crowded Room. Holland, who also acted as a producer, was so worn out by the experience and the emotional drain that he’s decided to take a year off from acting.
Holland confirmed the news while speaking to Extra…
“It was a tough time, for sure,” Holland said. “We were exploring certain emotions that I have definitely never experienced before. And then on top of that, being a producer, dealing with the day-to-day problems that come with any film set, just added that extra level of pressure.”
He added, “I’m no stranger to hard work. I’ve lived by the idea that hard work is good work. Then again, the show did break me. There did come a time where I needed a break and disappeared and went to Mexico for a week and had time on a beach and laid low. I’m now taking a year off, and that is a result of how difficult this show was. I am excited to see how it turns out. I feel like our hard work wasn’t in vain.”
So where does this leave Marvel/Sony’s Spider-Man 4, which is still in the earliest stages of development? It probably won’t have any effect considering the writers strike has everything stalled for the unforeseeable future.
You can check out The Crowded Room on Apple TV+ now.
Tired of so many Yellowstone shows and miss the Taylor Sheridan who made hard-hitting, shadowy thrillers like Sicario? Then Sheridan’s latest show, Special Ops: Lioness, could be exactly what you’re looking for when it hits Paramount+ next month.
The female-driven CIA series boats Zoe Saldaña and Nicole Kidman in its cast, and centers on The Lioness Program, an actual military program in the war on terrorism. Into this program is a new recruit, a young Marine played by Laysla De Oliveira, who is tasked with befriending a terrorist’s daughter to infiltrate the organization.
Also in the cast are Dave Annable, Jill Wagner, LaMonica Garrett, James Jordan, Austin Hébert, Jonah Wharton, Stephanie Nur, and Hannah Love Lanier. Morgan Freeman, Michael Kelly, and Sam Asghari, and Martin Donovan.
But clearly, it’s Saldaña and Kidman, who also serve as producers, that will be the biggest draw along with Sheridan himself. Does he have another hit series on his hands, and will this one be the first in a growing franchise?
Special Ops: Lioness hits Paramount+ on July 23rd.
Without giving much away about The Flash (my review is here, anyway), there’s an extended action sequence involving Batman in the early part of the movie. It’s very cool, but also feels a bit separate from the rest of the movie, and I whispered to a friend that it felt like director Andy Muschietti auditioning to direct a future Batman movie. Well, I might’ve been right about that.
According to THR and OneTakeNews, Muschietti is James Gunn’s top choice to direct The Brave & the Bold. This is the film that’s part of James Gunn’s DCU, and centers on Batman teaming up with his young son Damian Wayne who becomes the new Robin. Muschietti’s future working in the DCU seems to be set, whether he or Ezra Miller do a Flash sequel or not.
This is likely to be a very long way off as no scriptwriting can happen due to the writers strike. That means actual filming will be even further away. Muschietti has certainly played his cards right since blowing up after two It movies. He has the Stephen King prequel series Welcome to Derry coming up, and is a producer on next year’s The Electric State with Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt.
Searchlight Pictures thinks they have something special with Poor Things, and for good reason. They also had the previous collaboration between director Yorgos Lanthimos and star Emma Stone, that film being The Favourite, which went on to earn 10 Academy Award nominations and a victory for Olivia Colman. Can this one replicate that level of success?
The Frankenstein-esque story is an adaptation of Alasdair Gray‘s 1992 novel and stars Stone as Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist. But she has no desire to live her life under his thumb. Instead, she runs off with another man to see the world.
Joining Stone in the cast are Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Abbott, Margaret Qualley, and Kathryn Hunter.
Poor Things opens on September 8th, but don’t be shocked to see it premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
From filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and producer Emma Stone comes the incredible tale and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.
To be Black in America is to be angry. The problems afflicting this country are amplified when dealing with communities of color, and coping with the daily prejudices that are part of being Black is enough to drive anyone over the edge. Bomani J. Story’s brilliant, audacious feature debut The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster explores this rage through the lens of gun violence, using Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as the inspiration to explore life, death, and science as a modern-day monster movie.
In a breakout performance, Laya DeLeon Hayes plays 17-year-old Vicaria. At her young age she’s already seen the worst life has to offer. Gun violence plagues her neighborhood every day, and has already taken the life of her mother, and recently her beloved brother. An intellectual genius, Vicaria is too smart to sit back and let this just happen. She begins working out a new theory. Death is not a symptom, but the disease itself. And like all diseases, it can be cured. Understandably, this leads Vicaria down some pretty morbid roads, and her teachers at school are none-too-happy about it. After challenging an obtuse science teacher about it, Vicaria is reprimanded, only for her father (Chad L. Coleman), a recovering addict trying to do right by his daughter, leap to her defense in a crowd-pleasing moment.
Vicaria is a fascinating character. Remember the rage Shuri felt over T’challa’s death in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever? Well, imagine that but in a much more realistic context. Nobody knows how smart she is more than Vicaria herself, and even though she can come off as arrogant, she’s unafraid to put her intellect on display. That’s refreshing for a Black female character in a genre movie like this. But she is also more than just her anger and brains; Vicaria is lonely, stressed, devastated, and confident. Her father works two jobs just to get by, and has his own personal demons to contend with, so he isn’t always around to comfort her. While the rest of her neighborhood misunderstands her, like her neighbor Jada (Amani Summer Boyles), or seek to abuse her intellect like the local drug dealer Kango (Denzel Whitaker), Vicaria has another idea in mind. She will stop the violence for good.
In true Frankenstein fashion, Vicaria decides to bring her brother Chris back. She will play God, she will defeat death. She earns her nickname “The Mad Scientist”, reanimating dead flesh in grisly fashion. Credit to Story and DP Daphne Qin Wu for their unflinching portrayal of the gore and violence, adding another layer of realism to this fantastical, Gothic tale. Lo and behold, Vicaria does exactly what she set her mind to. He walks the earth again…but as a vengeful, imperfect monster who goes on a killing spree when night falls. Interestingly, there’s still love there. The resurrected sibling isn’t a mindless beast; he seeks to defend his sister from the traumas she faces in the light of day. That family connection, so strong as to truly overcome death, is at the heart of this gruesome but heartwarming story.
The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster explores contemporary social issues, but it is definitely a monster movie. The jump scares are plentiful, and the killings are ghastly enough to ward off anyone with a weak stomach. It’s perfectly a Shudder release, and should be absolutely what fans of that network are looking for when it arrives later this month. Using genre to explore topics specific to people of color was a thing long before Jordan Peele came along, but the door has really swung open since Get Out redefined just how to do it. I put Bomani J. Story’s The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster in that same category, even though it hits a bit on-the-nose at times. One thing it avoids doing is becoming too bogged down in delivering lessons. Story is smart enough to realize that the audience is also pretty smart, and can figure out the messaging without being beaten over the head with it.
The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster will open in theaters on June 9th, then hit Shudder and other streaming outlets on June 23rd. Check out our interview with Bomani J. Story here.
The anticipation continues to build for Ahsoka, which Star Wars fans hope to be the next great live-action series on Disney+. Certainly, the pieces are all there with Rosario Dawson starring as Ahsoka Tano, the former Jedi Knight-turned-Rebel following her appearances in Star Wars Rebels and The Mandalorian. While we already had a trailer released a few weeks ago, today brings brand-new footage as well as an official release date for this summer.
Titled “Begin”, the teaser is heavy on Star Wars Rebels flavor, with Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera Syndulla both featuring heavily. The series finds Ahsoka on the hunt for the missing Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), who went missing along with Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen).
Here’s the brief synopsis: Set after the fall of the Empire, “Star Wars: Ahsoka” follows the former Jedi Knight Ahsoka Tano as she investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy.
Ahsoka will finally make its way to Disney+ on August 23rd.
EXPEND4BLES-I love The Expendables franchise no matter how often it lets me down, and this terrible sequel, likely the last one, was so bad Sylvester Stallone had one foot out the door before a single frame was shot. It's almost like he didn't think things would improve by adding Megan Fox and 50 Cent! Perish the thought.
Following yesterday’s rockin’ poster, the first trailer for Expend4bles, or better yet The Expendables 4, has finally arrived. The film finds Sylvester Stallone back as team leader Barney Ross for one final mission, with Jason Statham returning as Lee Christmas, Randy Couture as demolitions expert Toll Road, and Dolph Lundgren as knife expert Gunner Jensen. We also get a look at new addition Megan Fox, who looks to be a violent and sexy love interest.
Also in the cast are 50 Cent, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, Sheila Shah, Andy Garcia, and of the greatest interest to action fans, Ong-Bak‘s Tony Jaa and The Raid star Iko Uwais. It’s Uwais who plays the chief villain, setting up a potentially awesome showdown with Statham. The film is directed by Scott Waugh, best known for directing the military thriller Acts of Valor.
Stallone revealed a couple of years ago that this would be his final ride in The Expendables franchise, with Statham set to take over. You can get a sense of that in this trailer, with Statham pushing the action.
Here is the synopsis: A new generation of stars join the world’s top action stars for an adrenaline-fueled adventure in Expend4bles. Reuniting as the team of elite mercenaries, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Sylvester Stallone are joined for the first time by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, and Andy Garcia. Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on and the skills to use them, The Expendables are the world’s last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table. But new team members with new styles and tactics are going to give “new blood” a whole new meaning.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of the landmark horror novels, and has influenced monster stories for more than 200 years. But Frankenstein has never been done like this before. Writer/director Bomani J. Story’s bold, ambitious The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster follows Vicaria (Laya DeLeon Hayes), a young Black girl with genius-level intellect in the field of science. Following the tragic gun deaths of her mother and brother, she decides to play God and defeat death by bringing her sibling back from the dead. The results, predictably, are more horrific than she could’ve imagined.
It’s the perfect horror movie for the post-Get Out era, addressing social issues, such as racial inequality and gun violence, without sacrificing the gruesome thrills of a classic creature feature.
I was fortunate to spend a few minutes talking with Bomani J. Story about the conception of The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, and he talked about his appreciation for Shelley as a female horror writer, the challenges of making the film, and casting brilliant star Laya DeLeon Hayes.
The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster opens on June 9th, and will hit streaming on June 23rd.
Bryan Singer is ready to make his comeback. Whether you or I actually want him back doesn’t seem to matter. The X-Men director has been a ghost since being essentially banned from Hollywood following years of various sexual assault allegations and reports of unprofessional on-set behavior. All of the projects he had been working on were shelved, and he hasn’t worked in the business since.
Variety reports that Singer is now speaking with potential investors about a number of different projects, the most glaring and problematic being a documentary that’ll give him a chance to address the assault allegations. Oooooh boy. Singer now lives in Israel, and the other films he’s eyeing would all shoot there as low-budget features. Obviously, Singer no longer commands the huge studio budgets that he used to.
So this is clearly not good. Even if the film is only released internationally, and I have no doubt that some producer somewhere would back Singer’s doc, giving the accused a platform like this to attack his accusers is unfair at the very least. It also cracks open the door for Singer to be acceptable again. I’ve long said that people like Singer, Louis C.K., Woody Allen, and others who have been accused of crimes deserve a chance to get their careers back. And we have the right to not want to have anything to do with them or their work.
In Unidentified Objects, we meet Peter (Matthew Jeffers), a misanthropic dwarf living a secluded life in his shabby New York City apartment. However, his solitary existence is disrupted when his upbeat and possibly unhinged neighbor, Winona (Sarah Hay), unexpectedly visits him. Reluctantly, Peter agrees to accompany Winona on an impromptu road trip to rural Canada, where she believes an alien visitation is imminent. This unlikely duo sets off in a neon pink jeep on an intergalactic and soul-enriching adventure that will challenge their perspectives and bring them closer together.
As Peter and Winona journey deeper into the Canadian wilderness, they encounter a fascinating array of characters and breathtaking scenery. The film masterfully captures the essence of their evolving relationship, using intimate cinematography to bring out the emotional baggage they both carry. From bickering LGBTQ+ Canadian cosplayers, Lola & Sadie (Colindrez & Pacheco) to a lovable shroom-addled survivalist, Suzee (Kerry Flanagan), each encounter adds a layer of truth and reality to their understanding of human nature as well as casual acceptance of extraterrestrial life. Amidst the surreal and trippy scenes involving extraterrestrial highway cops, the film explores the depths of their trauma, revealing that being alone in the universe can be just as unsettling as being abducted.
Unidentified Objects successfully blends elements of comedy and drama, creating a dark dramedy that resonates with its audience. The well-written script by Leland Frankel brings to life the witty banter between Peter and Winona, showcasing their contrasting personalities and perspectives. This film embraces the beauty of imperfection, inviting viewers to embrace their own quirks and vulnerabilities. With its engaging storyline, captivating performances, and stunning visuals; offering a refreshing take on human connection and the acceptance of the unknown.
Quiver presents wonderfully an indie comedy-drama directed by Juan Felipe Zuleta (Faded Love). With a talented ensemble cast including Sarah Hay, Matthew Jeffers, Roberta Colindrez, Tara Pacheco, and Kerry Flanagan this film takes viewers on a captivating and unconventional road trip. Delving into themes of self-discovery and human connection. This freshly lucid film offers a unique perspective on the acceptance of extraterrestrial existence while exploring the truth and beauty found right here on planet Earth.
Through its exploration of extraterrestrial existence and the importance of human relationships, the film will leave a lasting impression. Beautifully challenging the conventional notions of what it means to be alone in the universe, emphasizing the significance of finding genuine connections here on Earth. With its fun and unique perception, this indie comedy-drama serves as a reminder to embrace the truth and beauty that can be found both within ourselves and in the world around us.
Unidentified Objects is a delightful and thought-provoking cinematic experience that will leave audiences pondering their place in the universe and the power of humans, if not for the ethereal openness of otherworldly, connections.
Unidentified Objects will be available VOD, on June 9th.
Quiver presents