It’d be alright with me if director Ric Roman Waugh and Gerard Butler only made movies with one another from now on. The duo returns to theaters this weekend with Kandahar, a pulse-pounding thriller that finds Butler’s undercover CIA operative Tom Harris trapped behind enemy lines when his cover is blown. What unfolds is a gripping, complex look at post-war Afghanistan as the many forces vying for power converge to capture or kill Tom and his translator before they can get to safety.
This is Waugh and Butler’s third collaboration after Angel Has Fallen and Greenland. Yes, please. Keep them coming. I had the chance to speak with Waugh about working with Butler on Kandahar, what makes this story of the Middle East unique, and what it was like shooting in Saudi Arabia as the first major production to do so since Lawrence of Arabia.
This was a real treat for me, as I’ve been a fan of Waugh since he directed Dwayne Johnson in the underrated Snitch in 2013. He’s come a long way since then, and I can’t wait to see what else the future holds.
Kandahar is in theaters now. You can check out the interview with Ric Roman Waugh below, and my review of the film here.
In his new movie, You Hurt My Feelings, Arian Moayed is a bad actor. Mind you, he’s playing one. One-fourth of two couples telling each other little white lies to get by, his Mark is struggling to believe in his talent and thinking about quitting the New York Acting scene altogether. His wife, Sarah (Michaela Watkins), also struggles with his ability, something she is all too willing to discuss with her sister, Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) who discovers her own husband has been lying to her about her writing.
The question at the heart of Nicole Holofcener’s direction and script is how honest do we need to be with one another and can we truly live without liking the truth? I sat down with Moayed to discuss his own feelings on the subject and how his recent success in Succession, The MCU, and Inventing Anna is going.
Check out my interview with Arian Moayed below, and my review of You Hurt My Feelingshere. The film is in theaters now!
I honestly can’t believe The Flash director Andy Muschietti did this. With the anticipated superhero film opening next month, fans are expecting tons of cameos to fit the massive multiversal story at its core. But Muschietti has gone ahead and spoiled what I think is the biggest cameo of them all, and all I can do is give you a huge SPOILER WARNING about what’s coming up. So do beware.
It was EW that reported the news of Muschietti’s interview with Esquire Middle East. It was during this chat that Muschietti revealed that Nicolas Cage’s Superman appears in The Flash. Maybe Mushciett is looking to goose the box office, but I really don’t think that is necessary here.
For those who don’t know, Cage was meant to play the man of steel in Tim Burton’s canned Superman Lives back in the ’90s. You can find all sorts of test footage and photos of Cage decked out in full Supes gear, with long, flowing hair and everything. It’s the look he sports in the movie, as well.
“Nic was absolutely wonderful,” Muschietti said. “Although the role was a cameo, he dove into it. I dreamt all my life to work with him. I hope I can work with him again soon.”
This is still a pretty deep cut for casual moviegoers, so it’ll be interesting to see how it plays. Given Cage’s love for the character (his son is named Kal-El for a reason), it’s really cool to know that he got to live this moment.
There are loads of other cool cameos and Easter Eggs to look forward to when The Flash opens on June 16.
WWE superstars are starring in movies all over the place right now, and I’m not talking about the usual suspects of Dwayne Johnson, John Cena, and Dave Bautista. Fightful Select reports that Charlotte Flair, daughter of the legendary Ric Flair, and Liv Morgan are set to star in a movie about trailblazing wrestler Mildred Burke.
The currently-untitled film (although I’ve heard it may be titled “Millie”) is set to star Arrow actress Emily Bett Rickards as Mildred Burke, based on the book Queen of the Ring by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeff Lean. Burke was a three-time world champion who became a major force in the growth of women’s wrestling from the 1930s through the 1950s, when she held the NWA World Women’s Championship for nearly two decades. She was posthumously named to the WWE Hall of Fame.
Flair will play fellow groundbreaking wrestler June Byers, with Morgan as 1940s wrestler-turned-actor Clara Mortensen. Both Flair and Morgan have their share of experience acting in front of the camera. Flair had a role in Psych: The Movie, while Morgan recently filmed the upcoming horror The Kill Room.
Others in the cast include Josh Lucas as Burke’s husband and promoter, Billy Wolfe, with Marie Avgeropoulous as Wilma “Babe” Gordon. The film is written and directed by Ash Avildsen.
The timing on this is pretty convenient, too. Flair is once again taking time off after losing her Smackdown Women’s Championship to Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania. Morgan recently suffered an injury and is out of action, having been stripped of her Women’s Tag Team Championship.
This news follows behind news that former WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins has a villainous role in Captain America: New World Order.
Quentin Tarantino is back at the Cannes Film Festival where, just a few years ago, he premiered Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to a rapt audience. This year he’s back for a special presentation of John Flynn‘s 1977 revenge thriller Rolling Thunder, a film that he wrote about extensively in his recent book, Cinema Speculation. But of course, Tarantino can’t make the rounds without talking about his next project, which we know will be titled The Movie Critic, and is set to be his final feature film as director.
Speaking with Deadline, Tarantino once again stressed that The Movie Critic will be about a film critic in 1970s Los Angeles, but not New Yorker Magazine writer Pauline Kael as originally theorized. Instead, the movie will take place in California in 1977, coincidentally the same year Rolling Thunder was released, “and is based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag.”
Tarantino wouldn’t offer the name of the real-life critic or the porno rag, but in his film it’ll be known as The Popstar Pages. One of Tarantino’s early gigs was loading porn mags into a vending machine, and that’s where he discovered this “really interesting movie page.”
“He wrote about mainstream movies and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle [Robert DeNiro’s character in Taxi Driver] might be if he were a film critic…Think about Travis’s diary entries. But the porno rag critic was very, very funny. He was very rude, you know. He cursed. He used racial slurs. But his shit was really funny. He was as rude as hell.”
Tarantino said the critic was in his 30s but wrote much older, like he was 55. And he died in his late 30s, possibly from alcoholism complications.
The film will enter “pre-pre-production” next month in Los Angeles, and nobody has been cast. Tarantino says guys like DiCaprio and Pitt are aged-out of the role, so we could see him turn to an actor he’s never worked with before. Honestly, it sounds like a killer role. An acerbic, foul-mouthed, alcoholic movie critic? BINGO! Where do I sign up?
EXCLUSIVE: Quentin Tarantino reveals 1977's 'Rolling Thunder' as his surprise Directors' Fortnight screening here at #Cannes. The writer-director dedicated a chapter to the film in his last book Cinema Speculation. pic.twitter.com/mm9mWiDbds
In the heart of the 2020 pandemic, Becky was released. A frantic, bloody revenge story about a little girl going on a killing spree in retaliation for a group of men killing her family while on vacation, brought cinematic life into a time that greatly needed it. At the center of the film was then fourteen-year-old Lulu Wilson, who wore a fox hat while killing grown men in the most gnarly ways possible.
This month Wilson will reprise her murderous role in The Wrath of Becky, this time with more careful planning. Now living on the lam from the foster care system with an older woman and her dog Diego, Becky bides her time working at a greasy diner. When a trio of misogynist white supremacists come into her job and aggressively hit on her and she retaliates, they follow her home. The next day, they are met with the realization that they messed with the wrong girl.
I sat down with Wilson to talk about the evolution of Becky, being an executive producer at the age of 17, and how long she would like to play the bloody character.
Jennifer Lawrence has played dysfunctional characters before, but nothing quite like the hot mess she plays in No Hard Feelings. The R-rated sex comedy finds Lawrence as Maddie, a failing Uber driver with no car, who answers an ad to “date” an overprotected 19-year-old man in exchange for a pricey new Buick Regal. I mean, cars don’t just grow on trees. Get it how you can.
The film is directed by Gene Stupnitsky, the same filmmaker behind another R-rated hit comedy, 2019’s Good Boys. And judging by the trailer, the lowbrow humor is on the same level. Frankly, I think it’s great to see Lawrence having some fun in a movie that isn’t aiming to be an award winner.
Also starring Andrew Barth Feldman, Matthew Broderick, Laura Benanti, Natalie Morales, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Hasan Minhaj, No Hard Feelings opens on June 23rd.
Maddie (Lawrence) thinks she’s found the answer to her financial troubles when she discovers an intriguing job listing: wealthy helicopter parents looking for someone to “date” their introverted 19-year-old son, Percy, and bring him out of his shell before he leaves for college. But awkward Percy proves to be more of a challenge than she expected, and time is running out. She has one summer to make him a man or lose it all.
With The Super Mario Bros Movie, Sonic the Hedgehog, and The Last of Us, video game adaptations are bigger than ever. While they are now seen as the next great blockbuster frontier, possibly replacing superhero movies, it wasn’t always the case. Video game movies were a dying genre, but controversial and prolific filmmaker Uwe Boll did his part to keep them alive with films such as House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne, Far Cry, and Postal.
John Nolan had a chance to speak with Boll about the explosion of video game movies, and what he thinks of that part of the business now in light of his past experiences.
You can check out John’s interview with Uwe Boll below! And be sure to Like, Share, and Subscribe!
In just a little over a week, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will swing into theaters, a few years after the Oscar-winning Into the Spider-Verse. With a third movie also in the works for next year, Sony has quite the animated Spider-Man franchise on their hands. But they also have something a bit different, a live-action series spinoff centered on Spider-Man Noir, the hard-boiled 1930s character voiced by Nicolas Cage.
The project was announced earlier this year for Prime Video, but nothing has been heard about it since. Fortunately, Collider caught up with writers Phil Lord and Chris Miller to ask about Spider-Man Noir’s status, and the answer will be good news to anyone who likes their Spider-Man a little bit on the gritty gumshoe side.
Lord replied “Yes” when asked if Spider-Man Noir was still on the table, while Miller followed up with more detail.
“It was [in development] until the writers’ strike and everything shut down,” Miller explained. “But once that gets resolved, we’ll get back into it. But it’s coming along nicely.”
Spider-Man Noir was first published by Marvel Comics in 2009 as part of their Marvel Noir line. He exists in a noir-themed version of 1930s New York during the Great Depression, and gains his powers after being bitten by a spider housed inside of a spider-god idol.
The character really got popular thanks to Cage voicing him in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. And now we can only hope that there’s a chance that Cage could really play him.
“There is any chance”, Lord replied when asked about Cage taking on the live-action role.
Well, that’ll do for now. At least it leaves the door cracked open.
I’m actively rooting for Henry Golding’s success. No really, I am! Ever since he broke into mainstream success in Crazy Rich Asians, he’s been “just one” movie away from mega-stardom. He almost had the chance in Snake Eyes and has been rumored to be the next James Bond just as much as Idris Elba has as of late. So, understand this review isn’t a knock against him as he still does have the “it factor,” even in a movie so confusingly off as Assassin Club, which unfortunately doesn’t have as strong a script for Golding to continue his climb into stardom. And Assassin Club does have a strong supporting cast including Daniela Melchior, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Noomi Rapace, and Sam Neil, but it has difficulties regarding script, editing, and (sometimes) action and fight choreography.
Morgan Gaines (Golding) is a former Royal Marine, who has dipped towards the Dark Side and is now involved in the world of contract killing. Working with his former mentor Caldwell (Neil), he now takes out the garbage as a well-paid assassin. However, everything changes when he’s drawn into a high-stakes contract. Head over heels with his girlfriend Sophie (Daniela Melchior), Gaines is ready to leave this life, but is tasked by Caldwell for “one last assignment” that handsomely pays for his retirement. He’s been hired to take out a target, except this target is also a highly skilled assassin. Then, this one contract turns into the task of taking out six other assassins… and they all have contracts out on each other! But why are all these assassins pitted against each other? So begins a mystery of who is putting these assassins against each other, and why as Gains unfolds the mystery.
Unfortunately, Assassin Club starts off kind of giving the plot away when the film opens seven years ago with an assassination that puts everything in motion, and is fairly predictable as to why the plot is in motion as a revenge quest from the beginning of the movie and relegates the next hour and fifty-one minutes to be rather mute, especially when the big reveal comes, you pretty much knew the twist at minute two of Assassin Club.
Assassin Club might have worked better if we already didn’t have a damn-near-perfect cinematic universe of a secret society of assassins in the John Wick franchise that simply executes the fantastical (and more realistic) action in a better manner than Assassin Club did. They even try to replicate the “falling two stories onto a car and walking away without a scratch” cliché, but unfortunately, director Camille Delamarre’s direction doesn’t match up. The assassins even leave a calling card of taking the fingers off of their targets as proof of the killing, so there’s an established set of rules within the film. While John Wick completely embraces the ridiculousness of its premise, Assassin Club tries to have one foot in the real world and one foot out and suffers for it.
Now that doesn’t mean Assassin Club completely botches its execution. It does have some interesting action set pieces that are engaging enough to give you your fix for shoot ‘em up and fun fight choreography and Golding is trying his hardest to sell the movie as best he can. There are a few moments that leave you wanting more and almost yelling at the movie “Do more of that,” but then it does the opposite, leaving the audience certainly frustrated.
With a stronger script (or as a limited streaming series giving the story more room to breathe), Assassin Club might have worked better. After all, the cast is an interesting one full of great actors, and some of the action works rather well. There’s just “something” missing from the film that doesn’t allow it to live up to its premise and full potential. Once again, Henry Golding is destined for Hollywood greatness, just not in this movie.
Assassin Club is currently available on VOD and will be available on Blu-Ray on June 6, 2023.
