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Newswire: Mark Wahlberg and David O. Russell teaming up for another sports biopic
26 minutes ago
And so it has been portended that, every five or six years, acclaimed writer-director David O. Russell and megastar actor Mark Wahlberg must come together, so that a new piece of cinematic art is brought to fruition. Since The Fighter came out back in 2010, it’s just about time for the prophecy to once again be realized. And, as Vulture reports, that’s precisely what’s happening. Wahlberg announced via Facebook Live yesterday morning that he and Russell are currently developing what will be their fourth together.
According to the Academy Award-nominee (yes, Mark Wahlberg was nominated for an Oscar), the film will be a sports biopic like The Fighter. The subject this time around will be football player turned Catholic priest Father Stuart Long, who found religion late in life and died two years ago at the age of 50.
“David O. Russell and I right now are ...
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- Dennis DiClaudio
Watch This: Dying of old age can be as terrifying as dying at the hands of a killer
1 hour ago
One week a month, Watch This offers staff recommendations inspired by a new movie coming out that week. This week: In honor of the new sequel to the modern classic The Blair Witch Project, we look back at some of our favorite found-footage horror films.
The Taking Of Deborah Logan (2014)
Horror often revels in death and decay. What it almost never does, however, is engage with these concepts as they exist for most of the population—that is to say, with the actual process of dying. In the case of The Taking Of Deborah Logan, a found-footager from 2014, the specific ailment afflicting the elderly namesake is Alzheimer’s, and its devastating effects are not sugar-coated or glossed over in the slightest. We all hope to live hale and hearty to a ripe old age, but the uncomfortable facts remain: If you’re lucky enough to live into your ...
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- Alex McCown-Levy
Newswire: Duncan Jones’ next movie is in the same universe as Moon
1 hour ago
Don’t worry too much about Duncan Jones’ career. He might have just experienced a big swing and a whiff with the disappointing video game adaptation Warcraft, but he appears to be undaunted and prepared to return to form. In fact, his next project, Mute—which should begin shooting next week—will apparently take place in the same cinematic universe as his 2009 debut, Moon, The Hollywood Reporter disclosed. The 45-year-old filmmaker revealed that tantalizing morsel of information in an offhand response to a Twitter query.
@Warregory @Mute_Film related to Moon. :)
— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) September 21, 2016
If you’re not familiar with Moon, all you really need to know is that it’s one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time (according to about two-thirds of Reddit). The heady film—which stars Sam Rockwell as a contractor in the not-all-that-distant future who lives alone on a helium-mining moon ...
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- Dennis DiClaudio
Newswire: Time Warner CEO admits the DC movies kind of suck
3 hours ago
In a masterful bit of word-mincing, Time Warner CEO admitted on an investor call yesterday that, yeah, Warner Bros.’ DC movies aren’t all that great. Okay, so he didn’t say that specifically, but he did note, according to Variety: “We can do a little better on the creative.” (Just read between the lines on that one.)
The last two films in the franchise—Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice and Suicide Squad—were savaged by critics, in part because of their unrelenting dourness. To that point, Bewkes acknowledged that the characters “have a little more lightness in them than maybe what you saw in those movies, so we’re thinking about that.” This is not the first time someone involved with the Dceu has figured out that maybe adding some joy into the proceedings isn’t such a bad idea: After all, there was a Justice League set »
- Esther Zuckerman
Newswire: Tiff criticized for its confounding closing-night cheerleaders
4 hours ago
The 2016 Toronto International Film Festival has come and gone, but there’s a whiff of controversy still in the air, though not because of the content of any of the movies that screened. No, it’s due to the fact that the festival thought it would be a great idea to have ornamental cheerleaders at its closing night party, which had a “prom” theme, according to The Toronto Star. Because nothing screams “film nerd” like a reference to high-school sporting events with a dash of gross objectification. Alison Zimmer, an attendee and former Tiff staffer, posted a missive to Facebook detailing her warranted frustration:
I walked into the event and saw women in skimpy Tiff branded cheerleading outfits greeting guests. This was not a sponsor activation, but women hired by Tiff to ‘enhance the event’. Enhance for who, exactly? What does it say to the women who work for ...
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- Esther Zuckerman
Newswire: Here’s what’s coming to (and leaving from) Netflix in October
5 hours ago
It’s now officially fall, and we could think of no better time to share the fruits of Netflix’s latest harvest. The streaming giant will boast the arrival and/or return of films like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Three Kings, Unforgiven, and, despite what it augurs, the ice-filled romp of Snow Day. More importantly, next month will also feature the debut of Christopher Guest’s Mascots (on 10/13), which sees the old pro back in action along with his frequent collaborators Bob Balaban, Parker Posey, and Jennifer Coolidge. October 21 will see the premiere of Black Mirror season three, which stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mackenzie Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, and more in its increasingly complicated and terrifying techno-tales. New additions also include comedy specials from Russell Peters and Joe Rogan, as well as the premiere of Haters Back Off! As always, to get a little, you have to »
- Danette Chavez
Interview: Blair Witch director Adam Wingard on his most straightforward movie yet
5 hours ago
Starting with their 2011 breakout feature You’re Next, director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett have been building their reputations as two of the most innovative horror creators around. So, in many ways, their new movie Blair Witch—which The A.V. Club’s A.A. Dowd describes as “a fun house designed around the Blair Witch brand”—is a departure for the duo, a very mainstream horror movie concerned less with subverting genre and more with making viewers jump in their seats and spill their popcorn. And that’s exactly what Wingard wanted.
Much has already been said, including here at The A.V. Club, about the lead-up to the film, which was originally announced as The Woods, a (very) deep-cut reference to The Blair Witch Project’s working title of The Woods Movie, as Barrett revealed on The Canon podcast. As Wingard explains to Variety, he and ...
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- Katie Rife
Coming Distractions: Charlie Day and Ice Cube get ready to rumble in the trailer for Fist Fight
6 hours ago
Some movies are governed by such a potent premise that their logline titles tell you everything you need to know. Runaway Train. Castaway. Maniac Cop. Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. Samuel Jackson is rumored to have signed on to Snakes On A Plane after hearing the title (that’s actually not true).
And so it is with Fist Fight. The trailer opens with a highly economical first second, juxtaposing a mad-as-hell schoolteacher Ice Cube against a scared-shitless schoolteacher Charlie Day—culminating in screaming and a foley-enhanced punch. Ushered in by the sweeping opening of Carl Orff’s overused cantana, Ice Cube’s Ron Strickland makes a quietly intimidating promise to colleague Andy Campbell (Day): “I’m gonna fight you.” And from there, the tempo of “Carmina Burana” escalates the unfolding insanity. The promise of adult fisticuffs causes jubilation among the student body, while unraveling their milquetoast English teacher (#teacherfight is »
- B.G. Henne
Movie Review: Storks delivers all the jabbering of your typical big-studio cartoon
14 hours ago
In half a dozen Warner Bros. cartoons in the 1940s and 1950s, plots are set in motion by the mistakes of a drunken stork, which is supposed to deliver babies but sometimes winds up delivering, say, Bugs Bunny to a family of gorillas. The 2016 Warner Bros. cartoon Storks focuses more intently on these winged creatures’ sleek professionalism. The storks, who operate from a mountaintop base far above the earth, have long since halted the production and delivery of human children (“There are so many other ways of getting babies,” one parent nonchalantly explains) and now operate an Amazon-like fulfillment center and delivery business. Their corporatization could be read as a sly joke or an un-ironic sign of the times.
The business is run by the imposing Hunter (Kelsey Grammer, overacting to a degree that might even shame Sideshow Bob), who intends to promote star performer Junior (Andy Samberg) if ...
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- Jesse Hassenger
Movie Review: After years of frat comedy, Goat shows the dark side of the animal house
14 hours ago
Booze, babes, and brotherhood: This is the image of Greek life that’s dominated movie screens in the four decades since Animal House basically invented the modern campus comedy. No wonder young men keep subjecting themselves to the rigors of rushing; to hear the movies tell it, good times are but a paddling away. But there’s a university football field separating these onscreen bacchanals from the harsh reality painted by every headline controversy. Without even touching upon sexual-assault charges or recent racism scandals, Goat reveals something uglier than the usual endless party. For once, the frat boys are depicted not as lovable dolts or harmless pranksters, but as sadistic bullies. Likewise, their excessive initiation rites are played not for lowbrow comedy, but for something closer to horror. This is basically the anti-Animal House.
The story is true, which lends it an extra-disturbing charge, though certain details of the »
- A.A. Dowd
Movie Review: Fashion goes Down Under in the Kate Winslet misfire The Dressmaker
14 hours ago
At its best, The Dressmaker looks like 1950s Vogue does the outback. Director Jocelyn Moorhouse poses Kate Winslet and the rest of her female cast in gorgeous finery against a dingy landscape, their expertly tailored garments contrasting splendidly against the dust. It’s a beautiful, bizarre, and funny juxtaposition. It works. The rest of the movie doesn’t.
Moorhouse adapted Rosalie Ham’s novel of the same name with writer P.J. Hogan, and cast Kate Winslet as the heroine, Myrtle “Tilly” Dunnage. As a child, Tilly was exiled from her tiny Australian town after being accused of murder. Now an exquisitely styled fashion designer, she doesn’t remember the details of what she did or didn’t do, but arrives back in Dungatar to care for her abandoned “mad” mother, Molly (Judy Davis), and excavate her past. While she’s there, she gives its dreary denizens makeovers, gets wooed ...
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- Esther Zuckerman
Movie Review: The Magnificent Seven gets an uninspired remake
14 hours ago
Antoine Fuqua’s forgettable remake of The Magnificent Seven reimagines the 1960 movie about Old West hired guns coming to the aid of a small Mexican town (itself adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai) as a generic Western with half a dozen choice zingers and a script that feebly insists that it’s “about America.” Forget Mexico: The community in peril is now an American frontier town called Rose Creek, threatened not by bandits but Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), the sort of robber baron who introduces himself by declaring, “This country has long equated democracy with capitalism, capitalism with God,” before an audience of (presumably confused) townspeople. Help comes in the form of Sam Chisholm (Denzel Washington), who has his own score to settle with Bogue. To that end, he assembles a diverse posse of mostly one-note unlikely allies: a Mexican bandit whom Chisholm was supposed to bring in »
- Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
Movie Review: My Blind Brother offers a low-key Parks And Recreation reunion
14 hours ago
Is there a current actor as skilled at modulating his charm levels as Adam Scott? Although he’s probably best-known for the offhand but immense likability of his TV roles on Parks And Recreation and Party Down, he’s been equally convincing as a hilariously loathsome alpha bro in Step Brothers and a buttoned-up cold fish in Sleeping With Other People. In My Blind Brother, Scott plays both sides of the fence as Robbie, who was blinded in a teenage accident and has dedicated much of his life since to charity work for other blind children. Perhaps not coincidentally, this charity work involves frequent displays of his athletic prowess, then giving faux-humble speeches that trade on his status as a local-news hero.
Having Scott play a blind man who’s both vaguely insufferable and also unassailable is an inspired notion and leaves the lovable underachiever role to Nick Kroll ...
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- Jesse Hassenger
Run The Series: The endless Star Trek franchise ages in reverse
14 hours ago
With Run The Series, The A.V. Club examines film franchises, studying how they change and evolve with each new installment.
Star Trek is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year with a movie in theaters and a new TV show in production. All of this, alongside its seemingly permanent place in the pop-culture landscape, makes it easy to forget that in its original form, Star Trek was cut short. Contemporary replays of the original series practically advertise it after the fact, describing the “five-year mission” of the Starship Enterprise that wound up chronicled over only three seasons’ worth of adventures. Later iterations and spin-offs bolstered Star Trek’s presence on television starting in the late ’80s, but the real, official franchise revival came in 1979, when the original cast got back together for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, kicking off a film series that would endure for decades, logging ...
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- Jesse Hassenger
Movie Review: Disney’s Queen Of Katwe turns a game of chess into a feel-good family affair
14 hours ago
Queen Of Katwe, Disney’s new rags-to-riches biographical drama about Ugandan teenage chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi, is exotic on some levels and predictable in others. It’s set in Katwe, a massive slum area of the Ugandan capital city of Kampala that’s teeming with life, constantly moving in every direction through the sewage-dampened, trash-strewn streets in a dizzying swirl. That’s certainly something to behold, although it’s a vision of Africa that’s appeared on film before. In some ways, the more novel element is the film’s depiction of chess, which in Katwe is a popular sport on the level of football. And while that might seem unlikely, it’s accurate, at least in the wake of Mutesi’s success.
Director Mira Nair has a proven ability to find beauty in the most desperate of circumstances, and Queen Of Katwe is no different. Throughout the film, she »
- Katie Rife
My World Of Flops: I hope they don’t make more movies like this case file #70: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
14 hours ago
My World Of Flops is Nathan Rabin’s survey of books, television shows, musical releases, or other forms of entertainment that were financial flops, critical failures, or lack a substantial cult following.
In a world of men’s rights activists, honey badgers, pick-up artists, and Donald fucking Trump as the Republican nominee for president, there’s something almost quaint about the sexism of best-selling author, bro icon, and exemplar of toxic masculinity Tucker Max. Oh sure, Max’s work is full of leering misogyny and references to women as sluts, whores, bitches, and worse. Yet Max hasn’t tried to promote the idea that women are inherently evil, especially if they’re (gasp) feminists, nor does he present women as the enemy.
Max’s books have been branded “fratire,” which Max finds upsetting because he didn’t actually belong to a frat and that I find upsetting because it implies »
- Nathan Rabin
Movie Review: The director of I Saw The Devil offers an unpredictable Age Of Shadows
14 hours ago
There’s a whole section in the middle of Kim Jee-woon’s 2010 film I Saw The Devil in which the main character, a South Korean intelligence agent exacting cruel revenge against a serial killer, tracks his prey down to the house of horrors of a cannibal couple. This detour into sicko black comedy is one of the more pointed off-kilter twists in Kim’s grotesque tale of retribution, leading its stoic vengeance-seeker into a new hell, probably just one of a countless many in the movie’s hidden world of staining, unwashable evil. There is a similar slipperiness to Kim’s new film, The Age Of Shadows, a pulpy thriller set in the 1920s, when Korea was under Japanese rule. Like I Saw The Devil, The Age Of Shadows is a cat-and-mouse scenario that thwarts and subverts audience expectations, not because of where it’s headed (its betrayals and »
- Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
Coming Distractions: Paramount releases five quick glimpses of its Ghost In The Shell
16 hours ago
After months of casting notices, screenshots, and online speculation, Paramount has finally released the first footage for its upcoming sci-fi thriller Ghost In The Shell. The studio released five ten-second teasers tonight, revealing brief, enigmatic snippets of the film’s anime-adapted world.
The first clip centers on a woman in a high-tech variant of Japanese ceremonial robes; the second, a shot of another with wires seemingly connected to her spine. In the third, we get our first glimpse at Scarlett Johansson’s character, the Major, in the flesh, as she gently caresses a woman who may or may not be blind.
In the fourth, Beat Takeshi glowers as he fires a gun. And in the fifth, and longest, clip, a similarly armed (and nervous) Major comes across a strange gathering of robed men. There’s no clear idea what’s going on here, but the clips make it apparent that »
- William Hughes
Coming Distractions: Billy Bob Thornton’s still pretty effing dirty in the new Bad Santa 2 trailer
18 hours ago
Here’s some reassurance for anyone worried that 13 years and a new director might have taken some of the venom out of the Bad Santa movies: a new trailer for the upcoming Bad Santa 2 that thoroughly earns its red band status. Featuring stars Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, and Brett Kelly—all returning from the first movie—and adding in Kathy Bates and Christina Hendricks, the promo is just as foul-mouthed, if not moreso, than Tony Zwigoff’s 2003 original.
Featuring, in no particular order, Thornton’s character punching his mom in the face, a felching reference, and some incredibly graphic references to female anatomy, the trailer sees director Mark Waters traveling far afield from the worlds of Mean Girls or Freaky Friday. You can see the yuletide depravity for yourself up above, or just wait until November 23, when Bad Santa 2 will cheerfully invite the entire ...
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- William Hughes
Newswire: Rooney Mara to play pop star in drama with new music from Sia
18 hours ago
Audiences weren’t especially receptive to The Lonely Island’s Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, but perhaps the issue wasn’t that people inexplicably refuse to see movies with Andy Samberg, but that people just don’t like comedies about pop stars. If that’s the case, perhaps a serious drama about a pop star will receive a warmer welcome—after all, everybody seems to like The Bodyguard, and that was sort of a serious drama about a pop star. Anyway, director Brady Corbet is going to put this theory to the test with Vox Lux, a new film starring Rooney Mara as a singer who “rises…from the ashes of a major national tragedy to pop superstardom.” This comes from Variety, which says the film will be a “15-year odyssey” that charts the “important cultural evolutions” from 1999 to today through the point-of-view of Mara’s pop star.
That ...
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- Sam Barsanti
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