"Justice League" Official Trailer Is Released



Between this, Wonder Woman, and The Amazing Spider-Man, we have entered a new phase of marketing where the studio is actually not showing the entire plot thread. I believe this movie is going to have the ultimate slo-mo shot in a movie, Zack Snyder currently wetting his pants in anticipation of us watching his ultimate money shot. God bless him. Oh, and Batman still looks like he can't move his head. It's starting to get ridiculous.

“Justice League” arrives on November 17th.

Marvel's Underappreciated Gem: 2004's "The Punisher"



The 1989 adaptation of Marvel's "The Punisher" was a cheesy, action-packed, B-movie starring Dolph Lundgren. It wasn't good. It didn't nail the spirit of the comic book and was badly cast. The 2004 version, on the other hand, slyly directed by Jonathan Henseligh, is an under appreciated gem from the Marvel cannon. It's a film that is neither cliched nor plays it safe, an intense ride from beginning to end that had me pinned to my seat. The fact that this film came out before the start of MCU, 2008's "Iron Man" probably the starting point, makes it take risks and go into endeavors that would have otherwise never been possible post-2008. 

The film plays like a Greek tragedy, it's a mix of human drama, violent action and even has glimmers of dark comedy around its edges.  The first half-hour of the movie – which sets up the events which are to follow – is is the Greek tragedy, powerfully realized as our main protagonist's family is cruelly slaughtered on-screen. Te set-up gets you into the story and the revenge tale that is about to happen. Its a vigilant thriller, with violent imagery that puts Deadpool's R Rating to shame. What this film has that many of the MCU films don't is touching gravitas, you feel for Frank Castle, The Punisher as played by Thomas Jane, and you really do understand the torturous tactics the he uses. 

Jane is outstanding in the role, not only massively muscular, but a quality actor too that has been severely underused in his career. For the story to work the bad guys need to be three-dimensional and Will Patton as a  and John Travolta,  both cast as the sadists to end all sadists, benefit from their overacting chops to construct antagonists that are as despicable as they are, not joking, humane.  Henseligh directs the action scenes in a way that he lets them breathe. There's no relentless cutting, nor is there any reason to make them too stylized, this is old-school 1970's maverick filmmaking. A can't miss sequence is when Castle fights a hired Russian assassin in one of the most brutal, exciting and visceral fights I have ever seen. Think "Death Wish" or "Dirty Harry" and you'll get a feel of what it's like watching "The Punisher" at its punchiest.

 Reviews were much maligned when The Punisher came out in 2004, but, in retrospect, they were wrong. Times change and, after a hundred or so comic book adaptations, Jonathan Hensleigh's vision of what a comic book movie should be like has aged like fine wine. Maybe it's time for more people to give this harrowing adaptation a second look because, if anything, its relevance lies in exposing the darkness of the human heart. 

Terrence Malick is officially a lost auteur, stuck in limbo, trying to find his way back













The Terrence Malick "witch hunt," that has been happening ever since "To The Wonder," which then continued with "Knight of Cups" and now has hit a peak of animosity with "Song to Song," has finally hit its goal of de-legitimizing the once legendary director. I finally caught up with "Song to Song" this week and, sadly, the term "unwatchable" comes to mind. What happened? The last three films Malick has conceived, although original in structure, have the most cliched love stories imaginable. They all, more or less, have to do with romantic yearning and feature some of the biggest names in the business: Ben Affleck, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams. That's also another problem. Having star wattage, well known faces, does a disservice to what Malick is trying to achieve here. You don't buy the yearning these big stars actors are performing on-screen. Maybe, having unknown actors would have benefited the story a little more. Which brings me to Malick's next film which, God help me, I'm actually very much looking forward to: The WWII film "Radegund," which stars unknown German actors and seems to be a departure from his recent trilogy from hell. Hopefully I'll get to see it at Cannes this coming May, if Cannes hasn't given up on the venerable writer-director, which I fear they might have.

Is this the Cannes lineup?




I was sent, from a usually reliable source, the shortlist of the Official Competition for this year's Cannes film festival, which is supposed to be announced on April 13th. I emailed a contact I knew from the Fest to confirm if this is more or less the lineup. No answer back as of yet, but you can rest assured that 95% of these films are going to be selected based on the buzz and, of course this being Cannes, the directors at the helm.


“The Beguiled” (Sofia Coppola)
“Wonderstruck” (Todd Haynes)
"Okja" (Bong Joon-Ho)
"How To Talk to Girl's At Parties" (John Cameron Mitchell)
"War Machine" (David Michod) "Under the Silver Lake" (David Robert Mitchell)
"Happy End" (Michael Haneke)
"Claire's Camera" Camera" (Hong San-Hoo)
"Madame Hyde" (Serge Bozon)
"Ismael's Ghosts" (Arnaud Despechin)
"Mektoub is Mektoub" (Abdelattif Kechiche)
"Racer and the Jailbird" (Michaël Roskam)
"Based on a True Story" (Roman Polanski)
"The Killing of a Sacred Deer" (Yorgos Lanthimos)
"The Square" (Ruben Ostlund)
"Mary Shelley" (Haifaa Al-Mansour)
"Wild Pear Tree" (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
"Thelma" (Joachim Trier)
"Where Life is Born" (Carlos Reygadas)
"Jeanette" (Bruno Dumont)
"Radiance" (Naomi Kawase)
"Kings" (Deniz Gamze Erguven)

"Wakefield," One Of The Year's Best Movies, Finally Gets A Release Date



IFC Films has JUST acquired “Wakefield,” a drama starring Bryan Cranston and Jennifer Garner, which premiered last year at Telluride and Toronto, for a May 19 theatrical release and a May 26 VOD launch. This is what I had to say about the film last September when I saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival:

 "Wakefield would not be as fascinating if its central performance wasn’t as fully fleshed out as Cranston makes it. In the best performance of his career on the silver screen, it’s made even more impressive by the fact that he is mostly alone for the majority of the film, but what he does is never less than riveting. He infuses his character with humor, heartbreak, and scathing cynicism. His Howard Wakefield is not necessarily a man one is supposed to like and, in many ways, he represents a kind of anti-hero that not many actors could pull off. Swicord, mostly known for her screenplays such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Little Women, shows a surprising amount of restraint as compared to her previous works. Here she makes a film stripped of artifice designed to ponder deep, humane questions about existence. With an ending meant to spark debate and cause both anger and provocation in its audience, Wakefield fights formula and creates its own unique cinematic language."

Star Wars 8: Leia's Role Will be Unchanged


According to THR, Disney CEO Bon Iger has revealed that the creative team behind Star Wars 8 will not change anything about Fisher’s role in "The Last Jedi," this means that we will see Carrie Fisher's final appearance as it was meant to be seen. 
"When we bought Lucasfilm, we were going to make three films — Episodes VII, VIII and IX," said Iger. "We had to deal with tragedy at the end of 2016. Carrie appears throughout VIII. We are not changing VIII to deal with her passing. Her performance remains as it is in VIII. In Rogue One, we had some digital character. We are not doing that with Carrie."
 They had already finished filming before she passed. The real "concern" is, of course, episode 9. I also wonder what kind of an emotional impact it will give the movie knowing the actor is already dead. Will it enhance the experience or will it conflict with the tone the movie tries to set.

Trailer For Martin McDonagh's "Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri"



This is one of the very best trailers I have seen in quite some time. Director Martin McDonagh is a highly talented director that seems to know exactly what he is doing with every film he makes ("In Bruges," "Seven Psychopaths.")

Here’s the official synopsis:
"After months have passed without a culprit in her daughter’s murder case, Mildred Hayes (Academy Award winner Frances McDormand) makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at William Willoughby (Academy Award nominee Woody Harrelson), the town’s revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell), an immature mother’s boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing’s law enforcement is only exacerbated."
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” gets released later this year, maybe a Cannes bow will happen in May?
Three Billboards Key Sheet

Director Brett Ratner: "Rotten Tomatoes Is the ‘Destruction’ Of Our Business. Film Criticism Has Disappeared"



"The worst thing that we have in today’s movie culture is Rotten Tomatoes, I think it’s the destruction of our business. I have such respect and admiration for film criticism.I have such respect and admiration for film criticism. When I was growing up film criticism was a real art. And there was intellect that went into that. And you would read Pauline’s Kael’s reviews, or some others, and that doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s about a number. A compounded number of how many positives vs. negatives. Now it’s about, ‘What’s your Rotten Tomatoes score?’ And that’s sad, because the Rotten Tomatoes score was so low on Batman v Superman I think it put a cloud over a movie that was incredibly successful. […] What’s sad is film criticism has disappeared. It’s really sad.”

“People don’t realize what goes into making a movie like that. It’s mind-blowing. It’s just insane, it’s hurting the business, it’s getting people to not see a movie. In Middle America it’s, ‘Oh, it’s a low Rotten Tomatoes score so I’m not going to go see it because it must suck.’ But that number is an aggregate and one that nobody can figure out exactly what it means, and it’s not always correct. I’ve seen some great movies with really abysmal Rotten Tomatoes scores. What’s sad is film criticism has disappeared. It’s really sad.”


I don't think, to a certain extent, he's wrong about film criticism's current state, but, dude, don't use Batman vs Superman's box-office as an example. I think it being a bad movie is why the backlash happened. That's why review aggregate sites like Rotten Tomatoes and MetaCritic matter, they really don't care about box-office intake or success. That's where sites like RT and MC matter, they benefit smaller-scaled independent films and foreign-language imports. You can't discount how important they have probably been for those smaller studio markets.

Also, I just can't see Pauline Kael ever liking the current influx of superhero movies in the market. Putting Pauline Kael and Batman v Superman as arguments in the same sentence is preposterous. Oh, By the way, Ratner's own company RatPac Entertainment co-financed Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Hmmm ....


     [EW]

    Netflix spent $40-$50 million on a live-action adaptation of Death Note, $90 million for the Will Smith film Bright, $60 million for Brad Pitt's War Machine and $100 million on Martin Scorsese's next movie, "The Irishman."



    The legitimization of Netflix as THE first stop to everything movies has begun, they want you to bypass theaters completely. They want to take away the stigma of VOD (video on demand). They also seem to have the money to spend, spend, spend. As far as I'm concerned what's happening is very exciting because it puts the creative power back into the hands of actual creative people. Netflix is letting creative people be creative, where studios became distinct entities just focused on the bottom line. Netflix is taking Hollywood forward by taking it back into the past, in a sense, a 1970s maverick way of thinking. You should not be concerned about the end of cinema, this is only the beginning.

    "Netflix is no stranger to original films these days, but Death Note is one of the first big budget gambles for the company. It won't be the last, though: Netflix has also shelled out $90 million for the Will Smith film Bright, $60 million for Brad Pitt's War Machine and it reportedly spent over $100 million on Martin Scorsese's next movie, The Irishman, starring Robert DeNiro. While it costs a lot more to produce new material, rather than just license existing catalogs, the exclusive content both entices new subscribers and convinces existing members to stay. And of course, it serves as material that Netflix can easily bring into new territories, without worrying about regional licensing rights."

     [Engadget]

    Theater reaction to the ending of "Inception"



    This is pretty much the reaction Nolan was going for.

    I wrote in June of 2010:

    "A madly ambitious story, director Christopher Nolan's follow-up to The Dark Knight is very much concerned with the metaphysics of dreams. For close to two and a half hours, we get ideas spun at us faster than a spinning totem and are forced to schedule a re-watch to better understand Nolan's creative world. The final image will surely become one of the great ones in movie history."

    "Guardians of the Galaxy 2" runtime makes it fourth longest Marvel movie ever

    Event Cinemas has Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 clocking in at 137 minutes (2 hours and 17 minutes). The original Guardians was 122 minutes, which means this much anticipated new sequel is 15 minutes longer than the original. All of this means that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will turn out to be the fourth longest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie ever. Talk about epic.
    1. Captain America: Civil War (2 hours 27 minutes)
    2. The Avengers (2 hours 23 minutes)
    3. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2 hours 21 minutes)
    4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2 hours and 17 minutes)

    "Logan" director, James Mangold, on "Tentpole" Superhero Movies: "Bloated exercises, they are two-hour trailers for another movie they are going to sell you in two years"


    So now he thinks he's all cool because he made an R-rated superhero movie that actually rocked. Ok, fine. I agree with most of what he is saying actually and I'm impressed with the fact that he admits "Logan" has some third acts flaws. 

     I also do agree that there, and always will be, exceptions in the ongoing Marvel and DC onslaught: "Iron Man," "Guardians of the Galaxy," "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "Iron Man 3," "The Dark Knight Trilogy" and, of course, "Logan." 

     Here are some of the more fascinating blurbs Magnold had to say in this fascinating podcast interview for "The Director's Cut" :

    “Everyone is doing press so often, they can’t say what they feel and they are just selling, but the fact is the unspoken feeling is that this is a very weird trajectory we’re on. Spending more and more. Less is coming back in a kind of relative basis and the movies aren’t as good. I think Marvel is part of it and I’m not just talking about Fox mimicking it. If I’m going to insult movies I’m going to do it with a big broom. This is endemic, if you’re just going to use Marvel’s grosses and somehow make their movies free of this kind of criticism that’s not fair.” 
    “Tentpole movies in general … they are not movies, generally. They are bloated exercises in two-hour trailers for another movie they are going to sell you in two years. There are so many characters that each character gets an arc of about six-and-a-half minutes at best, and I’m not exaggerating. You take 120 minutes, you take 45 of it for action, what are you left with, divide it by six characters, you have the character arc of Elmer Fudd in a Warner Brothers cartoon. That formula is empty for me.” 
    “There have been some wonderful movies made in the last 10 years. ‘Guardians of The Galaxy,’ the first ‘Iron Man,’ but they each had a personality of a filmmaker, but the collective world they’ve spawned is a little repetitive.“
    “There’s shit blowing up and exploding and soundtrack and Dolby Atmos up the wazoo and my eyes are rolling up in my head,” I kinda feel like Malcolm McDowell in ‘[A] Clockwork Orange,’ or I feel like I don’t know what’s going on, but I do not care and my system is shutting down. Remember you went over to a friends house when you were younger and they thought this album was so great and they played it really loud and it’s terrible and you’re listening and they want it really loud and so it is, but there’s nothing speaking to you.”
    “….the thing that the studio thought would be the most appealing to fans, [that third act], you felt was the thing that was most disengaging. And the first 2/3rds of the movie that the studio was most worried about— I thought I was making a War Kong-Wai movie with Wolverine— they were thinking, ‘When is this thing going to get on track and we’ll have a big giant robot?’ And [those 2/3rds] was what was playing [best] to the audiences.”
    “I did not want the X23 from the comics who was 18-25…mostly because I felt like it would feel like one of those CW show with all the young, beautiful people as superheroes. I wanted a daughter, like in ‘Paper Moon’ or ‘The Bad News Bears.’ I did not want the hot, sassy young thing, plus the outfits she wears in later years are ludicrous.”
    Much thanks to The Playlist for transcribing

    Michael Sannon, one of the very best actors working today, is the frontrunner to play Cable in "Deadpool 2"



    I really can't say enough great thing about Michael Shannon. As the title suggests, he is one of the best working actors of his generation. I rarely use the word astounding to describe a performance, but Shannon truly was astounding in "Bug," "Revolutionary Road," "Take Shelter,"" 99 Homes," and "Nocturnal Animals." 

    The road has been paved with many ups and downs for "Deadpool 2," but it seems like things are finally picking up an becoming straight. The film already found their Domino last week, but there's still the question of who will play Cable, an important role that could make or break the entire film.

     According to THR, Michael Shannon is in the shortlist and might even get the role.  Production of the film is aimed for this summer, with a spring 2018 release. David Leitch ("John Wick 2") will be replacing Tim Miller as director. 

    Trailers for "Captain Underpants," "Baywatch," and "Death Note."

    Some new trailers were added to the Movie Trailers section of the site: "Captain Underpants," "Death Note," and "Baywatch." All three very different genres of film, but likely summer releases. Nothing groundbreaking here folks, maybe, just maybe "Death Note" which is supposed to be one of the most violent Netflix originals ever, but how that translates to artistry has yet to be decided. Her eare the three trailers, with some of my thoughts.

     "Captain Underpants"



    I don't really have anything to say about this. Who cares? I guess it will be a nostalgic trip down memory lane for younger set millenials who grew up watching this film. Everybody else? Well, they just won't buy a ticket. 

    "Baywatch" starring The Rock and Zac Efron



     I get a Michael Bay vibe watching this trailer, except Seth Gordon ("Horrible Bosses," "Identity Thief," "Four Christmases") directed this movie which, to tell you the truth, isn't any better. Looks to have a few funny bits, I mean The Rock and Zac Efron aren't that bad, right? I'm glad they have deviated away from the self-seriousness of the original "Baywatch" show, because we live in 2017 and anything THAT self-serious would get destroyed to bits by the online army.

     Adam Wingard's Netflix movie "Death Note"


    Not much is shown, but enough to peek our curiosity. "Death Note" is said to be very violent. I had spoken to Wingard ealier last year about his next project, after Death Note," and it seems like he's going to be remaking South Korean Horror flick "I Saw the Devil." My full talk with Wingard can be found HERE.

    Does Anyone Remember "Case De Mi Padre"?



    Does anyone actually remember "Casa De Mi Padre"? That western comedy set in Mexico which starred Will Ferrell, who spoke all his lines in Spanish, as a cowboy in the west. This little nugget of a crazed idea is most probably the only Will Ferrell movie we'll ever have fully in Spanish language and English subtitles.. I can't recall any particular scenes from the film, but I do remember the idea and how it turned out to be one of the biggest WTF experiences I've ever had at the movies. It turns out the idea should have been done SNL style, in skit format, ala "Funny or Die," because it does work for the first 20 or so minutes as a curiosity, but its concept quickly wears thin as it goes along. Not surprising. Ferrell is one of those comedians I've always respected. His comedies are never fully by-the-books or safe, there's always a sense that the entire production is saying "We're flying by the seat of our pants, this whole thing could unravel at any moment, but, hey, we're having too much fun here, so fuck it." Sometimes that formula works ("Old School," "Anchorman," "Talladega Nights," "Step Brothers") and other times it fails miserably ("The Campaign," "Semi-Pro," "Get Hard," "Blades of Glory"). Up next for the actor is "The House," which looks atrocious.

    "Rogue One" scoop: Ben Mendelsohn's Krennic was originally supposed to be killed by Darth Vader and his light saber

    Last year, I had a very popular piece entitled "What Really Happened On the Set of Rogue One." It ran a few months before "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" would come out. It turned out to be the site's most popular article ever. An insider close to the production had given us a glimpse of the chaotic production that was happening within the film's shoot. Suffice to say, and we won't go into all the details, but multiple version of the film exist, deleted scenes that supposedly number in the hundreds, and every time somebody from the film talks about it, it always turns out to be a fascinating conversation. I basically can't resist posting about the behind-the-scenes of the film, which looked compeltely overwhelming and frustrating for its cast and crew.
    Here is an exercpt I caught from Entertainment Weekly talking about Ben Mendolsohn's Krennic and how his demise was orignally supposed to be through Darth Vader's light saber:
    "Picture this: the Death Star shows up on the horizon of Scarif and does the same partial blast that we see in the finished movie — scorching the surface of the tropical world and demolishing the Rebel uprising along with the Empire’s weapons facility."
    "Back in this version of the story, Jyn Erso and the character we came to know as Cassian Andor escaped with both the data tapes and their lives. The villain of the story, Director Krennic also survived the battle, although barely."
    "Instead of lying wounded on a transmission platform while the green beam of the Death Star literally incinerates him on its trajectory into the planet, Krennic found shelter from the blast. In what sounds like a type of epilogue to the story, we would have seen his rescue by Imperial forces."
    "Krennic thinks he has endured. He thinks he has served valiantly for the Emperor. He thinks he has done everything right, everything within his power … right up until an unseen force squeezes off the air in his throat."
    “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” hits digital on Friday, and physical formats on April 4th.
    [EW]