Posts

‘Into The Blue 2: The Reef’ Forgets To Come Up For Air By Rob Hunter/Aug. 12, 2019 2:00 pm EST (Welcome to DTV Descent, a series that explores the weird and wild world of direct-to-video sequels to theatrically released movies. This week’s entry goes looking for fun in the sun in the form of skin, murder, and sunken treasure.) It’s usually hit films that earn the pleasure of direct to video sequels, but sometimes a movie that failed at the box-office proves too tempting a marketing opportunity to pass by....

‘President’ Review: An Eye-Opening Chronicle Of Zimbabwe’s Harrowing Struggle For True Democracy [Sundance 2021] By Ethan Anderton/Jan. 30, 2021 12:00 pm EST America just scraped through an election where the President of the United States and a radical sect of his colleagues and constituents incorrectly claimed that there was fraud that resulted in the Republican party losing the presidency. But this is nothing compared to the level of election corruption that has plagued an African nation for over 40 years....

‘Reminiscence’ Review: A Blend Of Sci-Fi And Film Noir That Never Quite Comes Together By Chris Evangelista/Aug. 18, 2021 9:00 am EST A beautiful dame strolls into the shadowy office of a rumpled private eye. The P.I.’s Girl Friday eyes the dame wearily, but the detective, sap that he is, is immediately gaga – unaware he’s about to stumble into trouble. You’ve seen this before in an innumerable number of pulpy black and white film noirs, and here comes Reminiscence to give it a twist....

‘Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings’ Review: Tony Leung’s Villain Eclipses The MCU’s First Asian Superhero By Hoai-Tran Bui/Aug. 23, 2021 9:00 am EST Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is a mouthful of a title, but with the amount of pressures riding on Marvel’s first Asian-led film, perhaps it needs it. This isn’t an instantly recognizable hero like Captain America, or one loaded with cultural pride like Black Panther....

‘Short Circuit’ Animators Kim Hazel And Riannon Delanoy On ’80s Cartoons And Inspirations For Their Disney+ Shorts [Interview] By Shania Russell/Aug. 4, 2021 9:34 am EST Season 2 of Disney’s experimental short series Short Circuit just launched on Disney+ and if you’re lacking your daily dose of fun, you might want to check it out. This season features five shorts from animators across the studio, that vary wildly in their tones and styles....

‘Star Wars’ Owes A Great Debt To Akira Kurosawa’s ‘The Hidden Fortress’ By Bryan Young/July 23, 2019 11:00 am EST (Welcome to The Movies That Made Star Wars, a series where we explore the films and television properties that inspired George Lucas’ iconic universe. In this edition: The classic Kurosawa film The Hidden Fortress.)When people talk about the cinematic influences of Star Wars, the first movie that will come out of most mouths will be Flash Gordon....

‘The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers’ Review: Disney’s Scrappy New Hockey Misfits Need More Time On The Ice By Ethan Anderton/March 24, 2021 7:00 am EST Cobra Kai brought us back into the world of The Karate Kid, but it turned the formula of the original martial arts franchise on its head by turning former villain Johnny Lawrence into the protagonist while karate champion Daniel LaRusso became a bit of a douchebag....

‘Transformers’ Meets ‘Jurassic Park’ In An Epic Hasbro Toy Crossover That Proves Life Finds A Way By Ethan Anderton/June 29, 2021 11:24 am EST We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Life finds a way. That’s exactly what the Jurassic Park franchise has taught us over the past couple decades, and now Universal’s blockbuster dinosaur films have found their way into the world of Transformers with an epic toy mash-up....

A Starfleet Academy Series Aimed At Younger Audiences Is In The Works At Paramount+ By Jeremy Mathai/Aug. 4, 2021 8:29 am EST We seem to be right in the middle of a Star Trek revival of sorts, with plenty of new projects either airing or currently in various stages of development across multiple different mediums. There’s something of everything for fans of all ages and interests, with Lower Decks focused on more comedically-inclined demographics while Discovery continues to deliver on slightly darker and more adult drama....

Ahsoka Tano Voice Actress Ashley Eckstein Takes The High Road After Not Being Cast In ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Lucasfilm/Disney Last week, we dropped a huge exclusive scoop about Rosario Dawson bringing The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels animated character Ahsoka Tano to life in live-action form in the second season of the Star Wars series The Mandalorian on Disney+. Needless to say, the reaction from fans was mostly one of pure excitement that this character was being brought in to the live-action Star Wars universe....

Beyond Fest 2021 Line-Up Revealed: Halloween Kills, The Black Phone, Michael Mann In Person, And More Universal By Ben Pearson/Sept. 16, 2021 12:04 pm EST Beyond Fest, one of the best and most fun genre festivals in the United States, has announced its full lineup for the 2021 iteration of the festival, and it is packed with tons of great stuff. In addition to the U.S. premiere of “Halloween Kills” with director David Gordon Green and producer Jason Blum in person, the fest will be featuring a 50th anniversary screening of “A Clockwork Orange,” repertory screenings of “Collateral” and “Thief” with director Michael Mann in person, the West Coast premiere of the Palm d’Or winning movie “Titane” with filmmaker Julia Ducournau in the flesh, and director Fede Álvarez in person to present the world’s first theatrical screening of his uncut “Evil Dead” remake....

“I would be so inspired by my kids’ kindie teachers…” Dark Star Pictures “Time Now” is such a challenging movie. It’s a really, really hard story. And every time you’re on the screen, it’s this moment of warmth. And I was wondering what you brought to that role, because it seems like you really had a lot of fun interacting with your child co-star and you just have this great mom energy....

Cool Stuff: ‘Godzilla Vs Kong’ Funko POPs Bring The Battle To Your Collectible Shelf By Ethan Anderton/Jan. 29, 2021 6:00 am EST Last weekend, the first trailer for Godzilla vs. Kong delivered a fantastic tease of the blockbuster battle coming to theaters and HBO Max in March. But you’ll also be able to bring the fight home in another way with a variety of different Godzilla vs Kong Funko POPs featuring several different versions of the massive monsters ready to duke it out for kaiju supremacy....

Encanto Directors On Creating Disney’s First Magical Realist Musical [Interview] Disney By Hoai-Tran Bui/Nov. 24, 2021 1:51 pm EST Byron Howard, Jared Bush, and Charise Castro Smith might have created the first-ever magical realist musical. The “Encanto” directors and co-director/writer, respectively, have created a Disney movie that more closely emulates that singular literary genre than many a live-action movie — and they did it with song and dance. “When Jared and Byron brought me on to work on this film they were really interested in making a film that was inspired by magical realism,” Smith, who co-wrote the script with Bush, told me in an interview with /Film ahead of the release of “Encanto” (now playing in theaters)....

The 24 legal drama had a pilot script The idea of using 24’s real time format – every episode covering an hour of the story – in other genres is intriguing. A legal drama seemed suited for it and Coto said that one got as far as a pilot script.“I wasn’t involved in developing them but I know the guys who were developing them,” Coto said. “The legal one got to a script....

How Dune Changed In The Editing Room During The Covid Delays [Exclusive] Warner Bros. By Jeremy Mathai/Oct. 29, 2021 4:06 pm EST Directors like to say that they only stop working on their movies when the film is (almost) literally ripped out of their hands and shipped to movie theaters around the world. Given the immense pressures involved with wrapping up post-production on movies with a large budget, it’s no wonder some filmmakers have copped to having mixed feelings once the release date hits....

Peacock May Become The Exclusive Streaming Home To Universal Franchises Like ‘Fast And Furious’ And ‘Jurassic Park’ By Ethan Anderton/April 2, 2021 11:00 am EST The last couple years have seen the introduction of new streaming competitors like HBO Max, Peacock and Paramount+, and the streaming wars are heating up as each of them try to create a library of movies and TV shows that will entice viewers to subscribe. Each of those new services fall under parent companies who also own movie studios, but only one of them hasn’t yet taken full advantage of that relationship....

Reader Recommendation: Phantom Of The Paradise By Peter Sciretta/Aug. 6, 2008 3:20 pm EST /Film reader Phil C sent in this recommendation for Brian De Palma’s 1974 cult film Phantom of the Paradise. The film was nominated for both an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Music. Apparently a 2010 remake of the film is in development (or was in development?). I personally haven’t seen it, but It sounds interesting....

Red Notice Trailer: The Rock, Gal Gadot, And Ryan Reynolds Walk Into A Netflix Movie By Shania Russell/Oct. 21, 2021 10:43 am EST Way back in 2018, in a land where time made sense, writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber (“Central Intelligence,” “Skyscraper”) announced another collaboration with Dwayne Johnson. The promise of fight scenes, chase sequences, and explosions galore was enough to spark a bidding war between studios that eventually led to “Red Notice” becoming the most costly film in Netflix history....

A Shaky Setup Marvel For starters, let’s start with, uh, the start. Writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton (“Short Term 12,” “The Glass Castle,” “Just Mercy”) is best known for his quietly devastating character studies and dramas, which is what made his hiring so refreshing in the first place … but also makes the opening of “Shang-Chi” stick out like a sore thumb as much as it does. Anyone who’s watched more than one epic fantasy in their life will immediately recognize the well-worn ground of a table-setting prologue, narrated by an unknown speaker but who is likely (read: almost certainly) someone with close ties to our protagonist....