Charles Bramesco
Australian Movie Producer Mistakenly Declared Dead in Another Oscars Mix-Up
The big headline from last night was Warren Beatty’s colossal goof during the Best Picture announcement, in which he erroneously named La La Land the winner of the coveted prize, only to be corrected not a minute later with the news that the award would actually go to Moonlight. It was a classic mix-up, a reminder of the high-wire instability of live television, and an instant entry for the Oscar history books. But there was a second, less glaring gaffe in the telecast, so subtle that it went by without most viewers noticing. But the Australian producer who watched herself declared dead in the In Memoriam segment certainly did.
115 Reviews In, ‘Get Out’ Still Has 100 Percent on Rotten Tomatoes
I was fortunate enough to attend a screening of Get Out earlier this week, and hoo boy, that right there is one fine motion picture. Our beloved Editor-in-Chief Matt Singer made as much clear in his ringing endorsement from Sundance, but take it from me: very spooky, very funny, has something to say, insanely well-cast and even more well-acted. It’s an easy movie to love, and while the box-office receipts from this upcoming weekend will rule on whether audiences agree, the critics of America have already made their voices heard. And those voices are ringing out in perfect unison, a harmony sounding out as if from an angelic choir: “THIS MOVIE RULES.”
‘Hellboy 3’ Absolutely, Definitely, 100 Percent Isn’t Happening
It is usually to humankind‘s advantage that the flame of hope is not easily extinguished. When the pursuit of a lofty ideal grows difficult, the unshakable bedrock of hope has provided the righteous with strength and fortitude. But hope can also be a heartbreaker, constantly teasing us with the faint chance of achieving an impossible dream. Up until today, fans were able to cling to the possibility of a third installment of Guillermo Del Toro‘s Hellboy franchise, however remote. But the director took to Twitter earlier today to deliver the sad news that we may now finally abandon hope — it ain’t happening.
Gaze Into the Trailer for the Retro Horror Flick ‘The Void’
[Taylor Swift voice] John Carpenter never goes out of style. The master filmmaker influenced a generation of movie nerds with his hyper-competent, crowd-pleasing genre pictures such as Halloween, The Thing, and They Live. His fingerprints are all over the modern horror canon, with his synths-and-neon aesthetic informing everything from Stranger Things to the widely under-appreciated The Guest. The latest film to kowtow to the Carpenter’s far-reaching legacy is The Void, a new chiller than many readily compared to The Thing when it debuted at Texas’ Fantastic Fest last fall. And with a new trailer available today, viewers can start to judge that for themselves.
New ‘Star Wars’ Novelization to Finally Resolve the Fate of Fan-Favorite Jar Jar Binks
While critics and fans alike roundly rejected the Star Wars trilogy of prequels, they agreed that at least one aspect of it was worthwhile: breakout crowd-pleaser Jar Jar Binks. The universally beloved Gungan earned a wide fanbase with his charming dialect made up of screeching and some sort of alien ebonics, and his constant cartoonish bumbling was a welcome reprieve from the series’ usual heroism and valor. Fans cried foul when Phantom Menace’s major supporting character was downgraded to tertiary status in Attack of the Clones and barely present for Revenge of the Sith, but today brings the welcome news that our sweet Jar Jar will get some much-deserved closure in an upcoming Star Wars novelization.
Disney Announces ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Force Friday Details
We‘ve still got months to go until Star Wars: The Last Jedi takes over cineplexes, but the people are hungry. By this time last year, we had already gotten our first teaser for Rogue One, and the barbarians are pounding on the gates demanding fresh material. Sure, Lucasfilm could placate their more rabid fans by pulling back the curtain on one of the new toy lines that will accompany the December release, but that’s thinking small, and Lucasfilm doesn’t do small. You want to see the new toys? Well tough tauntauns, because all you’re getting today is a look at the box they’re coming in. Here is that box:
At 10 Years Old, ‘Ghost Rider’ Is a Portal to a Stranger Sort of Marvel Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe had its Big Bang in 2008, with Iron Man and Robert Downey Jr.’s debut as the incorrigible Tony Stark. In casting a charismatic leading man, feeding him some genuinely fresh one-liners, and stitching them together with a few impressive action setpieces, producer and MCU mastermind Kevin Feige had struck gold. He then went to work methodically stripping the mine clean, roping Chrises Evans and Hemsworth into multi-film contracts and watching as the billions rolled in. He devised a winning formula of easy screen-idol mass appeal and an eminently palatable house visual style to go along with it, a method still yielding massive success to this day. (Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Thor 3, and Spider-Man Who Even Knows What Number, coming to theaters in 2017!) And it all began with R.D.J. as an irresistible new breed of defender, the sort of guy you either want to be or be with. One year earlier, Marvel’s idea of a blockbuster superhero was Nicolas Cage as a flaming CGI skeleton clad in S&M biker gear.
Wicked Pissah Tom Brady Movie in the Works
With the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl victory earlier this month, team captain and Gisele Bündchen spouse Tom Brady earned his fifth ring and hit a new professional high. He’s now won more Super Bowls than any quarterback in NFL history, having earned MVP status in four of the five to boot. While he’s begun to earn the ire of the sporting community for essentially turning the current-day Pats into the late-’90s Yankees (and for the business with the ball deflating and the Trump chumminess and the wearing Ugg boots in public and whatnot), Brady’s still an immensely popular athlete with an inspiring narrative behind his career. And that can mean only one thing: it’s time for a wicked pissah of a biopic.
Meet the Real-Life Bruce Wayne in Short Documentary ‘Being Batman’
Remember that part in The Dark Knight when the Batman knock-offs all pop up in the multi-level parking garage to help the Caped Crusader dispose of some European gangsters, but they just end up getting in the way? They tell the Batman that they were just trying to help, and Wayne chides them for facing men with guns while wearing hockey pants. This may ring some bells for you, but Stephen Lawrence, the subject of the curious new documentary short Being Batman, has evidently forgotten that brief bit. (I’d guess he’s also glossed over the part in The Killing Joke wherein writer Alan Moore suggests that a man would have to be insane to dress up as a bat and fight crime at night.)
Robert Englund Suits Up as Freddy Krueger Once Again for ‘Nightmares in the Makeup Chair’
Over the course of the eight Nightmare on Elm Street films, Robert Englund made dream stalker Freddy Krueger from a slasher-film specter into a major cultural icon. His sartorially questionable striped sweater/fedora combo, the pepperoni-like complexion, the razor-blade gloves — it’s all been enshrined in the horror hall of fame for years. He officially laid his signature character to rest with 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason, turning the role over to Jackie Earle Haley for the 2010 remake, but a new project indicates that Englund and Freddy can’t get rid of one another that easily.
Things Blow Up Real Good in ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ Super Bowl Spot
Transformers and the Super Bowl are a match made in heaven. Is the NFL’s biggest night not, in its own way, the Michael Bay of televised sporting events? Massive budget, fetish for pyrotechnics, close-up shots of muscle-bound men glistening with hard-earned sweat, oodles of American patriotism, very few women, an overall roiling undercurrent of homoerotic tension — when the new TV spot for Transformers: The Last Knight runs on Sunday night during the big game, it’ll be difficult to tell where the football ends and the gigantic alien robot battles begin.
Don‘t Let Your Life Get Stolen As You Watch the ‘Ghost in the Shell’ Super Bowl Spot
Ah, the Super Bowl: the one magical night each year in which the nation unites under the binding forces of domestic macrobrewed beer, buffalo chicken wings, and good ol’ American football. Everyone’s got something to enjoy at the big game, whether that’s the competition itself or, for those of us unable to enjoy sporting events due to PTSD over a childhood of getting picked last, trailers for a movie in which Scarlett Johansson plays a sexy police robot. The Super Bowl regularly doubles as the premiere for a handful of brand new previews of upcoming blockbusters, and Paramount has done us all the solid of giving us a three-day jump on the fun.