Kong: Skull Island has been marketed to the hilt ahead of its March 10 release, and each trailer is increasingly more awesome than the last. This final trailer keeps up that tradition, because it is somehow the best we’ve gotten so far.
This trailer shows us part of the cast away from the island, and has the kickass addition of The Animals singing “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” on the soundtrack. Feast your eyes:
It’s 1971, a team of explorers with a company of soldiers are following myth, legend in the Pacific amindst runors of an island where creatures both prehistoric and monstrous are supposed to live. Soon they come across Skull Island , the very island of lore and legend. The creatures they soon come across make the soldiers and explorers running for their very lives. Soon Kong shows up to let all know that He is King of Skull Island and top of the food chain. Will they survive to tell their story? Will beauty win the heart of the beast?
Yep, looks pretty awesome doesn’t it?
Kong: Skull Island stars Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman, Samuel L. Jackson, John C. Reilly, and Corey Hawkins, and is directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts. March 10 isn’t far away now.
The trailer for David Ayer‘s (Suicide Squad/Fury/End of Watch) next film, Bright, premiered last night during the Academy Awards broadcast. Another in the ever increasing roster of Netflix originals, Bright stands out do its star power (Will Smith) and obvious huge budget.
The story seems to start as inner city cop drama, before diving head first into some hardcore fantasy. At the very least it looks interesting.
This will be the second collaboration for Ayer and Smith after Suicide Squad. Although that film was mostly ill received, Ayer has made some pretty good films before, both End of Watch and Fury are solid, and his script for Training Day is considered a classic.
Bright is scheduled to premiere on the streaming site in December of 2017.
Check out the teaser below and tell us what you think in the comments.
This series will be a brief, semi-comedic review of the CW superhero shows. You can check out last week’s review post here, or see the tally of winners below. The only shows discussed will be ‘Arrow’, ‘Flash’, and ‘Supergirl’. There WILL be some spoilers discussed, so only look at the reviews you’re up to date on!
Supergirl, “Mr. & Mrs. Mxyzptlk” (Feb 20)
“Come on, babe, I got us Hamilton tickets!”
The week-late Valentine’s Day special sees Supergirl explore several love-centered storylines. After fighting aliens and cyborgs, the CW throws Supergirl her biggest threat yet – a… space genie? That’s also a classic Superman villain maybe? Mr. Mxyzptlk tries to woo Cara by destroying her city & role-playing as her cousin, as most Earth men do. Cara ends up hooking up with Mon-El, which is fine. Mxyzptlk is right, though, Mon-El is more bland than handsome. Maggie’s outburst at Alex makes no sense, and the dance seems more significant to her anyways. It’s actually kinda selfish. But Winn starts up a relationship with a hardcore alien woman, which was funny, and the main four lovebirds are still cute. All of these relationships are better than Julian and Caitlin, anyways.
SCORE: 7/10 Vera Wang Dresses
The Flash, “Attack on Gorilla City” (Feb 21)
It’s bad enough Caitlin’s falling for another semi-evil scientist, but why does it have to be one that dresses like THIS?
For an intro for a two-episode event, not a lot seems to happen. A good portion of the episode was spent showing off CGI-gorillas, which looked fantastic. However, said gorillas kept needlessly jumping into human bodies in between conversations. As cool as the fight scene looks in the featured image here, it gets wrapped rather quickly. Solovar mattered for maybe a minute before Grodd showed his true colors. The Wally/Jessie relationship is kinda cute, but it’s cancelled out by Caitlin & Julian. Hopefully a lot of the action hinted in the cliffhanger makes this event feel more epic.
SCORE: 6.5/10 Flash Freeze Pops
Arrow, “The Sin-Eater” (Feb 22)
How come Quentin doesn’t have to wear a mask?
Arrow takes on the Starling City Sirens, who kicks ass but still feel barely present in the episode. Liza is somewhat central, as she has a personal vendetta against Quentin. But it proves to highlight one of the episode’s biggest faults – there’s no way to make “sin” sound natural in casual conversation. Susan not outing Oliver right away as the Green Arrow doesn’t totally fit her character. It seems like she’s been out to get him since they met. However, it was a compelling twist to watch, and shows good initiative from Thea. Even though she tries to downplay it and apologize, it was a cool quick turn from Thea and Felicity. Also, does Wild Dog believe in ghosts? Did anyone else catch that? When they got to the graveyard? That was weird.
SCORE: 7/10 Body Suits
WEEKLY WIN TALLY:
Arrow: 5.5 Weeks
Supergirl: 5 Weeks
The Flash: 3.5 Week
What show did you think won the week? Does Legends of Tomorrow take your vote? Do you think A.o.S. or Gotham outshines all the CW shows? Let us know in the comments below!
For about two minutes, La La Land was the Best Picture Oscar winner of the 89th Academy Awards. And then it wasn’t.
In one of the most astounding moments in Academy Award’s history, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway got up on stage to announce La La Land as the winner of Best Picture 2017. The producers, cast, and crew took the stage and began to read their acceptance speeches. Suddenly, La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz grabbed the mic and announced a mistake had been made. He tore the card from Beatty’s hand and produced it for the camera, clearly showing Moonlight as the winner.
Thanks to The New York Times, we now know is this: two partners from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the firm that handles the sealed envelopes containing the winners’ names, stood on either side of the stage during the ceremony. Each had a briefcase containing the winners’ envelopes, and the envelopes were the same in both cases. The envelope for Best Actress, containing Emma Stone’s win, came from one side. Its sister envelope was accidentally delivered to Beatty from the other side.
Beatty took several moments to read the letter. He saw Emma Stone’s name and thought that it was a misprint, so he handed it to Dunaway, who read out the film on the card: La La Land. As Team La La Land took the stage, the partners from PWC realized their mistake and contacted a stage manager. For those that watched, this is what led to the commotion of stage hands and security on stage asking for envelopes.
Horowitz realized something was wrong by the chaos, and handed his envelope to a stage hand, who showed him that the winner was Moonlight. At that point, Horowitz took the stage. The rest is history.
PWC has issued an apology to everyone involved, and has begun an investigation into exactly how this mistake was possible.
Want to know more about one of the greatest mistakes in live-televised history? Make sure to check back with Monkeys Fighting Robots as the situation develops!
There Is Something Magical Happening With ‘Get Out’!
I can’t think of a horror film being received like this in quite some time. ‘Get Out‘ is taking over the film world! Not only is the film still at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with 135 reviews but the box office numbers are reportedly amazing.
According to BoxOfficeMojo, Jordan Peele’s hit horror film brought in over 12 million dollars on Saturday. Estimates say Sunday will bring in 6 million bringing the total to over 30 million dollars, including Friday’s box office.
With a budget of 4.5 million dollars, ‘Get Out‘ is now a critical and financial success!
I believe it deserves all the praise because ‘Get Out‘ is one of the best horror films ever. Every review on Rotten Tomatoes is great, while our site has two very glowing reviews as well. The horror genre rarely sees this much high praise from critics.
The credit goes to multiple people including Jordan Peele’s amazing direction and script but also the acting. Each performance is memorable and there’s so many layers that will only be unfolded with multiple viewings. There’s also a lot of subtle references and easter eggs that Peele said will be helped by seeing it more than once.
Will all of this positive buzz crossover to next weekend? Only time will tell but no matter what, ‘Get Out‘ is going to be on many “best of 2017” list!
Have you seen it or plan on seeing it? Let me know in the comments below!
“In Universal Pictures’ Get Out, a speculative thriller from Blumhouse (producers of The Visit, Insidious series and The Gift) and the mind of Jordan Peele, when a young African-American man visits his white girlfriend’s family estate, he becomes ensnared in a more sinister real reason for the invitation. Now that Chris (Daniel Kaluuya, Sicario) and his girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams, Girls), have reached the meet-the- parents milestone of dating, she invites him for a weekend getaway upstate with Missy (Catherine Keener, Captain Phillips) and Dean (Bradley Whitford, The Cabin in the Woods). At first, Chris reads the family’s overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter’s interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he could have never imagined.”
With the news breaking of his death this morning, it only seemed appropriate to talk about the roles that made the man, Bill Paxton. He could play any role given to him, and even though he was known for the more serious roles, he really could do anything.
Let’s dive into some of his iconic roles that made him a household name.
Back in 2001, Bill Paxton not only starred in, but directed one of the most low key brilliant horror films of the 21st century. Frailty is a quietly stunning piece of work, an absolutely chilling horror film about religion and possession. Paxton’s role as the patriarch, a man who thinks he can see the worst in people and therein must murder them on God’s behalf, is such a hypnotic performance. The way he so fully commits to the role showed just how far Paxton could go in the right film.
Let’s all have a Bill Paxton marathon today.
Our thoughts are with his family during this time.
Neil Fingleton, the 7 ft 7 in actor, perhaps best known as Mag the Mighty in Game of Thrones, has passed away from heart failure.
Fingleton was born in England, but moved to the US to play basketball in high school. After college in North Carolina and Massachusetts he played professionally in several countries. He took to acting after an injury in 2007.
Besides Game of Thrones, Fingleton appeared in the films 47 Ronin and Jupiter Ascending. He was involved with X:Men: First Classand Age of Ultron. On a two-part episode of Doctor Who he portrayed The Fisher King. He also appeared in the programs Britain’s Tallest Men and Superhumans: Giants.
Fingleton told the Guinness Book of World Records, “I have always been taller then everyone since I can remember. My height really took off when I reached 11 and was touching 7 foot. By the time I was 16 I was 7’5 and stopping growing at 18 when I was 7’7.56.” He became Britain’s tallest man in 2007.
His family, those that worked with him and the fans will miss Neil Fingleton.
In the latest issue of Empire Magazine, a slew of new information from Wonder Woman was released.
Producer Deborah Snyder attributes the success of the female-driven The Hunger Games franchise to helping people realize there’s an audience for a movie like Wonder Woman
Director Patty Jenkins pitched a Wonder Woman movie to Warner Bros. 10 years ago. Unfortunately they were afraid to move forward in a male-dominated market, Jenkins said.
It was Zack Snyder’s idea to introduce Wonder Woman into the DC Films universe when he was developing the Batman v Superman story.
Gal Gadot was one of 5 finalists for the role of Wonder Woman. Deborah Snyder said that every single department was pulling for her during her chemistry test with Ben Affleck because they all loved her.
Gal Gadot didn’t find out she’d be starring in her own Wonder Woman movie until the very end of the Batman v Superman shoot. “I think they were still auditioning me while I was doing the movie,” she said with a smile.
When Patty Jenkins first signed on to Wonder Woman she was apprehensive about having her leading lady already cast, but quickly fell in love with Gal Gadot. “I don’t know that I ever would have thought to look all over the world, but thank God they did and thank God it’s her,” she said.
Although nothing huge was revealed, it’s interesting to go behind the production a bit and see what went into making Wonder Woman.
“Before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained to be an unconquerable warrior. Raised on a sheltered island paradise, when an American pilot crashes on their shores and tells of a massive conflict raging in the outside world, Diana leaves her home, convinced she can stop the threat. Fighting alongside man in a war to end all wars, Diana will discover her full powers…and her true destiny.”
The film stars Gal Gadot as the title character, Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Lucy Davis as Etta Candy, Connie Nielsen as Queen Hippolyta, and Robin Wright as General Antiope.
Shanlian On Batman caught up with Chris McKay, director of The Lego Batman Movie, and talked to him about the film, as well as the recently announced Nightwing solo project.
McKay on The Lego Batman Movie:
“There were a bunch of different hoops we had to go through with our relationship with Warner Bros., our relationship with LEGO and so we had to pitch. Obviously, everyone wanted to do LEGO 2…. The critics liked [The LEGO Movie], audiences liked it […] then we started talking about sequels and obviously everyone wanted to do LEGO 2. LEGO Batman was brought up by the then-president of Warner Bros., Greg Silverman, and he was like, ‘We gotta do [a LEGO Batman Movie]. LEGO Batman was such a breakout character, we have to do it.’”
He then briefly commented on the upcoming Nightwing film.
“There’s not much I can talk about about the movie. I don’t even have a contract. Anything can happen.”
Additionally, the director revealed that he believes Warner Bros. can make a “really interesting, intriguing, action-packed character movie [about Nightwing]”.
What are your thoughts on McKay’s comments? Did you enjoy The Lego Batman Movie? Drop your thoughts below!
With Hollywood’s biggest night finally upon us, the perception is that there won’t be much suspense as La La Land is expected to win big. However, if you are like me and love rooting for the underdog here are five potential upsets that could happen this evening.
1Best Picture
Hidden Figures
It’s largely expected that La La Landhas this award locked in, but I’m not so sure. The Academy loves to make a statement and what better statement than to recognize this film. Hidden Figurestells a tale that empowers both African Americans and women as well. It’s packed with powerful performances and was recognized by SAG for Outstanding Performance By A Cast In a Motion Picture.
