Paramount Pictures released an IMAX featurette documenting the 10-year relationship between the Transformers film franchise and IMAX. The footage includes a glimpse at ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ and the back and forth from medieval times to present.
Not much is known about ‘The Last Night.’ Something is coming. The battle’s begun. In ‘Age of Extinction,’ Optimus Prime headed towards the cosmos in search of the Creators to seek answers from them.
The film stars Peter Cullen, Mark Wahlberg, Isabela Moner, and Jerrod Carmichael. ‘Last Knight’ is written by Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, and Ken Nolan.
Michael Bay’s fifth Transformers film will crush the box office on June 23, 2017. A spin-off film featuring Bumblebee has a 2018 release date and ‘Transformers 6’ hits theaters in 2019.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to fight as a Rebel pilot in the Star Wars universe, now you have a chance, reveals Comicbook.com. Lucasfilm, along with ILMxLAB, joined forces to produce this short, but intense video experience that puts you in the cockpit during a space battle. It’s got it all, light speed, tie fighters, Mon Mothma, and an absolutely terror-inducing glimpse at the Death Star. It’s actually very intense and gives you a feel on just how dark this new entry in our beloved saga might actually be. Read the official description and then jump in and check out for yourself below!
“Conflict, above all else, rules the galaxy. As an everyday X-wing pilot flying for the Rebellion, be immediately immersed in the vastness of space with only your R2 unit and wingman by your side. What starts as a routine mission for Mon Mothma takes a sharp turn as you stumble upon unexpected Imperial presence – and something they will do anything to keep hidden.”
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story stars Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Mads Mikkelsen, Ben Mendelsohn, Alan Tudyk, Donny Yen, Valene Kane, Riz Ahmed, Genevieve O’Reilly, Jimmy Smits, James Earl Jones, and Forrest Whitaker. It tells the story of the rag-tag team who steal the famed plans for the first Death Star, an act that allows for its destruction by the rebels in Star Wars: A New Hope. It is directed by Gareth Edwards, from a screenplay written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will hit theaters on December 16, 2016.
As ‘The Inhumans’ film has been in limbo movie wise, a news story broke last night that ends the limbo. We are now getting The Inhumans TV series in the Fall of 2017. After the news story broke more information started to come into play. Confirmed initially by The Hollywood Reporter, the series will be eight episodes long, focusing on Black Bolt and his family. We get the IMAX release of the first two episodes over the Summer of 2017 for two weeks, with the entire series airing in Fall of 2017. Here’s where it gets more interesting, this series will not be a spin-off from ‘Agents of SHIELD.’ Which made me wonder, The Inhumans is now a TV series, so what happens next? This is where my many thoughts kick into high gear.
The Inhumans are arriving on TV, with no big screen debut in sight.
‘Agents of SHIELD’ has been Inhuman wonderland in recent seasons so when The Inhumans was announced, a lot of people thought spin-off. I was even thinking spin-off, boy was I wrong. It seems as though Marvel is focusing on making The Inhumans their own thing from the get go. Of course, that means prepare yourself for even more Inhumans comics in the future. As we don’t know the future of ‘Agents of SHIELD’ yet, we have no idea if The Inhumans will be the second Marvel series on ABC or the replacement. Even more interesting, The Inhumans only has an eight-episode order from ABC. Why so low you ask? Since it is being filmed in IMAX, this show is going to have a huge budget and it does make for a good mini-series.
The Inhumans are here, yet what will become of ‘Agents of SHIELD?’
Here’s another factor, ‘Agents of SHIELD’ has trended downwards ratings wise season to season. Even with Ghost Rider in play, the show has still had a rough go of it this year. Another feeling behind the low episode order for The Inhumans is part budget and also seeing how well the show fares ratings wise. There must be confidence in this franchise considering Marvel/Disney is releasing the first two episodes in theaters. We’ll have to see what happens from that release and we’ll see what the hype level is from there.
Ponder this a moment too, we don’t even know who’s working on The Inhumans yet. No sign of a writer, producer, or anything else. That will help immensely in getting people excited for the series. Take note of this too, no one has even been cast yet. We are in the land of the unknown as all we know is, The Inhumans is happening. I believe that people are going to be watching this closely, I know I will be.
For anyone else out there in the land of the Internet, what do you all think of this announcement? Leave a comment below, feel free and talk it out. If you love it, hate it, or simply don’t care, feel free and we’ll have a nice chat. Till next time, this Thought Blast is over.
Elvis Presley, for all his influential game-changing musical talents and troubled life, has never really gotten many full documentary or docudrama treatments.
Outside of the Kurt Russell/John Carpenter (weird) TV movie in 1979, the King’s life has been merely scattered throughout stories of other musicians and films that capture the pop culture impact of the singer – 300 Miles to Graceland, Honeymoon inn Vegas, and the existence of Nicolas Cage spring to mind.
Now, HBO is bringing fans a comprehensive three-hour documentary. The Presley estate is cooperating with the documentary, and it will not only cover his meteoric rise to stardom, but it will cover most of his life and break down his unique sound and why it was so influential moving forward. Kary Antholis, the president of HBO Miniseries and Cinemax Programming, had a statement about the documentary:
“The producers came to HBO and Sony with the idea for a film drawing upon very rare footage that captures Elvis’ musicianship in a new and exciting way. The artistry on display in that footage reminded us of the great work by Jon Landau and Thom Zimny on HBO films documenting the studio artistry of Bruce Springsteen, and we are thrilled to have them at the helm to lend their unique cinematic perspectives to this iconic, complex and singular artist.”
There is no release date yet, but expect it somewhere in 2017. Stay tuned.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is J.K. Rowling through and through, and that’s a very good thing.
Returning audiences to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but in a new time and place, the film provides just enough of the elements that most audiences love about Rowling’s stories, while opening things up with new characters, tensions and intrigue.
Is it a perfect film? No. It’s a very good start, however, especially since it’s clear this won’t be the last film made using this setting and characters.
What’s it about?
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them takes place entirely in 1926 New York. Yes, that’s right — it’s in America!
It’s not quite the good ol’ U.S.A. audiences live in, of course. There are wizards living among the muggles, or “no-majs”, as the Yanks refer to them.
In America, wizards go to greater lengths to hide their existence from non-magical folk, and for good reason. A group of fanatics calling themselves “Second Salemers” works not only to expose wizards, but also to have them publicly burned, as they were in the past.
Into these tense times of prejudice and suspicion comes English wizard Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). Even among wizards, Newt is an oddball. A passionate “magizoologist”, he takes care of magical creatures. He also strives to educate other wizards about them so they aren’t killed needlessly.
Fresh off the boat and ignorant of the politics of America’s Wizarding World, Newt quickly gets himself into trouble. A number of the magical creatures in his care accidentally get loose in the city, and in the course of tracking them, he reveals his abilities in front of a no-maj, Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler).
With help from Jacob, disgraced magical investigator Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), and Tina’s mind-reading sister Queenie (Alison Sudol), Newt sets out to bring his creatures home. But they’ll have to contend with something else magically afoot in New York’s streets, something that’s killing no-majs.
Paranoid extremist groups spreading fear and half-truths? Secret societies and shadowy government agencies bent on keeping their existences safe and secure? An America on the brink of war with itself?
Hard to believe it’s not post-election 2016, isn’t it?
Rowling at the top of her game
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them represents a first in Wizarding World cinema. The screenplay here comes directly from Rowling herself, whereas Steve Kloves adapted her novels for the screen in the earlier films.
Set to rest any doubts that Rowling could write for the screen, muggles. Fantastic Beasts is full of the intricate plotting and little quirks of character that made the Potter stories so entrancing. It’s also chock full of seeds for future stories, and has a few “Easter Eggs” for longtime Hogwarts devotees longing for connection to the world established in the earlier films.
In all fairness, all that does make for some minor pacing issues in the film. At two hours and 13 minutes, Fantastic Beasts runs long, and screenplay-wise, it could be a tighter film without all that sequel-seeding.
Remarkably, however, the film rarely drags. There’s just too much to delight in, between the interactions of the well-crafted characters to the splendid visuals built around all those incredible creatures.
A new cast to fall in love with
Arguably, the toughest task facing Fantastic Beasts is delivering a cast of characters as compelling as those in the previous saga. After all, Harry, Hermione, the Weasleys, Dumbledore and Hogwarts are what drew readers back to the books and audiences back to the films time and again, right?
To do this, director David Yates, who directed the last four Potter films, assembles a hugely talented cast. Redmayne is charmingly awkward as Newt, the ‘Englishman in New York’ who is more at ease with his creatures than with people. He is hard to understand at times — Newt is soft-spoken and tends to mumble. But by the end he’s sure to win audiences over with the compassion and gentle nature Redmayne endows him with.
Other standouts in the cast include Tony-award winning Dan Fogler and Katherine Waterston. Though Newt is unquestionably the hero of Fantastic Beasts, Fogler’s Jacob and his wonder at the world he glimpses for the first time allows for audiences to fall in love with it along with him. His journey is as important to the film’s drama as Newt’s, and carries much of the film’s emotion.
As for Waterston, she proves yet again that she’s one of Hollywood’s most versatile young performers. Compare her work here with previous turns in Steve Jobs and Inherent Vice and its tough to deny her chameleon-like ability to disappear into roles. She’s very good here, and the role has potential for her to be even better down the road.
Production design, costumes sparkle
Production and costume design also deserve every possible accolade in Fantastic Beasts. The film’s look — call it “spellcrafters n’ speakeasies” — is inspired in every frame.
What’s ingenious here is just how much the look of everything makes sense, both as a period piece and a story set in the Wizarding World. Exteriors shots show a vintage New York that’s easily recognizable. But the little details added, the touches of magic everywhere, transform that setting into something altogether new and wonderous.
The costumes, meanwhile, all Great Gatsby meets Ministry of Magic, are a visual delight in and of themselves. Don’t be surprised if the work here garners mention in the Oscar conversation come Spring.
Worth seeing?
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is another one of those films where for some audiences seeing it is a foregone conclusion. If you loved Rowling’s books and the films based upon them, of course you’re going to see this film.
However, this is still a sweet, romantic flight of fantasy worth enjoying, even if you know nothing about Harry Potter. The visuals are imaginative and the characters are endearing. Most importantly, the story leaves you with the promise of more adventure on the horizon.
What more can anyone ask from a fantasy film?
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Starring Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Samantha Morton, Jon Voight, Carmen Ejogo, and Colin Farrell. Directed by David Yates.
Running Time: 133 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some fantasy action violence.
His body seems sculpted out of stone, littered with biblical tattoos telling of vengeance and justice. After 14 years in prison for rape, Max Lady is finally free, and the only thing prison has done has allowed him to learn how to read, how to think, and how to plan his revenge.
“You will know About loss.”
Cape Fear was Martin Scorsese’s first remake, and while he stays true to the 1962 original starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, his vision is overloaded with a nihilistic mean streak. It’s just as much a horror film – about an unstoppable monster with what seems to be supernatural powers at times – as it is a straight thriller. At times it exists in a heightened sense of reality, made whole by the elevated, borderline manic performances from everyone involved.
The two central players are Nick Nolte’s Samuel Bowden, an attorney who once defended a hayseed rapist named Max Cady, played by Scorsese’s first muse, Robert De Niro. The charges were too much for Bowden to defend, so he railroaded Cady to a conviction, thinking Cady was too dim to ever understand what had happened. Bowden never imagined his client would spend his days behind bars learning to read, learning the law, and figuring out what happened during his trial.
And now he is out, and he seeks his pond of flesh. Not only from Bowden, but from Bowden’s family, which is anything but fully functioning. This is where the moral cloudiness of the film digs deep into these flawed characters, creating no honest hero. Bowden and his wife, Leigh (Jessica Lange), are having problems because of Bowden’s infidelities; their daughter, Danielle (Juliette Lewis), is inching closer and closer to her own sexual awareness, and the trio feel perpetually on edge. And when Max Cady makes his presence felt in their sweat-soaked southern lives, the tension reaches a boil.
Cape Fear volleys between suspense and horror with a gleeful meanness. Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker, who must have been working with their own personal language by 1991, manage their cuts masterfully. At times the movement is frenetic, and at others it is patient and practically stationery. Consider the scene between Cady and Daneille, in Danielle’s school auditorium. Cady has set up this fake meeting, claiming to be the drama teacher, and as he and Danielle share an incredibly unnerving conversation, Scorsese’s camera stays motionless and Danielle slowly realizes who this man actually is. This, coupled with the Little Red Riding Hood backdrop, create an incredible sense of unease.
This scene manages to creep into your consciousness and burrow, all the while chaos unfolds on either side. What’s more, this moment compromises Bowden’s leverage as Cady manipulates his own daughter, confusing her allegiance.
The third act of the film aboard the houseboat is Scorsese leaning into the heightened realism he’d been working with the entire time. As the boat swirls madly through a tempest and even more insanity unfolds inside the cabin, the audience is put through the ringer. And De Niro’s Max Cady becomes a supernatural force of anger and vengeance; it is a towering, scenery-chewing performance from an actor who knows exactly the right notes to hit.
Everyone in Cape Fear elevates their performances to match this southern gothic horror. After 25 years, it remains one of Scorsese’s most blatantly stylistic works, heightened in its kinetic energy much like his Shutter Island did in 2009. And, like Shutter Island, Cape Fear may be seen as Minor Scorsese; that doesn’t change the major impact it has had on its viewers since 1991.
The Hayao Miyazaki classic Spirited Away is coming back to movie theaters in the United States.
Fathom Events is screening the movie in theaters nationwide; It will be shown on December 4 with English dubbing, and the next day, December 5, will see the English subbed version.
Spirited Away is set to celebrate its 15th anniversary, originally released in Japan on July 20, 2001.
“In this animated feature by noted Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki, 10-year-old Chihiro (Rumi Hiiragi) and her parents (Takashi Naitô, Yasuko Sawaguchi) stumble upon a seemingly abandoned amusement park. After her mother and father are turned into giant pigs, Chihiro meets the mysterious Haku (Miyu Irino), who explains that the park is a resort for supernatural beings who need a break from their time spent in the earthly realm, and that she must work there to free herself and her parents.”
Are you planning to see this classic Studio Ghibli film in theaters? Let us know in the comments section.
Moon Knight has been a very neglected Marvel character in film and TV thus far, even though writer Greg Smallwood has certainly been helping Marvel Comics elevate the character to a higher status in the comic book world. Moon Knight fans, however, have been calling out for a film or Netflix TV series to no avail.
Marvel Comics fan films have picked up where the greater Marvel TV and film universe are unwilling to go, and Moon Knight is no exception to this.
A Moon Knight fan film that looked promising from Deviant Children Production came and went, but was never produced. However, a group of Moon Knight fans under the umbrella of Sun and Lions Studios are seeking to be the first to finish a fully realized fan film/series. Recently, they produced this teaser to wet fans appetites for the upcoming production.
The actors in the tease are as follows: Moon Knight is played by Audi Sanchez, Director/Writer is Shah Emami, and Elgin Roshell plays the mugger. When discussing the origins of this Moon Knight project, Sun and Lion Studios had this to say.
“After seeing the movie “Super” by James Gunn, I really wanted to make a street level vigilante short film. I was reading Moon Knight by Ellis and Shalvey at the time and it hit me that he’s a versatile character with so much potential. Well, that and Marvel wasn’t planning on putting him on-screen any time soon.”
Moon Knight rumors have suggested that Marvel has been prepping him for a Netflix series, but no concrete evidence has been introduced thus far. In fact, short of a vague end of credits Easter egg in that one Captain America flick, he has been quite absent from the Marvel Cinematic and TV universe. Sun and Lions Studios have a plan for the “Fist of Khonshu,” and it is currently as follows.
“The idea was to make at least three Moon Knight shorts that will have separate main subjects but will ultimately be connected by minor plot points that will culminate to create one climax.”
For a Moon Knight fan, this is big news, for it looks like it will finally happen for the “protector of night travelers.” Time will tell if this self-funded effort will materialize, and if it will be of any reasonable quality, but if the tease is any indication, it promises to be a good effort.
Sun and Lion Studios also has a podcast on YouTube, Soundcloud, and soon to be on their website and iTunes, called Fan Roar.
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige recently mentioned that an Inhumans movie would happen “for sure”, but could he have been talking about a television series?
On the topic, ABC has officially ordered the first two episodes of an Inhumans series that will be shown in IMAX movie theaters next summer. The network then plans to release more episodes in Fall of 2017.
“Under the agreement, a version of the first two episodes of Marvel Television’s new series “Marvel’s The Inhumans”–produced in conjunction with ABC Studios and filmed entirely with IMAX digital cameras–will run worldwide exclusively in IMAX for two weeks at the beginning of September 2017. ABC plans to then premiere the weekly series in fall, with additional exclusive content that can only be seen on the network.”
The press release also gave a synopsis for the show.
“The Inhumans, a race of superhumans with diverse and singularly unique powers, were first introduced in Marvel Comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1965. Since that time, they have grown in prominence and become some of the most popular and iconic characters in the Marvel Universe. “Marvel’s The Inhumans” will explore the never-before-told epic adventure of Black Bolt and the royal family.”
How do you feel about Inhumans becoming a TV series? Could Marvel Studios still be planning to make the film, or has that ship sailed? Leave us your thoughts in the comments section.
A new Suicide Squad deleted scene has been released on Youtube. In the clip we see Joker being chased by Harleen Quinzel on a motorcycle. Check it out below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK3E7RxsRw4
“Figuring they’re all expendable, a U.S. intelligence officer decides to assemble a team of dangerous, incarcerated supervillains for a top-secret mission. Now armed with government weapons, Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc and other despicable inmates must learn to work together. Dubbed Task Force X, the criminals unite to battle a mysterious and powerful entity, while the diabolical Joker (Jared Leto) launches an evil agenda of his own.”
Featuring 13 minutes of additional footage, the extended cut of Suicide Squad hits Digital HD tomorrow, November 15, and Blu-Ray on December 13.
