As the wheels of nostalgia continue to roll, and television shows from the 80s continue to be mined for audiences who fondly remember the original, it’s no surprise that Knight Rider is being remade, with action director Justin Lin on board as producer.
Hey, spoiler alert! Knight Rider was already remade in 2008. But it was horrible and nobody remembers it and it was canceled after one season. With Lin behind this new Knight Rider, it clearly has more going for it than that ’08 nonsense.
NBC and Machinima are teaming up to bring the series to the air. “Knight Rider is an iconic franchise,” said CEO Chad Gustein, “whose concepts of AI and autonomous vehicles were science fiction in the 1980s and are now science fact. Justin is one of the leading storytellers of his generation and we couldn’t be more excited to work with him on re-invigorating Knight Rider for a new generation of fans.”
So Knight Rider fans, keep your fingers crossed that this new one has all the cool, fun things the David Hasselhoff series had. Whatever those were, I remember literally nothing about it besides KITT.
Universal Studios is going full steam ahead into their monster-verse reboot. Tom Cruise’s The Mummy is first up, followed by Van Helsing, The Wolfman, a new Dracula, Frankenstein, a Johnny Depp-led Invisible Man (groan), hopefully a new Creature from The Black Lagoon somewhere along the way and, of course, a new take on the great Bride of Frankenstein.
David Koepp is in charge of the screenplay for the upcoming Bride of Frankenstein reboot, and he recently spoke to Steven Weintraub over at Collider about the feminist leanings for this character:
“I loved [the screenplay]. It’s one of my favorite scripts I’ve written in years because if you reimagine the Frankenstein story, it gets into so many issues of men trying to feel dominant over women. To create someone who then says, ‘You don’t own me,’ it becomes a tale of liberation. It was great. It was really fun, and I hope it gets going soon because I think it’d make for a great movie.”
It makes sense, given the recent uptick of strong female characters in franchise pictures. Not to mention the fact that the new Mummy is played by Star Trek Beyond‘s Sofia Boutella. These are great; men have dominated tentpole franchise pictures for too long, and tweaking the narrative of Bride of Frankenstein to give her more independence, or the gender of the mummy to freshen up the narrative, is appropriately progressive.
What concerns me is the direction of this entire Universal monster-verse. This is clearly going to be action heavy, weak on the horror, and I don’t really see a point in this. Didn’t we already have Brendan Fraser’s garbage Mummy movies turn the character and the story surrounding it into a weak Indiana Jones imitator?
I suppose we’ll see what happens next June, when The Mummy hits theaters. There’s no cast or release date for Bride of Frankenstein yet.
You can read more about David Koepp’s Bride of Frankenstein at Collider.
Shaun the Sheep roams the land for another day. Aardman announced last year’s hit Shaun the Sheep Movie will have a sequel, which gets underway in January 2017. I gotta say, that doesn’t sound like a baaa-d idea. Yeah, yeah. I know. Let’s move on.
Slashfilm reported. Richard Starzak, who co-directed the original with Mark Burton, will helm this sequel, the studio announced. Here’s what David Sproxton, Aardman’s co-founder, said in an official statement:
Shaun’s move to the big screen proved such a success with audiences around the world that he and the flock are very excited to be embarking on another big screen adventure. Aardman is partnering with StudioCanal once again to produce another rip-roaring comedy, featuring Shaun and the rest of the gang in a story that takes them to even greater heights of lunacy.
There are no plot details at the moment. Then again, it’s not like Shaun the Sheep is a super plot-driven character. First introduced in the Wallace & Gromit short A Close Shave back in 1995, he earned his own spin-off series back in 2007, before scoring his own feature-length film. It garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, but lost out to Pixar’s powerhouse Inside Out.
Fellow distributor StudioCanal hinted the project over a year ago, Variety reported. This is the first official confirmation from Aardman. In addition to the announcement, the first teaser image was released, which can be seen below.
It has been two years since Peter Jackson released The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, the underwhelming finale to his The Hobbit trilogy. After spending nearly six years on the extended prequel series, Jackson’s ready to stretch his legs and explore new territory. It was reported a little while back that Jackson would bring Philip Reeve’s novel Mortal Engines, the first installment in a sci-fi/fantasy series, to the big screen, and that still remains the case. But there’s a catch this time.
He’s currently adapting the film’s screenplay, alongside his writing team Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. Sadly, however, that appears to be as far as he’ll go in the creative process. Instead, he’s opting to let his longtime collaborator Christian Rivers take a spin in the director’s chair for his feature-length film debut.
Collider reported. Rivers and Jackson go back many years, with Rivers first working as a storyboard artist/special effects technician on the excellent 1992 film Dead Alive. Since then, he worked on Heavenly Creatures, The Frighteners, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong (where he won an Oscar), The Lovely Bones and then The Hobbit trilogy as a splinter unit director. He also served as a second unit director on this summer’s Pete’s Dragon. He’s moved up the food chain sufficiently.
Along with their writing credits, Jackson and Walsh will also produce, while Boyens co-produces. It takes place in a world thousands of years in the future, with Earth’s cities roaming the globe on gigantic wheels in a struggle for ever-dwindling resources in a depleting world. It centers on Tom Natsworthy, who sets off on an adventure when he crosses paths with a woman from the Outlands.
Production plans to begin in spring 2017 in, of course, New Zealand. Universal will back the project. More details should arrive soon.
There’s no word yet on what Jackson will direct next. Of course, there are always rumors. We’ll just wait and see what happens.
Let’s be clear: Halloween is my favorite horror movie of all time. It is the seminal horror film of its era. It put the Slasher genre on the map, seemingly forever. But, with that said, the director of Halloween, John Carpenter, is a master of the filmmaking craft who has created other incredible works of cinema. Carpenter’s signature is distinct and for fans of Stranger Things, half of that show would not exist without John Carpenter.
John Carpenter
Carpenter is the writer, director, composer, and possibly caterer on most all his movies. The wild success of Halloween gave Carpenter the clout to keep doing movies his way. Carpenter went on to direct many more films, including these fun horror flicks to binge watch for Halloween …
The Fog – 1980
You likely remember the 2005 remake with Tom Welling and Maggie Grace, and if you do, I’m sorry. Carpenter made the R-RATED original which reunites Carpenter with “scream queen” Jamie Lee Curtis. The Fog is a chilling folktale of long-overdue revenge. What Carpenter carefully hides in Halloween he puts on full display here. The supernatural force is real and the people of this small town are at its mercy.
Arguably Carpenter’s second most famous film behind Halloween, The Thing is a sequel of sorts (but not really) to the 1951 science fiction classic The Thing From Another World. Starring Kurt Russel, Carpenter weaves a story of paranoia in a supremely isolated location with creepy care. Unlike many movies of today, The Thing features only a handful of whiz-bang effects, but they resonate and disturb, unlike most modern CG gore.
Christine by Carpenter is not mentioned much in horror circles, but pop culture loves the tale of the killer car. Family Guy, Futurama, and beyond have tossed a wink at Carpenter’s movie. Shot using 20 different cars, none of which were actually the 1958 Plymouth Fury the car is supposed to be, Christine is top-notch b-movie fun.
For those who already know this film you might think I’m crazy. Prince of Darkness, in many, MANY ways is not a good movie. But it’s a study in surrealism, a departure from Carpenter’s usual horror style, and the concept of science mixed with classic good versus evil tropes is refreshing. Plus, if you’re doing a Carpenter marathon this Halloween it’s good to have a laugh to break up the terror.
John Carpenter is as divisive a director as they come who by the mid-90s found his cinematic style fading. In the Mouth of Madness is a love letter to H.P. Lovecraft and for that alone the surreal horror images are brilliant. The film’s concept of a writer’s wild mind-affecting reality itself is interesting. However, everything else about the movie, including any sense of a cohesive plot or the awful soundtrack by Carpenter himself, is mediocre at best. Still, fans of horror or Lovecraft will enjoy the imagery and effects.
According to sites like IMDB, They Live is a horror movie. I think it’s a science fiction movie. Instead of debating it, I instead added it as an honorable mention. They Live is an unlikely movie about an unlikely hero in a plot that seems eerily prophetic. Uber-capitalist aliens secretly run the world and use subliminal messaging to get us, stupid humans, to obey … consume … reproduce. John Nada, played by the late, great Rowdy “Roddy” Piper, is a man with nothing. He roams the world looking for work until he finds a purpose … to uncover what the aliens are doing.
Two new TV spots have for surfaced for Doctor Strange, according to ComicBook.com. This makes it thirty-two, probably the highest number of TV spots Marvel Studios has done so far. If he was a more obscure character before, the Sorcerer Supreme is certainly in the public’s mind now. And with mostly positive reactions from last week’s screening for critics and the character’s confirmed appearance in Avengers: Infinity War, it definitely appears the studio has another hit on their hands for their ever-growing Marvel Cinematic Universe. You can watch the two new TV spots below.
Doctor Strange tells the story of neurosurgeon Stephen Strange whose life takes a tragic turn after a horrific car accident damages his hands. When medicine fails him, he is forced to look for healing in a mysterious place known as Kamar-Taj. There he learns that this is not just a place for healing but also the sight of a magical battle to save the world. Soon Doctor Strange must choose to return to his normal life or leave it all behind and take his new place as the world’s Sorcerer Supreme.
Doctor Strange stars Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock, Star Into Darkness, ), Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), Rachel McAdams (True Detective Season 2), Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man), Mads Mikkelsen (Valhalla Riding/Hannibal) and Tilda Swinton (The Grand Budapest Hotel). It is directed by Scott Derrickson, and written by Derrickson, Jon Spaihts (Prometheus), and C. Robert Cargill (Sinister). It opens November 4, 2017, in theaters nationwide.
Ben Affleck is set to play Batman a second time in the upcoming Justice League film, but this is not what makes the newest Batman have trouble sleeping at night. Affleck as Batman has its critics, both positive and negative, but he has apparently done well enough to take over a new trilogy in the future. According to Comicbook, this is what apparently vexes Ben Affleck, he is concerned and understands the potential for epic failure.
“I’m in full-on, trying-to-get-it-right mode [for Batman]. It’s not the kind of movie that you can fail quietly at. [I] have to be sure I have something I feel really confident about before we go forward.”
Ben Affleck said he is in “full-on-get-it-right mode,” and as well he should be. Batman has had a pretty rough history, as far as comic book adaptation go. In all fairness, though, he is one of the most adapted character over the years. Not to mention the need he will have to manage fan opinion and potential backlash. It is fair to say that Batman fans are always deeply divided in their opinions.
Batman ’66, starring Adam West, is consider a classic. However, many found it campy and not a very good representation of the character. Tim Buron’s Batman films are given high praise, but some loathe them. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy also had its ups and downs, depending on the film, and how growly Christian Bale was in the batsuit.
Affleck had the benefit of his Batman working alongside Superman in Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice and The Flash, Wonderwoman, Aquaman, and Cyborg as well in Justice League. When Ben Affleck ventures out on his own to director and star in a Batman trilogy, it will be all on him. To Ben Affleck’s advantage, many might say, Batman does best on his own.
Keeping Up With The Joneses is a blasé “spycom” reminiscent of the piffle released at the beginning of the year, which makes the timing of this release incredibly surprising. While the star power behind this film does indeed turn heads (Zach Galifianakis, Isla Fisher, Gal Gadot, and Jon Hamm), their collective performances give no reason for anyone to rush to their theaters this weekend. Keep Up With The Joneses …. Nah, I’m good, thanks.
The film centers around Jeff and Karen Gaffney (Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher) an uber sweet married couple living the American dream in generic suburbia. The neighborhood is abuzz when word gets out that they are getting new neighbors, Tim and Natalie Jones (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot), and they are excited to move into their new house, which they paid cash for (odd). From the first moment they move in, something isn’t right about these new neighbors. Tim is apparently a travel writer who loves to blow glass as a hobby. Natalie has a cooking blog that has garnered her some notoriety. However, at night they seem always to be up to something. Jeff always gives people the benefit of the doubt, but Karen knows that they are no good and takes to spying on them.
Of course, we find out through a series of “wacky” (and I use that term loosely) events that involve one of the Gaffney’s being shot with a sleeping dart, that Karen’s suspicions are correct and the Joneses are spies for the United States Government. Now I don’t want to ruin the rest of a totally dynamic and compelling plot, but we also learn that only the Gaffney’s can help make the Joneses mission a successful one. Because of course.
One of the many puzzling elements of the film is why Zach Galifianakis is cast as the lead. It’s a struggle even to come up with an example of a film where he was the male lead and the movie did well. He rose to fame in the Hangover trilogy, but that was a perfectly calibrated, weird supporting role. Galifianakis flourishes in those types of roles where he uses his comedic talents and doesn’t have the burden of carrying the film. His performance in this film is oddly stilted. All he’s doing is playing the same goofy male lead that we’ve seen in any number of romcoms.
While we are at it, What happened to Jon Hamm’s movie career? Hamm is a fantastic actor who gained fame/notoriety for his work on Mad Men, and now he’s stuck in films opposite a guy who claims to fame is that he played the weird brother in the Hangover. He’s woefully miscast in this “Spycom” which requires him to have some chemistry with Galifianakis, and it’s nonexistent throughout the film. Hamm should be the leading man in most dramas and even the right kind of action film. Instead, we are forced to watch Hamm try his hand at comedy. Sorry … no thanks.
This film typifies the current slate of new releases. Nothing exciting enough to compel anyone to your local theater. Just a big barrell of nothing. With November fast approaching, let’s hope for better releases on the horizon.
The Final Girl has been a fabric in the tapestry of horror cinema for as long as slashers and stalkers have been killing oversexed teenagers. It’s a common trope in horror cinema, still used today in just about every other horror film, and throughout the years the Final Girl has not only kicked off a franchise, it’s kickstarted careers.
The idea of one last girl, usually virginal and innocent and ultimately independent, has often been a way for the audience to identify with the characters in a horror movie. As Carol J. Clover points out in her book, Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in The Modern Horror Film, the audience begins these films seeing things from the side of the killer or killers; before long, a strong female survivor begins to emerge, and the audience perspective shifts to their plight and ultimate defeat of whatever evil that’s in front of them.
And there have been some terrific Final Girls. Despite sharing so many traits, the best Final Girls manage to fit inside a box of identifiers while simultaneously forging their own path to freedom. Their escapes from the clutches of evil are often as iconic as the evil in question, their character sometimes just as impactful on pop culture as their adversary. We salute you, Final Girl, and we celebrate these five legends in the slasher-stopping business…
5. Nancy Thompson, A Nightmare on Elm Street – Heather Langenkamp got the rare (and by rare I mean only) opportunity to play The Final Girl both as her character, Nancy, and as herself in Wes Craven’s meta New Nightmare a decade later. Langenkamp isn’t the greatest actress no matter who she’s playing, but she fits here if by no other reason than she’s the one who got the gig.
Nancy stands out from so many Final Girls in that her sexuality, while incomparable to her poor friend Tina who gets sliced and diced on the ceiling, is not nearly as bottled up as those who came before and after her. Her sexuality is noticeable, at least more so than other survivors in these films, and she has a sharp edge to her persona to match the razor-handed Freddy Krueger.
4. Sally Hardesty, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – A few years before Jamie Lee Curtis gave a definite identity to The Final Girl, Marilyn Burns gave us what is still the most underrated final girl in slasher cinema history. And it’s hard to believe, because poor Sally has to endure, arguably, more pure insanity than anyone else on this list.
Both Sally and her friend, Pam, are on this trip with their boyfriends, so virginal virtues are probably out the window here. However, what gives Sally the sympathetic advantage over her doomed friends is the fact she’s saddled with Franklin, her pathetic invalid brother who we all can’t wait to see split in half by Leatherface. Sally is tortured at that iconic dinner scene, and sacrifices her body to escape more than just about any other Final Girl in cinematic history. And her last scene, at day break in the back of that truck, laughing maniacally, is one of the most impactful moments of pure madness in horror movie history.
3. Sidney Prescott, Scream – There were technically two Final Girls in Wes Craven’s horror deconstruction classic. But Gale Weathers doesn’t fit the traditional Final Girl trope. She has Dewey, she’s an outsider in this world of slasher victims, and she isn’t the icon of the franchise the way Neve Campbell’s sweet, virginal Sydney is.
Campbell is set up to be the Final Girl from the beginning, transforming from innocent girl next door to determined, vengeful enforcer – somewhere in those scenes after she lost her virginity, if we’re keeping up with what Craven is doing here. Campbell’s Prescott also got to be the Final Girl a few more times, in sequels of increasingly diminishing quality. And she got to be the last chick standing in all of the Scream films, an award shared with only one more: the next person on this list.
2. Ellen Ripley, Alien – True, there are those AvP films where Ellen Ripley wasn’t the last one to show down with acid-spewing Xenomorphs. But nobody cares about those, let’s be honest. Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley has no sexuality, really, save for a few scantily-clad shots in the original Alien. She’s more concerned with destroying these creatures, she has no time for sex.
And that’s the unique thing about Ripley and her relationship with the killer stalking her. She has no complicated tie to the Xenomorph. She was just there when it infiltrated the Nostromo, and she is motivated by nothing more than pure, unadulterated hatred for the alien. She wants to destroy it, and she succeeds time and time again.
1. Laurie Strode, Halloween – Despite the fact that Sally was before her, and the true original Final Girl was Jesse Bradford (Olivia Hussey) in Black Christmas, it was Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode who, from top to bottom, defined The Final Girl forever.
Laurie Strode is sweet, innocent, a little nerdy, and loyal to her friends. She’s stuck babysitting these kids while her friend is busy hooking up across the street. Now she does smoke a little pot earlier int he day, before Michael Myers begins slicing throats, but hey this is the 70s. Everyone smoked pot in the movies. Regardless, Laurie’s evolution from innocent girl next door to true survivor is the overwhelming catalyst for John Carpenter’s classic.
Your next venture into the Jedi universe, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, will last exactly 133 minutes, or two hours and 13 minutes, according to Makingstarwars.net and Australia’s Event Cinema.
Provided no last-minute edits are made, Rogue One clocks in just five minutes shy of last December’s release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Good, bad, or indifferent, this time mirrors the typical running times of every previous Star Wars movie – somewhere around the two-hour mark. Interestingly, Rogue One has the same run time as Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Hopefully this one will be more satisfying.
Much of the plot is hush-hush, but it centers around Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and other Rebels in their quest to steal the blueprints to the Death Star. We already know how it ends, but that’s not why we plan to watch it. Would Titanic have made a bajillion dollars if the only awesome thing about it was the ship sinking? No. No it wouldn’t.
Joining Jones in the cast are Mads Mikkelson as Galen Erso, Forrest Whitaker as Saw Gerrra, Ben Mendelsohn as Orson Krennic, Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa, and James Earl Jones as the respiratory voice of Darth Vader. Gareth Edwards directs, based on a screenplay by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will hit theaters on December 16, 2016
Of course, we find out through a series of “wacky” (and I use that term loosely) events that involve one of the Gaffney’s being shot with a sleeping dart, that Karen’s suspicions are correct and the Joneses are spies for the United States Government. Now I don’t want to ruin the rest of a totally dynamic and compelling plot, but we also learn that only the Gaffney’s can help make the Joneses mission a successful one. Because of course.
Provided no last-minute edits are made, Rogue One clocks in just five minutes shy of last December’s release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.