Fandango released a Creed featurette titled ‘Generations’ in which Sylvester Stallone and director Ryan Coogler talk about the process of developing the film, using the past for inspiration, and taking the story in a new direction.
Coogler made his name with Fruitville Station and is rumored to direct Black Panther for Marvel Studios.
Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) never knew his famous father, world heavyweight champion Apollo Creed, who died before he was born. Still, there’s no denying that boxing is in his blood, so Adonis heads to Philadelphia, the site of Apollo Creed’s legendary match with a tough upstart named Rocky Balboa.
Once in the City of Brotherly Love, Adonis tracks Rocky (Stallone) down and asks him to be his trainer. Despite his insistence that he is out of the fight game for good, Rocky sees in Adonis the strength and determination he had known in Apollo—the fierce rival who became his closest friend. Agreeing to take him on, Rocky trains the young fighter, even as the former champ is battling an opponent more deadly than any he faced in the ring.
With Rocky in his corner, it isn’t long before Adonis gets his own shot at the title…but can he develop not only the drive but also the heart of a true fighter, in time to get into the ring?
Creed also stars Tessa Thompson as Bianca, a local singer-songwriter who becomes involved with Adonis; Phylicia Rashad as Mary Anne Creed, Apollo’s widow; and English pro boxer and former three-time ABA Heavyweight Champion Anthony Bellew as boxing champ “Pretty” Ricky Conlan.
Ryan Coogler directs from a screenplay he wrote with Aaron Covington, based on characters from the “Rocky” series written by Sylvester Stallone. The film is being produced by Robert Chartoff, Irwin Winkler, Charles Winkler, William Chartoff, David Winkler, Kevin King Templeton and Sylvester Stallone, with Nicholas Stern executive producing.
Joining Coogler behind the scenes are director of photography Maryse Alberti and costume designers Antoinette Messam and Emma Potts, as well as his “Fruitvale Station” team: editors Michael P. Shawver and Claudia Castello; production designer Hannah Beachler; and composer Ludwig Göransson.
The Horror Advocate makes cases for the under-appreciated cinematic treasures that lurk just beneath your bed. If your horror film is publicly derided, undeservedly ridiculed or generally forgotten, you may find yourself in need of… The Horror Advocate.
Resolved: The Crazies(2010) is a lean, mean, yet human piece of cinema anchored by an unnecessarily genius performance from Timothy Olyphant.
In the midst of a battle between the living and the homicidal diseased, the real horror of The Crazies is the innate fear of an overruling body taking supreme control of its citizens with no regard for due process. Numerous residents of the quiet, country town of Ogden Marsh are succumbing to a sickness and turning violent against anyone in their paths, including and especially their loved ones. As the government, being wholly responsible for the accidental release of the toxins, descends upon the town we only see them in flashes — SUVs careening out of sight, squadrons rolling up in the dark — even up through the corralling of the town into quarantine zones. Their faces, covered by gas masks, are indistinguishable and representative of a faceless overlord.
And then the masks come off. Behind these visages, we see there is a human underneath, as confused by the situation as any of our heroes. We get only a couple of brief moments with these people wearing government clothing, within which we see the humility and willingness to help despite the orders they’re following.
In a barn where our possibly infected heroes are trapped, the government search teams scour for their existence. One soldier missteps and is overtaken by the group. They remove his mask and he’s immediately sure that he’ll die just like the rest of the town because now he’s breathing it all in. As an audience, we haven’t been shown this not to be the case, but we have no reason to believe it is so. Just as the lack of information is present within the town’s residents, it is also present in those who have come in to “clean up”. The movie presents not the human at fault for the crisis, but the machine.
The Crazies is bookended with satellite shots from an unknowable source letting us know that there is something seriously wrong with the town pictured. First, it’s Ogden Marsh and the site of the plane crash (Technical difficulties? Faulty wiring? This might not have been the pilot’s fault?) then it’s Cedar Rapids which will now be host to the same “containment protocol” as the first town. We found out from a second government official our survivors encountered that the toxin was a biological weapon, code-named “TRIXIE” which was taken to be incinerated and destroyed. TRIXIE had other plans. Man created something it couldn’t handle and nature, or man’s technological creations to oversee themselves, took matters into its own hands to restore the balance. This isn’t a new idea to the sci-fi/horror landscape, but The Crazies presents the idea taking into account the fragile humanity of it all.
That fragile humanity, exemplified though some horrific gore and tense set-pieces is personified by Timothy Olyphant’s turn as Ogden Marsh’s sheriff, David. When I say that his performance is “unnecessarily” good, I mean that with the best of intentions. Modestly-budgeted sci-fi/horror isn’t the go-to for actors’ showpieces and they don’t need to be! Often times, a good horror synopsis gets people in the seats regardless of the thespian pedigree onscreen. On the page of The Crazies, the character of David isn’t anything we haven’t seen before either. He’s a smart, rugged, yet worried husband and father-to-be who just wants the best for those around him. What Olyphant does, and what makes the performance great, is almost entirely off the page and within his face and delivery.
Olyphant is a man’s man, with a wiry, trustworthy frame and a no bullshit attitude. He knows exactly what kind of movie he is in and instead of looking down at it, he respects it. When a mechanical handsaw comes whipping right next to his face and nether-regions, he believes it and you believe he’s scared of it. This might sound like strange praise to give an actor for doing their job, but the amount of emotion Olyphant puts into his eyes and his drawling delivery is invaluable to a character. His wry sense of comic timing (That car wash scene!) perfectly leavens the stress built up by director, Breck Eisner (who’s next film, Vin Diesel‘s The Last Witch Hunter, opens this weekend), and his delivery of some unintentionally corny lines to and about his wife come off as sincere and heartbreaking.
The Crazies is often overlooked as being a part of Hollywood’s remake culture of the 2000s. Yes, it is a remake. Yes, it was probably brought forth as an idea because it was existing IP created by a master like George A. Romero (who served as Executive Producer here). But there is more to this than the story of its inception. Breck Eisner took what may have been a cash grab and turned it into a very poignant portrait of humanity in its death throes. To add to the mix, the film is awesomely gruesome and features one of the best horror lead performances in recent memory. Now, go ahead and fancast Timothy Olyphant in everything. He would be absolutely perfect for it.
Marvel Studios is in negotiations with Peyton Reed to return as director of Ant-Man and the Wasp, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Reed pulled together a film that seemed lost after Edgar Wright left the project. His film was the little engine that could at the box office with a modest $57 million opening weekend but impressed with a $454 million worldwide box office take.
Ant-Man starred Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Michael Peña, Tip “T.I.” Harris, Bobby Cannavale, and Judy Greer.
Ant-Man and the Wasp is set for a July 6, 2018, release.
Brian De Palma loves making us feel like perverts. The director’s signature voyeuristic style puts the audience in salacious situations at times, creating discomfort and unease, and this is no more pronounced than in the opening scene of his breakout 1976 masterwork, Carrie. Here we are, in a high school girl’s locker room. Only it isn’t a real locker room, this is the fantasized notion of frolicking teens interpreted through the male gaze. Girls are topless, popping each other with towels, doing everything short of soaping up each other in the shower. As the softcore lighting and synth strings lure us in, De Palma’s camera drifts past the girls into the steam, where we see young Carie White (Sissy Spacek) showering. It’s even more salacious in its voyeurism, until everything goes horribly wrong.
Carrie’s first period comes while she’s showering, upending this serene, boyish fantasy with the most horrifying thing that could ever happen to a young girl who has no idea what’s wrong with her. Carrie is mocked, ridiculed, pelted with pads and tampons as the softly-lit locker room transforms into a sharply-lit, waking nightmare.
This opening scene sets the stage for a film that thrives on a false sense of security. Carrie takes us on a journey to the top of a beautiful mountain, then repeatedly pushes us off the cliff into horror. Once the opening scene ends – mercifully so – De Palma once again settles into a certain gentleness. Young Carrie is an outcast, a shy, beautiful girl who hides behind her blonde hair and lives in her troubled mind more than in the classroom or among her peers. She is bullied by the popular girls, led by Nancy Allen’s Chris Hargensen – the true monster of the film – but she finds an ally in Miss Collins (Betty Buckley), the gym teacher. The scenes following the opening lure us in once again, and they make us feel safe. That is until we meet Carrie’s mother, Margaret.
Piper Laurie’s Margaret is a horrifying creation. No doubt wounded by men in her past, obsessively religious, Margaret forces Carrie into a closet to pray when she discovers Carrie got her period at school. “First comes the blood,” she says, “and then the men.” The statue of Jesus in the closet, bloodied, broken, it’s gaze fixed through cold-dead white eyes, is deeply unsettling. And once again the gentleness of the picture is flipped, we are in the throes of true horror once again.
The central story here involves Tommy Ross, implored by his girlfriend Sue (Amy Irving) to ask Carrie to the prom. Not for malicious purposes, but out of pity. Only Tommy doesn’t see it that way; Tommy may genuinely like Carrie, and after some prodding she agrees to go with him. The invite sets the stage for the final bloodletting at prom, but as it happens everything once again feels okay. Carrie is beaming, happy, standing up to her insane mother, blossoming. Her hair no longer hides her face, she is confident for the first time in her life. But of course this cannot last.
A parallel storyline focuses on Chris and her dolt of a boyfriend, Billy, played by John Travolta. Billy and Chris hatch a plan, one we don’t quite understand until the end, but one that involves pig’s blood. This gets us to one of the more ghastly scenes in the film. Chris, Billy, and their hoodlum friends go to a pig farm one night to get their blood. Only nobody wants to kill the pig. Because it’s fucked up, the senseless murder of a pig for its blood to pull off a nasty prank. Once again, we are put ever-so-slightly at ease as it appears the pig murder won’t happen. But then, inexplicably, Billy hops the fence and brutally massacres a pig with an axe. It not only delivers the necessary shock, but it heightens the villainy of the picture. These kids are no longer kids, but real monsters, dedicated to exacting their revenge against Carrie, who never did anything to them in the first place.
The prom scene is the sequence where De Palma’s stylistic mastery is on full display. It’s the playbook for De Palma. The camera sweeps and spins, the lighting is soft and inviting, Carrie has transformed form misunderstood telekinetic freak into the belle of the ball. Literally. She and Tommy appear to really form some sort of bond. There is no sexual tension per se, because Tommy does still care for and want to be with Sue. But it’s an honest friendship, and it once again eases the audience into something pleasant. Carrie is reluctant to dance, but she does eventually, and she enjoys herself. And then she and Tommy inevitably win prom king and queen, albeit through a little manipulation. You can feel the tension build, almost physically as the camera slows and the dreamlike camerawork pulls us deeper into Carrie’s renaissance.
And then, through some genius cuts and a steadily growing apprehension, everything is once again completely upended. The pig’s blood spills from the rafters and douses poor Carrie. It is a horrific moment, maybe even more unsettling that Carrie’s vengeance. Spacek’s face, the way the soft prom lighting transforms from easy and welcoming to garish, red, and vile, all sharpens. It’s everything wonderful spinning down and concentrating into the base of a funnel of horror. The revenge is welcome for the audience, but no less horrific in the fact that Carrie’s biggest advocate, Miss Collins, is collateral damage. For all the delicacy De Palma employed in his camera leading up to this finale, his ability to flip the coin so drastically is what makes Carrie a horror masterpiece.
Brian De Palma has always been marginalized for his perversions, his tendency to employ the Hitchcockian method of exploiting females in his films. He does it in the name of style, and he does it for specific reasons. But Carrie is nothing of the kind. Here, De Palma’s watchful camera pushes the onus on the audience, making them feel the guilt and shame of this young girl whose life is ruined. The horror almost seems secondary to the nature of bullying and how nothing is as safe as it seems.
Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs is one of the most hotly-anticipated films this fall. The screenplay from Aaron Sorkin presents him as inhumane in scene after scene until they humanize him in the end. It was as if Cersei Lannister had finally captured Jon Snow then suddenly released and married him on the spot. Sorkin gleefully contributes to the absurdity of this film by structuring the story as a series of coincidences that defy reason. Even though Sorkin and Director Danny Boyle adapted the authorized biography Walter Isaacson wrote while Jobs was still alive, Steve Jobs doesn’t fill you in on Steve Jobs the man but more on what other people perceived him to be. They portray Jobs as a control freak of epic proportions and it takes place on the days of three product launches: The Macintosh in 1984, the next “black cube” computer, and finishes with the launch of iMac.
During each of these launches, he interacts with the same group of people and treats them like garbage each time. Andy Hertzfeld ( Micheal Stuhlbarg) is mercilessly belittled, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak ( Seth Rogan) is constantly ignored, and Apple board chairman John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) is constantly dismissed as being insignificant. His former girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston) keeps demanding money and wants him to acknowledge the daughter he fathered. Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), the marketing director, seems to be the only person who can call Jobs out and get him to do the “right thing.” They all realize at one point or another that he’s a horse’s ass but he must be endured because he makes money for Apple. One can only wonder how someone can be so right about technology can be so utterly clueless when it comes to dealing with people.
The film is a typhoon of dialogue as it swirls between these different product launches in Jobs’ life. When Jobs finally realizes that he had screwed up his relationship with his daughter, it’s this epiphany of imperfection that allows him to finally begin to mend broken fences.
Steve Jobs is far from a perfect film. The film is rife with dialogue, but there comes a point where you cross the line into verbosity and this film eclipses that line. It was if Aaron Sorkin wanted to cram every conversation Job’s ever had into a Two Hour gab fest. It’s an episode of Newsroom but on steroids. Less could have certainly been more.
Micheal Fassbender dominates Steve Jobs with a presence that just fills the theater. It’s hard to imagine anyone else in the title role because he embraces that role as the ego-driven Jobs in such a way that the audience both loves when he comes on screen and hates basically everything that comes out of his mouth. Daniels, Winslet, and Rogen all are on screen to serve the purpose of the Yang to Fassbender’s Ying. None of those three particularly stand out because they are so overshadowed by Fassbender’s electric work.
This movie has the potential to be a top contender for all the major awards, but line after line of dialogue weighs down the film and doesn’t allow the actors to act. Maybe Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle should have taken a page out of Apple’s playbook and thought differently.
Jeb Bush is running for the highest political office in the land, President of the United States. You would think that a person would need to be qualified to run for that position, but as Bush points out, you do not.
According to CNN, Bush was at a campaign event in Las Vegas and was asked who his favorite superhero was. He gives three answers and he probably should’ve stopped after the second.
“I like watching the movies. I wish I owned Marvel, as someone that believes in capitalism,” said Bush.
“I don’t know, I’m kinda old school. I like the old school guys like Batman, a little dark these days,” said Bush.
Wait for it…
“I saw that Supergirl is on TV, I saw it when I was working out this morning. There was an ad promoting Supergirl. She looked kinda … she looked pretty hot.”
Melissa Benoist plays Supergirl on the new CBS show, which premieres on October 26.
Things are beginning to ramp up in iZombie! With Max Rager finally getting some love, other plotlines continued, and a certain character coming back, things are looking up for Season two!
Spoilers
Nearly every single plot line that has been introduced appeared in this episode, the only storyline that didn’t was Liv’s family, and boy does that add up to a wonderful addition to our season’s story. But, while ‘Read Dead Housewife of Seattle’ excelled in progressing our overarching story, as a stand alone episode it felt a little stale.
But before we get to that, let’s talk about bit about the main characters and plotlines, and how this episode has affected them.
First of all we have Ravi, who at the beginning of this episode mentions dating this ‘Stephanie’ character. I don’t remember this every being a thing before, but I doubt it’ll last very long. Considering…
Peyton’s back! Peyton is back and ready for business. We’ve learned that she’s leading the task force against Mr. Boss, which Blaine ‘persuaded’ the Mayor to start in the first place. Peyton’s also working on patching things up, sending cakes to Liv and having a heart-to-heart with Ravi. It’s clear that Peyton is going to have a huge effect on both our characters and the whole Utopium scene, speaking of which…
Major is still sniffing away at that Utopium, he’s clearly hooked. And despite how uncomfortable it makes him, Major is still keeping those zombies a sinkin’. Speaking of Majors employer…
Max Rager really is planning something evil. Just this episode we saw Du Clark having sex with wives, killer their husbands, and doing this strange yoga-like routine. We clearly have a villain on our hands. We’ve also learned something else shocking about this CEO, he has a certain relation to the secretary…
Speaking of the secretary, she really had a big role this episode. We learned Du Clark is her dad, she had a bigger presence as Liv’s roommate, and she’s making out with Major now. I guess I actually have to learn her name now. Gilda… hmm, she doesn’t really look like a Gilda, more of a… Leanne. Right? Well, at least Gilda is easier than calling her Max Rager’s CEO’s Secretary/Secret Daughter. Speaking of Max Rager…
Definitely a Leanne.
Guess who Liv saw at Max Rager? That’s right! Liv saw Major at Max Rager (Major at Max Rager… has a nice ring to it)! Liv was not to happy about that. I’d guess this means that eventually Liv is going to find out about Major’s zombie hunting activities, and his drug addiction. Probably the drugs first, if I were to guess. Liv went through some hard times this episode.
She saw Major at Max Rager (yep, still fun to say), saw the Prodigal Best Friend return, and found out her new best friend was actually a murderer. While things seem to look up at the end, this was a bad week for Liv to have such a sensitive and dramatic brain. Speaking of brains…
Liv’s persona this week was just as over-the-top as the previous weeks, if not more. Keeping in line with this new seasons quirk of more powerful brains. Last week I mentioned that I was worried these dramatic persona’s might wear out, and this episode gave that fear a little legitimacy. Don’t get me wrong, there were moment that elicited a hearty laugh, but other brought nothing but a cringe. This weeks Liv actually got a little annoying, which is both a first and a disappointment. Let’s just hope it doesn’t happen again.
As for the actual murder and solution, it also left us a little cold. The ‘murderer’ wasn’t foreshadowed at all and was more shock value than well-written. And it was suggested that she didn’t even do it, but it doesn’t matter because the possible real killer is dead, thanks Du Clark. Overall the mystery wasn’t intriguing, and the solution didn’t feel satisfactory. I can say without a doubt this episodes case was the weakest we’ve seen from the series so far.
Yeah, this Liv? Not my favorite Liv
Overall this episode was a real mixed bag, what it did well it did really well, and what it didn’t do well it really didn’t do well.
The international trailer for Jane Got a Gun starring Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, Noah Emmerich, Joel Edgerton, and Rodrigo Santoro has made its way to the internet, thanks to Latino-Review.
It will be interesting to see what this film looks like as this film was originally scheduled for release on August 29, 2014. The director Lynne Ramsay quit the project along with Michael Fassbender, Jude Law, and Bradley Cooper. Anthony Tambakis was brought in to rewrite the script.
In the end, Jane Got a Gun was directed by Gavin O’Connor and is looking at a February 2016 release.
