Dillahunt starred as Francis Wolcott in the HBO series, which ran for three seasons before budgetary constraints forced the show off the air.
Naturally, this has fans of HBO’s Western all abuzz with the possibilities. Bringing Deadwood to the silver screen makes sense on a couple of fronts. First of all, the writing and the textures of the show beg for a sweeping, epic treatment. More importantly, if you ask me, we are in another one of those “Westerns are dead” doldrums in Hollywood. Perhaps The Hateful Eight will revive the Western first, but Deadwood could also change that stigma for the better.
Actor Regina Hall (Scary Movie) stopped by to talk about her latest film People Places Things, written and directed by James C. Strouse (Grace is Gone).
The film stars Jemaine Clement as Will Henry a newly single graphic novelist balancing parenting his young twin daughters and a classroom full of students while exploring and navigating the rich complexities of new love and letting go of the woman who left him. Regina plays Clement’s love interest.
Bonus track: Star Wars, Batman v Superman, and Civil War news
A photo posted by Regina Hall (@morereginahall) on
ABOUT REGINA HALL
Staking claim on her fame with her role in the comedy-horror spoof Scary Movie, Regina Hall has frequented the big screen in roles that far from betrayed her age. Born in 1971 in Washington, D.C., Hall earned a degree in journalism from N.Y.U. before embarking on a film career. In 1997, she began appearing in commercials at age 26, and then made the giant leap into movies. Her recurring role in Scary Movie and the sequel Scary Movie 2 exhibited the 30-year-old’s ability to maintain her youthful appearance, as she portrayed the high-school-aged Brenda Meeks. Hall’s first film role had come in 1999 with a small role in Malcolm D. Lee’s drama The Best Man. The following year, she made several film appearances, including her starring role in Scary Movie. In addition, she played small parts in two films directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, the drama Love and Basketball, and the TV movie Disappearing Acts, featuring Sanaa Lathan and Wesley Snipes. In 2001, Hall’s list of credits grew to include her first television role, as Corretta Lipp on the prime-time drama Ally McBeal, which was a recurring role for several episodes. Also that year, Scary Movie 2 was released, in addition to the Mandel Holland comedy The Other Brother, featuring Hall as Vicki. One year later, she starred in the action-drama Paid in Full, directed by Charles Stone III. She reprised her role as Brenda Meeks yet again for Scary Movie 3 (2003) and Scary Movie 4 (2006), and played a supporting role in the 2009 crime thriller Law Abiding Citizen. The following year she had some success for her supporting role in Neil LaBute’s remake of Frank Oz’s black comedy Death at a Funeral, in which she co-starred with Danny Glover, Peter Dinklage, and Martin Lawrence, among others. She co-starred with Kevin Hart and Michael Ealy in Think Like a Man (2012), which was adapted from Steve Harvey’s non-fiction self-improvement book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man
ABOUT HER MOVIE PEOPLE PLACES THINGS
When we meet quirky, offbeat Will Henry (Jemaine Clement), things are going pretty well. He’s making a decent living as a graphic artist and professor in Brooklyn and throwing an over-the-top fifth birthday party for his two lively twin girls, Collette and Clio (Gia and Aundrea Gadsby). But then he walks in on the twins’ mother Charlie (Stephanie Allynne), only to see his longtime partner in a compromising position with their mutual friend Gary (Michael Chernus), a shlumpy but surprisingly successful performance artist. In a heartbeat, Will’s world collapses.
A year later, Will has relocated to a tiny apartment in Astoria, and though he still puts in a good effort to mentor and inspire his students, his own artwork has grown as grim as his droll but self-deprecating sense of humor. When Charlie decides that Will needs to take on more responsibility in raising their daughters, Will finds that he lacks both the confidence and the experience to be an effective dad. And navigating the single life is no easy task either – at least until one of his more promising students, Kat (Jessica Williams) approaches him with a proposition. She sets up Will with her mother, Diane (Regina Hall) – something that both Will and Diane treat as a bit of a courtesy to Kat, rather than show much interest in each other.
An accomplished professor at Columbia, Diane isn’t much impressed with Will’s “comic book” art or his somewhat self-defeating attitude. But as time goes on, Will starts to find unexpected delight in the travails of fatherhood and bachelorhood. As he realizes that he’s going to have to learn how to both let go of and get along with Charlie, he also starts to open up more when he gets another chance with Diane, who sees the impact that he is having on her own daughter. Ultimately, it’s unlikely Will will find himself back exactly in the happy place he started – but he learns that there are always new people, places, and things that make the unexpected events in life that much more special and meaningful.
There’s a great deal to like in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., director Guy Ritchie’s highly-stylized take on the classic spy TV series of the 60’s, particularly in the casting and visual and storytelling aesthetics to which Ritchie so fully commits the film.
It’s too bad he and the three other writers credited with the film’s story didn’t come up with a strong enough plot to be worthy of all that style and the talent they brought together in front of the camera. Look past the well-crafted period setting and Cold War-era tropes and what they give audiences is a “buddy cop” film that predictably serves as a launching pad for what Warner Bros. clearly hopes can be a franchise. That’s not to say it’s not entertaining — it is, at times — but in comparison to other spy-themed action thrillers this year, it just doesn’t deliver the same level of innovative excitement.
1963 East Germany. The C.I.A.’s top agent, Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill, Man of Steel), finds himself being tailed and eventually chased and shot at by a rather formidable K.G.B. agent while attempting to reach Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander, Ex-Machina), the feisty daughter of a missing ex-Nazi rocket scientist, and extract her to Allied-controlled West Germany. He barely manages to get her out, but to his surprise, the mission doesn’t end with her extraction. Instead, he and Gaby are teamed with the very K.G.B. agent that tried to kill him the night before, Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer, The Lone Ranger), as part of a joint intelligence operation to find Gaby’s father and prevent him from building a nuclear weapon for the people presumably holding him.
Naturally, the rakish and glib Solo and the stolid, sometimes volatile Kuryakin have some issues to work out before they can effectively work together, and Gaby’s none too thrilled to have to play nice with the Russian, either. But the nefarious folks they’re after are clearly dangerous enough that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. feel it necessary to put aside their political differences and work together, so it’s not as though the spies and their asset have any choice. Make nice, stop the bad guys from starting a nuclear war, then they can all go back to trying to kill each other. Simple enough, right?
In re-imagining Solo, Kuryakin, U.N.C.L.E., and their world of international intrigue and spy-fi derring do, Ritchie and writing partner Lionel Wigram, with whom he previously worked on the Robert Downey Jr./Jude Law Sherlock Holmes films, retain the source material’s Cold War setting and recognizable tropes while also adopting a consciously European style of storytelling pace. The result is somewhat reminiscent of Steven Soderbergh’s deliberate style choices in the second of his Ocean’s trilogy, Ocean’s Twelve, or director Anton Corbijn’s vision and pace in another George Clooney vehicle, 2010’s The American, where the creation of atmosphere and full utilization of the film’s exotic settings seems to take precedence over keeping the action going at a breakneck pace. As such, while U.N.C.L.E. is certainly a pretty film to look at from start to finish, particularly in its second and third acts when the action is primarily set in Rome and in other parts of the Mediterranean, it doesn’t feel as tightly or efficiently plotted as it could have. While it never slows to a complete crawl, that lack of urgency, that prioritization of aesthetic over tension and adrenaline, may not appeal to all audiences, particularly those with Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation or even Kingsman: The Secret Service fresh in memory from earlier this year.
What should appeal to most audiences in U.N.C.L.E., to be fair, is the film’s casting. Cavill in particular shines here as Solo, who is, in essence, an American version of 007. Cavalier, impeccably tailored and styled while unmistakably dangerous, Solo was originally created for the TV series with input from Bond creator Ian Fleming himself; thus, in bringing Solo to life in this film in such a memorable way, Cavill is in part making his case to perhaps someday play Bond on screen himself. Hammer doesn’t get to have quite as much fun playing the super-serious and soft-spoken Kuryakin, but it’s undeniably fun to watch the two foils play off of each other, as they are each other’s opposite in every meaningful way save for effectiveness in the field. As far as the film’s action, both actors have no trouble with credibly delivering the requisite physicality to sell those sequences; in fact, they do so well with the action they’re given that you might find yourself wishing the film had more action-driven set pieces. The ladies in this ensemble also get a chance to hold their own and have a little fun, as the “Bond girl”/damsel in distress is one cliché Ritchie and Wigram wisely avoid using in their script. Vikander, who made a very strong impression in the critically-acclaimed Ex-Machina back in January, in particular gets to cut loose and give the boys a run for their money, while Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby) is deliciously cold and calculating as Victoria, the film’s true evil mastermind. Hugh Grant cheekily rounds out this terrific ensemble as Waverly, a British agent whose role in the entire affair will lead him to become very important in the lives of Solo and Kuryakin should U.N.C.L.E. in fact be the first in a new franchise.
But again, all that effort at European style and all that charisma in front of the camera can’t quite overcome the failings of a screen story that’s little more than a hodge-podge of the very spy movie plots that the film tries so hard to honor. Put a simpler way, the folks behind the camera in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. thought their concept and execution so clever that it could make a story built almost entirely from clichés feel fresh, vibrant, and fun, and it just isn’t. At the end of the day, it’s a film that can’t escape its conventionality, that you know exactly where things are going and where they’ll end up by the end. Perhaps that’s true of many mainstream films these days, particularly action films and thrillers, but the best ones of late, the ones that stand out and have audiences excitedly talking about them long after the credits have rolled, are ones where you may have an idea where things will end up by the end, but you have no idea how the film will get there once the bullets start flying and things get complicated.
Considering that Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows made their mark on the box office and on audiences in part by being so unconventional in its approach to its iconic source material, it’s a strange thing indeed to see him take on another iconic property and see it fall short because it’s “too conventional.” Suffice to say, this Man from U.N.C.L.E. probably won’t make even close to the kind of impression that the Holmes films did. Instead, it’s more likely to leave you thinking about how it could and should have been better.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Starring Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, with Jared Harris and Hugh Grant. Directed by Guy Ritchie.
Running Time: 116 minutes
Rated PG-13 for action violence, some suggestive content, and partial nudity.
Having the time of their lives, the Doctor and Clara embark on reckless adventures in all of space and time in the new season of BBC AMERICA’s Doctor Who starting Saturday, September 19, 9:00pm ET. The hit time travel series returns with a two-parter, The Magician’s Apprentice and The Witch’s Familiar, written by Steven Moffat and directed by Hettie Macdonald (director of award-winning Doctor Who episode Blink with Carey Mulligan).
In Peter Capaldi’s second season as the Doctor, the series sees he and Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) going on a journey that takes them to deadly alien planets, creepy underwater bases, Viking villages, a global Zygon uprising, and through hidden alien dens, to the very end of time itself.
Meeting monsters old and new, the Doctor will come face to face with Missy (Michelle Gomez), a city of Daleks, deadly mercenaries called the Mire, terrifying ghosts and more.
Previously announced and taking up a guest role in the new season will be Maisie Williams, having already achieved global success for her role as Arya Stark in Game of Thrones. Michelle Gomez (Missy) returns to plague the Doctor and Clara in the season opener, and UNIT are back with Jemma Redgrave (Kate Stewart) and Ingrid Oliver (Osgood) returning following their popular entrance last season. Also confirmed as guest cast in the new season are Rebecca Front, Rufus Hound, Paul Kaye, Joivan Wade and Sophie Stone.
The new season has been written by lead writer Steven Moffat, Toby Whithouse, Jamie Mathieson, Peter Harness, Mark Gatiss, and new writers to Doctor Who – Sarah Dollard and Catherine Tregenna; directed by Hettie Macdonald, Daniel O’Hara, Ed Bazalgette, Daniel Nettheim, Justin Molotnikov, Rachel Talalay; and produced by Tracie Simpson, Derek Ritchie, Nikki Wilson and Peter Bennett. Doctor Who is a BBC Cymru Wales production for BBC One, co-produced with BBC AMERICA.
Captain America: Civil War is filming in Germany and fans were out with their cameras to catch a glimpse of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It may be a stunt doubles, but you can clearly see the costume of Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther and the look of Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier.
Captain America: Civil War picks up where Avengers: Age of Ultron left off, as Steve Rogers leads the new team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. After another international incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability and a governing body to determine when to enlist the services of the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers while they try to protect the world from a new and nefarious villain.
Captain America: Civil War will be in theaters on May 6, 2016.
Umberto Gonzalez over at Heroic Hollywood is reporting that Doomsday will appear in Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice.
Doomsday will fight Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. During the fight Wonder Woman cuts off Doomsday’s hand with her sword. In place of the hand a bone blade grows…
Gonzalez does not source where he got this information, so this might be speculation. If it is true director Scott Snyder is sparing no expense in this film and a huge battle between Doomsday versus Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman would be epic.
Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice is written by Chris Terrio, from a screenplay by David S. Goyer. Charles Roven and Deborah Snyder are producing, with Benjamin Melniker, Michael E. Uslan, Wesley Coller, David S. Goyer and Geoff Johns serving as executive producers.
The film is set to open worldwide on March 25, 2016, and is based on Superman characters created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Batman characters created by Bob Kane, and Wonder Woman created by William Moulton Marston, appearing in comic books published by DC Entertainment.
If you are a Quentin Tarantino fan, you might be looking forward to the release of The Hateful Eight. Thankfully, The Weinstein Company has released a new teaser for our viewing pleasure…
https://youtu.be/gnRbXn4-Yis
Assuredly, The Hateful Eight looks to be a wild ride. Would you expect anything less from Tarantino? It’s great to see Kurt Russell working with Tarantino again. I mean seriously…look at that enormous mustache, and his charming demeanor. With a name like John Ruth “The Hangman” we can expect that he will be committed to making sure Daisy Domergue, Jennifer Jason Leigh, hangs as he mentions in the trailer. I am a huge fan of Russell as Stuntman Mike in Death Proof fan so for me seeing him again is nostalgic.
Hearing Samuel L. Jackson say “You gonna get a bullet,” in the trailer was enough to send metaphorical chills of anticipation down my spine. Tarantino never fails to write some of the best lines in cinema for Jackson who never fails to deliver them perfectly. One of many reasons to see any project the two work together on.
What has been your favorite Quentin Tarantino film in the past? Do you think The Hateful Eight could be his best work yet? If you are excited about seeing The Hateful Eight, I certainly look forward to hearing your thought’s, predictions, and opinions about this teaser trailer. What are you looking forward to the most about The Hateful Eight?
I’d like to hear from you. Let me know your thought’s in the comments below…
J.J. Abrams talked with Entertainment Weekly about the origin Kylo Ren the main villain of Star Wars: the Force Awakens.
Kylo Ren is allied with The First Order, a remnant of the Empire that remains a fearsome threat to the galaxy and its denizens.
“The movie explains the origins of the mask and where it’s from, but the design was meant to be a nod to the Vader mask,” Abrams tells EW. “[Ren] is well aware of what’s come before, and that’s very much a part of the story of the film.”
“The lightsaber is something that he built himself, and is as dangerous and as fierce and as ragged as the character,” said Abrams.
“He is a character who came to the name Kylo Ren when he joined a group called the Knights of Ren,” Abrams says.
It is rumored that Leia has a light saber in the new film and that is the that Darth Vader used. Could Kylo Ren be Kylo Solo? Is the new Star Wars a redemption tale or a fall from grace?
Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be in theaters on December 18.
Entertainment Weekly released 12 new photos from Star Wars: The Force Awakens that reveal some information while adding more mystery to the film.
Daisy Ridley and John Boyega get their exercise in as their characters are chased by the First Order. Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren graces the EW cover and the description reveals his light saber is homemade and his true identity has been masked. They also establish that Finn is on the run and escaped in a Storm Trooper outfit and TIE Fighter. Rey rescues BB-8. We get the first real look at C-3PO’s red arm, and Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux (Leader of The First Order). EW explains that Captain Phasma’s name has an unexpected origin and that there is a reason for the black X-Wing.
About the film:
Lucasfilm and visionary director J.J. Abrams join forces to take you back again to a galaxy far, far away as “Star Wars” returns to the big screen with Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Episode VII in the Star Wars Saga, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, opens in theaters December 18, 2015.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, directed by J.J. Abrams from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan & Abrams, features a cast including actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, Crystal Clarke, Pip Andersen, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow. They will join the original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker.
The film is being produced by Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk, and John Williams returns as the composer.
Sometimes, a movie has good intentions of showing off their action, and those films can be enjoyable to watch if they’re directed by someone who actually knows how to move the camera, and the spatial relationship between character and kinetics. If that movie gets to be too hung up on showing off – rather than simply showing – then what you end up with a narcissistic picture full of vainglory.
Director and co-writer Guy Ritchie’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E., inspired by the 1964-1968 TV series that was inspired by the James Bond pop-culture wave, tells a tale of provocative locales, lustful women, and desirable men in suits. Ritchie seems to be at peace (judging by the finished product) with allowing the acting to go astray, so what we end up with is a movie full of facile bravado and shallow performances.
The stars of the film are Henry Cavill (the current Superman) as Napoleon Solo, a CIA spy entirely too devoted to his outfits, and Armie Hammer as Illya Kuryakin, a KGB operative enlisted to team up with Solo at the height of The Cold War, 1963. Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) takes the female lead; she is an East German auto mechanic who has an important secret that she won’t reveal. The mission is to unravel and destroy a Nazi-based crime ring that is in possession of a nuclear warhead.
The script relies a little too much on breezy humor you see in spurts in some of Ritchie’s other movies. The difference in other Ritchie films (Sherlock Holmes, for example) is that the humor is effectively woven into the tapestry of the plot. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch had grit on their side. In The Man From U.N.C.L.E. we are expected to stay for the bad jokes and just gaze at the dreamy actors. Richie and Lionel Wigram, who co-wrote Sherlock Holmes as well, fail to create any connection to the glossy espionage; it is less Craig’s Bond, and too much Moore’s. Anytime Napoleon Solo was on screen I found myself more focused on the fact that he had yet changed into another suit, and less on what was even happening. When you have a picture that makes only a superficial attempt at trying to develop any sort momentum in the plot, the end result is a spiritless narrative that leaves the audience with a blasé feeling.
You are probably reading this right now and thinking “oh Dewey, you are so negative about everything.” To be honest, at first I was really into this movie. Daniel Pemberton, the composer for The Man From U.N.C.L.E., did a commendable job evoking that feeling of sixties danger music that would have been prevalent in a “swingin’” Michael Caine potboiler. Music can sometimes make or break a movie, and at least they had that right. I was also impressed with the opening car chase/shoot-out sequence. That was fast, fun, and the dialogue was nimble. 106 minutes later, I realized the opening sequence was the only illuminating part. The opening sequence was the highlight of this movie by far, and was the most memorable moment in Guy Ritchie’s 2-hour vanity project.
