CBR pointed out that Andre Tricoteux announced on social media that his part as Colossus in the up coming Deadpool film staring Ryan Reynolds has wrapped up filming.
Deadpool co-star Gina Carano chimed in as well on Twitter. The Merc with a mouth is directed by Tim Miller and will be in theaters on February 12, 2016.
Over the past month countless photos and videos of the Joker, Batman and Harley Quinn from the set of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad have flooded social media.
According to the director, those days could be over as Ayer has informed social media it is time to take the film off the grid. Ayer also stated that the film’s surprises are still intact and social didn’t ruin the film.
There’s so much vintage Cameron Crowe to be found and enjoyed in his latest writing/directing effort, Aloha, that it’s hard to pinpoint just why the film never really comes together or finds its stride. Crowe’s signature ear for dialogue and soundtrack selection is certainly on display here, as is his ability to bring to life on screen the particular personality of a place — in this case Hawaii — and like just about all of his work, the film feels personal and intimate. He also brings together a truly remarkable ensemble cast for the film, led by two of Hollywood’s most acclaimed stars right now, Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone, each of whom is coming off of Oscar nominations for almost universal acclaim for their recent work.
But despite having all that going for it, Aloha simply sinks under the weight of its good intentions and contrivances. It’s as though Crowe wished to make two completely different films — one a grown-up love story about being at a crossroads in one’s life and having to choose between the past and the future, and another about the beauty, mystery, and current political and social predicament of Hawaii — and mashed the two projects together, hoping they’d be compatible.
Turns out they were not, and the resulting film will no doubt be a tremendous disappointment to fans of Crowe and the cast, if people go to see the film at all.
Cooper plays Brian Gilcrest, a one-time Air Force officer whose once-successful second career as a military contractor hit the skids after a disastrous project failure in the Middle East. Offered a job by his former boss, eccentric Richard Branson-type industrialist Carson Welch (Bill Murray), and an opportunity to return to familiar stomping grounds in Hawaii, where many of his early career successes came about, Brian takes what he knows might be his last chance to get back on track, though it will most certainly bring him in contact with his personal “road not taken.” His ex-girlfriend Tracy (Rachel McAdams), now married to a soft-spoken Air Force pilot (John Krasinski, “The Office”) and a mother of two, represents many of the regrets that haunt Brian as he steps off the plane upon his arrival in the Aloha State, and the way he left things is something he knows he’ll be forced to deal with at some point during his stay.
What Brian doesn’t know and doesn’t expect is that the Air Force has assigned him a rather formidable liaison/babysitter to keep him on task and prevent another fiasco like the one in Afghanistan that continues to stain his professional reputation. Captain Allison Ng (Emma Stone), an F-22 pilot and a “fast burner” of an officer who does everything with the crisp alacrity of a lifelong overachiever, has it in mind to be Brian’s hands-on partner in getting the job done, a job which requires negotiating with leaders of a social and cultural independence movement for Hawaii that have deep suspicions about the U.S. military and their intentions for the land and sky they regard as holy and sacred. As much as Ng is a dedicated officer with her eyes on the fast track to career advancement, she’s also proudly a product of Hawaii’s culture and traditions, and believes them worth more than simply lip service from Brian’s employers. Her idealism and passion catch Brian off guard, and it’s not long before he’s completely disarmed and enchanted by them.
The Air Force and Welch just want the job done. Ng wants Brian to be more than just a “fixer” and to do right by everyone, including her once she lets herself get emotionally involved. Tracy, while in the midst of dealing with issues in her marriage, wants closure, and for Brian to truly understand just he left behind years ago. As for the man at the center of it all, he suddenly realizes he hasn’t a clue what he wants, aside from not to mess up again, with his career or with his personal life, but taking the next step in both may involve making compromises he’s not prepared to make, and to do something he hasn’t really been doing for quite a while: actually live.
In execution, Aloha has some similarity to Crowe’s 2005 film Elizabethtown — both feature stories deeply tied to the personality of their unique settings, and both focus on protagonists damaged by their past choices, their past failures, unsure of how to move forward until a bright, irrepressible woman blows into their lives like a force of nature. That arrival brings both hope and fear, as well as demands some kind of reconciliation and resolution with what burdens the character, no matter how much they might try to avoid it. In both cases, it seems Crowe was certain that audiences would fall in love with the places where the stories took place the way he clearly did, and perhaps to a lesser extent fall in love with the “meet cute” scenarios from which the romantic plots of the films spring forth.
The results in that former film and even more so in Aloha are more or less the same. While sweet, earnest, and well-meaning in its reverential treatment of Hawaii’s native personality and the challenges faced by its people, it’s perhaps just a little too reassured in its own cleverness to work hard enough to get audiences to buy in. The performances delivered by the cast here could certainly be indicative of that, as well; after seeing Cooper and Stone bring such visceral intensity to their work in American Sniper and Birdman, respectively, what we get from them here is surprisingly uninspiring. In trying to convey Brian’s seen-it-all cynicism and guilt, Cooper just comes off as listless, while Stone looks and sounds like she’s working too hard to find the character’s voice, especially when delivering exposition explaining Ng’s understanding and belief in Hawaii’s native beliefs and traditions. The worst offender by far, though, is Murray, who mumbles his lines and blithely saunters in and out of scenes as though he knows he’s stealing a paycheck and getting a vacation to Hawaii in at the same time. Alec Baldwin and Danny McBride fare better in the sense that their characters have some genuinely interesting quirk to them; Baldwin, in fact, is a hoot to watch in all his way-too-tightly wound scenes and is easily the most memorable and enjoyable presence here.
Add to the mixed bag of performances here some questionable editing and pacing decisions — it’s somewhat telling that many lines of dialogue used in the trailers to market the film actually do not appear in the film’s final cut — and you get a film that lacks intensity and narrative direction, even when you know just from the setup just who’s going to end up with whom at the end. It just sort of wanders from one set of scenes to the next, prolonging certain narrative beats and diminishing others seemingly at random, until it finally finds some momentum near the end of its third act, and by then it’s way too late for that momentum to matter.
It’s disappointing, because this is a film no doubt audiences who look forward to and seek out movies with smarter scripts that defy easy classification will want to like this movie, and there are those moments of compelling, authentic-sounding dialogue and perfectly-paired music (seriously, with tracks crossing the gamut from classic rock to ’80s to Hawaiian standards, this is a soundtrack you may end up downloading, even if you never see the film) that will deliver the feeling that the whole film is meant to, and also remind Crowe’s longtime fans of just why they love his movies in the first place. If only those moments outweighed the times in the film when things just don’t resonate the way you know Crowe intended, the way they perhaps resonated in his head as he was writing or directing the scene.
What a film that might have been.
Aloha
Starring Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, John Krasinski, Danny McBride, and Alec Baldwin. Directed by Cameron Crowe.
Running Time: 105 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some language including suggestive comments.
Trailers have definitely changed in the last thirty years, and the trailers for Mad Max: Fury Road were easily the biggest selling point of the film leading up to its release. Bt what if Fury Road was released in, say, 1987, just a few years after Thunderdome? The trailer might be something like this… this awesome 80s rendition of the film…
Summer is upon us, which means its time to shed those brown ales, coffee stouts, and porters, for lighter fare that is much more enjoyable when the mercury spikes. Leaving behind those heavy ales doesn’t mean you have to throw a case of light beer in the cooler on your way to the closest watering hole. There are plenty of craft beers out there that are made with just enough care, flavor, and hops to still be enjoyable through all the sweat and sunburns.
Here is a list of various summer ales, depending on what you’re looking for and what the occasion may be, to enjoy this summer while you wait on the fall brewing season. These are also readily available across the country, for the most part. If you want something that still has plenty of hoppy bite, or something with a little fruit to lighten the mood, you can find something here…
Sam Adams Summer Ale – The absolute go to for balance, flavor, and all-around universal summer enjoyment, the Sam Adams Summer Ale works for a cookout, a campout, or a night sitting out on the patio willing the hot sun to go below the horizon. Sam Summer is a wheat beer with hints of lemon in its finish, which is light and fleeting, and the body is bountiful.
Leinenkugel Summer Shandy – This is a great beer for when it gets hot, and I mean really hot. Those dog days of August, even those July days nearing triple digits are perfect for this Summer Shandy, which is less a beer and more a lemonade that has its sweetness calmed by hops and barely. It is fleeting and easy to drink, and the alcohol content is lower than most craft beers, making it a nice all day sipper.
New Belgium Shift – This is a pale lager, which is perfect for summer nights and barbecues, but it is definitely the summer beer for the hops lover. It has a bite, and it is bold in its finish. If you are looking for a hop-heavy brew in a season where hops seem to take a backseat to fruit, this is the one for you.
Stiegl Radler Grapefruit – The name says it all, a grapefruit beer. This beer is refreshing and tart as it is blended directly with grapefruit juice at conception, but it never loses sight of its roots as a beer. It may be too sweet to ingest when it nears 100 degrees, but in the evening, after a light dinner, it is the perfect way to wind down in the backyard.
Founders All Day IPA – For those who love an IPA, but the heat in the summer may conflict with the stout hoppy nature of typical IPAs, All Day is a perfect blend. While it still captures all the robust notes of a traditional IPA, the finish is much cleaner and the beer itself is less filling. And the name, All Day, is in reference to the lower ABV percentage, which is another reason why it stays less filling.
Jim Breuer was on the media circuit today promoting his stand up special “Comic Frenzy” premiering on Epix this Friday.
Matthew Sardo caught up with Breuer and the duo discussed; the New York Mets, David Letterman, getting older, the return of Rock and Roll, and our imaginary Pete Davidson – Jim Breuer buddy cop film.
As a Die Hard Mets fan. My heart goes out to David Wright. Who we may never see play another game ever again .
We know Andy Serkis, the master of motion capture characters, has a part in the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Now, we know his name, and we have our first look at Serkis doing what he does best, motion capture.
Legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz snapped a shot of Serkis doing motion capture for Supreme Leader Snoke, whose identity and place in the story will (hopefully) remain a secret as long as possible. Here is the picture:
While the story of Supreme Leader Snoke and the eventual look of Andy Serkis as the character is driving fanboys nuts today, what is evident is that it is Serkis, as Supreme Leader Snoke, doing the voiceover from the first trailer.
If there’s a playbook out there for screenwriters in Hollywood for creating the modern disaster movie, San Andreas runs every single play from it without deviation. It’s spectacular to look at, as well it should be thanks to today’s top-dollar special effects and a budget big enough to bring them all to bear, but it’s so predictable that even particular lines of dialogue can be heard coming by even the most casual of movie goer, and the lack of anything really new robs the film of any real impact aside from the visual.
Before everything starts shaking and crumbling, of course, the film takes a few minutes at the outset to introduce its principals. Your stalwart “everyman” hero this time is Ray Gaines (Dwayne Johnson), a veteran LAFD search and rescue helicopter pilot, who’s also “Dad” to college-bound daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario, HBO’s “True Detective”) and soon-to-be ex-husband to Emma (Carla Gugino). Ray is very, very good at his job and he’s a good father, too, but a tragic loss to the family years before drove a wedge between him and Emma, and thus he’s on the outside looking in as Blake gets ready to leave the nest and Emma tries to move on with new boyfriend Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd).
Meanwhile, at nearby Caltech, seismology experts Drs. Lawrence Hayes (Paul Giamatti) and Kim Park (Will Yun Lee) think they may have a lead on a final piece of evidence to prove their model for predicting earthquakes works: a series of tremors and a spike in magnetic pulses in the vicinity of Hoover Dam in Nevada. Their “lead” turns out to be much more than either of them anticipate, however, as while they are on site the dam is struck by a devastating quake. The data collected at the site during and after the event leads Dr. Hayes to a terrifying conclusion: that the quake at the dam was only a precursor event signifying an earthquake the likes of which North America has never seen or even thought possible.
However, before he can get the word out, the quake hits, starting at the southern end of the San Andreas Fault near Los Angeles, then making its way northward along the fault line all the way to San Francisco. Ray, who was about to head to Hoover Dam to assist with the recovery there, suddenly finds himself flying through and around collapsing L.A. landmarks to rescue Emma from a rooftop restaurant. The parents together then head north to reach Blake in San Francisco, who uses everything she ever learned about what to do in emergencies from her dad to keep herself and new friends Ben and Ollie (Hugo Johnstone-Burt and Art Parkinson, respectively) alive as things get progressively worse in Shaky Town. As Ray and Emma travel via air, land, and even water to reach their daughter, the distance proves to be the least of their obstacles, as the massive quake that they witnessed level L.A. isn’t the end of the danger to what’s left of California, but the beginning …
Somewhere, Roland Emmerich, the film maker who along with partner-in-crime Dean Devlin in 1996 famously reinvigorated the disaster thriller genre with Independence Day and later went on refine his film formula with 2004’s The Day After Tomorrow and 2009’s 2012, must be smiling as he sees the promotion for San Andreas. After all, it might as well be one of his films, as closely as it adheres to the basic approach that each of his apocalyptic epics followed on their way to box office millions. Specifically, it most resembles The Day After Tomorrow, with its third act primarily comprised of the perilous journey a brave parent undertakes to reach their imperiled child as Nature’s fury is unleashed on an unimaginable scale. But the casting, the plot beats, the various tropes used to ratchet up the intensity as the world crumbles on screen, and the sort-of-science Emmerich used to bring his end-of-the-world yarns to life and profitability are meticulously recycled here with state-of-the-art special effects and “The Rock”, Dwayne Johnson, arguably Hollywood’s most versatile action figure, right smack in the middle of it to make it even more of a summer movie draw. How could any studio exec refuse such a winning formula? Indeed, if Emmerich himself wasn’t working on Independence Day 2 (yes, that’s really happening, in case you didn’t know), he probably would be kicking himself that he didn’t make this movie for Warner Bros.
Speaking of “The Rock”, the man is due a great deal of credit for his approach to this material, as he does his best to avoid camp and bring gravitas to the proceedings. Unlike his over-the-top and constantly flexed appearances in the “Fast and the Furious” films of late, there isn’t a hint of bravado here, not a single appearance of “The People’s Eyebrow” or any action movie one-liners. He, along with his castmates, reacts to the green-screen manufactured chaos with believable terror, awe, and finally grim determination to survive in a way meant to inspire audiences, not make them giggle, at least not intentionally. His on-screen chemistry with Gugino is nonimal, but it doesn’t detract from the film, at all. He seems to understand that although his name is above the title here, he’s not the real star of the film: all those expensive special effects are.
If only director Brad Peyton (Journey to the Center of the Earth 2: The Mysterious Island, also with Johnson) and screenwriter Carlton Cuse (TV’s “Lost”) had allowed themselves to deviate just a tiny bit from what’s expected in these films and thus given themselves an opportunity to bring something new to the table, something to separate their film from all the schlocky, cash-grab disaster flicks that have come before it, rather than simply rely on all those FX shots and the presence of Johnson to make San Andreas memorable in any meaningful way. But no, it all goes more or less the way you expect it to, so much so that it might surprise you just how much you can see it all coming, and thus the film simply becomes this year’s “let’s watch San Francisco get crushed” film.
At least last year it was the “King of Monsters”, Godzilla, doing all that demolition work in the heart of the Golden City — that, in comparison to the faceless tremors and tidal waves in San Andreas, had its moments of guilty pleasure fun.
San Andreas
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Ioan Gruffudd, Archie Panjabi, and Paul Giamatti. Directed by Brad Peyton.
Running Time: 114 minutes
Rated PG-13 for intense disaster action and mayhem throughout, and brief strong language.
Jaws, the film that birthed the summer blockbuster, is heading back to the theaters this summer for its 40th anniversary. Steven Spielberg’s thrilling shark adventure, released on June 1, 1075, changed the face of Hollywood and holds up marvelously today, thanks in no small part to the performances from Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and the steely-eyed madness of Robert Shaw’s shark hunter, Quint.
Universal Pictures is teaming up with a company called Fathom Events to re-release Jaws on two days, June 21 and 24 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. both days. The release will be in select theaters across the country.
You can find all the information about this special Jaws re-release and, if you’re near one of these theaters, buy tickets here.
Episode #49: “The Dance of Dragons”
Debut: SUNDAY, JUNE 7
Stannis (Stephen Dillane) confronts a troubling decision. Jon (Kit Harington) returns to The Wall. Mace (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) visits the Iron Bank. Arya (Maisie Williams) encounters someone from her past. Dany (Emilia Clarke) reluctantly oversees a traditional celebration of athleticism.
Written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss; directed by David Nutter.
Episode #50: “Mother’s Mercy” (season finale)
Debut: SUNDAY, JUNE 14
Stannis marches. Dany is surrounded by strangers. Cersei (Lena Headey) seeks forgiveness. Jon is challenged.
Written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss; directed by David Nutter.
