We’re only a couple episodes into The Mandalorian, but the visuals so far have been on par with what we’ve come to expect from blockbuster movies. That’s partially because the series has an average budget of $12.5 million per episode, but that’s also because the artists working on The Mandalorian have incredible vision when it comes to expanding the world of Star Wars and bringing us firmly into sci-fi western territory. Thankfully, Disney and Lucasfilm have officially released the concept art that can be glimpsed in the credits at the end of each episode. Read More »
District 9 director Neill Blomkamp was previously working on a new RoboCop project that would act as a direct sequel to the original 1987 movie, following in the footsteps of recent retcon sequels like Halloween in 2018 and this year’s Terminator: Dark Fate. But he left the project towards the end of this past summer, and now a new filmmaker is jumping into the director’s chair to take over the film being called RoboCop Returns. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, November 20th, 2019 by Ben Pearson
We’re just over a month away from Christmas, and while that means we’re going to be spending lots of time in theaters catching up on some of the year’s best movies, FX is giving us something else to watch in our downtime at home. The cable channel is airing a “dark reimagining” of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’ classic tale of Ebenezer Scrooge as he’s guilted into transforming from a penny-pinching, Christmas-hating miser into the world’s best boss. But if you’re looking for a lighthearted version of this story, look elsewhere: Guy Pearce‘s Scrooge adds “sex creep” to his character’s long list of terrible attributes in this one. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, November 20th, 2019 by Jack Giroux
Have you ever experienced the simple pleasures of binge-watching the show Happy Endings? If not, you’re missing out, because in a word: it’s ah-mah-zing. The ABC series is a warm blanket of a comedy with its lovable characters and kind-hearted sense of humor. Even its opening credits create a warm feeling. Created by David Caspe (Black Monday), the comedy lasted for three seasons, two years, and 57 episodes, and while that is a lot of content and fun to be had, it was still canceled too soon.
Imagine if the show came out today, though, with an advertisement proclaiming, “From the visionary directors of Avengers: Endgame,” Joe and Anthony Russo. The filmmakers executive-produced the comedy and directed a handful of episodes, so when we spoke to them at the 21 Bridges press day, of course, we had to ask them about this, their greatest achievement.
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Posted on Wednesday, November 20th, 2019 by Ben Pearson
Mindhunter season 3 has yet to receive an official greenlight from Netflix, but even if the streaming platform were ready to dole out a renewal, the show’s creator is currently too busy to jump back into the world of serial killers. A new report says that the third season is on hold until David Fincher, who effectively serves as the showrunner for the crime drama, wraps production his next movie. Get details about that film and Fincher’s plans for the future of Mindhunter below.
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One of the most common refrains among the men and women who work on high-caliber television shows — specifically television dramas — is that their programs are really just 10-hour movies. (Or 8-hour movies, or however many episodes are in a given season.) TV, at least when you hear how the people who make it discuss it, wants very badly to be seen not as the red-headed stepchild to cinema, but to be cinema itself.
Often, the comment that the latest buzzy TV show isn’t really a show, but an extremely long movie, ends up being a ridiculous defense against a story that doesn’t get told well in a small-screen medium. If you’re really making a 10-hour movie, that might mean the resulting 10 installments feel incomplete on their own, and thus become a distinct form of poorly conceived TV. With the marquee new Disney+ show, The Mandalorian, however, you genuinely can suggest that its first season feels like a movie. So far, though, it feels like The Mandalorian really ought to have been a movie to begin with.
This post contains spoilers for the first two episodes of The Mandalorian.
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UPDATE: Variety reports Cats will be screened for the Hollywood Foreign Press in time to qualify for the Golden Globes, but it remains to be seen how it will shake out for other awards voting bodies, but since the Golden Globes deadline was December 4, it shouldn’t be a problem for many of them. Our original story from November 10 follows below.
As the year comes to an end, we’re getting into the heart of awards season. This is the time of year when studios release most of the movies they hope will be vying for Oscars, Golden Globes, and plenty of other awards from various guilds, critic circles, and more. The deadlines to qualify for these awards are always known far in advance, but every now and then some films end up cutting it rather close, and this year, that film is Cats.
Cats is the big screen adaptation of the long-running Broadway musical of the same name, and a big ensemble cast that includes Francesca Hayward, Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, James Corden, Rebel Wilson, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, and more. Director Tom Hooper (Les Miserables) is bringing the story to life with a heft amount of visual effects, using what has been hilariously referred to as digital fur technology, to turn the movie’s stars into photorealistic human-cat hybrids that terrified many as soon as the first trailer arrived. It’s an interesting, albeit haunting, way to tell this story, and now it might cause the film to miss some major awards deadlines. Read More »
Cynthia Erivo recently brought Harriet Tubman to life in Kasi Lemmons‘ biopic Harriet. But back in the 1990s, things could’ve gone very, very differently. According to Harriet screenwriter Gregory Allen Howard, an attempt to get the movie made back in 1994 resulted in one studio executive suggesting Julia Roberts for the role of the African-American abolitionist.
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Posted on Wednesday, November 20th, 2019 by Rob Hunter
(Welcome to The Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, a series that takes a look at slightly more obscure, under-the-radar, or simply under-appreciated movies. This week we take inspiration from a new streaming series that everyone’s talking about and explore some under-seen and under-loved tales about bounty hunters.)
The odds are pretty good that you’ve heard about the new Disney+ series The Mandalorian by now. It’s about a guy who wears a helmet to work only to discover that the helmet is actually wearing him. Heavy, right? He’s a bounty hunter tasked with bringing in certain beings, dead or alive, but he grows a conscience when asked to kill…something. I don’t know, I’ve only seen vague tweets so far, but the point is that it’s not easy being a bounty hunter.
It’s a perfectly legal career built on committing violent abductions for money, and that’s a character trait tailor made for the screen. The movies have embraced tales about bounty hunters over the years starting with westerns before moving into more modern crime stories and beyond, and while the character has become a character type it’s also resulted in movies ranging from great ones like Midnight Run (1988), True Grit (1969/2010), and Slow West (2015) to fun ones like Trancers (1985) and Wanted: Dead or Alive (1986).
Of course, there are some that fall into those two categories that have also fallen between the cracks, and that’s where this column comes in – keep reading for the best movies you’ve never seen about bounty hunters!
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Renfield, the lunatic who loves to eat bugs and pal around with Count Dracula, is getting his own movie. Having failed with their original Dark Universe plan, Universal is now taking risks on stranger projects. One is Leigh Whannell’s creepy-looking and very modern Invisible Man. The other is Paul Feig’s Dark Army. And now here comes Renfield, with Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher at the helm. In addition to that, there’s apparently a James Wan-produced Frankenstein in the works, too.
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