Back to the Future: The Musical started early previews at the Manchester Opera House just last week. Unfortunately, since the show is only playing in London until the middle of May, that leaves a lot of Back to the Future fans unable to check out the lively show from Tony Award-winning director John Rando (Urinetown, On The Town). But the good news is you can get a little sneak peek at what the show looks like thanks to some Back to the Future: The Musical photos from the first week of shows for the stage production. They even have a full scale DeLorean time machine on stage. Read More »
We live in an era of franchises, filled with an abundance of sequels and every studio wanting their own shared cinematic universe. But while the big franchises of today are mostly comic-book, Star Wars and action movies like Fast and Furious – with a couple of horror ones here and there like the highly successful Conjuring universe – back in the 1930s the biggest cinematic universe belonged to the misunderstood monsters of the Universal Classic Monsters movies. But while Boris Karloff’s portrayal of Frankenstein’s Monster, or Bela Lugosi’s Dracula have remained iconic representations of this classic horror era, there is one truly horrific monster that usually can’t be found in the picture – Claude Rains’ The Invisible Man. Read More »
When Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hit theaters, a few essential plot points seemed to be…missing. But don’t worry, there were plenty of Star Wars supplementary materials and books to fill in the gaps. Now a comic book adaptation of The Rise of Skywalker will clear things up even more. The forthcoming The Rise of Skywalker comic will not only adapt J.J. Abrams‘ film, but it will include deleted and extended scenes. Time to restart the “what was Finn going to say to Rey?” debates.
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When I had the opportunity to sit down for an interview with Corneliu Porumboiu, writer and director of the delightful film The Whistlers, it was the first time in my writing career I ever felt I shouldn’t come too heavily prepared with questions. I didn’t want answers from the filmmaker at the vanguard of the Romanian New Wave about his new work. Since The Whistlers is all about dualities, paradoxes and contradictions, what I really wanted was to simply engage in dialogue around all that the film raises. Luckily, Porumboiu indulged my odd request rather than scoffing at it.
Some quick background on this off-kilter crime caper before jumping into our conversation: The Whistlers follows the exploits of Vlad Ivanov’s crooked Romanian police inspector Cristi as he sets off to claim a bounty of drug money in the far-off Canary Islands. In order to get his hands on this coveted prize, he’ll have to learn a coded language of whistles that’s both simple and secretive. Along his winding path, Porumboiu has his protagonist confront any number of deceptive double agents, absurd situations, and self-serious archetypes from movie genres. It’s an uncategorizable delight, and it was an honor to dive deeper into the rich text with the filmmaker himself. Read More »
(Infinity and Beyond is a regular bi-weekly column documenting the 25-year filmography of Pixar Animation Studios, film by film. In today’s column, writer Josh Spiegel highlights Finding Nemo.)
Pixar Animation Studios had not stepped wrong with its first four feature films. Though they weren’t all perfect, the two Toy Story films, A Bug’s Life, and Monsters, Inc. had their fair share of fans, critical praise, and awards. What’s more, each of the films had been a big success at the worldwide box office, with Monsters, Inc. being the biggest hit of all. Remaking a sequel in nine months? Easy. Fending off claims of plagiarism? No sweat. Their films had even become so instantly famous that the Walt Disney Company was using them as the foundation for theme-park rides, merchandise, and even more. Hell, A Bug’s Life inspired a themed land in Disney’s California Adventure when it opened in February of 2001.
Yet below the surface, there was trouble brewing. As impressive as Pixar’s track record was so far, the CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Michael Eisner, was convinced that they were due for a reality check. That phrase isn’t just a whim of this writer — it’s a phrase he used in communicating with the Disney board of directors in advance of the studio’s fifth feature. He’d seen early cuts of the upcoming title, and was very unimpressed with the result. It was the story of a neurotic clownfish whose son goes missing in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. And Eisner was convinced the way audiences reacted to the film would remind Pixar who was really boss in their distribution deal.
With hindsight, we can say that Finding Nemo did indeed serve as a reminder of who was boss between Pixar and Disney. It just wasn’t the answer Michael Eisner expected or wanted.
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Hollywood isn’t the only source of blockbusters anymore. International film industries generate hits with the same frequency, on scales local and sometimes even global, often outgrossing American studio films. But such is the imperial dominance of Hollywood, any time a major hit emerges from outside the English-speaking world, conversation immediately gravitates toward a potential American remake. Hollywood just can’t keep its mitts off an idea that might make money. But while this process is widely reviled, for several good reasons, there are subtleties within it – and the films themselves are undeserving of prejudice.
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A Quiet Place Part II is one of the most anticipated movies of 2020, and it’s just a few weeks away from arriving in theaters. That means it’s time for you to round up your friends as quietly as possible and pick up tickets that just went on sale today. But if you’re not yet convinced that you need to see this sequel in theaters with the best sound system possible, Paramount Pictures has debuted A Quiet Place Part II clip teasing the danger that Emily Blunt and her kids are still facing. Read More »
Kevin Feige is already the master of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but soon he’ll be the star of a major comic book movie franchise within the animated world of The Simpsons.
An upcoming episode of the 31st season of FOX’s animated family sitcom will lean into superhero movies in a big way when Bart Simpson ends up seeing an early screening of the latest sequel in the Vindicator comic book movie franchise. Instead of playing the shepherd behind the scenes of this superhero franchise, Kevin Feige will be playing the Vindicator’s villain Chinnos, a riff on the Avengers villain Thanos and his massive, bulbous chin. Before the episode premieres this weekend, you can get a tease of Kevin Feige voicing Chinnos in The Simpsons Avengers parody clip below. Read More »
Posted on Friday, February 28th, 2020 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 go looking for little-seen movies featuring invisibility!)
This week’s big new release is a fresh take on a classic – a Universal Monsters classic to be precise – but while Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man finds its own identity by playing around with the formula, plenty of other films have followed similar paths to entirely different destinations. What started with James Whales’ 1933 classic grew to include direct sequels and plenty of films that found inspiration in the H.G. Wells adaptation.
The plot point of people turning invisible has been through numerous iterations, from Kurt Russell’s college shenanigans for Disney in Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1972) to Paul Verhoeven’s decidedly R-rated horrors in Hollow Man (2000) to even raunchier fare like The Erotic Adventures of the Invisible Man (2003). But you know all of those, so how about we take a look at some entertaining examples you’ve most likely missed over the years?
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Cool Posts From Around the Web:
Disneyland’s brand new Magic Happens parade has officially opened. This is the first new day-time parade at Disneyland in almost a decade, so to say we were excited is an understatement! In our latest Ordinary Adventures vlog, we bring you along with us as we experience Magic Happens for the very first time. SPOILER ALERT: WE LOVED IT! Hit the jump to see the video and learn about this new parade!
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