(Welcome to Not Dead Yet, a feature dedicated to new Blu-ray releases and what special features you should be excited about. Because yes, some of us still like to own physical copies of our movies.)
Hello once again, physical media phans. It’s time to round-up some of the best Blu-rays currently available for your viewing pleasure. This week we have Ava DuVernay‘s inventive Disney film A Wrinkle In Time, the emotional coming-of-age dramadey Love, Simon, the darkly hilarious The Death of Stalin, Alicia Vikander‘s Tomb Raider reboot, and Bruce Willis‘ Death Wish remake.
Here are the new Blu-ray releases and their special features you should check out this week.
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Now that A Wrinkle in Time is available on Blu-ray, DVD and digital download, it’s no longer save from the wrath of Honest Trailers. Watch as Disney takes us through a wild acid trip with a young girl named Meg (Storm Reid) who finds herself on an adventure trying to save her father (Chris Pine) from being trapped on the set of Drake’s “Hotline Bling” music video. Read More »
After seeing A Wrinkle in Time, I was overwhelmed by the fact that this is an entire blockbuster movie that acts as a celebration of women. Even more special and unique is that women of color are always at the forefront of this movie, with director Ava DuVernay leading the charge.
A Wrinkle in Time is very much a movie for children and everyone clearly made the choice to remove most of the darker themes and scenes from the book to create a charming family film. Less focused on being a exact mirror for the book, DuVernay has made A Wrinkle in Time into more of a modern fairytale. A fairytale by women, for young women.
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The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.
In this edition, Conan O’Brien becomes Dwayne Johnson‘s stunt double with a special Rampage twist. Plus, James Corden does A Wrinkle in Time 4D with cast members from the Disney fantasy, and a video essay points out some problems with the cinematography and editing of David Letterman‘s Netflix series. Read More »
The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.
In this edition, count down some of the best animated shows that were based on movies that came before them. Plus, watch as director Ava DuVernay narrates a scene from the fantasy adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, and listen to the story Bill Hader has about getting kicked out of Kate McKinnon‘s audition for Saturday Night Live. Read More »
(In our Spoiler Reviews, we take a deep dive into a new release and get to the heart of what makes it tick…and every story point is up for discussion. In this entry: Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time.)
I’m going to start this A Wrinkle in Time spoiler review a little differently than normal. I think we, as a critic and audience, should be honest with each other for a moment.
Some of you out there might not be aware of this, but there’s a certain burden that comes with being a woman of color in the film criticism space. To be truthful, I don’t feel this burden all of the time, but I always know it’s there. As I’m surprised to find, writing this review for A Wrinkle in Time happens to be one of those times in which I distinctly feel the pressure I’m under as a black woman to like and laud A Wrinkle in Time, to support director Ava DuVernay. But I can’t honestly do that. The film has a multitude of issues that must be addressed.
However, the film itself can also be reviewed on two different levels: how it performs as a film for children and how it performs as a film for adults.
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English actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw isn’t a household name yet, but I feel like it’s only a matter of time. She’s already headlined a quiet romantic drama (Beyond the Lights), a sci-fi thriller (The Cloverfield Paradox), and what might be the best episode of the anthology series Black Mirror (season 3’s “San Junipero”).
In Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time, Mbatha-Raw plays a scientist and mother of two, a grounding force in a narrative that eventually travels to far-off worlds and wholly unfamiliar places. I spoke with the actress at the movie’s press junket last week, where we talked about working with director Ava DuVernay, her on-screen bond with actor Chris Pine, what she thought about The Cloverfield Paradox going straight to Netflix, and more. Read More »
Every week in /Answers, we answer a new pop culture-related question. In this edition, we celebrate the release of A Wrinkle in Time by asking “What is your favorite ‘kids on an adventure’ movie?”
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(Welcome to The Soapbox, the space where we get loud, feisty, political, and opinionated about anything and everything. In this edition: why it’s a good thing that director Ava DuVernay says she’s not making a Star Wars movie.)
Star Wars fans are ready for change.
As the Marvel Cinematic Universe boldly enters its latest stage, handing its major franchise staples to black auteurs and New Zealand comedians, it’s become somewhat apparent that Lucasfilm is holding back. Their latest slate of behind-the-scenes announcements and rumors – that the Game of Thrones guys are writing a new series, that Stephen Daldry might direct an Obi Wan standalone – feel as by-the-numbers as you can get. After the production kerfuffles with Rogue One and the upcoming Solo, maybe it’s just insurance; a “let’s hire the industry guys with safe track records so we can stay on schedule” ideology. But that safety net approach has the fans concerned. By avoiding potential risks, are we in danger of a roster of bland lookalikes that keep the series chugging along but never grow it in new directions? This is a galaxy far, far away, let’s not forget. Isn’t it time to get weird?
For a lot of us, potential relief came in the form of director Ava DuVernay, who’s been long-rumored to be next in line for a Star Wars project. But DuVernay crushed hearts on Twitter today when she announced that she isn’t, in fact, doing a Star Wars film, telling fans that the series “is not for me.”
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