On Saturday, Formula 1 will race in Saudi Arabia on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit for the fourth time. It’s officially the longest track in the calendar and boasts the most corners of any circuit in F1, but it’s not the only ridiculous location that F1 could race in the kingdom. Now, race promoters in the region have…
On a snowy Christmas Eve, rookie cop Aya Brea attends the opera at Carnegie Hall. In the middle of the performance, while the star performs a haunting aria, the theater and people within it burst into flames. Screams and crackling wood form a symphony with the still-singing star. This is how Parasite Eve opens. It’s…
On a snowy Christmas Eve, rookie cop Aya Brea attends the opera at Carnegie Hall. In the middle of the performance, while the star performs a haunting aria, the theater and people within it burst into flames. Screams and crackling wood form a symphony with the still-singing star. This is how Parasite Eve opens. It’s…
PLOT: After decades of lying about a fake friend named Ricky Stanicky, who they use as a get-out-of-jail-free card, three buddies (Zac Efron, Andrew Santino and Jermaine Fowler) are caught in a lie and have to produce a real version of their imaginary friend to their families. They hired an Atlantic City low-life (John Cena) to pretend to be Stanicky, but he enjoys playing the part so much that he refuses to leave town.
REVIEW: For those who don’t know, for the last fourteen years, Ricky Stanicky was a red-hot script floating around Hollywood, with people as varied as Jim Carrey, James Franco, and Joaquin Phoenix set to play the lead role. Having placed on The Black List, the script by Jeff Bushell, Jason Decker, and Occhino was in limbo for quite a while before Peter Farrelly and his frequent collaborators Pete Jones and Mike Cerrone took a stab at it, meaning the film now has no less than six credited writers. It marks Farrelly’s return to comedy after dipping into more serious fare with the Oscar-winning Green Book and The Greatest Beer Run Ever.
Like the comedies he made with his brother Bobby, Ricky Stanicky is unapologetically R-rated, but all the raunch hides a pretty mellow center, with this ultimately being as sugary sweet at its heart as movies like Stuck on You and Shallow Hal. While not as outrageously fun or rude as one might hope in this dire era for comedy, the film benefits tremendously from John Cena in the lead. He really goes all-out in his against-type casting, seemingly having a whale of a time as the likeable wannabe Stanicky.
While Cena has done comedy before (he was hilarious in Blockers), this is his first time carrying a comedy without anyone to really back him up. While Zac Efron is a co-lead, he’s the straight man to Cena’s lunacy. You have got to give Cena credit for really going all out here, with his character making a living as a lounge singer riffing on songs (he thinks) have a masturbation theme. If you’ve ever wanted to see Cena dressed up as a member of Devo singing “Whip It” or donning Brittany Spears’ iconic “Hit Me Baby One More Time” look, this is the film for you.
It’s too bad that Ricky Stanicky, while amusing, never really rises to the level of Cena’s performance. He’s giving an A+ effort in a movie that never really gets beyond the B-minus level due to its reluctance to really get edgy. Sure, it’s R-rated, but an R-rating in 2024 isn’t like it was in the nineties or early 2000s, so nothing is particularly transgressive. It’s all very safe.
Yet, Cena makes the movie worth watching, as he gives his character some real pathos, like Jim Carrey used to when he was making movies with the Farrellys. You get the sense that Ricky just wants a friend at the end of the day, making him a bit of a bittersweet creation. While Efron is fine as the movie’s straight man, he doesn’t give the part as much depth as one might hope, with him coming off as more of a lying creep than probably intended by the filmmakers. The same goes for Andrew Santino’s character, who comes off as an abusive jerk for most of the running time given that he constantly puts down Cena’s character, who the audience has grown to love by this point. Of the trio of friends who invented Stanicky, the only one who really conveys any depth is Jermaine Fowler, the gay friend who’d rather fess up to his lies than continue the charade. Of course, he’s the one with the least screen time. As much as I like Efron (he deserved an Oscar nod for The Iron Claw), he’s dull here and probably should have only been in the film were he himself playing the Stanicky role (I’m sure he would have nailed it even if it’s hard to think of anyone other than Cena).
While Ricky Stanicky is nowhere near as funny as I hoped it would be, I still had a decent enough time with it. Again, Cena really is great in the role, and it also has a fun supporting part for William H. Macy as the insecure boss of Efron and Santino’s characters. Given that it’s a streaming release for Amazon, it’s worth throwing on to appreciate Cena channelling Carrey in what’s legitimately a great comedic performance. I wish the rest of the movie was as funny as he is, as whenever he’s offscreen, you can’t help but zone out.
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Get ready to be swept off your feet by the whirlwind nature of dating a famous musician. Amazon MGM Studios has just released the trailer for The Idea of You. The film is a new romantic comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine. The movie comes from Michael Showalter, the creator of the Wet Hot American Summer series. Showalter has also helmed comedic films that skew towards the dramatic with acclaimed movies like The Big Sick from 2017. The Idea of You looks to be more of a drama with some comedy elements mixed in.
The official synopsis from Amazon reads,
“Based on the acclaimed, contemporary love story of the same name, The Idea of You centers on Solène (Anne Hathaway), a 40-year-old single mom who begins an unexpected romance with 24-year-old Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the lead singer of August Moon, the hottest boy band on the planet. When Solène must step in to chaperone her teenage daughter’s trip to the Coachella Music Festival after her ex bails at the last minute, she has a chance encounter with Hayes and there is an instant, undeniable spark. As they begin a whirlwind romance, it isn’t long before Hayes’ superstar status poses unavoidable challenges to their relationship, and Solène soon discovers that life in the glare of his spotlight might be more than she bargained for.”
Joining Hathaway and Galitzine in the cast is Ella Rubin, Annie Mumolo, Reid Scott, Perry Mattfeld, Jordan Aaron Hall, Mathilda Gianopoulos, Raymond Cham Jr., Jaiden Anthony, Viktor White and Dakota Adan. Michael Showalter directs and co-writes with Jennifer Westfeldt, Based Upon the Book by Robinne Lee. Producers on the film include Cathy Schulman, Gabrielle Union, Anne Hathaway, Robinne Lee, Eric Hayes, Michael Showalter and Jordana Mollick. Douglas S. Jones, Jason Babiszewski, Jennifer Westfeldt, Kian Gass are the executive producers on the film.
The trailer also features a song from the band from the film, August Moon. The lead single “Dance Before We Walk” from the film’s soundtrack is out now via Arista Records. Listen HERE via all digital platforms. The full Original Motion Picture Soundtrack will be available in tandem with the film’s release. Pre-Order available HERE.
The Idea of You is set to have its World Premiere at SXSW Festival on March 16 as the closing night film. Then it will launch globally on Prime Video on May 2.
The post The Idea of You: Anne Hathaway becomes involved with a famous pop musician in the new trailer appeared first on JoBlo.
FromSoftware’s award-winning 2022 RPG Elden Ring is full of secrets. Its most evocative ones are hidden in environmental details and item descriptions, and when they’re discovered they offer information about The Lands Between’s characters and lore. Apparently, one of those secrets may have been alluding to the game’s…
FromSoftware’s award-winning 2022 RPG Elden Ring is full of secrets. Its most evocative ones are hidden in environmental details and item descriptions, and when they’re discovered they offer information about The Lands Between’s characters and lore. Apparently, one of those secrets may have been alluding to the game’s…
While the experience of seeing Dune: Part Two in theaters has been compared to the release of The Two Towers or even TheReturn Of The King, Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic differs from its predecessors in a major way. (It’s not just all that sand.) Don’t expect your post-home-release, five-hour Part One and Part Two ma…
While the experience of seeing Dune: Part Two in theaters has been compared to the release of The Two Towers or even TheReturn Of The King, Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic differs from its predecessors in a major way. (It’s not just all that sand.) Don’t expect your post-home-release, five-hour Part One and Part Two ma…
Last year, legendary filmmaker / composer John Carpenter teamed up with his son Cody Carpenter, godson Daniel Davies, and Sacred Bones Records to put an album called Anthology II: Movie Themes 1976-1988 out into the world. Now they’re back at it, as a press release has announced that the latest album from the Carpenters and Davies, Lost Themes IV: Noir, will be released on May 3rd! Pre-orders are available at THIS LINK. To promote the album, a music video for the song “My Name Is Death” has been produced, and you can watch that in the embed at the bottom of this article.
The “My Name Is Death” music video is miniature noir film that was directed by Ambar Navarro and stars Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood), Staz Lindes (The Paranoyds), and Misha Lindes (SadGirl). John Carpenter had this to say: “Noir is a uniquely American genre born in post-war cinema. We grew up loving Noir and were influenced by it for this new album. The video celebrates this style and our new song, My Name Is Death.“
Davies revealed that the idea for Lost Themes IV: Noir came to mind because “Sandy [King, John’s wife and producer] had given John a book for Christmas, of pictures from noir films, all stills from that era. I was looking through it, and I thought, ‘I like that imagery, and what those titles make me think of. What if we loosely based it around that? What if the titles were of some of John’s favorite noir films?’ Some of the music is heavy guitar riffs, which is not in old noir films, but somehow, it’s connected in an emotional way.“
Here’s the track list:
Do you own John Carpenter’s previous Lost Themes and/or Anthology albums, and will you be picking up a copy of Lost Themes IV: Noir? Let us know by leaving a comment below – but first, take a look at the “My Name Is Death” music video:
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