A new episode of the Awfully Good Horror Movies video series has just been released, and in this one we’re taking a look at an entry in the Crow franchise that often gets overlooked: The Crow: Salvation from 2000 (get it HERE). With a remake of The Crow heading to theatres on June 7th and The Crow: Salvation getting a limited edition Blu-ray release from Scream Factory, this seemed like the perfect time to dig into this one – and you can hear all about it in the video embedded above!
Directed by Bharat Nalluri from a screenplay written by Chip Johannessen, The Crow: Salvation has the following synopsis: Alex Corvis is falsely convicted of brutally stabbing his girlfriend Lauren to death. He maintains his innocence and insists that Lauren was killed by a man with distinctive scars on his body but the police cannot find any trace of him. After three years on death row, Alex is electrocuted in a messy execution and shortly after, his guardian crow appears and resurrects him. With the help of Lauren’s sister Erin, the Crow begins his hunt for the killer.
The film stars Eric Mabius, Kirsten Dunst, William Atherton, Grant Shaud, Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, David H. Stevens, Dale Midkiff, Bill Mondy, Walton Goggins, Tim DeKay, Don Shanks, Joey Miyashima, Kylee Cochran, Bruce McCarty, Kelly Haren, Noname Jane, and Fred Ward.
With the Awfully Good Horror Movies series, we take a journey through the world of “so-bad-it’s-good” cinema in the horror genre. We’ll provide you with some fun trivia, details on the production, and some food/drinks to go with it. So join us for some schlock as we go through the who’s who of terrible horror cinema!
The The Crow: Salvation episode of Awfully Good Horror Movies was Written, Edited and Narrated by Tyler Nichols. The show is Produced by John Fallon and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.
A couple of the previous episodes of Awfully Good Horror Movies can be seen below. To see more, and to check out our other shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
On the JoBlo Originals YouTube channel, they’ve been running a series called Awfully Good Movies for a while – you can check out the playlist at THIS LINK.
What do you think of The Crow: Salvation, and of this episode of Awfully Good Horror Movies? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The release date of Dawntrail, the next expansion for the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, has finally been revealed. Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida dropped the info during a panel at PAX East. The “summer vacation” expansion, as Yoshida has described it, will release close behind Elden Ring’s Shadow…
The release date of Dawntrail, the next expansion for the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, has finally been revealed. Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida dropped the info during a panel at PAX East. The “summer vacation” expansion, as Yoshida has described it, will release close behind Elden Ring’s Shadow…
Spyglass Media and Paramount Pictures once intended to make a Scream 7 that would have starred Scream (2022) and Scream VI leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, with Freaky and Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon at the helm. But then Ortega allegedly asked for a substantial pay raise – and as we saw when Neve Campbell dropped out of Scream VI due to a pay dispute, these pay issues don’t tend to work out. Then Barrera was fired from the project after comments she made about the Israel-Hamas war didn’t go over well with executives at Spyglass. Landon dropped out the of the project soon after. So now Scream 7 has been re-developed, and it was recently announced that Campbell is returning to the lead as franchise heroine Sidney Prescott. We’ve heard that executives were hoping to get her Scream 3 co-star Patrick Dempsey to join her in this one, reprising the role of LAPD Detective Mark Kincaid – and industry scooper Daniel Richtman hears that Dempsey is “in talks” to do just that. Richtman’s sources also claim that Courteney Cox is locked in to return as author and reporter Gale Weathers… which would make sense, because Cox has never missed out on any of these movies.
Kevin Williamson, who wrote the screenplay for the original Scream, is set to direct this new sequel. In addition to writing the original Scream, Williamson has also written I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, The Faculty, and Halloween H20 (where his script contributions were uncredited). He wrote the initial drafts of Scream 3 and Scream 4, then those both received some major rewrites. For Scream 7, he’ll be working from a screenplay by 2022’s Scream and Scream VI writer Guy Busick, who crafted the story with his co-writer on the fifth and sixth films, James Vanderbilt. (Vanderbilt is also a producer on the most recent sequels.) Williamson made his directing debut with the 1999 thriller Teaching Mrs. Tingle. Twenty-five years later, Scream 7 will be his second directing credit.
Are you hoping to see Courteney Cox and Patrick Dempsey share the screen with Neve Campbell (again) in Scream 7? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
The media has taken The Sun’s news of Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s new 00-status and ran with it. Outlets everywhere have all but confirmed Taylor-Johnson’s reported formal offer to play James Bond by EON Productions. However, when the news circulated, there wasn’t any debunking coming from the studio, the production company or actor reps either. The source would tell The Sun, “Bond is Aaron’s job, should he wish to accept it. The formal offer is on the table and they are waiting to hear back. Aaron is going to sign his contract in the coming days and they can start preparing for the big announcement.”
While fans wait for an official announcement, former James Bond actor George Lazenby, who has had the opportunity to star in a sole outing as the agent in the now-appreciated On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, throws his support behind Taylor-Johnson in the role. According to Deadline, Lazenby was reportedly saying by TMZ that Taylor-Johnson would be able to “handle the stunts and all the ladies who love a man in a tux.” However, he also thinks the reason for the delay in any kind of announcement is because “when he auditioned for the part back in the 1960s, he went through a bunch of different tests and auditions before he won the role.” Though, he still thinks Taylor-Johnson would make a great Bond “as long as they do the character justice.” His advice for the young actor would be “to be true to himself and reinvent the role to fit him.”
Back in 2022, Esquire said that a credible source had told The Sun, “Aaron went for a screen test to be the next Bond in September and producers and Barbara loved him. He is now one of the front-runners.” Rumors about his casting have been burning for a couple of years, but Taylor-Johnson didn’t seem to know for certain if he would be taking the role. When asked about it last summer, “As I’ve already told you, I have to go by the beat of my own drum. It’s my own path, what feels intuitive to me. I’ve never made a decision based on other people’s perspectives, or their judgments, or their expectations. You lose your f**king mind if you do that. Your sense of worth and soul is gone. You need to understand what is integral to you and what feels right, and you’ve got to stay on track with what’s present in front of you. Kraven is what’s in front of me.” As for whether he would be game to play the iconic secret agent, the actor once again played coy. “I just focus on the things I can have in my hands right now,” he said. “What’s in front of me right now.“
Rebel Wilson is taking the title of her forthcoming memoir, Rebel Rising, to heart, using it as a forum to call out those who have behaved badly on set. Two weeks ago, Wilson alluded to a co-star who she called a “massive asshole”, saying she would go into detail in the book. This prompted one Hollywood figure to attempt to block the book. And that man is Sacha Baron Cohen, who Wilson worked with on 2016’s Grimsby.
Rebel Wilson took to social media over the weekend to call out Cohen, saying, “I will not be bullied or silenced by high priced lawyers or PR crisis managers…The asshole that I am talking about in ONE CHAPTER of my book is: Sacha Baron Cohen.” While she didn’t fully elaborate on exactly why she would label him as such – hey, you’re gonna have to buy the book for that! – that she would out Cohen before Rebel Rising is even on shelves (it’s due for release next Tuesday) shows how determined she is in calling people out.
And Cohen may not be the only one who feels the Rebel wrath, as Wilson posted a video two weeks ago that alluded to perhaps another male co-star, while also outlining what she has learned on the matter as she continues her career. “When I first came to Hollywood, people were like, yeah, ‘I have a no asshole policy, that means like, yeah, I don’t work with assholes.’ I was like, ‘oh yeah. I mean, that sounds sensible or logical…But then it really sunk in what they were meaning by that, older people in the industry. Because I worked with a massive asshole, and, yeah, now I definitely have an assholes policy. Chapter on said asshole – it is chapter 23, that guy was a massive asshole.” So are there multiple men Rebel Wilson has a problem with or does Cohen make numerous appearances in the book? It’s worth noting that Wilson had previously said that one of her male co-stars pulled his pants down in front of her and tried to initiate a sexual act.
If the alleged situations are true, it is quite refreshing that stars that do wrong are being outed, as it is high time that such behavior isn’t merely sticking to “an unnamed co-star.” While Sacha Baron Cohen has yet to comment on any accusations by Rebel Wilson, we will keep you posted on if and when he responds.
What do you make of Rebel Wilson’s comments about Sacha Baron Cohen?
PLOT: Count Alexander Rostov, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, finds that his gilded past has placed him on the wrong side of history. Spared immediate execution, he is banished by a Soviet tribunal to an attic room in the opulent Hotel Metropol and threatened with death if he ever sets foot outside again. As the years pass and some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold outside the hotel’s doors, Rostov’s reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. As he builds a new life within the walls of the hotel, he discovers the true value of friendship, family and love.
REVIEW: Ewan McGregor is a singular talent. The acclaimed actor can sing, share the screen with Winnie the Pooh, fight Darth Vader, and play a convincing heroin addict. He has also proven himself adept at sharing the screen with family members. After sharing the screen with his daughter Clara in Bleeding Love, Ewan McGregor is reuniting with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, for their third project together. McGregor leads the wonderful drama A Gentleman in Moscow, about one man surviving against every obstacle in his path, all in the name of love. Adapted from the bestselling novel, A Gentleman in Moscow is a beautifully realized drama that will have you rooting for McGregor from the opening scene of the first episode through the last scene of the finale.
Set in the day immediate aftermath of the October Revolution, Ewan McGregor plays Count Alexander Rostov. An aristocrat, Rostov is viewed as an enemy of the people thanks to his connections to the former Russian royal family. Having returned to Russia from Paris, Rostov is sentenced to spend the rest of his life as a resident of the Hotel Metropol, a luxury accommodation taken over by the Bolsheviks. Promised room and board, Rostov refuses to be defeated despite his suite being replaced with a servant’s quarters, repeated intrusions by soldiers led by Osip Glebnikov (Johnny Harris), and reluctance by members of the staff as well as other guests who view him as a threat to the new government. In the early episodes, Rostov befriends a young girl named Nina (Alexa Goodall) and plots an escape alongside the exiled Prince Petrov (Paul Ready). Little does Rostov know, but these relationships will forever alter the future of his life.
Chronicling decades of his life within the Metropol, A Gentleman in Moscow imbues Rostov with hope despite all odds to the contrary. Pulling elements from prison stories and themes from Steven Spielberg’s similarly themed The Terminal, A Gentleman in Moscow starts out by looking at what Rostov’s life is like, limited to existing within the walls of a hotel. What could have been a whimsical and humorous tale, as the trailers may lead you to believe, this series is, in fact, a steadfast drama with some humorous moments peppered within. Much of the footage used to cut the trailer comes from the series’ first two episodes, which leaves the plot twists and elapsed time a mystery for audiences unfamiliar with the source material. While trailers often give away too much of the plot, I appreciate how little is truly revealed in A Gentleman In Moscow, leaving the bulk of the story for the viewers to experience chapter by chapter.
Where the novel compressed and expanded the multiple-decade arc of the narrative, the series spends an appropriate amount of time over the intervening years as Rostov grows from an aristocrat to an even more nuanced character. Able to play Rostov from young to old without relying on much more than wigs and a bit of hair dye, Ewan McGregor beautifully plays this character as a sympathetic and loving man who will not let politics deter his love for his homeland. Couple that with the shared screen time McGregor gets to spend with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and you have the third project the real-life couple have worked on, giving another layer to their chemistry together. Having first played a couple in Fargo before playing hero and villain in DC’s Birds of Prey, McGregor and Winstead once again portray soulmates in this series. Winstead plays Anna Urbanova, an actress who falls in love with Count Rostov, and their relationship is the anchor for this story. In addition, Sofia (Beau Gadsdon), Marina (Leah Harvey), and the rest of the ensemble balance a whimsical nature with the emotional range of the dramatic side of this tale.
Adapted from Amor Towles’ novel by Ben Vanstone (The Last Kingdom, Merlin), A Gentleman in Moscow is directed by Sam Miller (Black Mirror, Daredevil) and Sarah O’Gorman (The Witcher), both of whom turn the Metropol into a character all its own alongside the strong performances of McGregor, Winstead, and the cast. The last hotel that was this important to the plot of a film or series was The Grand Budapest Hotel. While not nearly as whimsical as Wes Anderson’s creation, this series allows the Metropol and its hidden rooms, staircases, and other secrets to add to the story’s charms. There is also a central theme of food that balances the different class levels at play in the early 20th-century Russian setting of A Gentleman in Moscow. With exceptional production values and a classical music score that mixes Russian traditional music and sweeping dramatic themes from composer Federico Jusid, A Gentleman in Moscow is beautifully realized and charming to watch.
A Gentleman in Moscow is a pleasant surprise. For a story set in a violent era of political upheaval in a country notorious for such events, Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead can project light and air of positivity despite all odds being against them. In an age where we can easily wallow in negativity, Alexander Rostov is a beacon of never giving up, even when everything seems hopeless. I felt invigorated after completing this series and am not ashamed to say that I was invested in these characters enough to have multiple emotional responses over this sprawling series. A Gentleman in Moscow is a touching portrait of overcoming the odds and finding love despite everything in your way. Another win for Ewan McGregor.
A Gentleman in Moscow premieres on March 29th on Paramount + with Showtime.
I’m the one who doesn’t complain about the job of a lifetime; Mark Wahlberg must be the other guy. Despite landing an Oscar nomination and fulfilling so many actors’ goal of working with Martin Scorsese, Wahlberg was “a little pissed” about a few things while making The Departed, chiefly his hair.
Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast earlier this month, Mark Wahlberg said the main issue that arose while filming The Departed actually had to do with that same year’s Invincible, in which he played Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Vince Papale. “I was going into Invincible after. I was trying to grow my hair out, which is why I had that weird hair…But I completely understand where Marty was coming from. He had to deal with Jack [Nicholson], he had to deal with Matt [Damon] and Leo [DiCaprio] and Alec [Baldwin] and everything, the studio and everybody else who was in the cast. And then I was supposed to be in and out in five weeks. And so I went off to shoot Invincible, got my hair extensions, came back and they’re like, ‘Oh, you gotta take out the extensions.’” This prompted Wahlberg to become a little irritated by the situation, apparently leading to some turmoil between himself and the director, the actor evidently oblivious to the fact that appearing in a Martin Scorsese film is a blessing in the industry.
The performance marked Wahlberg’s only Oscar nomination in an acting category, which I maintain wasn’t deserved at all and should have gone to Jack Nicholson if anyone, who did a heck of a lot more than throwing out salty one-liners and farts at his co-stars.
Wahlberg unveiled some other details about his time on The Departed, saying, “Originally, I was supposed to get paid,” referring to him being in the running for a more prominent role. “And then even when we kind of agreed that I would play Dignam and I saw the advantages of playing that part and how I would approach the situation with everybody else playing opposite me, I then had another movie after.” OK, on this point, I don’t really think Wahlberg has the acting chops to have played either one of the lead roles in The Departed, which would of course be those eventually played by DiCaprio and Damon. He did just fine in the Best Picture winner for what he had to do but Costigan and Sullivan are complex characters that I’m not sure Wahlberg could handle.
Even still, Wahlberg does apparently have enough connection to Dignam, having once been interested in launching a sequel to The Departed. After all, he is one of the few characters who survives…
What do you think of Mark Wahlberg’s comments about his time filming The Departed? How does he come off in the interview? Give us your take below.
Buried deep within Variety’s weekend box office report is a rather eye-brow-raising stat. Late Night With the Devil, which is proving to be one of the biggest breakout indie hits in recent memory, is reportedly on track to gross an estimated $666,666 at the box office today. The final numbers aren’t in, but what a ghoulish, perhaps even unholy, surprise this is. It’s the kind of publicity you can’t buy, and to be fair, Variety’s report might be off a bit. When I put together our own box office report here on JoBlo, I tend to follow the numbers put out by Paul Dergarabedian at Comscore, and so far, he hasn’t listed Late Night With the Devil’s daily gross. It’s an indie flick, and the reporting from IFC might be delayed, given their more limited resources. Usually, box office analysts can crunch numbers on Sunday in a pretty accurate way, so it’s possible, if the numbers have some good math behind them, the movie may indeed make $666k, even if the $666,666 number cited by Variety seems a bit tough to swallow.
One thing to note is that Late Night With the Devil’s per-screen average beat out the bigger-budget Immaculate this weekend, which is very impressive for a film that’s only benefitting from a quick stopover in theatres before it hits Shudder on April 19th. It will likely be their biggest streaming debut to date, with it posting distributor IFC Films’ biggest opening ever. Our critic, Tyler Nichols, thought that it was outstanding, and the film has earned raves from such horror notables as Stephen King, Kevin Smith and Paul Schrader. This weekend, Schrader (who often makes his contempt of new movies fairly obvious) wrote the following on his Facebook page:
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL. A razor-sharp satire of 70s late-night television–so sharp at times it’s indistinguishable from the thing it satirizes–which evolves into a parody of possession and poltergeist movies. Can’t quite land the ending (that might not even be possible) but worth a trip to the cinema. Even on a rainy New York City afternoon.
Did you go see Late Night With the Devil this weekend? Let us know in the comments, and check out our interview with star David Dastmalchian tomorrow!
Superhero movie backlash seems to be at a new height, the pendulum having swung after the likes of Marvel hit their peak with films like Avengers: Endgame (we’re still waiting on that DC masterpiece…). But it’s more than just the so-called “superhero fatigue”; it’s that audiences fully notice that quality certainly doesn’t equate to quantity. Now, Gwyneth Paltrow – who played Pepper Potts in 2008’s Iron Man, which jump started the whole superhero craze – has some thoughts on the matter.
Appearing on Hot Ones (via Deadline), Paltrow stated, “If I look at the industry as a whole, this big push into superhero movies…you can only make so many good ones that feel truly original, and yet they’re still always trying to reach as many people as possible, which sometimes hinders quality or specificity or real point of view.” Paul Dano, who dabbled in the superhero game for DC, also had similar sentiments of the quantity over quality debate.
Of course, there are still good superhero movies – which are certainly no easy feat to make – out there, but the high mark may have passed. In 2021, Eternals became the first entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to receive a “rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes, followed by last year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. While audience scores should be taken into account as well – after all, we’re the ones buying the tickets – certainly the dip in quality is there. Even if both had “fresh” audience ratings (which they do), are these movies really quality and enhancing the genre? Both tried to take on the responsibility of moving the MCU into new directions but were overpowered by their ambitions and overall weak storytelling.
Gwyneth Paltrow also reacted to American Fiction writer Cord Jefferson’s Oscar speech, in which he urged Hollywood to disperse the funds that might go to a $200 million project into several other films instead. “I absolutely understand where he’s coming from…You want the best chance to have a strong ROI [return on investment]. People put a lot of money into these things and they want them to be profitable…You get more diversity of art when there is less at stake and people can express their true voice and make a film the way they want to make it. Those are generally the more resonant ones.”
So are we out of “good ones” in the comic book world like Paltrow suggests? Is there an upswing on the horizon or are we truly looking at the “endgame” of the genre? Share your thoughts on the matter below.
