It’s a three-day weekend! It’s Labor Day on Monday. You’d totally forgotten, but don’t worry, we’ve got you. So, unless your free time will be spent with the awful obligations of hanging with friends and family, what games will you fill it all with? And don’t all say Star Wars Outlaws. Even if it’s true, just say…
It’s a three-day weekend! It’s Labor Day on Monday. You’d totally forgotten, but don’t worry, we’ve got you. So, unless your free time will be spent with the awful obligations of hanging with friends and family, what games will you fill it all with? And don’t all say Star Wars Outlaws. Even if it’s true, just say…
It’s nearly September, so that means it’s time to start thinking about the best holiday of them all: Halloween. And this year, Spirit Halloween is offering kids the chance to dress up as a Skibidi Toilet. So, uh, be ready for that on Halloween night.
It’s nearly September, so that means it’s time to start thinking about the best holiday of them all: Halloween. And this year, Spirit Halloween is offering kids the chance to dress up as a Skibidi Toilet. So, uh, be ready for that on Halloween night.
Before we get into the typically busy fall season, videogame publishers and storefronts tend to host huge sales on a shotgun spread of titles both big and small . These sales are often great opportunities to buy games you might’ve missed or may never have heard of for a pretty good price. For example, there’s a killer Residen…
Before we get into the typically busy fall season, videogame publishers and storefronts tend to host huge sales on a shotgun spread of titles both big and small . These sales are often great opportunities to buy games you might’ve missed or may never have heard of for a pretty good price. For example, there’s a killer Residen…
Following the box office flops that were Borderlands and The Crow, as well as The Acolyte’s upsetting cancelation, moviegoers and binge-watchers are craving something fresh and unique. They want quirky characters, likable protagonists, heart-wrenching romances, and thrilling storylines. Thankfully, September offers a…
Following the box office flops that were Borderlands and The Crow, as well as The Acolyte’s upsetting cancelation, moviegoers and binge-watchers are craving something fresh and unique. They want quirky characters, likable protagonists, heart-wrenching romances, and thrilling storylines. Thankfully, September offers a…
Almost three years have gone by since Joshua Oppenheimer, the director behind the documentaries The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, announced that he was teaming up with NEON to make his narrative feature debut with The End, “a golden-age musical about the last human family.” That film went into production last year, with a cast that includes Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin), Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water), George MacKay (1917), Moses Ingram (The Tragedy of Macbeth), Bronagh Gallagher (Pulp Fiction), Tim McInnerny (Notting Hill), Lennie James (The Walking Dead), and Danielle Ryan (The Silencing). Now it’s making the festival rounds, with the Telluride Film Festival unveiling the image that can be seen above, and a teaser poster arriving online just ahead of the film’s screenings at both Telluride and the Toronto International Film Festival. The poster can be seen at the bottom of this article.
During an interview with Prospect, Oppenheimer revealed what inspired him to make the movie: “I was researching very wealthy families, and one of them was buying a doomsday bunker that was more of a palace than a bunker. I decided to make a film about a family in a bunker 20 years after the world has ended—and to make it a musical. This family has enriched itself through fossil fuels. It’s now 20 years after the world has ended and they have a son who was born in the bunker. It’s a study in impunity. They tell themselves that this vast tomb is now the pinnacle of civilization, because they are the last family, a Noah’s Ark for a flood that will never subside. The themes grow out of what I explored in The Act of Killing—guilt and denial, the imposition of a narrative by the powerful, the performance of impunity. And remember: Impunity is always performed. It’s not something you can take for granted. You have to assert it with shows of force.” He went on to say the movie is “an exploration of whether we as human beings can come to a place where our guilt is too much to recover from. We are our pasts. And we’re all perpetrators in one way or another.“
The End has the following synopsis: A post-apocalyptic story about a rich family, surviving two decades after the world ended, living in a salt mine converted into a luxurious home. The earth around them has apparently been destroyed, but their 13-year-old son, born in the bunker, has never seen the outside world. There is a maid, with whom the son has his only honest relationship. There is also a doctor, and a butler. Unspoken blame over leaving loved ones behind looms over this family, hollowing out whatever intimacy they once shared. Suddenly, a young girl appears at the entrance of the bunker, the balance of the family is threatened.
Or, here’s an expanded synopsis: A wealthy family survives in a palatial bunker, two decades after the world has ended. There is a mother, father, and their twenty-year-old son – he was born in the bunker and has never seen the outside world. There is a maid, with whom the son has his only honest relationship. There is also a doctor, a butler – and finally a young woman who, having barely survived, manages to find her way in. The film is a musical, and the title is THE END. Before the young woman arrives, the family celebrates their survival as confirmation of their success and righteousness, but unspoken blame over leaving loved ones behind has come between the parents, hollowing out whatever intimacy they once shared. They struggle to repress the guilt they feel for this – as well as a more diffuse regret for contributing to the world’s end. (The Father was an oil tycoon.)
The music is inspired by Broadway’s Golden Age – the unearned optimism of the classic American musical embodies the bunker’s desperate delusions. In THE END, it is an optimism born of fear. They are afraid to face their guilt, and it is this fear, more than the inhospitable conditions outside, that prevents them from leaving. Were they to leave, they’d be confronted by the truth of what they did to the world – and the fate to which they abandoned their families. There will be no Golden Age theatricality to the performances. Instead, the unvarnished realism invites the audience to identify with the characters in this intimate tragedy about guilt, denial, and unfulfilled longing. As in the director’s THE ACT OF KILLING, there is also absurdity and dark humor – and, as the son and young woman fall in love, a fragile hope.
Does Joshua Oppenheimer’s The End sound interesting to you? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
The post The End: Joshua Oppenheimer’s post-apocalyptic musical gets a teaser poster appeared first on JoBlo.
Hide your heroine and beware of the pitfalls of method acting because a Tropic Thunder sequel could be on the way. No, really. Justin Theroux, who co-wrote and executive-produced the 2008 comedy, recently told CBR a sequel could happen, with Robert Downey Jr. possibly returning to reprise his role as Kirk Lazarus, the method actor who goes too hard in the paint to transform into whatever character is needed. In Tropic Thunder, a group of actors (Stiller, Black, Downey) shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become soldiers after realizing the threat against them is real.
Speaking with CBR about his role as Rory in Tim Burton’s long-gestating sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Theroux revealed he would “definitely” do a Tropic Thunder sequel. Theroux says it would take the right idea to make getting the band back together worth everyone’s time, though it appears he’s already cooking.
“I have some stuff already churning that I’d love to do, but I’ll keep it a secret,” Theroux teased. “Hollywood just gets funnier as the years go on. It never ceases to amaze me how navel-gazing it can be. There’s a million things — we’ve gone through so many movements in Hollywood that I think those would all be somehow in the mix. Listen, if an idea strikes me, like it struck Tim [Burton], where it’s like, ‘Oh, this could be a sequel,’ I’ll definitely do a sequel.”
Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr are two actors interested in returning to Tropic Thunder. In 2023, after being told Cruise wants to reprise his role as the hot-headed studio executive Les Grossman, Downey told Extra TV he’d be glad to join a potential sequel.
The thought of organizing efforts to make a Tropic Thunder sequel fascinates me. A follow-up to Ben Stiller’s satirical comedy, which, years after its release, has been criticized for being wildly offensive, would be challenging for all involved. The original film taps into taboo comedic elements, with RDJ’s Kirk Lazarus appearing in blackface for most of the film and Ben Stiller’s Tugg Speedman playing a character in one of his movies named Simple Jack. These two elements alone were enough to get Tropic Thunder canceled by modern audiences, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The writers would need to tread carefully for a Tropic Thunder to fly in today’s cinematic climate, which could be a controversy in and of itself.
What do you think about Justin Theroux possibly returning to the jungle for a Tropic Thunder sequel? Could a movie as crude (and hilarious) as the original survive today’s audiences? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
The post Justin Theroux is teasing a potential Tropic Thunder sequel with Robert Downey Jr. game to return appeared first on JoBlo.