Hollywood star Hugh Jackman is 55 years old and still flexing for the camera, and he’s now on record talking about how hard it is to bulk up for each new outing as X-Men character Wolverine, and that all the deadlifts don’t meant squat if the light can’t hit every curve in his musculature just right. So he recently…
What an excellent day for another Exorcist…Or is it? For a second there we thought David Gordon Green had killed the franchise for good after last year’s disastrous The Exorcist: Believer. And while his intended trilogy was axed and he was removed from any future projects in the series, it has already been resurrected courtesy of Mike Flanagan. And Flanagan has big plans for his Exorcist film.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Mike Flanagan said he has a lot of goals with his yet-to-be-titled The Exorcist entry – and one of them is to make it as scary as possible. “We aren’t making this easy on ourselves…But I’ve always felt that there’s no point in going into a franchise or into a property that monolithic unless there’s something new you can bring. I chased The Exorcist very aggressively because I was convinced I had something that I could add.” Flanagan next teased that his Exorcist movie will be something fresh – and much needed. “This is an opportunity to do something that I believe has never been done within the franchise — something that honors what came before it but isn’t built on nostalgia. I really just saw an opportunity to make the scariest movie I’ve ever made. I know expectations are high. No one’s more intimidated than I am.”
But as we don’t need to point out again, expectations are high because it’s the admittedly intimidated director – not because it’s an Exorcist film. Let’s face it, the franchise isn’t exactly packed with stellar installments. Obviously William Friedkin’s original has never been topped and 1990’s The Exorcist III – directed by author William Peter Blatty himself – has a loyal following. You might like some of the other installments, but they really pale in comparison. With that, based on what he has done with other properties (chiefly of the literary variety) Mike Flanagan is just the right guy who can do something interesting – and, yes, scary – with The Exorcist series.
What do you expect Mike Flanagan to bring to The Exorcist? Does the project seem promising or is it time to stick a crucifix in the franchise? Pour some pea soup and let us know below!
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While Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson and Mark Hamill used their thespian skills to perform as the famed Clown Prince of Crime from Batman’s world, later actors who would portray the Joker are embodying the role in more method ways. On 2008’s The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger kept a journal as the character that featured chaotic pages of writing. There was talk about Jared Leto sending his castmates twisted sexual items and dead rats as gifts when he played the Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad. And Variety is now reporting that Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga would forge their own brand of madness when portraying Arthur Fleck and Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie à Deux.
Todd Phillips recently told the publication that their goal for Joker: Folie à Deux was “to make it feel like it was made by crazy people. The inmates are running the asylum.” Lady Gaga, who portrays Arthur’s new beau in the film, told Vanity Fair, “We’d very often meet in Joaquin’s trailer and sometimes we would just tear the script up and start all over. It was a really cool, liberating process.” Phillips corroborated Gaga’s story, saying, “My line about Joaquin is that he’s the tunnel at the end of the light. You think, ‘Okay, this scene works, let’s just go shoot it.’ And Joaquin’s like, ‘No, no, no, let’s just have a quick meeting about it,’ and it’s three hours later and you’re rewriting it on a napkin. What’s great about Lady Gaga is that she really holds her own, both off camera when we’re in the trailer tearing things apart — which she probably spent the night before learning — but also on camera. It was not a small feat.”
Phillips continues, “She puts herself around very powerful people. I mean, Bradley Cooper, to be across from him out of the gate. To be across from Adam Driver [in ‘House of Gucci’], who is a beast, and Joaquin who’s a beast. She’s in it — she went full in.”
The unpredictable reworking of the movie may have been a factor in what led early reviews to be very divisive. saying David Ehrlich of IndieWire tore into the film, saying Joker: Folie à Deux is “boring, flat, and a criminal waste of Lady Gaga.” Adding, Phillips’ Joker sequel feels “bad on purpose.” In his review, Ehrlich writes, “At a time when everything is consumed as entertainment, no matter how tragic, Phillips has created a corporate pop spectacle that all but demands to be seen as something else. Here is a movie that perversely denies audiences everything they’ve been conditioned to want from it; gently at first, and then later with the unmistakable hostility of a knife to the gut. And that, more than anything else, is why Folie à Deux adopts the form of a classic musical: Because no other genre makes it so easy to appreciate all the fun you’re not having.”
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PLOT: It tells the story of a newly pregnant couple who are forced to take in an ailing, estranged stepmother.
REVIEW: The name Eggers has been widely associated with great cinema due to Robert’s wonderful filmmaking abilities with films like The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman. But he actually has two brothers who are trying to make a name for themselves, writing and directing The Front Room. It’s going to be hard not to compare Sam and Max to their brother Robert but their styles couldn’t be more different. And it results in a very mixed bag.
The Front Room follows Belinda and her husband, Norman, as they prepare for the arrival of their baby. To help with the arrival, Norma’s estranged stepmother moves in with them. But instead of just providing financial assistance, she wants to manipulate the family in her own way. As someone with a twisted fascination with I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, I was excited to see Brandy Norwood return to the horror genre. This is really her film and her journey, and she’s put through the ringer. Belinda has worked her entire life to excel yet is always being held back through no fault of her own. It’s very relatable, and I was on her side the whole way through.
There’s a deeply religious element of The Front Room, with Solange having very extreme views. Kathryn Hunter is very impressive in the role, giving just the right amount of vulnerability and wickedness. She’s a little over the top by the end, but it’s hard to grasp her true intentions at first. Anyone who has dealt with a nightmare family member will understand the manipulation at play here. The way Solange can worm her ideas into Norman and how much she consistently plays the victim. As someone who just doesn’t jive with religion, I found Solange to be increasingly frustrating. It reached a point where I genuinely hated her and was waiting for her character to meet a cruel fate.
The wall between Solange and Norman clarifies that they were very at odds during their childhood. The decision to include Solange in their household is something he rightfully fights, adding some irony to the fact that Belinda was initially positive regarding the move. But Solange is overly evil to the point that Norman’s ignorance to it just makes him look like an idiot. While the filmmakers clearly intend these frustrations, the payoff isn’t enough to make the struggles worth it. I also want to ensure I mention the score, as it was easily my favorite element of the film. The high strings and organ feel like something out of Psycho or Rosemary’s Baby.
Visually, The Front Room takes advantage of shallow depths of field and the countryside. But there’s less mastery here than there is in Robert’s movies, with multiple shots having soft focus and there being much less purpose. And I think I’ve had my fill of shots of piss and shit as between Solange and the baby, there’s a lot of it. There’s also nudity in the film, but not in the way that horror fans usually like. There’s discomfort in nearly every element, which certainly crosses over into the viewing experience. I don’t see this being a film I revisit often, if at all.
Ultimately, The Front Room feels like the filmmakers are trying to get out their frustrations regarding an evil mother-in-law. But in the process, they never really delve into why she’s so evil and manipulative, taking away from the overall narrative. Moments that should be important are glossed over without much thought. Whether it’s the actual move-in or the birth itself, it lacks connection to the stuff they show us. Unlike when other studios make a misstep for attempted profit (Blumhouse, I’m looking at you), this still feels like A24 is trying. It’s still Rated R, and they are trying to tell a character-focused story. It just doesn’t entirely come together in the end.
THE FRONT ROOM IS PLAYING EXCLUSIVELY IN THEATERS ON SEPTEMBER 6TH, 2024.
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Space Marines love guns. They’re born loving guns. Their blood has bullets running through it. So naturally, the Imperium has a wide range of weapons for players to use in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. But which to use? Which is best? What if you’re using the wrong gun?! Calm down, it’s OK, this guide will detail…
Space Marines love guns. They’re born loving guns. Their blood has bullets running through it. So naturally, the Imperium has a wide range of weapons for players to use in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. But which to use? Which is best? What if you’re using the wrong gun?! Calm down, it’s OK, this guide will detail…
Long gone are the days of standing outside a GameStop at midnight waiting for the official release of a new Halo or Final Fantasy. But Team Asobi brought the festive vibes back with a launch party for its newest game, inside of an older one.
Long gone are the days of standing outside a GameStop at midnight waiting for the official release of a new Halo or Final Fantasy. But Team Asobi brought the festive vibes back with a launch party for its newest game, inside of an older one.
PLOT: A prominent businessman (Vincent Cassel), grieving over the death of his wife, invents a company called GraveTech, where corpses are wrapped in technologically enhanced burial shrouds that allow family members to monitor the decaying bodies of their loved ones in real-time.
REVIEW: So, if you read the plot outline posted about, you likely muttered a little “wtf” to yourself once you got to the “monitor the decaying bodies of their loved ones” bit. But hey, The Shrouds is a David Cronenberg movie. Would you want to see one without any WTF moments? I think not. Indeed, The Shrouds has enough ultra-weird imagery and kinky twists to make this Cronenberg’s edgiest movie since Crash and perhaps his most personal work to date.
Tragically, Cronenberg lost his wife several years ago, and The Shrouds seems autobiographical in the way it deals with grief. In it, Vincent Cassel plays Karsh, a tech entrepreneur who once made “industrial films,” a term critics have often used to describe the harsh lighting and cinematography of his earlier works. Cassel is made up to look exactly like Cronenberg, sporting the same distinctive haircut and always favoring dark suits.
Much of Cronenberg’s filmography has been dedicated to body horror. While that term may not totally apply to The Shrouds, it’s still preoccupied with the body and the way it’s mutilated through illness. Karsh’s wife, Becca (Diane Kruger) is shown to have died of an aggressive form of cancer that led to multiple amputations, with him both tortured and oddly aroused (hey, it’s Cronenberg) by visions of her advancing illness. Notably, he keeps talking about how he lost her “body,” with him harbouring paranoia about the doctor who treated her and performed the amputations. He’s preoccupied with the fact that others got to be the last ones to be with parts of her body, and one of the reasons he presumably uses GraveTech is so that he can be the only one with any sense of control over her corpse.
Psychologically, it’s a very complex and provocative work, yet Cassel doesn’t play Karsh as “weird.” He’s actually somewhat charming and seems like he really did love his wife, which has led to issues with him connecting with other women since she died. In a darkly comedic moment early on, he takes a blind date to see his wife’s grave, which contains a video screen showing her corpse’s decay.
As the film goes on, a labyrinthine plot develops, where several GraveTech plots are vandalized, and the corpses seem to be growing nodes on their bones, which may have something to do with the Chinese tech behind the shrouds. Are they being used for surveillance? Seeds of paranoia are planted by Karsh’s former brother-in-law, Guy Pearce’s Maury, who calls himself Karsh’s “brother in grief” after his wife, Terry (also Diane Kruger), leaves him.
The Shrouds is a hard film to describe in that it’s not horror, but it certainly has more gore than you’d expect in a straight drama. It also has elements of sci-fi and even paranoid thrillers, but more than anything, it feels like a pitch-black comedy, with Pearce and Kruger (in both her roles) playing their roles to the hilt.
Yet, it’s also a thoroughly sad film, with Cronenberg likely using it as a way to exorcise some demons, and much of it will hit close to home for anyone who’s ever mourned the death of a loved one. When I interviewed Cronenberg years ago, I was struck by how nice and normal he seemed, and I think part of that is that he’s always been able to use his work therapeutically. While The Shrouds ultimately goes off on many different tangents without ever coming to a clear resolution, it’s insightful about how grief often goes hand-in-hand with paranoia. As such, it hits surprisingly hard by the time the credits roll. It won’t be for everybody, but I’ll say this – even if you don’t like The Shrouds (which is fair), you won’t be bored by it.
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Created by Keenan Ivory Wayans, sketch comedy series In Living Color was a smash when it first aired, nabbing the Emmy in its category for its debut season, beating out the likes of SNL, David Letterman and Tracy Ullman. But that would only last so long, as the key players behind the show — the Wayans Brothers — would have a falling out with the network which led to an ultimately short run.
As Marlon Wayans recounted on the Club Shay Shay podcast (via People), In Living Color found themselves being hoodwinked by Fox, who had put the show on the syndication market without making proper compensation for its creator. “I remember when we left In Living Color because Fox was syndicating the show and it was hurting Keenen’s pockets. Keenen was like, ‘Nah, you ain’t gonna do this to me. My family said, ‘F*ck this money.’ And we all left In Living Color.”
The Wayans are a huge family, with Keenan Ivory, Marlon, Shawn, Damon, and Kim all having various roles throughout In Living Color’s run. So with numbers like that working against Fox, that’s going to present a domino effect. This was put into action during a Christmas episode in which the gang wore sunglasses on stage and refused to actively participate in the sketch. As Marlon summarized it, “You ain’t going to f*ck my brother. We a family. You touch one, you touch all.”
With the Wayans brothers falling out with Fox, that would eventually built to In Living Color going off the air after just five seasons. It might feel like it lasted longer but that’s partly because of the impact it had. Too rarely were minorities being represented in that sort of capacity on television, so when you’re having representation on a weekly basis — in such a funny arena — it leaves a significant mark. In Living Color also served as a launching point for the likes of Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx, Tommy Davidson, David Alan Grier, and Jennifer Lopez, who served as one of the show’s Fly Girls.
Were you a fan of In Living Color? What were some of your favorite sketches?
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