The weird drip-feed of information about Nintendo’s fall Switch line-up continues with a bunch of new details and combat trailers for Mario & Luigi: Brothership. The latest entry in the long-running RPG-lite adventure series will have the titular plumbers exploring a new set of islands and using powerful new “Brother…
After taking a look back at House II: The Second Story (a favorite of mine since childhood), House of 1000 Corpses (which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year), the awesomeness of Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight, the leg smashing in the Stephen King adaptation Misery, three separate moments from John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China, the “Jason vs. Tina” battle in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, the “all hell breaks loose” sequence from the start of Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake, the opening sequence of Pitch Black, and a memorable moment from The Crow, JoBlo’s own Lance Vlcek is continuing his The Best Scene video series with a look at a scene from director David Lynch‘s 1997 cult classic Lost Highway (watch it HERE). To find out which moment Lance chose to highlight, check out the video embedded above.
Scripted by Lynch and Barry Gifford, Lost Highway has the following synopsis: From this inventory of imagery, Lynch fashions two separate but intersecting stories, one about a jazz musician, tortured by the notion that his wife is having an affair, who suddenly finds himself accused of her murder. The other is a young mechanic drawn into a web of deceit by a temptress who is cheating on her gangster boyfriend. These two tales are linked by the fact that the women in both are played by the same actress.
The film stars Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Blake, Robert Loggia, Natasha Gregson Wagner,
Richard Pryor, Lisa Boyle, Mink Stole, Michael Massee, Jack Nance, Jack Kehler, Henry Rollins, Gene Ross, Giovanni Ribisi, Scott Coffey, Gary Busey, John Roselius, and Lou Eppolito.
Are you a fan of Lost Highway? What did you think of this best scene video? Let us know by leaving a comment below… and if this isn’t what you would have picked as the best scene, let us know which scene you think is the best one in the movie.
Two of the previous episodes of The Best Scene can be seen below. To see more of our shows, click over to the JoBlo Horror Originals channel – and subscribe while you’re at it!
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Back when he was on the Deadpool 2 promotion circuit, Josh Brolin would get in on the joke of deriding the unpopular Green Lantern film adaptation from 2011 that starred his co-star, Ryan Reynolds. Now, Brolin may be taking it a step further by inhabiting the role of Hal Jordan himself for the upcoming HBO series Lanterns.
ComicBook.com is reporting that, according to the podcast TheInSneider, there is talk of Brolin being offered the role of Jordan, who was the subject of Reynolds’ Green Lantern film. These are currently rumors and nothing concrete has been confirmed. In the HBO adaptation, Jordan is paired up with another Lantern, John Stewart. Stewart has yet to be cast. However, Black Adam‘s Aldis Hodge, who portrayed Hawkman, had voiced Stewart in animated productions and is in the market to make the crossover into live-action.
Hodge explained, “I would love to live out the rest of the legacy of Hawkman because we had some amazing plans for him. But also, with John Stewart in a live-action capacity. I’ve voiced John Stewart in the animated space for years now. Few years. Phil LaMarr passed the baton. Shout out to Phil because I’m a big fan of his work. But if that became a film adaptation, absolutely. I mean, that was one of my dreams growing up was to be John Stewart in live-action.”
Lanterns has officially been given an eight-episode straight-to-series order by HBO, Warner Bros. Television, and DC Studios. Chris Mundy (True Detective: Night Country) will serve as showrunner and executive producer and will co-write the series alongside Damon Lindelof (The Leftovers) and Tom King (Supergirl), who will also executive produce.
The series “follows new recruit John Stewart and Lantern legend Hal Jordan, two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.” Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content, said: “We are elated to be reuniting with both Chris Mundy and Damon Lindelof as they partner with Tom for this fresh take on DC’s Green Lantern. As part of James and Peter’s vision for the DC Universe, this first new live-action series will mark an exciting new era.“
In a joint statement, James Gunn and Peter Safran, co-chairmen and co-CEOs of DC Studios, added: “We’re thrilled to bring this seminal DC title to HBO with Chris, Damon and Tom at the helm. John Stewart and Hal Jordan are two of DC’s most compelling characters, and Lanterns brings them to life in an original detective story that is a foundational part of the unified DCU we’re launching next summer with Superman.“
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Is there a greater joy in a loot based game than coming across a new piece of gear that not only has better stats than your current equipment, but also just looks rad as hell? Final Fantasy XIV has no shortage of armor that fits this bill, including the Augmented Ironworks sets. But how do you get these gear sets and…
Is there a greater joy in a loot based game than coming across a new piece of gear that not only has better stats than your current equipment, but also just looks rad as hell? Final Fantasy XIV has no shortage of armor that fits this bill, including the Augmented Ironworks sets. But how do you get these gear sets and…
Update: Are pop stars the new final girl? Between Lady Raven in M. Knight Shyamalan’s Trap and Naomi Scott’s Skye Riley in Parker Finn’s Smile 2, sirens of the stage are making significant waves in the horror genre. Unfortunately for Skye, today’s Smile 2 trailer finds the past catching up with her, making her the target of a parasitic curse that threatens her sanity and safety, just as her world tour is about to kick off.
In Parker Finn’s Smile 2 trailer, Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) encounters a bizarre and deadly phenomenon concerning people around her flashing a gruesome smile as death comes knocking at her door. With seemingly nowhere to run, Skye enlists the help of a stranger with knowledge about the Smile, who says she must die to trick the “virus” from giving the pop star her final curtain call.
Original Article: In the middle of the pandemic, there was a massive push towards making streaming films. Paramount Plus was one of the many studios that opted to make movies specially tailored for their service. However, once the pandemic eased and people started returning to theatres, some movies that tested particularly well in early screenings were given theatrical releases.
The biggest success story to emerge from the streaming-to-theatrical pivot was Smile by director Parker Finn. A low-budget horror flick with a great hook, it made an astonishing $217 million worldwide on a $17 million budget. Now, the movie’s getting a sequel which expands the central premise, that a person is cursed by a supernatural entity to commit suicide (after flashing a demonic smile). This time, a pop star in the vein of Taylor Swift (played by rising star Naomi Scott) is passed the curse, with the first film’s Kyle Gallner co-starring.
With the sequel due to be released on October 18th, the studio’s all set to release an all-new trailer, which drops tomorrow. Until then, to whet your appetite, Paramount’s put out an all-new poster:
Here’s the official Smile 2 synopsis:
“About to embark on a new world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her dark past to regain control of her life before it spirals out of control.”
For more from “Skye Riley,” you can follow her on Instagram right here. Hopefully, Smile 2 will live up to the original, which I thought was a pretty nifty little sleeper hit and a total blast to watch with a raucous horror audience. With a prime release date just before Halloween, I expect this one to be a big hit (although the two-hour-plus running time seems excessive).
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With just a few days to go before the Ghost with the Most re-enters our world, Warner Bros. held the press junket for Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice in New York City, with all of the stars in attendance. Aside from the video interviews (which you can check out here), director Tim Burton did a roundtable with a handful of press to talk all things his long-awaited sequel. Here are the highlights from that chat…
“Michael and I both love the fact that he was politically incorrect then and he’s politically incorrect now… Somebody asked him the other day, ‘so Michael, how has the Beetlejuice character evolved?’ And we just started laughing, because he doesn’t evolve. That’s the whole point.”
“We didn’t rehearse and do anything. So he comes on, it was truly like a demon possession. It felt like a time warp. It was unnerving. It was great. It was exciting, but it was really also disturbing… That’s what gave the film its energy. You know, we’d make up stuff every day – which is kind of hard to do when you’re dealing with all live effects… Mike and I talked about this from the very beginning, that that was very important to the spirit, especially with all the technology… We just wanted to kind of not think about sequel or anything. Just go and make the movie. And so, like I said, that energy of what he brought back to it was, was amazing and crucial.”
“It’s been asked (about) from the very beginning, right? But nothing clicked and truly, it couldn’t have happened until now. I just put all the noise away and I just go, okay, I love the Lydia character. That was the character that I connected with… So I go like, well, what happened to this person 35 years later? You know, what weird thing- you go from cool teenager to what some fucked up adult or what? And what relationships do you have when you have kids?
And it’s not something I could have done back then. It’s only something you could do once you experienced those things yourself. And so for me, this became a very personal movie. Like kind of a weird family movie about a weird family… But that became the emotional hook. The three generations of mother, daughter, granddaughter, life, death, you know, just basic, normal things that we all experience. And then especially if you’re lucky enough to get older a little bit, you kind of feel those things. So that’s where it really started. And it really could only have happened for me after all this time.”
“I almost got out of making movies after my last one. ’cause I just didn’t feel this whole studio thing. I just didn’t feel, you know… So I went off and did the TV thing, Wednesday, in Romania, just to kind of… re-cleanse, so to speak, or re-energize, whatever. So I had no burning desire to make a sequel or anything. I just wanted to make this movie. So I think I’ve recalibrated the way I’m gonna approach things in the future.”
“She is Wednesday, you know what I mean? She’s really integral to this because she’s our entrance into this, she’s kind of the anchor of the film, it is actually really the story about her. And if you really want to boil it down, you know, her and her mother. And so she’s a really beautiful addition.”
“If it follows the model now, I’d be making that one… I’d be over a hundred… Even if you said it to me, I would run the other direction. This is one where I just said it, it was something that caught my- I don’t know. Not right now, ’cause we’re finishing this one, basically.”
Make sure to check back bright and early tomorrow morning for our official Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice review!
The post Interview: Tim Burton on Michael Keaton reprising Beetlejuice, Dumbo, Jenna Ortega and more! appeared first on JoBlo.
James Darren, the wildly diverse singer-actor who scored Billboard hits and was featured in everything from Gidget to TJ Hooker to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, has passed away. He was 88.
Although James Darren got his career going in the late ‘50s, he found entirely different audiences beginning in the ‘80s by co-starting on the William Shatner-led police drama T.J. Hooker, in which he played officer Jim Corrigan, who primarily partnered with Heather Locklear’s Stacy Sheridan.
The following decade, James Darren was able to combine his crooning and acting skills, landing the role of holographic singer Vic Fontaine in seasons six and seven of Deep Space Nine. The role was originally offered to Frank Sinatra Jr., but he turned it down. Darren himself wasn’t entirely convinced it would work, either, but the character ended up being a fan favorite and a trademark role for Darren, who not only brought his own style to Fontaine but found it to be a fun character to play.
Also on the sci-fi front, James Darren starred in the short-lived but incredibly fun series The Time Tunnel, playing Dr. Tony Newman, one of the men in charge of a project to develop a time machine and who finds himself aboard the Titanic, at Pearl Harbor and amidst the Trojan War.
Prior to all of this late-career success, however, James Darren had a billboard hit with “Goodbye Cruel World”, just a few years after getting his movie career going, although most of those films were low-level fare. However, he did get the role of surfer Jeffrey Matthews aka Moondoggie in three Gidget movies, co-starring with three different Gidgets. The same year he appeared in his final Gidget, he sang the title song for Under the Yum-Yum Tree.
While James Darren saw hiatuses at various points in his work life — particularly later on — and his movie career fizzled in the ‘70s, his resurgence helped solidify him with a new generation and his drive was clear. As he once said, “The most important thing is that you are happy with you. Not anybody’s career, no one that I know of, has always been climbing. It always levels out and you want to make sure you have good investments and financial security and bread on the table. If projects aren’t coming to you, then you seek them out and you try to develop and put projects together.”
What was the most memorable James Darren appearance? Drop your pick in the comments section below.
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Plot: A hilarious headbanger finally makes it after struggling for decades, revealing it was all because of a childhood incident when the dark forces of rock ‘n’ roll reached out from the grave.
Review: I was only eight years old in 1989. Still, I remember this pivotal year that brought the industrial power and angst of Nine Inch Nails‘s “Pretty Hate Machine,” the birth of the internet, and a tectonic shift in the music landscape, paving the way for bands like Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, and Hole to unseat rock ‘n’ roll as the dominant way to headbang and piss off your parents. Before the ’90s became a fashion crisis of drooping JNCO jeans, Sharpie marker skin tattoos, and bathroom sinks stained with Manic Panic, there were people like Dean Murdoch, a headbanger on the verge of emerging from his heavy metal cocoon in the small town of Haylen, Manitoba, Canada.
Wiping the slate clean of past film projects, Deaner ’89 explores Dean Murdock’s evolution from a beloved hockey jock to a mythical figure in the rock scene, known for his legendary backstage antics, unbridled enthusiasm for partying, and combining the Métis fiddle with a Warlock bass to create music so “epic” it makes a war between angels and devils in the ears of those who listen.
Paul Spense stars as the Deaner, aka the Governor of Given’r, a local hero of the hockey rink with a condition that makes him appear older than your average 17-year-old. Like metalheads I knew in the ’80s, Dean Murdock is a bold, unpredictable force of nature with a good heart beating beneath a worn leather jacket. 48-year-old Paul Spence’s portrayal of Dean is a bit awkward because of the age gap, but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t nail the vibe of a 17-year-old during a time of self-discovery. Spence’s energy overflows as Dean parties his way into a stupor, with the actor adding fun flourishes to Dean’s lingering immaturity, like Dean rocking out in front of a mirror in his tighty-whiteys, or violently dismounting his bike. I used to do the same thing with my BMX, and seeing Dean mimic my old habit made me smile. While Spence partially plays the role of a 17-year-old for laughs, it ultimately comes together for a solid comedic performance.
Dean’s rock ‘n’ roll awakening begins when he opens the trunk of his late father’s belongings. After trying on his dad’s old leather jacket, thumbing through his vinyl collection, and smoking a joint laced with cocaine, Dean feels the power of rock coursing through his veins. From this moment, Dean’s curiosity about the rock ‘n’ roll genre and his Métis (a group of Indigenous peoples in Canada) heritage grows, clouding his judgment with possibility and reckless abandon.
Aspects of this discovery turn him into an asshole, but only so much. Dean is all protection and heart regarding his sister Jen, played endearingly by Star Slade. Dean and Jen share a restored sense of place as revelations about their Métis background arise. Spence and Slade’s sibling chemistry is one of my favorite aspects of Deaner ’89. An ease between them gives the impression they’ve known each other for years. I could easily watch a road trip movie with the two of them searching for Métis people who knew Dean’s father.
Other memorable performances include Will Sasso (The Three Stooges, Happy Gilmore, Young Sheldon) as Dean’s adoptive father, Glen, and Mary Walsh (This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Broad Appeal) as May, Dean’s girlfriend’s aunt, who acts as Dean’s teacher in the ways of rock n roll. Sasso’s Glen is a sloth-like yet frisky figure at home and a well-intentioned hockey coach on the ice. Relying on clever line delivery instead of physical comedy, Sasso’s Glen represents a man trying to live a simple life with as little friction as possible. He won’t win any Father of the Year awards, but his heart is in the right place.
There’s no other way to describe Mary Walsh’s May than she’s an absolute pisser. She’s the relative of that weird friend you had in Junior High, the one whose dad sold you weed and let you drink in the basement. She brings comedy and good vibes whenever she’s on screen, even if the partying isn’t good for her health. Looking out for May’s best interest is Kitty, Dean’s no-nonsense girlfriend, played by Maddy Foley. Despite Kitty’s limited screen time, Foley plays the role well, with Kitty being the Bonnie to Dean’s Clyde in troublemaking and bringing him back to earth when he gets carried away.
Like any other 17-year-old, Dean is often angst-ridden, occasionally chauvinistic, and flat-out difficult to tolerate. While wanting to party with Dean, I also think he needs a good smack upside the head. Dean’s transformation from a hockey scholarship hopeful to a disillusioned youth contending with an identity crisis is anything but smooth. That’s to be understood, though, especially when a local biker gang stalks your every move. Biker gangs are real in Manitoba, and Deaner ’89 makes a point of including one as the film’s villainous group. They want Dean to throw his next hockey game, but he’s not about to listen.
While I appreciate the inclusion of the biker gang for authenticity’s sake, elements of the plot involving them feel like riding a motorcycle with flat tires. The gang is overtly goofy in how they disturb the peace, from ruining the local pie-baking contest to fixing high school hockey games for cash. While mildly amusing, their contribution to the story eventually runs out of gas.
People expecting a laugh-a-minute comedy like Wayne’s World or This is Spinal Tap will likely find Deaner ’89 to be surprisingly tame in its comedy. I laughed more at zany situations and entertaining character quirks than anything else. In a way, Dean and Jen’s search for answers to their Métis heritage adds a hint of “seriousness” to the film, though only Jen’s thirst for knowledge exudes urgency. Dean’s got too many new demons to focus on one thing at a time, including finding his people promptly.
Comedy is subjective. Everyone knows this. Deaner ’89 will only work for some, but it worked for me. As a child of the ’80s, I find Deaner ’89 nostalgic in ways I did not anticipate. Dean Murdock reminds me of older classmen I went to high school with, the guys with bandanas to catch their bangs, obsessing over muscle cars and lamenting Metallica’s downfall. They’d smoke at the bus stop, their ears covered with headphones, lost in Ministry’s “The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste” or Sepultura’s “Beneath the Remains.” My friend Matt used to hide a flask full of Jack Daniels in his jacket pocket, sneaking swigs during art and history classes—the salt of the earth.
Look. You’re reading a review from a guy who grew up wanting to be one of these knuckleheads, within reason. I killed multiple Sony Discmans listening to Megadeth’s “Countdown to Extinction,” Testament’s “Low,” and Opeth’s “Still Life” in my quest to scour the rock ‘n’ roll landscape. Deaner ’89 channels the transitional period between the release of Soundgarden’s “Louder Than Love” to Alice in Chains taking up the ’90s torch with “Facelift.” It’s an origin story with low stakes but demonstrates confidence when taking you back to a time and place with a specific type of person. It’s got a killer soundtrack, too. The song selection alone is a reason to watch the movie.
I’ve watched a lot of movies this year. Deaner ’89 stands out among the bunch—not for being a laugh-a-minute gas or blowing my mind narratively, but for its bizarre sense of heart, attention to detail, and portrayal of the life-altering effects of rock ‘n’ roll. For the record, I’d give this a 6.5 if we did halfsies, but alas. Check out Deaner ’89 and find out for yourself if you want to shotgun a beer and destroy speakers with Dean Murdock.
The post Deaner ’89 Review appeared first on JoBlo.
Eleven seasons and 250+ episodes is one hell of a run for a show, especially a sitcom. But that’s just where Married…with Children ended. So when you find out your show has been canceled after that long, you can probably proudly reflect on all that you’re leaving behind, knowing that future generations will continue to discover your work. But when you get the news from some randos, that might put a bit of a sting on it. That’s just what happened with Al Bundy himself, Ed O’Neill, discovering that Married…with Children wouldn’t be returning for a 12th season.
Appearing on the MeSsy podcast with Jamie Lynn-Sigler and Married…with Children co-star Christina Applegate, Ed O’Neill recalled being back in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio and finding out that he would no longer be stocking the shelves at a Chicago shoe store. “A car pulled in with the ‘Just Married’ things hanging off the back, you know, the tin cans… and I thought, ‘Oh, they, you know, just married.’ So I was standing there, and they got out of the car, and it was the husband and wife. She was in the gown, and he was in the tux. And he said, ‘Oh my god. It’s Al Bundy, in Ohio.’ And I said, ‘Yeah. Congratulations. You got married.’ The woman said, ‘We’re so sorry about your show.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And the guy said, ‘Oh my god. He doesn’t know. It’s on the radio. You got canceled.’”
It would have been easy for Ed O’Neill to phone the studio to chew them out for not telling him directly, but instead he did what any reasonable man would do: had champagne with the bride and groom! Applegate, for her part, also found out through the grapevine, as her agent didn’t give her a heads up, either.
It might be surprising to learn that Married…with Children had been on the air for so long – those are M*A*S*H and Cheers numbers right there – but maybe even more so that it only ever received Emmy nominations in technical categories. Looking back now, it’s clear just how incredible Ed O’Neill, Katey Sagal and especially Christina Applegate were during the show’s run.
Were you a fan of Married…with Children? What do you think the show’s legacy is nearly 30 years after it went off the air?
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