Earlier this summer, Megalopolis director Francis Ford Coppola joined Letterboxd, the social cataloguing service where members can rate and review films and keep track of what they’ve watched. He hasn’t been too active on the service, but he has given Megalopolis a perfect five-star score. The divisive film has been receiving mixed reviews from critics and audiences, with the average Letterboxd score sitting at 2.9. Coppola also gave five stars to The Last Showgirl, a film directed by his granddaughter Gia Coppola.
Despite the mixed reviews, Megalopolis is clearly a project Coppola is passionate about. He spent decades developing the movie and even put up $120 million of his own money. While it’s a shame the movie wasn’t the universally acclaimed masterpiece that many were hoping it would be, folks can’t seem to stop talking about it. In my book, an interesting failure is more alluring than another two hours of forgettable mediocrity.
Our own Chris Bumbray caught Megalopolis at TIFF, and unfortunately, he wasn’t a fan. “In the last forty minutes, Megalopolis becomes a real disaster, with so much jam-packed into the movie’s third act that it becomes almost impossible to keep up with it,” Bumbray wrote. “It becomes nonsensical as it races towards its ending. Again, one can’t fault Coppola for his ambition. He financed the movie with money he earned, so he had every right to make exactly the film he wanted to make. But it’s hard to imagine this ever connecting with anyone other than hardcore Coppola devotees or maybe connoisseurs of bad cinema.” You can check out the rest of Bumbray’s review right here.
The official synopsis for Megalopolis reads: “Megalopolis is a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero, the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.” The film is currently slated to hit theaters on September 27th. I’m looking forward to finally getting to check the film out for myself.
At the beginning of the year, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth launched a hell of an opening salvo. The latest installment in the long-running Like a Dragon/Yakuza series is comically full of things to do. On one hand, it’s a turn-based RPG epic, splitting its narrative between two larger-than-life protagonists in…
At the beginning of the year, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth launched a hell of an opening salvo. The latest installment in the long-running Like a Dragon/Yakuza series is comically full of things to do. On one hand, it’s a turn-based RPG epic, splitting its narrative between two larger-than-life protagonists in…
February 14th is a Friday in 2025, so that would seem to be the perfect choice of release date for a horror romantic comedy that’s set on Valentine’s Day, which is what the movie Heart Eyes is. But the February 14th release date has already been taken by Disney/Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World and Paramount’s Smurfs animated movie… so Sony Pictures has chosen to release Heart Eyes on February 7th. Its competition on that date is the Universal action movie With Love, starring Ke Huy Quan.
Coming our way from Josh Ruben, the director of Werewolves Within and Scare Me, Heart Eyes was scripted by Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon, Landon’s Freaky collaborator Michael Kennedy (who also wrote It’s a Wonderful Knife), and Phillip Murphy (The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard). The film has the following synopsis: When the Heart Eyes Killer strikes Seattle, a pair of co-workers pulling overtime on Valentine’s Day are mistaken for a couple by the elusive couple-hunting killer. Now they must spend the most romantic night of the year running for their lives.
Olivia Holt of Totally Killer and Mason Gooding from the two most recent Scream movies star alongside Jordana Brewster (The Fast and the Furious), Devon Sawa (Final Destination), and Gigi Zumbado (The Price We Pay). We’ve been assuming that Holt and Gooding are playing the co-workers who have to run for their lives, but no details have been revealed about the characters being played by Brewster, Sawa, and Zumbado.
Ruben previously provided the following statement: “My love of horror is rivaled only by my love of romantic comedies. I’m excited as hell to mount my most challenging genre bender to date: a brutal slasher in a nostalgic rom-com universe.“
Heart Eyes is set up at Spyglass, and Republic Pictures has picked up distribution rights to the film outside of the U.S. and Canada. Landon is producing the film with Divide/Conquer’s Greg Gilreath and Adam Hendricks. Spyglass’ Gary Barber and Chris Stone serve as executive producers with Murphy and Mel Turner.
There’s no way I’m going to miss a slasher from the folks who brought us films like Werewolves Within, Scare Me, Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2U, Freaky, and It’s a Wonderful Knife, so I’ll be watching Heart Eyes no matter what its release date is.
Are you interested in Heart Eyes? What do you think of Sony picking February 7th as the release date? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The writing duo of Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant are best known for their work on comedies and family friendly projects: Reno 911!, Taxi (2004), The Pacifier, Herbie: Fully Loaded, Let’s Go to Prison, Balls of Fury, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Baywatch (2017), Night at the Museum, and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. But they’ve also written the horror comedy Hell Baby, and Garant has written the horror films The Veil and Jessabelle. So it’s not entirely off brand to hear that they wrote the initial screenplay for the upcoming horror film The Casket Girls, with Gabrielle Union (Breaking In) on board to star and executive produce.
Deadline reports that Justin G. Dyck will be directing The Casket Girls and has done script revisions with Keith Cooper (Anything for Jackson). Dyck has a lot of directing credits to his name, most of them being on romantic TV movies, many of them set on Christmas, but he has also worked on the Shudder TV series Creepshow and directed the horror film Anything for Jackson.
The Casket Girls is inspired by the true story of a group of young women sent from France to New Orleans to become brides to French colonists in the early 1700s. They arrived with small chests, or “caskets” of their belongings, hence the name given by locals. According to legend, upon the girls’ arrival, the homicide rate in New Orleans rose dramatically, with stories of men drained of their blood. The girls were blamed and feared to be demons or vampires, and for the city’s protection, they were imprisoned in the attic of the Vatican-controlled Ursuline Convent, which still stands today in the heart of the French Quarter, locked away behind an impenetrable door and windows bolted shut by nails blessed by the Pope himself. The film takes place in today’s world as Detective Shay Williams (Union) and her partner become trapped inside the Ursuline Convent with a group of tourists when the Casket Girls escape from their attic prison for the first time in over 300 years.
QC Entertainment’s Sean McKittrick and Raymond Mansfield are producing the film. Union executive produces alongside QC’s Edward H. Hamm Jr. and Lighthouse Pictures’ Jameson Parker. Despite the New Orleans setting, filming will take place in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Production is set to begin on October 15th.
Does The Casket Girls sound interesting to you? Share your thoughts on this Gabrielle Union horror project by leaving a comment below.
Joker 2, technically titled Joker: Folie à Deux, is just a couple of weeks away, and the final trailer has arrived to try and seal the deal for potential audience goers who are still on the fence about whether a “jukebox” musical is how they want to see the Batman villain’s story enter its next phase.
Joker 2, technically titled Joker: Folie à Deux, is just a couple of weeks away, and the final trailer has arrived to try and seal the deal for potential audience goers who are still on the fence about whether a “jukebox” musical is how they want to see the Batman villain’s story enter its next phase.
When you thought you’d seen the final trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux, Todd Phillips returns with another explosive preview to whet the whistles of eager fans. Today’s Joker: Folie à Deux trailer showers the film with praise from glowing reviews across the entertainment spectrum, selecting the best of the best quotes from reviews for the movie’s Venice Film Festival screening.
As you may recall, many reactions to Joker: Folie à Deux skewed toward the negative, but WB managed to sift through the weeds to find a bed of flowers thrown at Todd Phillips’ feet for the new trailer. The mixture of reactions to the film reinforces the need to see it for yourself (if you’re interested) and form your own opinion. I’m still waffling about coughing up the cash to see the movie in theaters, but I know plenty who are ready to fork over the scratch to dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight.
Joker:Folie à Deux will be “mostly a jukebox musical, including at least 15 reinterpretations of very well-known songs.” In hindsight, it would have been hard to imagine Joaquin Phoenix returning for more of the same, no matter how many dump trucks full of money they drove to his house.
In addition to Phoenix and Gaga, the film also stars Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Jacob Lofland, and Harry Lawtey. Zazie Beetz returns to reprise her role as Sophie Dumond from the first movie, a love interest for Arthur. Official plot details remain a mystery, but the trailer paints a pretty picture, and it’s been said that much of the sequel will occur within Arkham Asylum, where we left Arthur in the last film. It’s inside Arkham where Arthur meets Harleen Frances Quinzel. After escaping, Arthur and Harley resow the seeds of chaos in Gotham City, a corrupted metropolis continuously on the verge of collapse.
Does the latest Joker: Folie à Deux trailer make you want to see the movie even more? Are you counting down the days until the film’s theatrical release on October 4? Are you still nervous about the movie’s musical elements? Let us know in the comments section below.
PLOT: A special forces soldier who has given up country, religion, and even hope, must return to the field of battle to track down his niece, a reporter, caught in the middle of an illegal private contracting operation that went dead wrong.
REVIEW: The political turmoil of Venezuela makes it the perfect setting for a political action thriller. The country has had such issues that the US government warns citizens not to travel there. So it allows a backdrop of corruption and violence while still keeping a grounded reality. Long Gone Heroes takes advantage of this and is able to provide a relevant story while not stepping on anyone’s toes, politically. This is a simple story about a group of “good guys” entering a war-torn country and saving a hostage. And it’s surprisingly good.
When it comes to these lower-budget action films, I never really know what I’m in for. They range the gamut from barely comprehensible to surprisingly energetic. Given the subject matter, I’d never describe Long Gone Heroes as fun, but it’s damn entertaining in its execution. Following Gunner (Grillo) and his merry band of mercenaries, they are tasked with saving the kidnapped daughter of a Senator. The rescue attempt is made more complicated when she refuses to leave without helping the other kidnap victims. It’s a pretty basic story with expected story beats and plot progression but it’s handled well. We aren’t given stereotypical character introductions set to different genres of music, trying to establish their personalities. We’re simply introduced to new people as they’re relevant to the story and it’s done rather unceremoniously.
Frank Grillo has made a nice little niche for himself as an action lead in these smaller films. But it’s never been more clear that the man needs a major action franchise to take charge of. Gunner impresses with how in control of the situation he is, no matter what curveball gets thrown his way. He feels like a classic action hero. Josh Hutcherson is also making a habit of really standing out in these actiony side roles. He’s presented as a tech guy but he more than proves himself out in the field. It’s not quite as showy as his Beekeeper performance earlier this year, but he adds such value to a role that would have been forgettable with a lesser actor.
As with many films like this, there are a few roles that, despite prominent placement on the poster, are nothing more than cameos. Melissa Leo is the Senator whose daughter is kidnapped, but she mostly bookends the movie. Andy Garcia is severely underutilized as bad guy Roman, really only getting a couple of scenes to stand out. He mostly just hovers around stereotypical bad-guy mode and he’s so great that I wanted more of him. Mekhi Phifer also features briefly as psychopath Moreao, a man who leaves no witnesses to his crimes. Despite the limited screen time for these actors, the filmmakers do a good job of keeping them involved even when we’re not physically seeing them. This avoids some of the trappings that indie films can get into (especially those geezer teasers) where the actor was clearly on set for one day and had nothing invested in the film.
The action is tight and mostly in-camera, though there is some CGI blood that can be a little distracting. For the most part, the explosions are real and moments that would usually be digital are surprisingly practical. There’s a fire stunt that could have easily been done with CGI but they go through the pains of setting a stuntman on fire. Stuff like this helps to differentiate it from all of the other action films that often take the digital shortcut. Even still, the action never reaches that next level, often just being a quick shootout and moving on to the next set piece. It can be a bit “rinse and repeat.”
This marks the fifth collaboration between Writer/Director John Swab and Grillo. They clearly like making these action films together and have gotten pretty good at it. As good as the execution is, the story is a bit generic at times. The film certainly meanders at points and could have easily been cut down to streamline the narrative. I’d argue that this further lends to the grounded world, allowing us to spend time with these characters in more mundane moments. I think this ultimately makes the side characters stand out a little more. Beau Knapp and George Carroll have some great interactions that really bring this world of mercenaries to life.
I really enjoyed my time with Long Gone Heroes. The story is simple but immediately gives the viewer the desire to see justice served. The action doesn’t go too crazy but the grounded nature and desire for in-camera stunts helps it stand out. While the story is very generic and predictable, I enjoyed my time with this band of mercenaries. We need more films like this that just want to tell interesting morality tales set in an action landscape. Is that too much to ask?
LONG GONE HEROES will be in Theaters, On Digital and On Demand September 20, 2024.
