You can’t have a cozy game without cute companions to find and adore, and Disney Dreamlight Valley has them in spades. In fact, its second expansion The Storybook Vale has three all-new types of critters to meet, feed, and become pals with, like a Pegasus that comes in four unique colors.
There’s a tradition when writing previews of games that says one must hold back on judgments, as a game is not yet finished and could see enormous changes before it’s released. I am, however improper it might be, going to ignore this principle on this occasion, because after spending at least six hours with the…
You can’t have a cozy game without cute companions to find and adore, and Disney Dreamlight Valley has them in spades. In fact, its second expansion The Storybook Vale has three all-new types of critters to meet, feed, and become pals with, like a Pegasus that comes in four unique colors.
Next year, Anthony Mackie’s feature debut as Captain America will finally hit theaters after a long, winding road. Deadline reports that the star of Captain America: Brave New World trekked to Singapore for the Disney APAC Content Showcase, where he revealed how he learned that he would don the shield with the star and stripes. Mackie said he had gone over to Chris Evans‘ house to watch a football game when Evans surprised him with the script pages of Avengers: Endgame that featured Steve Rogers passing the torch. “When I read it, we just hugged each other and jumped around in a circle,” said Mackie.
Mackie would also reveal that prior to being cast as Falcon in the Marvel Universe, he never actually read comic books. He confesses, “A lot of people might not like this, but I’ve never read comics. I’ve watched every cartoon, like everything from Tom and Jerry to Teen Titans — if you haven’t watched Teen Titans, that’s my favorite cartoon. Go online and search the ‘Booty Scooty’ [episode]. It’s amazing.” Even though he never read comics as a kid, he did say who his favorite superhero was growing up,
My favorite character of all time is the Incredible Hulk. I’ve always been a Hulk fan. When I was a kid, I used to watch the TV shows. I just always loved the Hulk.”
However, he added that he shared a common complaint with fans,
I always wondered, ‘How come everything came off except the pants?’ Everything — his shirt, his shoes — came off, but his pants stayed. I always thought that was weird.”
Mackie would also explain the interesting contrasts that his Sam Wilson would have compared with Steve Rogers when serving as Captain America, “It’s very different with the serum — you can fight anybody. When you don’t have the serum, you have to be smart and engineer different ways of defeating [enemies]. With Sam, him being a counselor, he uses more of his brains than brawn. He uses more of his wit than his fist. He’s more of a friend to everyone.” He also says, “Sam’s evolution is simple. He’s still a counselor. He’s still serving soldiers, but at the same time, now he’s a leader of his community in the country.”
The post Anthony Mackie reveals who his favorite superhero is…and it may not be who you may think appeared first on JoBlo.
A lot of the best art acts as a conduit for artists to unselfconsciously reveal vulnerabilities about themselves. And it’s not just a case of narcissistic oversharing, or being allowed to flout social and ethical boundaries with impunity – it’s about accepting your own fragility and employing your chosen art form to ask pertinent questions about yourself, ones which may not have direct answers.
I will admit: I approached the new work by filmmaker Elizabeth Sankey with a smug sense of knowing what I was going to get. With her previous films, 2019’s Romantic Comedy and the 2022 TV doc Boobs, she set out her stall as a maker of witty, perspicacious essay collages which employed archival material to present a thesis tapping into ideas of representation, nostalgia and pop social history. But my preconceptions in this case were entirely false.
From the outset, Witches appears to follow a similar path to its forebears, bringing in snippets from all manner of visual media to reclaim hackneyed and misogynistic depictions of witches through the ages. These women have often been cast as tragic figures, and their outcast status is such that they can easily become the locus of all society’s various ills. Ritualistically burning them at the stake would seem like the only logical course of action.
Following a prologue in which Sankey provides a voiceover atop various melodically-edited clips, she then emerges from the safety of the recording booth to take her place in front of camera and then proceeds to relay a traumatic episode in her life which, initially, seems to take the theme and tone of the film to a very different place.
As Sankey’s harrowing anecdote unfolds – and in her poetic recall of detail, it’s an anecdote that you instantly feel she has spoken aloud many times and to many people – it is revealed that following the birth of her son, Bertie, she began to suffer extreme bouts of depression and confusion. Following various kind dismissals from medical professionals essentially telling her to “calm down dear”, she was eventually diagnosed with post-partum psychosis and placed into a secure unit with her newborn son.
Though Sankey now has the gift of hindsight and reflection, she seems haunted by the fact that if one link in the chain of events had snapped, then there’s a chance she might not be with us right now, such were the uncharacteristic impulses she was experiencing at the time. The archive clips are still there, but slink into the backdrop for a bit as various fellow travellers are invited to tell their own stories, painting a vivid and hopeful picture of the care available to women who find themselves in this sorry situation.
So the film mutates a little bit from playful essay to necessary advocacy doc, yet in its final passages Sankey also manages to ingeniously thread the needle between her two subjects. She does so by expanding her purview to draw in feminist thinkers and historians to make the point that the tenets of witchcraft in ancient times had much in common with the behavioural tropes of post-partum psychosis, suggesting that that this isn’t just some new-fangled “problem” that’s been invented by modern women as some kind of dereliction of maternal duties, but something that has been at best misunderstood and at worst entirely ignored.
Little White Lies is committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them.
ANTICIPATION.
Love Sankey’s work in the essay film domain, but is this perhaps more of the same?
3
ENJOYMENT.
The film’s perfectly-judged personal framing elevates it to great heights.
4
IN RETROSPECT.
Leaves you wowed, wounded and also – most importantly – educated on a subject about which very little is known.
4
Directed by
Elizabeth Sankey
Starring
N/A
The post Witches review – leaves you wowed, wounded and educated appeared first on Little White Lies.
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 Scream 7 has been re-developed, Campbell has signed on to return as franchise heroine Sidney Prescott, back in the lead role – and The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that Isabel May of the Yellowstone prequel 1883 is in talks to play Sidney’s daughter!
Rumors had been swirling online in recent weeks that Mckenna Grace of the Ghostbusters franchise was close to getting the role of Sidney’s daughter, but it appears that Isabel May pulled ahead of her at the finish line (if Grace was actually in the running; you never know with online rumors).
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.
Until the Isabel May casting announcement, Neve Campbell was the only confirmed Scream 7 cast member. Courteney Cox has been in talks to reprise the role of reporter / author Gale Weathers since March, but she recently revealed that she hasn’t signed on yet. Patrick Dempsey has had discussions about reprising his Scream 3 role of Detective Mark Kincaid, but he’s waiting to see the script.
What do you think of Isabel May being cast as Sidney Prescott’s daughter in Scream 7? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Scream 7 is set to reach theatres on February 27, 2026.
The post Scream 7: Isabel May to play Sidney Prescott’s daughter appeared first on JoBlo.
The streets are abuzz and with the burning of a Guy Fawkes-esque effigy, Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande), brings news that the Wicked Witch, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), is dead. As she is about to float away, a citizen asks about her past in the company of the notorious villain, and we are sent soaring back into Glinda’s schooltime reveries.
This Wizard of Oz prequel arrives on the back of a lengthy theatre run and has been the subject of the biggest For The Girls
marketing campaign this side of Barbie, with pink and green adorning everything from lip balms to the Arc de Triomphe, so expectations are high.
Born with green skin, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is treated with scorn by peers, and her anger manifests in uncontrolled levitation. As she escorts her wheelchair-user sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) to Shiz University, her power unleashes itself, catching the eye of Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), a sorcery professor who takes Elphaba under her wing. Galinda, a spoiled, preppy girl, watches with jealousy, and as the polar opposite students become roommates, a rivalry begins.
Reverting to her theatre kid youth, Ariana Grande sings Wicked’s songs magnificently. Yet her abilities as an impressionist can be her downfall: she sounds almost eerily like stage predecessor Kristin Chenoweth with the song ‘Popular’, but her comedy skills leave a little more to be desired. A vision in pale pink, she trills, flounces and preens, matchmaking and makeovering her way into a rich movie legacy of iconic high school blondes. Even as she runs away in fear in one scene, she tosses her hair, and she embodies a shallow altruistic, #woke personality that seldom fails to entertain.
The filmmaking enhances every move Grande makes, from the expressions of sidekick Bowen Yang to the clever split screening during ‘What Is This Feeling?’. Likewise, co-star Jonathan Bailey thrives as a roguish flirt, especially in ‘Dancing Through Life’, as he bounds through a clocktower library, twirling everyone in his vicinity. Juxtaposed with quiet moments of cutting through Elphaba’s defensiveness, Bailey opens out the layers of Prince Fiyero’s personality like an onion.
Cynthia Erivo puts her heart and soul into every solo and that effort is evident in every scene. She makes the trickiest numbers look like a breeze, reminding viewers why she is halfway to an EGOT. Her chemistry with Grande is unmatched as they gaze loathingly and lovingly into each other’s eyes. Together they rise to the challenge of inhabiting such beloved characters.
From Step Up 2: The Streets, to In the Heights, director Jon M Chu was born ready for the uphill task of understanding the dynamism needed to flit between intimate moments in each number, to filling the screen with impressive choreography. The end credits are filled with pages and pages of dancers. Nessarose’s wheelchair dancing with Boq and Elphaba’s entrancing bird-like interpretive dance during a scene set at a ball are particularly triumphant.
Though the run time may seem excessive (two hours and 40 minutes?!), it is a testament to Cho and his team’s care that each musical number is carefully built up and celebrated with elaborate set pieces. And, most importantly, each is given a pause thereafter to allow the emotional impact to sink in. Animal characters played by Peter Dinklage and Sharon D Clarke both provide a comforting presence during the downtime, while also adding to the grief at the heart of Wicked’s conspiracy.
The production design, especially of the Venetian palace that is the university (which seems to be entirely wheelchair accessible, perhaps the spiral staircases are ramps?) is gorgeous, with tiny details like hummingbirds ringing bells that all add up to a stunning little world. Likewise, the costume design features some fabulous skirts that look like party dress petals and the dresses in Emerald City are akin to concertina Christmas baubles.
However, the film suffers from a slightly washed out 2020s CGI Blockbuster aesthetic that dulls its shine. There is plenty of colour, but while the Broadway costumes feature sparkles galore and pay homage to its ’00s origins with camp flamboyance, this modern iteration is pared back. Though the calligraphy of the title credits hark back to the older film’s Technicolor time, that vibrancy doesn’t quite hit the same.
Yet there is much to love about Wicked, with the promise of innovation in Part II, which is shorter and quite rushed in the play. Yeoh redeems herself after a similar role in Paul Feig’s 2022 fantasy film, School for Good and Evil, and every solid aspect of the great dialogue from the play is given its due diligence. It has been a long production journey, but reaching the end of this winding yellow brick road has yielded movie gold.
Little White Lies is committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them.
ANTICIPATION.
Musical theatre and pop fans are generally feral and the higher the stakes, the worse my trepidation.
3
ENJOYMENT.
The big screen spectacle and the audience energy swept me away.
4
IN RETROSPECT.
Cinema employees ask me to leave because it’s “not out yet” but I’m simply too seated for Part II.
4
Directed by
Jon M Chu
Starring
Ariana Grande,
Cynthia Erivo,
Jonathan Bailey
The post Wicked review – Grande and Eviro’s chemistry is unmatched appeared first on Little White Lies.
We have apparently seen the end of the Indiana Jones franchise, as Harrison Ford has stated that The Dial Of Destiny is the last time he’ll don the fedora and whip. Well, it will be the action and adventure franchise’s end unless Disney decides to squeeze every last drop they can out of it, which is never out of the question. Film fans always need something else to fill in their viewing void, so what are the best adventure movies like Indiana Jones for fans of the Indiana Jones series to check out?
This is oddly a full-circle film when it comes to Indiana Jones. Uncharted is based on the video game of the same name, which was admittedly based on the Indiana Jones films. Nathan Drake (played by Tom Holland) teams up with a seasoned treasure hunter in Sully (Mark Wahlberg) to find a lost treasure rumored to be worth $5 billion. Meanwhile, the sinister Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas) also wants to get his hands on the famed bounty because he feels it belongs to his family. The race is on, and this globe-trotting adventure is action packed and full of intrigue.
This falls more into the comedy category, but it has all the hallmarks of the Indiana Jones franchise. Puzzles, a lost treasure, and jungles galore. Romance author Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) has written about a lost city and an unfound treasure. Now a billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) thinks she might have to key to finding an ancient treasure and kidnaps her to make her lead him to it. The cover model for all her books (Channing Tatum) goes after her to prove he’s more than just a pretty face. They all get lost in the jungle and discover the lost city is real.
This Cannon action adventure movie was made to ride the coattails of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom and draw in fans of the Indiana Jones films, but of course, in the Cannon way, it cost way less to make. Fortune hunter Allan Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain) is hired by a desperate woman (Sharon Stone) to find her father. He went in search of the legendary diamond mines of King Solomon. She is afraid he has been captured and needs rescuing. The duo head to South Africa and quickly run afoul of Quatermain’s rival Dogati, played by Indiana Jones actor John Rhys-Davies. The race is on to find the lost adventurer and to discover if King Solomon’s mines are real. Even if it’s supposed to be a rip-off, it still works as one of the best movies like Indiana Jones, but avoid the sequel, Alan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold like the plague.
Based on the Clive Cussler novels, this has more of a Temple Of Doom feel to it, with oppressed people trying to fight back against an evil warlord. Former Navy Seal Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) and his sidekick Al (Steve Zahn) are looking for a legendary lost Civil War battleship. It was rumored to have crossed the Atlantic and entered the Niger River in Africa. While searching, they encounter an evil warlord and a kidnapped WHO scientist Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz). She warns them that the warlord is about to unleash a toxic spill into the ocean that would cause a worldwide disaster. This wasn’t the first Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt adaptation. There was also the infamous Raise the Titanic from 1980, but outside of a great score by John Barry, it’s deadly dull.
Another full circle film as this video game adaptation also took inspiration from the Indiana Jones films. Some films were made in the early 2000s, but this recent version feels more connected to the Indiana Jones mythos than the others. Lara Croft has been going through life with no real direction since her dad disappeared on an expedition many years before. No one else seems to believe he is still alive but her. She sets out to find him and solve the mystery of his disappearance. His last known whereabouts were a mythical island off of Japan. Upon arrival, she discovers more than she bargained for and is captured by a corporation that wants the tomb her father was searching for. She has to fight back to stop them.
The real successor to the Indiana Jones franchise begins here, complete with the supernatural element. Brendan Fraser stars as Rick O’Connell, who helps out a young archeologist. She wants to start a dig at an ancient city but finds out that someone beat her to it. The group accidentally releases a cursed high priest. Now he has returned and wants to unleash a series of plagues upon Egypt as revenge for his death. Rick has to stop him and send him back to his grave. The series is a lot of fun and brings back some fun adventures along with some bad CGI. Even with the sketchy special effects, it’s still one of the best movies like Indiana Jones.
A brainiac gets thrown off an archaeological dig but is invited to join the Metropolitan Library. He learns that the job isn’t about maintaining books when he accepts. It’s about finding historical artifacts and keeping them out of the hands of those that would use them for evil. His first assignment is to locate the Spear Of Destiny. It has been broken up into three parts and hidden around the world. He has to retrieve these pieces and return them to the library before anyone else finds them. If put back together, it would create a devastating weapon that could destroy anything it’s pointed at.
In this Steven Spielberg film, young Tintin buys a model ship from the market, but the sinister Mr. Sakharine immediately wants it. He kidnaps Tintin and sets sail on a cargo ship. Once Tintin escapes with his trusty dog Snowy and the ship captain Haddock, he learns that his model contains one of three pieces of a puzzle that gives the location of a hidden treasure. It turns out Mr. Sakharine also has one piece, and now Tintin has to find the third piece and keep anyone else from finding the location.
A romance novelist (Kathleen Turner) receives an old map in the mail, followed by a frantic call from her sister. She has been kidnapped, and they want to exchange her for the map. Now she has to travel to Columbia to make the trade and runs into adventurer Jack Colton (Michael Douglas), who she gets to agree to escort her through the dangerous jungle. It’s soon discovered that the kidnappers are looking for a large emerald. They try to save her sister while also finding the jewel for themselves. This and its sequel, The Jewel of the Nile, are among the best movies like Indiana Jones.
Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) has been a treasure hunter his whole life. He believes that the United States’ founding fathers hid a large stash of valuables and left clues of where to find it. No one else believes his theory, but he sets out to prove them wrong. He’s finally putting the clues together and will do anything to reveal where this treasure is hiding. Even stealing the Declaration Of Independence. A fun trip through U.S. history as Gates tracks down what clues the founding fathers left behind to the ultimate prize. Of course, he’s not alone, and a rival hunter is on his heels. Who will get there first? The first movie is pretty good, but the sequel and spin-off TV series aren’t great.
What do you think are the best Indiana Jones alternatives? Let us know in the comments.
The post The Best Movies like Indiana Jones appeared first on JoBlo.
The first two seasons of Sylvester Stallone’s Tulsa King have been a massive success for Paramount+. Although the series hasn’t been officially renewed yet, Deadline says Stallone is in the midst of making a new deal that will lead to season 3 and season 4 of the crime drama. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the series will conclude with season 4, as Deadline states that it could go beyond and even spawn spinoffs like Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone franchise.
The report also states that Stallone will likely be getting a raise for the new seasons. He was paid roughly $750,000 per episode for the first season, which was bumped up to $1.5 million per episode for the second.
The actor actually let it slip that the team was already working on Tulsa King season 3 shortly after the second season’s debut. “I am elated and so proud of our cast because our show has gone up 75% over last year which is unheard of, and Season 2 got 100% on ROTTEN TOMATOES!” Stallone said. “Also it’s the Second most popular show in the WORLD across all streaming services! Thank you so much and we are working on the third season at this moment.”
The official synopsis for Tulsa King season 2: “Dwight (Stallone) and his crew continue to build up and defend their growing empire in Tulsa, but just as they get their bearings, they realize that they’re not the only ones who want to stake their claim. With looming threats from the Kansas City mob and a very powerful local businessman, Dwight struggles to keep his family and crew safe while keeping track of all his affairs. Plus, he still has unfinished business back in New York.”
Our own Alex Maidy is a fan of the new season, saying it’s “as good if not better” than the first. “This new season further distinguishes itself from other Taylor Sheridan-created series rather than getting lumped in as another show from the guy who made Yellowstone,” Maidy wrote. “Tulsa King is violent, funny, and the best mob series to hit the air since The Sopranos.” You can check out the rest of his review right here.
The post Tulsa King: Sylvester Stallone making deal to return for two more seasons appeared first on JoBlo.