It’s that time of year again when Christmas movies are pulled out of boxes to revisit, and new ones debut on big screens and small screens. With Hallmark and Lifetime having cornered the market on the schmaltzy brand of Yuletide fare, it is easy to ignore or dismiss the countless other movies and shows with feel-good messages for this time of year. One such film is the new Shout Studios film A Sudden Case of Christmas, starring Danny DeVito, Lucy DeVito, Wilmer Valderrama, Andie MacDowell, and newcomer Antonella Rose.
Set in the Dolemite Mountains of Italy, A Sudden Case of Christmas is set during the summer when young Claire Randall (Antonella Rose) is heading to visit her Grandfather Lawrence (Danny DeVito), who owns and manages an exclusive hotel in the beautiful mountains. Claire is visiting with her mother, Abbie (Lucy DeVito), and father, Jacob (Wilmer Valderrama), and she has no clue that they are preparing to divorce. When Claire realizes what is happening, she demands the family convert the hotel to a Christmas theme to celebrate her favorite holiday one last time as a family. With Jacob’s parents, Rose (Andie MacDowell) and Mark (Jose Zuniga), joining them, what follows is a comedy of errors as the family copes with hijinks, arguments, and rekindled romance while getting a dose of Christmas at the same time.
I got the chance to chat with the father-daughter duo of Danny and Lucy DeVito about A Sudden Case of Christmas. We chatted about what it meant for the two to work together on screen, the talent of young Antonella Rose, and what their favorite Christmas movies are. Check out the full interview in the embed above.
A Sudden Case of Christmas opens in theaters, digitally, and on-demand on NOW. Read our review HERE!
Plot: Set in the proverbial boomtowns of West Texas, the series is an upstairs/downstairs story of roughnecks and wildcat billionaires fueling a boom so big, it’s reshaping our climate, our economy and our geopolitics.
Review: Taylor Sheridan has continued to expand Paramount’s roster of series to the point that they may want to reconsider naming their services after him. The writer-director has created shows centered on cowboys, outlaws, criminals, prisoners, soldiers, and historical figures. With Yellowstone returning to complete its original run and five other series on the air, I was prepared to discount Sheridan’s latest series, Landman, as another variation on his established formula. After seeing the new series led by Billy Bob Thornton, I am excited to say that Landman is Taylor Sheridan’s best series since the debut of Yellowstone. With a stellar cast including Ali Larter, Jon Hamm, and Demi Moore, Landman is another look at the wealthy and working class tied to the oil business and how the dangerous world of fracking and drilling claims lives in different ways. It is a fascinating blend of drama and an edgy sense of humor, making for a very entertaining new series.
Billy Bob Thornton leads the series as Tommy Norris, a crisis executive who works for the CEO of MTex Oil, Monty Miller (Jon Hamm). Previously a tycoon in the industry himself, Tommy lost everything when the market bottomed out and now works in the fields of Midland, Texas resolving issues for MTex. In the first five episodes, Tommy must contend with multiple deaths, each a potential liability for Monty’s company and each involving complex issues that resonate profoundly with the petroleum engineers and rig operators risking their lives to pump oil from the ground. Tommy lives with friend and engineer Dale (James Jordan) and MTex attorney Nathan (Colm Feore) while interacting by phone daily with Monty about how to navigate each legal and financial crisis. Thornton is charismatic as Tommy switches between hardhat and cowboy hat depending on the situation and deals with lawyers, drug cartels, and the most complex challenge of them all: his family.
While Tommy is the main character, Landman also follows his twenty-two-year-old son Cooper (Jacob Lofland), who has aspirations of his own but feels he must work in the oil fields to earn his place, his seventeen-year-old daughter Ainsley (Michelle Randolph) who is trying to find her place in life, and a tumultuous yet sexually-charged dynamic with his ex-wife Angela (Ali Larter) that gives him extra stress daily. With the subject matter of Landman heavily dramatic and some brutal moments punctuating each episode, Billy Bob Thornton gets to have some fun with truly funny moments that stand out in each episode. Taylor Sheridan’s writing plays with life and death, with the body count rising almost every episode. Still, I was laughing just as much either through the hilarious circumstances Tommy ends up in or Thornton’s perfect deadpan delivery of some biting one-liners. I appreciate the somber and violent moments punctuated by some humor, which gives Landman a balance missing from some of Taylor Sheridan’s other series.
The trailers for Landman note Jon Hamm and Demi Moore’s inclusion in the cast, but both are featured very little in the five episodes made available for this review. Hamm does get to deliver as Monty Miller has to hear the challenges Tommy apprises him of each day, feeling the stress piling on his shoulders. Hamm and Thornton share no screen time in the first half of the season, with Demi Moore being relegated to just a few lines overall. I expect more from both characters in the back half of the season. The additional screen time is allotted to Kayla Wallace as MTex attorney Rebecca Falcone, a surprising character I initially underestimated but who rivals Kelly Reilly’s Beth Dutton from Yellowstone as a woman you do not want to underestimate. We also have nice turns by Mustafa Speaks as crew leader Boss, Mark Collie as Sheriff Joeberg, and Paulina Chavez as Ariana, a widow whose connection to Cooper is a major factor in the first half of the season. Everyone here is quite good, with the established actors and the newcomers meshing well as an ensemble that fits into Taylor Sheridan’s brand of storytelling.
Co-created with Christian Wallace, the host and writer of Boomtown, the podcast that inspired Landman, all ten episodes of this first season were written by Taylor Sheridan. Sheridan also directed the first two episodes, while Stephen Kay helmed six of the remaining ten, with Michael Friedman on the remaining two. If you look back at his prior projects, the ones where Sheridan has written the entirety of a season tend to be his stronger narratives, and Landman is no exception. The balance of lighter moments does not shy away from the intensely dramatic and heavy material that this story centers on. Landman does not glorify the oil business but has some stark commentary on how our reliance on fossil fuels shapes our world. While series like Downton Abbey and The Gilded Age have looked at the disparity between the upper class and the workers who shape their lives, Landman straddles both sides with Billy Bob Thornton’s performance serving as an example of a relatively wealthy man whose life exists on the boundary of the working class and the leadership of the executive level.
Landman offers a mix of melodrama, sex, and the spoiled lifestyles of the rich and powerful with the high stakes of those who may not survive working in the oil fields and yet put their life on the line day after day. This story blends the gritty tone of Mayor of Kingstown with the guilty pleasure glimpse of the rich from Yellowstone with the just right sense of humor of Tulsa King for a fantastic television experience. Landman is not about rich people behaving badly as much as it is a peek into a world many of us know nothing about. Taylor Sheridan has built each perspective in this series and pulled them together into a fascinating portrait of what people do to make a living. I have enjoyed most of Taylor Sheridan’s series so far, but Landman is the best work he has done since the first season of Yellowstone. I am excited to see how the back half of this season wraps up, but based on the first five episodes, this already ranks as one of my favorite series of the year.
Landman premieres with two episodes on November 17th on Paramount+.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s ending is one of the best segments in the game if not the whole series. But its secret ending, one you unlock by doing specific side quests and finding certain artifacts throughout the world, is a bit more controversial. After fans unlocked the scene in question, some weren’t thrilled at…
Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s ending is one of the best segments in the game if not the whole series. But its secret ending, one you unlock by doing specific side quests and finding certain artifacts throughout the world, is a bit more controversial. After fans unlocked the scene in question, some weren’t thrilled at…
The expensive price tag on Dwayne Johnson’s Red One came out to over $200 million, which is actually not unusual for the superstar’s mega-budget movies. Deadline is reporting that the Christmas adventure movie is on track to see a $35 million opening this weekend as the early Thursday night previews totaled in at $3.7 million. Our own Chris Bumbray was not impressed with the film as he said in his review, “Red One is the very definition of a streaming movie. While it’s getting a theatrical release, it seems tailor-made as a movie meant to please the algorithm and audiences looking for an easily digestible family action film they can break up in pieces.”
Deadline also made sure to note that this figure also includes money made from a Sunday special screening. The Santa rescue caper has been sitting still on tracking for a good amount time with a $30 million to a $35 million projection. As this movie was originally intended to be a streaming-only film, these projected numbers would be the biggest opening ever posted for a feature production from a streaming service, besting Apple Original Film’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which opened with $23.2M. The initial plan for Red One was to release the film on Prime Video. However, audience test scores were so good that it prompted Amazon MGM to give it a theatrical run.
That preview test screening seems to be the last positive consensus it could bask in as the movie was getting early bad buzz and the film currently sits with a 34% on Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score still pending. Chris Bumbray also noted, “Indeed, there’s pretty much nothing anyone does in Red One that hasn’t been done a lot better elsewhere. Heck, if you want to see a really badass Christmas action flick, look no further than Violent Night. Red One is really only worthwhile if you’re desperate for some inoffensive entertainment for the kids, but otherwise this is just a big old lump of coal.”
Red One also runs unopposed this weekend with its only competition being releases of the past few weeks including Tom Hardy’s current box office champion, Venom: The Last Dance, another Christmas film, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and Hugh Grant’s villainous turn in the horror film, Heretic.
The directing duo of Adam Schindler and Brian Netto have worked with the legendary Sam Raimi on episodes of the Raimi-produced anthology series 50 States of Fright and on the thriller Don’t Move, which recently received a successful release through the Netflix streaming service – and while talking to The Hollywood Reporter, they revealed that there are a couple of projects where they’d like to follow in Raimi’s footsteps. For one thing, they would like to revive Darkman, the superhero action franchise that Raimi started with his 1990 film of the same name. They also want to make a Spider-Man movie, but the Spider-Man they want to bring to the screen is Miles Morales.
Scripted by Sam Raimi with Chuck Pfarrer, Ivan Raimi, Daniel Goldin, and Joshua Goldin, Darkman has the following synopsis: When the laboratory of Dr. Peyton Westlake is blown up by gangsters, he is burned beyond recognition. Altered by an experimental medical procedure, he assumes alternate identities in his quest for revenge. Liam Neeson starred in the original film (and would be interested in returning for a legacy sequel), then the title role was taken over by Arnold Vosloo for two direct-to-video sequels.
When The Hollywood Reporter asked them about their dream projects, Schindler answered, “If we’re talking Sam-related, it’s Darkman. We talked about Darkman [with him]. We’ve got a love and an affinity for Darkman.” Netto added, “Darkman was my favorite film for a good portion of my life. It was the movie, so Darkman would be really interesting.” If the chance to make a new Darkman movie does come up (and Raimi has said that Universal has been talking about making another sequel), Schindler and Netto might have to duel Scare Me and Werewolves Within director Josh Ruben over the project, as Ruben is such a Darkman superfan that he even recorded a fan commentary for a Scream Factory 4K and Blu-ray release.
Raimi directed a trilogy of Spider-Man movies that centered on the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker. The Miles Morales version of Spider-Man has made it to the screen in the animated Spider-Verse movies, but he isn’t part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yet. Schindler and Netto confirmed that they have talked to Raimi about their dream of making a Miles Morales movie. Netto said, “That would be incredible. My wife is from Puerto Rico, so my son is biracial. He’s Black and Puerto Rican just like Miles. The look on his face when he first saw Miles Morales matched the look on my face when I first saw Miles Morales, and it was just exciting to see. So, to bring Miles to life on the big screen one day would be incredible. They’re probably not going to do it tomorrow, so we have a little bit of time to work on that.“
Would you like to see Adam Schindler and Brian Netto get their chance to make a Darkman movie, and/or a Miles Morales Spider-Man movie? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The career of genre filmmaker Mike Flanagan is strongly tied to the works of author Stephen King. Flanagan has directed film adaptations of the King novels Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep. He tried and failed to bring an adaptation of King’s Revival to the screen. His upcoming film The Life of Chuck is another King adaptation, he’s developing the author’s Dark Tower saga as a Prime Video series, and we recently heard that he’ll be turning Carrie into an eight episode Prime Video series. He knows his King – which is why Movieweb asked him to name some of the most underrated King adaptations. Flanagan gladly did, mentioning a few great ones.
When Movieweb asked which King adaptations he thinks are underrated, Flanagan answered, “You know what jumped immediately to my mind? The Night Flier with Miguel Ferrer is a really good movie that I don’t think gets the appreciation that it deserves. I mean, I think with the books, it’s easier to point at ones where it’s like, ‘Oh, that book doesn’t get the love. Like, I always wonder where the swell of love is for Revival, which is one of my favorites of his books, or Hearts in Atlantis, which I think is just an incredible, incredible piece of work. But on the movies, yeah, The Night Flier, I think, is underappreciated, and I think the storytelling is great. The ending is phenomenal. Miguel Ferrer is wonderful in the role, and it just doesn’t get the love it should get.“
Flanagan went on to say, “Christine is one I find that, whenever I revisit it, I’m always glad I did. That’s one where I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, that one really worked.’ And that you don’t hear that brought up enough. I think Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone, this week, feels a lot more impactful than it might have last week. But that’s one, whenever I revisit it, I’m like, ‘What a beautiful piece of work.’ And yet it doesn’t end up in kind of the upper echelon of the movies people bring up right away. I could talk about this all day. There’s a there’s an amazing hopelessness in that, there’s this fated kind of sadness to it. I got to do a commentary track for that with Eric Vespe and Scott Wampler last year, and that was the last time I saw the movie. And I remember the three of us watching that for that commentary track, just kind of all being like, ‘Why isn’t this more celebrated? Like, why? Why aren’t we kind of trumpeting the merits of this movie from the rooftops?’ There’s so much in it that’s so amazing.“
He wrapped up by saying, “So I’d say, if people are looking to dive into underappreciated King, get your hands on The Dead Zone and do The Night Flier. Oh, you know what else I’d put up on there? It’s hard to find, but the limited series Storm of the Century is so good, and not nearly enough people have appreciated it and seen it, and I find myself evangelizing about it all the time. And then you can’t find it anywhere. It’s like impossible to track down, but Storm of the Century is, I think, my favorite of the miniseries.“
As for King movies that do get the love they deserve, Flanagan mentioned The Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me, The Green Mile, Misery, and Carrie.
Do you agree that The Dead Zone, The Night Flier, Storm of the Century, and Christine deserve more attention than they get? Which King adaptations do you think are underrated? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
It’s about that time to break out the Boyz II Men Christmas album, Christmas Interpretations. And in addition to their seasonal music contribution, Variety is now reporting that the four-time Grammy-winning R&B group is now working with production companies to get their story out there in not only a documentary, but a biopic as well. The group hit the scene in the early 90s thanks to super producer Michael Bivens, from Bel Biv DeVoe. Their breakout hit was “Motownphilly,” which was followed by “End of the Road,” “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday,” “On Bended Knee” and “One Sweet Day.”
Production and financing companies, Compelling Pictures and Primary Wave, are partnering with group members Nathan Morris, Shawn Stockman and Wanya Morris in developing a feature film that tells the story of their meteoric rise. Compelling is also set to begin production on a long-form documentary that chronicles the R&B group’s pop chart reign in the 1990s and 2000s and their continued success today.
Nathan Morris said in a statement for Boyz II Men, “We’ve been waiting to find the right partners who understand our story and are willing to tell it all. Denis and Jeff at Compelling Pictures understood us day 1.”
Compelling Pictures’ Denis O’Sullivan and Jeff Kalligheri (who have worked on respective biopics Bohemian Rhapsody and I Wanna Dance With Somebody) share their excitement about bringing the story to the screen, “Having grown up as huge fans of Boyz II Men, and having spent the past couple of years getting to know the guys and become friends with them, it’s a tremendous honor to help bring their unique and untold story to the big screen. We’re excited to show the brotherhood and comradery, as well as the challenges and strife, humor and heartbreak, that has accompanied the unparalleled success that Nate, Shawn, Wanya, and Mike have worked so hard to achieve. And we think the global audience will want to sing along to a sexy, funny, aspirational, uplifting celebration of friendships and artistic partnerships that have stood the test of time. Doom-doom-doom-da-da….”
Producer Larry Mestel, of Primary Wave, would also express, “Boyz II Men are one of the most influential bands of a generation. They are one of the few who transcend genre and format. Primary Wave is proud to expand its partnership with the band and look forward to creating a story with Joe, Jeremy and Compelling that will last forever and reintroduce the band to a new youth culture.”
Pokémon Gold and Silver turns 25 years old this month. The Game Boy Color RPGs brought fans to the Johto region, introduced 100 new monsters, and are widely considered some of the best games in the franchise’s long history. To commemorate the anniversary, The Pokémon Company is releasing a new line of merchandise…
Pokémon Gold and Silver turns 25 years old this month. The Game Boy Color RPGs brought fans to the Johto region, introduced 100 new monsters, and are widely considered some of the best games in the franchise’s long history. To commemorate the anniversary, The Pokémon Company is releasing a new line of merchandise…
