Month: December 2024

22 Dec

The Order review – sadly prescient true life ’80s cop thriller

By . FilmTV No Comments

Robert Jay Mathews was the founder of a white supremacist organisation that lends its name to Justin Kurzel’s cop procedural, The Order. In a 1984 letter, Mathews explained his desire to “quit being the hunted and become the hunter.” This notion sits at the heart of the film, a captivating cat and mouse chronicle of the rise of Nazi-inspired ideology in ’80s USA.

A police procedural needs a tormented copper, and Jude Law fills this role as ageing agent Terry Husk. Initially investigating violent robberies, he ends up heading an operation to catch Nicholas Hoult’s Mathews, who plans to kickstart a race war in America. As an entry to this flinty genre, The Order proves a competently realised affair. Kurzel’s longtime collaborator Adam Arkapaw captures the vast American Northwest, with its sinewy roads nestled beside mountains as the only gateways out, with visual elan. Law plays against type as Husk while Hoult embodies the particular charm that allows the cruel to control the gullible.

Tough luck, however, for those expecting another dose of Kurzel’s violent social realism. This is not the Australian outback, and The Order sees the director tamed, manifest in his prioritising of ethical questionings over criminal minutiae. The horror comes from seeing seismic consequences closer to newspaper headlines than history books. Figureheads die, but words live on, with grifters always waiting in the wings, spouting the same hate.

ANTICIPATION.

Australian director Justin Kurzel has been a little up and down of late.
1

ENJOYMENT.

A hard-nosed, serious treatment of hard-nosed, serious subject matter.
4

IN RETROSPECT.


It’s certainly – and perhaps unfortunately – very apropos for these troubled times.
3

Directed by



Justin Kurzel

Starring



Jude Law,

Nicholas Hoult,

Jurnee Smollett

The post The Order review – sadly prescient true life ’80s cop thriller appeared first on Little White Lies.

21 Dec

Disney explains why The Acolyte was canceled after one season

By . FilmTV No Comments
the acolyte

A couple of decades ago, it seemed like a dream that Star Wars fans would have so many shows and movies to watch. But with the influx of projects, that means that not everything will survive…especially when they’re slapped with $180 million budgets. Thus, with a seriously lofty overhead, The Acolyte hit the chopping block, airing its final episode of eight this past July.

Commenting on the cancellation of The Acolyte, Disney Entertainment co-chair Alan Bergman said the show “wasn’t where we needed it to be given the cost structure of that title, quite frankly, to go and make a season two. So that’s the reason why we didn’t do that.”

So with The Acolyte out, how hopeful is the studio for Skeleton Crew, which is halfway through its first season? “Skeleton Crew is in process now, so we’ll see. We’ve seen some growth on that. We’ll see how that goes. As you said, the reviews have been excellent on Skeleton Crew, so we’ll have to see how that all plays out as it moves forward.” For comparison, the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for Skeleton Crew is at a strong 80% while The Acolyte was less than a quarter of that, hitting 18%. Skeleton Crew will conclude next month.

Disney of course has plenty of other Star Wars projects in the pipeline even without the apparent burden of The Acolyte, with season two of Andor arriving in April and Ahsoka being renewed for its own sophomore outing.

And while the brand is, no singular offshoot of the Star Wars franchise is truly permanent. Viewership is obviously a key factor here, but Disney is also hoping for quality to advance the series. As Bergman added, “We’re looking at a number of additional series that are in development. We’ll see what we decide to do. As I said earlier, they have to be great, and when we’re in the position where we think we have what we want, we’re going to move forward.” No doubt Star Wars will press on despite the egg that was The Acolyte, introducing new streaming series in the ongoing efforts to see just how far they can stretch it.

What has been your favorite Star Wars TV series so far?

The post Disney explains why The Acolyte was canceled after one season appeared first on JoBlo.

21 Dec

Box Office Update: Sonic is running circles around Mufasa; Kraven drops out of the top 5

By . FilmTV No Comments

The box office battle between Disney’s Mufasa – the Lion King prequel – and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 seems to be over before it even began. According to Deadline, Sonic 3 more than doubled Mufasa’s grosses, with a $70.5 million opening (which is right in line with what we predicted). However, Mufasa is under-performing badly, with it on track for an opening weekend in the $36-8 million range. When you consider that the 2019 Lion King opened with $191 million, that’s a truly abysmal number, although, with the Christmas season in full swing, it should still have no trouble topping at least $100 million domestically. It did manage an A-minus CinemaScore rating, so word-of-mouth should be decent and give it legs into 2025.

Meanwhile, Moana 2 and Wicked are neck-in-neck, with each expecting to pull in around $14 million for the weekend. However, the movie in 5th place is a pretty big shock, with Sony’s pricey Kraven the Hunter on track to drop an obscene 72% this weekend, for a 7th place finish behind Gladiator II. In fact, Angel Studios’ faith-based Homestead, which is basically a feature-length pilot for their new streaming series, is going to wind up in the top five, grossing a very respectable $5.5 million on less than 2000 screens. While it won’t wind up as one of their top grossers, this is a solid number, with Angel having a knack for appealing to the faith-based audience, although none of their films since Sound of Freedom has really crossed over to mainstream audiences. 

Another movie tanking badly this weekend is Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim, which is also on track to lose at least 70% of its audience for a ninth-place finish. It likely won’t even pass $10 million domestically. OUCH. That said, Kraven is still the bigger bomb of the two, with it sporting a $125 million price tag. It likely won’t top $25 million domestically, which makes it a far bigger bomb than Madame Web.

What are you seeing this weekend? Let us know in the comments!

The post Box Office Update: Sonic is running circles around Mufasa; Kraven drops out of the top 5 appeared first on JoBlo.

21 Dec

Jason Segel landed Freaks and Geeks by putting Judd Apatow and Paul Feig in a deadlock

By . FilmTV No Comments
segel freaks and geeks

Maybe Joan Jett doesn’t give a damn about her reputation, but Jason Segel’s was good enough that he basically had his Freaks and Geeks character written for him…and it was unlinked from another.

Like pretty much everybody that was about to enter William McKinley High School in 1999 (or 1980 if we’re putting ourselves in Freaks and Geeks), Jason Segel was a complete nobody. But he was trying to make it in the business, and after landing the right contacts and some minor gigs, he got the chance to audition for what would become one of the best cult classic shows ever.

Speaking with GQ, Jason Segel remembered him vying for a key role on Freaks and Geeks, only to find the powers that be at a standstill. “The Freaks and Geeks script came across, and I read it and I loved it. And I showed up totally blind and cold. I didn’t know anyone. And Judd [Apatow] and Paul Feig were there and they had me improv a little bit and I had the naivety of youth. I wasn’t scared at that point…Next thing I knew, I was brought in for a callback with James Franco and we were – as far as we knew – competing for the same part. Because at the time, there was only one of those characters. Daniel and Nick were just one character at the time. So we went in and we auditioned against each other. They liked us both and they split the part, and he became the cool one, and I became the goofy one.”

That’s one heck of a compliment to both Jason Segel and James Franco, although it’s strange to think of drummer/Rush aficionado Nick Andopolis and habitual toker/class skipper Daniel Desario sharing the same DNA outside of being freaks (as opposed to geeks).

As Freaks and Geeks – which marked its 25h anniversary this year – only lasted one season, we never got a chance to see what became of the characters. And since we’ll likely – and, if we’re being honest, hopefully – never getting a reboot, Segel can only imagine what became of Nick. “The sad answer to where I think Nick is now…in my mind, he gets sent off to war and doesn’t make it. That was always the threat looming for Nick…” Was kind of hoping he would have gone full Neil Peart in a cover band, but whatever you think, Jason!

Which character stands out the most for you on Freaks and Geeks?

The post Jason Segel landed Freaks and Geeks by putting Judd Apatow and Paul Feig in a deadlock appeared first on JoBlo.

21 Dec

It Ends With Us: the hit romance sparks an explosive lawsuit between the two stars

By . FilmTV No Comments

For months now, there has been buzz about some serious behind-the-scenes drama from this summer’s hit film, It Ends With Us. This adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel grossed an incredible $350 million worldwide against a $25 million budget. Still, the film’s reception has been overshadowed by a feud between star Blake Lively, and the movie’s co-star and director, Justin Baldoni, the root of which was only speculated on — until now. 

Initially, the bad blood was thought to be over a difference of opinion between cuts of the film, with Lively and spouse Ryan Reynolds apparently having a major influence over the version that got released, jeopardizing a potential sequel. According to a bombshell report by TMZ, the conflict is much more serious than that, with Lively suing Baldoni for sexual harassment. 

According to documents obtained by TMZ, there was at one point a meeting attended by Lively’s husband, Reynolds, that resulted in a list of demands being presented to Baldoni, which included “– no more showing nude videos or images of women to Blake, no more mention of Baldoni’s alleged previous “pornography addiction,” no more discussions about sexual conquests in front of Blake and others, no further mentions of cast and crew’s genitalia, no more inquiries about Blake’s weight, and no further mention of Blake’s dead father.”

Ouch. While that all seems pretty damning for Baldoni, the director/co-star’s lawyer released a statement saying, “it is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions.” 

While Lively did indeed generate some negative publicity during the film’s press campaign, none of that actually hurt the box office, with it emerging as one of the year’s biggest hits. I’m sure there will be much more to come on this explosive story in the weeks to come.

The post It Ends With Us: the hit romance sparks an explosive lawsuit between the two stars appeared first on JoBlo.

21 Dec

The Sticky: Co-star Chris Diamantopolous loved working with Margo Martindale, teases Ed Brubaker’s Criminal

By . FilmTV No Comments

A few weeks ago, Prime Video put out all six episodes of The Sticky, a terrific comedic/crime saga starring the great Margo Martindale as Ruth Landry, a Canadian maple syrup farmer who schemes to steal millions of dollars of maple syrup (it’s loosely based on an actual heist that took place in Quebec). Her co-stars in the show include Jamie Lee Curtis (who also produced the show with Jason Blum), as well as the great Chris Diamantopoulos, who’s been in loads of stuff over the years, including The Office, Silicon Valley, the movie version of The Three Stooges (he was Moe), Red One, and much more. He’s also the official voice of Mickey Mouse for Disney, a role which has netted him two Emmy nominations.

Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Diamantopolous, who discussed The Sticky and how he hopes it will turn into a long-running crime caper for Prime Video. One of the interesting things about the show is that it tried to depict Canada realistically, with it being shot in Montreal and having many Quebecois actors in major parts (as opposed to Parisian actors playing Quebecers – which happens a lot). 

“The thing that I’m most excited about, particularly with Canadian audiences, but also with global audiences, is a television show that is shot in Canada that takes place in Canada, and that shows Canada for, I think, one of the first times as a proper player in the cinematic world.

We see Montreal’s underbelly, this darkness to the Quebecois, rural environments that are evocative of things like Fargo. Do you know what I mean? We actually see Canada in a Canadian story, the way that you would expect to see Dublin, you know, in an Irish story, and it’s not a parody.”

Diamantopolous also loved working with Martindale, who gets a rare turn as a lead in The Sticky, noting, “she’s so good, man. She’s so dynamic and so much energy and charisma and just a class act, a real pro.”

One thing he also appreciates is how – with streaming – the show’s runs are shorter but sometimes better. “I think it keeps people engaged, and it also sort of takes away this idea that you have to put out, you know, 12 or 22 episodes of this maximal quality, which is almost impossible to upkeep. Well, I remember even The Office, towards the end, had to go down from about 24 episodes a season to a little less because how do you maintain the quality for that long when you’re doing that?”

One show that’s coming up that Diamantopolous is part of is the adaptation of Ed Brubaker’s Criminal. “I could be wrong here, but I think they’re releasing them as events. The first event is with Charlie Hunnam and Richard Jenkins. And I wasn’t a part of that, but apparently, that’s going to just be amazing. The second event, the one that I’m part of is Emilia Clarke. If we had like four hours, it wouldn’t be enough for me to talk about how amazing Emilia Clarke is, and how much fun it was working with her. And Luke Evans is in it as well. The show and the world that they have created. It’s so good.”

The Sticky is now streaming on Prime Video and is well worth a binge-watch over the holidays. Read our review HERE!

The post The Sticky: Co-star Chris Diamantopolous loved working with Margo Martindale, teases Ed Brubaker’s Criminal appeared first on JoBlo.

21 Dec

Awesome Art We’ve Found Around The Net: 12th Annual Christmas Edition

By . FilmTV No Comments

Some cliche somewhere said that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ This has proven to be the case for me and especially when it comes to fan art. I have always sought out great fan art and have wanted to share it with as many people as possible. “Awesome Art We’ve Found Around The Net” is the outlet for that passion. In this column, I will showcase the kick-ass artwork of some great artists, with the hopes that these artists get the attention they deserve. That’s the aim. If you have any questions or comments, or even suggestions of art or other great artists, feel free to contact me at any time at theodorebond@joblo.com.

Black Christmas by Mark Gibeault

Die Hard by Forsaken Folklore

Gremlins by Saniose

The Grinch by Ronyzon

Home Alone by Syh

It’s A Wonderful Life by Paul Butcher

The Muppets Christmas Carol by Kate Dykstra

National Lampoon’s hristmas Vacation by John Dunn

The Nightmare Before Christmas by Brian C Hailes

Santa Claus by Giselle Almeida

Yoda by PJ McQuade

The post Awesome Art We’ve Found Around The Net: 12th Annual Christmas Edition appeared first on JoBlo.

21 Dec

What makes Bill Skarsgård so monstrous?

By . FilmTV No Comments

In F. W. Murnau’s original 1922 film Nosferatu, Max Schreck was so terrifying as Count Orlok that an urban legend grew suggesting he was in fact a real monster. While Schreck’s passing in 1936 put paid to any far-fetched claims of immortality, it’s a testament to the enduring nature of his performance that audiences would question whether he was supernatural. For Robert Eggers’ 2024 remake of the same name, he cast an actor whose career might have once sparked similar rumours: Swedish actor Bill Skarsgård has played a variety of roles in his 24-year career, but the ones that have earned the most attention tend to be those with a connection to the dark side. Just what is it that makes this good-looking, publicly mild-mannered star so great at playing the stuff of nightmares?

The most literal example of Skarsgård’s affinity for the monstrous is his role in Andy Muschietti adaption of Stephen King’s It. In both 2017’s Part One and 2019’s Part Two, Skarsgård played Pennywise The Dancing Clown (one of the most common forms the titular shapeshifting alien monster takes). Like Count Orlok, Pennywise had famously been played before, by Tim Curry in the 1990 TV miniseries. Where Curry took the form of a contemporary circus clown with some snarky gags and a gravelly carnival barker type voice, Skarsgård goes in a different direction to his predecessor, adopting a childlike voice and demeanour which only adds to the sinister intentions lying beneath. His makeup and costume come from another era, becoming part of the overall performative nature of the character, who opts for elaborate scares to terrorise the children of Derry.

This modern take feels more supernatural than Curry, partly due to advancements in computer effects, but also due to some innate qualities within Skarsgård. Pennywise’s unsettling smile came from a childhood game Skarsgård would play with his brothers where he would pretend to be a monster. Likewise, Muschietti was planning to digitally give the character a wall-eyed appearance, only for his star to mention that he can move his eyes in that way naturally. It is as if Skarsgård had prepared all his life to play this embodiment of childhood fears. “There’s like all these different things that I’ve been meaning to put into a character,” he told Entertainment Tonight, “then [Pennywise] appeared and I put all these things together to make as much of a weird, disturbing performance as possible”.

The success of Muschietti’s It led the actor to take on another hallowed role, this time as Eric in Rupert Sanders’ vision of The Crow (2024). The film stood in the shadow of Alex Proyas’ 1994 adaptation, starring the late Brandon Lee which became a cult classic. Skarsgård is once again a supernatural being brought back to earth, although this time he’s terrorising murderous drug lords rather than innocent children. After he and his lover (FKA Twigs) are murdered, he is resurrected to “put the wrong things right”, although his presence is more monstrous than Lee’s florid performance. In the film’s third act, he emerges as a demon of vengeance with black tattoo ink running over his eyes like warpaint, tilting his head unnervingly as he considers the best way to dispatch his prey. Immune to gunfire, walks relentlessly towards his attackers, jerking awkwardly as the bullets hit him. Far from being an avenging angel, he has become an instrument of death.

This state of being is succinctly described during a face-off with Marion (Laura Birn), the right-hand woman of the man who killed him. Looking at Eric, she described the slow fall of evildoing – “you’re swallowed up, and the only direction you can go is down”. Coated in the blood of others, he gives a bitter nod of recognition, before Marion describes him as having “the look of someone who hates everything inside of him”. While his crusade is one propelled by love, to truly become the demon his enemies fear, he drains himself of the goodness that his relationship gave him. To save his lover’s soul, he became a monster.

This brings us to Count Orlok – a character who does not share Eric’s noble intentions for bloodshed. His image has been kept from the film’s promotional material, shown mainly in shadow or through close-ups of his clawed hand reaching out. Therefore, when we meet him, the shock is the same as that of Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), the woman whom Orlok calls “my affliction”. Through Eggers’ lens, Skarsgård becomes a mixture of the erotic and animalistic. The Count begins to embody the darker side of our natures, feeding on our darkest secrets in a way that would make him a terror to the buttoned-down sensibilities of the mid-19th Century, when the film is set. Visually, that sinister glare that made Pennywise so unsettling peers from beneath his extensive prosthetics, while his deep accented voice appears like an echo from the beyond. Far from the caped suaveness of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, or the glittery angst of Twilight’s Edward Cullen, Skarsgård contorts his very being into the original source of vampiric fear, that of being consumed by darkness.

After having terrified cinema audiences as Count Orlok, Skarsgård will be returning to the role of Pennywise in the TV spin-off IT: Welcome To Derry. It seems his association with creatures of the night shows no sign of stopping, and the actor himself has admitted it is a “mutual kind of attraction”. “I think those characters are drawn to me as much as I’m drawn to them,” he told Vanity Fair. “The fact that they’re drawn towards me is a bunch of different reasons, everything from the way you look, you have a sensibility, there’s a darkness about you, or there’s an intensity.” Max Schreck moved away from the role that gave him infamy, with Orlok being the only horror role of his career. His successor, however, seems born to haunt our screens.

The post What makes Bill Skarsgård so monstrous? appeared first on Little White Lies.

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