Month: January 2025

Period horror often has a tough hill to climb within the modern landscape of cinema. Younger generations prefer a more energetic pacing in short bursts so a drawn-out film that relies on tension and dread can be a tough sell. Thankfully, I’m an old man and absolutely love any horror film that can bring me on a journey through hell, regardless of the time period. And thankfully The Damned is able to utilize the setting and give us a glimpse at a time that passed while walking the line of myth. I really enjoyed the film myself.

Actor Odessa Young and Director Thordur Palsson were gracious enough to talk to me about their film The Damned. We got into the very harsh conditions in which they filmed in as well as the difficulties of something as simple as getting equipment to their filming location. But I was surprised to hear how much comradery was formed on the set, as the cast and crew bandied together to make the most of the tough conditions. This was a great talk and you can check it out in its entirety in the video embedded above.

THE DAMNED plot:

The Damned is a tense psychological horror film that follows a 19th-century widow who is tasked with making an impossible choice when a ship sinks off the coast of her isolated fishing outpost during the middle of an especially cruel winter. With provisions running low, Eva and her close-knit community must choose between rescuing the shipwrecked crew and prioritizing their own survival. Facing the consequences of their decision and tormented by guilt, the inhabitants wrestle with a mounting sense of dread and begin to believe they are all being punished for their choices.

THE DAMNED IS PLAYING IN SELECT THEATERS ON JANUARY 3RD, 2024. Read our review HERE!

The post Interview: Odessa Young and Thordur Palsson Talk The Tortuous Shoot Of The Damned appeared first on JoBlo.

Jeremy Renner public

Yesterday was a celebration for many. The New Year is a mark of a rebirth for a lot of people seeking to move forward from the past year — whether it’d be good or bad. Jeremy Renner would have a very incredible journey after a snowplow accident left him in critical condition. The Mayor of Kingstown and Avengers star took the day yesterday to show appreciation and reflect on being rescued and rehabilitated from his harrowing accident in January of 2023. Renner posted an image to his Instagram that showed him in his most vulnerable state following the incident and wrote a lengthy text to accompany it.

In his post, Renner writes, “Happy New Year blessings to you all…. Ringing in my second ‘ReBirthday’ today
I send out my love, respect, and gratitude for the army of people that it took to put me back together again. Thank you to each and every nurse, doctor, first responder… I literally owe you my life . All my heart goes out to my beautiful, brave nephew and the angels (my neighbors) who jumped to my aid and endured the chaos for 45 long minutes on the icy asphalt New Years morning. I’m so sorry all the haunting images I imprinted on you all (I’ll spare you all from the meat grinding images )….

My gratitude list is very long …. With the amount of love and prayers that flooded in from you all around the world (needing each and everyone of them), my family never leaving my side , with some divine intervention, a bit of luck and a whole lot of miracles … I stand strong again. More Open. More Loved. More Connected. And fucking BLESSED to take my next step, to take MY NEXT BREATH. Thank you with every fiber and cell in my body. I love you ALL ❤. #MyNextBreath”

Renner also announced that he is writing a book that recounts a lot of the details of his journey. Last month, at the Red Sea Film Festival, the actor said, “While I’ve been here this whole trip, I’ve been doing the final edit on it, so it’s kind of fresh in my brain, because I tried to push it away a lot of times. And there’s so many wonderful gifts that come from being tested to your limits of death. Because I did die, and I came back, and I came back for a reason, and nothing to do with me. If it was my choice, I’d rather stay. But I came back, and I’m glad I’m back.”

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Rose Byrne Meghann Fahy

Last March, it was announced that Jessica Biel was set to star in and executive produce a limited series adaptation of Karin Slaughter’s New York Times best-selling novel The Good Daughter for the Peacock streaming service. Things have changed since that announcement was made, as Variety reports that Biel is no longer involved with The Good Daughter and the character she was going to be playing is now set to be played by Meghann Fahy of The White Lotus, The Perfect Couple, and The Bold Type. Rose Byrne (Physical, Bridesmaids, Neighbors) has also joined the cast, and will be serving as an executive producer on the series.

The Good Daughter is a suspenseful crime drama where sisters Charlotte (Meghann Fahy) and Samantha (Rose Byrne) Quinn have spent the last 28 years trying to piece together the lives that were fractured by a single night of violence. When another attack splinters the small town of Pikeville, Charlotte is the first witness on the scene. Now a lawyer like her father, she’s forced to confront her own demons as the case twists through one shocking revelation after another. In the end, both she and Samantha find themselves wondering if the price of being the good daughter was worth it after all.

Here’s the description of Karin Slaughter’s novel: Two girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind… Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn’s happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father — Pikeville’s notorious defense attorney — devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night. Twenty-eight years later, and Charlie has followed in her father’s footsteps to become a lawyer herself — the ideal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again — and a shocking tragedy leaves the whole town traumatized — Charlie is plunged into a nightmare. Not only is she the first witness on the scene, but it’s a case that unleashes the terrible memories she’s spent so long trying to suppress. Because the shocking truth about the crime that destroyed her family nearly thirty years ago won’t stay buried forever… Packed with twists and turns, brimming with emotion and heart, The Good Daughter is fiction at its most thrilling.

Slaughter’s works have previously served as the basis for the Netflix show Pieces of Her and the Hulu series Will Trent. She didn’t write for those shows, but she will write (and executive produce) all episodes of The Good Daughter. In addition to Byrne, other executive producers on the series include Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky, and Casey Haver of Made Up Stories and director Steph Green. Fifth Season is the studio and distributor.

What do you think of Rose Byrne and Meghann Fahy signing on to star in The Good Daughter? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post Meghann Fahy replaces Jessica Biel in Peacock series The Good Daughter; Rose Byrne also joins the cast appeared first on JoBlo.

Oliver stone movies

We don’t necessarily think of Oliver Stone as one who simply accepts everything that’s in front of him. But Oliver Stone spent the last part of 2024 catching up on some movies, all of which are major Oscar contenders – and all of which he had some high praise for.

Oliver Stone took to social media just ahead of the new year to let followers in on which movies he recently watched. One which many are predicting will actually take home Best Picture is Wicked, in which Stone admitted he had no idea who the actresses were going in but loved their performances. “Wow! I never saw the stage play or followed the coverage, but I just purely loved the sensuality and intelligence of the movie. I didn’t know these two actresses, but what a surprise to find both their performances so fresh and different…” He, too, praised its director for managing such a feat within today’s studio system. “@jonmchu is a helluva filmmaker and is working with challenging material in this prequel that turns everything in #TheWizardofOz upside down. All the more amazing that he pulled it off with a Hollywood studio.”

Oliver Stone also caught A Complete Unknown, a territory of movies he’s vaguely familiar with, having directed The Doors. “#BobDylan’s generation should be happy; they seem to have gotten it right. #TimotheeChalamet, who’s always adorable and sensitive, here displays a strength I’ve not seen before.” Stone would also praise Monica Barbaro and Edward Norton.

And while he was a little bit harder on The Brutalist, saying it starts to fall apart in its second half, a gripe he had with Anora but would still liken director Sean Baker to the Coen and Safdie Brothers. We won’t spoil everything Oliver Stone had to say about some of 2024’s most acclaimed movies; instead we urge you to check out his honest critiques of them.

In summation of his end of 2024 journey through the movies, Oliver Stone wrote: “When I see movies like these, I really want to go back into my 30s and make movies again. They give me the urge and break all the rules that prevented us back then, all the “nos” we faced. This is a whole new era. Except for “Wicked,” I don’t think any one of these films would’ve been initiated or even distributed by any Hollywood entity in previous years. That’s why movies will continue to appeal worldwide. They challenge, they generate and regenerate new ideas constantly with new techniques. But within all of this, let’s not lose sight of the worth in the older films. Too many of them have been forgotten. Instead of castigating Hollywood, we should admire it as a treasure museum to a century of our collective history, and now maybe a second century.” Sadly for Stone, Megalopolis won’t be on the awards circuit this year…

What do you think of Oliver Stone’s musings on some of 2024’s most acclaimed movies? Do you agree or disagree overall?

The post Oliver Stone weighs in on some 2024’s top movies: Wicked, A Complete Unknown, The Brutalist, and more appeared first on JoBlo.

Oliver stone movies

We don’t necessarily think of Oliver Stone as one who simply accepts everything that’s in front of him. But Oliver Stone spent the last part of 2024 catching up on some movies, all of which are major Oscar contenders – and all of which he had some high praise for.

Oliver Stone took to social media just ahead of the new year to let followers in on which movies he recently watched. One which many are predicting will actually take home Best Picture is Wicked, in which Stone admitted he had no idea who the actresses were going in but loved their performances. “Wow! I never saw the stage play or followed the coverage, but I just purely loved the sensuality and intelligence of the movie. I didn’t know these two actresses, but what a surprise to find both their performances so fresh and different…” He, too, praised its director for managing such a feat within today’s studio system. “@jonmchu is a helluva filmmaker and is working with challenging material in this prequel that turns everything in #TheWizardofOz upside down. All the more amazing that he pulled it off with a Hollywood studio.”

Oliver Stone also caught A Complete Unknown, a territory of movies he’s vaguely familiar with, having directed The Doors. “#BobDylan’s generation should be happy; they seem to have gotten it right. #TimotheeChalamet, who’s always adorable and sensitive, here displays a strength I’ve not seen before.” Stone would also praise Monica Barbaro and Edward Norton.

And while he was a little bit harder on The Brutalist, saying it starts to fall apart in its second half, a gripe he had with Anora but would still liken director Sean Baker to the Coen and Safdie Brothers. We won’t spoil everything Oliver Stone had to say about some of 2024’s most acclaimed movies; instead we urge you to check out his honest critiques of them.

In summation of his end of 2024 journey through the movies, Oliver Stone wrote: “When I see movies like these, I really want to go back into my 30s and make movies again. They give me the urge and break all the rules that prevented us back then, all the “nos” we faced. This is a whole new era. Except for “Wicked,” I don’t think any one of these films would’ve been initiated or even distributed by any Hollywood entity in previous years. That’s why movies will continue to appeal worldwide. They challenge, they generate and regenerate new ideas constantly with new techniques. But within all of this, let’s not lose sight of the worth in the older films. Too many of them have been forgotten. Instead of castigating Hollywood, we should admire it as a treasure museum to a century of our collective history, and now maybe a second century.” Sadly for Stone, Megalopolis won’t be on the awards circuit this year…

What do you think of Oliver Stone’s musings on some of 2024’s most acclaimed movies? Do you agree or disagree overall?

The post Oliver Stone weighs in on some 2024’s top movies: Wicked, A Complete Unknown, The Brutalist, and more appeared first on JoBlo.

The next addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: Brave New World, is set to reach theatres on February 14, 2025 – and one of the villains featured in the film is Samuel Sterns, a.k.a. The Leader. The character is played by Tim Blake Nelson, who previously played Sterns in The Incredible Hulk back in 2008… but he’s looking different now than he was the last time we saw him. In the comics, The Leader is known to have green skin and a deformed head. Nelson’s Leader look has been kept under wraps up to this point (the Funko Pop! has been revealed, but that doesn’t give a lot to go on aside from the fact that he has green skin and facial hair), but now the veil has been lifted in a batch of promo art.

Here’s our first look at Tim Blake Nelson as The Leader:

And here’s the official information on Captain America: Brave New World, straight from Marvel: Anthony Mackie returns as the high-flying hero, who’s officially taken up the mantle of Captain America. Harrison Ford makes his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as newly-elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross, a role originated by the late William Hurt. Ross and Sam have a bit of a history: In his previous role as Secretary of State, Ross was responsible for arresting Sam and his fellow Avengers during the events of Captain America: Civil War. Now as president, Ross is eager to work with Sam, hoping to make Captain America an official military position. But that tentative alliance is jeopardized when Sam finds himself in the middle of an international incident, with friend and retired super-soldier Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) as the prime suspect. Sam’s investigation send him on a dangerous chase, and (leading to) a deadly showdown and a tease of the menacing Red Hulk. Danny Ramirez returns as former Air Force lieutenant Joaquin Torres, who’s picked up Sam’s old wings and taken on the role of Falcon. Tim Blake Nelson is also back as Samuel Sterns, AKA The Leader, appearing in the MCU for the first time since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. New to the cast is Shira Haas, who joins as Ruth Bat-Seraph. A former Black Widow, Ruth is now a high-ranking U.S. government official who has the trust of President Ross. Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, and Xosha Roquemore also star. The film is directed by Julius Onah and produced by Kevin Feige and Nate Moore. Louis D’Esposito and Charles Newirth serve as executive producers.

In a recent interview with Empire, Nelson said that he requested practical FX for The Leader’s head as he “liked being able to feel the weight of the deformation on my head, rather than just wearing dots.

What do you think of The Leader’s look in Captain America: Brave New World? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post Captain America: Brave New World promo art reveals Tim Blake Nelson as The Leader appeared first on JoBlo.