One of South Korea’s biggest hits of last year is set to hit stateside. Concrete Utopia is a film that gained acclaim and was a massive hit at the Korean box office in 2023 with an earning of $28.0 million from 3.85 million admissions when the film opened on August 9 of last year. The film was also a Korean Oscar contender. Variety’s review of the film stated, “[Concrete Utopia] places its characters in a desperate, scary, do-or-die situation and then refuses to tell the audience what to think about them. It’s a fractious, blood-soaked drama about the will to survive that feels like Earthquake crossed with Lord of the Flies.”
Variety is now reporting that Concrete Utopia has secured a U.S. streaming release on a platform called Rakuten Viki, a service that specializes in Asian content. The streaming platform has licensed exclusive rights to the film in the U.S. and Canada and will begin streaming it to North American audiences from Friday. The film, which stars Lee Byung-hun (Squid Game, I Saw the Devil, the G.I Joe franchise), Park Seo-jun (Parasite, What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim), and Park Bo-young (Strong Girl Bong-soon, Doom at Your Service).
According to Variety, the movie is “based on the second part of webtoon Cheerful Outcast by Kim Soong-nyung. Concrete Utopia portrays Seoul as devastated by a powerful earthquake which has left the Hwanggoong Apartment complex as the only building still standing. Lee’s character Young-Tak temporarily leads the residents of the apartment complex, but as the crisis unfolds, moral values are tested.”
After the film debuted highly in Korea, it would also screen at a number of film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Sitges International Film Festival and Fantastic Fest. Jaehee Hong, SVP of content at Rakuten Viki, remarks, “As the appetite for Asian entertainment continues to grow with U.S. audiences, this is a significant moment for Rakuten Viki as we look to raise the bar in offering the latest and most buzzworthy titles to fans.”
Everyone agrees that white lies can be harmless. Sometimes, we tell them to keep a person’s feelings from getting hurt or to prevent ourselves from getting into too much trouble. However, white lies are slippery, especially if you’ve been telling the same one for years. White lies can evolve to become one of the biggest mistakes you’ll ever make. In the end, it’s best not to tell them. In Peter Farrelly‘s (Green Book, Dumb and Dumber) Ricky Stanicky trailer, three friends invent a friend who conveniently pulls them away from their lives whenever they need a break from reality. Unfortunately, their lie is getting called out, and they need someone to become the person they’ve been lying about for years.
Amazon MGM Studios debuted the Ricky Stanicky trailer on Friday, a Rated-R laugh-out-loud comedy premiering globally on Prime Video on March 7, 2024. The upcoming comedy stars John Cena (Peacemaker, Fast X), Zac Effron (The Iron Claw, Baywatch), Jermaine Fowler (The Blackening, Coming 2 America), Andrew Santino (Beef, Me Time), and William H. Macy (Shameless, Fargo), among others. Jeff Bushell, Brian Jarvis, James Lee Freeman, Peter Farrelly, Pete Jones, and Mike Cerrone wrote the screenplay.
Here’s the official synopsis for Ricky Stanicky from Amazon MGM Studios:
When three childhood best friends pull a prank gone wrong, they invent the imaginary Ricky Stanicky to get them out of trouble! Twenty years after creating this ‘friend,’ Dean, JT, and Wes (Zac Efron, Andrew Santino, and Jermaine Fowler) still use the nonexistent Ricky as a handy alibi for their immature behavior. When their spouses and partners get suspicious and demand to finally meet the fabled Mr. Stanicky, the guilty trio decide to hire washed-up actor and raunchy celebrity impersonator “Rock Hard” Rod (John Cena) to bring him to life. But when Rod takes his role of a lifetime too far, they begin to wish they’d never invented Ricky in the first place. From director Peter Farrelly and featuring additional cast members, including William H. Macy, Lex Scott Davis, and Anja Savcic.
Have you ever told a lie so bold you needed to invent a person to cover your ass? How much trouble do you think these friends will face when their loved ones discover Ricky Stanicky is a fraud? In the comments below, let us know what you think about the Ricky Stanicky trailer.
Two weeks ago, news broke that actor Kaitlyn Dever was joining the cast for the second season of HBO’s The Last Of Us TV series—which is still floating along without a release date, with “some time in 2025” the best anybody in TV land can guess. But despite that mild ambiguity, Dever’s casting kicked off a small…
Two weeks ago, news broke that actor Kaitlyn Dever was joining the cast for the second season of HBO’s The Last Of Us TV series—which is still floating along without a release date, with “some time in 2025” the best anybody in TV land can guess. But despite that mild ambiguity, Dever’s casting kicked off a small…
Kazuma Kiryu is the face of Yakuza. With such a legacy, it’s easy to see why Yakuza has struggled to move past its steely protagonist, but even before the introduction of the charismatic Ichiban Kasuga, an obscure spinoff proved that the franchise could do just fine without the Dragon of Dojima. Fourteen years later,…
Kazuma Kiryu is the face of Yakuza. With such a legacy, it’s easy to see why Yakuza has struggled to move past its steely protagonist, but even before the introduction of the charismatic Ichiban Kasuga, an obscure spinoff proved that the franchise could do just fine without the Dragon of Dojima. Fourteen years later,…
It was reported earlier that Steven Yeun was set to make his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the Thunderbolts film. Unfortunately, scheduling issues that cropped up due to last year’s dual strikes in Hollywood would now prevent Yeun from participating in filming. The actor felt remorse for the dilemma and wanted to make it clear that he hopes to join the MCU in the future, “I wanna do a Marvel movie. I have some ideas.” Yeun would also apologize to the fans for holding up the production, “It took a lot of drafts on email to make sure that I conveyed the sincerity of how sorry I was to have to back out.” Deadline is now reporting that Top Gun: Maverick‘s Lewis Pullman is now in talks with Marvel Studios to be Yeun’s replacement. Pullman, the son of Independence Day star Bill Pullman, can currently be seen with Brie Larson in Apple’s Lessons in Chemistry. His past credits would also include Bad Times at the El Royale and the TV series Outer Range. Pullman is reportedly the top choice for Yeun’s now-unoccupied role, which has yet to be announced. However, it was reportedly a significant part of the film.
Pullman would be joining another star child with Wyatt Russell, son of Kurt, who will be reprising his role, John Walker, from the MCU Disney+ series Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Russell had recently updated fans that the movie is set to start production in the spring and would convey his excitement for the project in the face of the recent output of projects from the brand, “I have confidence it’s gonna be good. I know everybody is sort of on this Marvel train right now of things not going so well…It’s not a straightforward Marvel movie as you’ve seen in the past.”
Thunderbolts has still compiled an impressive cast as sort of an anti-Avengers team-up film, with Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), David Harbour (Red Guardian), and Olga Kurylenko (Taskmaster) reprising their roles from past MCU entries.
Directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson and Lee Sung Jin, Thunderbolts is part of Phase Six of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – although it had intended to be part of the in-progress Phase Five but missed that due to the aforementioned strikes. It has a current release date of July 25th, 2025, two months after The Fantastic Four hits theaters.
PLOT: Four interconnected tales follow a teenager in love (Jack Champion), two female rappers trying to make it (Normani and Dominique Thorne), a world-weary debt mob enforcer (Pedro Pascal ) and a basketball legend (Jay Ellis) looking for vengeance in 1987 Oakland.
REVIEW: Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson) make a triumphant return to Sundance with one of the festival’s most energetic offerings in years. Mixing a Tarantino-style crime tale with high-octane action, Boden and Fleck use the bag of tricks they earned working for the MCU (Captain Marvel) to deliver an unexpected smash. Freaky Tales is the kind of movie Sundance would have shown in its nineties heyday, with it likely the only film playing this year that ends in a kung-fu-heavy bloodbath. I loved every second of it.
Freaky Tales mostly takes place over a single night in Oakland; it uses a few things that were happening in the area back then, such as the Golden State Warriors facing off with the Lakers and the rise of rapper Too Short as a jumping-off point. Yet, the film goes way, way other there pretty quickly, with the stylized chapters escalating in style until an ending that plays like Kill Bill mixed with Scanners.
The film mainly revolves around each of the leads having violent encounters with Oakland Skinheads. Each chapter seems influenced by a different classic from the era the movie is set in. The first chapter plays like a mix of The Karate Kid and The Warriors. In it, a good-natured teen (Jack Champion) with a monster crush on a girl (Ji-Young Yoo) into the punk scene becomes a hero as he joins them in an ultra-violent brawl with Neo-Nazis. These skinheads are working for a more dangerous crew headed by a crooked cop (Ben Mendelsohn) who also has the lead of our third story, Pedro Pascal’s Clint, under his thumb. Before getting to the more violent second half of the film, Freaky Tales detours into Krush Groove territory, following two female battle rappers as they try to make it in the club scene. It’s a good-natured little aside before the movie dives right into a violent, carnage-filled second half, with Pascal’s storyline similar to James Caan’s in Thief, while the finale has heavy shades of The Last Dragon thrown in.
While the nature of the film makes it inevitably uneven, for the most part, Fleck and Boden keep the pace propulsive. Even the slower second story about battle rap is entertaining, with singer Normani and Ironheart’s Riri WIlliams herself, Dominique Thorne, delivering winning performances.
However, the first, third and fourth stories are the ones that get your adrenaline pumping, with the first story shot in a way that makes it feel like you’re watching a VHS copy of a coming-of-age 80s classic. Jack Champion, who broke out in Avatar: The Way of Water, is a thoroughly likeable lead, with his chemistry with the pretty Ji-Young Yoo on point, as the two debate the ending of The Lost Boys and “Blue Velvet” people before their climactic brawl.
One of the movie’s most significant selling points will undoubtedly be Pedro Pascal, cast perfectly as the world-weary enforcer, eager to leave the business behind to raise a family. Boasting an extended cameo by an A-lister whose Oakland roots are heavily referenced in the film, this segment plays like a classic crime tale, with it and the fourth story really two halves of a longer whole. Of everyone, Pascal has the most significant role as a tragedy sends him into a suicidal confrontation with Mendelsohn’s ultra-evil Nazi mastermind, only for the film to take a wild turn in the last segment. In it, Jay Ellis from Top Gun: Maverick emerges as a full-blown action star, playing a real-life basketball player named Sleepy Floyd who, in this film’s demented take on reality, also runs a quasi-cult where he teaches teens to harness their psychic power to fight evil. Does it sound a little random? It is, but Boden and Fleck do such a good job elevating the violence and frenetic pace that it really works when Freaky Tales takes a detour into full-blown kung-fu-tinged Scanners territory.
Indeed, Freaky Tales works very well as a genre movie and could be a hit for whatever distributor picks it up. Pascal’s rising fame and the fact that it boasts a ton of well-designed action (and a terrific soundtrack that includes everything from Metallica to Public Image Limited) makes it seem natural for the big screen. I loved every second of it.
As Lando Calrissian told his old buddy Han Solo, he had no choice but to betray him. And now Billy Dee Williams – who first played Lando in The Empire Strikes Back – is doubling down. But he may have no choice himself, as he says he would constantly get harassed by Star Wars fans over the double-cross.
In a new interview with the Dagobah Dispatch podcast, Billy Dee Williams said, “I got [“You betrayed Han Solo!”] for a lotta years, so finally I said, ‘Look, think about the whole situation. You’re up against a pretty formidable character, Darth Vader, and then there’s Boba Fett, and these people were invading my space, and I had to bargain with them. To bargain to prevent at least the complete demise of Han Solo and his friends. But I had to hold on to my whole situation.’” Williams added that Lando’s tactic didn’t result in any deaths and so, “I think that was a clear implication that I was trying to figure something out, or Lando was trying to figure something out…primarily to hold on to his own situation, without the complete demise of his friends.” So please, leave Billy Dee Williams alone…or at least buy him a Colt 45!
Lando Calrissian – and thus, Billy Dee Williams – made the Star Wars sh*t list with that move, but the character’s arc, against-the-wall situation, and surprising depth (for a supporting character, at least) has redeemed both Lando and his portrayer in most fans’ eyes. He was also a welcome addition to The Rise of Skywalker, assisting Rey and company in their fight in his first time stepping into the role (physically; he voiced Lando numerous times) since 1983’s Return of the Jedi.
Star Wars has gone all-in on Lando Calrissian, even outside of Billy Dee Williams, with the character being taken over by Donald Glover for Solo, in which we see him lose his beloved Millennium Falcon to Han. Glover will again play Lando for a feature film, originally planned to be a series.
What do you think of Billy Dee Williams’ take on Lando Calrissian’s betrayal? Do you want more Lando on the screen? Give us your thoughts below!
Robert Downey Jr. is fresh off an Academy Award nomination for his exemplary work on Oppenheimer, but the actor received his first Oscar nomination over thirty years ago for Chaplin. He wound up losing to Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman, and while the loss may have stung at the time, Downey Jr. is now grateful he didn’t win.
During an interview with the hosts of The View, Robert Downey Jr. explained why he’s glad he didn’t win the Best Actor Oscar for Chaplin. “I was young and crazy,” Downey Jr. said, adding that winning at 28 years old “would have put me under the impression I was on the right track.” The actor famously spent many years getting in trouble with the law, with multiple arrests for drug charges. Following parole violations after being arrested in 1996 for the possession of heroin and cocaine, as well as firing a handgun while speeding down Sunset Boulevard, Downey Jr. was sentenced to three years in prison. He would serve 15 months but was arrested yet again for drug possession just four months later.
After several more years of substance abuse, arrests, rehab, and relapse, Downey Jr. started to get his career back on track with starring roles in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Zodiac, but he hit blockbuster status after being cast as Tony Stark/Iron Man. It’s easy to forget that many executives resisted casting Downey Jr. in the role due to his history, but former Marvel Studios president David Maisel went to bat for him. “My board thought I was crazy to put the future of the company in the hands of an addict,” Maisel told Variety last year. “I helped them understand how great he was for the role. We all had confidence that he was clean and would stay clean.“
Robert Downey Jr. received another Oscar nomination for Tropic Thunder in 2008 but lost to Health Ledger for The Dark Knight. This could be his year, but he faces some stiff competition with Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction), Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon), Ryan Gosling (Barbie), and Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things) also up for the award.
