From the streets of Gotham to the boulevards of Hollywood, Batman has made a lasting mark on pop culture over the past 85 years – so much so that the character will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, making him the first superhero to receive the dedication and one of an exclusive group of fictional characters.
Appropriately enough, Batman will find his Hollywood Walk of Fame star placed between co-creator Bob Kane and famed portrayer Adam West. While guests have yet to be confirmed for the September 26th ceremony, it would be incredible if the likes of Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, and more turned up for the event. Sadly, West died in 2017 while voice talent Kevin Conroy passed away in 2022.
But Batman isn’t the first fictional character to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, as he will join less than two dozen others, including the very first, Mickey Mouse (1978), Bugs Bunny (1985), The Simpsons (2000), Kermit the Frog (2002), and the most recent honorees, Alvin and the Chipmunks (2019). And I hate to say it, but I can totally see the Minions getting their own star somewhere down the line…
The event will also offer a lot of other activities for Batman fans to participate in, as not only will the character be forever part of the Walk of Fame but there will also be a signing with DC president Jim Lee, along with a Warner Bros. Archives pop-up museum featuring various props and memorabilia from the franchise’s history.
From comics to serials to blockbusters to animated series, Batman has remained a cultural touchstone since debuting in 1939. Evolving with the times and various forms of media he has graced, Batman seems like a perfect choice for the Walk of Fame if they are going to continue including fictional characters. Now, let’s see how this sits with Superman…
What do you think of Batman getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? Which other superheroes deserve a spot? Give us your top picks in the comments below!
The first teaser for Transformers One was a curveball with humor predominantly displayed, but the following trailers have displayed more than just jokes. Now, early reactions have been very positive. Including our own Chris Bumbray saying in his review, “One thing worth noting is that the audience I saw this with REALLY seemed to love the movie. They laughed and cheered throughout, and when it was over, the audience gave it a huge round of applause, which is something you really never get at free screenings in my neck of the woods. There’s a reason why Paramount’s been doing so many word-of-mouth screenings, as this has the potential to be a major hit, and, again, it’s the best Transformers movie ever made by a wide margin.”
Paramount Animation has now released a final trailer for Transformers One, which gives a spotlight to the bold quote from our EIC. The official synopsis reads, “TRANSFORMERS ONE is the untold origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron, better known as sworn enemies, but once were friends bonded like brothers who changed the fate of Cybertron forever. In the first-ever fully CG-animated Transformers movie, TRANSFORMERS ONE features a star-studded voice cast, including Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi with Laurence Fishburne and Jon Hamm.“
Executive Producers on the film include Steven Spielberg, Zev Foreman, Olivier Dumont, Bradley J. Fischer, B.J. Farmer and Matt Quigg. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Tom DeSanto & Don Murphy, Michael Bay, Mark Vahradian, and Aaron Dem are on board as the producers. Josh Cooley directs the animated feature from a screenplay by Eric Pearson and Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari. Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari also came up with the story from which the script is based.
Transformers One has been rated PG for sci-fi violence and animated action throughout, and language. And the film will be released in theaters on September 20.
Are you excited for Transformers One? Does the humorous angle of the trailers turn you off on it? Sound off below!
Sony had been planning to give director Chris Weitz’s horror film They Listen a theatrical release on August 25th of 2023, but in May of last year they decided to delay the release an entire year, pushing They Listen to August 30, 2024. By the time that date rolled around, the movie had been given the new title Afraid (or AfrAId)… and neither the new title nor the new release date worked out for the movie at the box office, because it only ended up making $9 million at the global box office. Just two weeks after its theatrical release, Afraid has now been given a digital release and is available for rent on Amazon’s Prime Video for $9.99. It can also be purchased for the price of $14.99.
Afraid‘s physical media release will follow on November 5th, when it comes to Blu-ray and DVD with the following extras: – 5 Deleted & Extended Scenes including Alternate Ending – Dark Side of AI
Afraid comes our way from Sony, Blumhouse, and Depth of Field. Weitz produced the film with Jason Blum and Andrew Miano. Bea Sequeira, Dan Balgoyen, Britta Rowings, and Paul Davis served as executive producers. Filming took place in Los Angeles back in December of 2022.
In AFRAID, Curtis (John Cho) and his family are selected to test a revolutionary new home device: a digital family assistant called AIA. Taking smart home to the next level, once the unit and all its sensors and cameras are installed in their home, AIA seems able to do it all. She learns the family’s behaviors and begins to anticipate their needs. And she can make sure nothing – and no one – gets in her family’s way.
John Cho (Searching) is joined in the cast by Katherine Waterston (Alien: Covenant), Havana Rose Liu (No Exit), Lukita Maxwell (Shrinking), Riki Lindhome (Wednesday), Keith Carradine (Fear the Walking Dead), Ben Youcef (SEAL Team), and Wyatt Linder (Little America).
Chris Weitz went uncredited on his feature directorial debut American Pie, which he directed alongside his brother Paul Weitz. He has gone on to direct Down to Earth, About a Boy, The Golden Compass, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, A Better Life, and Operation Finale. They Listen is a continuation of a working relationship between Weitz and Cho that stretches all the way back to American Pie. Weitz has only directed Cho in two movies previously, American Pie and Down to Earth, but Weitz was a producer on American Pie 2, American Wedding, American Reunion, See This Movie, In Good Company, Bickford Shmeckler’s Cool Ideas, American Dreamz, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Columbus, and A Happening of Monumental Proportions, all of which had Cho as a cast member. Weitz also co-created the short-lived TV series Off Centre, which starred Cho.
Will you be watching Afraid now that it has been given a digital release? Let us know by leaving a comment below – and if you caught the movie during its theatrical run, let us know what you thought of it!
Prime Video has just released the quirky and outrageous trailer for Brothers. Max Barbakow, whose debut effort was the time-looping Hulu film Palm Springs, returns with another comedy that’s star-studded from a script written by Macon Blair, who also acts in The Thicket and directed the unreleased Toxic Avenger remake. The film stars Josh Brolin, Peter Dinklage, Glenn Close, Brendan Fraser, Taylour Paige, E. Emmet Walsh, and Jennifer Landon. The new comedy features Brolin, Dinklage, and Close as a unique family getting involved with heists, emeralds, and orangutans.
The official synopsis reads, “Brothers tells the story of a reformed criminal (Josh Brolin) whose attempt at going straight is derailed when he reunites with his sanity-testing twin brother (Peter Dinklage) on a cross-country road trip for the score of a lifetime. Dodging bullets, the law, and an overbearing mother along the way, they must heal their severed family bond before they end up killing each other.”
As silly and unhinged as the film itself looks, the director, Barbakow, would also marvel at how silly and weird the set became, even with all these esteemed actors in the cast. He told EW, “In between setups, Josh somehow commandeered a techno crane and chased Peter around with it, wearing a pink wig, voguing for the camera. Glenn was so surprising in terms of how willing she was to try things, make a fool of herself, and go there. I think she mooned all of us at a certain point. It was remarkable.”
The director also recalled the first day of filming when Brolin set the tone for the incredibly wild tone of the rest of the production. He explained, “The very first scene we shot was with the brothers in a motel room, taking turns using the shower. Josh calls me on the way to work and he’s like, ‘I think I should be in my tighty-whities in this scene. I think that would be appropriate. And I think I should be eating a nutter butter or something like that. Can we make it work?’ And Josh, I should also say, gained like 20 lbs. for this movie, so he had the perfect dad bod.”
He had summed up that the cast was “like a murderer’s row of esteemed actors who were so down to get silly and weird. It is quite a romp.”
Brothers opens in select theaters on October 10 and on Prime Video on October 17.
When the character Riri Williams (played by Dominique Thorne) made her Marvel Cinematic Universe debut back in 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the idea was that we’d be seeing the character again the following year in her own six-episode Disney+ show Ironheart… but 2023 came and went without Ironheart, and the show still doesn’t have an official premiere date. It is expected to come along sometime in 2025, and a trailer was recently shown at the D23 event. It will be a while before we get to see the show’s characters in action, but during a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, cast member Anthony Ramos (In the Heights, Twisters) took a moment to talk about the character he plays in the series: Parker Robbins, a.k.a. The Hood.
Ramos said, “I saw a trailer at D23. We walked onstage, and they played this new trailer of Ironheart, and it was my first time seeing it. And I’m not gonna lie, just as a fan, I was like, ‘Yo, this is crazy. If this show is half as good as this trailer, we in the mix.’ Dominique Thorne is incredible. She plays this genius, and she creates this new suit out of basically just spare parts. In her genius way, she creates this state-of-the-art, beautiful, high-tech suit. She becomes Ironheart. I get to play this villain, The Hood, and Parker Robbins in the comics, he gets this hood, and it’s too powerful for him. It’s overwhelming, and it starts to damage his body. You can see it on the outside, and you can see how it’s even affecting him on the inside and his personality and how it’s actually, literally, physically and mentally and emotionally breaking him, but it’s giving him so much power that he’s addicted. He’s like, ‘I can’t let it go.’ It becomes this weapon to seek vengeance, and for him, he’s starting off small, and he’s stealing in the comics, and then gradually it grows. It grows and grows and grows, and just like his power, I think, it becomes a little overwhelming for him. But I’m excited. I’m excited for y’all to see what we did with this character and just the art department, and our visual effects team and special effects makeup, too. Jonah [Levy] and his whole team, they were amazing with the tattoos and the scars. They really did a crazy job.“
As mentioned, Dominique Thorne stars in Ironheart as Riri Williams, “a genius inventor who creates the most advanced suit of armor since Iron Man.” Thorne and Ramos are joined in the cast by Manny Montana, Shakira Barrera, Alden Ehrenreich, Regan Aliyah, Shea Couleé, Zoe Terakes, Lyric Ross, Matthew Elam, Anji White, Jim Rash, Harper Anthony, Sonia Denis, Rashida “Sheedz” Olayiwola, Paul Calderón, and Cree Summer. We’ve also heard that Sacha Baron Cohen was in talks to play Mephisto.
Chinaka Hodge, whose previous credits include Snowpiercer and The Midnight Club, is the head writer on the series. Sam Bailey and Angela Barnes direct the episodes. Ryan Coogler, who was behind the Black Panther movies, is an executive producer on the show.
As for why Ironheart is taking so long to make its way out into the world, that is entirely due to the decision to take more time between the releases of Marvel movies and shows. Marvel Studios’ Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation Brad Winderbaum told Agents of Fandom, “Frankly, in all honesty, there was a mandate to kind of create as much as we could for Disney+ as quickly as we could. And then, there was a shift, and all of a sudden, we have to start spreading our release dates out. So, that really accounts for a lot of the delays.“
Are you looking forward to seeing Anthony Ramos play The Hood on Ironheart? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Entertainment Weekly continues its preview of fall releases, and it has recently looked at the upcoming acclaimed Jesse Eisenberg film A Real Pain. The film is directed by Eisenberg and stars him and Succession star Kieran Culkin. The plot synopsis reads, “Mismatched cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the odd-couple’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.” Their family history involves their grandmother’s survival of the Holocaust.
While the plot elements of A Real Pain are heavy, Eisenberg and Culkin talk about how they were able to make a dark comedy from the subject matter. Eisenberg would proclaim, “I became interested in that topic and thinking about the privilege versus trauma and how people like me walk around feeling bad for themselves over petty things when I actually know for a fact that my family suffered existential trauma, and just trying to reconcile how to think about that. So I’ve been thinking about it and writing stuff around this topic for a long time. And then the movie came. I also have a certain taste in World War II movies about Jews, and I guess this movie was also staking a claim on what the tone could be…that you can have an irreverent tone of a movie while still maintaining reverence for the subject.”
The writer-director-star also stated that his ace up his sleeve with finding the balance of the tone was Culkin’s casting. He explained, “The movie really lives or dies on that character. It’s funny, when I was going through actors and Kieran was immediately recommended to me, my first thought was, ‘Wait, does he do comedy or drama?’ And that for me is the answer — that this person can be so funny, but you don’t know them as a comic…. That’s what Kieran brought to it; it’s exactly the tone that I wanted. It can swing from lowbrow comedy to highbrow philosophical discussions in the same scene. Kieran just naturally is able to do that because he’s super smart and he’s super funny, but he has so much feeling inside.”
Culkin admits he was curious about Eisenberg wearing so many hats for this film, “I thought he wrote a brilliant script — I didn’t know he was a great writer. I like him as an actor. So [I thought,] let’s see how he is as a director.” He added later, “A lot of times, for better or for worse, you end up with a director that’s completely in charge of every tiny little aspect of things — which has its upsides and downsides sometimes, depending on the personality — and then there’s also the directors [who make you question,] ‘Who the hell’s in charge here?’” Culkin says dryly, “He wasn’t either of those. He found the balance between the two.”
Cuckoo, a horror film from writer/director Tilman Singer that stars Hunter Schafer (Euphoria), Dan Stevens (The Guest), Jessica Henwick (Love and Monsters), Marton Csókás (Freelance), Greta Fernández (Santo), and Jan Bluthardt (Tatort), was given a theatrical release on August 9th. One month later, it has now received a digital release and can be found on Amazon’s Prime Video, where it’s available to rent for $9.99 or purchase for $19.99.
JoBlo’s own Tyler Nichols gave Cuckoo an 8/10 review you can read at THIS LINK, and we have interviews with the lead actors HERE.
The film has the following official synopsis: Reluctantly, 17-year-old Gretchen leaves her American home to live with her father, who has just moved into a resort in the German Alps with his new family. Arriving at their future residence, they are greeted by Mr. König, her father’s boss, who takes an inexplicable interest in Gretchen’s mute half-sister Alma. Something doesn’t seem right in this tranquil vacation paradise. Gretchen is plagued by strange noises and bloody visions until she discovers a shocking secret that also concerns her own family. A while back, Variety revealed that the film sees Schafer face off against a mysterious bird-like monster with a scream-like call who seeks to impregnate women with her evil spawn. The story, written by Singer, is based off the lore of the cuckoo bird, some of which are brood parasites, meaning they lay their eggs in the nests of other species.
This is the second feature for Singer, following the 2018 supernatural horror filmLuz, which Bluthardt had a role in. Luz told the story of “a young cab driver fleeing from the grasp of a possessed woman, whose confession could endanger the lives of everyone who crosses her path.” Several of Singer’s Luz collaborators joined him on Cuckoo. In addition to Bluthardt, also returning from Luz were cinematographer Paul Faltz, composer Simon Waskow, and production designer Dario Mendez Acosta.
Cuckoo was financed by Neon. The film was produced by Markus Halberschmidt, Josh Rosenbaum, Maria Tsigka, Ken Kao, Thor Bradwell, Ben Rimmer, in a cooperation between Germany’s Fiction Park and the States’ Waypoint Entertainment. It’s executive produced by Tom Quinn, Jeff Deutchman, Emily Thomas, and Ryan Friscia for Neon. Additional funding came from the Film und Medien Stiftung NRW, HessenFilm, and the German Federal Film Fund.
Will you be watching Cuckoo now that it has been given a digital release? Let us know by leaving a comment below – and if you caught the movie during its theatrical run, let us know what you thought of it!
Gremlins may have stopped at only 2 movies and a recent animated TV show, but a lot of its imitators went on to make a killing in the sequel market. Sure, we had one offs like Munchies from Roger Corman and Goobers from the mind of Charles Band which should have rightfully stayed one and done but others wanted in on that franchise action. The Gate would have 2 entries as would Hobgoblins. Troll would get a few sequels, kinda, if you want to go down the rabbit hole of strange Italian sequels in name only that are just called that to capitalize on the profits of other movies and Ghoulies would somehow, miraculously, get 4 films although if I’m being honest, I actually enjoy watching that series. Critters also had 4 (initially) but has a much stronger legacy in terms of enjoyment and interesting background including the fact that even though it came out after Gremlins, the first Critters may have been in various stages of production before and during the making of Gremlins. While 1 is a classic and 2 is one of the few Easter horrors flicks I like to put it on yearly, where does that leave the other two? Part 4 sends the critters, like most of the slasher villains of our time, into space but 3 is a forgotten and mostly maligned entry into a series that mostly holds up. It’s a black sheep if I ever saw one and today it gets its due.
While you can find it easily as one of the 4 Blu-rays included in Scream Factory’s wonderful box set, its original release was in the burgeoning age of home video. Specifically, it was released in the first year of New Line Cinema’s home label being created. New Line Home Entertainment was created in May of 1991 when they decided to release their movies on their own brand after having multiple other companies do their work for them. While they certainly received money for selling the release rights, this allowed them to keep all of the profit and also gave them the idea to look into their catalogue for movies that could get more sequels that maybe weren’t good enough for the big screen but surely ok to go straight to video both for purchase and renting. The first movie made a solid 13 million on its 3-million-dollar budget but part 2 was a certified bomb. Critters 2 got an extra million for its budget but only brought in 3.8 at the box office.
Critters 3 and 4 were actually shot at the same time to capitalize on budget and crew. Critters 3 has the distinction of coming out that first year of New Line Home Entertainment’s life and while I don’t have any revenue numbers, home video was a big deal at the time and Critters was still a name brand. Not an overly impressive one anymore but a name all the same. The director chosen for the project was Kristine Peterson who only had two features to her name before this in Deadly Dreams and Body Chemistry but also would be assistant director on stuff like Tremors, Chopping Mall, and Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child. The story for the film would be developed by producers Rupert Harvey and Barry Opper while the actual screenplay was done by David J Schow. Schow, we have talked about before with his contributions to the Texas Chainsaw franchise and The Crow.
Critters 3 (watch it HERE) has some fun in front of the camera folks too and that probably has to start with Leonardo DiCaprio as one of the leads in his first movie. I think a lot of us go with Johnny Depp in the first Nightmare movie or Jennifer Anniston putting in the work for Leprechaun, but DiCaprio is definitely right there. As you can guess, he hates it, referring to it only when mentioning that all actors make crap from time to time. He would only show up in horror one other time in the horror adjacent Shutter Island. Aimee Brooks, John Calvin, Jeffery Blake, Dianna Bellamy, Bill Zuckert, and Nina Axelrod are all recognizable faces who have done other things in and out of the horror realm. The only carry over from the other films, or at least main one because Ug appears literally during the credits, is Don Keith Opper who has appeared in other TV and movies but really has the distinction of being the only actor to appear in all of the original Critters movies. For better and for worse.
Critters 3 is certainly a forgotten film whether you are talking about within the context of its own series or in general. I get why as the first movie had the small farm location and being the first movie in the series while the second movie expanded to the whole town and the 4th movie went to space, as one does. Part 3 tried to almost remake the first movie with its small setting being duplicated here but transported to a building rather than a farm. It has a similar character dynamic and even copies the fact that there are only two deaths and some characters being poisoned by the Crites thorn darts. I say Crites at least once because I know that’s what they are called even though I grew up calling them Critters and still refer to them that way. The movie doesn’t stand out traditionally even with it being Leo’s movie debut.
One of the things I do love about this movie is that the Chiodo brothers and really family worked on it. From being credited for characters and consulting on the movie to doing the special effects of the little garbage disposal fuzz balls, having them on is a win regardless of how the movie turned out. The creatures still look and act similarly to the previous two movies and even though some of the charm and humor is gone, this isn’t a case of the main draw of the film betraying its source material. The movie does use one of the more common straight to video and sequel tropes though with a character explaining the events of what happened prior while clips of the first two films play in the background. It’s not as egregious as Silent Night Deadly Night 2 where that is 40% of the finished product but it does feel a little lazy.
The movie opens with a family of three moving to a city before getting a flat tire right near a rest stop. We are introduced to pretty much everyone here and their violently 90s wardrobe before Charlie warns a group of kids and us about both a corrupt landlord, who happens to be Leo’s character’s stepdad, and the Critters. We get our previously mentioned flashback before seeing that there are fresh eggs under our new family’s car. We get to the apartment that looks like it could be one of the mazes at universal studios and eventually we get our first kill. It’s set up really well and feels exactly as it should. While there isn’t as much blood as you might hope, it gets the job done. It’s a perfect example of why this movie is worth your time as it’s workman like in every aspect. The characters that die are a holes and the rest of the cast is full of quirky and likeable ones that we hope make it out alive.
The Critters are fun to watch regardless of if it’s a close up of their disgusting and well detailed face or a shot of them rolling to attack someone. They look more believable than Leo playing on his Gameboy in the car at night without the mega light you could purchase to go with it. That’s just plain ridiculous. The movie really picks up when it turns into a siege movie of sorts where the human characters have to keep moving up the apartment building while some of them get poisoned by the quills getting shot at them. The power also goes out and we get a flair lit scene that tries it’s hardest to be something out of Aliens. Leo’s character Josh gets so fed up with his stepfather that he locks him in a room to eventually be the films second and final casualty. I don’t mean that as a knock on the movie either, there is enough tension that we may see nearly any of these characters go at any time.
The remaining characters make it to the very top of the building while the critters eat their way through the rest of the rooms. The adults end up stuck or unable to help while the kids have to put in the extra effort to find a way out before Charlie makes his way back into the movie with all of his gear. With less than 20 minutes to go we get to see some exploding critters that is funny, satisfying, and a good boost of action for the end of the movie. Charlie’s gun malfunctions and the building is mostly on fire before the Critters are reduced to 1 remaining. Charlie is able to help kill it while avoiding death and saving the youngest kid character and the rest of the movie is wrapped up with friendships, burgeoning relationships, and one of the earliest examples of mid and post credits scenes I can remember. This movie also leads directly into part 4 and it’s nice to see a horror series do that let alone a direct to video one.
Critters 3 knows exactly what it is and while I could absolutely see parts be changed or cut out, it’s not the dud its reputation makes it out to be. It’s a fun pairing either with just part 4 or if you are going to run the series and there’s nothing here that your younger, human critters can’t see if they are starting their journey into horror. It was long overdue that we gave this little movie a shout out and it has an important history in both its casting and release. The Critters series should have been left alone after part 4 but we would unfortunately, decades later, get another movie and a TV show that both failed to recapture the magic of the original run. Magic that might I add is wholly present in this maligned third entry. Critters 3 is a fun sci-fi horror flick that is exactly what you think it is, the black sheep of a famous series that deserves much more than it gets.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Black Sheep can be seen at the bottom of this article. To see more, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
Back in early 2022, it was announced that Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect) was set to star in a true crime serial killer thriller called The Dating Game – and at that time, Watcher director Chloe Okuno was attached to direct the film. By the end of 2022, Okuno had vacated the director’s seat and Kendrick had decided to make her directing debut on the film. The finished product, titled Woman of the Hour, was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, where JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray had the chance to watch it. You can read his 8/10 review at THIS LINK. Following the TIFF screening, the Netflix streaming service purchased the distribution rights for an estimated $11 million… and now, they’re ready to send the movie out into the world. Woman of the Hour will be streaming on Netflix as of October 18th, and with that date just one month away, a teaser trailer and poster have arrived online. You can watch the teaser trailer in the embed above and take a look at the poster at the bottom of this article.
Scripted by Ian MacAllister McDonald, Woman of the Hour is based on the stranger-than-fiction true story of Cheryl Bradshaw, who was a bachelorette on the hit 70s TV matchmaking show The Dating Game and chose handsome and funny bachelor number one, Rodney Alcala. But behind Alcala’s charming façade was a deadly secret: he was a psychopathic serial killer. Here’s the official logline: The stranger-than-fiction story of an aspiring actress in 1970s Los Angeles and a serial killer in the midst of a yearslong murder spree, whose lives intersect when they’re cast on an episode of The Dating Game.
Kendrick is joined in the cast by Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale, Nicolette Robinson, Pete Holmes, Autumn Best, Kathryn Gallagher, and Kelley Jakle.
Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, J.D. Lifshitz, and Raphael Margule produced Woman of the Hour, with Kendrick serving as an executive producer alongside Stuart Ford, Zach Garrett, Miguel A. Palos Jr., Ian Mcdonald, Joe Penna, Matthew Helderman, Luke Taylor, Paul Barbeau, Sean Patrick O’Reilly, Andrew Deane, and Stephen Crawford. Lorelle Lynch, Chris Abernathy, and Tracy Rosenblum co-produced.
What did you think of the Woman of the Hour teaser trailer? Will you be watching this movie on Netflix next month? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
PLOT: The limited series charts the rise and fall of NFL superstar Aaron Hernandez and explores the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide and their legacy in sports and American culture.
REVIEW: The fourth series in Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s American Story franchise, American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez blends a tale focused on a famous athlete with the criminal angle of related series like American Crime Story. The nineteenth volume in the ongoing franchise, Aaron Hernandez is a story that fits right at home alongside Murphy and Falchuk’s subject matter. There are mental illness, murder, celebrity, and queer storylines in abundance, with a new angle that intends to be something of an indictment of the world of college and professional football. However, rather than make a decisive commentary about how the NCAA and NFL have failed to protect players both medically and socially, American Sports Story is another tabloid true crime drama brought to the small screen, but this time without the all-star cast.
Aaron Hernandez opts for a fairly by-the-numbers retelling of the former New England Patriot’s tumultuous childhood. Opening with the murder of Odin Lloyd by Hernandez (Josh Andres Rivera), the series flashes back to his youth and teenage years alongside older brother DJ Hernandez (Ean Castellanos) as the two athletes are mercilessly coached by their abusive father, Dennis. Hiding his bisexuality from his domineering dad, Aaron struggles to come to terms with his own aspirations as opposed to the path his father has set out for him. As he moves on to play for Urban Meyer (Tony Yazbeck) at the University of Miami, Hernandez’s involvement with gangs and drugs intensifies, as do his successes on the field. Becoming an all-star alongside his Miami quarterback Tim Tebow (Patrick Schwarzenegger), Hernandez sets his sights on the NFL. It is playing for Bill Belichick (Norbert Leo Butz) under the intense media scrutiny pro football players endure that the tight end begins to crumble under the vices he keeps hidden from view.
While American Crime Story‘s look at O.J. Simpson’s murder trial referenced his football success, American Sports Story makes a big deal of the coaching staff and leadership at both the University of Miami and the New England Patriots looking the other way for a lot of Hernandez’s actions. There are also some damning accusations that the institutions may have also harbored knowledge of Hernandez’s medical trauma from concussions and suppressed it to capitalize on his athletic skills to lead the team to Super Bowl championships. While Will Smith’s film Concussion raised a lot of buzz about the NFL and concussions, there has not been very much said from the league regarding the contents of this limited series. Maybe that is because the series is adapted from the popular Wondery and Boston Globe podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc., which already took the brunt of the popularity. That leaves this series as a dramatized work of entertainment rather than an investigative indictment.
Over the ten-episode series American Crime Story: Aaron Hernandez is hyper-focused on the title character’s journey, sometimes dropping recognizable names of players and coaches into the storyline to give it some reliability. But, because of the linear format of this story, the writers sometimes fail to realize that it may not be as interesting a story when solely centered on Hernandez. Josh Andres Rivera, best known for roles in West Side Story and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, portrays Hernandez’s wild-eyed and manic persona, which hides his anxiety and fear of revealing his inner nature. But as the story shifts from youth to professional career and then incarceration, Rivera’s performance takes on a somewhat cliche series of mannerisms and dialogue that is designed to make us feel something for the convicted murderer who suffered headaches and traumatic brain injuries during his playing days. The writers seem to be trying to make it seem that Hernandez may not be fully responsible for his actions, which flies contrary to his behavior before he suffered any injuries.
Directed by Carl Franklin, Paris Barclay, Maggie Kiley, Steven Canals, Jennifer Lynch, and Michael Uppendahl from scripts by Stuart Zicherman, Ryan Farley, Chelsey Lora, Domonique Foxworth, Liz Tuccillo, Matthew Hodgson, Lee Edward Colston II, Hadi Nicholas Deeb, Stacey McCormack, and Tracey Scott Wilson, American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez boasts a creative team with roots in Ryan Murphy’s extended production catalog on series including Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Pose, American Horror Story, and more. The unique addition that helps add some realism to the portrayal of football players when they are off-camera comes from Domonique Foxworth, who played both college and professional football. While Foxworth only has one credit on Aaron Hernandez, there is definitely a focus on trying to make the setting of this series as close to reality as possible.
American Crime Story could not have opened with a better subject for their series, but Aaron Hernandez fumbles. The series could have done something with more energy, but it feels like a generic movie-of-the-week style tell-all that used to debut weekly on network television. There is blame and fear-mongering in abundance, with conflicting messages as to whether abuse was to blame for Hernandez’s actions or a brain injury. By presenting multiple theories with less-than-damning evidence for either, American Crime Story: Aaron Hernandez tells us a story about an American who committed a crime with very little insight that sets it apart from every other true crime series out there. It is not terrible, but it is the weakest entry in any of the American Story series to date.
American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez debuts with two episodes on September 17th on FX.
