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.
One of the best things to happen in Hollywood in recent years is that Michael Keaton’s career got a major second wind (but don’t call it a comeback) after a somewhat lower-key period. While the extent of Keaton’s career downturn pre-Birdman has indeed been overblown (let’s not forget he was still a big enough star to play the villain in the RoboCop reboot months before Birdman came out), it can’t be denied that Alejandro González Iñárritu’s movie gave him a major boost. Since then, he’s appeared In some amazing films, including Spotlight, The Founder, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and The Trial of the Chicago 7. He has also done great TV work, such as the exceptional limited series Dopesick.
However, Keaton’s pre- and post-Beetlejuice/Batman career tends to be overlooked when discussing his filmography, which is a shame as he was already a pretty huge star before he ever teamed up with Tim Burton. As such, are 10 great Michael Keaton movies that don’t get enough love.
10. Night Shift (1982):
Michael Keaton became a star virtually overnight when he landed a plum comic sidekick role in Ron Howard’s first big hit as a director. To give this a bit of context, no one expected much from Night Shift. Ron Howard was best known as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days, and the idea of his directing a racy, R-rated comedy about two morgue attendants who open a bordello must have seemed like a stretch. Yet, Howard’s Happy Days pal Henry Winkler and Keaton have dynamite chemistry. Despite the premise, the movie is quite sweet (as a child, it never occurred to me that Keaton and Winkler were basically playing pimps). Keaton’s off-the-wall acting in this movie was a sensation and put him on the map in a big way.
9. Mr. Mom (1983):
If anything, this John Hughes-penned movie is what made Keaton a legit star, with it being one of the ten highest-grossing movies of 1983 and a favourite of many eighties kids, of which I am one. In this, Keaton plays a father who loses his job, so while his wife (Teri Garr) goes to work, he becomes a stay-at-home dad. This battle of the sexes comedy was way ahead of its time in many ways.
8. Johnny Dangerously (1984):
Amy Heckerling directed this spoof of 1930s, James Cagney gangster flicks. We previously tackled this one for The Best Movie You Never Saw (you can watch it embedded above), and we’ve always had a soft spot for this silly flick. As good as Keaton is, the film is all but stolen by Joe Piscopo as the movie’s bad guy, Danny Vermin (once Johnny. ONCE!).
7. Clean & Sober (1988):
Perhaps to keep from being typecast, Michael Keaton starred in this dark addiction drama as an eighties yuppie who joins rehab to get a handle on his out-of-control drug habit. Keaton’s performance in this was raved about, and while it didn’t make a ton of money, the right people saw it, with the rumor being it was his performance in this that convinced the nervous producers of Batman that he was the right man for the job.
6. The Dream Team (1989):
This was the last classic era Michael Keaton comedy, with him the leader of a gang of mental hospital patients on the loose in New York City, with them trying to find their missing psychiatrist. The supporting cast in this is stacked, with Christopher Lloyd, Peter Boyle, Stephen Furst, and more. Keaton has a great line in this one: “ah, it’s great to be young and insane.”
5. Pacific Heights (1990):
After Batman, Keaton once again tried to escape typecasting by playing a bad guy in this classic yuppie thriller, in which he plays a border who becomes a nightmare tenant to a young couple, played by Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine. It also has a great Hans Zimmer score.
4. My Life (1993):
This might one of the saddest movies ever made. No joke. In it, Keaton plays a dying man who spends his last few months making a series of videotapes he can leave to the child he knows he’ll never meet, with his wife (pregnant) with their son. The last scene in the movie, where Keaton is on a rollercoaster to heaven, gets me choked up every time, man. Plus, the score is by John Barry (Dances With Wolves,Out of Africa) at his tear-jerking best.
3. The Paper (1994):
This Ron Howard drama is really underrated, with Michael Keaton playing a harried editor at a struggling New York tabloid trying desperately to clear the names of two teenage suspects being held for a violent crime they didn’t commit. Keaton is great in it, but the movie has an incredible ensemble, including Randy Quaid, Robert Duvall, Marisa Tomei, and Glenn Close.
2. Multiplicity (1996):
One problem with Keaton becoming so identified with serious roles in the wake of Batman was that, when he tried to return to zany comedy, audiences stayed away as they no longer considered him a comedy star. That’s too bad because Keaton is awesome in this as a busy father who has himself cloned. It’s a great Harold Ramis comedy, and Keaton still looks back at it fondly.
1. Desperate Measures (1998):
After opting not to make Batman Forever, Keaton tried to shake up his image by playing the bad guy in this violent thriller, which offers co-star Andy Garcia a rare heroic lead in an action flick. In it, Keaton plays a prison lifer whose rare bone marrow is a match for that of Garcia’s dying son. He agrees to provide it, but it’s only cover for a violent escape attempt, with him and Garcia playing cat and mouse over the rest of the film. The hook in this is great, in that Garcia can’t kill Keaton (or allow him to be killed) because if he does, his son will lose his only possible bone marrow match and die.
Did we leave any Keaton movies off our list? Let us know in the comments!
PLOT: A washed-up drummer (Anderson .Paak) gets offered a lucrative gig in South Korea as the drummer for a hit pop idol show.
REVIEW: K-Pops! Is a rather charming debut for rapper Anderson .Paak who directs and stars in this loving satire of the Korean pop industry. Like the character he plays, BJ, Paak is half-Korean, with the movie examining the culture clash as the very American drummer is dropped into the zany K-pop industry, I must admit to having no knowledge whatsoever of the industry, except that it’s gotten huge over the years, and seems to really be having a moment in North America. In fact, it’s not rare for me, in my weekly box office reports, to include K-pop concert movies on the chart, with them reliably big money makers as bands like BTS go worldwide.
Paak’s movie attempts to serve both newcomers to Korean pop and fans. It features cameos from some huge stars, including Vernon from the band Seventeen, whose arrival in the film was greeted by cheers from the sold-out audience I saw this with at TIFF.
Paak’s movie is quite funny in the way it depicts the K-Pop pecking order, with it being explained that each band has a member who’s only job is to be handsome, while another is the designated dancer, and another is responsible for dropping the mandatory rap break into the song. To give Paak credit, it made me want to learn more about the industry, as it seems like a lot of their music and talent shows are pretty fun.
But, as it goes on, K-Pops becomes less about the industry and more of a father-son story, with it revealed shortly after arriving in Korea that the young contestant on the show that he’s befriended is actually his son. BJ, it turns out, was in love with a Korean woman, Yeji (Jee Young Han), who left him due to his total focus on his career. Much of the movie revolves around him building a relationship with his kid, Tae Young, who’s actually played by Paak’s own son, Soul Rasheed, who’s a natural in front of the camera. In one of the best running gags, he affects an English accent in oder to feel closer to the man his mother always told him was his real father, Idris Elba.
While K-Pops was a lighter entry into the TIFF lineup, it was certainly good for a laugh, even if at close to two hours, it runs a little long, with the pace lagging in the second half after the propulsive first hour. The supporting cast is sold, with Jee Young Han likeable as Tae Young’s resourceful mother, while Yvette Nicole Brown steals scenes as BJ’s adoring mom. One of the best recurring gags is how Brown’s character and one of BJ’s pals (rapper Dumbfounded – who’s quite funny here) can’t fight their uncontrollable attraction to each other, much to BJ’s dismay.
The danger of bringing a movie like K-Pops to TIFF is that it’s so gentle a yarn that it can’t help but get occasionally overlooked in festival coverage opposite bigger films. But I found it to be a sweet little movie with good performances from Paak and his son. Given his fame as a rapper and the fact that K-pop is having a moment right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if this one walks away from TIFF with a nice distribution deal.
It was announced earlier this year that more movies in the Lord of the Rings franchise were in development. The first of these movies will be The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum starring Andy Serkis, who will also direct the film; Or, perhaps I should say… films. While speaking on This Morning in the UK, Ian McKellen confirmed that he has been approached about reprising his role of Gandalf for The Hunt for Gollum, but he claims that the movie will actually be a two-parter. Gotta milk that Middle-earth, baby!
“Well, all I know is that they called me up and said these films were going to happen, that [they’re] mainly going to be about Gollum,” McKellen said. “Andy Serkis, who played Gollum, is going to direct, and there will be a script arriving sometime in the new year…and then I’ll judge whether I want to go back. I’m told it’s two films. I probably shouldn’t be saying this. But I haven’t read the script, and I don’t know when it is, and I don’t even know where it will be filmed.“
As we don’t know much about The Hunt for Gollum‘s plot, it’s hard to say whether there will be enough story for two movies. As we know, The Hobbit was originally envisioned as a two-parter before the choice was made to expand it to three movies. I think we can agree that it spread the story a little too thin. This is just speculation on my part, but it’s also possible that the second movie is another Lord of the Rings project that could involve Gandalf.
It’s been ten years since McKellen last played Gandalf, but the 85-year-old actor recently said that if they want him to reprise the role once again, they’d “better be quick” about it.
Serkis dropped a few teases about The Hunt for Gollum earlier this year. “It is so early; it would be unfair to commit to anything at this point,” Serkis said. “But I will say that it will be a deep dive where we investigate Gollum’s character. There may be characters that we recognize that might be coming back. I’m not going to say who.“
While we did see a lot of Gollum’s saga play out in the previous six movies, Peter Jackson has previously said that there’s still a lot of story left to be told. “The Gollum/Sméagol character has always fascinated me because Gollum reflects the worst of human nature, whilst his Sméagol side is, arguably, quite sympathetic,” Jackson said. “I think he connects with readers and film audiences alike, because there’s a little bit of both of them in all of us. We really want to explore his backstory and delve into those parts of his journey we didn’t have time to cover in the earlier films. It’s too soon to know who will cross his path, but suffice to say we will take our lead from Professor Tolkien.“
Do you think The Hunt for Gollum will ultimately consist of two movies?
Although Those About to Die was a success for Peacock, it remains to be seen if we’ll see season 2 of the historical drama, but that hasn’t stopped Roland Emmerich from dreaming about it.
Should Those About to Die return for a second season, Emmerich told THR that he’d like to take a little inspiration from The Godfather Part II and feature dual timelines. “We hope to do a little bit what Godfather II did,” Emmerich said, adding that the show would continue the story in the present timeline and explore The Year of the Four Emperors in the flashback timeline. The flashbacks would take place 10 years before the events of the series and begin with the suicide of Emperor Nero (Emmerich is already thinking of who could play the character). This event led to power struggles and rebellions, with Galba, Otho, and Vitellius each being proclaimed Emperor one after another before Vespasian (played by Anthony Hopkins in the series) finally took control.
Those About to Die is “an epic drama set in the corrupt world of the spectacle-driven gladiatorial competition, exploring a side of ancient Rome never before told — the dirty business of entertaining the masses, giving the mob what they want most…blood and sport. The series introduces an ensemble of characters from all corners of the Roman Empire who collide at the explosive intersection of sports, politics, and dynasties.” Although the series wasn’t quite on the same level as something like HBO’s Rome, I did find myself enjoying it as pulpy entertainment. However, the same can’t be said for our own Alex Maidy, who found himself underwhelmed by the series.
“Those About To Die struggles to balance the historical accuracy of life in 79 A.D. with the complexities and dramatic tension needed for a long-format television series. There are characters in this series worth rooting for and despicable ones you will hate. The violence is explicit, and the action is well-choreographed. But that is all established in the premiere episode and repeated with minimal variation for ten episodes,” Maidy wrote. “Those About To Die is one of Peacock’s most visually ambitious projects, and it also says a lot about the limitations put on streaming series these days. I wanted to like Those About To Die but felt bored and underwhelmed. This series asked if I was entertained, and I responded with a big thumbs down.” You can check out the rest of his review right here.
Would you like to see season 2 of Those About to Die?
From the beginning, it was expected that The Batman would be the first part of a new trilogy. However, no one could have anticipated that a new DC Universe would take shape in the months after the release of the first movie. We’re still awaiting the release of The Batman Part II, but director Matt Reeves confirmed to Collider that he still plans on completing the trilogy.
“Yes, that is still the plan,” Reeves said. “I mean, it’s sticking very closely to the path we envisioned.” The director admitted that some things have shifted, most notably in the choice to showcase Penguin’s (Colin Farrell) rise to power in a TV series. “I had always intended to continue Penguin’s story, and wanted to tell this story of his beginning of rise to power. Because we know that he’s introduced in The Batman as a kind of mid-level, sort of overlooked, mocked figure, who’s not yet in anyone’s eyes the kingpin we come to know him as in the lore,” Reeves explained. “And so, that was deliberate because I wanted— whereas it wasn’t Batman’s origin story, I wanted the origin stories of these other characters, of the Rogues Gallery and that story was originally going to be the entrée into the next movie.“
The Batman Part II co-writer Mattson Tomlin has said the sequel will finally start shooting next year. It is currently slated for an October 2, 2026release.
Just last week, Reeves revealed that DC is super excited about the sequel. “We’ve shared [the script] as we’ve been going along with DC, and they’re super excited,” Reeves said. “It’s going to dig into the epic story about deeper corruption, and it goes into places [Bruce Wayne] couldn’t even anticipate in the first one. The seeds of where this goes are all in the first movie & it expands in a way that will show you aspects of the character you never got to see. Batman is constantly battling these forces. But those forces can’t be entirely exorcised. So the next movie delves deeper into that.“
As for The Penguin, the series will premiere on HBO next week. Taking place after the events of The Batman, the series will find Oswald Cobblepot taking advantage of the power vacuum created by the death of Carmine Falcone. In addition to Farrell, the series stars Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone, daughter of the late Carmine, Rhenzy Feliz as Victor Aguilar, Oswald’s driver, Michael Kelly as Johnny Vity, Falcone family underboss, and Clancy Brown as Salvatore Maroni, a rival gangster. Shohreh Aghdashloo, Deirdre O’Connell, James Madio, Scott Cohen, Michael Zegen, Carmen Ejogo, and Theo Rossi also star in the series. Our own Alex Maidy called the series “a masterpiece that will be the defining performance of Colin Farrel’s career.” Damn! You can check out the rest of his review right here.
James McAvoy did such an incredible job juggling multiple characters in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split that it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role, but McAvoy was actually a last-minute addition. Joaquin Phoenix had originally signed on to star, and James McAvoy told Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he got the role after Phoenix reportedly dropped out just two weeks before shooting was set to begin. Not a lot of time for McAvoy to prepare for so many characters.
The actor didn’t think it was weird to take over the role from Phoenix. “No, definitely not,” he said. “I’m confident enough to think that I will do it better anyway. I’m joking. I just like saying the wrong thing.” He added that Phoenix is “an amazing actor” and would likely have given “a very different performance than the one I did, but I think he’d give an incredible performance.” That would have been interesting to see.
McAvoy continued, “Sometimes coming in last minute is the best way. I think he ditched it two weeks before they started shooting. It was really last minute. I had a couple of weeks [to prep]. Two weeks. The script was well put together so a lot of it was clear what I wanted to do straight away. A couple characters took a little longer to find. Patricia came real quick. Dennis came real quick. Hedwig took awhile.“
Joaquin Phoenix is no stranger to dropping out of projects last minute; in fact, just last month, he exited a gay romance movie from Todd Haynes just days before filming was due to commence. It’s been said that Phoenix got “cold feet” about the project, which has unfortunately been scrapped entirely.
McAvoy can currently be seen in Speak No Evil, a psychological horror thriller which follows an American family who are invited to spend the weekend at the idyllic country estate of a charming British family they befriended on vacation. But what begins as a dream holiday soon warps into a snarled psychological nightmare. Our own Tyler Nichols was a fan, particularly of McAvoy’s performance. “James McAvoy is absolutely the star of the show and gives a riveting performance as Paddy. He’s electric from one moment to the next and brings such a chaotic energy,” Nichols wrote. “This is an all-time performance from McAvoy and will likely stand out as a career-best. As evil as the trailers make him out to be, the performance is much more nuanced and he draws you in. He’s like a dog playing with a new toy, just testing how best to tear it apart.” You can check out the rest of Nichols’ review right here.
Scream (2022) and Scream VI star Melissa Barrera – who was fired from Scream 7 when comments she made about the Israel-Hamas war didn’t go over well with executives at Spyglass Media – has the lead role in the film Your Monster, a project she had previously described as a “horror rom-com musical.” JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray had the chance to see the movie at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and wrote a 6/10 review you can read at THIS LINK. A wider audience will be able to see the movie when Vertical gives it a theatrical release on October 25th – and with that date just one month away, a trailer is now online. You can check it out in the embed above.
The feature directorial debut of Caroline Lindy, who wrote the film based on her 2019 short of the same name, Your Monster tells the story of the soft-spoken actor Laura Franco, who is dumped by her longtime boyfriend while recovering from surgery and retreats to her childhood home to recover. With her future looking bleak, insult is added to injury when Laura discovers her ex is staging a musical that she helped him develop. But out of these gut-wrenching life changes emerges a monster with whom she finds a connection, encouraging Laura to follow her dreams, open her heart and fall in love with her inner rage.
Barrera plays Laura Franco, with Tommy Dewey (Casual) as the monster and Edmund Donovan (Tell Me Lies) as her ex. Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus) and Kayla Foster (The Deuce) are also in the cast.
Speaking with Digital Spy, Barrera said Your Monster is “a horror rom-com musical. My character is a musical theatre actor, so there’s a musical in the movie. There’s a lot of singing and dancing in it. And it’s like a rom-com with elements of horror. It’s scary at times, and really funny at times. And it’s everything that I love in a movie combined into one.“
Vertical Partner Peter Jarowey had this to say about the distribution deal: “We were captivated by Caroline’s film at Sundance and thrilled it has made a home here at Vertical. Marking her directorial feature debut, she has created a fantastic, fresh, genre-defying film that perfectly balances the mix of comedy, romance and horror topped off with a dash of musical theater that will captivate and delight audiences later this year.“
Lindy and Foster produced the film with Shannon Reilly of Bombo Sports and Entertainment and Kira Carstensen and Melanie Donkers from Mermade, “a division of Sharon Horgan and Clelia Mountfor’s entertainment company Merman, which focuses on projects from emerging creators.” Dewey serves as an executive producer with Bombo’s Bob Potter. Jackson Sinder and Mermade’s Jack Taylor Cox are co-producers.
What did you think of the Your Monster trailer? Will you be catching this movie on the big screen next month? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
There are some minor SPOILERS ahead if you don’t want anything about writer/director Kevin Smith’s new film The 4:30 Movie given away before you see it… but for those of you who would like to weigh whether not these are the sort of spoilers you feel you should avoid, I will say that this only concerns one exchange of dialogue and some of the special thanks seen in the end credits. Now, to get to the point: The 4:30 Movie is in theatres as of today, and since its release date also happens to be a Friday the 13th, I thought it was worth pointing out and celebrating the fact that Jason Voorhees, the iconic star of the Friday the 13th franchise, gets a shout-out in the movie!
Set in the summer of 1986, The 4:30 Movie is a coming-of-age comedy that follows three sixteen-year-old friends who spend their Saturdays sneaking into movies at the local multiplex. But when one of the guys also invites the girl of his dreams to see the latest comedy, each of the teens will learn something serious about life and love before the credits roll.
Austin Zajur (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), Nicholas Cirillo (Outer Banks), and Reed Northrup (High Maintenance) play sixteen year old friends Brian David, Burny, and Belly, with Siena Agudong (Resident Evil) as the dream girl, Melody Barnegat. Ken Jeong (The Hangover), Sam Richardson (Veep), Genesis Rodriguez (Tusk), Justin Long (Barbarian), Jason Lee (Almost Famous), Rachel Dratch (I Love My Dad), Kate Micucci (The Big Bang Theory), Adam Pally (Sonic the Hedgehog), Harley Quinn Smith (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood), Jason Biggs (American Pie), and Method Man (Garden State) are also in the cast.
The 4:30 Movie was filmed at Smodcastle Cinemas in New Jersey, a theatre Smith now co-owns and used to hang out in every weekend when he was a teenager. Liz Destro, Josh Bachove, and Jordan Monsanto produced, with Bill Bromiley, Shanan Becker, and Jonathan Saba executive producing.
Since the movie follows a trio of movie-obsessed teens living in the ’80s, it’s not too surprising that they end up talking about slasher movies at one point – and since the viewing of slasher movies, especially Friday the 13th movies, takes up a large chunk of my life, this dialogue exchange happens to be one of my favorite parts of The 4:30 Movie. After Burny says he’s a horror movie expert and a slasher fan, Brian David asks him, “Who wins in a fight between Jason, Freddy, Leatherface, and Michael Myers?” Burny answers, “My man Jason Voorhees.” Which is a great answer, because my man Jason would also be my pick – and it’s nice to see the slasher icon get such respect in a movie that has been released on a Friday the 13th. But Brian David says the correct answer is, “The audience. We all win.” Which, if such a movie were to be made, would be true.
During the end credits scroll, Smith gives a special thanks to a long list of people, characters, and pastimes that gave him a happy childhood – and included on that list is Jason Voorhees, along with his fellow slasher Michael Myers.
As mentioned, The 4:30 Movie is in theatres now. JoBlo’s own Alex Maidy and I both rank it highly as one of the best movies Smith has ever made. You can read Alex’s review HERE.
Will you be watching The 4:30 Movie, and are you glad to hear that Jason Voorhees gets a nod in the movie? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Welcome to Hot Ones, the show with hot questions and even hotter wings. Today, we’re joined by the popular streamer Netflix to announce that Buzzfeed is in talks with the platform to launch our clever YouTube interview show for a live, spicy presentation. No deals are in place, but the meticulously researched show putting guests through the Hot Ones gauntlet is in the early stages of negotiations.
According to Variety, the show’s regular host, Sean Evans, could host select episodes of the live Hot Ones show on Netflix. The outlet emphasizes that no deal is in place yet, with Buzzfeed and Netflix remaining mum about any plans.
In case you’re unfamiliar, First We Feast’s Hot Ones, hosted by Sean Evans, finds celebrities in the hot seat fielding carefully curated questions while dining on a serving platter of hot wings. The wings get hotter with each question, causing many guests to break down under the pressure of millions of Scoville units. The clever interview formula puts guests in an increasingly vulnerable state as Sean turns up the heat, with unpredictability being the name of the game. Many guests act like they’re hot shit at first, but as the heat increases, they eventually lose their cool. Well, unless you’re Charlize Theron, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Olsen, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Padma Lakshmi, Brie Larson, Lorde, or Jenna Ortega.
In a recent episode, Sean hosted Donald Duck for the iconic character’s 90th birthday. The episode features seamless Who Framed Roger Rabbit-style animation, with Donald reacting to each wing with extreme expressions and desperation as he climbs the ladder.
Netflix hosting Hot Ones for a live presentation is interesting, considering the project’s real-time approach. Part of the appeal of Hot Ones is watching the show at your leisure on YouTube, removing the need to sit down at a specific date and time. Is Hot Ones popular enough to get people in front of screens when the show goes live? What if a guest is late or needs to cancel? I have a lot of questions.
What do you think about Netflix and Hot Ones possibly partnering for a live show? Would you set a Google alert reminding you to tune in? Let us know in the comments below.
