While rumours have been flying around about who would finally be playing the Fantastic Four in Matt Shakman’s highly anticipated reboot of Marvel’s First Family, Disney gave fans a Valentine’s Day treat and confirmed the full cast this morning.
All four actors have been heavily rumored for their respective roles. While Kirby and Pascal are well-known due to TheCrown and The Mandalorian, this is poised to be a potentially star-making role for Quinn, who’s risen to fame quickly since playing Eddie Munson on Stranger Things. Ebon Moss-Bachrach plays Richie (cousin!) on The Bear and recently nabbed his first Emmy. Matt Shakman previously helmed Disney Plus’s MCU series, WandaVision, their first (and best) show since the pivot to streaming. Recently, Bob Iger announced a shift in priorities for Disney after a disastrous 100th anniversary year, with fewer films and better quality control. The most recent MCU film, The Marvels, didn’t even make $100 million domestically, while Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was also considered a financial and critical misfire.
Granted, the Fantastic Four has been a notoriously difficult property for Hollywood to get right. In 1994, Roger Corman produced a cheapskate version of the film that never got (officially) released, while the Tim Story/mid-2000s Fox films were also seen as disappointing (although the first film did well enough to get a sequel). In 2015, Fox tried to reboot the franchise with a gritty version directed by Chronicle‘s Josh Trank. It was a financial and critical disaster.
Hopefully, Shakman can finally give the Fantastic Four the big-screen franchise launcher they deserve.
What do you think of the cast? Let us know in the comments.
While rumours have been flying around about who would finally be playing the Fantastic Four in Matt Shakman’s highly anticipated reboot of Marvel’s First Family, Disney gave fans a Valentine’s Day treat and confirmed the full cast this morning.
All four actors have been heavily rumored for their respective roles. While Kirby and Pascal are well-known due to TheCrown and The Mandalorian, this is poised to be a potentially star-making role for Quinn, who’s risen to fame quickly since playing Eddie Munson on Stranger Things. Ebon Moss-Bachrach plays Richie (cousin!) on The Bear and recently nabbed his first Emmy. Matt Shakman previously helmed Disney Plus’s MCU series, WandaVision, their first (and best) show since the pivot to streaming. Recently, Bob Iger announced a shift in priorities for Disney after a disastrous 100th anniversary year, with fewer films and better quality control. The most recent MCU film, The Marvels, didn’t even make $100 million domestically, while Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was also considered a financial and critical misfire.
Granted, the Fantastic Four has been a notoriously difficult property for Hollywood to get right. In 1994, Roger Corman produced a cheapskate version of the film that never got (officially) released, while the Tim Story/mid-2000s Fox films were also seen as disappointing (although the first film did well enough to get a sequel). In 2015, Fox tried to reboot the franchise with a gritty version directed by Chronicle‘s Josh Trank. It was a financial and critical disaster.
Hopefully, Shakman can finally give the Fantastic Four the big-screen franchise launcher they deserve.
What do you think of the cast? Let us know in the comments.
The Marvels is now available to watch on Disney+, and while the movie wasn’t the project that was able to pull Marvel Studios out of the fire, it tried to entice the viewers at the eleventh hour that something major was coming when the final teaser stated, “Be there for the moment that changes everything.” Spoiler for those who haven’t seen it, but the post-credits scene features Kelsey Grammer reprising his role as Beast from the X-Men movies. Something that may or may not be addressed in Deadpool & Wolverine. However, according to Zawe Ashton, who played the big baddie Dar-Benn in the film, there was another big moment that was to take place in the ending of the movie.
Digital Spy reports on Ashton appearing on the Phase Zero podcast from ComicBook.com. She reveals that during the finale sequence that had Carol Danvers and Dar-Benn fighting in space, Captain Marvel was originally written to die along with Dar-Benn. Ashton explained, “There was another ending that we did film where Brie and myself are kind of in space still having it out, and they kind of combust together, which was really amazing. And that was just a day on wires hanging out with Brie, which is surreal and fun. But yeah, there were a few different plans, I think.”
Ashton continued, “There was always going to be an epic death just because in terms of, I just think in terms of just bringing that story psychologically for Carol to a close I think was always the best thing. You don’t want to think, did she defeat her? Is this over? Is she going to be kind of doomed to this life of feeling guilty about this whole thing forever and ever? Or is she going to get this redemptive moment where Dar-Benn’s out of the picture and then she gets to almost take on the mantle of what she was trying to do?” Dar-Benn was not meant to continue in the MCU, but the revised ending now has Captain Marvel surviving the ordeal.
“It is a really redemptive arc for that character. I will say I did a day’s diving training, because there was going to be a lot of water involved in the original death,” Ashton concludes. The fate of Captain Marvel is now up in the air. Both of Brie Larson’s entries were met with mixed reception, and the Marvel character’s short franchise has become a hotbed of controversy.
Surely the making of one of the funniest movies ever made can’t be that serious…and it really isn’t! OK, 1980’s Airplane! was a tough sell and there were minor clashes between the directors and Paramount and lawsuits from a rival studio threatened the casting of numerous stars. But there was also perfect against-type casting, clever workarounds to silly DGA regulations and a complete reinvention of the spoof movie, all of which made Airplane! one of the greatest comedies ever.. Oh, and there were fart machines, too!
And so let’s park the taxi, avoid the fish and check in on our drinking problem as we find out: WTF Happened to this movie?!
Airplane! has its origins in the Kentucky Fried Theater, which the trio of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker (collectively known as ZAZ) founded in 1971. One act the fellas grew fond of was dubbing over serious movies with their own dialogue (a sort of proto-MST3K). They, too, loved spoofing commercials, and so would record them on VHS throughout the day and night. It was here that they accidentally stumbled upon a movie called Zero Hour! from 1957. But the plot was so absurd – a former pilot has to man a plane after the real pilots get sick with food poisoning – that they thought they could remake it altogether. They even named their lead character Ted Striker, just like Dana Andrews’ character (although they modified the spelling).
And so the script – then titled The Late Show – could be written. Completed in 1975 – two years before the group’s debut feature, The Kentucky Fried Movie, hit theaters – the script blatantly ripped from Zero Hour!, which must have been easy to do since they practically kept the movie on loop while writing. This is seen immediately as the eventual title – Airplane! – even steals the exclamation. They even took dialogue straight from Zero Hour! because it was so ridiculous, such as: “The life of everyone on board depends upon just one thing: finding someone back there who can not only fly this plane but who didn’t have fish for dinner.” ZAZ was also concerned that they could be sued, so they secured the rights for a mere $2,500 (although, interestingly, part of the movie was owned by Airplane!’s eventual studio, Paramount).
But it wasn’t just Zero Hour! that ZAZ pulled from; it was the disaster movie Airport (1970) and its sequels. There is a link between those two as well, as Arthur Hailey wrote the “Airport” novel and co-wrote Zero Hour! (the latter being adapted from his own TV play Flight into Danger). Here, Universal threatened to sue because Airplane! was too similar to their Airport series. They didn’t even want it to be called Airplane! but they eventually relented.
Unlike most spoofs, however, Airplane! didn’t require knowledge of its genre to appreciate the story, characters and jokes. In fact, most of us had probably never heard of Zero Hour! until we found out it influenced Airplane!
But ZAZ had trouble actually selling the script and, at the urging of John Landis, moved on to Kentucky Fried Movie, which Landis directed. This would give them some of the experience they needed and make them want to have more control of their scripts. Going back to Airplane!, ZAZ got interest from Avco-Embassy and AIP at various points. But it eventually made its way to Paramount and then-president Michael Eisner (who first got wind through Susan Baerwald), who loved it and enlisted Jeffrey Katzenberg – then working as president of production for the studio – to sit down with ZAZ and recruit them. Despite still being relatively fresh on the scene, ZAZ had some conditions if they were going to sell: they had to direct, which, surprisingly, Paramount agreed to, saying they could direct under the condition that if their work was bad, they would be fired after two weeks. Still, ZAZ would have to relinquish their insistence that it be shot in black and white and on a propeller plane to match Zero Hour! further! (sounds of a propeller are still heard, however).
With the studio lined up, casting on AIRPLANE! could begin. Another demand ZAZ had was that the movie be populated by non-comedy actors, some of whom we now can’t imagine comedy movies without!
Flying sky high in the lead was Robert Hays as Ted Striker, who beat out one of the oddest group of potentials ever compiled: David Letterman screen-tested but admitted – along with ZAZ – that he couldn’t act (the team would later show his audition on LATE NIGHT when they were guests); Paramount’s top choices, meanwhile, wanted Chevy Chase or Bill Murray, while everybody from Fred Willard to Bruce (now Caitlin) Jenner and – woah! – Barry Manilow, all circled the role. Willard apparently didn’t “get” it but later admitted it was a mistake, while Jenner read for the part, and Manilow would continue writing the songs that make the whole world sing. While Hays did have fun making the movie, he would say that simultaneously shooting Airplane! and the ABC sitcom Angie took a toll on him.
Julie Hagerty, then doing far-off-Broadway, would land Elaine Dickinson, edging out Shelley Long and Sigourney Weaver, who objected to the “sit on your face and wiggle” line. Leslie Nielsen, then known for his dramas, would play Dr. Rumack, beating out Dom DeLuise and Jack Webb (Joe Friday on Dragnet), which would have been his last movie, as he died in 1982. Others considered were horror icons Christopher Lee and Vincent Price; instead, Lee did Spielberg’s 1941, and Price did some voice work. There, too, was Peter Graves as Captain Clarence Oveur. Graves didn’t particularly like the script, even calling it a “disgusting piece of garbage” and saying his character came across as a pedophile. Still, he wound up laughing the hardest at the premiere! The role of Steve McCroskey was offered to George Kennedy, star of the Airport movies, but Universal talked him out of it. Instead, Lloyd Bridges won out…after some convincing from Robert Stack. Stack – known for his dramas and Oscar-nominated turn in Written on the Wind – would play Captain Rex Kramer. To nail his performance, he actually looked at comedian John Byner’s impressions of him and ended up “doing an impression of John Byner doing an impression of Stack.” And you thought there was nothing complex about Airplane!
The rest of the supporting cast also has their own individual backstories, so let’s take a look:
Kentucky Fried Theatre alum Stephen Stucker played flamboyant air traffic controller Johnny, even writing his own lines.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played co-pilot Roger Murdock and himself. But it took some extra coin, getting his salary upped so he could purchase a new Oriental rug. Believe it or not, non-hall of famer Pete Rose was the original choice! Through Abdul-Jabbar, ZAZ even worked in another nod to Zero Hour!, as that movie cast pro football hall of famer Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch as a co-pilot.
Helen Reddy was originally cast as Sister Angelina due to her role as Sister Ruth in Airport 1975, but after Universal threw yet another fit the role went to Maureen McGovern.
Stage legend Ethel Merman turns up as a delusional lieutenant, looking like she’s still in the 1960s.
Good Times’ Jimmie Walker – one of the few comedians in the cast – has a cameo as Windshield Wiper Man, while you’ll also spot James Hong as Japanese General and Breaking Bad’s Jonathan Banks as an air traffic controller.
Here’s someone you may not recognize…unless you were heavy into politics in the ‘70s. Howard Jarvis played the man waiting inside a taxi cab for the entire movie. The joke itself is good but made so much better – and smarter – when you know that Jarvis was a fiscally conservative politician, with the ultimate joke being that he would be content paying who-knows-how-much by sitting inside of a cab with the meter running. Here’s one more obscure cameo: the intercom people who keep bickering about red zones, white zones, and abortions were the actual people who provided the voices at LAX, where some of the movie was shot. Oh, and there’s Otto as himself, of course!
Every cast member was told to play it completely straight during filming, as is often the case with the best comedies. As the directors told them: “Pretend you don’t know you’re in a comedy.”
Filming on Airplane! began on June 20th, 1979, with a budget of $3.5 million (originally pegged at $7.5 million), and right away, it was a set of loopholes, language barriers and, yes, farts. Leslie Nielsen, who, again, was not known for comedy at the time, brought a small device on set that would mimic fart noises, breaking people in the middle of takes. At first, people thought he had a serious issue, while at other times, he blamed it on Julie Hagerty. He even sold a few of the devices – which Hays said he played “like a maestro” – on set for $7 apiece.
But ZAZ had bigger issues than flatulence. DGA regulations said that a movie couldn’t have three directors billed on the credits, and when ZAZ tried to develop the collective pseudonym of Abraham N. Zuckers, they were shut down. And so ZAZ developed a plan: Abrahams would be deemed the director (that is, working directly with the actors) while the Zuckers hid behind closed doors. As such, the three had to discuss notes in private secretly. Fortunately, the silly rule was cleared by the guild, thus all three names appear in the credits.
And while Zero Hour! was on standby so the team could match the composition and lighting, that doesn’t mean they hit every note right away. ZAZ had to nudge the actors in the right direction whenever there were spaces in the script to fill, while they had no idea how to write “jive talk.” This was improvised by Al White and Norm Gibbs, who further taught the speak to Barbara Billingsley, best known as June Cleaver aka the least jive woman on the planet!
But not everyone was quite on the same page. Ross Harris, who played the young Joey, admitted he was “oblivious” to the adult content Peter Graves was throwing at him. At the same time, Graves himself had reservations and thought he was misled, later being told by ZAZ that all of his perverse questions about Turkish prisons and naked men would be explained later on (they were not). Bridges, too, had trouble adapting to the style, asking at one point, “What the hell’s going on here?” (Of course, he’d grow fond of the spoof genre, later co-starring in the Hot Shots! movies and Mafia! for Jim Abrahams.)
On the music front, for the flashback sequence involving a Saturday Night Fever parody, ZAZ acquired the rights to The Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive”; it sounds like a cover because it has been sped up. Another one who appreciated the style was Elmer Bernstein, who nailed the desired B-movie score that stands unique to his iconic works from The Magnificent Seven, The Ten Commandments and more.
But if you thought eating the fish was the biggest poison, imagine this: at an advanced screening of Airplane!, some reels were played out of order! After some proper rearranging – and trimming the movie down to sub-90 minutes from nearly two hours, the comedy was ready for theatres, debuting in Toronto and Buffalo on June 27th, 1980, before going wide on July 2nd, just a few weeks after The Blues Brothers and a few before Caddyshack. With such a small budget, Airplane! easily made back its money in less than one week, going on to gross $83.5 million during its run and become one of the highest-grossing movies of 1980.
Awards-wise, it would earn a BAFTA nod for its screenplay (losing to Being There) and even win the WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It, too, would be nominated for the Best Musical or Comedy Golden Globe, losing to Coal Miner’s Daughter.
Like so many upon release, today we consider Airplane! one of the funniest movies ever. The American Film Institute would rank it as the 10th funniest ever, behind The Graduate and ahead of The Producers. That list’s #1 is Some Like It Hot, although the team thinks Airplane! will one day be considered the best comedy ever – once all of the Some Like It Hot fans die. The AFI, too, would rank the exchange “Surely you can’t be serious” / “I am serious…and don’t call me Shirley.” as one of the greatest movie quotes ever, actually one of the few comedies represented. The Writers Guild of America would name it the 4th funniest screenplay ever, behind Groundhog Day, Some Like It Hot and Annie Hall. And in 2010, Airplane! would be added to the National Film Registry, the same year as All the President’s Men, The Exorcist and more.
While Airplane! wasn’t the first parody comedy; it launched the most prolific decade for them in the history of movies, for good or bad. On the hardly debatable bad side, it launched a 1982 sequel, the appropriately titled Airplane II: The Sequel. And while it had a wealth of the original stars, ZAZ sat it out, instead shifting focus to the series Police Squad!, soon enough adapted into The Naked Gun.
And despite all of those spoofs that came after it and all of the directors it influenced (including the Farrelly Brothers, who admit they wouldn’t exist without the Zuckers), there is no greater spoof – or perhaps purely insane comedy – than Airplane! Even ZAZ couldn’t top it, although Top Secret! and The Naked Gun give it a worthwhile go.
In the end, it looks like we picked the wrong week to stop producing…WTF HAPPENED TO THIS MOVIE?!
Toho released a new Godzilla film, titled Godzilla Minus One (read our review HERE), in Japan on November 3rd, which happens to be Godzilla Day – the anniversary of the 1954 release of the original Godzilla movie. The film made its way over to the United States in December… and it became the highest grossing live-action Japanese film in North America even before a black and white version was released under the title Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color. Director Takashi Yamazaki has let it be known that he’s interested in making a sequel, and during a new interview with Empire magazine he revealed that he would like to feature some “kaiju vs. kaiju” action in the follow-up, if Toho lets him make it!
Yamazaki said, “I would certainly like to see what the sequel would look like. I know that Shikishima’s war seems over, and we’ve reached this state of peace and calm – but perhaps [it’s the] calm before the storm, and the characters have not yet been forgiven for what has been imposed upon them. … I don’t know that anyone has pulled off a more serious tone of kaiju-versus-kaiju with human drama, and that challenge is something that I’d like to explore. When you have movies that feature [kaiju battles], I think it’s very easy to put the spotlight and the camera on this massive spectacle, and it detaches itself from the human drama component.” He went on to say that he would have to “make sure that the human drama and whatever’s happening between [the] kaiju both have meaning, and both are able to affect one another in terms of plot development.“
Written and directed by Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One sees an already devastated postwar Japan facing a new threat in the form of Godzilla. Interestingly, one of Yamazaki’s previous credits is the 2007 film Always: Sunset on Third Street 2, which features a Godzilla cameo in a fantasy sequence.
The film stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki, with music by Naoki Sato.
Toho’s Koji Ueda has said, “Set in a post-war Japan, Godzilla Minus One will once again show us a Godzilla that is a terrifying and overwhelming force, which you already get a sense of from the teaser trailer and poster. The concept is that Japan, which had already been devastated by the war, faces a new threat with Godzilla, bringing the country into the ‘minus.’“
Yamazaki directed a trilogy of Always: Sunset on Third Street films, as well as Juvenile, Returner, Ballad, Space Battleship Yamato, Friends: Naki on the Monster Island, The Fighter Pilot, Stand by Me Doraemon, Stand by Me Doraemon 2 (with Ryuichi Yagi), Parasyte: Part 1 and 2, Fueled: The Man They Called ‘Pirate’, Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura, The Great War of Archimedes, Dragon Quest: Your Story, Lupin III: The First, and Ghost Book Obakezukan.
Toho brought Godzilla Minus One to the states in its original Japanese version, with English subtitles. The film secured a PG-13 rating for its U.S. release. This is Toho’s 33rd film in the franchise. The most recent entries were the 2016 live-action film Shin Godzilla and a trilogy of animated features; Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle, and Godzilla: The Planet Eater. While Toho sends this one out into the world, Legendary is keeping their own Godzilla MonsterVerse alive with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (which is set to reach theatres on March 15, 2024) and the Apple TV+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
If Toho were to let Yamazaki make a Godzilla Minus One sequel, it would be the first sequel in their franchise since 2002’s Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla received the direct follow-up Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. in 2003. While the Godzilla films released in the Shōwa era had some connection to each other, and same for the films in the Heisei era, (most of) the films released during the Millennium era and the current Reiwa era have been designed to be standalone entries.
Would you like to see Takashi Yamazaki get to make a “kaiju vs. kaiju” sequel to Godzilla Minus One? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Bret Easton Ellis has written the novels that have inspired such films as Less Than Zero, American Psycho, The Rules of Attraction, and The Informers, and has written the screenplays for The Canyons, The Curse of Downers Grove, and Smiley Face Killers. Now he’s set to make his feature directorial debut with the horror film Relapse – and Joseph Quinn, who played a fan favorite character in season 4 of the Netflix series Stranger Things and will be seen in the upcoming A Quiet Place: Day One, has signed on to star in the film!
Quinn’s Relapse character is Matt Cullen, who checks into rehab after witnessing a horrific death during a drugged-up party. Three months later, he is set to get his life back together, staying at his parent’s mansion in the hills of Los Angeles. But things have changed around Matt and everything seems off balance. Fueled by his unstable personality and the invading power of social media, Matt’s paranoia grows, messing up with his rehabilitation program. As he starts using again, a mysterious presence starts growing around Matt, and a monster that has been haunting him since he was a teenager reveals itself. His therapist tries to help, convinced that the monster is actually in Matt’s head.
Ellis told Variety, “I grew up watching the iconic horror movies of the 1970s. I’ve written Lunar Park, a horror novel, as an homage to Stephen King. It seems appropriate that my first feature would be a horror film. There is a simplicity to Relapse that seems like the perfect form for my directing debut: something direct and impactful.” He added that he has “never seen a monster movie in the kind of upscale L.A. setting I wrote about and I am familiar with.“
He describes Relapse as a personal movie and “a monster movie with my signature characters—young, handsome, rich—at the center. … It will have my strokes: sex, drugs and paranoia. It will also be a fun, lush, and commercial feature film for a lot of people to enjoy.“
SND is producing the film with Adrian Guerra’s Nostromo and Simon Wallon’s Kiss & Kill. SND is also handling worldwide sales and French distribution. They’ll be presenting an exclusive sizzle reel to potential buyers at the European Film Market. DDT Studios is designing the creature.
How does Relapse sound to you? Are you a fan of Bret Easton Ellis’s work, and are you glad to hear that he’s going to be directing a horror movie (with Joseph Quinn in the lead)? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
Let me give you my thoughts about love. I tend to side with famous Irish poet Oscar Wilde, when he says, “Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.” This is the basis for any successful relationship between lovers, most importantly during the honeymoon phase. Love sure makes us do crazy things for the people we care for most. But what is that limitation of crazy? And how far can it get before the significant others realizes this and wants to cut the cord for good? Sadly, cutting the cord may mean dire consequences for those that wish to end it. Let’s put that to the test and revisit two star-crossed lovers which is something out of any teenage girl’s dreams. But what if that dream soon warps into a twisted tale of horrific obsession, stalking, and manipulation? We’re talking about 1996’s Fear which is directed by James Foley and features two present day A-listers, at a time when they were just starting to make an impact in the Hollywood circuit. Fear is a movie that fits perfectly within that coming-of-age, teenage culture which was so prevalent during 90’s horror. It’s also been subject of much heated debates, if it’s a true horror film or not. But today, I’m here to tell you my two cents and why it belongs in in this coveted genre especially after a recent rewatch. Yes, today we’re hanging out with Calvin Klein sensation turned hip-hop rapper, Marky Mark, and the always sweet, girl next door, Reese Witherspoon as we revisit 1996’s Fear (watch it HERE).
Fear first became a concept back in 1994, when writer, Christopher Crowe originally titled the movie, “No Fear,” with director James Foley set to direct. The film was picked up by Imagine Entertainment, and Universal Pictures. It went into an eleven-week production mainly in the Seattle, Washington area for the city elements. The Walker residence scenes including that amazing climactic ending, were filmed in Vancouver due to the script’s description of where Nicole and her family resided. The Walker residence was a sophisticated hi-tech establishment which was surrounded by water, and impenetrable to outside dangers. The filmmakers were extremely thrilled that the script’s settings matched the Vancouver residence to a t. Originally, Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio was chosen to be the main star David, but he backed out, citing the material wasn’t for him. However, Leo did pitch his friend Mark Wahlberg to take the spot as David. Both Leo and Mark recently collaborated on the 1995 teenage coming-of-age tale, The Basketball Diaries, so Wahlberg was given the chance to shine. Director James Foley was so impressed with Wahlberg’s audition, that he said he would back out of directing duties if Wahlberg wasn’t cast as the lead star. And truthfully, the movie wouldn’t have had much of an impact if Wahlberg wasn’t cast due to his perfect “wolf in sheep’s clothing” portrayal of David.
Fear centers on 16-year-old Nicole Walker, played by Reese Witherspoon who, like all her other films plays the sweet and innocent do-gooder who lives with her dad Steven, played by William Petersen, and stepmother Laura, played by the always beautiful Amy Brenneman, as well as her stepbrother, Toby. Nicole and her best friend Margo, played by Alyssa Milano, visit a downtown café, and both fall for two edgy, older men, one of them being Mark Wahlberg’s David. David takes a liking to Nicole, as they meet up at a club, their intrigue for each other blossoms into a steady relationship, or in Dane Cook’s terms, a RELATIONSHIT. After some shady and downright disturbing actions from David, Nicole starts to contemplate whether David is her real true love, or one of hell’s own angels brought forth to latch onto her with sinister intentions. It really brings the phrase, “Till Death Do Us Part” into consideration from David’s own psyche as his over-obsessive, psychotic tendencies start taking over, which spill into Nicole’s family and friends being put in harm’s way.
There are some truly memorable and intense moments from Fear that categorize it as a horror. I mean what’s more frightening than a girl not being able to escape the evil clutches of a psychotic boyfriend; let alone the failures of a parent not being able to protect their own child from it? But let’s observe why this is a horror film, as my favorite scenes provide the context. David has a liking to lurking about Nicole’s whereabouts. He’s an infection that has spread and latched itself onto Nicole, and although it may look cute at first, it starts to become a catalyst for what’s to come. Right out of Michael Myers playbook, David is everywhere, just waiting to pounce at a moment’s notice. Hell, he even infiltrates Nicole’s school and stalks the hallways looking at what she does, and who she interacts with. He even lets himself enter a women’s bathroom at a local mall. He also chases down Nicole’s best fried Margo in an intense car chase sequence. If that wasn’t enough, he would even show up in a deserted backwoods area to twist the head off of Nicole’s best friend, Gary.
There’s also a great sequence between Nicole’s dad, Steven, and David. When Steven, who also possesses a little of that overbearing, masochistic edge to him, in all honestly what dad doesn’t with a daughter like Nicole? Steven confronts David in a neighboring street telling him to stay away and threatens him. David reacts with abusing himself when Steven drives away. You’d think a father’s love for his daughter, as well as some intimidation tactics, would stray David, but It only creates more trouble in the process for Nicole and her loved ones. David tells Nicole he was shoved violently and pushed by her father during a confrontation. We know David is not just brawns, but he also has manipulative tendencies as well, outsmarting people in the process. When Steven breaks into David’s home, he finds his room to be enshrined with Nicole’s photos, a mantle dedicated to her, as well as some stolen jewelry which has a new engraving called “David’s girl,” instead of “Daddy’s girl.” Let’s also not forget the self-inflicted chest tattoo showing off David’s artistic skills and devotion to poor Nicole.
And lastly, there is the icing on the cake that makes it a horror movie on its own. I guess you can say the horror really starts when Gary gets his neck twisted like a can of jarred pickles, but the siege on the Walker residence has tons of horror movie moments which states my case. The demise of the family dog. The lights and security going out making it dark and ominous. The poor security guard getting a taste of his own medicine, or even the stalking and lurking around the windows by David, and his drugged-up hooligans make for some borderline Straw Dogs or The Strangers callbacks. Once they break into the house, the fight is on, and Fear brings some slasher cat and mouse moments into the mix. Director James Foley even wanted to have that infamous Shining, axe-to-door scene homage in there for good measure. The movie does a fine job at letting the viewer know how much of a whirlwind David can be, and the dangers he possesses if he doesn’t get his way. Besides the self-abuse, and inflicted tattoo wounds, he brings a believable psychotic nature, with that infamous line as he’s about to break into the Walker home and tells Steven Walker, “Let Me In The Fucking House!” It’s a great spine-tingling moment that people remember Mark Wahlberg for. The way his face contorts, and eye’s pop out bring about the nightmare fuel to women all over the world watching this flick.
This brings me to our two main stars, Marky Mark and Reese Witherspoon. While both go on to become Hollywood A-listers later in their careers, in Fear they’re both exceptionally devoted to the characterizations of David and Nicole. Mark Wahlberg plays the perfect incarnation of a batshit, jealous, downright nutty boyfriend in David. David is three sheets to the wind, making Nicole a possession of his own, and trust me, once she becomes part of that entrapment, there is no getting out. When Nicole’s friend Gary hugs Nicole goodbye after school, Gary gets an absolute ass-kicking in front of the student body by David. Then for good measure backhands Nicole as she tries to pull David off. Big red flags for David right there. Mark Wahlberg plays the role with such malice and vitriol that he is enshrined in the crazy movie boyfriend department for generations to come.
Then there is Nicole Walker played by Reese Witherspoon who you can say has almost played the same kind of character in her films, notably just like Cruel Intentions; where she plays the innocent, reserved type that falls for the asshole and cues some good ol’ fashion heartbreak. In Fear, Reese does an amazing job at displaying innocence lost, being forcefully taken advantage of and letting it happen, due to how head over heels she is for David. During that infamous rollercoaster scene, director James Foley and Reese Witherspoon were at odds with the actions displayed to the viewer, as Foley added the third base component as an idea showing how fast the relationship was heading. Reese wasn’t comfortable with the idea at all, due to the explicit nature of it, and in all honesty, makes the character Nicole a little too easy when her guard should be up. Apparently when you’re Marky Mark those rules don’t apply here. It does, however, make for a steamy dynamic between Nicole and David’s relationship.
The movie has an excellent cast besides Reese Witherspoon and Mark Wahlberg as the lead roles. You have William Petersen who you may all know as the main man of CSI, but he’s also just as great in Michael Mann’s Mindhunter, as Will Graham. William Petersen plays the protective, overbearing, sometimes a loose cannon father in Fear. Let’s be honest, who would mess with this guy as a young adult? Not only was he physically fit in the role, but they established Steve Walker as someone with hot-headed tendencies and could run a mean sprint, which is beneficial to being David’s foil by the end of the film.
Then there’s the stepmother, garden enthusiast Laura, played Amy Brenneman who tries to parent Nicole. She comes off a little too aggressive like calling her stepdaughter slutty with what Nicole’s wearing when she goes out on the town one night. However, Laura has time to redeem her motherly instincts by fighting alongside Steven and protecting their children, which includes a great scene with a drill. She becomes the caring and protective mother figure, that Nicole seeks by the end, You also have Nicole’s best friend Margo played by Alyssa Milano. Margo is more of the bad influence to Nicole, bringing her to the club to pursue Mark Wahlberg’s David. Margo also comes on to Nicole’s dad as she uses her seductiveness and diversion by bending over in front of him while he’s working. This gives Mark Wahlberg’s David the time to sabotage Steve’s office clock so that David has more time to be out with Nicole, and disrespecting curfew. Alyssa Milano has some great dramatic chops here when shit starts hitting the fan and even though she brushes off David’s problems at the start of the movie, justifying David’s abuse as just “what boys do,” she starts to become truly terrified when she’s pursued in her vehicle, or even taken for David’s own pleasure at a party while under the influence, and David enjoying the sadism of it all.
Fear made 20 million and became a sleeper hit off a very small budget of 6 million. Not too shabby, however its critical reception was not too polite comparing the movie as a Fatal Attraction for teenagers. It currently holds a 46% critics score with a 63% audience score. Fear does indeed project itself more of a horror rather than a thriller. It’s the twisted tone of it that makes it a horror, with some slasher elements thrown in for good measure. Reiterating my statement before, there is something truly terrifying about a human being capable of snapping at the flip of a hat, and while that’s been done in similar films like Cape Fear, Fatal Attraction, or P2, Mark Wahlberg plays it with sincere credibility. You get some hints of his upbringing, but you truly don’t know the extent of his mentality when every scene is elevated to the prior one, unleashing the direness of being in Nicole’s shoes. At least you can say David’s devoted to his women, in a very twisted, malevolent kinda way. Ah, that young love makes me all bubbly inside, if it were only that simple. Yeah right.
Two previous episodes of Revisited can be seen below. To see more of our shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals channel – and subscribe while you’re at it!
As we’ve highlighted in previous videos and articles, those who exclusively purchase films through online services are not truly guaranteed to have it available in their collection when the buyer is at the whim of the service provider. The seemingly iron-clad way to have a movie ready-to-watch is if you can have it at your fingertips. There are thankfully some distribution brands that are releasing movies that have been previously hard to find. Shout Factory is one of those brands, and the company has now released details on the restoration of Quigley Down Under on Blu-ray.com.
Directed by Simon Wincer (Lonesome Dove), Quigley Down Under stars Tom Selleck as sharpshooter Matt Quigley. “Arriving in Australia with nothing more than a saddle and his prized six-foot Sharps rifle, American sharpshooter Matthew Quigley thinks he’s been hired to kill off wild dogs,” reads the description. “But when he realizes that his mission is murder — to eradicate the Aborigines from the property of a wealthy cattle baron — Quigley refuses … and quickly turns from hunter to hunted. Forced to wage a savage war against his former employer, Quigley proves that no one gets the best of a steely-eyed gunfighter — no one, that is, except the mysterious beauty who rides by his side … and captures his heart.” In addition to Tom Selleck, the film also stars Laura San Giacomo and Alan Rickman.
Special Features and Technical Specs include:
DISC ONE – 4K BLU-RAY
NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo
Optional English subtitles for the main feature
DISC TWO – BLU-RAY
NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
“Finding Crazy Cora” – Interview with Laura San Giacomo
“This One Shoots a Mite Further” – Closer Look at the Sharps Rifle with Master Armorer Mike Tristano
Madame Web is now in theaters. The Dakota Johnson-led film seemed to acquire a Morbius-esque reputation building up to the release. Now that the film is out, critics and audiences are able to see if the movie was perhaps a victim of marketing or if it indeed delivered on some of the underwhelming elements that people online would pick up on. The review from our own Chris Bumbray would point out a lot of the baffling flaws the movie showcased, saying, “It has to be said that some of the dialogue here is ROUGH. It’s jam-packed with so much exposition and references to other Spider-Man characters that it becomes cheesy. […] Ultimately, Madame Web could have been a decent little B-side of a superhero film, but the terrible, cornball dialogue and lacklustre pace doom it early on.”
Something noteworthy about Madame Web is the fact that the movie takes place in 2003. That’s right, just one year after Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man became a box office phenomenon after breaking records on top of records. However, there’s a rumor that the film was originally shot to take place in the 90s, only to be changed to 2003 later on. The film’s director, SJ Clarkson would explain to The Hollywood Reporter, “I was sent the script with 2003 in it.” When some of the soundtrack lent itself to the rumor, Clarkson pointed out, “I don’t know, maybe, although some of [soundtrack songs] are on the edge of 2003. So I think it’s about the mix. When you look at making something in a specific year, I always think it’s dangerous to just have all the music, costumes and cars that came out that year.” She would add, “So I was looking to get this timeless quality to the film across the board to where you weren’t sure when it was. For example, Cassie’s jacket. We found that at the last minute, and it was actually based on a vintage 1970s jacket, which felt really cool.”
Our review from Bumbray would also note how there was no post credits scene at his screening, which can sometimes happen to conceal a big secret until the world premiere. However, this time, Madame Web is breaking the Marvel tradition of featuring a little tease when the movie concludes. Clarkson, explains that this is by design. Clarkson stated, “It was about telling a great story. My father always used to say, ‘If you have to say something, stand up, speak up and then shut up.’ So when I got to the end credits, I felt that we’d said everything we needed to say in the film.”
PLOT:: This emotionally thrilling series reveals the shocking story of how fashion icon Christian Dior and his contemporaries, including Coco Chanel, Pierre Balmain, and Cristóbal Balenciaga navigated the horrors of World War Il and launched modern fashion.
REVIEW: Fashion design has found great success as fodder for reality series and romantic comedies. Films like The Devil Wears Prada, Robert Altman’s Pret-a-Porter, and Ryan Murphy’s limited series Halston have looked at the intricacies of the fashion world, mostly from a contemporary standpoint. The new AppleTV+ series The New Look is designed as the start of an anthology series by looking at the tumultuous period after World War II when French fashion icons Christian Dior and Coco Chanel reinvented what we consider haute couture. With a stellar cast led by Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche, The New Look should have been an instant frontrunner for series of the year. Instead, The New Look is a ploddingly thin drama that barely scratches the surface of the subject matter at hand, resulting in a ten-episode season that barely registers any interest.
Opening in 1955 with on-screen text claiming that the story to follow is about how the creative spirit reinvigorated the world after the end of the Nazi regime, The New Look begins with Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn) being lauded at the Sorbonne as the saviour of fashion. Simultaneously, Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche) is being interviewed upon her return to Paris after years away. The two icons, one representative of the past and the other of the future, are meant to be rivals. The New Look is focused on creating a rift between the two that the series will chronicle, but it never quite reaches that point. For most of the series, The New Look focuses on the designers and their lives over the preceding decades as they developed to their current point at the start of the first episode. Much of the time is dedicated to Chanel’s tenure during the war, including her close connection to the Nazi party. At the same time, Dior is shown trying to save his sister Catherine (Maisie Williams). With a decade serving as the bulk of this series story, it is shocking how little is explored in the course of The New Look.
Ryan Murphy’s Halston spent a great deal looking at how the designer created the revolutionary clothes that gave him fame and fortune. The New Look forsakes the creative process as anything more than a necessary component in telling the stories of Dior and Chanel. Had more time been spent in the creative process, there likely would have been more energy to this story, which is consistently languishing in sadness and depression. Equally underexplored is the personal life of Christian Dior, a gay man living during one of the most repressive regimes in history. The series only superficially looks at what it meant to be a homosexual during World War II, and it seems a disservice to the life of Dior. Equally, the series skirts a lot of the tumultuous elements in Coco Chanel’s involvement with the Nazis, ignoring claims she was a spy for the Reich. Instead, a lot of attention is paid to her using her connections to the Nazis to reclaim controlling stakes in her empire, and she tries to explain it away with barely a thought. For a series that runs ten, hour-long episodes, there should have been substantial time to give these elements screen time.
The faults of The New Look are not due to the cast, who are all exceptional with the time they are given. Ben Mendelsohn has long been deserving of a showcase like this. The actor has appeared in supporting roles for so many years and shined as the lead in HBO’s The Outsider. Here, Mendelsohn imbues Dior with a simmering fear of failure and exposure but does not get the chance to explore the designer’s genius to a satisfactory level. Juliette Binoche, an acting legend, equally tries to make do with Coco Chanel’s trademark mannerisms and affect, but she ends up playing second fiddle in a story that should be all hers. The supporting cast touted in the trailers are all underused, especially John Malkovich as Dior’s mentor, Lucien Lelong. It should be a rule that if you have Malkovich, you use Malkovich. Maisie Williams is excellent as Catherine Dior, providing a powerful if understated performance. Glenn Close appears in a brief role as Harper’s Bazaar editor Carmel Snow, but I wish we had seen more of her. Claes Bang, Emily Mortimer, and Nuno Lopes all provide solid work but none of them are given enough to work with.
Series creator and showrunner Todd A. Kessler, who created the Netflix series Bloodline and the FX series Damages, wrote or co-wrote most of The New Look and helmed multiple episodes. As a director, Kessler does not elevate the series above television quality, with much of The New Look smacking of small-scale visuals. Because Kessler directs the premiere chapter, the other filmmakers in the series, including Jeremy Podeswa, Helen Shaver, and Cannes Palm d’Or winner Julia Ducournau (Titane) have to follow his lead and keep things in check. With so many World War II-era films and series in recent years, I had higher hopes for the look and feel of this series, but it never can truly come together. Maybe it is because the scripts feel disjointed, as if the writers tried to tell two completely disparate stories and then attempted to weave them together. Neither Dior nor Chanel is given enough weight, and the goal of pitting them opposite each other fizzles very early in the series. I had multiple issues with this series, and almost all of them fall on the written page and behind the camera rather than the actors on screen.
A series about fashion designers and the importance of their creations should at the very least spend a modicum of time on how they realized their designs. The New Look wants so badly to be a relevant tale about perseverance in the face of true evil and yet never gives us anything to root for. Ben Mendelsohn, Juliette Binoche, and the entire ensemble of this series are excellent actors and do their best with material that is far below the quality it should have been. With a second season already greenlit by Apple, I hope they find a more energetic way to deliver their next foray into The New Look. This series, which has a fantastic trailer, feels underwhelming, underdeveloped, and ultimately boring. I would expect that even the most ardent fan of Dior or Chanel will find little of interest in this series that feels twice as long as it actually is and painfully wastes every talent involved.
The New Look premieres on February 14th on AppleTV+.
