Madeleine McGraw and her sister Violet McGraw have had separate successes in the horror genre, with Madeleine having a standout role in The Black Phone and Violet dealing with M3GAN (plus playing roles in the Mike Flanagan projects The Haunting of Hill House and Doctor Sleep). Now, they’ll be facing horrors together in The Curse of the Necklace, which is set to be released through the Tubi streaming service this Friday, October 18th. Ahead of that date, a trailer for the film has arrived online and can be seen in the embed above.
Directed by Juan Pablo Arias Munoz (Pumpkinhole, not to be confused with Pumpkinhead) from a screenplay by John Ducey (whose previous credits include A Christmas Mystery, A Hollywood Christmas, and I Believe in Santa), The Curse of the Necklace follows the Davis family, who navigate through tough times in the 1960s. Laura Davis is separated from her husband Frank due to unpredictable temper fueled by alcohol. As she returns to work as a nurse, her daughters, 11-year-old Ellen & 16-year-old Judy, grapple with the changes in their family dynamics. The plot thickens when Frank attempts to win Laura back with a beautiful antique necklace, which turns out to be a conduit for the tormented soul of an evil boy from long ago, putting Laura & her daughters in grave danger.
The McGraw sisters are joined in the cast by Sarah Lind (A Wounded Fawn), Henry Thomas (The Fall of the House of Usher), Roma Maffia (Nip/Tuck), Felix Solis (Man on a Ledge), Jacob Moran (Christmas on the Square), Christina Moore (90210), newcomer Archer Anderson, Amato D’Apolito (Shaft), Connor Hammond (The Summer I Turned Pretty), Matt Fowler (One Night in Miami), Danielia Maximillian-Almeda (Adult Swim Yule Log), Ali Afshar (A California Christmas), Brynne Kurland (Holiday in the Vineyards), and Lauren Swickard (Dear White People).
Christina Moore and Ali Afshar produced the film with Daniel Aspromonte. The McGraw sisters served as executive producers alongside Jackie McGraw, their mother.
What did you think of the trailer for The Curse of the Necklace? Will you be watching this movie on Tubi? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Except for one particular TSA agent. Netflix has just released the trailer for Carry On. Carry On is an upcoming feature film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Jungle Cruise, Black Adam) and starring Taron Egerton (Rocketman, Kingsman: The Golden Circle). TJ Fixman wrote the script’s first draft, with Michael Green responsible for the most recent polish. Dylan Clark (The Batman) is producing. Carry On is the first production of the overall deal between Netflix and Amblin.
The film also stars Sofia Carson, Danielle Deadwyler, Logan Marshall-Green, Dean Norris, Sinqua Walls and Jason Bateman. The cast will also include Gil Perez- Abraham, Tonatiuh, Curtiss Cook, Joe Williamson and Josh Brener. The plot logline reads, “A young TSA agent fights to outsmart a mysterious traveler who blackmails him into letting a dangerous package slip onto a Christmas Eve flight.” Collet-Serra is no stranger to a suspense-filled thriller in the airline setting as the director had also helmed the Liam Neeson airplane actioner Non-Stop.
The executive producers on the project include Holly Bario, Brian Williams, Jaume Collet-Serra, Seth William Meier and Scott Greenberg.
Egerton describes his character, “He’s pretty noble and selfless. He has all the qualities of an archetypal hero underneath the lack of direction.” He expounds, “He’s unhappy at work at the airport and feeling flat and dejected about it. He’s also just found out his girlfriend is pregnant. So, he feels pressure to be a responsible father and provider, but I think he also feels a deep lack of fulfillment. So when he’s put in this terrible situation, he has a huge occasion to rise to.”
Collet-Serra adds, “Ethan is a relatively ordinary person thrust into an extraordinary situation, and how he adapts and grows to save his loved ones over the course of the film ends up making him pretty extraordinary, even though what he discovers is that being extraordinary is actually just being himself.”
Carry On starts boarding on Netflix on December 13.
In the early nineties, Tom Cruise was at a crossroads in his career. As he approached thirty, the time was fast approaching when he could no longer play the kind of “cool young guy” role that had made his eighties movies such huge successes. Indeed, the formula was starting to wear thin, with Days of Thunder underperforming at the U.S. box office. His follow-up, Far and Away, performed even worse, landing with a thud at the North American box office, despite it re-teaming Cruise with his now wife Nicole Kidman, whose career was starting to take off. It was time for Cruise to tweak the kind of movies he was making, and sure enough, his next film, A Few Good Men, would kick off a streak of 5 back-to-back $100 million hits, which would make him the most bankable actor in the world.
A Few Good Men was based on a play by Aaron Sorkin, who, at the time, was an unknown. Sorkin’s sister was a lawyer for the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps, better known now – largely thanks to this movie – as the JAG Corps. His sister told him about a case that involved a group of marines on trial after a hazing (aka a Code Red) ordered by a superior officer almost resulted in the death of a fellow marine. Of the ten Marines accused of the crime, seven would accept a plea deal that called for their immediate dishonourable discharge. Three would elect to go to trial, ending in all three being cleared.
Sorkin would dramatize the events significantly, with the violent hazing resulting in a death and only two Marines being involved, with both of them electing to go to trial. The play immediately sold to producer David Brown, one of the original producers on Jaws, who partnered with Rob Reiner’s Castle Rock to make the film. Reiner was much in demand as a director at the time, having made This is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me and When Harry Met Sally, and he opted to direct the film. Sorkin was allowed to adapt his own play. However, despite receiving sole screenplay credit, famed writer William Goldman made some changes which Sorkin liked so much he included them in all future stagings of his original play.
As the lead, Daniel Kaffee, a silver-tongued JAG attorney who specializes in plea deals for his clients without ever having to go to trial, Tom Cruise was the first and only choice. While Days of Thunder and Far and Away may not have worked, Cruise was also coming off Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July, meaning his acting bonafides were rock solid. The script, paired with Reiner’s reputation as a director, made the movie a hot property, meaning that they were able to assemble a star-packed dream cast that would include stars who were leading their own movies at the time in supporting roles.
Both Kiefer Sutherland and Kevin Bacon were big enough in the nineties that they could have arguably been up for the Kaffee role. Still, they agreed to play smaller parts, with Sutherland the sadistic 2nd Lt Kendrick, who participates in the cover-up, while Bacon would play opposing counsel, Captain Jack Ross. Demi Moore, who had done Ghost not long before, would play Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway, co-counsel for Kaffee and his superior officer. This led to the studio Tri-Star, demanding that Sorkin write a sex scene for Cruise and Moore, claiming that there was no point in casting Moore if she wasn’t going to sleep with Cruise in the movie. Sorkin bristled at the studio note and was backed up by Reiner, who thought the idea was asinine. Kevin Pollack, then known mainly as a comedian, would play Kaffee’s best friend and the movie’s conscience, LT Sam Weinberg, while the rest of the cast would include up-and-comers like Cuba Gooding Jr and Noah Wyle. As the two accused marines, Reiner cast James Marshall, who was then best known for Twin Peaks, as PFC Louden Downey, while his own assistant, a non-actor named Wolfgang Bodison, would deliver an electrifying performance as Lance Corporal Dawson. Noted character actor JT Walsh would play the conscience-plagued Lieutenant Colonel Markinson, leading to him becoming much in demand over the years to come before his tragic death in 1998.
Of everyone, though, the biggest casting coup was Jack Nicholson, who would play the movie’s antagonist, Colonel Nathan R. Jessep. Nicholson was not the first choice for the role, with Gene Hackman passing on the role to do his Oscar-winning turn in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. James Woods was another possibility, but in the end, Nicholson was paid a whopping $5 million for only ten days of work.
Watching A Few Good Men now, it’s easy to see why the film was such a sensation when it came out. It works as both an electrifying piece of entertainment and a prestige drama. Cruise is perfect as the cocky Kaffee, who wants to serve enough time as a JAG to set up a career in private practice, and would rather stay out of the courtroom entirely. He’s challenged by Moore’s Galloway, as well as the fact that both of his clients would rather fight in order to prevent being discharged from the military. He finds himself up against the military establishment, with Nicholson’s venal Jessep, a career officer on his way to a high-profile slot in the cabinet but with a sadistic streak a mile long. However, the movie was celebrated in 1992 for the fireworks between Nicholson and Cruise that happen on camera, and Nicholson is great – to a point. He does struggle with Sorkin’s dialogue a bit at the very end, but like most others in the cast, it comes off as stagey in the way Sorkin’s often does. That’s why I think Cruise all but walks away with the movie, as he’s so damn cocky that you buy him speaking in that classic Sorkin way, and he almost makes the pages and pages of dialogue seem naturalistic. Ditto JT Walsh, who delivers a quiet performance that’s the opposite of Nicholson’s but has maybe even a greater impact.
All in all, A Few Good Men was a blockbuster for all involved, earning a mighty $141 million in the US and another cool $100 million overseas. It walked away with five Oscar nominations but no wins and has gone on to be seen as a classic in the filmographies of all involved. One of its most lasting legacies has been how it led to the creation of the long-running CBS legal drama JAG, with the moniker being popularized in the movie’s wake, while Sorkin went onto The West Wing and a career as one of the most in-demand writers in Hollywood. Sorkin and Reiner would reunite for The American President a few years later. For Cruise, it would be the movie he needed to take him out of the babyface “Maverick-style” roles that defined his early career and kick off the next, and perhaps greatest, phase of his stardom
When we talk about movies being hard to categorize or even succinctly summarize, this movie is the poster child for that statement. Almost 50 years on and that still holds true but how about is it good? Does a movie need to be put in a specific area or even be able to be explained to still be good? The Rocky Horror Picture Show is in a category all by itself and yet has had spinoffs of sorts and on-stage revivals since its inception and shows no signs of slowing down. I’m not even sure how the introduction to such a movie should be fleshed out so take a jump to the left, a step to the right, put your hands on your hips and bring your knees in tight. We are about to take a time warp and see if The Rocky Horror Picture Show still stands the Test of Time.
Plot
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the movie version of the stage play musical The Rocky Horror Show. That musical was written by Richard O’Brien with songs cowritten by Richard Hartley and directed by Jim Sharman. The original cast included Tim Curry, Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell, and Jonathan Adams, with Meatloaf coming on pretty early as some cast would change. It first appeared in the West End of London and was a massive smash success. Record company owner Lou Adler saw one of the first showings and immediately wanted a filmed U.S. release version of it. O’Brien would again be the writer along with original director Jim Sharman who would also direct. The cast for the movie would be a mix of original cast like O’Brien, Tim Curry, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell, Meatloaf, and Jonathan Adams. The movie would get distribution rights from 20th Century Fox and be released first in the U.K. in August of 1975 with a U.S. release the next month.
Some newcomers to the cast would be Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon, Charles Grey, and Peter Hinwood. Now, admittedly when you look up the cast list, many of the actors have their pictures from this movie as their main photo and honestly why wouldn’t you? In some cases, like Hinwood, it is really the only thing they ever did but with others like Campbell, Adams, Quinn, and O’Brien, they have done more than a few other roles, but they are forever linked to these beloved characters. Adams would also show up in a lot of British TV productions and also a minor role in the Argento/Romero collaboration Two Evil Eyes. Gray has 140 credits to his name but crossing paths with James Bond a couple of times, once as Blofeld, are probably his most famous roles aside from this. Patricia Quinn had done a lot of TV before this and would do more after but would stay out of the public zeitgeist until Rob Zombie was able to get her to appear in his Lords of Salem in 2012. Nell Campbell didn’t do much else apart from appearing here and there from time to time but it must be said that she, along with multiple other cast members, would appear in the sequel which most people have never even heard of called Shock Treatment. Meatloaf would appear in a ton of different movies but may be best known for Fight Club apart from this movie and O’Brien has shown up in a bunch of random places with my favorite being showing up in 89 episodes and a couple movie versions of Phineas and Ferb. His appearances in Dark City, Flash Gordon, and the second Elvira movie should also be seen. Barry Bostwick has almost 200 credits to his name, but Spin City and the low budget Project Metalbeast are my favorites. Susan Sarandon won an Oscar and was nominated 4 other times and for the sake of brevity, I’ll just say that Bull Durham is my other favorite role for the star. Finally, there is Tim Curry, and you can tell a lot about a person by what their favorite Tim Curry role is but for the record, none of them are incorrect. Mine happens to be Clue. The only other major movie that Sharman would direct is the sequel Shock Treatment, but his legacy is secure for this and this alone.
The movie follows Brad and Janet who want to get married after going to their friend’s wedding and go to see their friend and mentor Dr. Everett Scott. They are sidetracked by a storm and their car breaking down which takes them to a secluded mansion where they meet a cast of colorful characters including Dr. Frank-N-Furter, his creation Rocky, his staff Magenta and Riff Raff, and his collection of oddball friends. They see a murder, are seduced by multiple parties, and are finally forced to perform in Frank’s strange burlesque show before his workers turn on him and take the house (which is actually a spaceship) back to the home planet of Transsexual Transylvania. Dr. Scott, Brad, and Janet are left in the dust with everyone else dead and the whole movie is sort of told as a criminal case by Charles Grey’s Criminologist. The movie is the longest running theatrical movie with it still popping up in midnight showings 49 years later and has made nearly 200 million on its 1.7 million dollar budget.
Signs of the Time
The 1970s was really the last strong decade for consistent musicals. While there weren’t nearly as many as, say, the Busby Berkeley era, there were far more in the mostly nihilistic 70s than there were after. Rocky Horror fit snuggly in the middle when it was released in 1975. Not only did you have other musicals that same year like Nashville and Tommy but the earlier part of the decade had Jesus Christ Superstar and Fiddler on the Roof while the later half of the decade gave us stuff like Grease and All That Jazz. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of what you were feeling when you chose what musical to go for. Another thing it has in common with some other 70s contemporaries is that it was ahead of its time. Hell, I’m not convinced that we are ready for it NOW in 2024, but it was certainly different from what audiences of the time were expecting. The 70s as a decade were seemingly ready to be done with where they were made, and Rocky Horror is no exception.
Its ideas on sexuality, both the repression of it and the open nature of things like Frank-N-Furter being Bi or Brad and Janet being into multiple people are also indicative of the decade. The 60s free love movement may have been over but the 70s decided to put a lot more on screen than ever before. While Texas Chainsaw may have made you think you saw more than was actually on screen, Rocky Horror showed and told you everything it wanted you to see and hear. Finally, that nihilism we discussed earlier is also here. Almost no characters make it out unscathed either with their morals intact or their lives in some cases. The ones that are alive at the end of the movie are reborn in a world of suffering and confusion. That’s about as cinematically 70s as we can get.
What holds up?
Trying to look at this movie through an unbiased lens was very difficult but I think my findings are correct that nearly every damn thing holds up here. First and foremost is the music. The music and songs put together by Richard O’Brien are amazing and mini love letters to old sci fi and horror films. This was easy for O’Brien as he genuinely loved the genre and all it had to offer. There are references all throughout in both the songs and what you see on screen from the characters’ names and outfits to the very purpose they serve. This also extends to the set decoration being top tier especially for how little money they actually spent on the thing. All of what was just mentioned is present in the opening credits. You have the bright red lipstick mouth singing the opening song and all of that could be straight out of an old B movie, especially when you watch the special version where the movie is black and white until the Time Warp opens the doors to the part guests.
The whole movie is truly lightning in a bottle and not only couldn’t be made today to the same effect but also just wouldn’t be as good. That’s not just a theory either as they did try a few times to remake this movie, and it fell flat each time. The cast is perfect and each time that I watch it I notice something different from this group. Watching this late at night on Comedy Central was a way of life for me and even though they had to censor some things, it was still perfect watching these actors and actresses do their thing. The one that stands out, on huge heels no less, is Tim Curry who is the thing everyone knows from this movie. He is truly amazing in either the singing scenes or just the normal speaking parts and there is nobody alive or dead that could replace him as the nefarious doctor. The movie is also to be commended for its leanings towards sexuality and really just loving who you want to love and loving yourself. That last song with the 4 innocent bystanders singing, dancing, and feeling comfortably uncomfortable is one for the ages.
What doesn’t hold up?
It pains me to even broach the topic of something here not holding up but so few movies are perfect and there are things that I don’t look forward to on every viewing. The first of these is completely subjective and that’s your preference on songs. You may not love every song, hell, since I grew up listening to the album first, the couple songs that show up in the movie but aren’t on the official soundtrack don’t do much for me. Those are Rocky’s Song and Wise Up Janet for the record. We all have our favorites, but the music just may not be for you. To go along with the music aspect, as great as they are, there are some slow points between musical numbers that can drag on a bit. Some of the effects for the movie’s small sub 2-million-dollar budget have shown their age too as charming as they may be and the final slight I would levy against the film is that once you’ve seen it with a live audience its extremely difficult to go back to just the movie version.
Verdict
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a blast. It’s a love letter to all things us horror hounds love in its audio and visual feasts. They have tried to capture it in other ways to be sure with different versions of the on-stage musical and even a few attempts and a new TV movie but they all pale in comparison to the original. There is a weird point and click game that is more companion to the movie, but it doesn’t really add or take away your enjoyment as its own thing. We even got a sequel that follows Brad and Janet again though this time they are played by Cliff DeYoung and the wonderful Jessica Harper. Shock Treatment does bring back some of the other actors and creators but like I said, the original movie was the definition of lightning in a bottle. Rocky Horror is worth taking a time warp for and absolutely still stands the test of time.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Test of Time can be seen below. To see more, click over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
While it may have looked like Al Pacino may have cynically made movies just for a paycheck at a certain point in the 2000s era, the Academy Award-winning star admits that it is what it seems. However, it was also out of desperation. You may be seeing Pacino making the promotional rounds lately. This is because the iconic Godfather and Scarface star is releasing an autobiography titled Sonny Boy (which is named after the nickname his mother would call him). In Sonny Boy, Pacino would be candid about falling prey to a crooked accountant who had lost all of his money in a Ponzi scheme, then eventually went to prison.
Pacino admits that he would do movies in his 70s like Jack and Jill because he was completely broke. Variety reports that he explains in his book, “I was broke. I had $50 million, and then I had nothing. I had property, but I didn’t have any money.” Pacino would go on to admit,
Jack and Jill was the first film I made after I lost my money. To be honest, I did it because I didn’t have anything else. Adam Sandler wanted me, and they paid me a lot for it. So I went out and did it, and it helped. I love Adam, he was wonderful to work with and has become a dear friend. He also just happens to be a great actor and a hell of a guy.”
The iconic star writes in his book, “I wasn’t a young buck, and I was not going to be making the kind of money from acting in films that I had made before. The big paydays that I was used to just weren’t coming around anymore. The pendulum had swung, and I found it harder to find parts for myself.” Fortunately, Pacino would find another venture to help him out, “My seminars were another big find for me. In the past, I used to go to colleges all the time and talk to the kids there, just to get out there and perform for them, in a sense. I’d tell them a little bit about my life and have them ask me questions. … I didn’t get paid for it. I just did it. Now that I was broke, I thought, ‘Why don’t we follow this up?’ There were more places I could go and do these seminars. Not necessarily universities. I knew there was a wider market for this. So I started traveling around. And I found that they worked. Audiences came because I still had popularity.”
There’s a reboot of the classic Universal Monsters property The Wolf Man coming our way from Blumhouse Productions and The Invisible Man (2020) director Leigh Whannell, aiming for a January 17, 2025 theatrical release – and this week, the folks at the Motion Picture Association ratings board have revealed that they’ve given the film an R rating for bloody violent content, grisly images and some language. This isn’t the first time a reboot of The Wolf Man has been given an R rating, as the 2010 reboot that was directed by Joe Johnston and starred Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt was also rated R, for bloody horror violence and gore.
The leads of this version of Wolf Man are Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, both of whom were in the 2011 film Martha Marcy May Marlene. Abbott is taking on the role of a man whose family is being terrorized by a lethal predator. Garner is playing his wife, a character described as being a mother whose family is being terrorized by a lethal predator. Sam Jaeger is also in the cast, along with child actress Matilda Firth, playing a character named Ginger: “Female, 10 years old, white. Blake and Charlotte’s daughter. Smart, precocious, and strong. When her family decides to leave the city for a quieter life in a remote area, she faces her biggest fear, the possibility of losing one or both of her parents forever.”
When Wolf Man was first announced in 2020, Ryan Gosling was set to star in it – and in fact, it got rolling when Gosling pitched this take on the concept of The Wolf Man to Universal, and his idea was then fleshed out into a screenplay by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, a writing duo that previously worked on Orange Is the New Black. (Blum also happens to be married to Blumhouse founder Jason Blum.) At the time, it was said the story was “believed to be set in present times and in the vein of Jake Gyllenhaal’s thriller Nightcrawler with an obvious supernatural twist.” The final version of the script is credited to Blum and Angelo, as well as Whannell and his wife Corbett Tuck.
Whannell first signed on to direct the film in 2020, but dropped out the following year. That’s when Gosling’s Blue Valentine and Place Beyond the Pines director Derek Cianfrance came on board. Gosling and Cianfrance both stepped away from Wolf Man early last year… and then Whannell came back. A collaboration between Blumhouse and Motel Movies, Wolf Man is being produced by Jason Blum. Gosling receives an executive producer credit alongside Ken Kao, Bea Sequeira, Mel Turner, and Whannell.
What do you think of Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man reboot getting an R rating? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
A third film in the Marvel Comics-inspired Venom franchise made its way through production last year, shutting down for several months along the way due to the Screen Actors Guild strike. Now the film, titled Venom: The Last Dance, is aiming for an October 25th theatrical release – and with that date just one week away, the Motion Picture Association ratings board has revealed that the film has officially earned a PG-13 rating for intense sequences of violence and action, bloody images and strong language. Star Tom Hardy had previously teased that the movie could end up being rated R, pointing to the success of the Deadpool films as proof that R-rated Marvel adaptations can be successful, but obviously that wasn’t to be. Which makes sense. Although an R rating was considered for the previous movie, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, it also ended up being PG-13 (as was the first movie) – and if you don’t earn an R rating with the Carnage character, why would you earn an R without him?
The first Venom was scripted by Jeff Pinker, Scott Rosenberg, and Kelly Marcel. Ruben Fleischer directed that film, which made $856 million. But then Fleischer turned his focus to making Zombieland: Double Tap and Uncharted – so Andy Serkis took over as director on Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Which was written by Kelly Marcel, working from a story she crafted with star Tom Hardy. That sequel earned $506 million at the pandemic era global box office. Serkis said he would be glad to return to the helm for a follow-up – but when Venom 3 actually did come up, he opted to focus on other projects instead. So Venom: The Last Dance marks the feature directorial debut of Kelly Marcel. She also wrote the screenplay, based (again) on a story she crafted with Hardy.
Hardy is reprising the role of Eddie Brock / Venom for this sequel, and he is joined in the cast by Juno Temple (Ted Lasso), Clark Backo (Letterkenny), and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness). Official details on the new characters have not been revealed – but no, Ejiofor is not playing his Doctor Strange character Baron Mordo, since the Venom films are set in a different universe than the Marvel Cinematic Universe films.
Here is the official synopsis from the studio: In Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance. The marketing has revealed that Knull, the God of the Symbiotes, shows up in the movie – and Marcel has said this is “just the beginning” for the villain. Since this is meant to be the last Venom movie, that almost seems to confirm the rumors that Knull will carry on into the next Spider-Man movie.
Are you looking forward to Venom: The Last Dance? What do you think of the film getting a PG-13 rating? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The Wild Robot is one of the best-reviewed movies of the year. The film is now available to watch on Digitial, but additionally, the Dreamworks Animation movie is set to get a Collector’s 4K Blu-ray just in time for Christmas. According to Blu-ray.com, the physical media versions will be hitting retailers on December 3.
The description reads, “An adaptation of Peter Brown’s award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, THE WILD ROBOT is an epic adventure staring Academy Award® winner Lupita Nyong’o (Us, the Black Panther franchise) as Roz, a robot that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must adapt to the harsh surroundings. Gradually Roz starts building relationships with the animals on the island, including a clever fox voiced by Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us, The Mandalorian), and becomes the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling named Brightbill voiced by Kit Connor (Ready Player One, Heartstopper). THE WILD ROBOT is a powerful story about self-discovery, a thrilling examination of the bridge between technology and nature, and a moving exploration of what it means to be alive and connected to all living things.
Directed by three-time Academy Award® nominee Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, The Croods), THE WILD ROBOT features an incredible supporting voice cast alongside Nyong’o, Pascal and Connor, including Catherine O’Hara (Schitt’s Creek, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice), Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Rango), Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fall Guy), Mark Hamill (Star Wars franchise), Matt Berry (“The IT Crowd”, “What We Do in the Shadows”) and Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible franchise, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2). Showcasing music by Emmy® and Grammy® nominated composer and Oscar® winner Kris Bowers, the film also boasts two original songs by Grammy®-winning singer-songwriter and music sensation Maren Morris.”
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Optional English SDH, French Canadian, and Latin American Spanish subtitles for the main feature
DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
DOLBY ATMOS AUDIO TRACK
COMMERCIAL FOR ROZZUM – An alternate opening to the film in storyboard form, with introduction by writer/director Chris Sanders.
MOMENTS FROM THE MIC – Straight from the recording booth, watch the star-studded cast of The Wild Robot perform some of their most memorable lines!
MEET THE CAST- How do you give empathy to the voice of a robot, vulnerability to a fox, and wisdom to an opossum? Meet the talented voice cast and learn more about your favorite characters from The Wild Robot.
THE OVERPROTECTIVE MOTHER – A deleted sequence from the film in storyboard form, with an introduction by writer/director Chris Sanders.
ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: ANIMATING THE WILD ROBOT – Go behind the scenes to see how filmmakers pushed the boundaries of animation to achieve the uniquely immersive world of The Wild Robot.
FEELING ALIVE – Learn how filmmakers and cast enhanced the universally relatable thematic elements of Peter Brown’s original story to deepen its emotional connection to audiences.
WILD SOUNDS – Explore the incredible music of The Wild Robot – from Kris Bowers’ enchanting score to Maren Morris’ two new songs.
HOW TO DRAW – Follow along with writer/director Chris Sanders as he teaches Lupita Nyong’o how to draw Roz and then learn to draw Fink, Baby Brightbill, and Pinktail with story artist/character designer Genevieve Tsai!
FLY YOUR OWN BRIGHTBILL – One of Roz’s primary tasks is to teach Brightbill to fly so he can migrate with the other geese. Here, you’ll learn how to create your very own Brightbill Kite so you can help him fly too!
PLOT: Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), one of the world’s biggest pop stars, becomes haunted by a familiar curse on the eve of her new world tour, sending her life spiralling out of control.
REVIEW: 2022’s Smilewas quietly one of the most profitable studio movies of the last few years. Originally designed as a low-budget movie for Paramount Plus, a round of excellent test screenings resulted in Paramount Pictures opting to give it a theatrical release. The result was a movie that grossed over $217 million worldwide on a $17 million budget. It immediately established writer/director Parker Finn, who adapted the movie from his own short (Laura Hasn’t Slept) as a horror phenom, and the release of his ambitious sequel is one of the bigger horror events of the year.
So, how does Smile 2 stack up to its sleeper-hit predecessor? Amazingly well, it turns out. Boasting a bigger budget, Parker Finn’s taken what could have been a run-of-the-mill sequel and elevated it to truly dazzling heights. I liked the first movie well enough, but I wasn’t prepared for how much fun the sequel was right off the bat.
Smile 2 begins with a full-on action sequence. Kyle Gallner’s Joel, who ended the first film cursed, tries to pass on his affliction in the most altruistic way, which ends up climaxing in a surprisingly potent shoot-out. Things don’t go as planned, with him unwittingly passing the curse on to someone who doesn’t deserve it. From there, Finn can use his bigger platform in a way that truly pushes the envelope from what we expect from a movie like this. It’s the rare A-level studio horror film, and Finn uses the pop aspect to stage some bravura quasi-musical sequences. This is perhaps the only movie you’ll see that feels equally inspired by Hideo Nakata and Bob Fosse.
He also has an amazing lead in Naomi Scott, who gives the performance of her life as Riley. Riley was already badly unmoored before even being cursed following drug addiction and a nearly life-ending accident. Scott embraces the camp aspect, playing Riley to the hilt as she becomes increasingly demented as the film goes on. It’s the kind of performance you’d expect from someone like Nicolas Cage, in that it’s unapologetically maximalist… and delicious.
She’s ably supported by Rosemarie DeWitt, who grounds things a bit as her opportunistic mother, and Dylan Gelula as her ride-or-die BFF. Lukas Gage also pops up and has a knockout sequence early on in the film, where he gets to chew some scenery. Jack Nicholson’s lookalike son, Ray Nicholson, also shows up as a character in Riley’s orbit and purposely channels his father in his big moment.
My only question about Smile 2 is what its reception by horror fans will be like- the film is so unapologetically camp that I wonder if some fans of the lower-key original might be put off. For me, it was the opposite, as Smile 2 dwarfed its predecessor, but it could rub people the wrong way with its heavy doses of pitch-black comedy. However, Finn also doesn’t skimp on the gore, with it being more gruesome than the original and having a big payoff, which is an all-timer for me as far as these things go. Indeed, I was shocked at how much I loved Smile 2. For me, it’s one of the more entertaining films I’ve seen this year, with the two-hour-plus running time racing by. It’s an all-out gore-soaked blast.
Cameron Diaz is back in action both literally and cinematically, with her 10-year hiatus from the screen ending with next year’s aptly titled Back in Action. Pairing once again with her Any Given Sunday and Annie co-star Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz says it was due time that she returned.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Cameron Diaz explained of both her decade-long break and her insistence on returning, “It was just the right time for my family. After Covid, we were in the house for a long time, which was amazing and the problem was we would probably stay there, we would still be there right now. People would be like, ‘It’s over’ and I’d be like, ‘No it’s not, it’s not over for me.’” She added, “So I had to push myself; my husband and I — my husband, who is the best — he was like, ‘You’ve been supporting us and building the family’ and supporting him in his businesses, he’s like, ‘It’s time for us to support you and let Mommy ascend and do her thing.’ He’s like, ‘Let me see you do it girl.’ I was like, ‘Alright, here we go.’” Diaz also credited Foxx, saying there wasn’t a chance that she could ever turn him down.
A staple of ‘90s rom-coms like My Best Friend’s Wedding and There’s Something About Mary, Cameron Diaz mostly stuck within the genre for the duration of her career, although she did make time for an action franchise in Charlie’s Angels, working with legendary directors like Martin Scorsese on Gangs of New York and voicing Princess Fiona in the long-running Shrek series, which she will return for for the fifth outing.
As for why Cameron Diaz made the decision to dip from the acting scene, she said it “was something I just had to do. It felt like the right thing for me to do to reclaim my own life and I just really didn’t care about anything else. Nobody’s opinion, nobody’s success, no one’s offer, no one’s anything could change my mind about my decision of taking care of myself and building the life that I really wanted to have.”
Back in Action hits Netflix on January 17th.
Are you ready for Cameron Diaz’s return to movies? What stands as your favorite performance of hers?
