Drug kingpin Frank White (Christopher Walken) has been released from prison and is again on the streets of New York City. Frank might say that he’s gone straight but, as soon as he’s free, he’s partying with his old crew (including Laurene Fishburne, Steve Buscemi, Giancarlo Esposito, and others). While Frank’s agent (Paul Calderon) goes to all of the other city’s gangsters and explains that they can either get out of Frank’s way or die, three detectives (Victor Argo, David Caruso, and Wesley Snipes) make plans to take Frank out by any means necessary. Meanwhile, Frank is donating money to politicians, building hospitals, and presenting himself as New York’s savior.
KingofNewYork is the epitome of a cult film. Directed by Abel Ferrara, the dark and violent King of New York was originally dismissed by critics and struggled to find an audience during its initial theatrical run. (It was lumped in with and overshadowed by other 1990 gangster films like Goodfellas and Godfather Part III.) But it was later rediscovered on both cable and home video and now it’s rightly considered to be a stone cold crime classic. Walken gives one of his best performances as Frank White and that’s not a surprise. The film was clearly made to give Walken a chance to show off what he could do with a lead role and Walken captures Frank’s charisma and humor without forgetting that he’s essentially a sociopath. Walken gives a performance that feels like James Cagney updated for the end of the 80s. What’s even more impressive is that all of the supporting characters are just as memorable as Walken’s Frank White. From Laurence Fishburne’s flamboyant killer to David Caruso’s hotheaded cop to Paul Calderon’s slippery agent to Janet Julian’s morally compromised attorney, everyone gives a strong performance. (I’m usually not a Caruso fan but he’s legitimately great here.) They come together to bring the film’s world to life. Everyone has their own reason for obsessing on Frank White and his return to power. I’ve always especially appreciated Victor Argo as the weary, veteran detective who finds himself trapped by Caruso and Wesley Snipes’s impulsive plan to take down Frank White. Frank White and the cops go to war and it’s sometimes hard to know whose side to be on.
Director Abel Ferrara has had a long and storied career, directing films about morally ambiguous people who are often pushed to extremes. Personally, I think KingofNewYork is his best film, a portrait of not just a criminal but also of a city that combines the best and the worst of human nature. The action is exciting, the cast is superb, and Frank’s justifications for his behavior sometimes make a surprising amount of sense. Thought there’s occasionally been speculation that it could happen, there’s never been a sequel to King of New York and it doesn’t need one. KingofNewYork is a film that tell you all that you need to know about Frank White and the city that he calls home.
Today’s scene is from Abel Ferrara’s 1990 gangster epic, KingofNewYork. Featuring Christopher Walken and a host of familiar faces, it’s one of those scenes that simply just has to be seen.
1987’s Heartbeat opens with Don Johnson in an unidentified Central American country.
Rebels are moving through the jungles. Helicopters are flying over villages and firing off missiles. In the middle of it all is Don Johnson, playing a character identified as being “The Documentary Filmmaker.” Johnson carries a large movie camera with him, recording all of the violence and the carnage. Is Johnson trying to expose the evils of the government? Is he trying to expose the rebels? Is he just an adrenaline junkie who can’t help but go to the most dangerous places in the world? I have no idea and I’m not sure that the film does either.
A bomb explodes. Johnson is thrown back. Soon, Don Johnson is being carried into a dark room on a stretcher. It appears that he might be dying but, even as his heartbeat is slowing down, his spirit is still hanging around and having flashbacks to the attack on the village, which we just saw less than a minute ago. Eventually, Johnson’s spirit has other flashbacks. He remembers talking to Paul Shaffer. He remembers his strained marriage to an unnamed woman played by Lori Singer. He remembers his youth as the son of a Las Vegas showgirl who is played by Sandahl Bergman. (Bergman also played a showgirl in Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz and her scenes in this film often feel as if they’ve been directly lifted from Fosse’s classic film.) David Carradine shows up as someone who might be Johnson’s father or who might just be some random guy rolling dice in the backroom of a strip club. Johnson remembers his friendship with a graffiti artist (Giancarlo Esposito), who has a sister (Angela Alvarado) who was a prostitute. The main message seems to be that the Documentary Filmmaker recorded the dangers of the world while also trying to remain emotionally detached, much like Robert Forster in Medium Cool. Now that he’s dying, he’s left to wonder whether he made the right choice in refusing to get personally involved.
Oh, and did I mention that this film is basically a 65-minute music video? Don Johnson sings through the entire movie, in a style that does its best to imitate the tough growl and soulful yearning of Southern rock and roll but which ultimately only serves to show that Johnson made the right decision in focusing on acting instead of singing?
After I came across this film on Lettrboxd and then watched it on YouTube, I did a bit of research (which is a fancy way of saying that I spent a minute reading a Wikipedia entry) and I discovered that, at the height of his Miami Vice success, Johnson released his debut country rock album, Heartbeat. Heartbeat the film was something that Johnson made in order to promote Heartbeat the album. Directed by frequent Miami Vice director John Nicollela, Heartbeat the film is so self-indulgent and determined to prove that Don Johnson is a soulful artist that it becomes oddly fascinating to watch. Johnson’s Documentary Filmmaker is a bit of a cad but the film seems to argue that 1) it’s not really his fault because women find him to be irresistible, 2) it’s really his mom’s fault for getting a job, and 3) it ultimately doesn’t matter because the Filmmaker is a great artist whose work will live on even after he dies. It’s a vanity film for a vanity album and it’s all so vain that it becomes hard to look away from.
In the end, both the music from the album and the promotional film leave one feeling that, in 1987, Don Johnson might have had an unreasonably high opinion of his musical abilities. That said, as anyone who has seen Cold In July can tell you, Don Johnson eventually did become a very good actor.
Walk into a comic store, and you’ll sometimes find whole collections of comics in one large binder or book. The book that was The Infinity Saga ended with 2019’s Avengers: Endgame and that really should have been the hard stop for Marvel Studios for a while. Still, the Marvel Engine continues to run. Sometimes, we get hits, like 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3. On occasion, we’ve had that rare film that knocks it out of the park in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. Mostly, however, we’ve had “okay” stories, like that comic in a pile that you enjoyed reading, but wouldn’t really remember much about it after 15 minutes. These are the ones like Black Widow and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (the latter of which I personally hated, despite it being a Raimi film).
I enjoyed Captain America: Brave New World, but the story didn’t feel as expansive as I thought it could be. It still is grounded in the political intrigue of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War, but I felt like it lacked the same kind of weight those previous films did. There are some good fight scenes and even better flight scene thoughout.
Brave New World finds Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) doing very well since taking on the mantle of Captain America. Despite not having any powers, he can still handle his own, somewhat. With a suit and new Vibranium wings, compliments of Wakanda, Wilson’s quite a force to be reckoned with, though he still tends to approach certain situations with de-escalation in mind instead of brute force. He also has some help in the form of Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), who has worked with Sam even before using the shield. Mackie carries this easily with the occassional joke or two. It’s also amazing to watch when you know the character isn’t enhanced and is really just one or two good punches away from a broken limb. I see in Sam Wilson a pre-super serum Steve Rogers, fending off enhanced bullies with nothing but a garbage can lid and lots of heart. That’s heroic and perhaps even Worthy, an underdog still fighting the fight (at least to me, anyway). Ramirez’ Torres is the plucky comic relief in all this. Serious when needed, but playful otherwise. His character reminded me a bit of Pablo Schreiber’s one in Michael Bay’s 13 Hours.
The political landscape has also changed since the days of Iron Man 3’s Matthew Ellis (played by William Sadler). General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross has risen through the ranks to become the President of the United States. Harrison Ford (Clear and Present Danger) takes over the role of Ross from William Hurt (Altered States), who passed away in 2022. At this stage in his career, Ford doesn’t have to do much to be effective in a scene. He’s played political characters in his Tom Clancy / Jack Ryan era, so this isn’t really new to him. His version of Ross still carries the gruff nature that Hurt had, though personally, I don’t feel either performance was as good as Sam Elliot’s in Ang Lee’s Hulk. Ford’s Ross is a man haunted by the disconnection from his family and a reputation he’d rather put behind him. The same can be said for Carl Lumbly’s Isaiah Bradley. As the forgotten Super Soldier, his character is still slowly integrating into public life after a past that left him cautious and weary.
After a successful mission, Wilson, Torres, and Bradley are invited to the White House for a special announcement. The announcement involves the discovery of the “Celestial Island”, the Continent sized remains of Tiamat from The Eternals. Even better, the entire island is made of a material that appears to be stronger than even Vibranium. The metal, dubbed “Adamantium”, causes a race between the Superpowers to acquire it. Thankfully, a treaty formed by Ross helps to keep conflict at bay.
As exciting as it sounds to hear that this particular Universe suddenly (finally!) has Adamantium in it, the announcement is as far as anyone will get to seeing it. Put away any thoughts of seeing Weapon-X plans in Canada. Japan won’t produce a Silver Samurai, and Russia won’t have Omega Red any time soon. That is not this story, and it’s an outright shame that none of that is even hinted to because the only Marvel solid references we have on Mutants to date are from Ms. Marvel at this point. At best, the Adamantium angle serves as a reason to finally include the aftermath of The Eternals into the story and possibly set up something for future films. Why is Marvel so hesitant on touching the X-Men? Ugh, that’s an argument for a different story.
An incident occurs that finds Sam and Joaquin having to exonerate Isaiah Bradley, while at the same time, trying to unravel the mystery involving a terrorist known only as Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito, Abigail) that puts both The President and possibly the entire nation in danger. Can Sam and Joaquin take down the Sidewinder and save the day? That is mostly the gist behind Captain America: Brave New World.
Outside of the performances, From a production standpoint, the film had 5 separate screenplay writers and a number of reshoots. It’s not terrible, but the film does feel a little like the writers were unsure of what they wanted to do from scene to scene. There was one shot involving a prison ward that made me wonder why more guards weren’t present. It’s more a nitpick than anything else. I compare it more to Nolan’s editing mistake with The Dark Knight, where the Joker crashes a party, but we never actually see him leave or learn the fates of the people there after Batman saves Rachel. There were also a number of cuts made to the film that removed scenes by actors such as Wrestling’s Seth Rollins and Alita Battle Angel’s Rosa Salazar. You won’t even notice those unless you’re actively expecting to see them in the film (I didn’t know either actor was involved, honestly).
The big showdown that all of the posters couldn’t seem to hide does happen, and the sequence itself is good, given the weaknesses of our heroes and strengths of our villains. It felt a little shorter to me than I expected it to be though it could be on par with the now classic Battle of Harlem in The Incredible Hulk. There was a time where Marvel was able to keep things like this under wraps, but given the state of the MCU and Hollywood in general, I can understand the marketing team’s fight to pull more people into cinemas.
Overall, Captain America: Brave New World is a good popcorn flick. Will you rave about it? Perhaps. Was it fun? Sure. Was it memorable? I’m not totally sure. I enjoyed where the story took me, but my expectations maybe veered to levels that the story couldn’t reach for me. That’s more a “me” problem than a movie problem. Also note that the film does have a Marvel Post-Credit moment. It doesn’t reveal much or anything specific of where the overall arc is reaching. It’s more of a “Captain America Will Return” than anything else, but of course, we all knew that.
As Christmas approaches, Mortimer (Don Ameche) and Randolph Duke (Ralph Bellamy) make a bet to determine whether it’s nature or nurture that shapes someone’s future. The fabulously wealthy owners of Duke & Duke Commodity Brokers, the brothers casually frame their director, Louis Winthrope III (Dan Aykroyd), for everything from dealing drugs to sealing money to cheating on his girlfriend (Kirstin Holby). After Louis is kicked out of both his job and his mansion, the Dukes hire a street hustler named Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) to take his place. Earlier Winthrope tried to get Valentine arrested for approaching him in the street. Now, Valentine is living in Winthrope’s mansion, with Winthrope’s butler and Winthrope’s job.
While Winthrope tries to survive on the streets with the help of a outwardly cynical but secretly kind-hearted prostitute named Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis, in her first non-horror starring role), Billy Ray surprises everyone by using his street smarts to become a successful, suit-wearing businessman. The Dukes, of course, have no intention of keep Billy Ray Valentine on as their director. Not only are the Dukes snobs but they’re racists as well. Once their one dollar bet has been settled, they start planning to put Billy Ray back out on the streets with Winthrope.
Trading Places was Eddie Murphy’s follow-up to 48 Hrs and he again showed himself to be a natural star while playing the type of role that could have been played by Dan Ayrkroyd’s partner, John Belushi, if not for Belushi’s early death. (Jim Belushi has a cameo as a party guest.) Murphy gets to show off a talent for physical comedy and Trading Places is one of the few films to really take advantage of Dan Aykryod’s talents as both a comedian and actor. Winthrope goes from being a coddled executive to being as streetwise as Valentine. This is probably Aykroyd’s best performance and he and Eddie Murphy make for a good team.
But the real stars of the film are four actors who weren’t really thought of as being comedic actors, Denholm Elliott, Don Ameche, Ralph Bellamy, and especially Jamie Lee Curtis. Ophelia is a much edgier character than the “final girls” that Curtis was playing in horror films and Curtis steals almost every scene that she’s in. Ameche and Bellamy are great villains and it’s fun to watch them get their comeuppance. What screwball comedy would be complete without a sarcastic butler? Denholm Elliot fills the role of Coleman perfectly.
Trading Places was a box office success when it was released and it’s now seen as being one of the new Christmas classics, a film for the adults to enjoy while the kids watch Rudolph and Frosty. I think the movie ends up going overboard towards the end with the gorilla and Dan Aykroyd wearing blackface but, for the most part part, it’s still a very funny and clever movie.
It’s hard to know where to really start with Megalopolis.
Directed, written, produced, and financed by Francis Ford Coppola, Megalopolis takes place in an alternate version of the United States of America. In this alternative world, New York is called New Rome and it is dominated by a handful of wealthy families. Former District Attorney Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) has been elected mayor. Everyone seems to hate Cicero and the character tends to come across as being a bit whiny so you really do have to wonder how he got elected in the first place.
Cicero is obsessed with the powerful Crassus-Catallina family, which is headed by banker Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight). Hamilton’s nephew is Cesar Catallina (Adam Driver), a brilliant architect who won a Nobel Prize for inventing a type of invisible material. Ever since Cesar’s wife vanished under mysterious circumstances, a cloud of scandal has hung over Cesar’s name and with that scandal has come popularity with both the masses and the tabloid press. When Cesar was tried for murder, the prosecutor was Franklin Cicero. Cesar was acquitted but he now spends his time drinking and mourning his wife. Cesar also has the power to stop time for everyone but him. Why he has this power and how he came to possess it is never made clear, though Cesar compares it to the way that a great painter or writer can capture one moment for eternity.
Cesar is driven through the rainy streets of New York by his chauffeur, Fundi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne). Fundi also serves as the film’s narrator, ruminating about how the Roman Empire eventually became a victim of its own decadence. Just in case the viewer somehow doesn’t pick up on the fact that the movie is comparing modern America to ancient Rome, Fundi informs us of this fact. Thanks, Fundi!
After Cesar publicly denounces Cicero’s plans to turn New Rome into a casino, Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) decides to take a break from decadent partying to follow Cesar around and try to discover whether or not he actually murdered his wife. Julia discovers that Cesar is not only still mourning his wife but she also witnesses him stopping time. Soon, Julia is working for Cesar’s design firm. At some point, she and Cesar become lovers.
Meanwhile, Cesar’s former lover, Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), has married Crassus and is plotting to take control of his bank. Working with Wow is Cesar’s buffoonish cousin, Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), who organizes the angry citizens of New Rome into a mob that threatens the safety and power of both Cicero and Cesar. “Make Rome Great Again,” a sign reads at one of Clodio’s rallies, just in case anyone was missing Coppola’s point.
Clodio is obsessed with destroying Cesar. First, he frames Cesar for deflowering New Rome’s vestal virgin, the singer Vesta Sweetwater (Grace VanderWaal). Then, he sends a 12 year-old assassin after Cesar. Cesar fears that he’s lost his ability to stop time. Julia falls more and more in love with him. Cicero gets booed everywhere he goes and, after his fixer (Dustin Hoffman) is mysteriously killed, he finds himself helpless against Clodio’s mob. Can Cesar be convinced to abandon his self-pity long enough to stand up to Clodio?
And what about the Russian spy satellite that just crashed into New Rome? Who will rebuild the city?
And …. well, let’s just say that there’s a lot going on in New Rome.
Francis Ford Coppola originally came up with the idea for Megalopolis in 1977 and he spent decades trying to bring the film to the big screen. Eventually, Coppola ended up producing and financing the film himself. From 2023 to the the day of the film’s Cannes premiere, the trade papers were full of stories about how difficult the production had been, with the underlying theme being that everything was Francis Ford Coppola’s fault and that the movie would be an unmitigated disaster. (In the coverage found in both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, there seemed to be a good deal of hostility directed at Coppola’s decision to work outside of the Hollywood system.) Disgruntled members of the crew complained that Coppola was an undisciplined director who spent most of the production high. A half-baked attempt to generate a #MeToo scandal around the film made it obvious that Coppola had burned a lot of bridges with both Hollywood and the media. The film was released to critical derision and poor box office returns. Coppola is 85 years old and it’s entirely possible that Megalopolis will be his final film.
Critics be damned, I liked the majority of Megalopolis. Though the film may be thematically and narratively incoherent, it is a feast for the eyes and it’s hard not to respect the fact that, in this age of overwhelming conformity, Coppola brought his own unique vision to the screen. There are a few moments of genuinely macabre beauty to be found in the film. When the Russian satellite crashes into New York, we don’t see the impact but, on the city walls, we do see the shadows of people screaming in fear. When a drunk Cesar is driven through New Rome, he sees gigantic statues stepping off of their bases and slumping to the ground, exhausted with being on display. Coppola films New Rome like a beautiful, open-air prison. It’s an amazing view but don’t even think about trying to escape. The scenes in New Rome’s Coliseum are filled with an epic yet seedy grandeur. At times, the film’s scenes seem to be almost randomly assembled, leaving us to wonder if we’re seeing the past, the present, or maybe just something that Cesar is imagining in his head.
What is the film actually about? It’s not always easy to say. Even in his best films, Coppola has had a tendency to be self-indulgent. Sometimes, that self-indulgence pays off. Though few would admit it now, The Godfather Part II is one of the most self-indulgent films ever made. But it’s also brilliant so it doesn’t matter. However, with Megalopolis, it’s hard not to feel that this film was such a passion project for Coppola that he didn’t stop to consider whether or not he really had anything new to say. Megalopolis is hardly the first film to compare the supposed decline of America to the fall of the Roman Empire. As much as I enjoyed the film’s visuals, I cringed at the film’s ending. One can only imagine how a past Coppola collaborator like John Milius would have reacted to a bunch of children reciting a pledge to take care of the “one Earth.”
It’s a random film, one in which plot points are raised and often quickly abandoned. At one point, Cesar starts to recite Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy. The cast is huge and everyone seems to be acting in a different movie. Surprisingly enough, neither Esposito nor Adam Driver are particularly believable in their roles, though I think that has more to do with the film’s loose narrative structure than anything else. Shia LaBeouf is convincingly feral as Clodio while Jon Voight seems to be having fun as the wealthy and crude Crassus. The best performance in the film comes from Aubrey Plaza, who plays her role like a vampish femme fatale who has somehow found herself in a science fiction story. Plaza holds nothing back with her performance and she actually manages to bring some genuine human emotion to Coppola’s surreal epic.
Megalopolis is a monument to self-indulgence but it’s always watchable. Coppola may not know what he’s trying to say but he captures the surreal beauty that comes from getting trapped in one’s own imagination. Megalopolis is not a film for everyone but I’m glad it exists. At a time when artistic freedom seems to be under constant attack, it’s hard not to be happy that Coppola did things his way.
Every Monday night at 9:00 Central Time, my wife Sierra and I host a “Live Movie Tweet” event on X using the hashtag #MondayMuggers. We rotate movie picks each week, and our tastes are quite different. Tonight, Monday December 9th, we’re watching LAST HOLIDAY starring Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, Timothy Hutton, Giancarlo Esposito, Alicia Witt, Michael Nouri, and Gerard Depardieu.
So why did Sierra pick LAST HOLIDAY, you might ask? It’s very simple. She loves the movie, and over time I’ve grown to enjoy it myself. I even wrote about it here:
My wife and I often have very different tastes in movies, but every now and then she’ll introduce a movie to me that I really enjoy despite my own cynical reservations. LAST HOLIDAY is such a movie.
Queen Latifah plays Georgia, a clerk in a department store in New Orleans. She works hard, lives according to her means, secretly loves one of her fellow employees Sean (LL Cool J), and dreams. She dreams of being a great chef and falling in love and having a family… someday. This all seems small and unimportant though when she’s given the news that she has brain cancer and will be dead in a few weeks. Armed with this news, she cashes in her savings and heads off on a trip of a lifetime, determined to enjoy the last moments of her life.
There are several things that I really appreciate about LAST HOLIDAY. First, Queen Latifah’s character Georgia is just a quality person. She treats people right, she works hard, she’s kind. This isn’t played as weakness either. She has a quiet dignity in a world where so many others are only worried about themselves. I wish there were more characters like this in cinema. Second, she has the opportunity to “live like you were dying.” I don’t know how many of y’all are familiar with the Tim McGraw song of the same name, but how different would we live our lives if we knew just how limited our time really is? We all worry so much about little things that don’t really matter in the big picture. It’s very satisfying as we watch Georgia enjoy herself with a freedom she has denied herself up to this point in her life. Third, we’re able to see how Georgia’s decency and honesty affects the other characters in the film. Once Georgia stops hiding her true thoughts and feelings, she begins to have an amazing impact on those around her. I think we’re all looking for connections with people where we can share who we really are. Whether it be Chef Didier (Gerard Depardieu), Gunther (Susan Kellerman) or Ms. Burns (Alicia Witt), Georgia affects others by being genuine. She doesn’t do anything spectacular, either. She’s just herself and that’s enough. There’s something powerful about that.
At the end of the day, LAST HOLIDAY is a feel good holiday film that aims to send us home with a smile on our face. It accomplishes that goal and a little more. Thanks to my wife, I gave LAST HOLIDAY a chance, and now I heartily recommend it.
ALERT! They took down their whiny trailer because all those bad reviews from Christmas Past were FAKE! Francis listen, I get it- everyone likes attention or whatever, but you playing the I’m so Put-Upon card is really really really ANNOYING! Cut it out! Paisan, you’ve had a great career and made BANK- BE HAPPY.
Welcome all, I’m going to review the “Megalopolis” trailer and just so you know – this was directed by a GENIUS. Really, that’s in the trailer and not just for a little while; they give a middle-finger to anyone who didn’t like a Coppola film for a solid 44 seconds! If you don’t think this movie is genius, too bad moron- it’s awesome, you’re a filthy plebe!
From what I can glean from the trailer, Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) is tired of New York decadence; so, he wants to make a new city that’s way fancier and weirder. I’ve played Sim City before; so, maybe it’s got like a lot of happy faces when the plumbing works and sad faces if there’s not enough power? Without question, that was a fun game and if you didn’t enjoy it – you are part of the great unwashed!
This trailer has A LOT of scowling. Cesar Catilina scowls A LOT in the trailer and no one can scowl like Adam Driver. He was born to scowl!!!! Cesar appears to be a magical city planner who wants to make a better city that is vaguely or overtly communist- it is difficult to discern. If it’s anything like real communism, Francis will like it a lot theoretically without any consequences.
I have the distinct impression that this movie is more like a painting; it is visually stunning but with no plot. If you don’t like the film, remember you’re a petite bourgeois rube who brushes his teeth with his fingers. This film seems like “The Darjeeling Limited”- really pretty and Jason Schwatzman was in that film too and it revolved around finding good … tea??? I originally wrote it as “The Darjeeling UNLIMITED” now that would’ve been a film- Think of all the tea we could’ve watched them drink! Remember kids, you only rent Darjeeling Tea!!!
If you want a film where if you say you liked it, you’re 12% more sophisticated- “Megalopolis” is for you! For me, after this trailer, I think I’m going watch something with Dwayne “THE ROCK” Johnson in it. Maybe he’ll do a “Rampage 2”?
In conclusion, this film is GENIUS and the director is a GENIUS and if you don’t think so, I’m going to register you as a pederast and put garbage on your lawn!
The X trilogy kind of snuck up on everyone. The end of March 2022’s “X” gave us a sneak peek at Pearl, which ended up releasing later in theatres that same year. Now, director Ti West and actress Mia Goth are closing the loop with MaXXXine, which arrives in theatres this summer.
MaXXXine is a direct sequel to X, with our heroine still wanting to be a major star after the events of the first film. Though she may not realize it, Maxine has a lot in common with Pearl, and those elements may put her into some dark circles.
MaXXXine also stars Kevin Bacon, Halsey, Bobby Cannavale, Elizabeth Debicki, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Michelle Monaghan.
Drug kingpin Frank White (Christopher Walken) has been released from prison and is again on the streets of New York City. Frank might say that he’s gone straight but, as soon as he’s free, he’s partying with his old crew (including Laurene Fishburne, Steve Buscemi, Giancarlo Esposito, and others). While Frank’s agent (Paul Calderon) goes to all of the other city’s gangsters and explains that they can either get out of Frank’s way or die, three detectives (Victor Argo, David Caruso, and Wesley Snipes) make plans to take Frank out by any means necessary. Meanwhile, Frank is donating money to politicians, building hospitals, and presenting himself as New York’s savior.
Through the Shattered Lens 