Here’s The Trailer for IF


John Krasinski has gone from being the cute smirky guy on  The Office to an action hero to a legitimately good horror director.  Next year, the Krasinski saga will continue with IF, a comedy that he has written and directed about a father, his daughter, and a host of “imaginary friends.”

The trailer dropped today and it’s cute enough to be interesting.  A bearded Ryan Reynolds plays the father and it appears that a host of familiar names will be voicing the IFs.

Retro Television Reviews: When Friendship Kills (dir by James A. Conter)


Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1996’s When Friendship Kills!  It  can be viewed on YouTube!

After the divorce of her parents, Lexi Archer (Katie Wright) moves to Seattle with her mother (Lynda Carter).  Lexi is having a tough time adjusting to the divorce, especially since her father (Josh Taylor) is convinced that he’s a better parent than Lexi’s mother has ever been.  Still, Lexi is hoping to make a good impression at her new high school and she gets off to an effective start by not only winning a spot on the school’s volleyball team but by also becoming friends with the most popular girl in school, Jen Harnsberger (Marley Shelton).

The wealthy Jen is a straight-A student and a star volleyball player and she appears to have a very bright future ahead of her.  Jen not only shows Lexi around the high school but she also shows Jen that one way to eat without gaining weight is to throw up after every meal.  Jen is bulimic and soon, Lexi is anorexic.  Eventually, Lexi is collapsing on the volleyball court and Jen is angrily denying that she has a problem and the whole things leads to tragedy.

Obviously, eating disorders are a serious issue and When Friendship Kills is honest about not only the pressures that lead to so many girls and women developing body image issues but it also deals with the danger of having a relapse.  Growing up attending dance classes, I met and hung out with a lot of girls who had “tricks” for keeping their weight down and I recognized all of them in the characters of Jen and Lexi.  This film hits all of the usual plot points that we’ve come to expect from 90s films about eating disorders, from the volleyball coach saying that the already thin Lexi needs to lose weight to the scenes of Lexi staring in the mirror and seeing a distorted version of herself to Lexi’s father demanding that a feeding tube be used on his daughter, regardless of what Lexi’s mother might think.

That said, many viewers will find the most interesting thing about this movie to be that it features an early performance from Ryan Reynolds.  Reynolds plays the role of Ben, a friendly jock who asks Lexi out on a date.  Reynolds doesn’t do much in the film but he does show some hints of the amiable goofiness that would later become his trademark.  If one wanted to view this film as being a part of a Deadpool origin story, they certainly could.

As well, Lochlyn Munro also appears in the film!  It’s not really a melodramatic made-for-television movie unless Lochlyn Munro has a role.  In this particular film, Munro played a sleazy photographer who approached Jen and told her that she had the perfect look to be a model and invited her back to his studio.  Of course, when Jen brought Lexi to the studio with her, the photographer rather rudely announced that Lexi didn’t have the right look to be a model.  This led to Lexi refusing to eat and becoming hollow-eyed and skeletal and Katie Wright, it must be said, did a wonderful job portraying Lexi’s transformation from being hopeful to being haunted by her own self-image.  Marley Shelton did an equally good job of portraying Jen’s more cheerful style of self-destruction.

When Friendship Kills is an effective if predictable eating disorder film.  The film originally aired under the title A Secret Between Friends, which is a far more honest title than the over-the-top When Friendship Kills.  Friendship does not kill in this movie but self-starvation does.

Here’s The Trailer for Red Notice


Earlier today, Leonard shared the trailer for Uncharted. At the same time that the Unchartered trailer was dropping, the trailer for Red Notice was being released as well. To be honest, I kind of suspect that they’re both the exact same film. Maybe Red Notice is the European edit….

No, actually, they’re both separate films. But judging from the trailer, they both appear to take place in the same cinematic universe. Anyway, Red Notice stars Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot as rival things who end up woring for an FBI profiler who is, of course, played by Dwayne Johnson. It’s always interesting to me that whenever you real life FBI agents, they’re always these kind of nebbish accountant types but whenever they show up in a movie, they’re always played Dwayne Johnson. Dwayne Johnson’s never had to keep track of his money because, if he ever did run out of cash, the people of the world would come together to send him as much extra money as they could. Everyone understands that the world would be a much worse place without Dwayne Johnson.

I guess Red Notice is a wacky comedy time and Netflix has a pretty uneven history when it comes to wacky comedy but I do like all three of the stars so who knows?

Here’s the trailer!

Here’s The Trailer For Free Guy!


Free Guy is due to be released on August 13th. It stars Ryan Reynolds as a cheerful bank teller who discovers that he’s just a character in a ….

“Wait a minute, is The Truman Show?”

No, no. The Truman Show was about reality TV and it starred Jim Carrey, who was kind of annoying in the film, if we’re going to be honest. Free Guy is about someone who discovers that he’s a character in a video game and it stars the always wonderful Ryan Reynolds! So, as you can see, they’re totally different. Plus, The Truman Show was all about Truman trying to reach the real world, whereas Free Guy features Reynolds taking control of his artificial reality.

“So, it’s like The Matrix?”

Well, maybe. But it seems to be a lot less pretentious.

“Wreck-It Ralph?”

Uhmm, maybe….

Anyway, here’s the trailer!

Ryan Reynolds improves his game in the Free Guy Trailer


You have to hand it to Ryan Reynolds, he knows how to market his projects. In the course of a few days, he made an advertisement for a TV that linked to a new film and his gin company, Aviation Gin. He also made a separate commercial for Aviation Gin starring Monica Ruiz, who everyone knows as the wife in the Peleton ads. Now, 20th Century Fox reunites Reynolds and his Green Lantern co-star, Taika Waititi in Free Guy.

Free Guy has Reynolds playing an NPC (Non-Playable Character) in a Video Game that is due to be shut down. Using classic video game items like power ups, guns and dance emotes, Reynolds’ character decides it’s time to level up. While we’re not sure of where this all goes, it’s good to see Ryan bring some of that Deadpool flair under the Disney umbrella.

Free Guy, Directed by Shawn Levy (Date Night), is set to release on July 3, 2020.

Here Are The Hollywood Critics Association’s Nominations For The Best of 2019


The Hollywood Critics Association was, up until a few days ago, known as the Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society.  Perhaps realizing that HCA just plans looks better than LAOFCS, they announced yesterday that they were changing their name.

They also announced their nominees for the best of films and performances of 2019!  While the HCA may not be one of the major precursors of awards season, their nominations do give a fairly good picture of which films and performances are currently being touted as possible Oscar nominees.

And here they are:

BEST PICTURE

  • “1917”
  • “Booksmart”
  • “The Farewell”
  • “The Irishman”
  • “Joker”
  • “Jojo Rabbit”
  • “Parasite”
  • “Marriage Story”
  • “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
  • “Waves

BEST ACTOR

  • Adam Driver, “Marriage Story”
  • Eddie Murphy, “Dolemite Is My Name”
  • Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker”
  • Leonardo DiCaprio, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
  • “Taron Egerton, “Rocketman”

BEST ACTRESS

  • Awkwafina, “The Farewell”
  • “Charlize Theron, “Bombshell”
  • Lupita Nyong’o, “Us”
  • Renée Zellweger, “Judy”
  • Scarlett Johansson, “Marriage Story”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

  • Brad Pitt, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
  • Joe Pesci, “The Irishman”
  • Shia LaBeouf, “Honey Boy”
  • Sterling K. Brown, “Waves”
  • Tom Hanks, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

  • Jennifer Lopez, “Hustlers”
  • Laura Dern, “Marriage Story”
  • Margot Robbie, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
  • Taylor Russell, “Waves”
  • Zhao Shuzhen, “The Farewell”

BEST MALE DIRECTOR

  • Bong Joon-ho, “Parasite”
  • Martin Scorsese, “The Irishman”
  • Noah Baumbach, “Marriage Story”
  • Quentin Tarantino, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
  • Taika Waititi, “Jojo Rabbit”

BEST FEMALE DIRECTOR

  • Alma Har’el, “Honey Boy”
  • Greta Gerwig, “Little Women”
  • Lorene Scafaria, “Hustlers”
  • Lulu Wang, “The Farewell”
  • Olivia Wilde, “Booksmart”

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

  • Bong Joon-ho & Han Jin-won, “Parasite”
  • Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, & Katie Silberman, “Booksmart”
  • Lulu Wang, “The Farewell”
  • Noah Baumbach, “Marriage Story”
  • Rian Johnson, “Knives Out”

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

  • Anthony McCarten, “The Two Popes”
  • Lorene Scafaria, “Hustlers”
  • Scott Silver and Todd Phillips, “Joker”
  • Steven Zailian, “The Irishman”
  • Taika Waititi, “Jojo Rabbit”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR OR ACTRESS 23 AND UNDER

  • Kaitlyn Dever, “Booksmart”
  • Julia Butters, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
  • Noah Jupe, “Honey Boy”
  • Roman Griffin Davis, “Jojo Rabbit”
  • Thomasin McKenzie, “Jojo Rabbit”

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE

  • Jessie Buckley, “Wild Rose”
  • Kelvin Harrison Jr., “Waves”
  • Paul Walter Hauser, “Richard Jewell”
  • Taylor Russell, “Waves”
  • Zack Gottsagen, “The Peanut Butter Falcon”

BEST CAST

  • “Avengers: Endgame”
  • “The Irishman”
  • “Knives Out”
  • “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
  • “Waves”

BEST FIRST FEATURE

  • “Brittany Runs a Marathon”
  • “Booksmart”
  • “Honey Boy”
  • “The Peanut Butter Falcon”
  • “Queen & Slim”

BEST INDEPENDENT FILM

  • “Booksmart”
  • “The Farewell”
  • “Honey Boy”
  • “Luce”
  • “Waves”

BEST ACTION/WAR FILM

  • “1917”
  • “Avengers: Endgame”
  • “Captain Marvel”
  • “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw”
  • “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum”

BEST ANIMATED FILM

  • “Abominable”
  • “Frozen II”
  • “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World”
  • “Missing Link”
  • “Toy Story 4”

BEST BLOCKBUSTER

  • “Avengers: Endgame”
  • “Captain Marvel”
  • “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
  • “Shazam!”
  • “Spider-Man: Far from Home”

BEST COMEDY/MUSICAL

  • “Booksmart”
  • “Blinded by the Light”
  • Dolemite Is My Name”
  • “Long Shot”
  • “Rocketman”

BEST DOCUMENTARY

  • “American Factory”
  • “Apollo 11”
  • “Hail Satan?”
  • “The Kingmaker”
  • “Love, Antosha”

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

  • “The Farewell”
  • “Monos”
  • “Pain & Glory”
  • “Parasite”
  • “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”

BEST HORROR FILM

  • “Crawl”
  • “Doctor Sleep”
  • “Midsommar”
  • “Ready or Not”
  • “Us”

BEST ANIMATED OR VFX PERFORMANCE

  • Josh Brolin, “Avengers: Endgame”
  • Robert De Niro, “The Irishman”
  • Rosa Salazar, “Alita: Battle Angel”
  • Ryan Reynolds, “Detective Pikachu”
  • Tom Hanks, “Toy Story 4”

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

  • Drew Daniel, “Waves”
  • Jarin Blaschke, “The Lighthouse”
  • Lawrence Sher, “Joker”
  • Robert Richardson, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
  • Roger Deakins, “1917”

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

  • Arianne Phillips, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
  • Julian Day, “Rocketman”
  • Jacqueline Durran, “Little Women”
  • Ruth E. Carter, “Dolemite Is My Name”
  • Mark Bridges, “Joker”

BEST EDITING

  • Fred Raskin, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
  • Lee Smith, “1917”
  • Michael McCusker, “Ford v Ferrari”
  • Thelma Schoonmaker, ‘The Irishman”
  • Yang Jin-mo, “Parasite”

BEST HAIR AND MAKEUP

  • “Bombshell”
  • “Joker”
  • “Judy”
  • “Rocketman”
  • “The Irishman”

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

  • “Catchy Song” from “The Lego Movie: The Second Part”
  • “Glasgow” from “Wild Rose”
  • “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” from “Rocketman”
  • “Into the Unknown” from “Frozen II”
  • “Speechless” from “Aladdin”

BEST SCORE

  • Alexandre Desplat, “Little Women”
  • Hildur Guðnadóttir, “Joker”
  • Michael Abels, “Us”
  • Thomas Newman, “1917”
  • Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “Waves”

BEST STUNT WORK

  • “1917”
  • “Avengers: Endgame”
  • “Captain Marvel”
  • “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw”
  • “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum”

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

  • “1917”
  • “Ad Astra”
  • “Avengers: Endgame”
  • “Alita: Battle Angel”
  • “The Irishman”

The winners will announced in December!

6 Actors Who Will Soon Hopefully Win Their First Oscar


Remember how, an hour ago, I listed 6 actresses who I hope will soon get the role for which they’ll win their first Oscar?

Well, now it’s time to look at 6 actors for whom I have the same hope.  Some of the actors listed below have been nominated in the past.  Some of them have not.  Some of them will probably win an Oscar at some point in their career.  And some of them, sadly, probably will not.

However, what all six of them have in common is that all six of them deserve at least one more opportunity to take home a gold statuette.

Ethan Hawke

I’m still stunned by the fact that Ethan Hawke wasn’t, at the very least, nominated for his performance in First Reformed.  It was certainly one of the best performance of the year and probably one of the best of his career.  Ethan Hawke has been nominated a total of four times (twice for supporting actor and twice for adapted screenplay) but has yet to win.  Hopefully, that will someday change for both him and his frequent director, Richard Linklater.

Jake Gyllenhaal

How the Hell was Jake Gyllenhaal not nominated for Nightcrawler?  Ever since Donnie Darko, Gyllenhaal has been one of the most enjoyably unpredictable actors around.  He’s even managed to become a star even though it’s obvious that the mainstream film industry has no idea what to do with his eccentric persona.  While Gyllenhaal can occasionally be miscast (as evidenced by films like Demolition and Love and Other Drugs), both Nightcrawler and Stronger showed just how special an actor Gyllenhaal can be.

Ryan Renolds

The next time you find yourself enjoying an R-rated comic book movie that features nudity, profanity, and grotesque ultra-violence, you better take a few minutes to thank Ryan Reynolds.  Reynolds will probably never win an Oscar for playing Deadpool but just imagine the acceptance speech he would give if he did.

Hugh Jackman

Amazingly, the multi-talented Hugh Jackman has only one nomination, for his performance in Les Miserables.  He probably deserved a nomination for his performance in Logan, though that film has the misfortune to be released before Black Panther legitimized the idea of a comic book film as a genuine Oscar contender.  Jackman seems like he’s destined to win an Oscar someday.  Hopefully, in the future, he’ll chose better films than The Front Runner.

Kyle Chandler

Despite appearing in several best picture nominees and giving an award-worthy performance in The Spectacular Now, Kyle Chandler has never received an Oscar nomination.  It’s hard not to feel that the right role is somewhere out there, waiting for him.  Someday, someone will write the perfect script about a small-town sheriff solving the biggest case of his career and the next thing you know, Kyle Chandler will be accepting his first Oscar.

Giovanni Lombardo Radice

Someday, someone is going to write a great role for the greatest living Italian horror actor, Giovanni Lombardo Radice.

The San Diego Film Critics Society Gives Some Love To Buster Scruggs!


On Firday, the San Diego Film Critics Society announced their nominations for the best of 2018 and, to their credit, they showed a lot of love to the Coen Brother’s fascinatingly strange western anthology film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs!

(That’s Buster up at the top of the post.  He’s only in the movie for about 20 minutes but you’ll never forget him.)

Here are the nominations from San Diego!

Best Picture
THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
THE FAVOURITE
GREEN BOOK
LEAVE NO TRACE
A QUIET PLACE

Best Director
Bo Burnham, EIGHTH GRADE
Debra Granik, LEAVE NO TRACE
John Krasinski, A QUIET PLACE
Peter Farrelly, GREEN BOOK
Yorgos Lanthimos, THE FAVOURITE

Best Actor, Male
Christian Bale, VICE
Ethan Hawke, FIRST REFORMED
Viggo Mortensen, GREEN BOOK
John C. Reilly, THE SISTERS BROTHERS
Lucas Hedges, BOY ERASED

Best Actor, Female
Carey Mulligan, WILDLIFE
Glenn Close, THE WIFE
Lady Gaga, A STAR IS BORN
Melissa McCarthy, CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
Elsie Fisher, EIGHTH GRADE

Best Supporting Actor, Male
Joel Edgerton, BOY ERASED
Mahershala Ali, GREEN BOOK
Richard E. Grant, CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
Sam Elliott, A STAR IS BORN
Timothée Chalamet, BEAUTIFUL BOY

Best Supporting Actor, Female
Alia Shawkat, BLAZE
Nicole Kidman, BOY ERASED
Nina Arianda, STAN & OLLIE
Thomasin McKenzie, LEAVE NO TRACE
Zoe Kazan, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

Best Comedic Performance
Awkwafina, CRAZY RICH ASIANS
Hugh Grant, PADDINGTON 2
Jason Bateman, GAME NIGHT
Jesse Plemons, GAME NIGHT
Ryan Reynolds, DEADPOOL 2

Best Original Screenplay
Bo Burnham, EIGHTH GRADE
Bryan Woods, Scott Beck, John Krasinski, A QUIET PLACE
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie, Peter Farrelly, GREEN BOOK
Wes Anderson, ISLE OF DOGS

Best Adapted Screenplay
Armando Iannucci, David Schneider, Ian Martin, Peter Fellows, Fabien Nury, THE DEATH OF STALIN
David Lowery, THE OLD MAN & THE GUN
Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini, LEAVE NO TRACE
Joel Edgerton, BOY ERASED
Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty, CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?

Best Documentary
FREE SOLO
LOVE, GILDA
RBG
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS
WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?

Best Animated Film
HAVE A NICE DAY
INCREDIBLES 2
ISLE OF DOGS
RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

Best Foreign-language Film
CAPERNAUM
COLD WAR
THE GUILTY
ROMA
SHOPLIFTERS

Best Costume Design
Sandy Powell, THE FAVOURITE
Guy Speranza, STAN & OLLIE
Lindy Hemming, PADDINGTON 2
Mary E. Vogt, CRAZY RICH ASIANS
Mary Zophres, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

Best Editing
Christopher Tellefsen, A QUIET PLACE
Jamie Gross, David Egan, GAME NIGHT
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
Patrick J. Don Vito, GREEN BOOK
Yorgos Mavropsaridis, THE FAVOURITE

Best Cinematography
Alexander Dynan, FIRST REFORMED
Alfonso Cuarón, ROMA
Bruno Delbonnel, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
Joshua James Richards, THE RIDER
Magnus Nordenhof Jønck, LEAN ON PETE

Best Production Design
Adam Stockhausen, READY PLAYER ONE
Fiona Crombie, THE FAVOURITE
Hannah Beachler, BLACK PANTHER
John Paul Kelly, STAN & OLLIE
Tim Galvin, GREEN BOOK

Best Visual Effects
BLACK PANTHER
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN
ISLE OF DOGS
PADDINGTON 2
READY PLAYER ONE

Best Use Of Music In A Film
BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE
BLAZE
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
GREEN BOOK
A STAR IS BORN

Best Ensemble
THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
BOY ERASED
THE FAVOURITE
GAME NIGHT
GREEN BOOK

Best Breakout Artist
Thomasin McKenzie, LEAVE NO TRACE
Elsie Fisher, EIGHTH GRADE
Rami Malek, BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
Charlie Plummer, LEAN ON PETE
Bo Burnham, EIGHTH GRADE