Ilya Naishuller’s 2021 action-comedy Nobody caught everyone by surprise. Many thought it was just a quick cash-grab to take advantage of the success with the John Wick action series. Nobody was released in the middle of the pandemic, yet it was received very positive reviews from critics and audiences, alike.
It was a no-brainer that a sequel would be greenlit. It took awhile to happen but most of the cast and crew are back with the exception of director Ilya Naishuller. Indonesian director Timo Tjahjanto now takes the director’s seat with some new, but familiar faces (Sharon Stone and Colin Hanks) joining the previous cast (Bob Odenkirk, Colin Salmon, Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd and RZA).
From this first trailer, Nobody 2 looks to retain the action-comedy tone of the first, but with the visual flair of Timo Tjahjanto (see The Night Comes for Us for example of how batshit crazy his action turn out).
M3GAN in 2022 was a surprise hit that no one saw coming. What would’ve been a a nice little horror film from Blumhouse that would’ve come and gone with little fanfare suddenly became a major hit due to the viral marketing of the titular character’s dancing shown in the initial trailer becoming a huge internet meme.
Now we are back with the sequel (I don’t think anyone was surprised that Blumhouse quickly greenlit a follow-up) and it looks like the original team of director Gerard Johnstone and writer Akela Cooper are back to headline M3GAN 2.0.
The sequel looks to be bigger and a bit more ambitious with more than just a bit of a Terminator 2 vibe with the title character looking to be more of the savior and not just an overprotective killing AI doll.
Will M3GAN 2.0 be able to replicate the viral success of the first film? We shall find out on June 27, 2025.
“You know the thing about a shark, he’s got…lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eye. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white.” — Quint
People have blamed Spielberg and his breakout film, Jaws, as the cause of the blockbuster mentality that studios have had since this film came out. Studios and producers wanted to recreate the ultra-successful box-office numbers of Jaws. Despite the fact that this film was modestly budgeted, people nowadays who think they’re film experts point to it as the culprit. They’ve called it the film that begun the dumbing down of Hollywood when creativity was sacrificed for profit.
Why did I pick a scene from this film as a favorite? I picked this particular scene because it’s one reason why the film succeeded and made people come back again and again. It’s a scene that perfectly captures one reason why we love to see films in a communal setting. We want to share the same experience and emotions this scene brought up from the pit of each audience’s psyche.
Jaws didn’t ruin the creativity in filmmaking. I like to think that this one film was a filmmaker at his most creativie (shark wouldn’t work properly so Spielberg kept it off-screen which just added to the terror and tension in the film). This very scene goes down as one of the greatest film monologues. It sets up the danger the trio faces with some anecdotal evidence from the very person who survived the experience, but who might have become unhinged because of it. I love the look of frozen terror on the face of Richard Dryefuss’ character as he listens to Robert Shaw tell the story of the ill-fated journey of the U.S.S. Indianapolis.
This latest “Scenes I Love” is why I consider Spielberg one of the best filmmaker of his generation and probably beyond that.
I don’t know if we fully recognize all the sacrifices parents make for their kids. A person takes on ownership of a whole little being (be it through birth, adoption or the Cat Distribution System) and somehow tries their best to keep it fed, protected, educated and loved, all while still trying to figure out their own lives. It doesn’t always work out. Some parents evade the responsibility, leaving their kids to horrible fates, while others rise to the challenge, often without fully knowing what they need to do. They’re not perfect, but parents can be pretty awesome at times, especially the ones who didn’t have to do the job.
Dreamworks The Wild Robot may very well be the best Animated Feature this year. Nothing against Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 (which was also wonderful) or Flow (which looks wonderful and took the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature), but I spent a good part of this film sniffling. It’s a very simple, yet sweet story that moves at a very rapid pace. That’s understandable, given that it’s for children, but the story is accessible for just about any adult.
When a robot named Roz (Lupita N’yongo, A Quiet Place: Day One) crash lands in a forest, she studies her environment and tries to get to know the local habitat. The animals are naturally fearful of Roz, but she eventually begins to understand their dialects. While trying to phone home, Roz runs into some raccoon thieves and a rather large bear. The resulting chase causes her to accidentally crash into and destroy a goose nest, save for one egg. When the egg hatches, she finds herself having to take on a parent role for the gosling, though she’s not fully alone. Helping Roz out is a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal, Gladiator II), who lives by his wits and provides some wildlife know-how for survival, while keeping himself well fed. Also along to assist is Pinktail, a possum who has a litter of her own to handle. As she adjusts to her new sense of motherhood, Roz meets tons of other animals that warm up to her. She finds a new task in taking care of Brightbill (Kit Connor, Ready Player One) and preparing him to fly South for the winter.
Directed by Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon, Lilo & Stitch), The Wild Robot has elements for both kids and adults. The wilderness is a dangerous place, and the Circle of Life is rougher here than it ever was in Disney’s The Lion King (which Sanders also had a hand in). There are predators and prey, and the audience is made to understand this pretty quickly (though not as harshly as say, Watership Down). There’s a great deal of tenderness as well, focusing on Storytelling (which Roz learns), the friends and family we make along the way and some hardship in the way that Brightbill suffers some insensibilities with from other geese that he doesn’t quite fit in with.
I feel The Wild Robot‘s strongest points are the music and the art direction. The film looks like an actual watercolor painting, especially when viewed in the largest format possible. The pacing for the plot moved a little quicker than I expected, particularly in the lead up to meeting Brightbill. Musically, Kris Bowers (Netflix’s Bridgerton, The Haunted Mansion) has a great soundtrack that adds some weight to the scenes. With Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross out of the running for Challengers, Bowers is my hopeful pick for the Best Soundtrack Oscar.
At the time of this writing, The Wild Robot is available to watch on Universal’s Peacock service. Just make sure you bring a box of tissues and if at all possible, call or thank your Mom afterwards.
What can I say about this 2004 action horror film that can do it justice at just how it perfectly represent what I call a “guilty pleasure”.
Van Helsing by Stephen Sommers (him being at his most Stephen Sommersist) was suppose to be a new action franchise with Hugh Jackman as it’s lead. One must remember that in 2004, Hugh Jackman was still at the height of his popularity as an action star with roles as Wolverine in the X-Men film franchise and, in another guilty pleasure of mine, Swordfish.
This film was suppose to catapult him to the stratosphere and taking the action star role from aging ones such as Arnold Schwarzenneger, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis. Instead Stephen Sommers reached for that brass ring and failed, but did so with a mish-mash of horror properties blended haphazardly to give us a film that tried to be too much yet also not enough.
Hugh Jackman in the title role was more than game to try and prop up the film’s convoluted plot. Kate Beckinsale was stunning as usual and hamming it up in what I could only guess is here version of a Transylvanian accent. Even Richard Roxbrough in the role of Dracula, miscast as he seem to be in the role, gave a campy and scenery-chewing performance that his performance went past bad and circled back to being entertaining.
Yet, for all its flaws, I actually enjoy Van Helsing for what it was and that was a modern version of those Abbott and Costello mash-up with the Universal horror characters of the 40’s and 50’s. One cannot mistake this film on the same level as Nosferatu (Murnau, Herzog and Eggers versions) and Sommers definitely cannot be mistake for the three auteurs who had their own take on the abovementioned film. But Sommers does make thrilling, though some would say repetitive, action films.
Did I turn my brain off watching Van Helsing?
I sure did, but it still didn’t stop me from being entertained…and I cannot ever sat anything bad about a film with Kate Beckinsale in a tight black-red leather corset. It’s against some sort of law to do so.
It’s been almost 15 years since the original How to Train Your Dragon was released. Taking a page out of Disney’s playbook, it looks like Dreamworks’ & Universal Pictures have decided a Live Action version was in order. Whether it was just to keep the story fresh in the minds of audiences, or to refresh the copyrights, here we have it. This was wild surprise on the big screen for me, because at first I thought it was a commercial for a possible theme ride at Universal Studios or something. It wasn’t until Gerard Butler showed up (reprising his role as Stoick the Vast) that it hit me – this is an actual movie. I have mixed feelings about this. With director Dean Deblois returning to the helm, there’s no way they can mess this up. I’ll be there for this. I’m totally sold. Then again, if it’s a shot-for-shot remake like Gus Van Sant’s Psycho or Jon Favreau’s The Lion King, would it still be entertaining? To Universal’s credit, Toothless and the other dragons look pretty good.
Universal/Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon, starring Mason Thames (The Black Phone), Nico Parker (The Last of Us), Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz) and Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2) will be released next year in Cinemas.
It looks like the 2nd greatest heist team (after the Crimson Paw) is back for another go around in The Bad Guys 2! Director Pierre Perifel and the cast have returned and the story finds our newly released & reformed thieves trying to do good. Of course, it doesn’t help that a heist team of admirers have asked The Bad Guys for assistance on a caper. Will the team stay reformed? Will the movie finally use Billie Eillish’s “Bad Guy” in the film, for a change?
We’ll find out when the movie releases next summer.
I’ve enjoyed Leigh Whannell’s streak of films since going solo. His work on the Saw and Insidious films with James Wan is well known. Upgrade was a fantastic film and is one of my favorites of his. I enjoyed The Invisible Man, which took a unexpected approach to the original story. He’s at it again with Wolf Man, and it looks like it’s a more personal story here.
Starring Christopher Abbot (Poor Things) and Julia Garner(Sin City: A Dame to Kill For) star in the film, which seems to be about a family defending themselves while camping from a beast in the woods. I just hope the effects in this are on par with Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman. We’ll have to find out.
One cool thing to note here is that like James Wan did with his partner Ingrid Bisu for Malignant, Wolf Man is a spousal / partner affair. Both Lauren Schuker-Blum (wife of Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum, who produces the film) and Whannell have writing duties on this, along with Whannell’s wife, Corbett Tuck (Insidious & Insidious: Chapter 3).
Wolf Man will being in Theatres and IMAX next January.
I honestly didn’t even know they were remaking Jan de Bont’s Twister. This looks a lot like the original, and with Anthony Ramos (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) and Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick) in the cast, it looks like it could be fun. Enjoy.
Back in the 1980s, nestled between shows like The A-Team, Miami Vice, Matt Houston and McGuyver, you had The Fall Guy. It starred Lee Majors (The Six Million Dollar Man) as a stunt man who worked part time as a bail bondsman to keep himself financially afloat. It was a great show growing up, and always showcased some wild stunt in the same fashion The Mission Impossible films have with a wild infiltration event.
So, imagine my surprise when I saw the trailer for a movie version of The Fall Guy, this time with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. Directed by David Leitch (Deadpool 2), the movie changes the story a bit, with a major movie star (played by Bullet Train‘s Aaron Taylor-Johnson) going missing and Gosling searching for him. It already feels a bit like The Nice Guys, or perhaps I’m just hoping for too much. I’m really excited for this.
Through the Shattered Lens 