So, the Daniels—Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert—the directorial
duo behind the Harry Potter’s farting corpse movie, Swiss Army Man,
have a new movie in the works. It sounds rad, may potentially star Crazy
Rich Asians alums Michelle Yeoh and Awkwafina, and all is pretty cool
with the world.
It’s not uncommon to see movies about almost the exact same
thing come out at almost the exact same time. Whether we’re talking
Armageddon/Deep Impact, Dante’s
Peak/Volcano, or White House Down/Olympus Has Fallen, this sort of thing happens all the time. And the latest
such incident is the Blood Fest/Hell Fest
duality, two movies about horror-themed events at amusement parks where things
go horribly, violently wrong.
Any time Ben Wheatley makes a movie, it has our full
attention. And he has a new movie coming, and it’s finished, and has a title,
and a premiere date, and there are some new details. It’s called Happy
New Year, Colin Burstead and now we know some things about it.
Remakes, remakes, blah, blah, whatever. It’s all been said
before, and no matter what, I’m all kinds of jazzed for Luca Guadagnino’s
remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror fave Suspiria, even if
it is two-and-a-half hours long. And this new trailer only makes me want it
more. Take a gander after the jump.
For skateboarders, their sport means so much more than
rolling around on a nicely shaped plank and four urethane wheels. It’s a way of
life, a metaphorical act, an artistic endeavor, radical self-expression; it’s a
survival mechanism, a way to create order in a world that doesn’t always make
sense. Whatever significance a particular individual attaches to the act, it
goes so far beyond kickflips and board slides, past concrete banks and
handrails.
You can’t never say A24 does the same thing every time out
of the gate. Just when you think you have the boutique studio pegged, they drop
a crazy-ass genre banger like Hereditary, a Muay Thai prison drama
in the vein of A Prayer Before Dawn, or, you know, a cheeky pizza delivery/werewolf/portal-to-hell
horror yarn. Just watch the trailer for Slice below, it’ll
all make sense. Well, sort of.
I don’t even know where to begin with this. On the heels of
Blue Ruin and Green Room (I need to see
his debut, Murder Party), Jeremy Saulnier quickly became one
of my favorite filmmakers. And he’s back next month with his latest,
Hold the Dark. If you’ve seen any of his previous films, you
know you’re in for a rough time—and I mean that in the best possible way. And if
you haven’t, this first trailer should clue you in. It also clearly
demonstrates why this was one of my most anticipated movies of 2018.
Taken on their own, the last 15-20 minutes of
Summer of 84—the latest from RKSS, the Canadian filmmaking
collective behind Turbo Kid—work reasonably well. They would
have worked even better if the film had done a single thing in the previous 80
minutes to earn the climax. It feels like they started with the end, but had no
idea how to get there.
Erik Matti’s BuyBust is almost great. As
it is, it’s a solid actioner, especially for those of us who favor the gritty,
down-and-dirty style usually relegated to the direct-to-video realm. Especially
rough around the edges and chaotic, and full of weird-as-hell flourishes, it’s
mean and violent and bleak as hell—be prepared for beheadings and morally
questionable dirty deeds American movies shy away from. Matti and company offer
a non-stop buffet of tension and potential disaster for the stars, all wrapped
in an intriguing commentary on the current state of Philippines society and the
draconian drug war under Duterte.
To know him is to have strong feelings about him. Whatever
your stance, French button-pusher, Gaspar Noé, is back with his latest attempt
to shock and awe and discomfit, Climax. (I, for one, really
want his wife and frequent collaborator, Lucile Hadžihalilović, to make another
movie, because her last one, Evolution, was an all-timer.)
With a title like Climax, and the man himself behind the
camera, you know we’re in for a wild ride, and if you didn’t, this new trailer
drives that point home.
If you know anything about The Meg, even the simple fact that it involves Jason Statham and a giant shark, and have ever seen a movie, it’s easy to predict what you’re going to get when you sit down in the theater. And The Meg delivers precisely the movie it promises, for better and worse.
Mario Kassar is best known for producing movies like Total Recall, First Blood, Terminator 2, and a certain style of American action movie through his Carolco Pictures. But he’s apparently teaming with Indonesian filmmakers to develop Foxtrot Six, an action/sci-fi film starring the likes of Julie Estelle, Hammer Girl from The Raid 2, and Oka Antara (The Raid 2, Killers). It’s been in the works for a while, but the first teaser dropped today. Check it out.
Thinking of arthouse powerhouse A24, what comes to mind?
Deft, off-kilter indie dramas? Unusual coming-of-age tales? Prestige horror? Odds are,
when you think of A24 and their output, you probably don’t immediately go to
gritty Muay Thai prison dramas. Well, with the release of Jean-Stephane
Sauvaire’s A Prayer Before Dawn, that line of thinking
certainly has to change.
Calling All Earthlings isn’t a great
documentary. It’s messy and unfocused, threads show up and wander off willy
nilly, and overall, it’s a jumble that lacks much oomph, narrative coherence,
or discernible arc. It’s also bonkers weird, occasionally fascinating, and
offers a unique look at a peculiar slice of wing-nut outsider Americana.
