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unexpectedreylo · 5 years

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Closing Arguments For Reylo

After it seems like we’ve spent a year anticipating this movie--from the film wrap in February to the teaser trailer in April to the Vanity Fair stuff in June to the D23 trailer at the end of August to the Road To TROS stuff to this final trailer and the onslaught of press for the film--we’re finally in the home stretch.

Who will live? Who will die? Will Reylo ride off into the sunset, a HEA at last for a Star Wars couple, will it end in tragedy or worse yet, will it end in a vague incoherent muddle? After all, no fairy tale ends with “they lived ambiguously ever after.”

I think we’re all going to be nervous sitting in the theater come Dec. 18-20 because whether we believe “leaks” or not, we’re just not going to know for sure until we see the film. I’m almost as nervous about their misusing/under-using Adam in this film as I am about the filmmakers blowing Reylo.

Yet of all of the sequel films, I’m the most confident about this one going in. This is the last film in this story and it’s not going to end with the message that the Skywalker family was somehow a mistake or some curse upon the galaxy that needed to be eliminated, while the few positive aspects about the Skywalkers are handed off to Rey because she’s such a nice girl. It’s not going to end like Romeo and Juliet. It’s not going to end without redemption for Kylo Ren/Ben Solo. The final chapter in the series is not only going to redeem him but everyone else who screwed up before him. It’s going to end this conflict and a Jedi Order 2.0 is going to arise. There will be a big party at the end. It will give you cavities and possibly blood sugar spikes.

As far as I’m concerned, Rey and Ben being together--in LOVE--is an integral part of that happy ending. Cinderella gets her prince. Beauty finds true love with the man who had been the Beast. Anastasia marries Christian Grey and has a baby. There’s just no such thing as a heroine who cheerfully ends up without her lover and in spite of what a lot of people think, Star Wars spends far more time utilizing traditional storytelling tropes (though in new ways) than subverting them. Like I wrote in my piece about gothic romances, the woman gets the man, the manor, and the money. Rey walks into TROS already with the metaphorical substitutes for the manor (the Falcon) and the money (the objects associated with the Skywalker family). She’s already in with her potential mother-in-law. All she needs is for Ben to show up to the metaphorical/literal wedding.

And everything is pointing toward that happening. I’m not saying TROS will end with Ben and Rey in a wedding or Rey waddling about preggers. Maybe it will end that way, maybe it won’t. But it will at minimum pair them together a la Han and Leia at the end of ROTJ.

First, let’s take on the only legitimate, in-universe obstacles to Rey and Ben being in a romantic relationship. No, I don’t mean that they could be related. What I do mean is that there are two things that would prohibit romance: one is obvious...no Bendemption. But I’m certain it is going to happen. The other is the old school Jedi prohibition against forming attachments, including romantic relationships. Many fans expect this deeply unpopular rule to be cast aside. But in the name of fairness, it bears pointing out that so far, this deeply unpopular rule hasn’t been cast aside in the movies. Sure there was a bit in the TLJ novel implying Luke wasn’t fond of this deeply unpopular rule but on the other hand, he lived it. Generalissima Leia did lots of other things but never became a Jedi herself. Maybe she was too busy. Or maybe she’d rather bonk Han to her heart’s content than become a space nun. There’s been some recent news that Leia was originally set to finally take up the Jedi mantle in the last ST film, something that obviously changed after Carrie’s passing in 2016. Note that this would have been after Leia had become a widow. Several months ago I’d listened to a podcast containing an interview with former Lucasfilm employee J.W. Rinzler. He revealed that while the expanded universe was allowed to go nuts with Jedi romances and marriages, Lucas kept grumbling that “Jedi aren’t supposed to marry!” He disliked Mara Jade partially for this reason.

Of every argument against Reylo happening that is the one that no one seems to take seriously yet it’s far more likely to be an issue than a sudden revelation of Rey Skywalker-Solo. The question is were Chris Terrio and J.J. Abrams willing to say, “Hey George, your rule sucks so we’re gonna throw it out” to Lucas’s eternal annoyance? Or, is the coupling of Rey and Ben supposed to have happened all along, even in Lucas’s drafts? Are Rey and Ben a glaring exception to the rule?

My argument is that they are going to be an exception. Reylo is not just about hot people hooking up, it’s about mystical forces coming together in a union that will bring the peace and stability that has evaded the galaxy since the Clone Wars. In other words, it’s a divine marriage. Ben and Rey are not ordinary Force users. They are extraordinary among the extraordinary. We already know Ben’s tremendous raw power comes from being literally the great-grandson of the Force itself. Rey I’m sure is something very similar, a demigoddess of sorts. Ben and Rey will demonstrate one can love deeply without it corrupting into selfishness, possessiveness, obsession, and everything else that led Anakin into believing killing his comrades to save Padmé was a really good idea.

Okay, let’s look at some hard evidence.

What’s the one word that keeps coming up over and over again with Rey and Kylo/Ben?

Intimacy.

Or some variation thereof:

“At the premiere I heard somebody in the balcony say, “Yesssss!” You can see Adam was training hardcore throughout the whole process. It’s fun but it also has a specific purpose, which is the increasing feeling of uncomfortable intimacy. That was sticking with the theme of trying to give Rey the hardest thing you could possibly give her, which would be unavoidable intimate conversation with this person that she wants to just hate. This was just one more way of upping that ante.”--Rian Johnson, Los Angeles Times, December 18, 2017

“It’s all about those Force connection scenes. The keyword being intimacy. And the idea that this was a way to just, why not step that up?(...)And so it was just another way of kind of disrobing Kylo literally and figuratively a little bit more, and pushing that sense of these conversations becoming increasingly more intimate.”--Rian Johnson, People magazine Dec. 23, 2017

“They just had this horrific fight, but Rian wanted this incredible intimacy and this cascading, twinkling waterfall of sparks from the fight before.”--Ben Morris, ILM Visual Effects Supervisor, Collider Dec. 25, 2017

“Even to the point where Adam flew to Ireland just to be off camera for Daisy’s stuff, which was essential because they’re such intimate conversations.”--Rian Johnson, People magazine Jan. 6, 2018

“That came about first and foremost from wanting a sense of intimacy”--Rian Johnson, Force of Sound Documentary Feb. 20, 2018

“And have it, you’re in their heads with just that intimacy.”--Matthew Wood, Supervising Sound Editor, Skywalker Sound Feb. 20, 2018

“Having a big sound there just didn’t have the intimacy that the scene demanded. It can be so hard to get the balance right to where the audience is feeling the same thing as the characters.”--Michael Semanic, Re-recording mixer Skywalker Sound, Postperspective Feb. 21, 2018

“But we fall back on romance because it's the best analogue we have. Rey and Kylo's relationship is more intimate than that. They've literally been in each other's minds. Rey's seen his deepest fears; he's seen the past she's buried. None of us have had that experience.”

“My point is romance may not be the endpoint of that. (Though it may be.) The analogue may be misleading, because it's an analogue. Their connection is deeper and stranger and far more complicated. I think TFA/TLJ covers those complications wonderfully, with Ep IX promising more.”--Jason Fry on Twitter Nov. 26, 2018

“At times it’s more intimate, sometimes less intimate.”--Adam Driver, Entertainment Weekly, December 2019

Relationships that are intimate aren’t necessarily romantic or sexual in nature but in modern parlance, it’s often used as a euphemism for a romantic or sexual relationship, or for sex itself i.e. “Tyler and Kaitlyn weren’t intimate until they got married.” Because of that, it would be hella weird if they described a familial or friendly relationship in this way. If I didn’t want my audience to believe there’s anything that could possibly be sexual happening between my characters--especially between an eligible attractive man and an eligible attractive woman--I would avoid using the term “intimate.”

If that doesn’t sell it for you, consider these statements:

“It’s the closest thing we’ll ever get to a sex scene in Star Wars”--Rian Johnson re the hand touch in TLJ. (Who the hell says that about cousins? Or just friends?)

“it is certainly true there is a romantic drama...”--Rian Johnson, some Japanese interview from 2017. (By the way this was misquoted into stating there was no romance in TLJ at all.)

“I (Rian) disagreed with John (Williams) twice regarding the score. For example, there's a scene where Kylo Ren and Rey touch hands, before they are interrupted by Luke Skywalker. When John wrote the score (for this scene), he was very protective of Rey's character, exactly as is Luke. Kylo ('s presence) was menacing, musically speaking. It's a valid point of view, but I didn't think of the scene like that. I wanted it to stay on Rey's POV: I wanted that we could believe in this romance.”--Rian Johnson, Classica magazine April 25, 2019 (Note: this is an interview from English to French then translated here and here back to English but the word “romance” is the same in both languages.)

The above statements and various others we’ve all seen over the years are helpful to explain what we’ve seen in the past two films: they’re building toward something.

On one level, the filmmakers are building toward another alliance between our space children, like what they had in TLJ. It’s obvious that they will need to team up to defeat Palpatine because who else could? It’s also obvious that they are key to the Force being in balance. There has been interesting speculation on Twitter about how those forces will come together and the symbolism of a marriage by uniting mystical objects.

But being Force buddies in a tag team match against Palpatine isn’t quite high enough stakes. Nor is “might makes right” the message of Star Wars. These two have to be willing to fight for each other, to the death if necessary. They have to have something to live for as well. They have to have the secret sauce that Darth Sidious doesn’t have. And what I’m talking about is love. Not just the compassionate love of agape (that’s what Anakin was talking about in AOTC but he meant it differently of course) or the friendship love of philia but also the powerful, creative love of eros. It’s basically what was happening in the throne room scene in TLJ. They were fighting for each other and the future they saw when they touched hands. Come on, nobody is going to do any of that just to find an apprentice or to convince someone to join an insurrection you barely spent any time with yourself.

A divine marriage between the two most powerful Force users will end the war and herald in a new age. Either they are a new incarnation of the Prime Jedi or they will become the mother and father to this incarnation.

Plus they will kiss and get in a lot of nookie. The end.

Credits: r/starwarsspeculation, @reylo-evidence-collection, r/starwarscantina, @reylo5 (Instagram),

#reylo #reylo fandom #reylo fam #rey x kylo ren #rey x ben #tros #bendemption #hea

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weekendwarriorblog · 6 years

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND 8/10/18 – The Meg, Slender Man, BlacKkKlansman, Dog Days

If you didn’t read last week’s column about August at the box office, then go ahead and do so now, but this week, we have a similar slate of potential hits and bombs that will mainly rely on whether people want to go to movie theaters to get away from the oppressive heat wave, or instead, go to the beach. Of course, if it rains this weekend, it will definitely help the movies.

THE MEG (Warner Bros.)

First up, is the first shark movie we’ve had in theaters in quite some time, and a PG-13 one to boot. The Meg, based on Steve Alten’s book Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror about a prehistoric shark that rears its ugly head in the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately for this shark, it’s going to have to go up against Jason Statham in his first prominent role since appearing in last year’sFate of the Furious, and before he and Dwayne Johnson get their own Hobbs & Shaw spin-off next year.

The Meg is directed by Jon Turtletaub, best known for the National Treasuremovies, but he went on to direct The Sorcerer’s Apprentice for Disney (which didn’t do nearly as well) and directed CBS Films’ Last Vegas, which was a decent breakout comedy among older audiences. Maybe Turtletaub wouldn’t seem like the most likely suspect to direct a giant shark movie, but hey, more power to him.

The movie also stars Rainn Wilson (who I didn’t even recognize in the trailer), New Zealand’s Cliff Curtis (from Fear the Walking Dead) and Chinese superstar Bingbing Li, and by superstar, I mean that she seems to be put into every movie from Transformers: Age of Extinction to Resident Evil: Retribution in order to get Chinese audiences to see her movies. She’s not to be confused with Tian Jing who Legendary who puts in all of THEIR movies (three, so far) in order to help get Chinese audiences. I shouldn’t be cynical (especially with Crazy Rich Asians coming out next week), but at least it also stars Winston Chao, who starred in Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet, as well as starring the ever-present Orange is the New Black star Ruby Rose, who has appeared in four sequels in the last two years and has just been cast as Batwoman in a new CW television series.

I’m not sure if the actors on this matter much outside Statham, because shark enthusiasts even rushed out to see a Mandy Moore movie when 47 Meters Down opened last summer to $11.2 million in just 2,207 theaters, even though that wasn’t really a shark movie. When you talk about shark movies, you have to go back to the grand-daddy of them all, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, which was the talk of the summer of 1975, becoming one of the first bonafide summer blockbuster, grossing $260 million, which is a LOT by ‘70s standards. Warner’s last attempt at a shark movie was 1999’s Deep Blue Sea, directed by Renny Harlin and starring Samuel L. Jackson and L.L. Cool J. That shark movie opened with $19.1 million and grossed $73.6 million but became a cult classic in the bargain. Surely, the interest in sharks and shark movies has only been exacerbated by Animal Planet’s annual Shark Week, which is mentioned in one of the trailer’s jokes, not to mention the super-bad Sharknado movies.

As the studio’s second to last movie of the summer, Warner Bros. has been giving this movie a huge marketing push, both on television and in theaters, where it was almost impossible to miss the trailer in front of other summer blockbusters, and the studio is putting it into close to 4,000 theaters (including IMAX), a number usually reserved for higher-profile blockbusters.

Reviews will probably be rather mixed, because The Meg is the type of summer popcorn movie that rarely is admired by the snobbier film critics, but it also seems fairly review-proof, because it seems like one of those fun popcorn movies we expect in the summer, which should allow it to do decently opening weekend, in the $20 to 25 million range opening weekend and maybe $65 million or slightly more with the summer winding down. Maybe it won’t be seen as big a bomb as Statham’s FF co-star Dwayne Johnson’s Skyscraper earlier this summer, but with a budget over $150 million, this one better hope that Chinese audiences like shark movies as much as Americans, because it’s not making that back domestically.

Mini-Review: What can be said about this giant, prehistoric shark movie other than if you’ve already watched the trailer a bunch of times, you’ll already know whether you’re in or out? After watching Jason Statham’s Jonas Taylor losing a couple of his friends in a submarine rescue mission gone pear-shaped, we cut forward five years to China where… wait, isn’t this the beginning of Skyscraper? It won’t take long to realize that The Meg is cut from the same cloth as the recent popcorn movie starring Statham’s Fast and Furious buddy, although in this case, Statham is constantly being overshadowed (quite literally) by the giant CG shark of the title.

It takes a little time to get there as we first have to visit the high-tech deepsea exploratory vessel in the Pacific Ocean, and we meet the team, as they’re about to make a dive into an area below the icy bottom of the Marianas Trench. The mission is going as planned until a large creature hits the deep-sea vessel leaving three members of the team trapped at the bottom of the ocean. Sure enough, they have to call upon Jonas Taylor, who happens to be the ex-husband of the lead scientist, sowe spend another 45 minutes on this rescue mission before we discover (big surprise) that the Megalodon they discovered has gotten out from under the icy depths where it was trapped. From there, we follow the course of events as the team try to put a stop to the Megalodon, and that’s all you really need to know.

The problem is that there are so many characters in the movie, each fighting for their little bit of screen-time against Statham. The writing is so driven by corny and obvious clichés, it’s almost painfully obvious the role each of these characters will play, including Page Kennedy’s funny black guy but especially Rainn Wilson’s corrupt billionaire who is going to make all the wrong calls for the sake of making money. Ruby Rose’s character gets very little to do as so much focus is put on Bingbing Lee’s character and her family. The thing is that you never feel much for either the characters that live or the ones that die, and an 8-year-old girl steals many scenes from the rest of the cast, including Statham.

By the time we get to the Megalodon arriving in the crowded Chinese bay – a scene right out of the original Jaws– we’ve pretty much given up on trying to take any of it seriously, even if most of the cast continues to utter every line in utter po-faced earnest. Otherwise, the movie tries way too hard to throw in funny moments, but rarely really delivers much in that sense, so you watch things unfold as might be expected.

In other words, The Meg is the corniest of popcorn movies that’s mostly ridiculous and predicable. Just don’t go in expecting Jaws, but maybe something closer to Jaws 2.

Rating: 6.5/10

SLENDER MAN (Screen Gems)

The movie offering the most direct competition for The Meg is this horror film that’s been moved around the schedule so much one wonders if this could possibly have the same quality as some of Screen Gems’ previous releases like 2016’s Don’t Breathe from Fede Alvarez. That one opened even later in August 2016 with an impressive $26.4 million opening on its way to $89.2 million (based on a $10 million budget), helping to solidify Alvarez as a master of horror after his Evil Dead remake a few years earlier.

Directed by Sylvain White (The Losers, Stomp the Yard), you may know Slender Man as the viral internet sensation and urban myth that ended up with one girl almost being murdered by a couple of her classmates “because Slender Man told them to do it.” There’s a lot more to this meme, which is mostly known by younger people who use the internet, but this is a fairly typical movie about teens being haunted by something menacing. (If you want to learn know more about the near-murder, check out the HBO doc Beware the Slenderman.)s

Screen Gems was originally going to release this later in August, but they took a big chance by switching it with the Sundance sensation Searching (one of my faves from the festival) to give this a bigger push earlier in the month. Unfortunately, it’s also going up against a much stronger (or equally strong) draw for young people in The Meg, so genre fans will certainly be torn with this one drawing the teen girls and that one getting older males.

This stars Joey King, who also appeared in last year’s high concept horror flick Wish Upon, which opened with just $5.5 million and grossed $14.3 million, one of the last ditch efforts by Broad Green to have a hit.

In any other weekend, this would probably be good for a $20 million opening, but opening in just 2,000 theaters with less of a push and no big name stars to sell it (sorry, Joey!), this one will be lucky to make $15 million this weekend and might end up somewhere below that. This will definitely be more of a one-weekend wonder than some of the summer’s other films so expect large drops in the coming weeks.

Mini-Review: If ever there was a movie that would make you miss Wes Craven, this attempt at furthering an urban legend might be it, as you wonder what he might have done with the premise of a boogeyman that has kids performing rituals to find out if he’s real or not.

In this case, it’s four high school friends who hear of boys trying to call forth the Slender Man, so they follow suit, knowing of his infamy for kidnapping kids and/or killing them and/or driving them crazy. Sure enough, the next day, one of them disappears, so they have to figure out a way to get her back.

Obviously, Slender Man uses a similar model as Ouija or the awful Truth or Dare from earlier in the year where a bunch of dumb teenagers decide to do the one thing they’re not supposed to do, killing them off one by one. The only thing that makes Slender Man even slightly novel is that the character has already become a viral meme on the internet from teens who have created artwork and fake videos of the character (many of which are used for the movie).

The movie is almost as predictable as The Meg in that it’s fairly obvious where things are going at least until the end, and at least none of the young female actors get annoying, as often can be the case. There are also not many grown-up actors to muck up the story that’s clearly geared towards teen girls, but the lack of real tension or scares does hurt the movie overall.

To Sylvain White’s credit, this isn’t a horrible movie, a lot of that to do with the film’s strong genre visuals and an ambient score that keeps one on edge, and the actual Slender Man, while not particularly scary, also isn’t as bad as some of the twisted CG creatures from other horror films.

I guess the best that can be said about Slender Man is that it could have been a lot, lot worse.

Rating: 6/10

BLACKKKLANSMAN (Focus Features)

Spike Lee is back with another racially-charged and potentially controversial political film, but also his first real-life story in ten years since Miracle at St. Anna but also his best reviewed theatrically-released narrative film in 20 years. (How’s THAT for a variance factor?) Based on the true story of Ron Stallworth, a black Colorado Springs policeman who managed to infiltrated the KKK in order to stop their radical plans.

BlacKkKlansman premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May to rave reviews (and a prestigious award being mentioned in the ads) and the raves have continued with more recent reviews that are still at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, and this is a rare case where reviews will matter and make a difference at getting people into theaters.

This is the highest profile role for Denzel Washington’s son John David Washington, who also appeared in the Sundance film Monsters and Men and in RZA’s Love Beats Rhymes last year, but the biggest name is likely to be Adam Driver, best known as Kylo Ren from the recent Star Wars movies. It also stars Laura Harrier from last year’s Spider-Man: Homecoming and Topher Grace in the unenviable role of KKK grandmaster David Duke.

Lee’s last few movies haven’t done great with his controversial Old Boy remake starring Samuel L. Jackson making even less than his independently-produced musical Chi-Raq, both making less than $3 million domestically. What makes this somewhat different is that white critics are getting behind it as much as black critics, which should bring in a nice mix of the arthouse crowd and the African Americans who have been waiting for Spike Lee to return to the greatness of earlier films Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever.

BlacKkKlansman seems likely to be the breakout movie of the weekend, although opening in just 1,630 theaters might limit its potential opening to closer to $7 or 8 million rather than giving the two movies above a run for the Top 3. Even so, expect word-of-mouth to continue to drive this to a domestic gross of somewhere in the high-$20 mil, low-$30 mil range, which would make it Spike Lee’s biggest hit since Inside Manwith Denzel Washington.

Mini-Review: Spike Lee has finally found a vehicle that plays up to his strengths, while also returning him to the realm of both Malcolm X and earlier films like Do the Right Thing. It’s a film that allows him to explore race relations in this country through the eyes of the real-life Ron Stallworth, the first black cop in the suburban Colorado Springs who decides to go undercover infiltrating the local KKK branch in the early ‘70s.

Ron Stallworth’s story is a solid one, and it’s told in a way that for the most part is lighter than one might expect, because it is hard to believe what Stall worth gets away with. More than anything, BlacKkKlansman is just a great vehicle for the younger John David Washington, who delivers a similarly-rounded performance as Lakeith Stanfield does in the recent Sorry to Bother You, and Adam Driver is great as always as his white partner who does the dirty work

One of the nicer surprises is Laura Spurrier as a local college activist who Ron befriends but has to keep out of the loop about him being an undercover cop. (Cops are very much the enemy to her and her African-American college friends.)

The KKK members are deliberately played so over-the-top as the villains of the piece to make sure there’s no grey area about that matter, but Topher Grace does a decent job playing the unenviable role of David Duke.

By the last act, the movie starts feeling like it’s going on for too long with the last act dragged out by cutting between the KKK watching Birth of a Nationand the great Harry Belafonte giving an impassioned speech about the treatment of blacks in the past. It’s a really shocking and effective juxtaposition that works but also takes away from the movie’s previous tone up until that point.

As effective as this scene might be, it’s also unnecessary as we already understand the seriousness of what Stallworth has achieved, and the extended epilogue showing footage from the Charlottesville protest last year hammers things home in a way that just seems like Spike Lee being Spike Lee. We get it, Spike. There are still race problems in this country. That said, BlacKkKlansman is Spike Lee’s best film in a very long time, one that should continue the narrative that began with producer Jordan Peele’s film Get Out last year, even if it does so in not nearly as clever a way.

Rating: 7.5/10

DOG DAYS (LD Entertainment)

The odd dog out this weekend is this independent family film being distributed by LD Entertainment, Mickey Liddell’s production company that has turned into a full-blown film studio and distributor in recent years, though it hasn’t exactly made many waves in that realm. Its last theatrical release was April’s The Miracle Season with Helen Hunt, which only grossed $10.2 million domestic after an opening below $4 million, but maybe that’s good for a low-budget inspirational sports drama. LD has produced other movies that have fared better when released by other studios like Bleecker Street (Megan Leavey), Roadside Attractions (Forever My Girl) and others.

This anthology film about people’s relationship with their dogs is hoping to bring in families with younger kids that like dogs but also women, and a definite plus is that it’s directed by Ken Marino, former member of The State and David Wain collaborator whose last movie How to be a Latin Lover, a Pantelion release starring Eugenio Derbez, grossed $32.7 million last year. The ensemble cast includes Nina Dobrev and Vanessa Hudgens, who have built a fanbase from their television roles on The Vampire Diaries and High School Musical respectively, as well as Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things. They’re joined by Eva Longoria, Rob Corddry and Thomas Lennon, which is a decent cast but not one that offers much of a draw over the cute dogs.

Last year’s Megan Leavey might be the best comparison for Dog Days, as that also involved a dog (and no, I’m not talking about Kate Mara…rimshot) and that opened with around $3.8 million in just under 2000 theaters.

I wasn’t invited to see an advanced screening of this before writing this column, so I’ll just have to assume that reviews will be pretty good – NOPE!-- though it’s hard to think there’s much awareness for this movie. (In fact, I didn’t even realize the movie opened on Wednesday since that seemed like a last-minute decision. Expect an opening in the $4 to 5 million range at best, which should be enough to break into the bottom of the top 10, but it could end up being shut out and forgotten with stronger family releases already in theaters including last week’s Christopher Robin.

This week’s top 10 should look something like this…

1. The Meg (Warner Bros.) - $22.5 million N/A 2. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Paramount) - $20 million -43% 3. Christopher Robin (Disney) - $15.5 million -38% 4. Slender Man (Screen Gems) - $13.5 million N/A 5. BlacKkKlansman (Focus Features) - $10 million N/A 6. The Spy Who Dumped Me (Lionsgate) - $6.3 million -48% 7. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (Sony Pictures Animation) - $5.6 million -30% 8. Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again (Universal) - $5 million -45% 9. Dog Days (LD Entertainment) - $4.8 million N/A 10. The Equalizer 2 (Sony) - $4.5 million -48%

LIMITED RELEASES

This weekend has a ridiculous amount of specialty releases, but the summer of high-profile Sundance premieres continues with the New York release of Josephine Decker’s amazing indie film Madeline’s Madeline (Oscilloscope), introducing break-out star Helena Howard as the title character, who got the leading role in a theater piece being staged by a director (Molly Parker) who seems to want to revolve the piece around Madeline’s life including her dysfunctional relationship with her mother (Miranda July). This is a fascinating film that definitely veers into the art film world of July’s own films like You and Me and Everyone We Know, but it has a quirky charm that keeps you invested throughout.

Opening in select theaters after a month-long run on DirecTV is Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s A Prayer Before Dawn (A24) starring Peaky Blinders’ Joe Cole as an American kickboxer who ends up in a Thai prison after being busted for drugs. Once there, he needs to take on the savage environment while dealing with his own drug addiction, eventually getting back into kickboxing as a way to clean himself up and change his situation. I ended up enjoying this movie more than I thought I would

Another Sundance premiere that got a lot of buzz was Skate Kitchen (Magnolia), the new film from The Wolfpack director Crystal Moselle, this one a narrative film featuring the young women of Skate Kitchen, a Lower East Side skater crew who are joined by Camille (Rachelle Vinberg), a girl from Long Island whose mother (Elizabeth Rodriguez) doesn’t approve of her pastime. Also starring Jaden Smith, Moselle’s film is an interesting mix of established actors and non-actors, although I wasn’t really into the seemingly non-scripted format, very similar to another Sundance movie coming out next week. I guess I wish there was more of a narrative rather than the young women talking about personal issues, but maybe that’s just me. It opens at the IFC Center in New York Friday (with Moselle and the Skate Kitchen in person) then expands to other cities next week.

Fresh off its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival’s Midnight section is RKSS’s Summer of 84 (Gunpowder and Sky) involving a group of 15-year-olds who think that a police officer in their neighborhood might actually be a serial killer, so they start their own investigation.

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Fresh from its debut at the New York Asian Film Festival and the Phillippines is Erik Matti’s BuyBust (Well GO USA), a police thriller starring Anne Curtis as anti-narcotics special operative Nina Manigan, who is trying to take down the drug cartels of Manila, while also facing dirty cops and bloodthirsty citizens. It opens in select cities this weekend.

Well GO is also opening Huang Bo’s Chinese dramedy The Island about a meteorite bound for earth that doesn’t have much effect on the life of Ma Jin (played by Huang himself) who daydreams of winning the lottery and having a romance with his colleague Shanshan (Qi Shu), but when the event happens, he ends up shipwrecked on an island with some of the coworkers and the winning lottery ticket.

(Continuing where I left off….)

Mia Rose Frampton stars in Jack C. Newell’s teen drama Hope Springs Eternal (Samuel Goldwyn) as Hope, a girl dying of cancer whose condition has increased her popularity, but when she discovers she’s cured, how will all her new friends react? I haven’t seen the movie, but boy, am I able to relate to this as a cancer survivor myself. This will be on VOD and in select theaters.

Gravitas Ventures offers two new genre films this weekend, the apocalyptic thriller What Still Remains (with Strike the Sun Entertainment) from first-time director Josh Mendoza, which will hit VOD on August 14, and Along Came the Devil (Gravitas Ventures), a supernatural thriller directed by Jason DeVan (Mindless) and starring Jessica Barth from Happy Death Day and more. The latter about a teen girl who tries to contact the spirit world will be available On Demand at the same time as its theatrical release.

You can check out the trailers for each below:

youtube

Also opening at the IFC Center is Elizabeth Harvest (IFC Films), the new film from Sebastian Gutierez (aka Carla Gugino’s partner), this one starring Australian supermodel Abbey Lee as the title character who arrives at the estate of her scientist husband Henry (Ciaran Hinds), but is treated poorly by the staff (Gugino and Matthew Beard) and told that’s she’s forbidden from a locked room, which of course, she investigates as soon as Henry goes away.

I haven’t seen it, but I imagine the best thing going for Nick Fituri Scown’s directorial debut Pretty Bad Actress (MVD Entertainment Group) is that it stars the comedic great Jillian Bell (22 Jump Street, Rough Night), but it’s loosely based on the story of Theresa Saldana who was almost killed by a stalker but who starred in the TV-movie about her own ordeal. This one stars Heather McComb as former child star Gloria Green who has a similar experience. It will open at L.A.’s Arena Cinemalounge and be on Digital Friday.

From Bollywood comes Vishwaroop 2(Reliance Entertainment), directed and starring Kamal Haasan, and also out in New York at the Village East is the Icelandic film The Swan (Synergetic) from Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir, which will open in L.A. at the Laemmle Royal on August 17. The latter is a drama based on Guðbergur Bergsson’s coming-of-age novel about a 9-year-old girl who goes to visit her relatives in the country where she befriends a farmhand.

Let’s get to some repertory programming in NYC, which is specifically for those who live in New York… or don’t mind travelling.

We’ll start off with the Metrograph who are presenting the first North American retrospective for Anime filmmaker Makoto Shinkai, whose film Your Name. was a blockbuster hit in Japan and breakout hit over here – it even made my Top 3 last year, so I know I’ll try to catch some of his other films. The Metrograph also offers a Rialto Pictures’ restoration of former army cameraman Pierre Schoendoerffer’s 1965 war film The 317thPlatoon, starring Jacques Perrin and others, the story of the occupying French army caught in the difficult politics of the Indochina War. The IFC Center will debut a new 25thanniversary restoration of Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, starring Daniel Day Lewis, while the Quadpresents a 40thAnniversary restoration of Diane Kurys’ French coming-of-age film Peppermint Soda.

Lastly, Netflix presents the original comedy film The Package about a group of teens who need to put a friend back together after an unfortunate spring break accident… you can probably guess from the title or the image on the Netflix site what body part the friend loses.

#Movies Reviews TheMeg SlenderMan Blackkklansman DogDays BoxOffice TheWeekendWarrior WhatToWatchThisWeekend

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justincharlacher · 7 years

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My Favorite Stuff of 2016

I was asked today if I had any favorite records of 2016, and after some consideration, the answer is no. I just didn’t listen to much music this year, and I’m actually relying on the year end lists of others to rectify that. I did watch a bunch of stuff and listen to a bunch of podcasts this year, so here is a list of stuff that moved me in those media, as well as two live music events that rocked me to bits in 2016.

Live music

The Local H reunion with original drummer Joe Daniels for a tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of their second record, As Good As Dead, kicked off in Chicago at the Metro on the anniversary weekend, April 15 and 16. I was there, and it was huge for me. Folks who know me know that Local H has been the band I’ve most consistently followed ever since seeing them touring for AGAD opening for Stone Temple Pilots in Philadelphia in November of 1996. So to be in their hometown for two sold out shows with Joe behind the kit for a set comprised of the entire AGAD record was amazing. It was made only better by the fact that current drummer Ryan Harding and singer/guitar/bass lunatic Scott Lucas kicked off the proceedings with a blistering set, and Lucas was then flanked by both drummers beating the ever-loving fuck out of a pair of quivering drum kits for a finale heavy on tunes from my favorite H record, 1998′s Pack Up the Cats. I would catch up with the tour a few weeks later in DC and Philly, a night that ended with a cheesesteak outing with the band and began with the fellas even tighter and more comfortable playing together. These dates were the highlights of my crappy 2016.

Nearly as awesome was seeing New Oreans sludge weirdos eyehategod in a tiny club in New York City in the fall. I’ve certainly seen EHG in tiny clubs before, but on this tour Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe was filling in for the ailing Mike Williams, and he was insane. I haven’t been into LoG for many years, and they long ago grew out of playing clubs, but this was a reminder of why I loved them so much. Blythe was a force of nature, a wild animal unleashed on a stage to a small room 2/3 full. Dude is the truth. Williams had a successful liver transplant at the end of the year, so hopefully he’ll back out croaking his unearthly vocals for the band soon enough, but catching the Blythe version was a real treat.

Podcasts

Extra Hot Great remains my favorite podcast. The crew who brought you Television Without Pity and Fametracker brave tech issues and thousands of miles of distance to bring discussion of television and ridiculous games. David T. Cole, Sarah D. Bunting, and Tara Ariano are the best thing I pipe into my earholes every week.

Slate’s Panoply network has expanded to include a wealth of great content, but I still gravitate to the OG lineup of The Culture Gabfest, Hang Up and Listen, and The Political Gabfest, which I turn on as soon as I wake up on Friday mornings. Each of these has three hosts with unique points of view and awesome chemistry, though they aren’t afraid to disagree.

The Read is Kid Fury and Crissle. Angry. Black. Queer. Put on your helmet!

The Film Pigs have the only podcast about movies on the internet, and certainly the only one that Chuck D. composed theme music for. Just ask them.

The Cracked Podcast often retreads ground covered in the articles on the site, but it’s worth it to hear Jason Pargin aka David Wong talk about anything. Dude is smart, thoughtful, and the kind of voice that needs exposure behind a humor site.

We Hate Movies. Start with the Boondock Saints II episode. You’ll thank me.

Television

Fleabag (Amazon Prime): This show you guys! Six episodes. Three hours. I dare you not to do it in one go. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a revelation as the eponymous hero with a foul mouth and the need to nervously chat with the audience throughout her adventures. To say too much would be doing disservice to the fantastic narrative that Waller-Bridge, who also created and wrote the show, has constructed. Just brace yourself for a wallop of an ending--and the urge to start over again as soon as you’ve finished. This was my favorite tv thing in 2016.

Catastrophe (Amazon Prime): Season two. Rob and Sharon are parents. What could go wrong?

Banshee (Cinemax): This show aired its fourth and final season in 2016, though I only caught up with the first three seasons earlier in the year. It’s the show for folks (like me) who love the kind of R-rated, big dumb action pictures that Hollywood doesn’t make anymore. An unnamed thief gets out of prison after 15 years and hauls ass to small town Pennsylvania to meet up with the woman he left behind. By chance, he witnesses the death of the town’s new sheriff, and using quick thinking and a hacker best friend dressed in drag, assumes the sheriff’s identity. As sheriff Nate Hood, our hero fights crime and corruption, and an apostate Amish kingpin. The action is filmed spectacularly, the violence would make Kurt Sutter blush, and it’s Cinemax, so you know the sex is sultry and plentiful. This show is an underrated gem.

Rectify (Sundance Network): Like Banshee, this one wrapped a four season run in 2016, and I had only just caught up with it. The tale of Daniel Holden, a man sentenced to death at 18 and released nearly twenty years later on a technicality (the show is cagey about his guilt), this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen on television, full stop. With standout supporting performances from Abigail Spencer and Clayne Crawford so powerful that I followed the actors to lesser network dramas, this show creates a portrait of people just trying to work through an emotional bomb that as been dropped as the shattered son, brother, friend, and step-brother they thought they’d never see again walks among them. Powerful stuff from Ray McKinnon, who I still think of as Reverend Smith on Deadwood.

Better Call Saul (AMC): Season two finds Jimmy with the opportunity to settle in as a legit lawyer and partner to Kim. Watching him willfully blow it is agony.

Search Party (TBS): So yeah...TBS is making quality dramedies now. Alia Shawkat leads a group of painfully self-involved friends as they search for a missing girl who they sort of maybe knew in college. Being lost in life is the real thematic game here, and the show finds a fresh way to engage this age-old trope.

Bojack Horseman (Netflix): I’m not sure that there has been a show as depressing as this one. Bojack Horseman wraps the self destructive tendencies of Walter White, Don Draper, and James McGill together and multiplies them. It’s made worse because he also really feels things, kind of. The third season dropped on Netflix in 2016, but you have to start from the beginning and give the show some time to hook you. It’s well worth it.

The People V. O.J. Simpson (FX): Never in a million years did I think I would even like this, but boy howdy... I loved it. Sarah Paulson is jaw-dropping in bringing Marcia Clark to life and her chemistry with Sterling K. Brown’s Christopher Darden is scorching. Whether or not Darden and Clark hooked up in real life, I can’t imagine many folks who didn’t want these two characters to just get busy already. Courtney B. Vance crushed the role of Johnnie Cochran. And what in God’s name was Travolta doing?! I hate Ryan Murphy products. I loved this show!

Finally, I’m going to toss out a group of good but not great shows that also watched intently in 2016. The Girlfriend Experience on STARZ expands on Soderbergh’s film with a real actress this time (though I think Sasha Grey did what was asked of her in the film). Quarry on Cinemax tells the story of a man who returns to Memphis after two tours in Vietnam and finds himself drawn into a mysterious underworld as an assassin. Lethal Weapon on FOX is far better than it has any right to be, and casts Rectify’s brilliant Clayne Crawford as Riggs to Damon Wayans’s Murtaugh. And Timeless on NBC tells the story of a hijacked time machine and the ragtag crew sent to chase it through American history. Abigail Spencer shows up in this one, so score another extension of Rectify. None of these shows is going to compete with greats like Rectify or Breaking Bad or The Wire, but even in a crowded tv market, I think they are worth a look. They are solid.

Movies

This is a short one as I saw very few new movies in 2016.

Green Room: Jeremy Saulnier brings the hurt with this tale of a hardcore band touring the Pacific northwest who get caught up with group of violent skinheads after a gig. Practical gore. Psychological horror. Patrick Stewart bringing soft-spoken menace as the cool leader of the neo-Nazi group. Also, one of Anton Yelchin’s final performances before his tragic death. This one had me watching through my fingers in the theater.

Brand: A Second Coming: This documentary chronicling the ups and downs of Russell Brand was probably the most thought-provoking film I saw all year. Directed by Ondi Timoner, who has made a career of examining male hubris, this film depicts a man who seems to truly mean well but simply cannot get out of his own way. I found it to be a very powerful character study.

The Nice Guys: I’m in the bag for Shane Black. He still makes the big dumb action pictures. I even liked Russell Crowe in this one.

The Conjuring 2: Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are terrific. These films are legit scary. James Wan expertly uses his camera for maximum tension.

Blue Jay: Sarah Paulson again. I love her. And I’ve also become very fond of Mark Duplass the actor. I’ve mentioned this film before. A lovely two-hander about what could have (and maybe should have) been.

So that’s it. On to 2017! Thanks for reading.

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