Charles Bramesco
Yet Another Adam Sandler Movie Coming to Netflix, Except This One Will Be Good
Netflix, for all their diverting original series and Bong Joon-ho subsidization, has also been responsible for the introduction of a great evil into the world. I am referring, of course, to their seemingly infinite-picture development deal with chronic Phoner-of-It-In Adam Sandler. Netflix signed Sandler to a four-movie deal back in 2014, which has been going decidedly less-than-great so far — his Western spoof The Ridiculous Six was a big pile of donkey turds, and the trailer for his upcoming Sandy Wexler has not inspired much more confidence. When the news hit a few weeks ago that Netflix would re-up their deal with Sandler for four more movies, our coverage of the notice contained the words “oh no.”
We’re Watching You Watching the Trailer for WikiLeaks Documentary ‘Risk’
In appearances at film festivals or the occasional blockbuster exhibit at the Whitney Museum, documentarian Laura Poitras gives the impression of a pretty collected, cool-headed woman. Which comes as a surprise, seeing as few people on Earth would have more justification for turning into a raving paranoid lunatic. Poitras wowed the world in 2014 with her Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour, wherein she risked life and limb to gain access to the classified intelligence whistleblower and ran afoul of the United States’ far-reaching surveillance programs in the process. A few years later, and she’s prepared to unveil her latest stunning exposé on the shady business of federal watching, the lightning rod Risk. If you weren‘t feeling uneasy about the virtual eyeballs monitoring your every move, now would be a fine time to get started.
Brett Ratner Developing Hugh Hefner Biopic (But Only for the Articles)
What is Brett Ratner if not the Hugh Hefner of major Hollywood film producer-directors? While I may not actually know what that comparison’s supposed to mean, I’ve made it anyway, and now here we are discussing the gestating biopic of the Playboy founder and world-renowned boob connoisseur...
Tupac Shakur Takes on the World in New ‘All Eyez on Me’ Trailer
Tupac Shakur was a complicated man: he had the world at his feet while carrying its weight on his shoulders, he was a thug menace to some and an inspirational poet to others, a commercial titan who chafed at the notion of bringing money into a white-owned record label system. The legendary rapper’s life was marked by inner conflict until it was tragically cut short in a 1996 drive-by shooting, leaving him dead on the pavement at 25 years old. Though the gifted M.C. was taken from us far too soon (god, imagine what Tupac’s midlife-crisis album would’ve sounded like) he left behind a stirring life story just begging for a biopic.
Chris Evans Suggests Robert Downey Jr. May ‘Walk Away’ From Marvel Before Him
No bubble can last forever — it must eventually pop, as is the nature of bubbles. Marvel has built a vast media empire on the strength of such stars as Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, and Chris Hemsworth, but no actor would be content with playing and re-playing the same role forever. All good (and obscenely lucrative) things must come to an end, and Evans has begun the long and painful process of consciously uncoupling from Captain America’s star-spangled shield and cowl. But a new quote from the actor suggests that he may not be the first big name to make a departure from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Paramount Blames ‘Ghost in the Shell’ Box Office Flop on Whitewashing Controversy
Kyle Davies, the President of Domestic Distribution for Paramount Pictures, is not having a great week. The early eruption of a backlash to his studio’s newest release (the generously-budgeted Ghost in the Shell remake) and its whitewashed casting was cause for concern. But up until recently, he could assuage his shareholders’ worries by clinging to the notion that hackle-raising on the Internet would not have any tangible effects on the box-office receipts. That changed after this past weekend, when the Scarlett Johansson vehicle mustered a piteous $19 million in wide release. Left to answer for the film’s commercial failure, Davies has placed the blame on the controversy over tapping confirmed white woman Johansson to portray an Asian role, to which the whole of the Internet will now respond with a hearty “DA-DOY.”
Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell All Want In on Adam McKay’s Dick Cheney Biopic
Adam McKay’s establishing a reputation as Hollywood’s foremost chronicler of the biggest hot-button issues... of ten years ago. He made blackly satirical mince meat of the subprime lending crisis with The Big Short, stepping back into our recent past to expose the avarice still at play in the world of macroeconomics today. And for his next project, he’s going to take aim at a West Wing political player loathed and feared by liberals as a power-mad despot intent on destroying America. No, not him, we’re referring to a different wannabe fascist with the public graces of Darth Vader. To be specific, Dick Cheney.
Netflix’s New Rating System Is the Closest We’ll Get to Hooking Up With Movies
Sex with movies — until now, it’s been an impossible dream. But Netflix is a company of innovation, and they’re not going to stop at reshaping the home-entertainment industry top to bottom. Much ruckus was raised recently when Netflix announced that they would do away with their widely reviled star ratings and switch to a thumbs-up/thumbs-down system for recommendations, but a new video from the streaming giant released today clarifies the nature of this new recommendations engine. At long last, we can decide which movies we want to do it with, as if the film industry was one big textual Tinder. And that’s not my comparison, either — Netflix wants you to think of this like a dating app!
Only Three People in Britain Went to See Shia LaBeouf’s New Movie
While he‘s made more headlines recently as an avant-garde political performance artist — and even more headlines as a guy who gets arrested at political performance art installations — it falls to Shia LaBeouf to intermittently remind the people of America that he is an actor, first and foremost. He’ll win our love (tennis pun!) later this year as John McEnroe in the double biopic Borg vs. McEnroe, but presently, his war drama Man Down has tromped into theaters after its 2015 festival debut. The bad news for The Beef is that not a whole lot of people saw the critically derided, low-profile indie. And in Britain, they’re prepared to put a number on just how hard Man Down flopped. And that number is three.
John Travolta to Star as Murdered Speedboat Pioneer in ‘Speed Kills’
Born in 1927, Donald Aronow made a name for himself as the pioneer behind the modern-day speedboat. He devised several models of seafaring vessel that matured into industry standards, and personally built boats for such luminaries as George H.W. Bush, the Shah of Iran, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Aronow’s signature creation, the so-called ‘cigarette boat’ (you know, the long and slim ones they use in Miami Vice) became a favorite of cocaine merchants due to its great speed and nimble maneuverability. This would bring Aronow some measure of fame and wealth beyond his wildest dreams, but on the downside, it also resulted in his unceremonious murder in 1987 near his boat-retail facility in Miami. The man lived an eventful life, and now his memory will receive the ultimate commemoration: a biopic-thriller in which John Travolta will most likely wear a goofy hairpiece.