I’m making this to be a catch-all thread to discuss unreleased or new movies that are not deserving of their own threads, so that they do not get swallowed in the Mini Movie Review thread, which is mostly about older movies. This would also be a place to talk about trailers and upcoming films we are excited about or dreading that are not part of a big franchise.
I’m not posting trailers directly in the thread because too many YouTube videos make threads glitchy and crashy.
Anyway,
Sting
There’s a trailer for this new horror movie about a giant, man-eating spider. It looks a bit predictable, but maybe effective for arachnophobes.
Fly Me To The Moon
Scarlet Johansson stars in another ill-conceived movie, this time a wacky comedy about how NASA faked the moon landing.
Challengers
Zendaya teaches two boys about tennis, love. This looks really painful.
Maxxxine
The sequel to X and Pearl. It’s going for an 80’s crime/noir neon horror vibe, and I think it nails it. Looking forward to this one.
Speak No Evil
A horror remake starring James McAvoy as a creepy guy, this time with a gross serial killer beard. Might be a solid film?
Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead
Apparently an almost scene-for-scene remake of the original, but starring black actors instead of white. The YouTube comments section for this one is more disturbing than James McAvoy with a beard.
The Teeth of the Hydra Are Upon You
The trailer is just an attempt at viral marketing. Looks like it’s working.
Cuckoo
An artsy jump-scare horror movie? Maybe it will have an Identity-level twist.
Bad Boys 4
Martin Lawrence looks to be carrying Will Smith for a change. Looks like they’re making a move to be the new Fast franchise.
The trailer for Fly Me To The Moon looked pretty good, not my cup of tea from the looks of it, but looked like a decent flick.
Abigail - April 19 release date
The horror film focuses on a group of kidnappers who capture and must watch over Abigail, the daughter of a powerful underworld figure from whom they demand a $50 million ransom. However, they soon get more than what they bargain for when they realize that they are trapped inside with no ordinary little girl.
Easy E wrote: Fly Me to the Moon also has Channing Tatum!?!
This might work if it was directed by the Cohen Brothers, but I don't think it is. Anyone else? It is a big lift to pull off.
Edit: Great idea for a thread.
Thanks.
And yeah, if you told me a month ago that a Scarlet Johansson Channing Tatum rom com would be more politically worrying than the movie about a 2nd American Civil War in an election year, I would not have believed.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nels1031 wrote: The trailer for Fly Me To The Moon looked pretty good, not my cup of tea from the looks of it, but looked like a decent flick.
Abigail - April 19 release date
The horror film focuses on a group of kidnappers who capture and must watch over Abigail, the daughter of a powerful underworld figure from whom they demand a $50 million ransom. However, they soon get more than what they bargain for when they realize that they are trapped inside with no ordinary little girl.
Abigail looks pretty cool. Feels like they took Popsy and unlocked its full potential.
Zendaya teaches two boys about tennis, love. This looks really painful.
Saw the trailer at Dune 2 and swear I could hear my wife's eyes rolling into the back of her head as well as a couple groans from the audience. To make matters worse the theater nearby is putting it into multiple screens including the big boys as if it were a big budget popcorn film that is gonna draw in the bigliest crowds.
Upcoming limited release will have Alien(1979) showing in theaters April 26th, one night only I believe.
Another biopic of a famous, dead musician. The actress looks and sounds a lot like Winehouse from what I recall. Still, the trailer looks completely formulaic.
Amy Winehouse needs to think about her whole life before she *chugga-chugga-snoooorrrt*!
Looks like a tearjerker coming of age movie from A24. The trailer is (accidentally) a perfect parody of a snooty, up-its-own-butt Oscar-bait art flick. I could not stop laughing:
Currently slated for 16th August. Set between Alien and Aliens.
Teaser trailer shows some promise, and I’m optimistic. Whilst of course just a trailer, they seem to have the aesthetic spot on. Dingey, not dark (AvP Requiem got that completely wrong), utilitarian and lived in. Plus there’s what I presume to be an earlier model of Pulse Rifle, perhaps a Civilian Issue one.
I’m not as enthusiastic about the film, but I agree they’ve captured the look and the design language. It shows the people making it care.
Sasquatch Sunset
This trailer shows a bunch of Sasquatch doing everyday Sasquatch things. According to the comments, a bunch of people walked disgusted out of a showing at some film festival when the Sasquatches performed all their bodily functions on the big screen.
This looks like a live action Looney Tunes cartoon, if it were made in the 30’s. I’ve never seen so many nut-shots in a trailer with so many art house seals of approval.
Looks really fun and more in keeping with the original cartoon's target demographic.
Too many old men who stayed attached to their childhoods a little too hard are complaining that it doesn't follow the thing they liked exactly, but that seems to be the norm these days. people unable to let go of something getting angry at others for daring liking it in a different way.
Transformers always strikes me as a franchise that was made for younger kids but which got adopted by a lot of teens to young adults (now old adults).
I don't think it helps that you've things like the original film which is clearly more teenage targeted but the actual G1 animated series are clearly aimed at a much younger audience.
Overread wrote: Transformers always strikes me as a franchise that was made for younger kids but which got adopted by a lot of teens to young adults (now old adults).
I don't think it helps that you've things like the original film which is clearly more teenage targeted but the actual G1 animated series are clearly aimed at a much younger audience.
I grew up on it, but have never clung to it has hard as some of these people. I mean, it started with two different continuities anyway - the g1 comic storyline and the g1 cartoon storyline. So right off the bat there is no 'one true lore'. And the gloriousness of that original film's cynical darkness has kept me entertained for years. In keeping with that corporate cynicism, the film was pushed to a PG rating in order to get it shown more (g movies apparently got less screenings back then), so the psychedelic happy accident of a film ended up with things that hit harder for the wrong reasons and it's why I think it kept TFs in the zeitgeist longer than other 80s toy properties.
I am actually looking forward to this film more than any of the others except Bumblebee. Michael Bay's lens did disagreeable things to these inherently crazy characters that just turned me off.
Trap A new film from M. Night Shyamalan. Trailer says "In the world of M. Night Shyamalan" which I'm not sure if means it has some connection to another film, like the Unbreakable films, or is just trying to make it sound like it might be, but totally isn't.
Josh Hartnet is playing a dad who takes his daughter to a big pop star's concert (Lady Raven, played by Shymalan's daughter) and while there discovers the concert has been closed off and encircled by the police keeping anyone from leaving. It turns out a serial killer is hiding at the concert and the police are there to find him, and of course our main character is the serial killer. That isn't a spoiler, btw, it is shown in the trailer and is just the set up for the rest of the film. Considering the director I'm sure there will be some sort of unexpected turn in the narrative.
Between getting one daughter a bump in this film and the other (Ishana) getting a major studio release as a directorial debut this year for The Watchers it is looking like a good year to be a Shyamalan daughter.
At this point the movie I'm most excited for this year is Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. All of the first three in the new movie series have been pretty good so far, and from the trailers this one looks like no exception
Did they ever do a version where the apes progress to space travel and they go to a future world dominated by humans? Just wondering what kind of gloriously convoluted title they could use for that
Edit - I see the original series kind of did that, with more mundane titles. Oh well
Flinty wrote: Did they ever do a version where the apes progress to space travel and they go to a future world dominated by humans? Just wondering what kind of gloriously convoluted title they could use for that
Edit - I see the original series kind of did that, with more mundane titles. Oh well
Summary : the film follows a group of american veteran journalists working for Reuters (war reporters + 1 young civilian that wants to become a war reporter) while they travel to Washington D.C., in the hope of getting, what appears to be, the last interview of the US President before the US governement falls (it's not a spoiler, you learn that in the first 10 minutes of the film) after Texas, California and Florida (at least) chose to secede from the union (California and Texas formed an alliance while Florida chose to remain independent while being aligned with California and Texas) and have fought an unforgiving civil war for an undisclosed amount of time. And the rebels are clearly winning.
I liked it a lot. However, it's not an enjoyable watch. Alex Garland chose an ultra-realistic approach in describing what could a civil war (and a war, period) in the modern US look like. From the empty streets, the destroyed buildings, widespread suspicion and fear, petty revenge among the civilians, confusion (are those soldiers really soldiers ? are they deserters ? are they looters that found uniforms ? if they are soldiers, which faction ? do they follow orders ? are they part of a faction within a faction ?) and the lack of justice, the scenes are not unlike what can be seen in Ukraine, Syria, former Yougoslavia or what always happened during war and especially civil war (spent too much time for my own good and mental health on r/combatfootage when the Ukraine war started ...).
Politics is almost never mentioned (you can vaguely guess who's who but the film will never give you more details and you won't get a crystal clear answer, mind you I am not from the US) because it isn't what the film is aiming for. To me, this film is almost a statement ; this is what modern warfare on your soil looks like, this is what a modern civil war on your soil looks like. Don't be like that.
It is well paced, well shot, well played, sometimes hard to watch (but the older I get, the less I am confortable with very realistic approach to violence so that might be just on me) and very engaging.
It sounds like an intense film. I was planning to see it by myself since my family isn’t interested, but had a change of heart when
1. I saw an interview with Alex Garland that rubbed me the wrong way and reminded me why I didn’t like Ex Machina.
2. I decided I would prefer to see something a little less grin on a day whenI would have to have dinner with my extended family.
3. In a theater I can’t turn it off and take a break if it gets too stressful.
Hopefully it will hit streaming soon.
Automatically Appended Next Post: How should we handle reviews in this thread? I would like to put some kind of a small review in here to let people know the movie is out and good/bad/whatever, but I feel like the Mini Movie Review thread is the best place for fuller reviews, since then everything would be consolidated in the more timeless thread. However, that would mean a bit of a double post here and there. What do you think? Is that a problem? Should we only cross post when we have something additional to add, such as a reply to another post or a second movie review?
Jodie Comer has been cast in this sequel to Days and Weeks. Aaron-Taylor Johnson and Ralph Fiennes too.
I’m excited.
I’m very curious as to what it’s actually going to be about; the Rage virus burns itself out so quickly it shouldn’t be like a normal zombie film, as you won’t have undead hordes wandering around.
Well, last we saw, Paris and presumably by extension everywhere but The Americas, Australia and such non-land-bridged areas were infected.
And if one can be a carrier, any forays into those areas would have to be super careful, as any inhabitants you find have to be assumed to be carrying the infection.
Hmm. Seems Paramount are rebooting The Naked Gun. With Liam Neeson as Lt Frank Drebin.
Now I’m not going to pretend the original three are sacrosanct and perfect examples and that, but they are classics, and very very funny. And most of that came from a dream team of writers and actors, all of whom seemed to be on the same wavelength, able to make comedic performances appear deadpan.
The good news for my brain thinks is I can see Liam Neeson in the role. And I accept it may be a different style of comedy. But I’m seriously concerned that it’s doomed to suck.
Jodie Comer has been cast in this sequel to Days and Weeks. Aaron-Taylor Johnson and Ralph Fiennes too.
I’m excited.
Sort of wary to the sequel, especially with it being such a long time since the last two movies were released. 28 Days Later was lightning in a bottle in terms of it being a surprise hit that helped change the zombie genre and it was good in the sense that it wasn't too large scale and more character focused. 28 Weeks Later was a signficantly weaker sequel where it relied on a lot of plot contrived idiot balls being passed along the characters to justify bringing the Rage Virus back into the UK. If they do explore 28 years later, (which frankly it should have been 28 months later if they're following the time frame for naming conventions), I feel like it should go back to its roots of it being a more localized outbreak (maybe the Rage Virus mutates and it becomes a recurring issue somehow rather than burning out like it did in previous movies) but we'll see where it goes.
It’s definitely a tricky character. Whilst often seen as deadpan, there’s more to it than that. To play a ridiculous man completely straight, without nod and wink to camera, mugging etc isn’t easy.
It’s the very slight exaggeration. To have the chaos and nonsense going on around you, and be able to treat it as normal. To be earnestly silly
Now I’m not saying Liam Neeson can’t do that. Just that it’s not an easy thing to portray. And frankly, for them to abandon that character trait is unconscionable.
My issue will likely be that the studio might well create a cop comedy but it won't have the same feel, style or such as the original. Or it will have some elements but not enough to feel like a continuation.
Ergo we again get an adaptation that shares the name and the "official story continuation" but is in reality just something else entirely
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Hmm. Seems Paramount are rebooting The Naked Gun. With Liam Neeson as Lt Frank Drebin.
Now I’m not going to pretend the original three are sacrosanct and perfect examples and that, but they are classics, and very very funny. And most of that came from a dream team of writers and actors, all of whom seemed to be on the same wavelength, able to make comedic performances appear deadpan.
The good news for my brain thinks is I can see Liam Neeson in the role. And I accept it may be a different style of comedy. But I’m seriously concerned that it’s doomed to suck.
Also of note, Paul Walter Hauser will be playing Frank Drebin's partner, Ed.(despite Ed being his captain in the original films ).
30 years after the release of “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” the cult classic from director Stephan Elliott is getting a sequel. Original trio of stars Terence Stamp, Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving will return to their roles for the new film.
Overread wrote: My issue will likely be that the studio might well create a cop comedy but it won't have the same feel, style or such as the original. Or it will have some elements but not enough to feel like a continuation.
Ergo we again get an adaptation that shares the name and the "official story continuation" but is in reality just something else entirely
I agree, there’s a real question of what style do you go for? The Naked Gun was mainly spoofing on 50’s and 60’s US cop shows, which everyone was familiar with at the time, but don’t really exist now (and haven’t for decades). So if you do it in the original style, it will probably fall flat, because no-one (including probably the writers) will really get what it’s spoofing. Or do you update it to spoof more modern crime procedural type shows? But that’s a completely different feel, at which point it’s not really a reboot or remake, but just a different film that you’ve slapped some familiar names on.
The other thing is the time-span. If they'd kept making Naked Gun movies every few years spoofing on the current state of cop shows then it would be a series and the changes would be broadly accepted as it would have shifted and evolved over time much like Bond has.
But what you instead get is a huge time gap and that can be insanely tricky to bridge.
The worst thing is if they try to do both - make a faithful to the old, but modern re-interpretation that's somewhat totally different. Because what you then get is a film that feels like it wants to be Z, but can't fully embrace it because its got to keep a bunch of not really fitting well elements, tropes and themes from Y. The result is something that doesn't please audiences of Y or Z and the film gets stuck between the two with no clear identity. And yet sadly producers seem to be happier to invest into that concept over and over again with current Hollywood. They don't want to break new ground with Z because "its a risk" and "there's no established audience" and such.
Honestly one big difference is old cop shows were all about the cop (and in US ones about the two cop buddy system); whilst modern ones are often a LOT more about the forensics whilst the cop kind of floats around waiting for the lab results to tell them who did it.
The Crow (1994) is going to be re-released for the 35th Anniversary of the film on May 29th. Will include a new additional conversation with the Alex McDowell (Production Designer) on how they designed the look of the film of the film.
Coppola just posted a clip of this on YouTube and a lot of film nerds seem very excited about it. Apparently it was a passion project he shared with his recently late wife that they had been working on together for decades.
Kind of looks like a generic Sci Fi thriller from the clip.
I'm a film nerd and I'm not excited by it. He's been working on it for twenty plus years but I haven't seen anything from him that was all that interesting in decades either. Having some great movies 40+ years ago isn't enough to make me assume this will be some masterpiece that I need to preorder tickets for. The last movie he directed that was decent was The Rainmaker in 1997.
Two awkward high schoolers bond over their love of a weird TV show. When the show is suddenly cancelled, the girl vanishes and the boy must track her down. Or come to terms with life without her and his coping show. Or something. It looks weird.
Reviews are positive so far, calling it beautiful and emotionally wrenching. It’s been described as “Lynch for teenagers”.
Honestly, I’m not sure I want to put myself through it, even though the trailer really grabbed my attention.
I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this. Almost 30 years after the original (which makes me feel kind of old lol), and I'm not sure what connections there are with the characters and events of the original given that I haven't looked too hard into it. But then again, it's a movie with giant tornadoes on the big screen, so I'll probably go see it anyway.
Did anyone go see the original Twister for the characters and storyline?
I keep seeing an ad for some HULU show called Davey and Jonesy's Locker. It looks like it is aimed at pre-teens and the production values look relatively low. However, it may have some high-energy, multiverse shenanigans.
I don’t remember Twister much because I didn’t find the movie particularly compelling, but wasn’t the main conflict between the actual scientists and the did-their-own-research our heroes? I don’t think that dynamic will play the same these days.
If I recall it was more just different research teams; one was the plucky self-funded small time one and the other was the "I left to go get a big science grant from big institution and have all the money"
It was a strange film because a lot of the epic moments were more about just dealing with life as a tornado chaser and encounters with the tornado rather than really intense drama or such between characters. There was some, but not a "omg world shattering" amount.
That said in its day it was a big film partly because of the CGI and the effects and so forth of creating the Twister itself.
Warner Bros. will release the first of its new batch of live-action “The Lord of the Rings” films in 2026, which will focus on Andy Serkis’ Gollum.
Original “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy filmmaker Peter Jackson and his partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are producing the movie and “will be involved every step of the way,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said during an earnings call Thursday.
Silmarillion stuff isn't even that highly detailed to make films of either. You have to invent a lot to fill in a lot of gaps in terms of plotting and pacing.
Thing is LotR is a machine for making money and I suspect they don't want to remake the original 3 films. That leaves them with hunting around for other things if they've still got a licence and if the Tolkien Estate allows them.
And lets face it LotR is a very very powerful IP. It's right up there with Starwars as a very long lasting IP even through long periods where nothing was done directly with it. Heck LotR had VERY little done with it at all over the decades in a big way until the films; and yet its still a very iconic and powerful IP.
Part of me is kind of sad, but also not surprised. I'm just going to cross my fingers it's done more like LotR and less like The Hobbit.
I feel like I’ve consumed just the right amount of Gollum. No room for more.
The Fall of Gondolin and The Children of Hurin were both expanded to novella length; why not make them into movies? (I’m sure they can sneak Gollum in somehow.)
So there’s just one question: What, exactly, could it be about? With real experts on the text like Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh involved, there’s one thing that leaps to mind immediately — a 50 day slog during which Aragorn captured Gollum in a marsh and dragged him bodily overland for close to 900 miles until they reached the court prisons of the elven king Thranduil.
So there’s just one question: What, exactly, could it be about? With real experts on the text like Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh involved, there’s one thing that leaps to mind immediately — a 50 day slog during which Aragorn captured Gollum in a marsh and dragged him bodily overland for close to 900 miles until they reached the court prisons of the elven king Thranduil.
Still not too keen on this.
Agreed. It is not clear what this would add to the development of either character.
Warner Bros. will release the first of its new batch of live-action “The Lord of the Rings” films in 2026, which will focus on Andy Serkis’ Gollum.
Original “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy filmmaker Peter Jackson and his partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are producing the movie and “will be involved every step of the way,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said during an earnings call Thursday.
I hope this prequel showers us with big, epic scenes that answer all our questions, like how did gollum learn to catch fish, and where did he get his loin cloth.
Humor aside, I can understand that they want to do something with the IP. If they absolutely have to, I don't think this is the worst way to go about it. I prefer expansion like we've seen with Star Wars or Alien over endless reboots, remakes or the multiversal fad we're experiencing right now. And a short series of movies per decade doesn't seem excessive compared to Marvel's output, or Fast and Furious.
Execution is a different question. Especially since it's Warner. But at least in principle I don't think all the snippy comments (including my own ) are warranted just yet.
Legendary’s been having the most successful year of any big studio, and they seem comfortable working with Warner. I say we give them a chance. Maybe it’s time for Balrog X Smaug: Rise of Ungoliant.
Geifer wrote: Humor aside, I can understand that they want to do something with the IP. If they absolutely have to, I don't think this is the worst way to go about it. I prefer expansion like we've seen with Star Wars or Alien over endless reboots, remakes or the multiversal fad we're experiencing right now. And a short series of movies per decade doesn't seem excessive compared to Marvel's output, or Fast and Furious.
Execution is a different question. Especially since it's Warner. But at least in principle I don't think all the snippy comments (including my own ) are warranted just yet.
This may also be one of those wonderful contractual things where they have to do something with the IP every “x” years, or the rights revert back to the original holder. And that’s why we get such a stream of quality* Spider-Man related spinoffs from Sony.
* noting that “mediocre”, “bad” and “atrocious” are valid points on the scale of quality…
Flinty wrote: Is it supposed to be a modern take on Metropolis?
No. It has been a passion project for almost forty years and the description has changed constantly: "The story still seems like a bit of a mess—in a recent statement, Coppola said it was inspired by the New York financial crisis of 1990 but also the Catiline Conspiracy but also Studio 54 but also 9/11 but also Hitchcock but also all the prophets but also etc., etc., etc."
The main character is named Cesar Catilina, played by Adam Driver, and is an architect who can control time trying to rebuild a Rome/New York City stand in while facing opposition from Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito).
The trailer starts with Ewan MacGregor’s elderly mother (Ellen Burstin) refusing to get off of a furniture store couch. Looks like a family drama until the trailer suddenly veers into Mother! territory. Looks unfun.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Hmm. Seems Paramount are rebooting The Naked Gun. With Liam Neeson as Lt Frank Drebin.
Now I’m not going to pretend the original three are sacrosanct and perfect examples and that, but they are classics, and very very funny. And most of that came from a dream team of writers and actors, all of whom seemed to be on the same wavelength, able to make comedic performances appear deadpan.
The good news for my brain thinks is I can see Liam Neeson in the role. And I accept it may be a different style of comedy. But I’m seriously concerned that it’s doomed to suck.
Also of note, Paul Walter Hauser will be playing Frank Drebin's partner, Ed.(despite Ed being his captain in the original films ).
A few more names have been added to the cast. Per Deadline, Liza Koshy, Cody Rhodes, CCH Pounder and Busta Rhymes will be appearing in the film, with Cody Rhodes' appearance will be a cameo.
).
) are warranted just yet.
