I can’t overstate how curious and excited I am for “Outlaw Johnny Black”, the upcoming genre smorgasbord from director, co-producer, co-writer, and star Michael Jai White. Deemed a “spiritual sequel” to White’s 2009 cult hit “Black Dynamite”, the film is a genre lover’s dream, mixing together elements of Westerns, martial arts, comedy, and adventure.
This week Samuel Goldwyn Films announced that the movie will be released exclusively in theaters on September 15, 2023. To coincide with the announcement the studio has released a brand new poster and trailer (see them below). Here is the official studio press release…
Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired US rights to the western OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK, written and directed by Michael Jai White, for a theatrical release on September 15. Donovan De Boer, Michael Jai White and Grant Gilmore serve as producers, with a screenplay by Michael Jai White.
From the same team that made the 2009 cult classic BLACK DYNAMITE, OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK stars Michael Jai White (“As Good as Dead”), Anika Noni Rose (“The Princess and the Frog”), Erica Ash (“We Have a Ghost”), Byron Minns (“Black Dynamite”), Kym Whitley (“Act Your Age”), and Tony Baker.
“We’re thrilled to be reteaming with Michael Jai White after the success of our 2022 action movie AS GOOD AS DEAD. This spiritual successor to BLACK DYNAMITE not only showcases Michael’s abilities as an action and comedy star, but also his skills as a filmmaker,” said SGF president Peter Goldwyn.
Hell bent on avenging the death of his father, Johnny Black vows to gun down Brett Clayton and becomes a wanted man in the process. He goes into hiding, posing as a preacher in a small mining town that’s been taken over by a notorious Land Baron.
“I hope this movie, inspired by the late Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, creates for others, the kind of joy I felt as a child when I could watch movies over and over with my family and get something new each time!” said writer and director Michael Jai White.
Samuel Goldwyn Films will release OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK exclusively in theaters on September 15.
In December of 2018 Netflix released “Bird Box”, a movie that unexpectedly turned int an overnight sensation. It was a Sandra Bullock led post-apocalyptic horror thriller that quickly became the platform’s most-watched movie. Many were obsessed with it, setting social media ablaze. Others went even further as evident by the ‘Bird BoxChallenge’ craze where antics ranged from silly stuff like people covering their eyes and walking into walls to a 17-year-old Utah girl crashing her car after driving blindfolded into oncoming traffic.
As for the movie itself, it remained a fan favorite for quite some time. Talks of a sequel quickly followed. Then in 2021 we got our first hint of what was to come. It would be a Spanish-language spin-off set within the same universe. It was to be written and directed by the filmmaking duo of Álex and David Pastor.
“Bird Box Barcelona” does indeed spin off of the first film which was based on Josh Malerman’s 2014 novel. But it’s certainly no clone of its 2018 predecessor. The Pastors do a good job of giving their film its own identity, taking the same concept and building on it in a number of interesting ways. It does require at least some degree of investment in the Bird Box world. But don’t worry – mine was minimal at first. And by the end I found myself pleasantly (and unexpectedly) intrigued.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
There’s no doubt that the 2018 film was helped by having a Hollywood A-lister like Sandra Bullock attached. “Bird Box Barcelona” may not have that kind of celebrity draw, but Goya Award winner Mario Casas (“Cross the Line”) makes for an impressive lead. Not only does he maneuver his surprisingly layered character through the story’s literal urban hellscape, but he also takes him on an emotionally scarring journey soaked in themes of grief, parenthood, and lost humanity. It’s a subtly rich performance from Casas, even in the final act where his character arc loses some of its steam.
Cases plays Sebastián who we first meet well after the mysterious entities from the first film have plunged earth into dystopian chaos. If you remember, the entities (which the audience are never shown) possess the unexplained ability to make people violently kill themselves just by looking at them. So what few survivors remain are forced to blindfold themselves whenever they’re exposed to the outdoors. This is the world Sebastián and his young daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard) must navigate when we first meet them.
The Pastors do intermittently take us back a few months to when the chaos began, revealing Sebastián’s story through some truly terrifying flashbacks. We see where he was when reports of mass suicides began filling the airwaves. We see him trying to get home to his family as bedlam breaks out across Barcelona. We see what has forced Sebastián and his daughter to scavenge for their survival, not only evading the murderous creatures but the dangerous and equally deadly humans as well.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
But it’s an early first-act twist that sets the movie on an unanticipated trajectory. I won’t dare spoil it as it becomes the crux of story. But it’s an unforeseen jolt that tosses any expectations you may have had out the window. It also opens the door for the Pastors to do some fresh world-building – adding some new pages to the mythology and laying down the groundwork for what looks to be some pretty clear franchise ambitions.
As the story unfolds, Sebastián encounters a number of other survivors throughout the ravaged Barcelona. Some appear friendly such as Claire (Georgina Campbell), a doctor with some keen maternal instincts, and Sofia (Naila Schuberth), a young girl who was separated from her mother. Others appear quite menacing, including Padre Esteban (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and the cult-like group who some claim can look upon the entities and remain unharmed. They all help fill out the world and have their own roles to play in getting the story to the finish line.
After the credits roll there are still some pretty obvious questions yet to be answered: Exactly what are these entities? What do they look like? Where did they come from? Why are they doing what they’re doing? It’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Pastors utilize these mysteries to the fullest, adding in a few new ones of their own. Yet by the end we get the sense that answers are on the way. In true franchise fashion we’ll have to wait until the next movie to find out. But credit to the Pastors, they have me onboard and I’m certainly willing to dive back into this world they have shrewdly expanded. “Bird Box Barcelona” premieres today on Netflix.
It’s hard to believe that it has been twelve years since French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius won his Best Director Academy Award for the Best Picture winning “The Artist”. While it has become somewhat fashionable in some circles to dismiss that brilliant 2011 film as unworthy, I still hold it in incredibly high regard as a delightful ode to a bygone cinematic era.
Hazanavicius’ latest film couldn’t be more different. “Final Cut” is a meta zombie comedy that is an open-armed tribute to cinema, a love letter to genre filmmaking, a celebration of creative collaboration, and just an all-around wacky piece of work. It’s a faithful remake of Shin’ichirô Ueda’s 2017 cult hit “One Cut of the Dead” but with its own French twist. It’s a consistently clever and routinely funny concoction that sees Hazanavicius and his all-in cast having the time of their lives.
Image Courtesy of Kino Lorber
Describing “Final Cut” to those who haven’t seen “One Cut of the Dead” is a bit of a challenge because the less you know going in the better. The film’s unorthodox structure plays a big part in making it such a fun experience. It’s a case of a filmmaker showing you one thing and then adding an entirely different perspective later on. I know that’s vague, but suffice it to say Hazanavicius has a field day playing with his audience’s expectations.
The spoiler-free gist of the story goes something like this. Romain Duris plays Rémi Bouillon, a frustrated filmmaker who signs on to direct a low-budget zombie short film for an upstart streaming platform that specializes in B-movies. But there’s a catch. The 30-minute single-take film is to be shot and streamed LIVE! It’s an unheard of undertaking but one the platform’s ownership has already pulled off in their home country of Japan. Now they want to do it in France.
Rémi is hesitant to take the job at first, seeing it as a doomed-to-fail project. But with the encouragement of his wife Nadia (Bérénice Bejo) and with hopes it will rekindle his relationship with his aspiring filmmaker daughter Romy (Simone Hazanavicius) he agrees.
Image Courtesy of Kino Lorber
Soon he’s on location dealing with a smug high-maintenance lead actor (Finnegan Oldfield), his inexperienced lead actress Ava (Matilda Lutz), a supporting actor who can’t stay off the bottle (Grégory Gadebois), and the demands of domineering producers who don’t prescribe to the notion of a director’s creative freedom.
As “Final Cut” shifts to the show’s production phase things get crazy and we gain an entirely new perspective on everything we’ve seen up to that point. Hazanavicius drenches his audience in blood, gore, and countless zombie horror tropes which is a big part of the fun. That said, it’s never the slightest bit tense or scary but neither does it try to be. It’s much more of a comedy, full of running gags, fun characters, an infectious B-movie charm, and a surprising level of warmth that I never expected.
One of my biggest regrets from this year’s Sundance Film Festival was missing out on the quirky indie comedy “Theater Camp”. There was a lot of audience buzz following its festival premiere and I was even more intrigued after Searchlight dropped around $8 million to acquire it with the promise of a theater release.
“Theater Camp” is based on a pandemic era short film of the same name created by Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, and Nick Lieberman. The 18-minute parody quickly earned the admiration of performing arts types and self-proclaimed theater geeks. As a result the four friends begin putting the pieces together for a feature film adaptation which sounds like a good idea considering their genuinely funny premise.
Unfortunately “Theater Camp” feels like a short film’s worth of material stretched out to feature film length. Written by Gordon, Galvin, Platt, and Lieberman (Gordon and Lieberman also directed), the film is a kind of self-gratifying exercise that can’t really justify its existence. Sure, it’ll click with certain audiences who have a high tolerance for the in-jokes and shaky improv. But squeezing much more out of this promising turned lackluster comedy proves to be a chore.
Image Courtesy of Searchlight
Admittedly I was all-in with the film early on – its wacky introduction, its mockumentary style (tired I know, but they can be funny), its gleeful embrace of self-parody. But the wackiness quickly begins to dry up, the mockumentary style all but vanishes, and the self-parody grows redundant as the filmmakers milk their one-note premise dry. It leaves the movie feeling like a Saturday Night Live skit stuck on repeat.
Platt and Gordon play lifelong codependent best friends Amos and Rebecca-Diane who teach at AdirondACTS, a struggling summer drama camp for kids in upstate New York. During the off-season, camp founder Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris) and camp manager Rita Cohen (Caroline Aaron) scramble to raise money and recruit young students in order to keep the camp afloat. But things go south after Joan has a seizure that puts her in a coma (we barely see Sedaris again which is a shame. The film could have really used her). As a result it falls to her dimwitted and theater illiterate son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) to run the camp in her absence.
That sets the film’s paper-thin plot in motion. Amos and Rebecca-Diane along with the other staff (most woefully shallow and always cranked up to 10) welcome a new group of kids and begin preparing for their summer production. Meanwhile with the bank only weeks away from foreclosing, the ill-equipped Troy tries to fend off the advances of a well-to-do neighboring camp who have long wanted to gobble up Adirond ACTS for their property.
While there are stray gags that land throughout the movie, it doesn’t take long before it runs out of steam. The high-strung theater sessions, ludicrous acting exercises, and the utter lack of camp cohesion will have you believing you’re watching a disaster. Yet it all culminates in an ending you’ll see coming a mile away – an absurdly picture-perfect stage production that’s so implausible due to the absolute chaos that has preceded it. But to be honest, I’m not sure the film is all that worried about stuff like that. It’s much too busy laughing at its own jokes and wearing out its welcome. “Theater Camp” opens in theaters July 21st.
What could be more exciting than seeing Ridley Scott back doing a historical epic? That’s exactly what we’re getting with “Napoleon” and the brand new trailer is giving us our thrilling first look. In it we see the director of “Gladiator”, the underappreciated “Kingdom of Heaven”, and the more grossly underappreciated “Robin Hood” once again stepping back in time, this time to tell the story of the titular and controversial French leader’s rise to power.
Academy Award winner Joaquin Phoenix plays the lead of Napoleon Bonaparte while Vanessa Kirby sinks her teeth into the role of his first wife, Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais. From the trailer we see Scott putting a pretty heavy emphasis on the couple’s complicated relationship. But we also get glimpses of Napoleon’s exploits as a military commander through some battlefield shots that show the 85-year-old Scott is still a master of scope and scale. I love this first look at “Napoleon” as it offers up plenty to be excited about.
“Napoleon” releases in theaters November 22nd and will stream on Apple TV+ on a date soon after. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
Five years ago “The Nun” came out. It was a gothic supernatural horror film that served as a spin-off/prequel to the popular The Conjuring movies. “The Nun” was loaded with potential but unfortunately never quite lived up to it. Warner Bros. is taking another swing at it with “The Nun II” and I’m actually happy about it. All the pieces are there for a really good chiller and the first trailer certainly looks promising.
Two of the biggest things that work in the movie’s favor are its star, Taissa Farmiga and its terrifying antagonist, Valak. Farmiga (the younger sister of The Conjuring star Vera Farmiga) reprises her role of Sister Irene in a great bit of meta casting. Meanwhile Bonnie Aarons plays Valak, the truly horrifying titular presence. Again they are two are great pieces. They only need a worthwhile story that utilizes them well. That’s something the first film struggled with. Hopefully this one has it covered.
“The Nun II” hits theaters September 8, 2023. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
Keith & the Movies 