Lionsgate has released a hilarious collection of character posters for their upcoming horror comedy “The Blackening”. The film comes from director Tim Story (“Barbershop”, “Ride Along”) and is written for the screen by Tracy Oliver (“Girls Trip”) and one of the films stars, Dwayne Perkins. The cast is loaded with interesting talent that includes Perkins, Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Antoinette Robertson, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah, and Yvonne Orji.
“The Blackening” plays with the idea that the Black character is often the first to die in slasher films. The story follows a group of friends who fit the many character types that often populate these movies. The difference in this case is they are all Black. The group must overcome a comical array of well-worn horror movie tropes if they have any hope of surviving. The character posters tap into what kind of humor we can expect.
“The Blackening” releases exclusively in theaters on June 16th.
(With a new Transformers movie looming I thought it would be good to watch and review some of the franchise’s films I have yet to review.)
The third installment of the (mostly) lucrative Transformers film series had a tough hill to climb. The first film from 2007 was a fun, nostalgic, and action-packed blockbuster. But its 2009 sequel, “Revenge of the Fallen” was an abysmal disappointment which saw the series take shoddy writing and big screen excess to some annoying levels. That gets to “Dark of the Moon”, a nice turn back in the right direction yet one still hampered by some of the same nagging issues.
The first right move for “Dark of the Moon” was with its writer. Ehren Kruger is given solo screenwriter duties and the movie benefits from it. The story is still overstuffed; it goes on for way too long; and it can’t shake the annoying urge to be crude. Yet Kruger devises a fairly easy to follow story – one that may not develop as thoroughly as it needs to but that has clearly defined stakes and comes together more cohesively than you might think.
Bay opens the film with a fun play on history. War continues to rage on the far-away planet of Cybertron between the oppressive Decepticons and the noble Autobots. A spacecraft called the Ark flees carrying a piece of Autobot technology that would have won them the war and saved their planet. But it’s heavily damaged, eventually crashing on earth’s moon circa 1962.
Image Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
A U.S. government satellite picks up the crash and they immediately begin planning man’s first trip to the moon. Through a cool mix of real-life historical footage and newly shot scenes we learn the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing was actually a covert operation to investigate the alien wreckage. Even the real Buzz Aldren shows up playing himself. It’s a silly but undeniably fun table-setting intro.
From there the story moves to present day where we once again meet Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf’s final turn as the lead character of the first three films). Still temperamental and insecure, Sam lives in Washington DC with his new girlfriend, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) whose supermodel good looks clearly impresses her ludicrously wealthy boss, Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey). Sam on the other hand is three weeks out of college and still doesn’t have a job. That is until he gets hired by the boss of Accuretta Systems, Bruce Brazos (John Malkovich in an utterly frivolous role).
Meanwhile the Autobots led by Optimus Prime (again wonderfully voiced by the great Peter Cullen) have allied with humanity in solving human conflicts around the world. All the while they have their eyes open for the return of their arch enemies the Decepticons. One of their operations takes them to the Ukraine where Optimus learns about the Ark crash-landing on earth’s moon. He also learns that the long believed lost technology has been retrieved. The Autobots visit the moon to see what’s left of the Ark only to find a powered-down Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy), Optimus’ predecessor as leader of the Autobots.
Image Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
And of course the United States government is involved led by the Director of National Intelligence, Charlotte Mearing (Frances McDormand). She oversees a super-secret international task-force known as NEST which is commanded by Colonel William Lennox (Josh Duhamel). Chief Master Sergeant Robert Epps (Tyrese Gibson) also pops back up, now working for NASA but forced back into military duty once it is revealed that the Decpticons have been orchestrating an elaborate ruse aimed at draining the earth of its resources in order to rebuild Cybertron.
As you can see there’s a ton going on which would become the norm for the franchise. Bay loved the epic-sized stories as much as he loved the epic-scaled action. It didn’t always work but he managed to pull it off here. “Dark of the Moon” takes a lot of wild turns, ultimately ending with all the parties coming together (and with Sam once again caught in the middle) for a huge battle in the city of Chicago. It’s a massive sequence that highlights many of Bay’s strengths and weaknesses as an action filmmaker. But it’s an ending custom-made for fans and it place proves to have lasting repercussions.
Though a significant step up from the previous film, “Dark of the Moon” still repeats some of the problems many people have had with the franchise. It’s way too ambitious and it’s stuffed with too much story and too many characters (I haven’t even mentioned the roles played by John Turturro, Alan Tudyk, Ken Jeong, Glenn Morshower, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, etc.). Yet I enjoyed many of the crazy swings it takes. And it’s just cohesive enough to hold our interest until the next big set piece comes along. And in these movies that’s often all some people want.
Happy Birthday Clint Eastwood. The legendary actor, director and producer turns 93 today. Born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, California, the acclaimed filmmaker has had a remarkable career winning four Academy Awards and having been nominated a total of eleven times. Movies he has directed have earned a total of 41 Oscar nominations.
Eastwood’s big break came in 1958 when he was cast as Rowdy Yates on the CBS television Western series “Rawhide”. In 1963 he landed the lead role in “A Fistful of Dollars”, a landmark Spaghetti Western directed by Sergio Leone. Eastwood and Leone would collaborate for two more films, “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”. The trilogy made Eastwood a bonafide movie star and his career would skyrocket from there.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Eastwood would both star and direct several Westerns, action comedies, dramas, war movies and psychological thrillers. And he continued to give us memorable characters from Harry Callahan to Josey Wales to Preacher. He didn’t slow down in the 1990s and the 2000s, delivering strong nuanced performances in movies like “Unforgiven”, “Million Dollar Baby” and “Gran Torino”. In the 2010s he kept working behind the camera, directing “J. Edgar”, “American Sniper”, “Sully”, and “Richard Jewell” among others. And this year he’s directing his 41st and final feature film, “Juror No. 2”.
That only skims the surface on what has been one of the greatest careers in cinema history.
Well Go USA Entertainment has announced the upcoming release of “The Tank”, a crafty horror thriller/ creature feature from director, writer, and producer Scott Walker. The film stars Luciane Buchanan and Matt Whelan as a couple who move to the country with their young daughter after inheriting a cottage along some Oregon coastal property. They make a discovery that allows Walker to show his clear love for the horror genre. You can read my full review of the filmHERE.
The new Blu-ray and DVD editions of “The Tank” will release on June 27th, 2023. See below for a full synopsis and breakdown of the bonus features.
OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS:
Year: 2023
Rating: R (Some violence/bloody images and brief language)
Runtime: 100 Minutes
Director: Scott Walker
Screenwriter: Scott Walker
After unexpectedly inheriting a mysteriously abandoned coastal property, Ben packs up his family and travels to explore the place, bewildered about why his mother had never mentioned its existence. However, her reason for secrecy soon becomes clear when the family accidentally frees the ancient, long-dormant creature that had terrorized the entire region for generations—including Ben’s own parents.
“THE TANK” stars Luciane Buchanan (“The Night Agent,” “The New Legends of Monkey“, “Filthy Rich“), Matthew Whelan (“Narcos“, “American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story”), Zara Nausbaum (“The Other Side of Heaven 2: Fire of Faith“) and newcomer Regina Hegemann as the creature.
Bonus content includes the behind-the-scenes featurettes “A Look into The Tank” and “Making the Creature.”
Walt Disney Studios has released a collection of new character posters for their highly anticipated “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”. The film recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it was met with mixed reviews from critics. But franchise fans remain excited for the long awaited return of everyone’s favorite treasure-hunting, tomb-raiding, Nazi-evading, archeologist.
Harrison Ford returns to one of his most iconic roles for one last adventure. Created by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman and brought to life by Ford, Indiana Jones is a character beloved by fans across the globe. This fifth and final installment of the franchise is directed by James Mangold and sees Indy meeting some old friends and facing several new enemies. He’s joined but a fun cast that includes Mads Mikkelsen, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, John Rhys-Davies, Toby Jones, Shaunette Renee Wilson, Thomas Kretschmann, Boyd Holbrook, and more.
These all-new character posters look great and feature many of the characters. But any devoted Indy fan has to ask…Where’s Sallah????
With his new film “Blood & Gold” director Peter Thorwath walks the same path as features like Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” and even “Sisu” from earlier this year. He’s made a gritty, gory, no-holds-bar war movie that fully embraces its genre influences. Yet Thorwath (who also directed 2021’s “Blood Red Sky”) also shows he has a knack for characters. And there are many that help spin this twisted, violent, and at times darkly funny war-torn tale.
Greed is one of most lethal killers in “Blood & Gold” which is set in Germany during the waning days of World War II. Following some brief opening script that would have made Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone proud, we get a tone-setting first scene. In it we see a Germany SS unit led by the ruthless and disfigured Lieutenant Colonel Von Starnfeld (Alexander Scheer) chasing after a deserter named Heinrich (Robert Maaser). They eventually catch him and hang him from a nearby tree.
But as soon as the Nazi’s are out of sight a young woman named Elsa (a really good Marie Hacke) appears and frees the seriously injured Heinrich. She takes him to her small country farm where she and her Down syndrome brother Paule (Simon Rupp) nurse the soldier back to health.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
We learn Elsa has no love for the Nazis who killed her father and who would happily kill her brother simply because of his condition. A disillusioned Heinrich is fed up with the war. His pregnant wife and son were killed in a bombing raid, but his young daughter Lottchen survived and was taken in by some neighbors. Getting home to her is all he cares about.
Meanwhile Von Starnfeld and his unit roll into the village of Sonnenberg where they believe a stash of gold bars has been hidden in the rubble of a house once belonging to a Jewish resident named Johannes Löwenstein. The town’s sniveling mayor and Nazi panderer (Stephan Grossmann) welcomes the soldiers into his village. But he quickly learns his uninvited guests aren’t concerned with his hospitality.
Von Starnfeld claims the local inn as his headquarters and forces the townspeople to start sifting through what remains of the Löwenstein house. He then orders his brutal second-in-command, Sergeant Dörfler (Florian Schmidtke) to take some soldiers and steal provisions from neighboring farms. That brings them to Elsa’s doorstep where a violent encounter sets the main story in motion.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
Screenwriter Stefan Barth tosses several more characters into the mix. Most are townsfolk, many with their owns secrets, loyalties, and interests. They all fit nicely into what turns out to be a crazy web of war-scarred anger and unfettered greed. Barth’s script is sharp, shrewdly witty, and hard to predict. He pulls the rug out from under us more than once while delivering a rousing payoff that is a stealthy mix of comically violent and emotionally satisfying.
We also get some fantastic action scenes that range from intense shootouts to ferociously choreographed fight sequences. Thorwath has a good grasp of shooting and framing action. But what’s most fun is watching the different ways he uses it. Some scenes simply emphasize the sheer ferocity of war. Other scenes are straightforward genre movie joy.
With “Blood & Gold” you have a good story, good characters, and good action rolled up into something genre fans should have a blast with. All three can be thrilling, emotional, or sometimes all-out bonkers which is one of the movie‘a biggest strengths. “Blood & Gold” happily wears its influences on its sleeve yet it has its own distinct energy and flavor. And it comes in a tightly structured fast-moving 100-minute package. Yet another good international grab for Netflix.
Keith & the Movies 