Matthew Monagle
Find Your Inner Major With a New ‘Ghost in the Shell’ Trailer and Website
While I don’t typically pay attention to the box office tracking numbers for upcoming releases, I’ll admit, I’ve checked in a few times on Ghost in the Shell. The blend of intriguing trailers and negative publicity surrounding the film make it a tough cookie to crack; those who would normally be excited by the prospect of a blockbuster action movie starring a woman have good reason to stay at home, while the fans who might normally boost its box office numbers may be disappointed that Paramount is tinkering with a classic. As of right now, Ghost in the Shell is estimated to bring home about $105 million domestically, a very poor showing for a project of this size. I’m fascinated by the whole thing.
Watch the Action-Packed First Two Trailers for Edgar Wright’s ‘Baby Driver’
Right now, at this very moment, there are people in Austin, Texas who have seen Edgar Wright’s new film Baby Driver. And yes, I’ll admit it, I’m insanely jealous. It’s not just that Baby Driver is the first film by Wright since 2013’s The World’s End; it’s also not that Wright has assembled one of the more effortlessly cool heist film casts in Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, Lily James, and Kevin Spacey; it’s also that the first trailer for Baby Driver seems to show Wright pushing his own stylish sense of rhythmic editing to the max, going all in on his visuals in a way we still haven’t seen in one of his movies. You thought you liked Wright before? Try him with a couple of machine guns a few really fast cars.
Diana Trains to Be a Queen in the Latest ‘Wonder Woman’ Trailer
With all eyes on the next entry in the DC Cinematic Universe, it’s hard to say what is under more pressure: Wonder Woman, the World War II-era superhero and savior of the modern world, or Wonder Woman, the first female-directed movie in the modern blockbuster era and a stab at social relevance for the beleaguered executives at Warner Bros. The first Wonder Woman trailer that debuted at Comic-Con hit all the right notes for an exciting and female-driven superhero movie; would additional trailers walk back that promise or deliver more of the same?
The Original ‘Ghost in the Shell’ Voice Actors Will Dub the Live-Action Movie
As a general rule of thumb, people should avoid watching movies in anything other than the original language. No matter how good a voice actor may be, a film loses a bit of its nuance and timing when the movements of the original actors no longer perfectly match up with their spoken words. It may be a little uncomfortable at first, but turning on subtitles allows you hear the full inflection of each actor without losing any of the dialogue or plot developments as they occur. There’s a reason film nerds get so cranky about dubbed versions of films.
Rami Malek Leads Two Lives in the ‘Buster’s Mal Heart’ Trailer
Rami Malek is a fascinating physical actor. In a matter of moments, Malek is capable of switching from conventionally attractive — skinny, soulful, everything we might want from our next Internet’s Boyfriend — to unconventionally creepy, a dispassionate outsider who seems to be watching those around him like objects in a petri dish. As a result, Hollywood seems to have a hard time figuring out what to do with him. Time will tell if the actor can reach his 99% percentile as the next Jeff Goldblum or just sort of fall off the map as this century’s Anthony Perkins.
Jack Sparrow Loses His Pants in the International Trailer for ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales’
For many movie fans, international trailers are an afterthought, an attempt to repackage previously released footage for a new market. But given the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies abroad, it’s probably safe to say that Disney takes its international footage pretty seriously. After all, the previous film in the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, grossed a total of $240 million domestically and $804 million internationally. Put another way: the film failed to make back its budget ($250 million) in the United States but tripled it abroad.
Watch the VFX Evolution of the ‘Batman v Superman’ Brawl
One of the side effects of CGI is our inability to appreciate the effort that goes into a good movie scene. A few decades ago, you could look at a shot from a movie and instinctively know how much time and energy went into it. You could see the production design, the costumes, the makeup, the lighting, all of which required people to make real things with their hands and put them in front of the camera. These days, we just chalk everything up to computers without thinking much about what that means.
James Cameron’s ‘Terminator 2’ 3D Re-Release Will Hit Theaters in August
In a piece of news bound to make you say, “Wait, is this still a thing?”, it looks like we’ll still be getting that Terminator 2 3D conversion after all. Scroll back through our archives and you’ll find our very first mention of the Terminator 2 re-release in December of 2015. Back then, word was that James Cameron and company would time the theatrical re-release of the film to its 25th anniversary on July 3. For one reason or another, though, the studio missed that window, and thousands of people around the world were only able to relive their love of the Terminator franchise in the same boring two dimensions they’d always had. Sad.
Bill Paxton, Star of ‘Aliens’ and ‘Twister,’ Passes Away at 61
As a teenager in the ’90s, no actor better represented blockbuster movies than Bill Paxton. Although Paxton wasn’t typically a leading man in those movies — he would often play the brother, the second-in-command, or the comic relief — he served as a kind of talisman of quality. If you saw Paxton’s name in the opening credits of a movie, you knew that the film was going to be better for it.
Razzies Name ‘Hillary’s America’ and ‘Batman v Superman’ the Worst Films of 2016
The Razzies are a tough award show to love. Oh, I’m sure plenty of people probably read the headline to this article and — depending on their opinion of both Dinesh D’Souza and the DC Cinematic Universe — found great comfort in the public mockery of Hillary’s America and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. But while awards shows in general might serve the noble purpose of raising awareness about powerful films, the annual Razzies Awards often feel like you’re kicking someone when they’re already down. They’ve already flopped with audiences and critics; throwing a Razzie award at them is the Hollywood equivalent of kicking them when they’re down.
Jam Out With Led Zeppelin in the Latest ‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword’ Trailer
It’s amazing how much difference a song makes. We’ve been treated to several teasers for Guy Ritchie’s upcoming King Arthur: Legend of the Sword movie, and to this point, I would have described them all as just OK. Ritchie’s particular brand of historical fiction and modern action aesthetics — including his signature fast-slow-fast brand of fight choreography — is something I’ve gone back and forth on a little bit in the last few years. I’m not a big fan of Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies, but I did rather enjoy The Man From U.N.C.L.E., meaning King Arthur was kind of a net zero in my book.
Armie Hammer Must Stand Very Still in the First ‘Mine’ Trailer
A few years ago, when details started emerging about George Miller’s failed attempt at a Justice League movie, the biggest heartbreak for me was losing Armie Hammer as Batman. I’ve been a big fan of Hammer’s since his early appearances on the horror-comedy series Reaper; in my book, he’s on the same level as someone like Chris Pine, another actor who possesses the marquee good looks of a Hollywood leading man but the instincts of a character actor. And despite working in big summer movies with some of Hollywood’s most visionary directors, Hammer has watched his opportunities sink under bad reviews. He’s been good; his movies, not so much.