“Uncharted,” the video game adaptation starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Sophia Taylor Ali, Tati Gabrielle and Antonio Banderas, earned well-over $3 million in Thursday night previews, and over $15.4 million all-in Friday.
With a four-day weekend thanks to President’s Day, this could be a $45-50 million opening for Sony’s middling action pic synergizing a Playstation game.
So what we get is Holland’s marketability has soared since the latest “Spider-Man” came out, and Mark Wahlberg gets a boost that could keep him marketable for another couple of years.
“Uncharted” is having the biggest opening weekend since “Spider-Man,” the updated total is $44 million by midnight Sunday, $51 million by end of biz Monday.
MGM’s “Dog” is doing pretty good for a Channing Tatum-and-a-dog picture. It will clear $15.1 million by Sunday, $18 million by Monday night. Glad to see it. Damned fine genre pic, gives families something to go to, a picture with substance — and silly stuff involving a dog.
LD Entertainment’s werewolf movie “The Cursed” is getting a few crumbs, maybe $1.7 million by weekend’s end.
“Death on the Nile” is doing a lot better than “Marry Me,” a $7.5 million weekend as opposed to J. Lo’s $4.2 over four days.
As I have mentioned a few times over the years, start-up studios have been the last ones expecting to get anything out of a Jennifer Lopez star vehicle. Shocked that an established studio couldn’t do the math and figure out a well-preserved, over-exposed 50 year-old star wasn’t a draw any more. Her audience is watching this at home, not in theaters. Because that’s what people do once they’re over 40.
“Jackass” will clear the $50 million mark by next Friday.
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” is closing in on $800 million domestic box office. It may fall short of that as “BatPattinson” is coming, but we’ll see. Over $772 by Monday night.
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“Hellbender” is an ominous, chilling “all in the family” witchcraft thriller that wears its low budget lightly and its air of doom with pride.
A lot of people named “Adams” scripted, directed, shot and starred in this gloomy Pacific Northwest tale about a spellbinding/spellcasting mother and the daughter she “protects” from the world.
A prologue shows the 19th century hanging and shooting of a “witch” who just won’t die.
Over a century later, a hip mom (Toby Poser) and her daughter (Zelda Adams) get fully costumed and made up for every “rehearsal” for their bass-and-drums punk duo, Hellbender.
Izzy would love to ride to town with Mom for supplies, but that’s brushed off without debate. Izzy is home schooled, living on a remote mountainside farm with just her mother, her music (she’s the drummer) and her own thoughts, which include a lot of questions.
Mom’s given her a diagnosis, convinced her she’s sick and feeds her on the berries, mushrooms and buds of the forest. And God forbid Izzy stumble across anybody on her wanderings of their forested property. Mom is curt, sadly questioning of strangers like a hiker (John Adams) who insists he’s the “uncle” of a neighbor.
When the stranger evaporates in a cloud of smoke, dust, ashes and bones, we get it. Mom’s a witch. And her questions were to ensure nobody would miss this interloper she was about to disappear.
But Izzy’s a teenager, and starting to experience changes to her mind and body. Spying on a neighbor (Lulu Adams) with a pool makes her think she’s found a friend. Because Amber is welcoming, open and unfiltered. This strange girl who looks “like a cross between Kurt Cobain and a wet dog” could use a friend. Come to my pool party tomorrow!
That party is where Izzy gets her first hint (from a med student) that Mom’s diagnosis might be off. And when Izzy has a reaction to something else there, the unraveling of her cloistered life begins.
The Adams family that made this film limited its scope and characters, focusing almost wholly on the mother-daughter dynamic. The other characters are here to be avoided, for their own safety. We’ve seen what Mom is capable of, and its not just getting guitar sounds out of her electric bass (their music is spooky, and polished and processed). Who knows what the teen girl might do once she “knows?”
Zelda Adams and Poser, co-stars and co-writer/directors with John Adams, are great at conveying a realistic “just keeping you safe” clingy mother-daughter relationship. The story may follow a well-worn “child outgrows the parent” path, but they keep it interesting.
John and Zelda Adams also shot the film and, with a little help from the weather, keep things grey and overcast, matching the tone they were going for.
A big tip of the hat to special effects technician Trey Lindsay, who visualizes hallucinations (visions), vaporizations and the cacophony of Izzy’s galloping teen mind. Low budget or not, his work makes “Hellbender” come off.
The acting can feel flat and unpolished, and the intimacy of the story is both an asset and a limitation to its ambitions.
But any horror fan looking for the next “came out of nowhere” genre phenomenon need look no further. It’s not the “Citizen Kane” of witch movies, but it’s creepy and DIY fun and well worth tracking down.
Rating: unrated, grisly, gory violence
Cast: Zelda Adams, Toby Poser, Lulu Adams. John Adams.
Credits: Scripted and directed by John Adams, Zelda Adams and Toby Poser. A Yellow Veil release on Shudder.
This could be good, a June movie coming from Netflix.
Adam Sandler hasn’t been aiming that high with most of the projects on his Netflix contract, old fashioned fan friendly “moron” comedies with his entourage.N
How terrible is this thing? Where oh where does one begin?
Netflix’s brief and abortive “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”“requel” goes wrong before Leatherface loads up the saw with a fresh squirt of chain bar oil.
The earliest victims are dispatched without a whit of compassion or suspense. The later victims seem to be getting lectured, in between takes, about how they “don’t look scared enough.” Not that it does any good.
There’s no visceral thrill to this perfunctory and pandering “fan service” reboot/sequel/requel. And then the damned fool who scripted it decides that maybe the pitiless madman-murderer has a point, a legitimate grievance.
This being set in Texas, there’s a requisite sh–kicker (Moe Dunford) in a “blowing coal” pick-em-up truck. Is he to be the “good guy with a gun?”
They bring back a character, but not an actress who has ever played her before.
The half-assed premise is that a bunch of young, affluent Austinites, led by a chef (Jacob Lattimore) have bought a bank-repossessed ghost town. They figure to colonize it with Austinites looking to escape from “the city” into the “real” Texas.
Have they not been following the news. Do they not know who and what is out there, from Confederate flagged fanatics to power-grid impossibilities? No matter. Dante (cute name) and his partner Melody (Sarah Yorkin), fiance Ruth (Nell Hudson) and Melody’s little sister Lila (Elsie Fisher) show up to find that area folks have been warned that they’re coming, and that their ghost town isn’t empty.
Mrs. McC (horror legend Alice Krige) is still living in the orphanage with the man-mountain she calls “Baby.” Evicting them is what sends “Baby” (Mark Burnham) on a murder spree.
Lila is facing this gathering, gory horror as a school shooting survivor, easily triggered. Melody is keen to look after her.
“I’m not gonna let him kill you, OK?” she lies.
I hate picking on actors and actresses, but Yorkin is singularly slow on the “A murderous nut is killing people right in front of me, I should look TERRIFIED” uptake. She kind of sets the tone, as others — not just the cell-phone recording “investors” — wholly underreact to seeing people beheaded and/or skinned in front of them.
The acting is bad, but the script is “Do you want fries with that?” awful, as that might be where we next encounter this hack Craig Thomas Devlin. Garcia’s direction makes “lackluster” seem aspirational.
.It’s as bloody as promised, with one memorable moment capturing mass slaughter in an arresting, shocking way. But like the rest of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” it fails to generate any connection with the victims, or pity.
So, I guess we’re just supposed to think the “smug, self-righteous rich city folk” had it coming?
I’d suggest re-watching the commercial, ponder why the fleeing young people don’t pile into the waiting Mini Cooper rather than hiding in a barn filled with chainsaws.
Beware of the insurance, though. Geico is better at commercials than fair pricing or yeoman’s customer service.
Rating: R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, and language
Cast: Sarah Yorkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, Jacob Lattimore, Moe Dunford and Alice Krige.
Credits: Directed by David Blue Garcia, scripted by Craig Thomas Devlin. A Netflix release.
The Cold War ’60s were the golden age of espionage thrillers and spy spoofs. And full disclosure here, you don’t find yourself sharing a name with a guy who played James Bond without seeing them all — the the good, the bad and the ones starring Dean Martin or John Phillip Law.
Here’s a Swiss bon bon that I missed, 1967’s “L’inconnu de Shandigor (The Uknown Man from Shandigor)” from the under-employed — he made just four films — Swiss director Jean-Louis Roy.
It’s a deadpan “Doctor Strangelove Meeets Doctor No” thriller about a misanthropic “mad scientist” who has conjured up a formula that “sterlizes” atomic bombs.
Dr. Van Krantz (Daniel Emilfork, wheelchair-bound and irate, first scene to last) was “trying to save the world,” and he’s ever-so-pissed that “they are not relieved” by his efforts.
“I don’t like humankind. Well, I do…in a jar of arsenic.”
Multiple spy agencies — the Russians, the Americans, “the Baldies” — want to grab this formula and attain a terms-dictating edge over everybody else. Dr. Von Krantz, his daughter Sylvian (Marie-France Boyer) and assistant, “the Albino” (Marcel Imhoff) hole up in his remote, modernist lair/mansion and wait for the spies to make their move.
Among the spies are the Soviet chief, Shostakovich (Jacques Dufilho), the “Baldies” led by their music-minded boss (singer, composer, actor and father of Charlotte, Serge Gainsbourg) and the German double-agent working for the Yanks (Howard Vernon).
The Baldies are a generally mute quintet who have mastered classical music just to get close to their quarry, whip out machine guns and execute him. The ex-Nazi prefers a knife, and can scuba dive to get the drop on foes. And the Russian is furious at the whole dust up, hoping to let the others screw up before he and his swoop in to claim the prize.
Director and co-writer Roy chooses such gorgeous (and under-filmed) Swiss locations and stern-faced character actors that you’d swear he’s playing this straight. But when a firing range/martial arts training session in a vast Swiss quarry is interrupted, and a clumsy spy chooses to hide behind the TARGET on the firing range, the joke’s on us.
There’s a bloody dust-up in a museum of natural history, acid and gas attacks, chases (not really) and kidnappings. And spies die.
Being the boss, of course, Gainsbourg sits at the organ and sings (in French, with English subtitles) as the body is prepared, “tears from Lucifer, the veils of mystery, Mister Spy, Bye Bye.” Yes, the rhymes work…in French.
Von Krantz’s daughter only wants to run away to the beach with her beloved Manuel (Ben Carruthers), to ride in his E-Type Jag and forget all this mayhem.
It’s not a laugh riot, but this new 4K restoration, now being distributed by Deaf Crocodile, leaves the mouth agape at how damned beautiful the whole thing is. The architecture, the characters in close-up, the “Baldies” acting, playing and sitting and staring in unison, the “beach” (a Swiss lakeshore with fog added), the classic Jaguars, Rovers, Citroens, a Jeep for the Yanks and a Tatra for the Bolsheviks (of course), all of it looks fine-grained, contrast-rich and gorgeous.
If you’re a fan of the genre, or even if you’re just well-versed in the Sean Connery Bond era, “The Unknown Man from Shandigor” is sure to impress and amuse, shaken or stirred.
Rating: unrated, with violence, murder and suicide, partial nudity
Cast: Marie-France Boyer, Daniel Emilfork, Serge Gainsbourg, Marcel Imhoff, Jacques Dufilho and Howard Vernon.
Credits: Directed by Jean-Louis Roy, scripted by Jean-Louis Roy, Gabriel Arout and Pierre Koralnik. A Deaf Crocodile release of a 4K restoration
Relocate to South of France for a prequel, Downton turned over for film shoot, wrap everything up with this cast with a classic “out of ideas so let’s throw in ‘They’re making a movie here.'”
Looks lush and fun and pandering and…well, let’s hope for the best. May 20.
Netflix’s “Wu Assassins” return with their very own Bangkok misadventure movie in “Fistful of Vengeance,” a violent and cheesy follow-up to the TV series.
Another “save the Earth” conundrum faces Tommy (Lawrence Kao), when all the skinny “smart one” wanted was to avenge his murdered sister. So he and the last Wu Assassin, “the special one,” Kai Jin (Indonesian martial artists Iko Uwais) and towering pal Lu Xin Lee (Lewis Tan), who’s just “really good at kicking ass,” must battle mobsters from assorted Triads, a soul-sucking Chi vampire and others seeking a magical talisman to secure supreme power and take over the world.
Let’s just say “something like that,” as the plot is convoluted and an excuse to set up a string of brawls — in night clubs, a mobster-packed hotel, a riverside house — a Thai long tail powerboat chase along that river.
The ethics of the piece veer from We must fight with fists, knives and meat cleavers because “There is no honor in guns,” to the arrival of an Interpol agent (Pearl Thusi) who joins in to empty clip after clip into bad guys when fists simply won’t do.
The dialogue is of the “I don’t mind a little action” and “Assassin STRIKE!” variety.
The fights are generally fun, although there’s a rushed-production half-speed feel to much of the fight choreography.
The effects are just special enough to earn that label.
But the gloss, the exotic location, the sex amongst the sexy never really adds up to anything more than a background noise movie, junk that you sort of half-watch because paying close attention just exposes flaws and how rushed this feels. One character is called several different names, including, I’m pretty sure, the name of the actress playing her.
Leave this one to fans of the series, because as a stand-alone movie, it’s a dud.
Rating: TV-MA, nonstop violence, sex, profanity
Cast: Lawrence Kao, Lewis Tan, Iko Awais, Pearl Thusi Francesca Corney and Jason Tobin
Credits: Directed by Roel Reiné , scripted by Cameron Litvak. A Netflix release.
A full on “Moulin Rouge” era and genre bending take on The King.
Remember, Col. Tom was a Dutchman who wouldn’t let Elvis tour overseas because of his shady past and immigration status. This, the accent. Tom Hanks in thick prosthetics? That’s…different.
Austin Butler of “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” and TV’s “Arrow” drawls his way through Mr. TCB.
There are times when watching “Dog” that one wonders if the directors realize who the star is and who has the title role.
Because there are shots in the film where Channing Tatum, the co-star and second banana, is in focus, and the Belgian Malanois named “Lulu” isn’t. As Tatum co-directed the film, that’s plainly on purpose. He knows that no one will be paying his muscular mug any mind if the gorgeous, expressive war dog Lulu is in the frame with him.
Whatever your “Turner and Hooch” expectations, “Dog” is an unadulterated delight. It’s an out-of-control dog/hapless dog handler comedy, sure. But any film with a cross-country trip involving a damaged vet and a traumatized war dog, a trip destined to end at the dog’s real handler’s funeral, is going to be a weeper.
What this script, co-written by Tatum’s co-director Brett Rodriguez, manages is a subtle blend of genres and mashup of movies. It’s “Turner & Hooch” on “The Last Detail,” two wounded warriors stumbling and comically detouring their way to a grim, preordained reality.
Soldiers get wounds that never heal. Soldiers die. And when the Army Rangers have no more use for a combat dog…
The whole movie is set up in quick, sure strokes in an opening credits montage — pages of photos and letters from the dog’s “I Love You” book of combat duty, shots of the combat duty of Briggs Jackson (Tatum), now a hard-drinking, blackout-prone loner who “just wants back in the game” as a mercenary (“contractor”) or “diplomatic security” specialist.
A song sets the tone under those credits, the late John Prine’s “How Lucky Can One Guy Get” mournful duet with Kurt Vile.
Briggs Jackson fought his war and bears the physical scars and CTE from it. He’s reduced to making subs at a Montana service station and literally begging his former CO (Luke Forbes) for a recommendation for a high paying civilian gig. Capt. Jones knows the guy blacks out and is heavily medicated. No dice.
But one of their comrades in arms has died, in that “Rangers find a way to die” ethos. The “guest of honor” for that funeral is at Fort Lewis, in Washington. Deliver that guest, who is too traumatized to fly, to Nogales, Arizona. That guest is the late Sgt. Rodriguez’s war dog.
The medicated veteran with no affinity for animals is paired with an impossible-to-handle tracking, sniffing and attacking dog for one long drive, through the pot farms of Oregon to the posh hotels of San Francisco, sometimes sleeping in that former (the badges have been removed) Ford Bronco, sometimes cussing it because it’s a 50 year old truck that isn’t meant for 1700 mile drive.
One word of advice? “Don’t touch her ears.” Another? “Don’t be late.”
How much trouble could one vet, one dog and one worn-out truck get into over that distance?
The cute scenes here are a mix of no-brainers (dog needs a bath) and inspired touches. Let’s stop and see if musclebound Ranger Briggs can pick up a babe in a bar…in “Portlandia.” What “buds” might a dog who’s jumped out the truck stumble into amongst the tall trees of the Pacific Northwest?
The script is always upending expectations, sometimes in startling ways. “Thank you for your service” becomes a running gag, a former soldier cop who might take pity and let Briggs continue his sacred mission turns out to be a power-tripping bigot. One thrilling bit involves another former comrade (Ethan Suplee) who demonstrates Lulu’s superpower after the Bronco is broken into.
Sure, there’s a lot of talking to the dog, who seems to be listening if not necessarily comprehending the banter. Q’orianka Kilcher (“A New World”) was cast as Brigg’s ex, and is all but edited out of the picture. Maybe for the same reasons the co-director made sure he was the one in focus in those canine-two-shots.
But the trip is amusing enough, the doggy excesses funny and the climax, pre-ordained by their destination, will punch you right in the heart — not hard, just enough to deploy that hanky.
In these days when Hollywood shortcuts include using digital dogs in far too many movies to suit any thinking person’s taste, you have to hand it to Tatum for committing to this gig and putting in the work to make the real dog (three of them) the star, the story honest and grounded and the star heroic.
The combat-vet dog isn’t the only one deserving a “Thank you for your service,” this time.
Rating: PG-13 for language, thematic elements, drug content and some suggestive material
Cast: Channing Tatum, Ethan Suplee, Luke Forbes and Q’orianka Kilcher.
Credits: Directed by Reid Carolin and Channing Tatum, scripted by Reed Carolin and Brett Rodriguez.
If you watch enough movies, you can spot a promising one in its opening scenes. And if it looks like it might be following a too-conventional path, you can’t help but wonder “How’re they going to make this surprising?”
“Streamline” is a sleek and surprising Australian coming-of-age drama set against a backdrop of competitive swimming. It lulls you into thinking “It’s all about sticking to the tried and true,” but twist after twist cleverly upsets our expectations.
It’s about a broad-shouldered 15 year-old destined for Olympic glory, or so everybody says. And insists. And badgers the living heck out of him about.
Benjamin Lane (Levi Miller of “A Wrinkle in Time”) hears it from his trainer-of-champions coach (Robert Morgan), who comes close to the “bullying” line before actually crossing it. Benjamin gets it from his mother (Laura Gordon), who is structuring their lives around his “big meet” and the chance to make it to the Olympic trials. There’s even a sports academy ready to “test” him and make him an offer — an education and the best coaching money can by, on scholarship.
It’s his “ticket out,” Mom reminds him. And herself. Because we’re getting hints that he must “Leave whatever’s going on at home — at home!” His mother takes calls and storms out of the house to finish them, always with a flourish of shouting. His girlfriend (Tasia Zalar) is the daughter of the “You can talk to me, any time” guidance counselor. But whatever’s going wrong in his life, Ben’s taking this all on himself.
We get hints about the rest of the family, but not enough to wholly explain his mother’s mania and his coach’s pressure packing.
And then we get a glimpse of the father (Jason Isaacs), we see how he affects the kid, and get another dose of how much Mom hates him. But we take our cues from Ben, and he’s on the fence about the man.
Writer-director Tyson Wade Johnston’s debut feature trips up expectations as we wander, like a confused kid, through Ben’s thought processes, pressures and responses to those pressures. I was reminded of two films that “Streamline” and its big themes graft together — the “ticket out” Tom Cruise sports drama “All the Right Moves,” and the Aussie kid-amongst the predators saga “Animal Kingdom.” Because whatever his out-of-control mother and over-the-top coach are pushing, “the rest of the family” might not be the escape Ben needs from this regimented, chlorinated nightmare his life has become.
I like the way Johnston teases out the clues about what the “troubles back home” might be, how he (and Miller) show us not just the emotional cost, but the physical one. Ben gets cupping treatments and physical evaluations, all pointed at one goal, a goal he seems disinterested in, in light of everything going on “back home.”
Miller delivers a poker-faced turn as a kid who has absorbed the dogma “Never let them see you sweat/struggle” even as the script never lets us forget that he’s just 15, forced to make decisions that will alter his entire future.
All kids are impulsive, rash and under-informed about consequences at 15, especially athletic ones. Think of the Russian skater pushed to cheat by her cheating-is-our-culture Olympic medal-factory.
If there’s a fault to “Streamlining,” it’s that the surprises don’t continue, start to finish. There’s an aversion to being honest about what big distractions, huge mistakes and breaks in training can do to an athlete’s chances in such movies, all the way back to “All the Right Moves.”
But a stellar cast makes us invest in this tragedy-in-the-making, because it’s the rough patches and detours that let “Streamline” find its way to clear water.
Rating: unrated, violence, teen sex, alcohol abuse, profanity
Cast: Levi Miller, Laura Gordon, Tasia Zalar, Jake Ryan, Robert Morgan and Jason Isaacs.
Credits: Scripted and directed by Tyson Wade Johnston. A Blue Fox release.
Movie Nation 