Charles Bramesco
Now You See the ‘Now You See Me 2’ Trailer, Now You Don’t
Magicians: they’re no longer just people who remind of you of the good choices you made in life when seen at children’s birthday parties. Magicians are now “cool” and “sexy” and “played by Lizzy Caplan.” She’s taking the place of Isla Fisher, who was presumably busy keeping a brave face as she watched her husband of six years crawl into an elephant’s vagina, as one of two new key acquisitions for the fledgling franchise. As the newly released trailer embedded above indicates, she’s one of three newcomers, along with Chinese singer Jay Chou and actual boy wizard Daniel Radcliffe, showing a little range by portraying a character who cannot do magic, but does somehow have access to every single computer in the world, which is slightly more implausible.
Chinese Theaters Cut Down on Cell Phone Use With Lasers, Shaming
China’s been ahead of the Western curve for some time now. The U.S. economy cowers before the might of Chinese manufacturing prowess, and some of Hollywood’s most popular blockbusters have catered to Eastern tastes. By 2025, we will all have a workable knowledge of Cantonese. But for now, China has made its latest leap forward in the field of etiquette, more specifically movie theater etiquette, and even more specifically, how to deal with a-holes who won’t stop using their cell phones during a movie. Polite whispered requests, chair-nudging, chair-kicking, and in-theater doxxing have all proven ineffective in the continuing war on America’s rudest audience members. China’s contrived a smarter, more futuristic mode of combatting these menaces.
Paramount Sues Fan-Made ‘Star Trek’ Film Over Copyrights on Ears, Klingon Language
The tough thing about using someone else’s ideas to make money is that it’s not entirely legal. This lesson had to be learned the hard way this past weekend by Alec Peters, producer of an independent film titled Prelude to Axanar. The Star Trek fan film drew quite a bit of ire from copyright holders Paramount after a crowdfunding effort on Indiegogo brought this grassroots DIY production over half a million dollars last summer. The promise to make a “studio-quality” film including characters, settings, and other elements from the heavily-licensed Star Trek franchise with no engagement from the relevant studio spelled doom for the Axanar team, and now the chickens have come home to roost.
Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller Starring in Noah Baumbach’s Next Film
The film, which will reunite Baumbach with his While We’re Young star Ben Stiller as well as Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, and Grace Van Patten, centers on an “estranged New York family coming together in preparation of artist and patriarch Harold’s career retrospective.”
New Trailer for ‘Ice Age: Collision Course’ Goes to Space Because Shut Up, That’s Why
Historically, the addition of space travel into the mix has never failed to revitalize a flagging franchise. Take Clive Barker’s series of Hellraiser films, for instance: four films in, and the engine was losing steam. So for Bloodline, the film split into a triptych across centuries, the frame story for it all taking place on a spacecraft orbiting Earth. Demonic tormentor Pinhead killing people on Earth — not very scary, but Pinhead killing people in space — I’ll take two tickets, please. So, in this respect, Ice Age: Collision Course is without a doubt the Hellraiser: Bloodline of the Ice Age franchise.
Jesse Eisenberg Grieves in the ‘Louder Than Bombs’ Trailer
English-language debuts from foreign-language auteurs are always a dicey proposition. In the best cases, the director maintains his or her artistic signature and imposes it on actors domestic audiences recognize in language we can speak, creating a more immediately affecting experience — 2014’s Snowpiercer is a fine example, bringing South Korean master Bong Joon-ho to American audiences. Too often, however, what makes a foreign director’s filmography great can get lost in translation, or snuffed out by overbearing studio heads. With his latest film Louder Than Bombs, Norwegian talent Joachim Trier makes the jump, working in English with such familiar faces as Jesse Eisenberg, Gabriel Byrne, and Devin Druid. (You know, from the episode of Louie where he smokes pot as a teenager?) Having caught the picture back in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, I come today bearing good news: Louder Than Bombs is the real deal.
Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey Confirmed to Star in Stephen King’s ‘Dark Tower’
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: there’s gonna be a Dark Tower movie. Stephen King’s sprawling Western/mystical sci-fi epic has been Hollywood’s great white whale for some time now, stymieing adaptation efforts from such luminaries as J.J. Abrams and Ron Howard since 2007. The latest director to give this massive undertaking — and we mean massive, the Dark Tower universe comprises eight no
First ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ Trailer Appreciates the Finer Things in Life
The film rejoins Edina and Patsy for the first time since their reunion special on TV in 2012, and though the trailer embedded above doesn’t give too much of an impression as to what this film will actually be about, the official press release confirms that the two women will find themselves at the center of a “media firestorm” in their feature debut.
‘Ghostbusters’ Toy Reveals What the Reboot’s Villain Will Look Like
There is a significant figurine for sale at the New York Toy Fair, currently in progress. The convention brings together toy and collectible enthusiasts from far and wide to gape in amazement at next season’s releases and peruse the wares of rows and rows of vendors. But as nerds and geeks alike eagerly picked through bins of rare Skeletors and Voltrons, one specific item proved more meaningful th
New ‘Transformers’ Movies Coming in 2017, 2018 and 2019
Hasbro executives threatened announced today that new entries in the Transformers franchise would be coming in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Part of a planned twelve-film franchise, these three films will expand the pre-existing cinematic universe of the shape-shifting robot toys while simultaneously redefining how big of a number twelve feels like.