EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN, Vol. 33 - November 2021

Everything Old Is New Again
Vol. 33 - November, 20211

By Hunter Bush, Podcast Czar

It’s always a smidge bittersweet to put Halloween in the rear view each year. A sting that’s traditionally only soothed by the promise of the good food and large, familial gatherings usually highlighted within the back pages of the calendar. These are, as we’ve all become accustomed to saying, unprecedented times however and that might not be any more advisable this year than it was last year. I may be earning a reputation as a doomsayer and a scold, but I’m also proudly one of the ever-dwindling number of people who have not contracted any form or variant of covid *knocks wood*.

I know, I know; you’re not here to get beaten about the head and neck with my opinions on anything OTHER THAN movies, and I respect that. I just wanted to take one more moment to politely request that everyone please continue to behave as though we are still not out of the woods yet because, unfortunately, that IS the case. Be safe, wear a mask, get the vaccine if you haven’t - or a booster if you’re able - and use caution when considering large holiday gatherings.

Okay. There, I’m done. Let’s talk about movies! Here at Everything Old Is New Again, the focus is pre-existing IP (Intellectual Properties) and the movies or TV series based upon them. If it started out as a book, a song, a play, or even an older film or TV project, it’s EOINA material. I watch the available trailers and give my rundown of what I know of the project and the IP it’s based on, before finally describing my personal level of enthusiasm for it.

My hope is that my li’l column might expose you to some upcoming entertainment you weren’t aware of, or allow you to approach it with a slightly more enlightened view of its origins. Then down at the bottom, I’ll have a SPOTLIGHT for some older EOINA appropriate flicks that, though they’re not exactly new, still fully get my recommendation. Let’s get started!


<>


PREMIERS

Flicks and series coming to screens great and small this month


4th

Eternals (dir. Chloé Zhao)
Where: In theaters

Based on a series of Marvel comics that have been around forever but never quite hit the kind of popularity that some of their peers did, my recollection of the Eternals' whole deal is a little spotty. They’re a race not unlike humans except with fantastical super powers. Unlike the Marvel concept of “mutants” who get their powers from genetic mutation, the Eternals exist as the result of tampering from godlike beings from space called Celestials. I think. And iirc, they are known as “Eternals” because at some point they just stop aging and are immortal. These trailers look very pretty actually and the tone struck in them is nice; very grand. Like a Greek epic but with laser eyes and ropey CGI dragon monsters. Oh, the monsters are called Deviants and according to the copious narration here, they’re the reason the Eternals are here: because the Deviants pose a threat to us regular degular humans and those Celestials I mentioned before have charged the Eternals with protecting us. They’re not supposed to interfere with human events unless a Deviant is involved which handily explains why these super powerful, long-lived characters didn’t show up when the big grape-flavored Bruce Willis-looking Thanos showed up and annihilated half the population. Coincidentally however, the energy of all those souls being returned to existence is what has set …some vague threat in motion. A threat the Eternals have seven days to stop. Wow, now that I’m typing this out, these trailers have laid A LOT of road for audiences before we’ve even set foot (hypothetically) in theaters. My guess is that the overall message of the movie - as much as a Marvel movie is capable of having a message beyond “see the next one!” - will be about how we’re all connected. They’ll of course be talking about humans and Eternals, but I have a feeling that message may be applicable to normal humans just as well. It is honestly refreshing to see a Marvel movie with some kind of feeling of life in it - there are shots of Sprite (Lia McHugh) performing some kind of maybe play or magic show (?) and I’ve heard that Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) will be involved in a dance number (?!). I’d still like more color from these films, but director Chloé Zhao seems to, visually, be making the semi-monotonous palette work in her favor, giving the flick a sun-baked sword-and-sandals epic feel despite not really containing much by way of traditional sword-and-sandals tropes (at least, as far as I can tell). The heroes will still be fighting a lot of janky-looking CG villains and yadda-yadda-yadda; the usual MCU nonsense, but I’m hoping maybe this will feel …different? Still not going to a theater for it though.


7th

Dexter: New Blood (weekly series) (dir. Marcos Siega, others?)
Where: Showtime

Back in 2006 Showtime began a series based on Jeff Lindsay’s 2004 novel ‘ Darkly Dreaming Dexter ‘, about blood spatter analyst by day/vigilante serial killer by night Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) which ended after eight seasons with Dexter riding off on a small boat (maybe a raft?) into a raging storm at sea. This ten-episode miniseries picks up ten years after the events of that night, with Dexter living in Alaska. The trailer gets points for using Iggy Pop’s song ‘ The Passenger ‘ in it because that’s not only a great song but thematically references Dexter’s “dark passenger” (as he calls his urge to kill). Sadly it immediately loses these points by slowing the song down and generally giving it the “chopped and screwed” treatment to make it fit better with the weird musical fetishes of our times. Blerg. So, Dex is dating the town sheriff, a relationship that is great for dramatic irony and also allows him to be up to date on missing persons, giving him potential serial killers to continue to hunt - to satiate his “dark passenger” - and is generally a really good setup for a mini series! Smart stuff! It seems kids have started to go missing and Dex may be hallucinating his sister (Jennifer Carpenter) as a manifestation of his conscience. (SIDEBAR: Did she die in the original series? I don’t recall.) Anyway, the New Blood of the title refers to both Dex breaking his kill-fast but also to his son (Jack Alcott) showing up… in Alaska. My guess is: the kid is having his own “dark passenger” problems and needs daddy’s guidance (which is a nice thematic bookend for Dexter’s own life story, yadda yadda yadda). Also Clancy Brown is in this! So I will DEF be watching …if someone could let me borrow their Showtime login. Pretty please?


11th

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (dir. Jason Reitman)
Where: In theaters

The hotly anticipated sequel to 2016’s Ghostbusters, I find it very interesting that I’m not seeing hide nor hair of any of the original cast (played by Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Kristen Wiig - alphabetical by last name). This is actually a pretty smart tactic in my opinion, as I feel too many trailers reveal too much of the film! This could even just be footage taken from a cold open largely unrelated to the main plot! That’s exciting, isn’t it, to not know exactly what you’re going to get? I guess no one in Hollywoo thinks so because this is just one long nostalgia jerkoff session that ends with you wiping goopy Stay Puft residue off of your face. Seriously, “we” (and I use the term loosely) had a problem with women Ghostbusters but not kid Ghostbusters? Where are all the outraged fanboys asking how those kids can drive the Ecto-1 so well? The plot here seems to be that, I guess Egon (Harold Ramis, R.I.P.) moved to the midwest and had kids who had grandkids and now the grandkids have found all of his still-functional Ghostbuster stuff? And the town they live in is essentially a Hellmouth from Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a temple of I’m guessing Gozer the Gozerian (because not only do we get those big gargoyley dog-monsters here in less-impressive CGI than the original practical versionms, but also because why take a chance on inventing a new thing that people might not immediately recognize when you can recycle the old stuff back at them?) in a mineshaft under it. And of course the kids figure it out (with some help from Paul Rudd?) and have to save the day. I get that “everybody” (and I use the term loosely) loved Stranger Things but can we just, please try some new fucking ideas in Hollywoo? This A Pup Named Scooby-Doo version of Ghostbusters is an immediate turn off for me. I’m skipping it and watching the original 3 films instead.



12th

Home Sweet Home Alone (dir. Dan Mazer)
Where: Disney+

In 1990, director Chris Columbus and screenwriter John Hughes conspired on a concept so genius that it sounds silly: what if this home invasion film was a family comedy? It launched the career of Macaulay Culkin (he of Pizza Underground fame) and generally speaking, has more sequels than you remember. Well, throw one more on the pile as we generally rehash the plot of the original. It’s the holidays and everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off and in all the confusion and meshugas of packing they forgot to pack one of the kids (Archie Yates as Max)! On top of that, Ellie Kemper and Rob Delaney have decided to break in for some reason (?) so Max has no other option (read: several other options) besides violent bodily harm. And you know what? I’m (largely) fine with it. They make a point of having mom (Aisling Bea) mention that the family had been split onto two flights which is a much better excuse for misplacing a kid than in the original which was …none? My biggest question is that Kemper & Delaney don’t seem to be capital-C “Criminals” so much as “regular people committing a criminal act for some unspecified reason”, which makes it a smidge harder for me to enjoy watching them get injured. Speaking of, the trailer shows almost no harm coming to Kemper, as I guess regardless of circumstances audiences are adverse to watching women get bodily harmed for the sake of comedy, which begs the question: why have a lady burglar at all? But I digress. It’s a little hard to tell from the trailer but the defenses better 1) be violent and 2) look brutal or else, really, what are we even doing here? I’m not champing at the bit for this one, but I won’t be mad if a roommate wants to watch it.


17th

Hit Monkey (series)
Where: Hulu

Another Marvel property, this time one I’m even less familiar with (though to be fair, it’s a lot more recent than Eternals), Hit Monkey is a hitman and a monkey and is apparently being guided by the ghost of a human hitman (Jason Sudekis) in a quest for vengeance! The tone of this falls somewhere between Archer and Venture Bros. for me, which is a good thing, and having a woman (Olivia Munn, I believe) saying things like “He’s one of the good guys” and “He’s going to save us all!” …about a monkey dressed like John Wick is pretty fun. My only issue was that the camera work in the trailer footage was really shaky, I guess going for that gritty handheld feel, but whoo boy was I getting carsick watching it. Maybe it’ll be better coming out of a TV a greater distance across the room from me, or maybe I’ll just end up skipping the whole thing but I’ll definitely be checking it out.


19th

Wheel of Time (series)
Where: Prime

Okay, so my knowledge of this property is pretty nebulous but as far as I know: The Wheel of Time is a high fantasy 14-book magnum opus begun by Robert Jordan and finished, after Jordan’s death, by Brandon Sanderson guided by Jordan’s copious notes. Despite my owning maybe eight of the books, I have read none (I bought them because other authors I like spoke highly of both Jordan and the series specifically). So, “high fantasy” means things like swords, sorcery, elves, and the like. I know the series has at least two of those, so… The footage here looks appropriately grand in scale and there are some very intriguing, unique visuals (the woman rising from the water with paint on it which stains her skin and armor?) that make me personally interested in seeing what it’s all about. I love worldbuilding and I can only presume that a series based on tens of thousands of pages of story will have lots of it, I just hope it’s interesting and handled well. The broad strokes plot seems to be about someone discovering they have a special power (known apparently by many names in different parts of the world) and being one of the many women who wield it to protect that world. Of course some vague “great battle” is coming - there are monstrous looking creatures on horseback, a creeping blackness, and some pale thing in a cloak with a mouth like a lamprey - and these women will have to stop it. The concept of the titular wheel of time is, I guess, that ages and civilizations come and go and, to quote Leonard Nimoy from that Simpson episode “the cosmic ballet goes on”, but there’s a moment in the trailer showing visual repetitions of wheels/circles/rings that I find very interesting. I’ll be checking this out for sure.

Cowboy Bebop (series)
Where: Netflix

Originally broadcast in Japan during the end of the ‘90s, Cowboy Bebop made a new generation of fans thanks to being rebroadcast on Adult Swim in 2001. An animated crime noir in space, the series follows the crew of the spaceship Bebop who, for the most part, are somewhat legal bounty hunters (but also a super hacker and an adorable pup!). Of all the properties this month, CB is what I’m most excited for. The most recent trailer - a.k.a. The Lost Session, which plays like a cold open - showcases the relationship dynamics between the three main characters (Daniella Pineda as Faye, John Cho as Spike, and Mustafa Shakir as Jet) as well as teasing some of Spike’s backstory, and showing off a 4th wall-breaking cinematography that is vivid, colorful, and fun. The original animated CB is fantastic, and honestly unrepeatable, but if the crew is as invested in making something interesting and vibrant as they seem to be, this will be able to stand on its own, which is the most you can ask of an adaptation.


24th

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (dir. Johannes Roberts)
Where: In theaters


The Resident Evil franchise began life as the genre-defining “survival horror” game of 1996 (known as Biohazard in its home country, Japan) which spawned at least seven video game sequels, comics, novels, animated series’, and notably a six-film live action film franchise lead by Mila Jovovich. Holy schnikes, y’all! This takes the goddamn cake for absolutely boneheaded music drops! Similar to the way they massacred my boy ‘ The Passenger ‘ in that Dexter trailer, there is a slower and slightly remixed version of, I kid you not, 4 Non Blondes’ ‘ What’s Going On? ‘ in this trailer! Hahaha…what?! I honestly absorbed very little of the trailer after that point. It’s all I can focus on! Like, imagine that meeting:

    Executive: “That trailer needs a song in it. Something recognizable (but edited so as to be different), that’s what the youth demographic is into these days…”
    Creative: “Oh okay, I’ll find something spooky. Something with the right vibe…”
    Executive:  “How about that “What’s Going On?” song from the ‘90s?”
    Creative: “...”
    Executive: “The one in that He-Man video everybody loved (about 2 decades ago)?”
    Creative: “I …don’t think that …will work.”
    Executive: “Well we don’t pay you to think.”
    Creative: “In fact, that is EXACTLY what you pay me for.”
    Executive: “Okay, so we’re in agreement.”
    Creative: “What?”

And then maybe they kiss? That’s what happens in slash fiction, right? Kissing? ANYway: before all my senses fled my consciousness due to the cognitive dissonance of that song pared with that footage, it seemed like the play here was to make a prequel (it’s set in 1998) that, if this doesn’t spawn a franchise, could just as easily take place before the Mila Jovovich set of films, BUT if it DOES make bank and “demand” sequels, could just as easily go it’s own way. The plot seems to largely follow that of the 2nd Resident Evil game (which I believe is the most well-known, but don’t quote me on that) involving Claire Redfield (Kaya Scodelario) arriving in the titular Raccoon City to investigate a contamination event involving the Umbrella megacorporation that has turned much of the populace into (essentially) zombies, as well as unleashing some other creatures, here rendered in absolutely horsecrap-level CGI. I will forget this movie is coming out by the time I finish this article, and will eventually stumble across it on some streaming platform down the road, watch it and think “That was …fine.”

Hawkeye (series)
Where: Disney+

Yet another Marvel property, this time spun directly off of the very financially successful Avengers films. During the five years that half the population of the world had vanished, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) created a new persona: Ronin, and did the thing that antiheroes do so they can feel like good guys while indulging in their sociopathic desire for violence: beating up criminals. (This is really a theme this month, hunh? Both Dexter and Hit Monkey are on that same trip). Only now, those particular underworld chickens have come home to roost and Hawkeye has to go on the run to keep his family safe this holiday season. Along the way, he meets Kate (Haylee Steinfeld) who in the comics eventually also goes by the name Hawkeye sometimes. (SIDEBAR: The MCU movies are setting up a whole “Young Avengers” thing since the original Avengers’ contracts are largely up or nearing their end and they need to keep the brand alive. In the comics, the whole Young Avengers thing pops up from time to time to rejuvenate the universe, add fresh characters and entice younger readers so they can become lifers like me. Kids: Don’t do it. Comics are great and all, but you need variety or your brain will turn to pudding and you’ll get mad that there are female Ghostbusters or some shit.) The tone of this series looks decent. Renner has experience playing street-level brawler-type heroes and in general the MCU TV series’ have been a little better about balancing tone even though they usually culminate in disappointing endings since they’re contractually not really allowed to end ever? As for when I’ll watch it: I’ll get to it eventually. I honestly still have to finish Falcon & Winter Soldier, which slowed down for me so I watched Loki instead and that was much more my speed. And I’ve heard that What If…? may actually impact continuity so I guess I’ll be forced to watch that too. Sweet Satan, give me strength!


SPOTLIGHT

Recommended flicks that, though not quite new releases, still meet EOINA criteria

1st


Moneyball (2011) (dir. Bennett Miller)
Where: Hulu

I, and I cannot stress this enough, have no interest in baseball. I live in a city that has won the occasional championship, and when that happens I’m happy for them and for all Philadelphians, but I’m not one to hop on a bandwagon. I also could not care less about statistics; not a stocks guy, not a gambler, nothing like that. Having said all of that, I legit l-o-v-e Moneyball. The performances are across the board fantastic, the direction is top notch, the cinematography (by Wally Pfister!) is (unsurprisingly) gorgeous, etc. Most of all, something about the rhythm of the film (editing by Christopher Tellefsen) is just hypnotic and relaxing, making it a movie I’d gladly sink into for an afternoon. No one is more surprised than myself that I love a movie about baseball statistics this much.


<>


And there you have it. All the news that’s fit to print, as they used to say. Lot of vigilantes. Lot of bad music. Lot of Marvel. I’m so tired.

If you’re not sick of my thoughts and opinions, you can find me on every episode of Hate Watch/Great Watch, which I regularly co host with Allison Yakulis (though she is on leave for the time being and our pal Tina Dillon has been filling in). In November we’ve got episodes coming up on Disney’s Jamaican bobsled Olympics dramedy Cool Runnings (1993) and the answering machine-centric made for TV thriller Lisa (1989). Both great episodes.

Support the MovieJawn Patreon for all sorts of cool stuff, with more coming all the time. Thank you as always for reading! Please drop a comment below or get in touch on social media - you can follow me on twitter, instagram, or letterboxd - about the column (or just to chat about movies). Please enjoy your holidays safely, for your benefit as well as everyone else’s. Talk soon.

Long Live the Movies!



----------------------------------------------------------

This piece was written for MovieJawn, a fabulous site where you can find tons of other excellent movie-centric writings, a shop where you can subscribe to the quarterly physical zine, or listen to me on the  Hate Watch / Great Watch  podcast! Support the MovieJawn Patreon here!

---------------------------------------------------------

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN - Vol. 28

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
Vol. 28 - June 2021

By Hunter Bush


Howdy friends. Welcome to another installment of Everything Old Is New Again! The column where I peer into my crystal ball (which has Google) and see what films are coming to screens in the next month, and then specifically whittle them down by only addressing the ones based on some previously existing intellectual property. If it used to be a book, a TV show, a toy line or was inspired by an older movie, it's EOINA material!

So, when can we start talking about the lockdown, the pandemic, all the misery and uncertainty of the past year plus in the past tense? I eagerly look forward to the day when this is all firmly in the past. But that day is not today, not as long as there are still covid-19 alerts in place when you google theatrical release dates. But we're close! We're actually genuinely close to some semblance of normalcy.

So if you're planning on visiting a theater, please be safe. Now let's look at what's coming in June:


PREMIERS

These are new releases coming to screens great and small alike in the coming month.

4th

Sweet Tooth (series)
Where: Netflix

Based on the comic books series by author & illustrator Jeff Lemire about a young half-deer half-boy named Gus living in a post-apocalyptic world where such animal-human hybrids exist, this looks incredible! When "The Last Men" (survivors of the time before the hybrids) come looking to exterminate Gus (Christian Convery) he is rescued by a man (Nonso Anozie) who agrees to help him get to Colorado where Gus believes he can be safe. I've read some of Lemire's other work, but hadn't gotten around to Sweet Tooth just yet, so I had no idea what to expect from this trailer and it just ticked so many boxes for me. The design work shown in the costumes and the effects on the hybrids, the cast (if Will Forte is in it, I will be there), the balance of the slightly heightened visual style with the almost fable-like backstory & narration - it all worked for me. Even the cover of Duran Duran's "Ordinary World" works because it has bombast and motion to it (as opposed to the largely audibly static breathy covers popular in recent trailers). I'm all in on this one, gang. 

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (dir. Michael Chaves)
Where: HBO Max / Theaters

This 3rd direct installment of the franchise begun in 2013 - which has also spawned 4 spin-off films (3 starring the haunted doll Annabelle, and one starring a scary nun) - looks fun despite, y'know, all the murder and terror and whatnot. Set in 1981, the Warrens (played by Patrick Wilson & Vera Farmiga, doing a lot of heavy lifting in rehabilitating the legacy of the actual Warrens who were hucksters) are brought in as consultants/investigators on a murder case where the accused (Ruairi O'Connor) claims, as the title states: that he is not responsible for a murder he apparently committed. We don;t see the murder in the trailer (I don't think) instead focusing on a lot of creepy waterbed shenanigans and the Warrens' investigation. I'm a sucker for horror movies and generally like more of the Conjuring extended universe than not (I maintain that Annabelle Creation whips absolute ass) so I'll be more than happy to check this one out. Especially because it features an appearance from John Noble!

5th


Rams (dir. Jeremy Sims)
Where: Hulu

Based on a 2015 film of the same name by Icelandic writer/director Grímur Hákonarson, this English-language-friendly remake stars Sam Neill and Michael Caton as brothers who each raise award-contender sheep in a small town. They haven't spoken in 40 years but when some kind of disease begins spreading through the sheep in town, they might have to learn to reconcile if either of them want to keep their livelihoods safe from the government agents sent to exterminate the animals. If any of you haven't seen Cathy Yan's truly excellent Dead Pigs, a similar event lends that film its title, though in that instance it's relegated to a subplot. (Also, if you haven't: see Dead Pigs!) Overall this looks cute in a way that gives me very strong late '90s indie comedy vibes - not a bad thing necessarily - and the cast, which also features Miranda Richardson, doesn't hurt. This is a strong maybe from me. I'll have to be in the right mood for this one.

9th


Loki (series)
Where: Disney+

Picking up where that last Avengers film left things, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is now in trouble with one of Marvel Comics' least appreciated bureaucratic groups: the Time Variance Authority. Y'see, since comic books have a lot of timey-wimey nonsense happen pretty much on the reg, there exists an organization whose entire job is to make sure that all the time-hopping, retconning, revenging, prevenging and whatnot doesn't Swiss cheese their reality so badly that the whole thing collapses and everybody dies so bad they never even existed. And it seems that after snagging the Cosmic Cube, Loki went Spring Break levels of crazy, dipping in and out of the time stream, causing numerous divergent branches, so he's gotten caught and, as a sort of community service (continuity service?) been drafted by Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) into correcting these variances. So this series looks like it could have a LOT of fun with familiar characters presented in new ways (or by new actors as a result of Loki's time-fuckery). I'm here for it, of course. I've never shied away from the MCU flicks/series, and I am loving some of the Easter Eggs & eye candy in the trailer - my favorite is a neon sign reading "ROXXCART" which seems like the Roxxon Corp. (one of Marvel's routinely nefarious big organizations) mashed up with Amazon (one of real life's most nefarious ones).

NOTE: This is the drop date for the 1st episode, as Dis+ will be continuing the weekly drop schedule with this one.

11th


In the Heights (dir. Jon M. Chu)
Where: HBO

Based on the stage musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Quiara Alegría Hudes, In the Heights is centered around a number of characters living and interacting around a specific block of the Washington Heights neighborhood in Manhattan. The trailer is narrated by Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) who runs a small bodega, but he's got family, friends, and etc. and they've all got their own interconnected stories, desires, and conflicts. The musical takes place over the hottest weekend of the year and involves a winning lottery ticket and all the changes taking place. There are a lot of really stellar visuals in the trailer (the flick is directed by Jon M. Chu, recently of Crazy Rich Asians) like people dancing up the side of a building and a strobing, neon-lit tunnel! I'm a sucker for musicals, so I'm all in for this one, plus I've been a fan of LMM since he showed up for an episode of House M.D. to freestyle with Hugh Laurie. So, yeah, I'm in.

24th


Godzilla Singular Point (series)
Where: Netflix

Based on everybody's favorite gargantuan prehistoric monster lizard / tangible metaphor for man's complete disregard for nature and tendency to poison all he touches created in 1954 (who looks great for 67!) this animated series looks pretty spectacular! It's got kind of everything you could want in a new Godzilla series: tons of kaiju (obvs), great music (!), and a big honkin' robot (Jet Jaguar, baybee!). Plus the plot seems completely insane, but seems to have something to do with predicting the future? And it looking bad? And stopping it? Seriously, the dialogue in just one 2-minute trailer contains phrases like: "A magic lamp that enables the impossible", "So it would be like if the universe never existed", and "Bones with a secret will". I am confident I have no idea what is happening, but it looks fun! It's also gorgeously animated, with plenty of movement, color and fun character designs. I'm pretty excited for this.


SPOTLIGHT

These are older EOINA-friendly releases that I personally recommend.

1st


Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (dir. Tim Burton)
Where: Hulu

Based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, this is yet another Burton/Depp/Bonham Carter joint that hit me right before I began to find those to be really tedious and just has a special place in my esteem. I love musicals and genuinely enjoy this one which, like the best musicals, leans into the sort of silly, heightened unreality inherent in their nature. When I first moved to South Philly this was one of the handful of DVDs I had with me. It's got fantastic musical numbers and a great cast including the late great Alan Rickman. This is just a fun, splattery horror-adjacent flick with catchy tunes, over-the-top characters and a plot that doesn't really matter beyond tying all the characters together. And while I'll admit that most of my appreciation for this may be a sort of Stockholm Syndrome effect from having been without a lot of options that first summer in South Philly, I still think it's an enjoyable time.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (dir. Kevin Reynolds)
Where: HBO

Based on the Robin Hood stories, this one is just a big dumb joy to watch. Sure, Kevin Costner's accent is famously wishy-washy. Sure, there's some troubling characterizations and actions. Sure, Will Scarlett is just straight up Christian Slater at all times (also: his accent). But it kind of doesn't matter? Watching this feels like when the Looney Tunes would reappropriate a public domain story and imbue it with their particularly chaotic brand of energy while ostensibly existing in a different time or place. Plus, again: Alan Rickman! And the rest of the cast (Morgan Freeman! Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio! Michael McShane! Brian Blessed! Michael Wincott!) ain't half bad either. Above all though, it’s just really versatile: the action pops, the romance is sweeping, it dips its toe into horror with Mortianna (Geraldine McEwan) and the bit with the scar on the statue of the Sheriff of Nottingham (Rickman) is so funny that for years I thought it was from Men in Tights! A solid popcorn movie, and perfect for summer.


<><><>


There you have it, June 2021's EOINA. I hope you spotted something up there that you might not have been aware of or, dare I dream aloud, that my writing might have swayed you one direction or another. Either way, drop a comment below, or on social media and let's start a dialogue. Let's be friends through movies!

If you're looking for a podcast to listen to, might I suggest mine: Hate Watch/Great Watch, which I co host with Allison Yakulis, can be found right here on the MovieJawn Podcast Network. Right around the time you're reading this, our episode on the 1999 Shakespearian RomCom adaptation 10 Things I Hate About You should be available. I'd never actually seen it before, believe it or not, so give a listen to find out what I thought!

Until next time, Long Live the Movies!

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN - Vol. 27

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
Vol. 27 - May 2021


By: Hunter Bush


Step right up! Step right up! Right his way, and welcome to another installment of EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN, my column discussing upcoming movies & TV series through the lens of Adaptation, Remakes and the occasional Legacy Sequel. So if a movie (or series) is based on a previously existing intellectual property, I will endeavour to mention it here.



The way the column works, folks, is: I watch some trailers and, drawing on my lifetime of film watching experience, do my level best to give you an idea of what the movie (or series) is about. But that’s not all! I’ll attempt to give some context for the original property and maybe theorize about why this idea is coming around in this form, at this time. Finally I’ll let you know whether I personally am looking forward to this movie (or series). Howzabout that?

But wait! There’s more! Down at the bottom of the column is a SPOTLIGHT section, highlighting an EOINA-appropriate property that’s very good, it’s just not new this month! So follow me, right this way, to the hottest show in town!


<>


PREMIERS

There are all the movies (or series) premiering in May.

7th


Jupiter’s Legacy (series)
Where: Netflix

Based on the comic series by Mark Millar that deals with the concept of legacy (no surprise there) and the weight of responsibility, but told using superheroes, this series looks pretty good. Nice visuals, strong differentiation between characters, etc. The main ideological conflict seems to be between an older generation of super people - who we also see flashbacks of receiving their special abilities - and their children, the new generation. This concept is filled with potential but creator/comic author Mark Millar occasionally has some odd political viewpoints. As such, this seems to be leaning towards “The Olds are right and The Youth are frivolous” because we’ve got our Superman look-alike talking about that responsibility of legacy while the kids seem more interested in doing fashion photography. If the comic and this subsequent adaptation is genuinely expressing both sides of an ideological divide, I’ll be more interested in it than if it’s just a This Generation is Right and That One is Wrong screed. Of course, the trailer COULD be setting me up for a nice rope-a-dope. That IS a possibility. I’m hoping for the same level of melodrama as something like Riverdale, which understands how heightened it needs to be in order to work (also - read The Old Sport’s Riverdale Recaps). Though there is some of the prerequisite fist-fighting in the trailer, I got no real sense of what any physical altercations might be about. The majority of the dialogue is exploring that philosophical divide, which, as I said, I’m here for. Let’s see how this goes.

14th


Spiral: From the Book of Saw (dir. Darren Lynn Bousman)
Where: In theaters

A continuation of the franchise begun with James Wan & Leigh Whannell’s morality-death-trap obsessed Saw in 2003, this film takes place in Philadelphia! Therefore it is an automatic watch for me! But on top of that, it actually looks pretty great! Executive producer and star Chris Rock has been trying to get a project like this going for some time and I’m glad to see it happening here. Taking place some time after the original Jigsaw series of murders, a copycat has appeared, leaving a flash drive with a taunting message for detective Banks (Rock) that in some way involves his father (Samuel L. Jackson). The trailer seems to cover a lot of ground, with appearances from various death traps as well as the puppet and pig head mascots of the Jigsaw killer in addition to a marionette of a pig in a police uniform. There’s even a shot of Rock handcuffed to a pipe holding a hacksaw! A few years ago, I pulled my back out at work and ended up marathoning all the Saw movies (which at the time topped out at 7) and found that overall I really enjoyed the franchise and its determined efforts to twist back in on itself, altering things you thought you knew from the previous installments, even while I lamented their loss of the cohesive moral messaging that made the original feel so righteous. If this installment can maintain that kind of fleet-footed tone, while getting back to the series’ moral starting point, I’m all in. I’m still not gonna go to the theater for it though. Nah.


Those Who Wish Me Dead (dir. Taylor Sheridan)
Where: In theaters

Based on the novel by Michael Koryta, this flick looks rad! Angelina Jolie plays a fire marshall and/or forest ranger (I guess?) with survivor’s guilt who spots an injured kid (Finn Little) who is on the run from some possibly government affiliated bad guys who killed his dad and are now looking to do the same to him to tie up loose ends. Of course, given Jolie’s character’s backstory, they end up starting a forest fire to either drive them out or kill them. This looks extremely up my alley and about the only complaint I have with it is the shitbird remix of the Johnny Cash version of “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” where they added a thumpy drum thing to the rhythm of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” for some ungodly reason? Why do this? Hollywoo’: Stop Doing This! Either find a song that fits or just use an instrumental. It’s not quite as bad as that Breathy Acoustic Covers of Popular Songs thing that was happening ad nauseum a few years back, but it’s still not what I’d call Good. Those Who Wish Me Dead however, looks fun as hell and I definitely will see it. Just not in theaters yet though. Nah.


The Woman in the Window (dir. Joe Wright)
Where: Netflix

Based on the novel by A.J. Finn, this was all set for release last year before *gestures at everything for the last 14 months* so now it’s coming to Netflix. And honestly? That rules because this looks like a really decent thriller! Agoraphobic Amy Adams sees the murder of her neighbor across the way, Jane (Julianne Moore) from the window of her apartment, only to be told by Moore’s husband (Gary Oldman) that Adams has never met his wife. Another woman then appears claiming to be the real Jane and then the authorities start doubting Adams’ claims. This has a LOT of strong, very creepy vibes, like when Adams opens an email to find a photo of her sleeping. Imagine how terrifying that feeling is, then multiply it by the factor of ten that comes with her apartment being the ONLY place she feels safe! That’s good stuff, emotionally! There’s also a strong visual sense to this one (Adams’ meds can cause hallucinations, so that gives director Joe Wright a lot of room to play) AND the cast features Anthony Mackie and Wyatt Russell, both recently of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, among others. This looks like a good time and if the worst thing about it is that it’s a competently shot Rear Window meets Copycat knock off with a stacked cast, that’s really not so bad, right?

P.S. - Remember Copycat, where Sigourney Weaver is an agoraphobic CSI specialist being targeted from jail by Harry Connick Jr. with janky “white trash” teeth? That’s a good time.

21st


Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. (series)
Where: Hulu

This stop-motion styled sitcom take on the Marvel comics character created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby in 1967 looks really silly and fun! MODOK (Patton Oswalt) is a would-be world conquering super villain by day and a family man by night. Yes he’s got a giant head and floats around in a hover-throne, commanding hordes of henchmen but he’s also trying to save his marriage. Or at least retain custody of his kids. This is fertile ground for a comedy show, especially with this voice cast (which includes Whoopie Goldberg, Jon Hamm, Bill Hader & Nathan Fillion) and while the toyetic look of the series might not be everyone’s thing, I’m definitely onboard.

28th


Cruella (dir. Craig Gillespie)
Where: In theaters and Disney+ Pay-Even-More Access tier

Based on the 1961 animated film One Hundred and One Dalmatians, this isn’t the first project to spin off from the property. It had a long-gap animated sequel in 2003, a 1996 live action adaptation with its own sequel, and a pair of animated TV series that ran from 1997-1998 and 2019-2020 respectively! That’s a lot of dogs. Which brings me to my next point: Woof. This looks atrocious. Remember in Clueless, when Cher tells Tai “She’s like a full-on Monet. From far away it’s okay, but up close it’s a big ol’ mess”? That’s how I feel with Cruella. The closer I look, the worse it all is. Do we need another movie that humanizes one of Disney’s best-known, least sympathetic villains (following in the footsteps of the Maleficent films of course)? How about if it’s a straight-up rip off of The Devil Wears Prada, but with a dash of The Joker thrown in? And, y’know what, let’s also steal the setting-your-clothes-on-fire-to-make-an-entrance bit from The Hunger Games? Why not? I am not on board with anything about this beyond the look - the costumes and outfits are fantastic! So Disney is just going full Style Over Substance then, yeah? Basically reversing the polarity on the ethos that earned them their reputation (not to mention All. That. Cash.)? Count me out.


SPOTLIGHT

Films (or series) that are EOINA-appropriate but not exactly new.

1st:


The Towering Inferno (dir. John Guillermin)
Where: Amazon Prime

Combining elements of TWO novels - The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scotia and Frank M. Robinson - this flick essentially invented the concept of star-studded disaster flick, paving the way for every ensemble cast that followed after. The pacing might be a little pokey for modern audiences, but once things stop simmering, they basically never slow down until the end! This perfectly handles the rising action that so many other flicks fumble. Something is always going wrong, but almost never in the way you might expect! I fully recommend watching this if you never have.


The Iron Giant (dir. Brad Bird)

Where: Hulu

Based on the 1968 novel The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, I recommend this to anybody at any time. Gorgeously animated, wonderfully odd with a truly beautiful message, this is also the movie that introduced the world to Vin Diesel. Groot himself! The “Fambly” Man! The Iron Giant, as a character, has been popping up recently now that all intellectual properties are owned by only a handful of corporations and he’s constantly kicking ass and taking names ...which is 100% the opposite of that character’s ENTIRE THING! So if you, like me, watched Ready Player One out of morbid curiosity and found yourself infuriated and sickened, maybe watch or rewatch The Iron Giant to remind yourself of how good things can be sometimes, when they’re NOT owned by a mega-corporation that has a hole full of money where its heart should be.

<>

About a week after this drops, I’ll be getting my 2nd vaccination shot and eventually hope to return to some kind of normalcy but it won’t be quite yet. I’m glad that some of these long-in-Limbo films are getting released but there is literally NOTHING that I want less than to be in a crowded theater full of strangers. But that’s just me. I hope you’re all getting vaxxed, and staying safe, and taking care of yourself and others.

That’s all for this month, folks! Thanks as always for reading! Check out a recent episode of Hate Watch/Great Watch, the podcast I co-host with Allison Yakulis, which is not only our Two Years On-the-Air Anniversary, but covers the entire Beethoven film franchise! Until next time - don’t take any wooden nickels and Long Live the Movies!

_______________________________________________

This piece was written for Moviejawn where you can find tons of other excellent movie-centric writings, a shop where you can subscribe to the quarterly physical zine and also listen to the  I Saw It In a Movie,  Cinematic Crypt  or  Hate Watch / Great Watch  podcasts!

_______________________________________________

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN - Vol. 26

Hello and welcome to Everything Old Is New Again, the column where I take a look into the very near future to see what films & TV series are debuting in a given month that are originally based on some previously existing concept. Is this movie inspired by that much older one? Is that original series based on a YA novel? I'm here to shed a little light on some of what's out there and maybe help you find something to watch.

I just want to get out in front of  this - I know it's newly April, but I will not be perpetrating any April Fools goofs upon you, my readers. I REALLY WANT TO because it is in my nature to goof, but I won't. Things are still too ...weird. They're just too off-kilter already to properly goof. So I won't. That's my promise to you. So, armed with that knowledge, I want you to relax and read on.

<>

PREMIERS

The movies and series making their debuts this month

1st:

Creepshow: Season 2

Where: Shudder

Though it's premiering on April 1st, Shudder isn't kidding around with the 2nd season of anthology series revival of the 1982 anthology flick from Stephen King and director George Romero. Except when they are. That's the thing with Creepshow as a brand - it's as fun as it is, well, creepy. For every giant spider, or voodoo doll, or powerfully dangerous artifact (that may in fact unleash some form of Hell on live TV no less!), you've got top tier genre actors like Keith David, Ted Raimi, and even Hellraiser's Ashley Laurence (!) lending the stories their chops as well as a bit of "hey I know that guy" enjoyment! Being an anthology series, your enjoyment may vary from installment to installment, but over all I was a big fan of the first season and am excited for them to get back to the format after releasing two seasonal specials through the end of last year.

Train to Busan: Peninsula (dir. Sang-ho Yeon)

Where: Shudder

Taking place four years after the original film (released 4 years earlier irl) Peninsula follows a new group of people who survived the original zombie outbreak as they are "asked" by mobsters to venture back into the quarantined peninsula to retrieve a truck with $20 million. Things, as you might expect, don't seem to go perfectly smoothly and they end up on the run from not only zombies but also other humans (who are the real monsters?) who're playing some kind of survival game using uninfected humans as game pieces. There seems to be some extra attention paid to light in this one - as in the zombies being drawn to it? Or scared of it? - which I don't remember being a thing quite so much in the first one. There's also a few hyper-brief shots where I think the zombies may have started to kind of get stuck in/to one another maybe forming like a zombie rat king? Which is maybe the coolest thing I've ever heard - HUGE IF TRUE. Again, I don't know that to be the case, I'm just going on my presumptions. The trailer is very action heavy and has some incredible visuals, and I'm a HUGE fan of the original Train to Busan (I cry) so I'll absolutely watch this.

16th:

Mortal Kombat (dir. Simon McQuoid)

Where: HBO Max

I am weirdly excited for this adaptation of the fighting game phenomenon that flying kicked it's way into the public consciousness in 1992 by simply adding blood to the equation. There was a uproar but that didn't hurt Mortal Kombat at all and it has remained a popular (and fun!) franchise ever since. Like most fighting games, there's little by way of plot: a clandestine fighting competition attracts fighters from all walks of life, each with their own goals. Some want power, some want glory, some want conquest and some want revenge. Yadda yadda yadda. Over the years characters have changed, backstories have expanded to the point that now MK has a whole mythology of its own that's no longer just "Bloodsport, but with magic". This trailer smartly leans into some of the "sillier" aspects in a straight-faced way that I think is going to allow it to just be a blast. For example: Why don't we chuckle at Jax's (Mehcad Brooks') cyborg arms? Because nobody else is, because of course he has cyborg arms; his human arms were frozen by an ice ninja and then shattered! It would be rude of you to mock the hardships this man has suffered! Plus, the focus is on the "Kombat" which you'd think would be a no-brainer, but then you would be surprised. Joe Taslim (who plays the aforementioned ice ninja Sub-Zero and whom you may know from The Raid or The Night Comes For Us) is one of the best physical performers - fighting, stunt work, choreography - maybe ever and I cannot wait to see how well this MK utilizes him! So I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but I would kindly ask you to "Get over here" and watch Mortal Kombat with me.

23rd:

Shadow and Bone

Where: Netflix

Books. We all love 'em (right?), and if you've bought enough of them from Amazon, you probably get notifications like "Hey we thought you'd like to know we have more books for you to buy". That is basically my entire relationship with the first book in author Leigh Bardugo's "Grisha" universe of books and stories, but I will say the book has been on my To Read list for a while now because it sounds interesting: a fantasy world, but instead of using medieval Europe as the setting - which is often the case - Berdugo uses Tsarist Russia, which lends the whole thing a pseudo-steampunk feeling that I dig. This trailer for the Netflix series showcases that quite well, too! There's gunplay and a train car of some kind as well as the grand sailing ships you could find in almost any other fantasy world. The plot here is that classic heroine with a special ability who must be trained in how to use it to help save the world. Here, her name is Alina (Jessie Mei Li) and she's a "sun summoner" meaning she has the ability to summon and control light (but she is also full of it to the point that when cut, a blinding light shines through), which is not only rare but exactly what is needed to fix/dispel/cure an area of the nearby sea permanently cloaked in darkness and therefor full of monsters! This set-up seems a bit obvious and over-simplified, so I'm actually betting that there's more going on than what we're seeing here. It also looks a little Avatar: The Last Air-Bender-y, which like, we already have one of those and it rules! (I have not yet seen Legend of Korra, so no spoilers) Regardless, this looks decently fun but not something I'd exactly think of as "appointment viewing", though I am definitely likely to check it out because I love a good fantasy world. I just do, y'all. That's just something you have to accept about me.

25th:

Wild Mountain Thyme (dir. John Patrick Shanley)

Where: HULU

Based on the play "Outside Mullingar" by writer/director John Patrick Shanley (who has one of the weirdest big screen resumes ever - more on that in a moment), this is the story of a father (Christopher Walken) whose son (Jamie Dornan) is a bit of a weirdo and has been dragging his feet about marrying the girl next door (Emily Blunt) who's obviously - for some reason - head over heels in love with his weird ass. BUT ALSO, poppa Walken doesn't think Dornan is capable of taking over the family farm, so he invites Dornan's American cousin (Sir Jon of Hamm) to see if he'd be a better option. There seems to also be a bit of a Dornan-Blunt-Hamm love triangle as well because in contrast to flighty Dornan, Hamm is very direct. This all seems very charming and cute but I've gotta be honest: this trailer had me inside of the first 5 seconds because *ahem* Christopher Walken narrates it in an approximation of an Irish brogue! Sold. Now, just to clue you in to J.P.S.'s credits: he has written such notable films as Moonstruck, We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story, and the film adaptation of Congo and has directed Joe Versus the Volcano and the adaptation of Doubt - both of which he also wrote! You CANNOT box this man in!

30th:

Tom Clancy's Without Remorse (dir. Stefano Sollima)

Where: Amazon Prime

To be honest, these kinds of movies are a hard sell for me. I've got nothing against a decent military-set flick, and I'm deep in the pocket for a specific type of action movie, but something about the frequent Tom Clancy narrative of "this great patriotic killing machine is just the coolest, right gang?" just turns me off. This story seems to follow that familiar path by having Michael B. Jordan survive an attempted assassination which left his wife dead and him on a path of revenge. Y'know how one of the things that made John Wick work was that it showed by contrast how trite and well-worn this particular revenge narrative is? Just wanted to mention that. What this movie does have going for it is: Michael B. Jordan. I will watch this man in anything. I can't imagine that he doesn't have a massive career ahead of him and in that regard I guess doing a Clancy is a smart move. The other thing going for this is that some of the action (well, one scene in the trailer) looks pretty great: MBJ traps a target in a car, lights it on fire and then ... GETS INTO THE CAR! I mean, that is pretty rad. I guess it really *was* a pleasure to burn (this joke is in reference to MBJ having appeared in 2018's Fahrenheit 451 adaptation).

SPOTLIGHT

A few EOINA-appropriate flicks that aren't new but still might deserve a look

1st:

The Warriors (Director's Cut) (dir. Walter Hill)

Where: HBO Max

You may have seen Walter Hill's influential cult film The Warriors (based on the 1979 novel by Sol Yurick where gangs in a post-apocalyptic future New York decide to "Come out and plaaaaay...!" by fighting each other). You may have in fact seen it many times, but perhaps you haven't seen the director's cut? I'm honestly not sure which version(s) I've seen, but any time I've thrown The Warriors on to watch, I've been fully engrossed. It's sometimes hard to watch what's happening, but I still can't drag myself away! If by some chance you've never seen The Warriors - settle in.

Bug (dir. William Friedkin)

Where: Hulu

My other recommendation is a bit of a weird one, especially at a time when out country is only just now approaching the end of a massive year-long viral pandemic, that has seen most of us stuck inside and losing perspective on reality, but: Bug is based on the play by Tracy Letts about two people who lock themselves in a motel room on a bender and slowly lose perspective on reality! Fun! Actually, no. It isn't. It's directed (masterfully) by William (The Exorcist / Sorcerer / The French Connection) Friedkin, constantly ratcheting up the tension as the two leads Ashley Judd and a young Michael Shannon (!!!) go crazier and crazier. It might be tough to watch but it is an absolute firm recommend from me.

<>

Well there you have it for April. We've hit an odd part of the film landscape where studios are starting to eye the nearby horizon for places to stake their tentpoles and set up financial camp, so potentially future installment of the column will begin to have more Coming to Theaters entries, but for now this is what we're working with.

Thank you as always for reading, and thanks to MovieJawn for hosting and posting. Please visit the MovieJawn Podcast Network and listen to some pods, and if you're especially into my points of view you can find me on Hate Watch/Great Watch alongside Allison Yakulis. Until next time - Long Live the Movies!

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN - Vol. 25

 Hail and well met, internet scroller! Welcome to EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN, my column focused on Remakes, Adaptations and Long-Gap Sequels (a.k.a. Legacy Sequels). If a movie (or TV show) is based on some previously existing concept, it probably counts and I’ll probably talk about it.

So what’s new with all of you? If you think I’m just being “cute” because I can’t hear your responses, I encourage you to drop a comment below: tell me what actually IS new with you! What are YOU working on? What are YOU excited about? Because I’m extremely excited to be handling the MovieJawn Podcast Network! It’s a lot of logistics, not usually always my strong suit - I’m an Idea Man, not traditionally a Details Guy - but I’m having a lot of fun with it. We just dropped the premier episode of our newest pod Killer Bs (all about B-movie/genre/character actors) and you should listen to it HERE.

But enough about podcasts (for now…), we’re here to talk about MOVIES, baybee! So let’s do that. The way EOINA works is: I watch trailers for all appropriate films/series, summarize the (for lack of a better term) vibe I’m getting from the project, give my best educated guess as to where things might be headed and let you know whether I’ll be tuning in.

PREMIERS

These are all the movies coming to the various streaming services in March.

4th:

Pacific Rim: The Black (season 1)

Where: Netflix

Based in the same universe as the 2013 Guillermo del Toro original that pitted dual-piloted giant mecha called Jaegers (German for “Hunter”) against the equally giant monstrous Kaiju (Japanese for “Strange Beast”) this animated series for Netflix follows a teenage brother and sister who have been in hiding in their unspecified city for 5 years following a devastating Kaiju attack, waiting for their parents to return. Somehow they stumble into a hidden hanger that houses an unused Jaeger which is still powered-up and just needs pilots, so the siblings suit up and set off to find their parents. I loved the original Pacific Rim quite a bit and while I’m not adverse to a YA series set in that world, there are a lot of really convenient things at play in just the trailer: Stumbling into a government facility? The Jaeger being fully operational? Didn’t it take whole teams to run the systems that allowed the Jaegers to operate, like a NASA command center? Etc. So while I am fully on board to check this out, I’m not sure I’ll be able to completely suspend my disbelief to the degree that I’d want to. Beyond that, the art looks pretty decent - it resembles the style of the Netflix Godzilla animated movies from the last few years but smoother and less janky - and I’m literally never not in the mood for a giant monster movie / series, so I will definitely be checking this out, I just hope it can hook me and tell me a decent story.

5th:

Coming 2 America (dir. Craig Brewer)

Where: Amazon Prime

The long-gap sequel to 1988’s original, Coming 2 America finds Akeem (Eddie Murphy) returning to New York with his friend and aide Semmi (Arsenio Hall) to find his (male) heir. The first trailer didn’t make a very convincing argument for this flick’s existence beyond watching Murphy & Hall - who both look amazing btw! - rehash gags and characters from the original, luckily there exists a second trailer. This one establishes that Akeem’s home nation of Zamunda is under threat of a coup (imagine that) from wannabe ruler General Izzy (my man Wesley Snipes) and also adds some modern day social context in the form of Meeka, Akeem’s daughter (you can tell because her name is his name backwards) who would be a fine ruler except that “A woman isn’t allowed to rule Zamunda. It’s the law.” It’s not that I’m necessarily dying for the characters from a 33 year-old comedy to weigh in on modern social issues, but the inclusion of some new ground for them to cover makes me infinitely more interested in watching that just the shallow retread I first took this for.

19th:

The Falcon and The Winter Solider (episode 1)

Where: Disney+

Just a few weeks after the finale of WandaVision (Ryan Silberstein’s recaps of which can be read HERE), Disney+ is back in the Marvel expanded cinematic universe game with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. We last saw these boys (Anthony Mackie & Sebastian Stan respectively) in Avengers: Endgame where they left things on seemingly decent footing. However, this trailer opens with them in whatever amounts to the Marvel espionage world’s equivalent of couples counselling. They seem to be butting heads over each other’s way of doing things or possibly who should be the leader, though potentially it’s over who should get to wield Captain America’s famous shield (in the comics both Sam and Bucky have been Captains America at some point or another). Beyond that, we don’t get too much info on what the series might be about: Zemo (Daniel Brühl) - the villain from The Avengers: Age of Ultron - has returned, carrying a purple mask that’s a bit of nerdy fanservice which I totally popped for as has international spy Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp)! If I’m being honest, what’s got me most hyped about this after seeing the trailer ...is another show entirely. WandaVision did such an enjoyable and entertaining job of keeping me invested in these characters, and of growing the universe, that it actually gives me hope that F&WS will exceed its seeming Mission-of-the-Week spy set-up and do the same!

25th:

DOTA: Dragon’s Blood (season 1)

Where: Netflix

Let’s get some infodumping out of the way: DOTA is a MOBA. Are you unfamiliar with either of these acronyms? Ok boomer, I’ll explain them for you (I’m kidding; I myself am a million years old). DOTA stands for Defense of the Ancients and is the title of a series of Multiplayer Online Battle Arena games, the modern incarnation of real-time strategy games like Starcraft and Warcraft (the original DOTA was a mod built on top of one of the Warcraft sequels actually). What that all means is that the player is in a league with other players against rival leagues of players, all using magic and weaponry to kill each other and claim land or special tokens or what have you. What’s that got to do with being adapted into another of Netflix’s anime series? Well, the lore in DOTA is pretty cool and reasonably elaborate and that’s kind of a huge thing in certain corners of the gaming world. There are whole YouTube accounts that do nothing but unpack the lore of various properties, from Destiny to Dungeons and Dragons. Anywhere that a story is being doled out in little, sometimes conflicting bits and bobs, you’ll find some industrious nerd willing to parse it all out. So anyway, DOTA exists in a fantasy setting not unlike the aforementioned D&D. There were a lot of bulletpoints being thrown at me in the trailer but the key conflict seems to revolve around some magic lotus flowers, the possession of which will make someone the goddess of the moon? So those get stolen in some sort of power bid. There’s also a knight named Devion who wants to kill all dragons for some reason and he teams up with a lady archer who wants to steal back the lotuses. I’m not really sure who any of these characters are, or whom I should be rooting for, but if I’m being honest I love this kind of lore. I know about those lore-heavy podcasts because I enjoy hearing these elaborate mythologies laid out in a satisfyingly linear fashion. Will Dragon’s Blood give that to me? Maybe. Here’s hoping.

26th:

Invincible (season 1)

Where: Amazon Prime

This animated series based on the Image Comics series created by Robert Kirkman & artist Cory Walker looks great! Kirkman (creator of The Walking Dead) has a knack for taking a story that feels threadbare and finding new angles with which to appreciate it, so when I tell you that Invincible is the story about a kid (Steven Yeun) whose father (J.K. Simmons) is a superhero, and who longs for superpowers of his own, trust that things are not going to consistently play out in ways you are familiar. This book (most of which I have read) is so full of fantastic twists and character growth as well as a really satisfying weight applied to its more violent moments, I’ve been recommending it to people for years! Hard to say for sure whether this Amazon series will deliver the same dopamine high, but with the quality of animation (very similar to the book’s art style which was maintained by artist Ryan Ottley) and as stacked a voice cast as this thing has (come for the Jason Mantzoukas, stay for dozen or so other greats including Michael Dorn!) at the very least I’ll be entertained!

The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (episode 1)

Where: Disney+

It may be hard to understand if you weren’t there (hashtag only ‘90s kids will understand) but in the ‘90s The Mighty Ducks had a Moment. The original 1992 film spawned two sequels, a bizarre cartoon (seriously - it involves a race of sentient ducks from a world where hockey is everything, embroiled in a forever war with a race of conqueror lizard people) and, wildest of all perhaps, an actual hockey team (still active)! This latest series, despite a line of dialogue dropped early in the trailer stating “...little different than the Ducks of the ‘90s.” seems like exactly the same story: group of misfits bad at hockey seek out former hockey great Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) to coach them. I dunno, I like The Mighty Ducks just fine but don’t really know that I need to watch it again in a new form. Like, I can just watch the original if I so crave, yes? I kind of wish there was another trailer that gave me a better idea of what else might be going on in this series, if anything. There are some decent laughs in the trailer though - particularly when one kid (Maxwell Simkins - Philadelphia native!) who says he has “more of a podcast body” which made me laugh, not just because I could sympathize but he nailed that delivery. So maybe this series can get by on the charm of its cast alone (that has been hockey-mom Lauren Graham’s steez since forever, so...)? 

The Irregulars (season 1)

Where: Netflix

This Sherlock Holmes spin-off only has a teaser trailer, not a full one, so I’m going off of the barest bones here, but it actually looks vaguely interesting. In the Holmes stories, “the Baker Street Irregulars” were orphans and urchins that Holmes paid to be his eyes and ears as to the goings-on of London, since it’s not exactly a small place. I don’t know that they’re ever explicitly aged, but in my head they were kids; the Oliver Twist type image of orphans has become inextricably linked in my head to London as a city. The first of The Irregulars’ changes is to age them up so that they’re all steamy teens with ...I dunno simmering loins and hormonal drama, or whatever. More interestingly, this also heavily implies that the central mystery involves magic. Sherlock Holmes stories & their various adaptations have skirted around magic occasionally but as far as I recall they’ve always ended up being explained through Victorian-era science. This Irregulars trailer is primarily a trail of blue CGI fire circuitously racing across a map of London with narration about evil that uses phrases like “...shadow of a nightmare…” and the like, and shows footage that includes what appears to be a man igniting from the inside with the same blue flame and later a women apparently breathing similarly blue steam? I’m wondering if what makes them “irregular” in this new context is some kind of bobo X-Men mutant powers? I might check this out as my partner (Allison Yakulis) loves Sherlock Holmes things but our continued interest will depend on either the pure quality of their addition to Holmes as a conceptual property or, if things get truly wild, the talent and watchability of the cast. 

SPOTLIGHT

These are some EOINA-appropriate flicks that, though they’re not premiers, are still worth a look:

1st:

Constantine (dir. Francis Lawrence)

Where: HBO Max

Keanu Reeves starring in an adaptation of a comic book whose main character is a snarky film noir-esque supernatural crime solver? OF COURSE I like this movie! But, and this is what’s really important, it’s really damn good. When supernatural detective John Constantine (Reeves) is hired by a beautiful dame (Rachel Weisz) to investigate the suspicious death of her twin sister, he quickly realizes that he’d be in over his head if he was anyone other than John Constantine. There’s a ton of really fun and engaging world building (which I LOVE), great action and a stellar supporting cast (Pruitt Taylor Vince, Djimon Hounsou, Peter Stormare! - a beautifully ambiguous Tilda Swinton! - Bush singer Gavin Rossdale?) and a fantastic lead performance from Keanu. The same sort of beaten-down confidence and reluctance to escalate a situation that will serve him well in the John Wick franchise are on full display here, plus some really brilliant pitch black humor. A personal favorite. The pic above features a piece of my art inspired by a scene from the flick, made for a friend who also loves it (Hi Sandy!).

5th:

Iron Mask (2019) (dir. Oleg Stepchenko)

Where: Hulu

This flick is not what you might traditionally call “good”. It doesn’t make what you might traditionally call “sense”, the stakes and rules are not what you might traditionally call “clear”, the little CGI pseudo-Pokémonster looks like what you might traditionally call “Chris Kattan”. BUT. It’s a lot of fun if you can get on its level. Inspired by a bunch of myths and legends all poured into a blender and intended to appeal to an international audience, this movie features a fight scene between Arnold Schwarzenegger (who I *think* is supposed to be British in this?!?!) and Jackie Chan (long may he reign)! What more could you possibly need to know? Monsters, magic, wuxia action and honestly great lighting abound. If you like the batshit crazy, sure-why-not, anything can happen style of Big Trouble in Little China, I can’t imagine you being disappointed in Iron Mask. 

<>

This is a film-light / TV series-heavy EOINA which is maybe unsurprising given the past year’s difficulties. I hope wherever you are, reading this, that you’re safe and healthy and doing everything to stay that way. Thank you as always for reading and for potentially sharing this with friends (?). If you’ve got something to say about the column, or about any of the items covered, feel free to leave a comment below or on social media! Follow the MJ Podcast Network and my own pod (co-hosted by Allison Yakulis) Hate Watch / Great Watch - we’re about to drop our 50th episode! I’m very proud of us and I hope you’ll check it out. Until next time, Long Live the Movies!

_________________________________________________

This piece was written for Moviejawn where you can find tons of other excellent movie-centric writings, a shop where you can subscribe to the quarterly physical zine and also listen to the  I Saw It In a Movie,  Cinematic Crypt  or  Hate Watch / Great Watch  podcasts!

__________________________________________________