Charles Bramesco
Red-Band ‘Death Race 2050’ Trailer Looks Incredible, May Have Cost Twelve Dollars
Does America really need another Death Race movie, considering the fact that America is approximately a year and a half out from living out its own insanely budgeted real-life Death Race sequel? Or do we, in fact, need a new Death Race movie now more than ever? As we rapidly hurtle towards our own dystopian world, can’t we look to the upcoming Death Race 2050 as a guide, a bloody roadmap for the deranged years to come? In order — yes, yes, and yes. (Note: this lede can be easily recycled for news concerning other apocalyptic franchises such as Mad Max, Terminator, and Bad Moms.)
New ‘The Space Between Us’ Trailer Depicts Earth As Maybe Not So Terrible
As the past year or so has made abundantly clear, Earth is a bad place to live. If we don’t drain the plant’s natural resources, pollute the atmosphere to the point of toxicity, or drown beneath rising water levels, humanity could take the more direct route and wipe itself out through global nuclear war. Fascism and other forms of extremism have cropped up around the world like so many megalomaniacal dandelions, and Netflix still hasn’t added the fourth season of The Twilight Zone due to licensing complications. Everything is bad, and yet the upcoming sci-fi romance The Space Between Us boldly asks, “What if life on Earth was... good actually?”
Comedians Wax Poetic on the Virtue of Choking in ‘Dying Laughing’ Trailer
It’s the bugaboo that every comic who’s ever gripped a mic and squinted into the spotlight knows all too well: silence. You keep telling the jokes, and your best material isn’t getting a peep. The flop sweat starts to gather at the small of your back, and all of a sudden, you regret not taking the bottle of water they offered you backstage. The colloquial turn is ‘choking’ or ‘bombing,’ and it happens to the best of the best. They admit as much themselves in the new trailer for the upcoming stand-up documentary Dying Laughing; all the Emmys in the world can’t protect the biggest talents in the world from an occasional nuclear-class bombing, and the upcoming doc captures all the agony and ecstasy of life in comedy.
David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust Movie Returning to Theaters (in Europe, But Still)
A few days from now, January 10 will mark the one-year anniversary of David Bowie’s surprising death and the beginning of the unending parade of horrors that was 2016. The tributes poured out in the wake of the announcement with commemorative parades and parties taking place in cities across the globe. But while the flow of memorials to the musical pioneer may have ebbed, it hasn’t stopped completely. A new report from Variety indicates that later this year, Bowie’s spirit will continue to live on at cineplexes across Europe with what is now the closest a person can get to attending an actual David Bowie concert.
Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn Act Each Other Into Next Week in New ‘Una’ Trailer
It’s downright mystifying that Una, Australian theatre veteran Benedict Andrews’ first foray into screen directing, hasn’t found an American distributor as of yet. It’s got two major stars in Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn — and with Riz Ahmed also appearing as a supporting player, they could even work the “Rogue One reunion” angle! — the reviews out of its screenings at the film festivals in Telluride and Toronto were uniformly strong, and it also happens to be excellent. (I was one of the critics praising the film as a superb actors’ showcase back at Toronto.) While there’s no U.S. release date on the horizon, it’s only a matter of time until some clever distributor makes a move, and for now, we’ve got a new trailer.
The Miracle of Life Has a Taste for Death in Bizarre ‘Prevenge’ Trailer
Prevenge is, in the simplest terms, the movie about the pregnant woman convinced her fetus is ordering her to murder the people around her. It’s a pretty out-there logline, one that earned the film a handful of festival dates where it played to shocked, baffled, and delighted crowds ready to anoint a cult classic in the making. There’s more to it than the grabby premise, though; films with great concepts are not necessarily great films, but Prevenge has a strong wave of praise behind it suggesting that English first-timer Alice Lowe has the filmmaking chops to back up the promise of her script.
Revisit Carrie Fisher’s Uproarious Roast of George Lucas at the 2005 AFI Awards
The world’s still stinging from the loss of Carrie Fisher yesterday, and while we will most likely remember her first as Princess Leia, the actress cultivated a long career of comedy after her Star Wars years. Her one-woman show Wishful Drinking was a must-see on Broadway, and her hilarious, often inscrutable Twitter account will stand as a testament to her bizarre wit. In the wake of Fisher’s sad death on Tuesday, one video in particular has begun to pop up again, and it might just be the comic’s most searing public appearance of all.
Tighten Those Whiteys, Here’s the First Look at ‘Captain Underpants’
A longtime boon to children looking to placate mothers who wish they’d read more, the Captain Underpants series of chapter books was the pinnacle of toilet humor to kids in the ’90s and early ’00s. Over 12 books and three spin-offs, author Dav Pilkey generated gaggles of giggles with the superheroic adventures of a crimefighter clad only in a red cape and tightened whiteys, who used a plunger in
IMDb’s Top 10 Movies of 2016 List Is… Interesting, Let’s Just Put It That Way
The Internet Movie Database is a fount of helpful information. With a few simple clicks, users can learn who shot the Miley Cyrus vehicle So Undercover (Things to Come cinematographer Denis Lenoir), which sequel in the Hellraiser franchise featured a performance from a young Adam Scott (the fourth one), or how old Taraji P. Henson is (who looks that good at 46?!). As a repository for loose factoids from in and around the world of screen entertainment, it can’t be beat. As a source for critical perspectives on those same films, however... hoo boy. Just take a gander at any comment section for a movie’s page and marvel at the IMDb is the site where rabid anti-Ghostbusters zealots congregated to downvote Paul Feig’s movie into oblivion weeks before its actual release, and the newly-released IMDb Top 10 provides an even clearer view of its user base.
Ladies, Gentlemen, and Friends: I Give You Chewbacca Singing ‘Silent Night’
It’s the Friday before Christmas. Those of us who aren’t currently concealing the fact that we’ve slumped over at our desks in a eggnog-hangover-induced nap have glued our eyes to the clock, counting down the minutes to a leisurely holiday break. Everyone just wants to get home, gather with family or other loved ones around a crackling fire, put on the musical stylings of Burl Ives or Bing Crosby, and have a nice mug of hot cocoa. Time slows to a crawl on the Friday before a long weekend, and we both know you’re not getting any work done today, so why not kick back with the soothing sounds of Chewbacca moaning out a classic Christmas standard?
Michael Peña and Alexander Skarsgard Declare ‘War on Everyone’ In Raucous New Trailer
A bruise-black crime comedy about a pair of tough-guy partners working in a dark-grey moral area to unravel a larger crime syndicate, executed with a '70s flair. It sure looks like 2017 will find its The Nice Guys in John Michael McDonagh's upcoming feature War on Everyone, the trailer for which debuted today in advance of its February 3 debut. The new Gosling/Crowe power couple is none other than Michael Peña (poised to rebound from the career cyanide of Collateral Beauty) and Alexander Skarsgård (also in need of a rebound, from this summer's dud Tarzan), as a pair of police officers who make typical cop-on-the-edge types look like they're not even on the edge, like they're a safe distance from the cliff.
‘A Cure for Wellness’ Trailer: Definitely Don’t Drink This Water
2016 was a hell of a year for horror, from the high-literary chills of I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House to ‘cult classic’ The Invitation to rigorously designed colonial freakout The Witch to the stripped-down nightmare of Don’t Breathe. 2017’s already looking like it’ll be able to give this year’s chills a run for their money, though; the advance reviews for M. Night Shyamalan’s multiple-personality abduction thriller Split have been improbably positive, the trailer for Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out looks absolutely bonkers, and Gore Verbinski has given February a shot in the arm (pun extremely, shamelessly intended) with his upcoming psych ward-set feature A Cure for Wellness.