Matthew Monagle
Bill Paxton, Star of ‘Aliens’ and ‘Twister,’ Passes Away at 61
As a teenager in the ’90s, no actor better represented blockbuster movies than Bill Paxton. Although Paxton wasn’t typically a leading man in those movies — he would often play the brother, the second-in-command, or the comic relief — he served as a kind of talisman of quality. If you saw Paxton’s name in the opening credits of a movie, you knew that the film was going to be better for it.
Take the ‘Cure for Wellness’ Super Bowl Spot and Call Me in the Morning
Here’s the best movie trailer of the Super Bowl.
The Dead Command in the Sea in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ Super Bowl Spot
There are a lot of ghost pirates in these Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The newest film, Dead Men Tell No Tales, centers on a whole new crew of spectral baddies (led by Javier Bardem) on the hunt for Johnny Depp’s most famous creation, Captain Jack Sparrow. Will he prevail? Well, dull, yes he will. He’s the one whose face is in the actual Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
No Coworker Is Safe in the Latest ‘The Belko Experiment’ Teaser
Sometimes a movie comes along and gives you something you didn’t even know you wanted. Take The Belko Experiment. I’ve seen movies like Battle Royale and even the fun-in-theory, bad-in-execution Operation: Endgame, but it wasn’t until I first saw the first red band trailer for James Gunn’s upcoming film that I realized exactly what I’d been missing. Those movies delivered on fun fight sequences and gratuitous violence, but they lacked the return of a creeper, sleazy, Ghost-era Tony Goldwyn. Not any more.
David Ayer Wishes He’d Made Joker the Big Bad in ‘Suicide Squad’
It’s been six months since Suicide Squad was released in theaters and a collective history is starting to shape up around the film. Despite denials from Warner Bros., it’s now pretty much understood that the studio rushed production of Suicide Squad and backed director David Ayer into a corner about the film’s final cut. Despite these issues, Ayer has remained a loyal solider for the studio, regularly commenting that the film we saw in theaters was his and his alone.
Watch Chewbacca ‘Disarm’ an Enemy in This ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Deleted Scene
While Star Wars: The Force Awakens was an international smash hit, it wasn’t devoid of criticism. Some people felt that the film veered a little close to the storyline of the original Star Wars film; others felt that the family friendly action didn’t quite line up with the darker tone they expected from movies like The Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Sith. So to those fans, I offer you the above deleted scene (via i09) where Chewbacca rips out the arm of Unkar Plutt. It may be another throwback to the original movies, but at least it’s one with a little bit of bite.
Sony Sets a ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming 2’ Release Date
File this one under ‘Least Surprising News Stories of the Day’: right on the heels of releasing the first trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming, Sony has announced the release date for Spider-Man: Homecoming 2, proving that no title is so awkward as to prevent Hollywood from slapping the number ‘2’ on it and calling it a day.
Warner Bros. Picks a Director for Its ‘Mortal Kombat’ Reboot
Odds are good that a few of you read this headline and thought, “Wait, there’s a Mortal Kombat reboot in production?” It’s true! Despite mixed success as a feature film and a web-series, Warner Bros. has decided to once again chase that sweet video game industry money with a big screen remake of the popular video game franchise. James Wan — who joined the project all the way back in 2015 as the executive producer — recently described the film as the fantasy version of Enter the Dragon, expressing a great deal of enthusiasm for the universe that he and the Mortal Kombat screenwriters had created.
‘John Wick’ Director David Leitch Officially Gon’ Give It to You in ‘Deadpool 2’
A few weeks ago, Deadpool director Tim Miller shocked the world — or a nerdier and more profane subsection of the world, anyways — by walking away from Deadpool 2. As reporters scrambled to make sense of why Miller would leave one of the breakout franchises of 2016, reports emerged that Miller and star Ryan Reynolds had very conflicting ideas for the upcoming sequel and that 20th Century Fox had thrown their support behind Reynolds’ vision for the franchise. Deadpool 2 was officially in the hands of Ryan Reynolds now, but the film still needed a director, and the hunt was on.
U.S. Court Dismisses MPAA Case Requiring Movies With Smoking to Be R-Rated
As times change, standards change, and we occasionally find ourselves bumping up against old traditions that need to retire. Even some of our most beloved childhood movies feature behavior and activities — smoking, strong language, casual misogyny — that went unnoticed and unappreciated by our older selves. Given the well-established health risks that smoking poses, one person recently took it upon himself to sue Hollywood in an attempt to get onscreen smoking banned. I’ll give a moment to guess who won.
There Are Whole Seconds of New Joker Footage in This ‘Suicide Squad’ TV Spot
Look, all things being equal, I really didn’t mind Jared Leto’s take on the Joker in Suicide Squad. Yes, the constant news items about what latest “crazy” thing he did to get in character were pretty annoying, and yes, the number of people who seem to think that Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship is something to emulate is downright disturbing, but Leto seemed like a perfect fit for the gloomy and angst-ridden universe that Warner Bros. has created for its DC Comics characters. At another studio, he’d be woefully out of place. In this one? He’s fine.
A Whole Bunch of ‘Batman’ Is Coming to HBO in November
Between the epic run of Game of Thrones and the impressive first season of Westworld, odds are good that you’re currently rocking an annual subscription to HBO or HBOGo. Few networks are still in the business of appointment television, but with social media sites like Twitter exploding into a flurry of spoilers after each new episode of both shows, fans are finding that their only real options are to watch on time or to not watch at all. In fact, we can sometimes get so caught up in the flurry of long-form television that we forget that HBO has some pretty darn good movies, too.