Movie Scum

Christopher Nolan goes back to Europe with his new film, Dunkirk . Set during the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940, Nolan’s original screenplay will center around the evacuation of the titular French city of Allied soldiers and citizens. And I now know more about this WWII event than I did before. According to Variety , Dunkirk will feature unknowns as the lead players but with backup by Nolan stalwart Tom Hardy and Kenneth Branagh. It will be produced by long-time partner and wife Emma Thomas and distributed by Warner Brothers in July 2017 and will be shot in IMAX. Could this be Nolan’s Saving Private Ryan? Let’s hope so come early 2018.

Well, it seems that rather than making a new Halloween film , Dimension Films, the guardians of Michael Myers for the past twenty years, have been stripped of their power. The Wrap reports that Dimension Films is no longer in the Michael Myers business and that Marcus Dunston and Patrick Melton are no longer involved in the production of the presumably dead-in-the-water Halloween Returns . Returns would have reportedly either taken place following Halloween II (not Rob Zombie’s) or found Myers on death row. Or both! But now neither. I can’t say I’m too broken up about it. Under Dimension’s reins, the Halloween films were very hit-or-miss, with the hits meaning not completely terrible and the misses being Halloween: Resurrection . Perhaps, it’s for the best now that little Mikey Myers finds a new home to play in.

Much like when Guardians of the Galaxy was announced, I was entirely disinterested in Marvel’s announcement of Ant-Man . Granted, Marvel has a stellar record with their in-house films and the impossibly cheesy sounding Guardians turned out to be among their top tier. But still. A superhero who controls insects and whose main superpower is shrinking. Boo! Give me more Captain America.

In all honesty, up until the first teaser trailer for The Force Awakens dropped last winter, I was more or less ambivalent towards it.

You might be mistaken for thinking the Mission: Impossible series to be nothing more than Tom Cruise’s daily exercise excuse and to a certain point, that may be true. But this Americanized version of James Bond, with the requisite femme fatales, gimmicky gadgets, and exotic locations, still offers an exciting ride through the world of espionage and double-crossing.

Films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are quite fun and generally well-regarded. And then there’s the duo of Thor movies which, while not bad, are nowhere near as endearing or entertaining as the original Iron Man or Captain America: The Winter Soldier . But the Hulk may be just the perfect plan to give Thor his own breakout movie. News that Mark Ruffalo would be joining Thor’s third solo adventure, Thor: Ragnorak was greeting with cheers amongst the internet as the duo’s playful bantering, and hitting, was among the high points of The Avengers films. Ruffalo sums up the new film as such: “I don’t really know that much about it, but I think it’s going to be a buddy picture with Thor and Bruce Banner,” Ruffalo said. “I think they’ll probably fight. There’s no doubt, everyone wants us to fight at one point.” As drab and ultimately forgettable as the previous Thor films were, this seems like a sure-fire way to make this one stand out. Everyone loves a fight between a god ...

An Angry Birds movie may have made sense a few years ago. Is this an attempt to reinvigorate the franchise or merely sell more games and plush animals? The new trailer for The Angry Birds Movie , due out next summer, a good four years or so since Angry Birds were relevant in pop culture, doesn’t show much action or plot but merely introduces the characters we’ve all grown to love and loathe through our pig-destroying levels. The fact that this trailer light on jokes and heavy on name placement doesn’t bode well for this adaptation but we are still a few seasons away from a release. Although, this cast, including Jason Sudekis as ‘Red’, could enliven the scorned birds sufficiently, this seems more of a late cash grab than any animated kids movie that has any merit. Perhaps I’ll be wrong.

With M. Night Shyamalan back in the news recently for relatively positive reviews for his newest film, let us not forget that he has made some shitty movies. One of those movies is The Happening .

According to Deadline , the powers that be are planning The Mist to be a weekly endeavor. It’s funny that I just watched the film with my son this weekend, to which he threw the remote in anger due to the ending. The overall gist sounds the same with a strange mist rolling into a small town filled with god-knows-what and presumably the plucky cast of characters who have to face it all. While I’m not sure that The Mist would be a suitable candidate for TV adaptation, it certainly sounds intriguing enough. Hopefully for some, there won’t be such a downer ending.

There was much complaining in the wake of last week’s finale that the pace was too slow with too little to justify its bloated runtime. While I can see the argument, I disagreed with that assessment. This, the second episode, should more closely match fan’s expectations: more zombies, more carnage, more collapse of society. As is stated in the episode: “it all goes quickly.” Madison, Travis, and Nick are mostly in shock at the start following the close of the pilot with Nick’s dealer, having been shot and twice run down with a truck, still giving them the glance-over with that glazed, zombified look in his eyes. Madison’s daughter, on the other hand, is concerned with her boyfriend who flaked on their last meetup and decides to go to his house. There she finds a house torn to pieces and Matt with a high fever and an unknownst to her bite on his shoulder. After finally prying Alicia away from Matt without any damn good explanation of why, the group heads back to their house only ...

According to Hollywood Reporter , Wes Craven has died at the age of 76. Likely only in stature to John Carpenter, Craven and his work has had a remarkable impact on not only my movie-going experience but life in general. Beginning with his first feature Last House on the Left , Craven has had the remarkable ability to inspire and horrify viewers for over 40 years. He dreamt our nightmare with A Nightmare on Elm Street . He made slasher films relevant again in his Scream series. He brought to life so many various stories of despair and trouble through voodoo, incarceration, and even robotics. While admittedly his output has been very hit-or-miss (more miss in his later years), Craven was always held up as a professor of the genre that he helped create. He, and his works, will be sorely missed. Wes Craven 1939-2016

Adulthood is scary. An imaginary foe constantly stalking you is even worse.

Whereas the pilot episode to The Walking Dead began with a bang and a shuffling zombie girl clutching a stuffed bunny, Fear’s pilot takes the more nuanced approach of showing us the world of despair and decay, only for the sake of watching it be torn down even further. Opening in dank, darkened church but strange sounds, heroin addict Nick stumbles around to find a few of his mates eviscerated and his friend Gloria munching on a dude’s face. Unsurprisingly, Nick is shocked and appalled and runs his ass right out of the church into oncoming traffic. Nick is the son of Madison, the level-headed guidance counselor, who has long given up on her son’s drug problems. When Nick turns up in police custody after the accident ranting about what he has seen, Madison is quick to renounce them as ravings of a drug addict and not a looming threat to the world at large. Oops. For as much as this series was built upon the premise of a first-hand report of the collapse of civilization, very li...

Remember way back when Michael Bay wasn’t responsible for teenaged-fantasy films of semi-nudity, explosions, and gratuitous slow-mo? Yeah, me neither.

At this point where potential blockbusters are fizzling faster than an opened 2-liter soda and the Age of Superhero Glut is rapidly approaching with a list of theatrical releases that only rivals the Republican candidates, when will the general public become as oversaturated with superheroes as they were slashers in the 80s or Haley Joel Osment in the 90s? Enter Deadpool. No doubt by now you’ve seen the Deadpool trailer and the awesomeness it brings along with it. But even though Deadpool is not a household name (at least not in my comic-book reading household), the film seems to strive to break the monotony of heroes, gods, larger-than-life villains but not a lot of substance. Of course, Deadpool ’s biggest draw over it’s crowded marketplace is that Fox has committed to releasing a Hard-R picture which not only can provide the blood and guts that tameless PG-13 films have had to curtail, but also to showcase Deadpool’s very iconic and abrasive personality with all the F-bombs a...

Well damn if Sinister isn’t a gut punch, even for hardened horror fans like myself. Sinister carries similar traits as other Blumhouse Productions such as Paranormal Activity or Insidious. Blumhouse films tend to be far more suspense than horror, using fear, dread, and general anxiousness over stupid, vapid villains and unearned jumpscares. Sinister , focusing on a true crime author who finds himself way in over his head in horrendous crimes against families follows suit. And it’s probably one of the better horror films to come out this decade. Ethan Hawke is Ellison Oswalt , the aforementioned writer, who is so desperate for a hit that he uproots his family and moves them into a house where the previous occupants were suspended from a hanging tree limb for quite a while. Of course, Oswalt, being the good caregiver he is, declines to tell his family they are living in the murder capital of their quite county. Oswalt stumbles upon a box in his new attic innocuously marked “Hom...

Hell hath no fury like a dog owner scorned. Harkening back to uber-violent action films of the 80s and 90s, Keanu Reeves as titular character John Wick is cold, calm, collected, and quite badass assassin as he single-handedly takes down an entire underground syndicate and the crime boss Tarasov’s son kills Wick’s dog while stealing his car. Being that the dog was a gift was his late wife, Wick does not take this too well and soon is running around whatever unnamed metropolis decimating the legions of bad guys working for Tarasov who are protecting his son. While he typically gets much grief for his limited range and acting abilities, Reeves absolutely shines here as the withdrawn, broken Wick. Many fight scenes and shootouts occur during the film where Wick executes those in his way in a cold, brutal fashion and Reeves looks mighty creepy with his blank, emotionless face while pulling the trigger point-blank at a man. Co-directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch make what...

After the news of Michael Myers’ triumphant return in the stupidly titled “ Halloween Returns ,” Myers’ contemporary slasher villains are not going to sit on their laurels. I wonder where the saturation point of dredging up old 80s and 90s franchises will land but apparently not here as both Freddy and Jason have rumored continuations in the near future. A Friday the 13th series is apparently in the works at the CW which will feature the masked zombie/undeadish thing rather than whatever that anthology bullshit was that the previous series tried to pass off. According to IGN , the series will take place around the infamous Crystal Lake that “takes a more “sophisticated” approach as a horror/crime thriller.” There is also talks of gritty and grounded. To that I say: how the hell can one make Jason Voorhees a gritty and/or realistic/ and/or grounded character considering he’s been dead for about seven movies? The series will apparently focus on a detective searching for his ...

After a silly tiltle, some inspired casting, and a “meh” trailer, new images have emerged for Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice to remind people it is still happening. Entertainment Weekly brings us looks at the aforementioned inspired casting of Ben Affleck and Jesse Eisenberg as Batman and Lex Luthor respectively and ... not much else except for the preppy/hippy vibe I’m getting from Eisenberg ... and a mosh pit forming around Supes ... and a dance scene between uneasy allies and/or frenemies that seems ripped from just about every other action film (including the last Batman movie!). Click through for the rest and don’t let news of Affleck’s divorce get you down. Let’s just see how well this film goes before we see how much we feel sorry for him ... and Superman.

Ah, Monopoly. American’s favorite pasttime of ruined furniture, hurt feelings, and deep psychological scars is finally (FINALLY!) coming to a multiplex near you. Yes, a real movie of Monopoly. From Lionsgate’s PR-friendly proclamation, Hasbro and Lionsgate have apparently blackmailed decent-enough writer/director Andrew Niccol into heading the project which will follow a curmudgeonly old man around who forcibly evicts people from their homes and dispatches the into debtor’s prisons for approximately four hours. No, just kidding. The story centers on a boy from Baltic Avenue who uses both Chance and Community in a quest to make his fortune, taking him on a fun, adventure-filled journey. It’s about making your own luck, what makes you truly rich and, of course, avoiding Jail time! No word on how Hasbro and Niccol plan to incorporate beauty contests, free parking (yes, it’s a thing!), or damn construction costs into the story to effectively portray the soul-sucking that occurs ...

Tom Cruise has proven in his accelerated, but still good-looking, age that he is up for anything. Anything meaning climbing the tallest building in Dubai, holding onto a plane in middair, and even starring in a sequel to a movie that wasn’t that great to begin with from almost 30 years ago. Producer David Ellison spoke to Collider recently about the status of the long-threatened Top Gun sequel which will now feature MOAR TOM CRUISE saying, “ [t]here is an amazing role for Maverick in the movie and there is no Top Gun without Maverick, and it is going to be Maverick playing Maverick. ” I guess this means no more Taylor Lautner taking over the reigns from Senor Cruise as was previously rumored but also no cameo from Anthony Edwards who probably could use the work. The film is supposed to focus on the plight of fighter pilots in the face of the now trendy drone pilots and probably some dog-fighting between Maverick and some “hot-shot” behind a arcade stick. And it will be in IM...

With this week’s Terminator Genisys coming out to a host of potential and a good early word of mouth, of course the conversation has turned into making more money. And of course, Terminator is in talks to have a TV show spin-off. But wait? Wasn’t there a Terminator series already? One that was critically lauded and beloved by fans cut short by a writer’s strike and ended its short run with a cliffhanger? By god, you’re right! That was Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles! According to Skydance CEO David Ellison, a new TV series is in the development stages and of course will tie into the larger Terminator franchise as is the norm for just about every damn property these days. The dream for us would be to be able to obviously make films, television shows, we have a video game with Glu, comic books, and they all should be standalone experiences. If you just watch the movies or if you just watch a television show, it’s a complete experience. Of course, expanding popular ...

As Randy so eloquently put it in Scream 2 , sequels by their very definition are inferior works. Often times they are derivative and lack any imagination that made their predecessors so powerful. But most sequels aren’t bad per se, just worthless. These sequels though are bad enough to almost make you angry at the series for spawning such dreck.

A crude talking anthropomorphic teddy bear and a war hero dog. Which should I take the kids to see? Ted 2 Seth MacFarlane certainly didn’t win any friends after his last film, A Million Ways to Die in the West or his Oscar-hosting gig or the legions of folks who think he’s a talentless hack riding on the animated coattrails of The Simpsons . But I liked the first Ted and I can tolerate Family Guy even if it’s whatever the opposite of appointment TV. MacFarlane’s problem is MacFarlane. His juvenile schtick wasn’t too robust to begin with and that seems to be all he has going for him. Sure, people still like him. I still tolerate him. He’ll be fine with the 13 hour animated block he has on FOX every week. But I’d be surprised to see Ted 2 do as well as the original did. Tides are shifting, man. Max With the trailer proclaiming Max is from the director of Remember the Titans (uplifting!) and a producer of Marley & Me (gut-punching), I think it’s pretty safe to as...

Zombeavers   has no business being as good as it is. Stop me if you’ve heard this premise before. A group of horny co-eds go to an empty cabin in the middle of nowhere and are picked off one-by-one by some gruesome, unstoppable force of nature. Since this basic gist describes the vast majority of horror films produced in the 80s so you’d be forgiven if your appetite wasn’t enthusiastically whetted. However, where before we had masked psychopaths with questionable parental supervision, here we have killer beavers. More specifically zombified killer beavers. It’s fantastic. Co-screenwriter/director Jordan Rubin is clearly well versed in the tropes of the horror films of yore. We have our batch of easily disposable victims, simple and close-minded locals that no one pays attention to, and gloriously cheesy practical effects when the ZOMBEAVERS come knocking (and chewing) at the door. I was reminded of Adam Green’s Hatchet   while watching this as it is an attempt to recre...

While I don’t hold out much hope for Batman V. Superman , Ben Affleck is not a point of my consternation. Given his resurgence as a powerful actor/director combo, I trust Affleck will be the least troubling part of DC Comic’s epic superhero movie of 2016. It’s just the shaky director, the overstuffed cast, and the gimmicky premise that has me questioning my future earnings on a box office ticket. But a solo Batman flick, simply titled The Batman , not only starring Affleck but also directed by him too? Count me in. At this point it is merely a rumor posited by Latino Review that Affleck will be in the director’s chair but I’d argue that’s a fine choice for whatever direction DC decides to take Batman. Affleck has already proved his worth in his previous directorial efforts of Gone Baby Gone , The Town , and Argo (factually notwithstanding) and I’m anxious to see what his take on the iconic character will look like when not shoehorned in with every other damn DC Comics char...

Terminator Genisys : Opening July 1 The Good : Reboots are all the rage these days in Hollywood, especially since that means they can make a buck from movie-goers dying to see their favorite franchise in better places than ... say Terminator Salvation. Genisys (stupid spelling aside) seems to sort-of buck that trend with a page ripped out of Back to the Future 2: revisiting familiar faces and places but with a different twist. Given the complexity of the time-travel machinations, this doesn’t seem to be a bad choice. Also, the Mother of Dragons as Sarah Conner looks pretty good too. The Bad : This is the fifth movie in this franchise. James Cameron pulled off a miracle in Terminator 2 with larger stakes, bigger action pieces, and a story that mattered. Most sequels these days apply that template but forget to fill in the rest of the details. It is possible this is one such tale that leaves the paint-by-numbers pieces blank. The Prognostication : Decent reception if only beca...

After a few false starts and broken dreams, Dimension Films is again readying to unleash Michael Myers on film-going audiences. Bloody Disgusting reports that plans have been unveiled for Halloween Returns *, the eleventh installment to the franchise whose on- and off-screen butching has been around since 1978. Returns (not to be confused with Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers ) will be written by Feast and Saw scribes Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunston with Dunston set to direct. The story (as if it mattered as long as there is no white horse around) is that Myers in now on death row for his crimes but escapes (natch) and has in his targets a child of a former victim and a tough-nosed cop who is obsessed with Myers. Probably also other semi-naked, horny teens since this is a latter day Halloween film. From the cast reports, this installment seems to return the series back to its original continuity from the first two films rather than continuing Rob Zombie’s insanity o...

As N ick Offerman ’s character says in 22 Jump Street , no one gave a shit about the “Jump Street reboot” but it did well enough to be brought back again. Only everyone wants the exact same thing. Fortunately, this movie is smarter than to retread standard sequel ground. After a illegal goods bust gone bad, Jenko ( Channing Tatum ) and Schmidt ( Jonah Hill ) are reassigned back to the Jump Street project, still under the direction of the angry black captain Dickson played by Ice Cube, to go undercover to college and investigate a new synthetic drug. Everyone emphasizes that Schmidt and Jenko are to do the exact same thing to crack the case. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller know well enough that standard sequel shenanigans won’t cut it after the meta-infused original that skewered the idea of Hollywood recycling and unoriginal ideas. As such, Lord and Miller turn their attention to the notion of second outings, and their built-in expectations of more of the first film...

Unbreakable   was a modest success for director M. Night Shyamalan after his genuinely good (remember when that was true) debut and now, Night longs to bring it to TV. Speaking with IGN , Shyamalan expresses interest in continuing the saga of undercover superheroes (note: I haven’t seen this movie in forever) saying. “as a way continue the story, yes. That would [interest me].” We here at Movie Scum are strongly in favor of the shift to great, truncated TV dramas but are hesitant that M. Night (regardless of whatever acclaim his recent show Wayward Pines is getting) should be allowed anywhere near the same medium as The Good Wife , Game of Thrones , or Breaking Bad . And let us not forget that he directed The Happening . And The Last Airbender . And After Earth . And ...

San Andreas : Opening May 29 The Good : Disaster movies are fun, especially when they take place (like they seem to do the majority of the time) on the West Coast full of granola-crunching hippies singing Kumbaya (note: I’ve never been further west than Ohio). Disaster movies these days are also good for mediocre special effects showing the complete destruction of iconic areas and landmarks and San Andreas looks no different. But if anyone can take on the mother of all earthquakes, it’s The Rock with sidekick Carla Gugino. The Bad : Let’s be honest though. The disaster movie genre of the 70s is long gone and it took with it any sense of characterization or possible realism. San Andreas is a Hollywood producer’s wet dream with big blockbustin’ stars, action, effects ... the whole nine yards. And boy, does it show it in every single trailer or TV spot I’ve seen for this with the crumbling buildings, massive chasms in the ground and a 100’ tidal wave that The Rock(!) powers a speed...

Aside from a voice-over role in Gnomeo and Juliet and an assuredly special episode of Walker, Texas Ranger , Hulk Hogan has mostly kept his hijinks in the fake ring of professional wrestling. Will that be changing soon? Not since Hogan and Tiny ‘Zeus’ Lister faced off with the smarmy assistant from Ghostbusters 2 in No Holds Barred have I been as excited about The Hulk appearing against a bunch of wrinkle-faced mutants (Gremlins 2 not withstanding). The Hulk confirms talks with Sylvester Stallone about appearing in the presumably forthcoming Expendables 4 as the villainous villain who no doubt will kill and maim and bring our rag-tag team of Expendables (and maybe -belles) together. Considering The Rock is likely a good twenty years away from taking this role, Hogan seems like a good fit. I just hope they can find a suitable stunt man.

In a grim look a at teenager’s life, White Rabbit shows that some people are born to be hunters and some are molded that way. Tim McCann ’s film is at times not predicable and at others you can completely see everything unfold. Beginning with Harlon ( Nick Krause ) as a boy whose father eggs him into killing a trapped white rabbit and jumping forward through the years to show the systematic abuse he suffers from classmates, teachers, and even his own drug-addled and drunk father, it is clear that Harlon is not emotionally stable. Couple this with his obsession with a comic book that he speaks to, Harlon has little in his life of note with the exception of Steve, a younger boy also forced to suffer at the hands of society. Things begin to get better when Harlon meets Julie ( Britt Robertson ), a new transplant into his high school who has issues of her own but the two forge a bond and almost a relationship through alcohol, drugs, and shooting guns in the small town. Soon though,...

If you weren’t aware, there is a new Fantastic Four film coming out this summer. By all accounts (and certainly by previous output), it will suck. But it will not be because of race. Michael B. Jordan plays the Human Torch (aka The Flamer) in the newest adaptation of Marvel’s iconic comic series that so far has registered a big fat zero on the interest scale of Puck’s movie watching. This one was really no different, not for race or changing of the villain to a blogger or anything of that nature, but because I don’t really care. Some people really do care though. In case you have never seen Chronicle, Jordan is black. The Human Torch in his comic form is white. This has apparently caused much consternation for people. On one hand no doubt, you have comic book purists who would would rather flamboyantly set themselves on fire than have any deviation from their precious source material. They are idiots and lonely and have nothing to hang to other than seeing big screen adven...

One’s a low-cost remake of an 80s classic while the other’s a big-budget original tale. Who will win? Tomorrowland Having only skimmed advance reviews, I still have little idea what Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland is about save for George Clooney being a curmudgeon and a magical pin that transports Britt Robertson to the titular place. Of that skimming though, I took away that Bird may have been better off taking over the Star Wars Franchise. Verdict: Live Another Day Poltergeist Some might say this is an unnecessary remake (and they’re probably right), but the fact is that kids born prior to the 90s aren’t scared by static on TV anymore than they know what a stinkin’ CRT TV looks like. Some of the scenes shown thus far look good but the whole affair seems to hem quite closely to the original (and still very effective original). Verdict: Just another reel on the cinematic Indian burial ground of needless remakes.

The only film director more past his prime than Kevin Smith, George Romero , will have his groaning, shuffling corpse of relevance displayed on weekly TV. Romero, fresh off the disappointments of his last several zombie movies, apparently turned to Marvel to create ‘ Empire of the Dead ,’ a story which features humans, zombies, and vampires for some reason all vying for control or social issues or some nonsense. And according to Variety , it will be joining the growing party of the undead on weekly broadcast. No word yet on how much it will suck.

In spite of the rumor* that all the Transformers films thus far have been impromptu sketches from the mind of Michael Bay, there actually were credited writers on each and every one. Now their are more writers who get the renowned prestige of listing Transformers on their resume. Variety reports that the threatened Transformers spin-offs and sequels have found writers ranging from The Walking Dead ’s Robert Kirkman to at least four other action writers not currently attached to scribe a Marvel film. Perhaps it is best that Paramount is going this thoroughly asinine way of expanding the Transformers universe to finally fulfill either the prophecy of End of Times or a public saturation of robot-based racial and testicle jokes. One of the two has to be the result. *I made up this rumor. But it tracks.

One for the kids ... one for the slightly more grown kids. Pitch Perfect 2 When 2012’s Pitch Perfect opened, it was a modest hit but with tremendous staying power thanks in no part to that damn Cups song. But now Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson are back in a ‘Bring It On’ style dance off after being booted from their competition. Will they succeed? Will Rebel Wilson steal the show again? Will there be another damn song that somehow is still popular a year after the movie premieres? Verdict: Please no more Cups! Mad Max: Fury Road We’ve already covered this one before but guns! Explosions! Tom Hardy! George Miller returning to his roots after some questionable directorial affairs like Babe and Happy Feet! Verdict: It’s Tom Hardy! Of course it’ll be badass.

According to Comingsoon.net , the Fairuza Balk & Neve Campbell scorcher The Craft is next on the reboot chopping block. Add in a remake of She’s All That , I Know What You Did Last Summer , and a TV revival of the series Scream , there seems to be little else to remake from just fifteen years ago. And yet, still no word on a remake for Urban Legend . I wonder about the world sometimes.

In his interview with Indiewire , 28 Days Later writer Alex Garland may have come up with another sequel following the not-quite-zombie exodus from England to the rest of Europe. “In that conversation, an idea for ‘28 Months’ arrived. I had a sort of weird idea that popped into my head. Partly because of a trip I’d taken. I had this thought, and I suggested it to Andrew [Macdonald] and Danny, but I also said I don’t want to work on it. I don’t really want to play a role, and Andrew said, ‘Leave it to me.’ So he’s gone off and is working on it.” Considering the first film was a powerhouse of man versus nature-ish as well as emphasizing the brutality of human nature, the sequel, 28 Weeks Later which Garland was not directly involved in was a laugh-fest of poor decisions and questionable plot points. Here’s to hoping the next one gets it right in the quasi-zombie and/or infected saga.

Not willing to let a 22-year-old sleeping dog lie, Warner Brothers is kicking up the old pooch for another installment of 1993’s The Fugitive . No word yet on any returning players including the incredible old duo of Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones according to Deadline . Considering the original Fugitive started as a TV series back in the 60s, was turned into a film of the same title in ‘93, was followed by the forgettable U.S. Marshalls sequel in 1998, and then repurposed again into a TV show in the early 2000s, I suspect we’ll see another half-dozen sequels and TV adaptations before we all succumb to death by the one-armed man.

Mad Max: Fury Road : Opening May 15 The Good : Tom Hardy. Charlize Theron. Original director George Miller. Lots of car chases and explosions. The trailers look absolutely insane filled with completely over-the-top violence and grungy people. The Bad : This is a reported straight sequel to the series started in 1979 and typically, franchises with long gaps in between films tend to not be too well regarded. Given that Mad Mel Gibson is way too old and way too crazy to reprise his role, it may or may not be a good thing that Hardy is taking over. But then again, Ol’ Mel spouting anti-semantic rants while chasing makeshift dune buggies could be an interesting watch. The Prognostication : It’ll be crazy and action-packed. But other than the completely insane trailers and TV spots that have been released, would there really be much of an interest for a thirty-year-old series? We’ll see but I don’t expect it to trump Avengers in it’s third weekend.

Back before the rise of hundreds of cable channels catering to every niche, no matter how small or stupid, and instant video options that put dozens (DOZENS!) of top movies only a click away, it seemed that we all were, more or less, on the same page for our entertainment input. Between the top TV shows which averaged more viewers than a few networks combined get now to the big box office films that were showed edited and punctuated with commercials, the world was a much simpler place. This weekend, as I read an article from The AV Club which kindly name dropped #pbf’s favorite film, Weekend at Bernie’s , along with its wretched sequel, I began to wonder how pervasive were films twenty years ago compared to now. It feels like everyone over the age of 25 has seen Weekend at Bernie’s or Die Hard simply because they were played ad nauseum on HBO or NBC. But it doesn’t seem as easy for a film to have that penetration anymore with so many different entertainment venues. I even beg...

Iron Man 2 (2010) Even with the addition of Sam Rockwell and the introduction of Black Widow, Iron Man 2 feels less like a complete film and more of just a teaser that just happens to star Robert Downey, Jr. Thor: The Dark World (2013) I swear I saw this film and for the life of me cannot remember anything plot-wise about it. I do know Idris Elba gets more to do and Rene Russo gets ... well less. Another filler movie in the MCU. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Granted, without the First Avenger, Captain America’s arc from a bullied kid from Brooklyn to the figurehead of the most powerful country of the world and his sacrifice means nothing. But this was still an odd movie, both in scope, in cannon with the rest of the films, and in the wonky plot structure. The Incredible Hulk (2008) Even though Edward Norton was recast for The Avengers, his Bruce Banner carried a low-lying intensity with a human touch that comes in handy when the Green Giant with purple sho...

Many have proclaimed this period to be the “golden age of television,” and with high-caliber, expertly done shows like The Good Wife , Game of Thrones , and Big Bang Theory , they may be right. But what does this upcoming season’s crop of new series show? Rather than recycling ideas for movies, they are now being recycled for TV. Case in point, by my count (and granted I might have missed a few), there are no fewer than four (4!) old movie properties re-purposed for weekly consumption by the masses. Let’s take a look at CBS’s upcoming show based on when Chris Tucker had a viable career. Rush Hour - “A stoic, by-the-book Hong Kong police officer is assigned to a case in Los Angeles where he’s forced to work with a cocky African-American LAPD officer who has no interest in a partner.” Stars Justin Hires, Jon Foo,Aimee Garcia and Wendie Malick. Sign me up for more fish-out-of-water shenanigans with a clueless foreign detective and a loud-mouth know-it-all. I give it a 13 episod...