Charles Bramesco
115 Reviews In, ‘Get Out’ Still Has 100 Percent on Rotten Tomatoes
I was fortunate enough to attend a screening of Get Out earlier this week, and hoo boy, that right there is one fine motion picture. Our beloved Editor-in-Chief Matt Singer made as much clear in his ringing endorsement from Sundance, but take it from me: very spooky, very funny, has something to say, insanely well-cast and even more well-acted. It’s an easy movie to love, and while the box-office receipts from this upcoming weekend will rule on whether audiences agree, the critics of America have already made their voices heard. And those voices are ringing out in perfect unison, a harmony sounding out as if from an angelic choir: “THIS MOVIE RULES.”
Watch Martin Scorsese Recall the Disastrous First Test Screening of ‘Goodfellas’
Quick, without thinking: greatest American film of the ’90s? Martin Scorsese’s decade-spanning gangster epic Goodfellas is probably the answer that pops into most heads, and rightfully so. It was a success under every criterion, amassing a tidy profit that‘s only grown through infinite televised syndication and home-video releases, earning Joe Pesci an Academy Award for his turn as the short-fused Tommy DeVito, and leaving a titanic influence on pop-culture in the years to follow. It has earned the distinction of “masterpiece,” right in the thick of any conversation on Scorsese’s finest accomplishment. But man, at first, people hated it.
‘MST3K’ to Crack Wise Once Again on Netflix in April
It was back in July that the news of an impending return from everyone’s favorite B-movie mockery program Mystery Science Theater 3000 first broke. Fans of Manos: the Hands of Fate and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians were atwitter with excitement for a revival of the long-running program last seen in 1999, breathlessly speculating on which schlock gems would get roasted this time around. And while the fodder for the upcoming eleventh season has yet to be named, Netflix has finally announced a release date and included a new press photo of the whole wisecracking robotic gang.
New ‘Star Wars’ Novelization to Finally Resolve the Fate of Fan-Favorite Jar Jar Binks
While critics and fans alike roundly rejected the Star Wars trilogy of prequels, they agreed that at least one aspect of it was worthwhile: breakout crowd-pleaser Jar Jar Binks. The universally beloved Gungan earned a wide fanbase with his charming dialect made up of screeching and some sort of alien ebonics, and his constant cartoonish bumbling was a welcome reprieve from the series’ usual heroism and valor. Fans cried foul when Phantom Menace’s major supporting character was downgraded to tertiary status in Attack of the Clones and barely present for Revenge of the Sith, but today brings the welcome news that our sweet Jar Jar will get some much-deserved closure in an upcoming Star Wars novelization.
Sam Jackson and John Goodman Face Off in Tense New ‘Kong: Skull Island’ Clip
Summer movie season starts a little earlier every year, and in 2017, it has consumed May, April, and even our beloved March. Logan will kick off the big-budget bonanza in the first weekend of March, and then cede the floor to the gargantuan Kong: Skull Island the weekend after. Even so, these two releases in particular inspire hope rather than dread when reflecting upon the studio-fronted franchise releases encroaching beyond their summer stomping grounds. All the previews have suggested that these two films will have something original to bring to the table, and the latest clip for Kong: Skull Island confirms that if nothing else, we’ll have some delectable character acting to enjoy.
The First Trailer for ‘The LEGO Ninjago Movie’ Has Bad Blood
Yesterday, a brief partial trailer for a full-length trailer (itself a partial-length version of the full-length movie) arrived online in promotion of The Lego Ninjago Movie, the latest spinoff of the Lego Movie franchise more recently expanded with The Lego Batman Movie. It gave us a brief preview of the design of the land of Ninjago, a block-built utopia wth Eastern influences that superficially resembles Tokyo. But today, we’ll get a fuller look at the new world in which this film takes place, and the scrappy little figurines that populate it as well.
Ben Affleck’s ‘Live By Night’ Achieves Flop Status With $75 Million Loss for Warner Bros.
I‘ve never seen 75 million dollars. It’s more than I have ever had, will ever have, and in all likelihood, more than I will cumulatively earn over the course of my entire life. I can’t really even conceive of how much money that is, the buying power it represents. So the news that Ben Affleck singlehandedly lost $75,000,000 for Warner Bros. with his pricy and apparently unappealing Live By Night has been kind of hard to process. Why doesn’t he have to go to jail? How is he allowed to continue directing movies? This defies all the laws of Monopoly, my lone primer on the ins and outs of macroeconomics.
Shia LaBeouf Unveils Four-Year Trump Protest Performance Art, ‘He Will Not Divide Us’
Donald Trump is the President of the United States now. Wily performance-art prankster Shia LaBeouf does not intend on taking that sitting down. The daring mind behind #ALLMYMOVIES (that time the Beef watched every single one of his movies back-to-back in reverse order at New York’s Angelika Film Center) and I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE (that other time when he put a paper bag over his head before walking the red carpet at the Berlinale) has unveiled his latest work of highly conceptual living art. And if you live in the New York metropolitan area and are willing to go to Queens, you could be part of it.
Smurf Party USA! Julia Roberts Joins Cast of ‘Smurfs: The Lost Village’
Oscar-winning actress Julia Roberts announced today that she’ll head out on a smurfin’ safari as a cast member in the upcoming feature Smurfs: The Lost Village.
Michael Keaton’s Batsuit and George Reeves’ Superman Suit Going to Auction
Good news: fans are finally getting their shot to lay claim to two highly sought-after pieces of comic book memorabilia, with George Reeves’ original Superman costume and the Batsuit worn by Michael Keaton during his stint as the Batman both up at auction until January 26. The bad news: you’re going to have to part with at least tens of thousands of dollars if you want to get your mitts on that spandex.