The sci-fi thriller June has been picked up by Image Entertainment for U.S. distribution. Co-written and directed by L. Gustavo Cooper, June stars Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers), Kennedy Brice, and Victoria Pratt.
“L Gustavo Cooper brings a new twist in this coming-of-age films,” said Mark Ward, RLJ Entertainment’s Chief Acquisition Officer. “With a great cast and a unique story, June will give fans a new perspective to the genre.”
In addition to writing and directing, Cooper produced the film along with James Fler, Jacquelyn Frisco, Gregor Habsburg, Andrew Thomas Hunt, Michael Paszt, and Duane A. Sikes.
The Plot:
June is an innocent nine-year-old orphan girl who shares her body with Aer, an ancient supernatural being whose mission is to destroy mankind. When June is adopted by a loving family, she must battle with Aer to save her new parents and herself.
In honor of Father’s Day Paramount Pictures and Red Granite Pictures have debuted the first trailer for Daddy’s Home with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. The film reunites Ferrell and Wahlberg who previously worked together as detective partners in the cop comedy The Other Guys released in 2010. Although there was talk of a sequel to that hit comedy, Daddy’s Home has nothing to do with playing cops and instead finds Ferrell as a stepdad competing for the affection of his stepkids when their biological dad shows up.
Daddy’s Home is opening in theaters this Christmas.
The Plot:
Daddy’s Home follows a mild-mannered radio executive (Ferrell) who strives to become the best stepdad to his wife’s two children, but complications ensue when their freewheeling and freeloading real father (Wahlberg) arrives, forcing him to compete for the affection of the kids.
Zombies in a scene from ‘The Walking Dead’ (Photo Credit: Gene Page / AMC
Frank Dillane’s character Nick is running for his life but the zombies are absent from the scene in this new clip from AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead. The Walking Dead companion series is executive produced by Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd, Greg Nicotero, David Alpert and showrunner David Erickson, and is set to premiere in August 2015.
Details on Fear the Walking Dead, Courtesy of AMC:
Fear the Walking Dead, which is set in Los Angeles and focuses on new characters and storylines, stars Kim Dickens as Madison, Cliff Curtis as Travis, Frank Dillane as Nick, and Alycia Debnam-Carey as Alicia. Also joining the cast as series regulars are Elizabeth Rodriguez as Liza, Lorenzo James Henrie as Chris, Ruben Blades as Daniel, and Mercedes Mason as Ofelia.
Arrested Development‘s Mitch Hurwitz and Netflix are back together and working on a new comedy series. Lady Dynamite, which has just been given a series order, will star Maria Bamford and is inspired by her life experiences. Bamford also executive produces the series with Hurwitz and Pam Brady, and Hurwitz and Brady wrote the pilot episode.
The season one order consists of 13 half-hour episodes.
According to Netflix’s announcement, Lady Dynamite is “is based on what [Bamford] has accepted to be ‘her life.’ The occasionally surreal episodes, refracted across multiple periods inspired by the actor/comedian’s life, tell the story of a woman who loses – and then finds – her s**t.”
Vince Vaughn, host Jimmy Fallon and actor Colin Farrell play “True Confessions” on June 18, 2015 (Photo by: Douglas Gorenstein / NBC)
True Detective co-stars Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn sat down with The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon to engage in a game of True Confessions. The object of the game is to read a random statement about something that supposedly took place years ago and have the other two players decide whether it’s a true statement about the person who read it.
In my oh so humble opinion (hey, stop snickering), Pixar has been in a bit of a slump lately. Oddly enough, it seems like while Disney’s animation unit has made a number of improvements in storytelling and overall entertainment in the past few years, the once-flawless run of films Pixar was putting out became rather dull and uninspired.
Part of this is resorting to sequels that had initially been espoused as the direction they would not head into. I can forgive the first Cars, realizing I’m not in the demo for a NASCAR theme (unless it’s Days of Thunder since that’s Top Gun on wheels!). But Cars 2?!? That should have been titled 2 Ugh 2 Blech. And Monsters University?!?!? Considering it was centered at a place of “learning,” someone should have known better than to write that script.
Now, of course, there are exceptions. The Toy Story franchise has managed to make sequels some would consider better than the original. I’m worried about what #4 will bring us, but it may be okay if they are truly launching off a new series of adventures with characters other than Woody and Buzz, letting the nicely wrapped-up initial trilogy of events stand on their own. I’m also worried about what Finding Dory might wash ashore, considering Finding Nemo seemed like a standalone film that wrapped everything up in a neat little bow, but again, time will tell.
Thankfully, Pixar’s latest is something original and the studio has, for the moment, hit pause on the sequel train. Inside Out is a rather ambitious story idea. The premise is that each of our emotions has a physical embodiment within us and they help to guide us along in life. Basically, imagine that the crew of the USS Enterprise ran your emotions from your cerebral cortex … I’ll let you discuss which crewmember represents each emotion (I find that this may be easiest with Deep Space Nine but please feel free to use whatever incarnation of the franchise you prefer).
Getting back to the film at hand, the five main emotions represented in Inside Out are Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, and Fear. They are the emotional sherpas for 11-year-old Riley, a generally happy little girl having to cope with the stress of moving to a new city and all that it entails (new school, new friends, unfamiliar settings). Of course, in order to create conflict, a mishap by Sadness spirals Riley’s outward emotions out of control, and it’s up to each of the internal emotions to right the ship.
There are plenty of clever ideas, metaphors, and concepts at play here. The notion that certain core memories create the foundations of our personalities is well developed and factors in greatly to the story. Perhaps most important to the overall arc of things is the interplay of emotions and how it’s by combining them that we are able to express more complex feelings and relationships. It was also nice to see the inner emotion teams of each parent from time to time. Not only did it provide some of the best comic relief for the adults in the audience, but also showed the differences and qualities of the emotions we develop over the course of our lives.
If I had to nitpick, and you know that I have to (I’m like a critiquing shark, if I don’t do it, I might die), there are some significant pacing issues. While the movie clocks in at a typical runtime for kids’ films (94 minutes), a huge chunk in the middle slows down the movie quite a bit. I found myself getting more than a little restless, as did some of the kids in the audience. However, the film pulls it together in the end, and I’m certainly not ashamed to admit I had a tear or two rolling down my cheeks in the final scenes.
Inside Out is the best effort Pixar has put out since Toy Story 3 … which isn’t saying much considering what those films in-between were … but still, it’s a sign that the lack of creativity and emotional engagement we’ve received of late might hopefully just be a blip on the radar for the studio that once could do no wrong. With that said, I wouldn’t put this on a pedestal or match it with some of their best work (Wall-E, Up), and unless you have little rugrats who are dragging you to the theater, this can safely be seen at home when it becomes available in that market.
GRADE: B-
MPAA rating: PG for mild thematic elements and some action
How I Met Your Mother‘s Alyson Hannigan has joined the cast of the romantic film Modern Love starring Anthony Rapp and Jonathan Bennett. Written and directed by Joshua Tunick, Modern Love‘s cast also includes Thomas Dekker, Alona Tal, Sam Anderson, Lee Garlington, Mackenzie Astin, and Hutchi Hancock.
No release date has been set; however, filming is currently underway.
The Plot:
The film centers on an intimate group of friends and family who gather at the home of two gay men (Anthony Rapp and Jonathan Bennett) to celebrate their nuptials. When the wedding hits a snag, this group helps the grooms to see that gay or straight, all marriages have their challenges, and love is just the start.
This intimate, independently financed feature film addresses one of today’s most prominent issues in the U.S. – gay marriage. At a time when 36 states have legal same-sex marriage, 13 ban it, and Alabama is not clear on the issue; the film couldn’t be more topical, especially as we head into an election year. While this is obviously a film about gay marriage, the intention is to remove the importance of the “gay” or “straight” descriptor and tell a story about the importance of the commitment of marriage.
Presenting the story in this way, with these universal themes and issues, makes a statement without saying a word – in love we are all the same.
GSN is going after thrill-seeking horror fans with Hellevator, a new game show from Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions. Set to debut later this year, the eight episode season one takes contestants into an abandoned warehouse where they compete in different challenges for cash prizes.
“You’ve never seen anything like this show,” stated executive producer Todd Lubin of Matador. “The contestants have almost no idea what they’re in for and then find themselves immersed in a horror story where they have to move past their deepest fears, to both survive and win money.”
“Our company has always wanted to create a horror-themed game show,” said executive producer Jason Blum. “Hellevator is a unique and new way to scare the living hell out of people and we are excited to be partners with GSN and Matador.”
The Hellevator Premise: “In Hellevator, a team of three friends rides a haunted elevator into various levels of an abandoned warehouse. One player must get out on each floor and conquer a frightening challenge in order to earn money for the team. But if they don’t make it back in time, the elevator moves on without them. Horror film icons Jen and Sylvia Soska, aka the “Twisted Twins,” pull the strings throughout the game – taking delight in the horror.
TNT’s riveting drama The Last Ship returns for season two on June 21, 2015 with a two-hour premiere episode airing at 9pm ET/PT. In season two, the crew of the U.S.S. Nathan James are attempting to figure out how to get the cure produced and out to those in need. However, the world has changed since the virus first spread and attempting to save humanity will not be easy.
Among the returning cast members for this second season are Rhona Mitra and John Pyper Ferguson. Teamed up to discuss the series, Mitra and Pyper Ferguson provided a little insight into what fans of the series can expect and what’s happening with their characters in season two.
At the 2015 WonderCon, I asked if the tone would be different than season one, and Pyper Ferguson replied, “Yes. It’s pretty clear that there’s new challenges. We have a vaccination where we can now go out amongst people and not be contaminated or contaminate, so it’s all new problems. It’s a whole slew of introducing new people who are going to come in and create more challenges for us as well as help us out a little bit. And, it’s a save the world show.'”
As for Rachel’s journey in season two, it will be all about figuring out a way to distribute the vaccine.
“There’s one thing that she’s figuring out, and that’s the actual way you distribute it, the most efficient way because we’ve got a time issue because the virus is still rampant,” explained Mitra. “It’s the world we come back to and what we’re confronted by are these different sort of subcultures that are now rising up. Granderson [played by Alfre Woodward] is one example and then it’s all other different people with their different agendas trying to get in the way. And obviously they understand that I have this cure, so it’s about how you guard that and then putting it out there and how we can spread it as quickly as possible.
So, I’m still under the same sort of pressure because something like this hasn’t happened before so it’s about getting the intelligence to actually do this in the most effective way.”
“I’m still a little mollycoddled. I’m still in my little nest and taken care of by all these boys,” said Mitra about her status among the crew of the ship.
“I want to look up mollycoddled!” joked Pyper Ferguson.
Watch the rest of the interview with Rhona Mitra and John Pyper Ferguson:
The official trailer has arrived for the third film of DreamWorks Animation’s animated Kung Fu Panda franchise. Kung Fu Panda 3 brings back voice cast members Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, and David Cross, with Kung Fu Panda 2‘s Jennifer Yuh Nelson co-directing with Alessandro Carloni. Bryan Cranston, Rebel Wilson, and J.K. Simmons make their Kung Fu Panda debuts as part of this film’s voice cast.
Kung Fu Panda 3 opens in theaters on January 29, 2016.
The Plot:
In 2016, one of the most successful animated franchises in the world returns with its biggest comedy adventure yet, Kung Fu Panda 3. When Po’s long-lost panda father suddenly reappears, the reunited duo travels to a secret panda paradise to meet scores of hilarious new panda characters. But when the supernatural villain Kai begins to sweep across China defeating all the kung fu masters, Po must do the impossible—learn to train a village full of his fun-loving, clumsy brethren to become the ultimate band of Kung Fu Pandas!
