Paul Dano stars in ‘Love & Mercy’ (Photo credit: Francois Duhamel)
Paul Dano plays the younger version of The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson and John Cusack is the older version in the upcoming dramatic film, Love & Mercy. Directed by Bill Pohlad, Love & Mercy also stars Elizabeth Banks and Paul Giamatti. Roadside Attractions is opening Love & Mercy in theaters on June 5, 2015.
The Plot:
Focusing on Brian Wilson, the mercurial singer, songwriter and leader of The Beach Boys, Love & Mercy paints an unconventional portrait of the artist by interweaving seminal moments in his life, from his artistic genius to his profound struggles, and the love that keeps him alive.
It’s official: Lady Gaga has joined the American Horror Story ensemble for the show’s fifth season. FX just unveiled a short teaser with Lady Gaga announcing the casting as well as the title of the upcoming season. American Horror Story season five will be called American Horror Story: Hotel.
Smartly written with a lot of heart, Big Hero 6 is one of the few family-friendly animated movies that parents might not grow tired of slipping into the DVD/Blu-ray player over and over again. The Oscar winning feature film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 24, 2015 and is a worthy addition to your Disney home video collection. Although the Big Hero 6 Collector’s Edition Blu-ray combo pack is short on bonus material, the film is one of Disney’s better recent animated features and, most importantly, it isn’t just for kids.
Based on the Marvel Comics, Big Hero 6 features a lovable robot named Baymax and his best friend, Hiro Hamada, the younger brother of Baymax’s creator. Hiro and Baymax develop a special bond which is put to the test when they discover a plot to use Hiro’s micro-bots to do evil. Teaming up with a ragtag group of unlikely heroes, Hiro, Baymax, and the newly formed superhero group attempt to save the city of San Fransokyo.
The Bonus Features:
The Collector’s Edition includes the Oscar and Annie Award winning short Feast featuring an adorable dog. The extra material also has four deleted/alternate scenes to check out that are available only in storyboard form with introductions by directors Don Hall and Chris Williams. And for those who love to know more about the actual process of animating a film, the lead animators on the movie discuss how they approached creating each of the characters and giving them each a personality in the “Big Animator 6: The Characters Behind the Characters” featurette.
The best of the bonus material – and the only one you need to check out if your time is limited – is “The Origin Story of Big Hero 6: Hiro’s Journey.” Big Hero 6 voice cast member Jamie Chung hosts the featurette which provides an in-depth look behind the scenes at the research process and how the Marvel comic book characters made the leap to the big screen.
Disney’s debuting the animated short film Frozen Fever in front of the live-action Cinderella in theaters on March 13, 2015, and the studio’s just released a new trailer for the Frozen spin-off. The short brings back the lead characters from Frozen including Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, and Olaf, and was directed by Frozen‘s helmers Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee. Returning voice cast members include Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, and Josh Gad.
The Plot:
In Frozen Fever, it’s Anna’s birthday and Elsa and Kristoff are determined to give her the best celebration ever, but when Elsa catches a cold, her powers may put more than just the party at risk.
Four (Theo James) and Tris (Shailene Woodley) in ‘The Divergent Series: Insurgent’ (Photo Credit: Andrew Cooper)
Previous trailers and clips from The Divergent Series: Insurgent have focused on Tris’ fear landscapes, but this new trailer is more about what’s happening in the real world. Directed by Robert Schwentke and based on the second book in Veronica Roth’sDivergent book series, Insurgent will open in theaters in 2D, Digital 3D, IMAX® 3D and RealD™ 3D on March 20, 2015. The cast is led by Shailene Woodley and Theo James and features Octavia Spencer, Jai Courtney, Ray Stevenson, Zoe Kravitz, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Maggie Q, Mekhi Phifer, Daniel Dae Kim, Naomi Watts, and Kate Winslet.
The Plot:
The Divergent Series: Insurgent raises the stakes for Tris as she searches for allies and answers in the ruins of a futuristic Chicago. Tris (Woodley) and Four (James) are now fugitives on the run, hunted by Jeanine (Winslet), the leader of the power-hungry Erudite elite. Racing against time, they must find out what Tris’s family sacrificed their lives to protect, and why the Erudite leaders will do anything to stop them. Haunted by her past choices but desperate to protect the ones she loves, Tris, with Four at her side, faces one impossible challenge after another as they unlock the truth about the past and ultimately the future of their world.
Alison Sudol (Transparent) as Emma Wilson in ‘DIG’ (Photo by: Ronen Akerman / USA Network)
Actress/singer Alison Sudol stars in the new USA Network series DIG debuting on March 5, 2015 at 10pm ET/PT. In the dramatic event series from executive producers Tim Kring and Gideon Raff, Sudol plays an American working on a dig in Jerusalem. During last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Sudol talked about how she prepared for her role. She also discussed her co-stars, the appeal of DIG, and how music compares to acting.
The Plot: The action thriller DIG tells the story of a murder mystery set against the backdrop of modern day Jerusalem, a city shrouded in ancient intrigue. FBI agent Peter Connelly (Jason Isaacs) has had his fair share of heartbreak. Anxious to leave his personal demons behind, Peter takes a job stationed in Israel under the guidance of his new boss, and occasional lover, Lynn Monahan (Anne Heche).
When he sets out to solve the murder of a young American, Peter soon finds himself embroiled in an international mystery that delves into the Holy Land’s darkest secrets. What he discovers is a conspiracy thousands of years in the making that threatens to change the course of history. While Peter races to figure out what it all means, he quickly finds that he may not be the only one searching for answers.
Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie Day are back but this time they’re their own bosses in Horrible Bosses 2 available on Blu-ray and DVD on February 24, 2015. The original Horrible Bosses was obviously a box office success when it was released back in 2011 or else it wouldn’t have been given the greenlight for a sequel. But sequels are tricky beasts and it would have been easy for writer/director Sean Anders and his co-writer John Morris to retread the same steps from the first film in the second. Fortunately, Anders and Morris incorporated the same characters in the sequel but changed up the plot enough to make this sequel capable of standing on its own.
Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey, and Jamie Foxx reprise their supporting roles, and each of their characters are worthy of this return engagement. Joining the supporting cast for the sequel are Chris Pine and Christoph Waltz, with Pine in particular feeling right at home among the trio of Day, Sudeikis, and Bateman.
The Plot:
The sequel centers around Nick, Kurt, and Dale forming a company to sell their invention: The Shower Buddy. Their marketing campaign hits a major snag right off the bat when they finally say out loud the name of their company, which sounds like a horrible racial slur. But after that stumble they appear to have landed on their feet as they make a huge deal distribution deal with a big company, secure funding to produce thousands of units, and hire workers to make The Shower Buddy a reality. Unfortunately, nothing they arranged with the company’s president Bert Hanson (played by Waltz) or his son Rex (Pine) was ever in writing and therefore it’s easy for the corrupt company to bankrupt the fledgling business. And if you watched Horrible Bosses, you know the guys are going to figure out a way to try and save their business that involves an illegal activity. In the original film, Nick, Dale, and Kurt attempted to kill their bosses. In the sequel, they decide kidnapping the son and forcing the father to pay a healthy ransom is just the ticket to saving their scalps.
The Bonus Features:
The Blu-ray + DVD +Digital HD features an extended cut of the movie which is actually funnier than the theatrical release. The new cut has a few very funny bits that didn’t make the movie originally but should have as they worked well in this extended version.
Horrible Bosses 2 has an above average number of special features, including a batch of one liners that are alternate takes of scenes from the film. The bonus features also include a featurette titled “Let the Sexual Healing Begin,” as well as entertaining videos on the Shower Buddy: “It’s the Shower Buddy” informercial and “Who Invented the Shower Buddy.” And in “High Speed Crash Course” the viewers get a behind-the-scenes look at the film’s high speed chase and the dangling-over-the-bridge stunt.
All of the bonus features spotlight how well Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis got along on set and how easily they could make each other break character and ruin takes. For fans of the film, it’s worthwhile to spend an hour or so checking out all of the extra material.
Home voice cast member Jennifer Lopez performs the new song “Feel the Light” included in the soundtrack to the DreamWorks Animation and 20th Century Fox animated movie. With the film set to hit theaters on March 27, 2015, the studio has released the “Feel the Light” lyric video featuring scenes from the movie.
Directed by Tim Johnson, Home is based on the book The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex and features the voices of Lopez, Rihanna, Jim Parsons, and Steve Martin.
The Plot:
When Oh, a loveable misfit from another planet, lands on Earth and finds himself on the run from his own people, he forms an unlikely friendship with an adventurous girl named Tip who is on a quest of her own. Through a series of comic adventures with Tip, Oh comes to understand that being different and making mistakes is all part of being human. And while he changes her planet and she changes his world, they discover the true meaning of the word HOME.
Writer/director Jim Strouse’s People, Places, Things has been picked up by The Film Arcade for US distribution. The comedy movie had its premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and will be available for the rest of us who didn’t make it to Sundance to check out this summer.
The cast is led by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords, What We Do in the Shadows) and includes Regina Hall, Jessica Williams, Michael Chernus, and Stephanie Allynne.
“We’re big fans of Jim’s earlier films and he impressed us once again with People, Places, Things, which is a witty and refreshingly honest look at modern day relationships,” said The Film Arcade’s Andy Bohn. “Jemaine Clement is as funny and charming as ever and we can’t wait to share Jim’s film with audiences.”
“People, Places, Things is the type of movie I’ve been working my entire career to make. I’m so excited to be working with the thoughtful team at The Film Arcade to get it out into the world,” said writer/director Jim Strouse.
The People, Places, Things Plot:
People, Places, Things is a poignant and relatable comedy about a recently divorced father who must now navigate the unknown landscape of single fatherhood and dating in New York City, while letting go of the wife who left him.
Christina Aguilera and host Jimmy Fallon play Wheels of Impressions on February 23, 2015 (Photo by: Douglas Gorenstein / NBC)
The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon challenged Christina Aguilera (who’s back on The Voice this season) to try and sing like other singers, and Aguilera was totally up to the task. Christina performed the Folgers jingle as Cher, “This Little Piggy” as Britney, and the theme from Golden Girls as Shakira. Meanwhile, Fallon took on David Bowie and Michael McDonald.
