This column introduces you to the most popular movies that are coming out in theaters this weekend.
What movie will you see?
Blade Runner 2049
Blade Runner 2. A new blade runner uncovers a secret that leads him to an old blade runner that has been missing for 30 years. Starring in this Sci-Fi thriller are Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Dave Bautista, Robin Wright, Jared Leto, and more. Denis Villeneuve is running the show here as director. Villeneuve has directed Arrival, Sicario, Enemy, and Prisoners. Don’t walk. Run to the theater to see this. Hear Garrett’s review from this weeks Binge Cast at 2:40:13.
The Mountain Between Us
2 strangers board a small aircraft that eventually crashes in the snow covered mountains. These 2 strangers must come together and survive. Starring in this drama are Idris Elba, Kate Winslet, Beau Bridges, Dermot Mulroney, and more. Hany Abu-Assad is the director, while Chris Weitz penned the screenplay based off the novel. Weitz has written scripts for Antz, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, About a Boy, Rogue One, and more. Go check out The Mountain Between Us this weekend.
My Little Pony: The Movie
Calling all Bronies. Calling all Bronies. It’s a My Little Pony movie. Said and done. Lending their voices for this animated feature are Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black), Emily Blunt, Kristin Chenoweth, Taye Diggs, and more. The director of MLP is Jayson Thiessen, who has directed many shorts and episodes of MLP. Go call your Bronies and ride into the theater this weekend.
This column will introduce you to the most popular movies that are coming out in theaters this weekend and why you should go see them.
What movie will you see this weekend?
Beauty and the Beast
Reasons to see this:
Inspired by Disney’s 1991 animated film, this live-action adaptation tells the story of a young woman and a cursed prince who fall in love. Starring in this magical fantasy musical are Emma Watson, Dan Stevens (The Guest), Luke Evans (Dracula Untold), Josh Gad, Kevin Kline, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, and more. Bill Condon is the director of this film. Condon has directed The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 & 2, The Fifth Estate, and Mr. Holmes. Now, go be a guest at a theater this weekend.
The Belko Experiment
Reasons to see this:
80 Americans are locked in their high-rise office and are forced by an unknown (unknown cawwwllllaaa) voice to participate in a deadly game. Starring in this horror thriller are John Gallagher Jr. (10 Cloverfield Lane), Tony Goldwyn (Ghost), Adria Arjona (Emerald City), John C. McGinley (Scrubs), Melonie Diaz (Fruitvale Station), Sean Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy), and more. Greg McLean directs this hellish office space. Mclean has directed Wolf Creek 1 & 2 and The Darkness. James Gunn penned the script for this flick. Now Belko to the theater this weekend.
Song To Song
Reasons to see this:
Song To Song is about two intersecting love triangles, set within the music scene in Austin, Texas. Starring in this dramatic romance film are Ryan Gosling, Natalie Portman, Michael Fassbender, Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett, Val KIlmer (whoa, where has he been?), Benicio Del Toro, Holly Hunter, and more. Terrence Malick is the writer and director of this flick. Malick has written and directed The Thin Red Line ,The New World, and The Tree of Life. Need more Gos set in a music setting? Then check out Song To Song this weekend.
T2 Trainspotting
Reason to see this:
Trainspotting 2. After 20 years, Mark Renton reunites with his friends Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie. Ewan McGregor, Roger Carlyle, Johnny Lee Miller, and Ewen Bremmer all return for the sequel. Even Danny Boyle is back in the director’s chair. John Hodge who penned the first script is also back to write this one. Catch a train to the theater this weekend.
This column will introduce you to the most popular movies that are coming out in theaters this weekend and why you should go see them. Which one will you see?
La La Land
Reasons to see this:
La La Land tells the story of a jazz pianist who falls in love with an aspiring actress. This dramady musical stars Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, J.K. Simmons, and more. Writing and directing this musical is Damien Chazelle. Chazelle wrote and directed Whiplash, while also writing The Last Exorcism Part II and 10 Cloverfield Lane. Don’t be La La Lazy this weekend. Go see La La Land.
Office Christmas Party
Reasons to see this:
This flick is about a branch manager who throws a huge Christmas party, against his sisters/CEO’s will, to land a big client. Starring in this holiday comedy are Kate McKinnon, Olivia Munn, Jennifer Aniston, T.J. MIller, Jason Bateman, Rob Corddry, and more. Josh Gordon and Will Speck are the two directors on this film. Gordon and Speck have directed Blades of Glory and The Switch. You down wit OCP? Then hit the theater this weekend.
Obviously, you’ve figured out that Remember the Titans has won the Best Disney Sports Movie poll, taking 33% of the fan vote. My personal favorite, Miracle, took second with 24%. Cool Runnings took third with 19% and a write-in, The Mighty Ducks, took fourth with 14%. The Rookie and Invincible received votes as well, and I also got a few comments about movies like Angels in the Outfield and The Greatest Game Ever Played. It was a nice mix of votes and I thank all of you who participated. I’m sure if you took the time to read my top five and vote, then you’ve probably seen our winner, but just in case you’ve forgotten, here’s the Binge Media Revisit for Remember the Titans.
Released in 2000, this Disney release covers the story of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia in 1971. After an all-white school and an all-black school are shut down, T.C. Williams becomes the new integrated home for all students, including the football players. Academy Award winner Denzel Washington plays Herman Boone, the black coach brought in by the school board (“We had to give them something”) to replace the long time white coach and Virginia High School Hall of Fame nominee Bill Yoast, portrayed by Will Patton. And yes, I will mention her again. Coach Yoast’s daughter, Sheryl, is played by a young Hayden Panettiere and throughout the movie, she does provide some voice of reason as well as some comic relief.
And just because I’m putting this together means that I can put up even more pictures of her and I’m going to justify it by saying that this movie shows exactly how Americans should act towards one another. Black, white, it shouldn’t matter. But who wants to listen to me preach about how people should act, so I’ll let an older Hayden just show you a true American.
Okay, I’m done. But we all know where the story goes, but it really is done quite nicely. The players are introduced to one another for the first time in the gym and it doesn’t go well. But then, they go to camp. Who knew that high school football teams actually spent weeks away at camp? But this camp takes place at Gettysburg College, and it’s here that the players start to realize that they have to get along to achieve the goal they need to achieve: perfection. They need to get past the black and white issue and focus on being a team and of course, Denzel is the one to get them going.
From here, it’s clear that the team has become one, including the real-life friendship that would form between Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell, one of many subplots that help connect the audience to the characters and the struggles each endures. From the obvious race issue, academic troubles, or family concerns, each character is given some decent screen time, allowing us to put all the pieces together that will eventually form a championship football team. From Ethan Suplee to Donald Faison to a young Ryan Gosling, the supporting cast really helps this movie bring you a full story. It would have been easy to only focus on the coaching and friendship aspect of Boone and Yoast, and that’s where the main focus is, but these smaller stories are really the backbone here. The scene between Gerry and Julius in the hospital after Gerry’s car accident (completely his fault by the way) is very emotional and very well done.
Inevitably, we arrive at the championship game and just in case you haven’t seen it, I’ll go ahead and let you take a guess on who wins. I will say that it’s not the best I’ve ever seen, but the actual football action in the movie isn’t bad either. All in all, I really do love Remember the Titans. It’s one of those that’s hard for me to turn off if I come across it on television. Sure, it comes off as a little cheesy, but it’s Disney so it’s to be expected. But, in the world we still live in where race continues to be an issue, what’s wrong with a cheesy movie that shows you what it’s like to do the right thing?
So, what’s your favorite part of Remember the Titans? Or do you even like it at all? Let me know in the comments section below or tweet @THElukenorris to let me know your thoughts. The NHL and NBA are wrapping up their second rounds, so I’ll be back very soon to bring you a preview of the conference finals, so keep checking back with Binge Media Sports for all of your playoff needs.
Well you gotta give director Nicolas Winding Refn credit. He clearly doesn’t give a fuck what you think about him. After dropping one of the most unexpected surprises of the last few years with the fantastic DRIVE, he comes out of far left field with his new film ONLY GOD FORGIVES. The broad strokes of it set Ryan Gosling as a drug dealer using a Muay Thai gym as a front, onto a collision course with an uncompromising police captain. But don’t get hung up on the plot, because Refn doesn’t. This film has been dividing audiences since it premiered at Cannes, and for good reason. It eschews traditional narrative devices, and is far more interested in images than meaning. This is less a story than it is an elegiac meditation often punctuated by brutal, graphic violence. How you feel about that is going to be the biggest factor in your reaction to the film.
I have to admit I spent the rest of the night thinking about OGF after I saw it. I did not fully understand all of it, and tussled quite a bit with the question of was there a deeper meaning behind it all. Of course, any film that has you breaking it down for hours afterwards has done something right. And this is very successful in many ways. The cinematography is stunning, with bold reds and blues playing with shadows constantly to create the hellish netherworld that these characters inhabit.
Those visuals are supported with a two-fold audio approach. We get a soundtrack from Cliff Martinez who does not in anyway repeat his synthpop work on DRIVE. Given the meager dialogue throughout the film, it is Martinez’s work that actually carries a great deal of the narrative weight, and does so impressively. We also get long periods of silence. These are all the more stunning because of the ever present music. When that drops the lack of sound takes on an aggressive quality that fits in with the fetishized violence of the world Refn creates. There is a lot of hard vengeance and bloody retribution being visited upon people who almost universally deserve it.
That brings us to the cast, which is to a person so perfectly cast it is difficult to imagine anyone else could have played these roles. There are many standouts, and as good as Gosling is, he is little more than an anchor here. The film really belongs to Kristen Scott Thomas as Crystal, a mom from hell who makes Joan Crawford look like Mrs. Weasley, and Vithaya Pansringarm as Police Chief Chang, who is without a doubt the most intimidating small man I’ve seen in a film since Begbie in TRAINSPOTTING. These two opposing forces represent the pursuit of personal vs. universal justice in the film and both actors create a character that promises to be remembered as a classic.
So now we arrive at the big question. Is it a great, or even good film? I’m not sure I can answer that question fully. It is a compelling film, and I was completely swept up in its vibe. Much like a Mallick film this is much more interested in the setting than the content. And the setting is gorgeous. But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that OGF suffers from an at times lazy narrative. It’s not too hard to figure out the core idea that is going on, but there are far too many loose threads that exist for no apparent reason. Now it’s not the pretentious mishmash that some are claiming, but the dense imagery at play also falls short of creating the masterpiece that proponents are pushing to call it. Too bad really, because this feels like that passionate first draft of an auteur in the fever grip of inspiration, yet it lacks the editorial eye to smooth out the rough edges of a meager narrative that could have supported one of the most impressive films in recent memory.
Instead we get a masterclass in how to enrapture an audience with your images, with a minor in why those images left without a purpose will leave your audience slightly adrift. I’ve seen plenty of fans of the film already start to offer detailed explanations of what all is going on, and that’s a fine exercise. But at the end of the day I didn’t see anything that convinced me many of the events at play were any less random than they seemed on the surface.
Ultimately I’d rather see a bold and unapologetic personal work like this than most summer blockbusters, because what this has in spades that they lack is a point of view. It wants to say something, and while not altogether successful, it’s impossible to pull your eyes away.
Things are starting to shape up around BingeMedia.Net and Moreno and Law give you the no holds barred rundown of what to expect in the coming weeks from the site. As for this week’s show, the boys take a gander at Derek Cianfrance’s THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES and break down what is, essentially, three separate movies telling one grand story.
The boys also answer their first couple emails dealing with the evolution of movie trailers, and teaser trailers, and red-band trailers, and trailers for trailers. When will it stop and how can we avoid it? The other question deals with what TV shows we think would benefit from the mini-series treatment ’24’ is meant to get. ‘Entourage’? ‘Buffy’? ‘Deadwood’? Yes, Deadwood.
And lastly, we they take a look at what’s coming out this week in theaters and on the shelves. After trying to talk each other into seeing STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (read our review here!), Law gets crazy over 30 for 30: SURVIVE AND ADVANCE. Easily his favorite film of the year and CRIMEWAVE, easily his favorite film of one week back in 1985.
Be sure to check back with us later this week for our new TV Round-Up Podcast where we’ll do a commentary of the latest episode of ‘Game of Thrones and our ROAD HOUSE COMMENTARY!