THE FIRST NUDIE MUSICAL, will be available for the first time on VOD/Digital on February 25th from Quiver Distribution. Written by Bruce Kimmel and starring Cindy Williams (American Graffiti, Laverne & Shirley), Stephen Nathan (Bones), Diana Canova (Soap), and Susan Buckner (Grease),
Here’s a vintage trailer:
The son of a famous studio owner is forced to make porno films to keep the bankrupt studio from being made into a shopping center. In an attempt to get back on the high ground he makes a nudie musical. He makes a bet with the debtors who wish to take ownership of the studio, that if they finance the musical and he can’t complete it within two weeks, they can foreclose.
A scene from the Finnish TV mini-series PIECE OF MY HEART. Courtesy of Topic
The title “Piece Of My Heart” (“Pala Sydamesta” in Finnish) looks like it belongs on the poster for a romantic tear-jerker. Regular readers of my reviews will know it couldn’t possibly be one of those, simply because I’m the one writing this review. “Piece Of My Heart” is an eight-episode Finnish TV miniseries dramatizing the work of child welfare workers in Helsinki, delivering far more suspense than sobbing.
Rita (Lotta Lehtikari), the veteran of a two-woman team, is severely traumatized and disgraced from a recent high-profile failure. A young girl under her supervision disappeared under circumstances that raise questions of Rita’s misconduct. She’d always been something of a rogue in the department, but her handling of this family may have gone tragically over the line. As the season begins, Rita is returning to duty, but finding herself replaced as head of the unit. Her new supervisor (Martin Bahne) is something of a prig with a grudge, adding another dimension of challenges to serving the beleaguered families on her turf.
Enter Laura (Niina Koponen) as Rita’s partner. Laura is a young mother, new to the agency, and soon overwhelmed by the severity and urgency of their clients’ needs. In the early episodes, we meet a swirl of children and teens with a full spectrum of personal and familial issues. We watch the women do their best to respond, despite limited resources, lack of essential police support, Rita’s actions being overly scrutinized by that new boss in the wake of her recent episode, and overriding political pressures on them all, arising from the city’s push for funding of a large new facility and expanded agency for housing and healing troubled minors.
The series covers a lot of emotional and cultural ground in just over six suspenseful hours. The individuals’ arcs overlap, with those we meet early on continuing for much of the season. Besides displaying an array of troubled families, the series explores the toll this work takes on case workers and their own families, including factors from their past that pointed them towards such a demanding and draining career choice.
We particularly see how hard it is for them to make “non-work” plans, since crises requiring immediate response pose a 24/7 cancellation threat. The residual damage to our protagonists is highlighted by barrages of flashbacks and nagging dreams – especially Rita’s. The mystery of what happened to that girl before the series opens weaves through its entirety, impacting much of how they can handle their current clientele.
The series is ideal for a binge, since several cases progress within each episode, alternating among the victims, their families, the workers and high-level political machinations concerning approval and control over the Big Project. The crushing burdens of responsibility the job forces upon the social workers and their own families is also presented compellingly, without descending into soap opera.
The first three episodes begin streaming on Topic on Feb. 17, with the rest issued weekly thereafter. Those who start immediately should not be put off by the slow pace and possibly confusing mix of flashbacks and nightmares in the early going. All the elements come together over time, and progress in a relatively realistic, emotionally engaging manner towards a believable, lifelike set of outcomes.
The problems their young clients face may be hard for some to watch, but the presentation seems about as honest (i.e. free of cinematic hyperbole) as such dramas can get. Unlike many domestic analogs, these protagonists are relatable humans, flaws and all, trying their best without martial arts skills or other extraordinary resources. Viewers are not spoon-fed tidy Hollywood endings for all parties but should be satisfied when the dust settles.
“Piece Of My Heart,” in Finnish with English subtitles, begins streaming on Topic with episodes 1-3 on Feb. 17, and additional episodes 4-8 following weekly.
Scarlett Sperduto and Booboo Stewart in THOSE WHO WALK AWAY. Courtesy of VMI Releasing
As low-budget horror flicks go, THOSE WHO WALK AWAY, begins intriguingly as it establishes the two lead personae via their awkward chatting during the first meeting, resulting from their on-line dating connection. Booboo Stewart plays Max, a shy lad tentatively re-entering the social scene after a long preoccupation with caring for his mother during a severe illness. Scarlett Sperduto’s character Avery is relatively cool, though carrying her own set of baggage, as the two verbally circle each other like wary boxers at the start of a match.
As they wander through their small town, gradually opening up to this new potential partner beside them, it soon becomes apparent that Avery will be the Alpha if they become a couple. She persuades him to join her in exploring a reputedly haunted house. Odd choice for a first date but it’s one way to skip past the usual facades people bring to such encounters. So far, so good. We’re getting to like them as they are warming to each other, thanks to believable dialog and spot-on body language.
Once they enter the creepy dwelling, events turn ugly for the characters and the audience. The place houses a hideous creature with a homicidal agenda. We’re supposed to be scared by what happens, but mostly I found myself disoriented.
Apparently working on a low budget called for camera and lighting gimmicks that cost little and achieved less. Even worse, they didn’t invest what they saved on the filming in further writing efforts to make the script more coherent. I can’t be more specific without spoilers but I’d have remained more emotionally engaged with better understanding of how this all came about, including more of the backstory and abilities of the evil entity driving the whole thing. Three credited writers, including director Robert Rippberger, needed more time together. Or a fresh fourth set of eyes before they started shooting.
Whatever energy the latter half might have contained was dampened by a combination of pointlessly weird cuts and angles within the house, and excessively lingering shots of nothing in particular happening. The two leads were well cast. Stewart is presumably popular with younger viewers, since he was featured in the TWILIGHT series. I have no idea what his career aspirations may be but choosing the name of Yogi Bear’s sidekick over his birth name (Nils) and limitless alternatives seems to indicate a lack of ambition. “The name’s Bond; Booboo Bond” would only work on “Saturday Night Live.” Sperduto could clearly carry her weight in better films, and most certainly will.
Bottom line, Stewart and Sperduto are worth getting to know. She impresses me as a younger version of an Aubrey Plaza. I’m mildly curious about what Rippberger, whose directing career has been mainly shorts and documentaries, may yet accomplish with better scripts and bigger budgets. This effort is a reasonable choice for a mildly gory horror flick when you’re in that mood. But nothing here is particularly unique or memorable.
THOSE WHO WALK AWAY is available streaming starting on Friday, Feb. 11, on Apple TV, Amazon, Hoopla, iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and Microsoft, and in theaters in selected cities.
Tolkien fans, pop culture fans, and football fans alike paused during the third quarter of Super Bowl LVI on Sunday when Amazon transported them on a long-awaited journey back into Middle-earth.
Prime Video released its first official teaser trailer for its most highly anticipated new series of 2022, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
The 60-second commercial spot offered Super Bowl viewers their first-ever audio-visual glimpses of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fabled Second Age, unveiling a brand-new legend from Amazon Studios and showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay set to begin on September 2. Featuring a selection of characters from the ensemble cast—such as Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs—and Arda-spanning environments, the teaser trailer takes viewers on an action-packed journey filled with wonder and excitement in true cinematic splendor.
The debut of the teaser trailer during the Super Bowl LVI on February 13 marks the latest breakout moment for what will arguably be one of the biggest global marketing campaigns of 2022. Early this year, Prime Video forged the show’s title treatment in molten metal, fuelling fans’ insatiable appetite for this series and organically reaching an estimated 1 billion impressions worldwide within the first 24 hours. This campaign milestone was quickly followed with the unveiling of 23 intricately detailed posters featuring only the hands of the series’ stars, sparking huge online conversation regarding the identity and backstories of these characters.
The eagerly awaited The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will premiere exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories around the world in multiple languages on Friday, September 2, with new episodes available weekly.
Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and one of the greatest villains that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared reemergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the farthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.
The series is led by showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay. They are joined by executive producers Lindsey Weber, Callum Greene, J.A. Bayona, Belén Atienza, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, Gennifer Hutchison, Bruce Richmond, and Sharon Tal Yguado, and producers Ron Ames and Christopher Newman. Wayne Che Yip is co-executive producer and directs along with J.A. Bayona and Charlotte Brändström.
The multi-season drama will premiere exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories around the world in multiple languages on Friday, September 2, with new episodes available weekly.
The Lord of the Rings books have been translated into over 38 languages and have sold more than 150 million copies.
WAMG has your free passes to the advance screening of the movie DOG, directed by Reid Carolin & Channing Tatum.
DOG is a buddy comedy that follows the misadventures of two former Army Rangers paired against their will on the road trip of a lifetime. Army Ranger Briggs (Channing Tatum) and Lulu (a Belgian Malinois dog) buckle into a 1984 Ford Bronco and race down the Pacific Coast in hopes of making it to a fellow soldier’s funeral on time. Along the way, they’ll drive each other completely crazy, break a small handful of laws, narrowly evade death, and learn to let down their guards in order to have a fighting chance of finding happiness.
In Theaters February 18th.
Enter at the link below for a chance to win passes (good for 2) to the advance screening of DOG on Wednesday, February 16, 7pm at the AMC Esquire.
“What’s a bad miracle?” Oscar® winner Jordan Peele disrupted and redefined modern horror with Get Out and then Us. Now, he reimagines the summer movie with a new pop nightmare: the expansive horror epic, Nope.
NOPE opens only in Theaters this summer July 22.
The film reunites Peele with Oscar® winner Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Judas and the Black Messiah), who is joined by Keke Palmer (Hustlers, Alice) and Oscar® nominee Steven Yeun (Minari, Okja) as residents in a lonely gulch of inland California who bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery.
Watch The Superbowl TV and the full trailer now for what might be the director’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind… spaceship flyovers, starry night sky, ominous billowing clouds, and mysterious lights.
Nope, which co-stars Michael Wincott (Hitchcock, Westworld) and Brandon Perea (The OA, American Insurrection), is written and directed by Jordan Peele and is produced by Ian Cooper (Us, Candyman) and Jordan Peele for Monkeypaw Productions. The film will be released by Universal Pictures worldwide.
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Maverick (Tom Cruise) goes head to head with a Porsche in the Superbowl TV spot for TOP GUN: MAVERICK, hitting theaters on May 27.
From Director Joseph Kosinski, the film stars Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Greg Tarzan Davis with Ed Harris.
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: “Rooster,” the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka “Goose.” Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.
Today, during the Big Game coverage, Marvel Studios debuted a brand-new trailer for “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” that took viewers on a mind-blowing whirlwind through the Multiverse. In addition, Marvel Studios also released a new poster for the supernatural adventure.
In Marvel Studios’ “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” the MCU unlocks the Multiverse and pushes its boundaries further than ever before. Journey into the unknown with Doctor Strange, who, with the help of mystical allies both old and new, traverses the mind-bending and dangerous alternate realities of the Multiverse to confront a mysterious new adversary.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Elizabeth Olsen, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, with Michael Stühlbarg, and Rachel McAdams.
The film is directed by Sam Raimi, and Kevin Feige is the producer. Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Eric Hauserman Carroll and Jamie Christopher serve as executive producers. The screenplay was written by Michael Waldron.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” releases in U.S. theaters on May 6, 2022.
Netflix has released the fantastic trailer for THE ADAM PROJECT from director Shawn Levy (REAL STEEL, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, FREE GUY, Producer of ARRIVAL and LOVE AND MONSTERS).
A time-traveling pilot teams up with his younger self and his late father to come to terms with his past while saving the future.
Sc-Fi Genius. I can’t wait for March 11.
So why watch this sci-fi film?
It’s got a great cast starring Ryan Reynolds, Zoe Saldana, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Garner (yes Marvel fans – Gamora, Elektra, The Hulk, Deadpool). The editing of the trailer along with the rousing music is brilliant. The other-worldly score by Rob Simonsen is gripping. The story, written by Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin, is funny, emotional, heart-warming and somewhat relatable. The Baddies. The spaceships and how we want these in Lego form! The cool weapons and that platform! And lastly time travel!!
“You can go to any timeline, any universe… why fight to save this one?” – Michael Keaton’s Batman.
The MCU has it’s Avengers, but the DCEU has it’s HEROES!
DC/Warner Brothers has released a new one minute teaser trailer titled “The World Need Heroes” for it’s four upcoming superhero movie offerings, and things are looking good. The films in question are The Batman, Aquaman, The Flash and Black Adam, and of all of these, THE GEEKS are most excited about Black Adam!
DC has a long history with superhero movies, but they have tended to play things very safe, sticking mostly to the big 3, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. They did an outstanding job with Shazam, and did something that was almost unthinkable: brought in the whole Shazam family, which was off-the-chain nuts at the time, and was a big part of why the Shazam movie was so popular and fun. Along this same vein is why I’m so stoked for the Black Adam movie: the side characters. Hawkman, Doctor Fate, and Atom Smasher are supposed to be pivotal in the shaping of Adam, bringing him in from the villain role.
What’s so exciting here isn’t just that, but it shows that DC may be finally ready to dip it’s toe in to it’s C and D catalog of characters. I know, I know, before you start screaming “But…SUICIDE Squad” and “Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey”, no. For one thing, these were either outright villains and both were treated like disposable products. I like them, but they felt cheated of any real substance, and still…VILLAINS. And the lightweights at that. Joker wasn’t even the same joker from the comics (no way that movie version was anything like ANY version of the Batman adversary) the Harley Quinn characters were all down-on-their luck villains (Black Canary and Huntress weren’t played as heroines at all), the Suicide Squad were all D-level throw-a-ways. No, we need HEROES.
Hawkman is, at his most refined, incredibly interesting, savage, and complex. Yay, they have him in the movie, I hope they keep with the integrity of the character. Doctor Fate is powerful, fascinating, other-worldly, and wise, while the striking choice of Atom-Smasher for this movie shows that now DC can stop pretending that they don’t have a plethora of very interesting characters that are not remotely similar to Superman. If written well and kept true to their comic book origins, these C and D heroes can be original, interesting, funny, scary, complex, and worth a feature film.
The era of single character origin stories is over, but a duo or small team with a good supporting cast could really make the company crowd pleasers. Booster Gold and Blue Beetle (both Beetles in the same film!), or Plastic man and Captain Atom are ready for the big time so they can showcase a diversity of powers that are nothing like the Big 3 of DC.
Come on DC… stop tip-toeing, it’s time to break out the breakouts, and claim your place on the comic book cinematic universe throne!
THE BATMAN In theaters and IMAX in North America March 4
Directed by Matt Reeves, the cast stars Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Jayme Lawson, with Andy Serkis and Colin Farrell. Two years of stalking the streets as the Batman (Pattinson), striking fear into the hearts of criminals, has led Bruce Wayne deep into the shadows of Gotham City. With only a few trusted allies—Alfred Pennyworth (Serkis), Lt. James Gordon (Wright)—amongst the city’s corrupt network of officials and high-profile figures, the lone vigilante has established himself as the sole embodiment of vengeance amongst his fellow citizens. When a killer targets Gotham’s elite with a series of sadistic machinations, a trail of cryptic clues sends the World’s Greatest Detective on an investigation into the underworld, where he encounters such characters as Selina Kyle/aka Catwoman (Kravitz), Oswald Cobblepot/aka the Penguin (Farrell), Carmine Falcone (Turturro), and Edward Nashton/aka the Riddler (Dano). As the evidence begins to lead closer to home and the scale of the perpetrator’s plans becomes clear, Batman must forge new relationships, unmask the culprit, and bring justice to the abuse of power and corruption that has long plagued Gotham City
BLACK ADAM In theaters and IMAX in North America July 29
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, the cast includes Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindell, and Pierce Brosnan. Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods—and imprisoned just as quickly—Black Adam (Johnson) is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.
THE FLASH In theaters in North America November 4
Directed by Andy Muschietti, the cast includes Ezra Miller, Ron Livingston, Kiersey Clemons, Michael Shannon, Antje Traue, Sasha Calle, and Michael Keaton Ezra Miller stars as Barry Allen, AKA The Flash, who pushes the limits of his superpowers in the DC Super Hero’s first-ever standalone feature film.
AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM In theaters in North America December 16
Directed by James Wan, the cast includes Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Randall Park, Temuera Morrison, Dolph Lundgren, and Nicole Kidman [cast order TBD] When an ancient power is unleashed, Aquaman must forge an uneasy alliance with an unlikely ally to protect Atlantis, and the world, from irreversible devastation.
Contributed by Michelle Hannett and Marc Butterfield
The World Needs Heroes.
Powerful line up ✊🏾
From the BLACK ADAM UNIVERSE. Your 1st LOOK at the JUSTICE SOCIETY:
