Charles Bramesco
Tighten Those Whiteys, Here’s the First Look at ‘Captain Underpants’
A longtime boon to children looking to placate mothers who wish they’d read more, the Captain Underpants series of chapter books was the pinnacle of toilet humor to kids in the ’90s and early ’00s. Over 12 books and three spin-offs, author Dav Pilkey generated gaggles of giggles with the superheroic adventures of a crimefighter clad only in a red cape and tightened whiteys, who used a plunger in his unending battle against bathroom-appropriate crime. Such nefarious villains as Doctor Diaper, the Turbo Toilet 2000, and Professor Pippy Pee-Pee Poopypants (a phrase I like to imagine executives at 20th Century Fox saying out loud, usually while seated at a long conference table) all crossed paths with the minimally-clothed defender of truth, justice, and excretive freedoms.
Ladies, Gentlemen, and Friends: I Give You Chewbacca Singing ‘Silent Night’
It’s the Friday before Christmas. Those of us who aren’t currently concealing the fact that we’ve slumped over at our desks in a eggnog-hangover-induced nap have glued our eyes to the clock, counting down the minutes to a leisurely holiday break. Everyone just wants to get home, gather with family or other loved ones around a crackling fire, put on the musical stylings of Burl Ives or Bing Crosby, and have a nice mug of hot cocoa. Time slows to a crawl on the Friday before a long weekend, and we both know you’re not getting any work done today, so why not kick back with the soothing sounds of Chewbacca moaning out a classic Christmas standard?
IMDb’s Top 10 Movies of 2016 List Is… Interesting, Let’s Just Put It That Way
The Internet Movie Database is a fount of helpful information. With a few simple clicks, users can learn who shot the Miley Cyrus vehicle So Undercover (Things to Come cinematographer Denis Lenoir), which sequel in the Hellraiser franchise featured a performance from a young Adam Scott (the fourth one), or how old Taraji P. Henson is (who looks that good at 46?!). As a repository for loose factoids from in and around the world of screen entertainment, it can’t be beat. As a source for critical perspectives on those same films, however... hoo boy. Just take a gander at any comment section for a movie’s page and marvel at the IMDb is the site where rabid anti-Ghostbusters zealots congregated to downvote Paul Feig’s movie into oblivion weeks before its actual release, and the newly-released IMDb Top 10 provides an even clearer view of its user base.
More Like the Fantastic Mr. Fox Searchlight! (They’re Releasing Wes Anderson’s New Movie)
Yesterday, Wes Anderson broke his radio silence on his long-awaited followup to The Grand Budapest Hotel, a stop-motion animation project called Isle of Dogs. In a carefully framed short video, he said a piece about the upcoming film, joshed around with star Ed Norton, and unveiled the star-studded cast list including Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, F. Murray Abraham, Harvey Keitel, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand and Yoko Ono along with Japanese actors Kunichi Nomura, Akira Ito, Akira Takayama and Koyu Rankin as well. All the parts are in place for another Anderson classic, except for the little matter of distribution, the process of actually bringing the film to theaters. Until now, that is.
Dick Van Dyke to Revive Magnificently Bad Cockney Accent in ‘Mary Poppins’ Sequel
Dick Van Dyke remains a beloved and esteemed entertainer at age 91, fondly remembered for his charismatic performances as a hapless songwriter in Bye Bye Birdie and a sooty-faced chimneysweep in Disney’s 1964 musical Mary Poppins. What he’s remembered decidedly less fondly for is the other role he played in the period-piece musical, elderly bank chairman Mr. Dawes, Senior. Clad in old-age makeup and credited as “Nackvid Keyd” (an anagram of Dick Van Dyke), the notorious D.V.D. busted out a frightfully bad Cockney accent in his scenes as the tight-fisted money man. Widely mocked at the time and voted the second-worst accent ever in a poll from Empire, it was not the high point of Van Dyke’s impressive career.
Christmas Comes Earlier and Earlier with Japanese Holiday Teaser for ‘xXx: Return of Xander Cage’
Christmas means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To the devout, it commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ and the symbolic coming of mankind’s heaven-sent savior to the earthly plane. To countless more, it’s a time when we gather together with family and loved ones to share in peace on earth, goodwill toward men, and beverages that combine that wonders of alcohol and dairy. To children, it is one of the several annual occasions on which you get presents. And to adrenaline addicts who like to live life to the limit even when slouching in for an afternoon at the cineplex, it’s when xXx: The Return of Xander Cage parkours into theaters.
AFI Spreads the Wealth With Their Best Films of 2016 Selections
As December rolls on, so too does the cavalcade of year-end lists. The latest authority to weigh in is AFI, by which I mean the American Film Institute and not the Californian alternative-rock group also known as A Fire Inside. While we may never know which films the quartet behind “Miss Murder” favored this year, the other AFI has released their list of 2016’s ten best releases, and it’s a little more varied than some of the heretofore published lists, bringing in some films with less awards buzz along with your usual suspects of Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, and La La Land.
‘Fifty Shades Darker’ Soundtrack Lands Taylor Swift and Zayn Malik for Lead Single
For someone who’s oriented so much of her music around her relationships with men, Taylor Swift has remained strangely asexual. Though she’s often seen canoodling with her various paramours, her public persona has remained squeaky clean and her music matches. Her songs focus on romance rather than seduction, more concerned with the dress she’s wearing rather than the process of taking it off. She’s a big fan of the “just sort of bending over” dance move, which could be kinda sexual, if you insist on taking it there. But for the most part, she’s kept it chastely PG.
Spidey Gets an Upgrade Courtesy of Tony Stark in First ‘Homecoming’ Teaser
For a fresh start with Spider-Man, Sony had to give him something distinctive. To set Tom Holland’s take on the webslinger apart from Tobey Maguire’s (and way, way apart from Andrew Garfield’s), the studio sent the hero back to high school and returned him to his teenage roots. Spider-Man: Homecoming aims to be a new take on the comic-book mythos all over, in fact — a new girlfriend in pop star Zendaya, the first onscreen appearance of the villainous Vulture, and with a new teaser unearthed today, we learned that a key piece of latter-day Spidey tech will make it movie debut as well.
As If We All Haven’t Been Through Enough Already, Paramount Delays ‘Baywatch’ One Week
2016 has already been a bastard of a year: beloved public figures died, Nazis became a thing again, America began its slow skid into fascism, and Bones got cancelled. When do the hits stop coming? Is there no respite from the barrage of tragedies that this monstrous year has heaped upon us? No, no there is not. Because throughout the seemingly unending cluster-F-word of 2016, one light on the horizon has held us up, both as a nation and as a human species. From indignity to indignity, we’ve always been able to pin our hopes on the glorious day of May 19, 2017 — known to you and I, of course, as the release date for the Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson-led reboot of beloved ‘90s lifeguard soap opera Baywatch. But even after this year’s parade of tragedies, [Don LaFontaine voice] there is one tragedy more.
God Is a Woman of Color (and Has an Oscar!) in the Trailer for ‘The Shack’
What does God look like? It’s an eternal question with which fiction has tussled on plenty of occasions, from the standard-issue “bearded white guy clad in flowing robe” to the off-beat “wordless flower child Alanis Morisette” to the factually accurate “Morgan Freeman chilling.” The upcoming faith-based drama The Shack takes a rather unusual tack in its depiction of the Lord; the film adapted from William P. Young’s best-selling novel splits the divine presence into the Trinity, with Jesus Christ as a carpenter of Middle Eastern descent, the Holy Spirit as a meek Asian-American woman named Sarayu, and God portrayed by none other than Octavia goddamn Spencer. Let the record show — God’s real, she’s black, and she’s got an Oscar.
James Gunn Wants You to Know He’s Worked Real Real Hard on ‘Guardians Vol. 2’
Dangerous business, making trailers these days. When a beloved franchise unveils the first look at its latest installment, they can be sure that the devoted fanbase will go through each and every frame with a fine-toothed comb, on the hunt for any context-free images that may hint at a new character, location, or plot development. In the worst cases, a trailer becomes a maddening game of keep away between the editor cutting it and the fans itching to strip-mine it for spoilers. James Gunn, as he’s readied the first trailer for his upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy sequel, has had to learn this the hard way.