Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
Deadline is reporting that Sly Stallone and Dolph Lundgren are teaming for an hour long drama series that has been pitched to several networks including Netflix and Apple streaming services. The series will star Lundgren as a covert operative for the United Nations. Sly is set to serve as a producer through his Balboa Productions.
The American Dreamer poster and trailer are here. It was not what I was expecting. It looks much darker and better. It is now on my radar.
I love this Rambo: Last Blood poster. Definitely not what fans would expect (and that’s a good thing), but that’s a good thing. Dig everything about this from the color choices to the look of Rambo.
The 1917 trailer looks interesting. Here’s the low-down…
Sam Mendes, the Oscar®-winning director of Skyfall, Spectre and American Beauty, brings his singular vision to his World War I epic, 1917.
At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield (Captain Fantastic’s George MacKay) and Blake (Game of Thrones’ Dean-Charles Chapman) are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers—Blake’s own brother among them.
1917 is directed by Sam Mendes, who wrote the screenplay with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Showtime’s Penny Dreadful). The film is produced by Mendes and Pippa Harris (co-executive producer, Revolutionary Road; executive producer, Away We Go) for their Neal Street Productions, Jayne-Ann Tenggren (co-producer, The Rhythm Section; associate producer, Spectre), Callum McDougall (executive producer, Mary Poppins Returns, Skyfall) and Brian Oliver (executive producer, Rocketman; Black Swan).
I like the looks of Obsession.
Wow! Do I like this trailer for The Irishman? Aye, I do.
Mindhunter Season Two drops on August 16th and looks to be even more interesting than Season One!
Wow. If drive-ins were still a thing (how I wish they were), then The Hunt would be a lead feature. (Perhaps Empathy Inc. would be the second movie.)
I don’t have a drive-in nearby but I still plan on seeing The Hunt at some point.
Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don’t know where they are, or how they got there. They don’t know they’ve been chosen… for a very specific purpose … The Hunt.
In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, a bunch of elites gathers for the very first time at a remote Manor House to hunt humans for sport. But the elites’ master plan is about to be derailed because one of the hunted, Crystal (Betty Gilpin, GLOW), knows The Hunters’ game better than they do. She turns the tables on the killers, picking them off, one by one, as she makes her way toward the mysterious woman (two-time Oscar® winner Hilary Swank) at the center of it all.
From Jason Blum, the producer of Get Out and The Purge series, and Damon Lindelof, co-creator of the TV series The Leftovers and Lost, comes a new mysterious social thriller.
The Hunt is written by Lindelof and his fellow The Leftovers’ collaborator Nick Cuse and is directed by Craig Zobel (Z for Zachariah, The Leftovers). Blum produces for his Blumhouse Productions alongside Lindelof. The film is executive produced by Zobel, Cuse and Steven R. Molen.
The poster and trailer for Empathy Inc. are here. They remind me of something that you’d see at the drive-in when there was a triple feature and you hoped for something good.
Empathy Inc. might be that something good.
Check out Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson who star in The Lighthouse (directed by Robert Eggers) trailer.
The film is shot and black and white, looks like an old film and is almost hypnotic. I can’t say that I’m going to love The Lighthouse but I’ll bet I check it out.
Here’s the poster and trailer for American Horror Story 1984. I actually like the looks of this season, despite the fact that I am NOT a fan of slasher movies.
Joe R. Lansdale is best known for his Hap & Leonard series of novels (and television series) but Lansdale’s stand alone novels are also excellent. Case in point, check out More Better Deals coming March 31, 2020.
Ed Edwards is in the used car business. A business built on adjusted odometers, extra-fine print, and the belief that “buyers better beware.” Burdened by an aging, alcoholic mother constantly on his case to do something worthier of his lighter skin tone and dreaming of a brighter future for himself and his plucky little sister, Ed is ready to get out of the game.
When Dave, his lazy, grease-stained boss at the eponymous dealership Smiling Dave’s sends him to repossess a Cadillac, Ed finally gets the chance to escape his miserable life.
The Cadillac in question was purchased by Frank Craig and his beautiful wife Nancy, owners of a local drive-in and pet cemetery. Fed up with her deadbeat husband and with unfulfilled desires of her own, Nancy suggests to Ed- in the throes of their salacious affair- that they kill Frank and claim his insurance policy. It is a tantalizing offer: the girl, the car, and not one, but two businesses. Ed could finally say goodbye to Smiling Dave’s, and maybe even send his sister to college. But does he have what it takes to see the plan through?
Told with Joe Lansdale’s trademark grit, wit, and dark humor, More Better Deals is a gripping tale of the strange characters and odd dealings that define 1960s East Texas.
I just saw the trailer for Carnival Row. Here’s the official description…
Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne star in Carnival Row, a Victorian fantasy world filled with mythological immigrant creatures. Feared by humans, they are forbidden to live, love, or fly with freedom. But even in darkness, hope lives, as a human detective and a faerie rekindle a dangerous affair. The city’s uneasy peace collapses when a string of murders reveals a monster no one could imagine.
This doesn’t sound like something I’d normally like. But I watched the trailer and liked the looks of it. I’ll tune in and give it a shot.
Matt Donnelly at Variety checks in with Sylvester Stallone’s Production Company Wants to Be the Blumhouse of Action Films and it is well worth a read. The piece talks about the goal of Sly creating Balboa Productions…
“My goal is for us to be the go-to place for action,” says Aftergood. He wants Balboa to follow the specialty model of Blumhouse, the company behind “Get Out” and “The Purge.” “I appreciate that statement is grandiose, but Blumhouse has done an extraordinary job owning the horror space,” says Aftergood. “There is no reason why we can’t own the action space in a similar way.”
The rationale behind Sly creating Balboa Productions…
“At one of our first meetings, I asked him why he wanted to do this,” Aftergood recalls. “Starting and running a company is a pain in the ass. I don’t care who you are or how many people are underneath you — at some point you have to answer a question about payroll, about office decor. In Stallone’s case, he seemed to have graduated past all of that.” Stallone answered with one word: legacy.
Balboa Productions that are in the pipeline…
For all the details click over to Sylvester Stallone’s Production Company Wants to Be the Blumhouse of Action Films.
(The only thing missing is Sly’s adaptation of Hunter by James Byron Huggins. Cannot wait to see what Sly does with this great action/horror novel. It is a natural for him and Balboa Productions! – Craig)
They’ve just released the poster and trailer for Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. It looks good. I hope it lives up to season one.
