“The Dead Don’t Die” opens with a song of the same title from country artist Sturgill Simpson. It’s playing in the squad car of Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) and Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver), two small-town cops in Centerville, Pennsylvania who deal with the locals on a daily basis, from a wacky survivalist in the woods named Hermit Bob (Tom Waits) to the outwardly racist, MAGA hat-sporting Farmer Miller (Steve Buscemi). It’s nothing they can’t handle – that is, until a climate phenomenon causes the dead to rise (notable zombies include Iggy Pop and Sara Driver) and snack on some unsuspecting…
Author: Steve Katz
In its five years or so of existence, Amazon Studios has done a good job of putting a spotlight on smaller films through a strong theater push followed by plenty of exposure on their Amazon Prime platform. They’ve had a nice range of acquisitions too, from awards darlings like “Manchester by the Sea” and “The Salesman” to more mainstream fare like “The Big Sick” and “Life Itself” – even offering artsier, niche movies like “The Neon Demon” and Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake far more visibility than other studios would ever consider. That’s especially true when you consider the propensity for…
As much as the studio may not welcome it, it’s going to be difficult to separate “Rocketman,” Paramount’s new Elton John biopic, from last year’s Freddie Mercury/Queen movie “Bohemian Rhapsody.” For one, both films are based on a legendary LGBT British rock star with an outsized stage persona, plenty of turmoil behind the scenes and a jukebox soundtrack full of hits. Beyond the surface level similarities, director Dexter Fletcher also serves as a link between the two projects. Though he was never credited, Fletcher stepped in to complete shooting and post-production of “Bohemian Rhapsody” after Bryan Singer was fired from…
The history of Western Godzilla movies is spotty at best. The less that is said about Roland Emmerich’s 1998 take on the character the better, and while there was quite a bit to like about Gareth Edwards’ 2014 reboot, the characters weren’t one of them. Indeed, you could argue that the best Godzilla movie made outside of Japan was “Cloverfield,” which isn’t a Godzilla movie at all but captures the scale and chaos that such a being would inflict on a modern day metropolis. For all its flaws, Edwards’ “Godzilla” had a huge opening weekend and a successful run out…
High school is the great equalizer in America. Regardless of background, location and experience, just about everyone has gone through the social minefield of a bunch of pubescent kids shoved together in one place reckoning with the concept of becoming adults. Times change, people change and trends change, but high school unites it all. Because of this, high school comedies have been a major force in the film world since their propagation in the 1980s on the back of John Hughes, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Porky’s.” These movies often focus in on senior year, culminating at prom or…
It’s incredible that it took this long for a big Pokémon movie to hit theaters. In the 23 years since the first Pokémon game was released, the pocket monster franchise has grown into a media behemoth featuring dozens of best-selling video games, a beloved animated television show with more than 1,000 episodes and a smash-hit mobile app. The Pokémon Company has produced plenty of movies in that time, but they’ve all been spinoffs of the animated series and only the first one made any real dent at the box office. That has all changed with the arrival of “Pokémon: Detective…
It’s only been 11 years, but somehow it feels like an eternity since a Hellboy movie has graced the silver screen. Released in that unfortunate time between when “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” ushered in the modern comic book movie and “Iron Man” and “The Dark Knight” made them a juggernaut, Guillermo del Toro’s adaptations of the comic book series managed to fly under the radar. The first film came two years before del Toro became a big name with “Pan’s Labyrinth” and the same year as “Spider-Man 2” and “The Incredibles.” The second was released just a week before “The Dark…
It would not be out of line to say that ever since Christopher Nolan completed his Dark Knight trilogy in 2012, Warner Bros. and DC Comics has been flailing, chasing at the tail of the much larger and vastly more successful Marvel movie juggernaut that has been consistently and comfortably ruling the box office and public perception. In an attempt to provide an alternative and appeal to the older, more sophisticated side of comic book fandom, DC movies have focused hard on the grim and gritty side of the spectrum. The results of this approach have been mixed at best,…
There was a time when a horror movie directed by Jordan Peele wouldn’t have the astronomical expectations that it does now. Back in 2015, he was best known as one half of the sketch comedy duo Key and Peele, whose titular show was airing its last season on Comedy Central. Anyone who watched “Key and Peele” knew that the duo had undeniable cinematic sensibility, but even considering that, it would have been tough to expect just how successful Peele would be when he made the leap to the director’s chair with his debut feature, “Get Out.” Horror movies tend to…
It would not be off base to assume that Kim Nguyen’s new thriller, “The Hummingbird Project,” is based on a true story. Following in the footsteps of other modern financial industry dramas like “Margin Call” and “The Big Short,” the film seems like just the sort of movie that would be based on the memoirs of one of its central characters, following them as they attempt to leverage technology to use high-frequency trading and short the stock market. But like “Margin Call,” “The Hummingbird Project” is entirely fabricated. The fictional protagonists at the center of the film are cousins Vincent…