News Around the Net

Let’s kick things off with this joyous trailer for Wes Anderson’s latest film, The Phoenician Scheme:

I love every frame of that trailer! I can’t wait for this film!

I’m also excited by this terrific trailer for Fantastic Four: First Steps:

This is feeling great to me so far.  I love the look.  The cast of the main foursome each seem perfect so far.  The hints of Galactus are exciting.  I can’t wait!

Here’s our first trailer for Peacemaker season two!

I LOVED the first season, and I am so excited for season two!! I love seeing some of the Justice League characters (like Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner) from James Gunn’s upcoming Superman movie in the trailer.  But most of all, I’m so happy to see all the kooks from season one back together again!!  I can’t wait for this.

I loved Drive Away Dolls (directed by Ethan Coen, who wrote the script along with his wife Tricia Cooke), and I am thrilled that Mr. Coen and Ms. Cooke have re-teamed with their Drive Away Dolls star Margaret Qualley (The Leftovers, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) for what they’re saying is the second installment in a planned “lesbian trilogy”.  Here’s the trailer for Honey Don’t!:

That looks great!!  What a cast!!  If you missed Drive Away Dolls, I highly recommend it.

Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy, Oblivion, Top Gun: Maverick) is a tremendous visual filmmaker, though I’ve often felt the stories in his movies were somewhat lacking. This trailer for F1 certainly looks exciting:

Will the film deliver?  I look forward to finding out.

I’m intrigued by this trailer for Fountain of Youth, an Indiana Jones-style adventure film starring John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, Eiza González and Domhnall Gleeson:

That’s a great cast, and I could see this being swashbuckling fun… or lame and derivative and boring.  Hard to tell from this trailer….

I’m similarly not quite sure what to make of this trailer for Tina Fey’s new series, The Four Seasons:

The balance of comedy and pathos this seems to be aiming for is very tricky to nail.  The cast is strong, so this has potential… we’ll see…

I adore The Old Guard comic book series, by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández.  Back in 2020, Netflix released a film adaptation that was… OK.  It was a hit for them, and they announced a sequel right away, though it’s taken quite awhile.  But it’s coming out soon, and Netflix released a trailer:

I can see references to very cool storylines from the comic, though that trailer feels sort of bland to me.  We’ll see…

Here’s a sequel I’m more excited for: Another Simple Favor:

I thought Paul Feig’s A Simple Favor was great, so I’m interested in this sequel.  By the way, click here for a great interview with Mr. Feig.

Samuel L. Jackson and Pierce Brosnan are in a cowboy movie?  I’ll watch that!  Here’s a trailer for The Unholy Trinity:

I am absolutely LOVING Seth Rogen’s show The Studio on Apple TV+, so I am delighted that it’s been renewed for a second season!  Excellent!!  If you’re not watching The Studio, I advise you to change that immediately!!

I wrote in my review of Daredevil season one that I hoped that some of Matt’s Defenders buddies from the other Netflix shows might appear in season two, as he fights to take back the city from Wilson Fisk… so I’m thrilled that it’s been confirmed that Krysten Ritter will be returning as Jessica Jones in season two!  Excellent!

A new live-action Lord of the Rings film is actually coming: The Lord of the Rings: Hunt for Gollum has been dated for December, 2027.  Bring it on!

Maybe someday in my lifetime we’ll get more X-Files stories that are actually good?  For now, I’m cautiously interested in Marvel’s plans to publish X-Files comics…!  (There have actually been some great X-Files comics, from the original Topps series when the show was originally running, to the more recent in-continuity IDW series…)

In a similar vein, I am intrigued by the recent announcement by the family of The Blues Brothers’ Dan Aykroyd and the late Judy Belushi-Pisano‘s estate that they’re releasing a Blues Brothers graphic novel, called The Blues Brothers: The Escape of Joliet Jake.  I’ll read that!

I’m excited to see Liza Colón-Zayas (The Bear) joining the MCU as part of the cast of Spider-Man: Brand New Day!

Florence Pugh (currently kicking ass in Thunderbolts*) has said that she’s IN for a third Dune film.  (She had a small but important role in Dune Part Two as Princess Irulan.)  Excellent!  I’d love for Ms. Pugh to have more to do in a third film!

I haven’t had time yet to watch the new Jon Hamm Apple TV+ show Your Friends and Neighbors, but I hope to get to it soon.  I’m excited that James Marsden is joining season two!

There was a lot of media attention to the recent announcement that the original pre-Special Edition version of Star Wars will screen in the UK in June (at the British Film Institute’s Film on Film Festival).  I thought that when George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney that they’d finally release nice versions of the original cuts of the Star Wars OT, but that has not been the case.  It’s a crime that the original versions of these classic films have been unavailable on any home video format since VHS (and a not-great-looking version on an early DVD release).  I hope this changes someday.

Let’s conclude with Rolling Stone’s wonderful oral history (that I never knew I needed!!) of What About Bob?… that’s a great article!

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