Christopher Nolan Adds To The Cast Of His Next Movie

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the early news on Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film, which will reportedly star Matt Damon and Tom Holland. Nolan has continued to add to the cast of his next film with Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, Oscar winner Anne Hathaway and Golden Globe winner Zendaya. This will be Nolans third time working with Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway and will be his first collaboration with Zendaya, Tom Holland and Lupita Nyong’o. It’s exciting that he’s working with award winners like Hathaway and Nyong’o, I’m just more curious on what he’ll get from Holland. I don’t think he’s a very good actor, but maybe he hasn’t had the right director to pull an A+ performance out of him.

As of right now, the plot for Nolan’s next picture hasn’t been announced. It’s been speculated that it could be a period vampire thriller or a remake of the 1983 film Blue Thunder. Nevertheless, I’m excited. There’s few directors currently working that when they release a film, it feels like an event going to the theater. For me personally, David Fincher is one of those directors. On a more grand scale, Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese are like that. However, the biggest of them all is Christopher Nolan. Oppenheimer made $976.8 million dollars. Tenet made $365.9 million dollars. And Dunkirk made $530.4 million dollars. I know come opening night, whether it’s choppers or vampires, I’ll be seated, and so will just about every other movie fan.

Denzel Washington Announces His Final Films Before Retiring

We knew the day would come one day, but I just didn’t expect it to come so soon. Denzel Washington has announced his next five films which’ll also be his final ones before retiring. He’s one of the few actors that elevates any films he’s in. Whether it’s an already great film like Malcolm X or Devil In A Blue Dress or a mediocre movie like Flight, he takes them to a whole new level.

Looking at the slate that Denzel has, it seems to be an impressive way to go out. Some of the greatest actors of all time have retired on sour notes like Gene Hackman in Welcome to Mooseport or Marlon Brando in Big Bug Man. Denzel seemingly won’t do that.

Film one of Washington’s final five will be Spike Lee’s remake of High and Low. I hear Denzel and Spike Lee with a cast of Jeffrey Wright and Michael Potts and I get excited. Then I realize that it’s Spike adapting a foreign language classic and I cringe. His Oldboy adaptation stunk hard and semi-tarnished the legacy of Park Chan-wook’s film. I am optimistic because it’s set in New York and not many directors film the city better than Lee, but I don’t feel awesome about it. The second film of Washington’s slate before retirement is Black Panther 3. Fine, I guess. The Black Panther films are upper echelon later stage MCU films, but I’m not too high on this being one of his final movies.

Along with working with Lee and on the next Black Panther film, Washington reunites with another frequent collaborator, Antoine Fuqua. No, I’m not talking about Dr. Lecter. I’m talking about the famous commander, Hannibal. According to Letterboxd, the plot is described as “Based on the real warrior Hannibal, considered one of the greatest military commanders in history, the film will cover the crucial battles he led against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War.” Washington being back with Fuqua is nice. This’ll be their fifth collaboration after Training Day and the three Equalizer films. One of those is a classic, the other three are Jason Bourne/John Wick rip-offs.

This next one I’m not 100% if it’s a play or movie, but it’s an adaptation of Othello with Jake Gyllenhaal. Washington has always discussed his fondness of Shakespeare and even starred in the 2021 adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth directed by Joel Coen. Film five of five is the one I’m maybe most excited for and we don’t know much about it. Denzel will be teaming up with director in a so far untitled project. Great. This is really great. McQueen is one of the best directors working with films like 12 Years A Slave, Shame and Hunger so to get a director who works at a high level with a legendary figure on the big screen will make for a, hopefully, fantastic final picture for Denzel Washington.

Tim Dillon Calls ‘Joker 2’ The “Worst Film” Ever Made

On a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, comedian Tim Dillon, who had a small part in the Joker 2, called the Todd Phillips picture “the worst film ever made“. Dillon added “We would sit there, me and these other guys were all dressed in these security outfits because we’re working at the Arkham Asylum, and I would turn to one of them and we’d hear this crap and I’d go, ‘What the f— is this?’ And they’d go, ‘This is going to bomb, man.’”

On top of that, Dillon, when talking with other cast members said “We were talking about it at lunch, and we’d go, ‘What is the plot? Is there a plot? I don’t know, I think he falls in love with her in the prison?’ It’s not even hate-watchable. That’s how terrible it is.”

Dillon’s comments are interesting. On one front, I do agree. The film is bad. It was a high minded Phillips fuck you to the audience, but why? At what cost? What did the audience do to deserve a fuck you? This wasn’t a smart ploy by Phillips. It’s not one that’ll be looked at in thirty years by critics and fans in a positive light. What this was, was an epic disaster and part of Dillon’s comments feel warranted.

Where I get hung up is that Dillon did sit in a trailer and take a paycheck for three months. The last thing I’m going to do is defend Phillips, but it does feel odd for Dillon to make these comments. Yes, he is a comedian, who is extremely funny and inquisitive, I just don’t love that someone takes a check and then bashes the project on his way out the door.

What’d I Watch This Week?

– Anora (2024) dir. Sean Baker

One of 2024’s most anticipated film was Sean Baker’s Anora. Going into it, I had monumental expectations, especially after I saw an early tweet from Eric Marchen comparing Mikey Madison’s performance to Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood and Orsen Welles in Citizen Kane. Spoiler alert: her performance isn’t that. It’s very good, but never was going to be on the level of those. Having that hyperbolic, critic vomit in my brain did taint my viewing a tad, but I recognized that she was great in Baker’s R-rated version of Pretty Woman sans a happy ending.

Around Madison as Anora, Baker assembled an awesome ensemble of potential Oscar nominees with Yura Borisov as Igor and Vache Tovmasyan as Garnick. In my eyes, they were the biggest stars of the film. That’s not to take away from Madison, who will probably win Best Actress, but those two were outstanding. Overall, Anora was solid. Definitely too long as the third act meanders far too much, but Baker does what he does best and develops his broken characters into becoming completely new versions of themselves, or at least perceived new versions of themselves when the final credits roll. There isn’t much great in theaters right now, so if you want to goto the movies, see Anora.

4/5 Stars

– The Rock (1996) dir. Michael Bay

Growing up and watching Micheal Bay movies (mainly the Transformers films), you think he’s God. Then, you mature and start getting into film and in the process develop a bit of a snarky mindset and think that Bay is a hack. A few years down the line, where I’m at, you come to realize that Bay is actually great. I mean that Bay at his best (Bad Boys, The Rock, Pain and Gain) is the best. He epitomizes the fun of action films on the big screen to the highest degree and The Rock is the perfect example of that.

Sean Connery and Nic Cage face-off against Ed Harris on Alcatraz in a battle for chemical warfare control and from the jump, Bay ropes you in. From the jump, the film is kicking ass, but it really picks up when Connery appears. A disheveled Connery, even at his old age, was running around and kicking ass once he was introduced. “Womack! Why am I not surprised, you piece of shit!” I find it tough to describe an action movie, and that’s my issue because when I watch an action movie that I love, I resort to the same three sayings: It rocks. It rules. It’s bad-ass. Just watch The Rock to see Michael Bay operating at his peak.

4.5/5 Stars

– Doubt (2008) dir. John Patrick Shanley

John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt is a movie that is eerily similar to Conclave. When I say that, I’m not taking the easy copout route of it being similar due to its tackling of religious controversies. It’s similar because they’re both extremely performance driven. That plot overall isn’t super interesting, but the performances given make you ultimately care about the film. The best comparison for this cast and their performances is the early 2010s Miami Heat. Philip Seymour Hoffman is LeBron James. Meryl Streep is Dwyane Wade. Amy Adams is Chris Bosh. And Viola Davis is Mario Chalmers. Each night, those guys would hit the court and absolutely dominate. They dominated in the same way that the cast of Doubt did.

While I did remark on the plot being uninteresting, Shanley does something interesting. He gages your morale compass and tests how you perceive what people say when combatting an accusation. There comes a point in the film where you inevitably pick a side. Do you side with Hoffman and believe he cares for the betterment of the students or do you side with Streep and see that her witch hunt of Hoffman isn’t a farce? It’s not an easy conundrum, but is one Shanley effectively approaches.

3.5/5 Stars