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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Best Movies Coming to Netflix in August 2021

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As quickly as the summer movie season of 2021 seemed to come upon us, it’s already about to begin its long, languid slide through the dog days of August into fall. That’s not to say that theaters won’t still have plenty of interesting fare to encounter, with films like The Suicide Squad, Free Guy, Respect, Candyman and The Night House all on deck. Hopefully the other hideous sequel happening at the moment — Pandemic 2: The Delta Variant — won’t set any of these potential hits back.

In the spirit of keeping August entertaining, Netflix is rolling out a slew of new streaming additions as well, including an underrated Spielberg gem, fantastic teen comedies both old and new, a couple of stoner classics and perhaps the finest film from the canon of one of the modern era’s most revered directors. We’ve rounded up our recommendations below, and hope you stay cool and healthy whatever you’re watching!

Universal

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Beethoven (1992)

August 1

Hollywood in the 1990s was a glorious and furry era when studio executives never met a family movie that couldn’t be improved with the addition of at least one animal character. Beethoven is one of the most successful examples of this winning formula. Directed by Brian Levant from a script co-written by John Hughes himself (alongside Mystic Pizza co-writer Amy Holden Jones), Beethoven is basically the story of how a husband and father, Charles Grodin’s George Newton, feels threatened by the attention his family gives their new dog, a St. Bernard named Beethoven.

George eventually works through some of his issues and accepts the charming Beethoven into the family, a process that comes to a head when Beethoven is dog-napped into an animal experiment scheme run by evil veterinarian Dr. Herman Varnick. (Honestly, the plot isn’t dissimilar to the story in cinematic masterpiece Paddington.) The deep supporting cast includes Bonnie Hunt, David Duchovny, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Oliver Platt, Stanley Tucci, and Everybody Loves Raymond‘s Patricia Heaton. The film’s sequel, Beethoven Second, will also be available on Netflix starting on August 1st.

Dreamworks

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

August 1

As one of Steven Spielberg’s most charming and laid-back efforts, Catch Me If You Can is a breezy and star-studded entertainment. The story is loosely based on the real grifts of conman Frank Abagnale Jr., who beginning as a teenager was able to pass himself off as a pilot, lawyer, doctor, and many other things. But really, this is a cat-and-mouse chase movie between a still baby-faced Leonardo DiCaprio as Abagnale and Tom Hanks as the FBI stiff who hunted him down. It’s all good stuff, with the movie enjoying a light touch and fresh take on Spielberg’s favorite subject matter: fathers and sons.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Deep Blue Sea (1999)

August 1

A shockingly entertaining B-movie about a bunch of genetically engineered super-sharks which break out and take over a testing facility, this is horror silliness at its best with great turns from Samuel L Jackson, Thomas Jane, Saffron Burrows and LL Cool J. Partially shot on sets built around the same water tanks used for Titanic, with animatronic and CGI sharks, Deep Blue Sea is action-packed, schlocky fun from director Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger).

STX Entertainment

The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

August 1

A bit like Lady Bird before there was a Lady Bird, Kelly Fremon Craig’s Edge of Seventeen is an underrated gem that stars a teenage Hailee Steinfeld as a young woman stumbling through an especially awkward time in her life. Steinfeld is terrific in her best performance since True Grit, playing Nadine as a bundle of insecurities, yet still nobody’s victim. Also of special value is Craig’s hilarious and authentic script, which captures the specificity of growing up in the social media age while being near-universal in its accessibility and empathy for a wide ensemble which also includes Kyra Sedgwick, Haley Lu Richardson, and Woody Harrelson.

Paramount

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

August 1

Just in time for the dog days of summer comes one of the best summer movies ever. Relying on charm and sharp characterization instead of special effects for its spectacle, John Hughes’ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a truly great teen comedy that follows the easygoing bon vivant (or secret sociopath?) of a high school’s senior class when he decides to take the day off in the best fashion: by faking he’s sick and then guilting his BFF into giving him the keys to his dad’s Ferrari.

Should Netflix’s Pokémon Live-Action Series Explore the Franchise’s Dark Side?

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By Louisa Mellor

It’s silly yet curiously honest stuff about the pressures of young adult life, at least in 1980s suburban America, and a beguiling showcase for an ensemble that includes Matthew Broderick in his coolest role, as well as Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jennifer Grey, and a seriously stoned Charlie Sheen. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’re due.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Inception (2010)

August 1 Still Christopher Nolan’s most complete and satisfying film to date (yes, even more so than The Dark Knight), Inception is a cerebral sci-fi set of stacking dolls combined with a rollicking James Bond adventure that all happens to be mostly situated inside one guy’s head. Leonardo DiCaprio leads a team of professional thieves who steal things from people’s minds — only this time they’re hired to implant an idea, even if they have to dive deep into the mark’s subconscious to do it.

Mind-bending imagery and several jaw-dropping action sequences are wrapped around a surprisingly emotional core, with only the usual unwieldy exposition there to remind you that there are some things Nolan may never get right.

Lionsgate

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

August 1 Based on a novel by crime writer Michael Connelly, this gripping, suspenseful 2011 drama arguably kicked off “the McConaissance,” a shift from rom-coms to more serious roles by Matthew McConaughey that launched a new, largely acclaimed phase of his career.

McConaughey is formidable as attorney Mickey Haller, a slick lawyer who works out of his Lincoln Town Car and undergoes a crisis of conscience as his new case starts to feel disturbingly like an old one. In addition to McConaughey stepping up his game, this Brad Furman-directed thriller is the kind of character-driven, literate melodrama we don’t see much on the big screen anymore — although we see plenty of them these days on, of course, Netflix.

Paramount Classics

The Machinist (2004)

August 1 Director Brad Anderson followed up his cult classic 2001 horror effort Session 9 with this surreal, Kafka-esque psychological thriller. Christian Bale plays Trevor Reznik, whose inability to sleep leads him to cause an accident at his industrial job that costs a co-worker (Michael Ironside) his arm. Already physically and mentally deteriorating, Reznik begins an even deeper descent as he tries to unravel what’s happening to him and why. Bale is intense and viscerally shocking as the emaciated Reznik, with his riveting performance anchoring an atmospheric, visually striking film that is sometimes an exercise in style over substance.

New Line Cinema

Magnolia (1999)

August 1

Boogie Nights pushed director Paul Thomas Anderson into the spotlight, but it was his massive, sprawling jigsaw puzzle Magnolia that made him into a superstar filmmaker. Following multiple narratives and numerous characters all finally brought together by a climactic storm of frogs, this is high art packed with standout moments.

Movies

Top Gun: Maverick Footage Shows Tom Cruise in Real Jet Behind the Scenes

By David Crow

Movies

Best Modern Horror Movies

By Don Kaye

Tom Cruise is electric as a toxic motivation speaker, Julianne Moore is brittle and tragic as a trophy wife who has grown to love her dying husband, while the burgeoning relationship between Melora Walters’ addict and John C. Reilly’s cop added sweetness and hope to a tale of messed up people and damaged families. Epic.

Sony PIctures

Pineapple Express (2008)

August 1 After its trailer introduced everyone to M.I.A.’s amazing “Paper Planes,” Pineapple Express’s work was already done. It didn’t even have to produce a satisfyingly funny movie on top of that. Thankfully the filmmaking team of Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and David Gordon Green decided to give us one anyway, because Pineapple Express is the ideal of the little-seen-or-attempted stoner action comedy.

Rogen stars as process server and marijuana enthusiast Dale Denton, while James Franco portrays his annoying drug dealer Saul Silver. When the pair witness a murder, they are forced to flee hitmen, a pair of corrupt cops, and worst of all, Danny McBride. The Rogen/Goldberg comedy catalog has very few misses and this one is particularly excellent.

Universal Pictures

Seabiscuit (2003)

August 1

No one would ever accuse Gary Ross’ Seabiscuit of being subtle. With its voice-of-god narration by Ken Burns fave David McCoullough, which helpfully spells out the themes of the movie every few scenes, and its achingly sentimental score and dialogue, Seabiscuit is a Cinderella story which all but asserts its titular race horse ended the Great Depression. Yet Ross captures some of the simple American grandeur of Laura Hillenbrand’s non-fiction source material book, as well as the beauty of this true story where a horse that everyone counted out as worthless was nursed by three men into becoming one of the greatest racing animals of all-time.

It’s the type of feel-good yarn that won people over in the 1930s and which is still winning now. When coupled with a handful of strong performances, including from Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper, Tobey Maguire, and a seriously underrated Elizabeth Banks, you have a crowd-pleaser that actually pleases.

Paramount Pictures

Team America: World Police (2004)

August 1 Roger Ebert’s one-star review of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Team America: World Police sums up the film’s nonsensical political stance nicely. “I wasn’t offended by the movie’s content so much as by its nihilism,” the great film critic wrote.

Rog was right to criticize Team America’s incomprehensible worldview. Nearly 20 years later, its seeming position that Alec Baldwin and Kim Jong-Il are equally bad hasn’t aged that well (despite Mr. Baldwin’s best efforts). But it’s hard to argue that the South Park creators’ nihilism doesn’t lead to some great comedy. The novelty of Thunderbirds-style puppets saving the world amid graphic sex acts and voluminous barfing never quite wears off.

The post Best Movies Coming to Netflix in August 2021 appeared first on Den of Geek.

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njawaidofficial · 7 years

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'Ten Days in the Valley' Series Premiere Breakdown

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'Ten Days in the Valley' Series Premiere Breakdown

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from Sunday’s series premiere of Ten Days in the Valley, “Day 1: Fade in.”]

The jury is still out on whether Jane Sadler (Kyra Sedgwick) is a “good” mother, but at least viewers can now rest assured that her daughter is alive and well — wherever she is — thanks to the final shot of the episode.

The pilot of the ABC drama Ten Days in the Valley set up a season-long arc in which Jane, a TV showrunner, has her world turned upside down when her daughter is kidnapped in the middle of the night, kicking off a mystery involving a complex world of secretive characters. As the first episode made clear, everyone from the assistant (Emily Kinney) to the ex-husband (Kick Gurry) are potential suspects as the clock ticks down in the hunt to find Lake (Abigail Pniowsky), and law officials — led by John Bird (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Jane’s sister Ali (Erika Christensen) try to piece together what happened that night.

Over the course of the 10-episode first season the mystery of who took the child and why remains front-and-center as Jane also attempts to manage running a successful cop drama and hide a fairly large secret of her own, all while dealing with people questioning her abilities as a mother because she was out writing in her shed at the time of her daughter’s disappearance.

The premise of season one stemmed from creator and showrunner Tassie Cameron following a recurring nightmare she had about her own eight-year-old daughter being kidnapped in the middle of the night while she was working.

THR caught up with Cameron, who most recently served as showrunner on Canadian cop drama Rookie Blue to break down the inherent mom guilt that comes from juggling a career and family, the dangers of writing a show that might be too meta for some audiences, and how the series could potentially evolve into a second season down the line.

This show was originally shopped as a cable series, why did it land on ABC?

I didn’t have a real agenda; I had imagined that it would probably fit more comfortably into cable but then when ABC had such a passion for it and they seemed to get it so much that they were willing to green-light it to series without making a pilot, it was very convincing. I have a really positive relationship with ABC and the fact that they sort of specialize in strong, complicated female heroes felt like a good fit.

Demi Moore was originally attached but then Kyra Sedgwick replaced her when it landed at ABC. How did Jane’s character change as a result?

When I first write something, I never think of an actor in that part, I just think of the character. I would have been thrilled to work with Demi, too. They do have a different kind of energy. But when I sat down with Kyra, I realized I could use a lot of the stuff she was bringing in terms of ideas and the backstory… I always tailor-make the part a little bit for the actor that I’m working with. In this case, I would say primarily in Jane’s backstory, we kind of made it together.

What else did Kyra bring to the show as a producer?

She was invaluable in a bunch of different ways. She had great ideas about where the script should go and she was very enthusiastic about pushing some more of the unusual elements of the script, like the show within the show. Then in terms of the backstory of the character, we decided that Jane was going to come from this investigative journalist background in San Francisco. Kyra was also incredible with casting. She would go to many of the sessions with our shortlists and she had very, very strong instincts on cast.

Was it important to you to hire an equal mix of male and female directors?

Yes, very. It was really, really important to me — we have four female directors out of 10. I would have done 10 out of 10 if we could have booked them, although that’s kind of a silly thing to say because having quotas isn’t really the way to do it. But it was very important to me to try and have as many female directors as possible. Also diverse directors; we had three or four diverse directors too.

How did you land on 10 as the episode number?

Because that’s the number of episodes I like to watch. I like shows with six, seven, eight, nine, 10 episodes, those limited runs where you get into it and you’re not trying to commit for 22 or 15 or even 13. I like a mystery to be contained.

Speaking of a contained mystery, what’s the pacing involved here? How does this mystery unfold?

There’s a little bit of suspects dropping off as we realize that their secret either does or doesn’t connect to the main mystery, but the main players stay in play throughout the season. There are a number of reversals throughout.

You’ve said the mystery will be resolved by season’s end, so how does that open the door for a second season?

Once you see where the season goes, you’ll see how many different elements we’ve uncovered and revealed and explored and touched on that could lead very organically to a second season. The primal mystery of the season will be solved and be solved in ways that at times that are going to surprise people, I hope. But there’s a lot of hanging chapters at the end of it in terms of the people that Jane has met and the enemies that she’s made and the corruption she’s revealed and that kind of thing.

At that point, does the show turn away from its origins of working mom guilt and a missing child?

I think so, although that guilt is really, really who Jane is. Part of her whole identity is built around that sense of being conflicted and torn. It won’t ever go away; the conflict between Jane’s professional life and her personal life will always be at the heart of the series.

Is she a good mother?

That’s a funny question. They asked that at the TCA panel and all my fierce colleagues were like, “Who asked that? Would anybody ask a father or a male character if he’s a good father?” Is Jane a good mother? Yes, I think she is, but I don’t want to tell people that. She is a passionate, adoring mother and you’ll see the lengths to which she’ll go to in order to protect her daughter. But this is a show about that; that being a mother whether you’re a good one or a bad one doesn’t change who you are. You’re still yourself for good or for bad. Therein lays the drama and the mystery.

Hollywood series with meta elements like this don’t always perform well, so what kinds of notes did you get on that setup?

Everybody was quite nervous about that part of it, as was I. I kept thinking, “This is dumb, I shouldn’t do this. I know these things don’t work very well sometimes.” But honestly, I was writing it for myself so I didn’t worry. I made a list, this little manifesto that I pinned up to my pin board and I said, “Break all your rules, including writing about journalists, writing about the industry itself and being scared that people are going to confuse you with your main character. Don’t be afraid to make your main character female and really flawed.” I set out to break all these rules that I’ve made for myself just to see what I was made of as a writer.

How does the valley factor in as a character?

I wanted to explore L.A. as the setting for a number of reasons. First of all, as a Canadian foreigner I find L.A. so weird and beautiful and surreal and spooky sometimes. To use a foreigner’s eye on that city in a story set in the world of entertainment I thought would be really interesting for me as a writer and creator. It was going to be a shorthand to who Jane is and what she’s doing in a way that you wouldn’t want to have to explain if she were from Toronto. It’s not the same shorthand. Second of all, the title came to me pretty early on. I always imagined her living on the valley side of Laurel Cannon and its whole Joni Mitchell, ’70s mystique. And then lastly, it just kept reminding me of that psalm, “Though I walk through the valley through the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” It was kind of a mix of things.

How similar is your writing shed to Jane’s?

It is not dissimilar to the one on the show. I light a candle — that exact brand of candle, Tevo red currant — before I write. It’s very, very specific. I don’t have a cool Bob Dylan poster in my shed. Hers is a more cluttered environment. I don’t like having a lot of art around, I like it to be pretty sparse. But it’s not dissimilar.

Given the other real-life inspirations behind the show, are you concerned about any blowback from Jane’s drug habit?

I haven’t heard any reactions about it; we’ll see how people feel about it. I was nervous to have her do that, but she needed a secret that she didn’t want to reveal to her ex and to her sister and to the police. She needed a profound, real secret and that seemed like a believable one to me. I don’t [use drugs] but we all have our bad habits. There are some very pure writers who write in the morning with their cup of green tea and then there are other writers who write very late at night and they mix it with junk food or online shopping. Everybody has their thing and but yeah, it happens. For sure it does.

Do you have any words or reassurances for mothers watching this who will have a hard time seeing another child in peril situation?

It’s hard for me to watch too, and it’s hard for me to write which is why you see the child’s face in the first episode. We follow the daughter throughout the season as well. I would turn it off if I felt like there was a chance that this kid was going to be found in a dumpster, dead somewhere. I would not watch this show. I can assure you that is not my intention. My intention is to show that the child is alive and kind of well enough throughout the season. It’s much more a whodunit, why-dun-it than a horror show about grief and loss.

Ten Days in the Valley airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on ABC.

Thoughts? Sound off in the comments below.

Twitter: @amber_dowling

#Breakdown #Days #Premiere #Series #Ten #Valley

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samiraahmeduk · 7 years

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What are Mae West and Diana Dors doing on the cover of Sergeant Pepper’ Lonely Hearts Club band? If you feel you’ve heard too much already about the 50th anniversary of the record, then fear not. Producer Luke Doran (who modestly insisted on remaining hidden in the photo above) came to me with the genius idea of exploring all the faces on the sleeve. Hence we’ve put together 13 hours of archive dramas, documentaries and interviews this Saturday on Radio 4 Extra: The Stars of Sergeant Pepper. Why were they there? What did they represent? And how did they make that photo shoot anyway?

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The BBC Grams library copy of the album was only partly helpful. Though the large Please Return Promptly sticker might explain why this original mono copy has survived all these years without being pinched.

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Luke dug out some gems from the archive including a Shirley Jenkins story The Child starring Marlene Dietrich. And a dramatization of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum from 1943, never we think re-broadcast since. Paul’s girlfriend Jane Asher had of course starred in Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death, one of his landmark cycle of Poe adaptations in the 1960s.

“You did WHAT in the 60s?” With Barry Miles

In between we’ve done new interviews about the shoot. Barry Miles who ran the Indica bookshop recalls Paul McCartney coming in to check out books and a shopping list of names being sent by The Beatles.

Artist Jann Howarth who co-designed the cover with her then partner Peter Blake gave me a wonderful interview, speaking from her home in Salt Lake City. She explained how her father, the Hollywood designer of such films as Some Like It Hot was in London working on the Half A Sixpence film. He suggested some Hollywood illusion work to help create the crowd of stars, sticking the photo heads onto cardboard stands and treating them with a special varnish. Howarth also has strong views about the lack of women on the cover and is involved in work on a mural in Salt Lake City correcting the imbalance.

I particularly loved her insight into how the Beatles originally conceived the shoot as a parody of them as Northern boys getting the freedom of the city from a mayor in front of a floral clock. It seemed such a sophisticated self aware idea, not dissimilar to the image of Arnold Bennett’s The Card – the young maverick who defied expectations and came back a hero. The flowers that were delivered made that impossible and Jann recalls the challenge in coming up with an alternative budget design before they all wilted. The story about the shoot is a marvel of make do and mend. She reckons she and Peter were paid no more than a couple of hundred pounds between them.

While Luke went to Madame Tussauds archive to find out about the sad Ringo and those other wax figures that join the Beatles – Diana Dors and boxer Sonny Liston. While Matthew Sweet offered expert knowledge on the Victoriana obsession of the mid 60s.

Smashing Time (1967)

I remember George Melly at a screening of Smashing Time (also 1967) recalling how the Victorian dresses Rita Tushingham wears and Alice in Wonderland references – (Lewis Carroll is on the cover of Sergeant Pepper too) were the height of fashion at the time of shooting. He said hostile critics complained the fashion was already obsolete by the time the film came out.

So whether you’ve heard the album or not, the Stars of Sergeant Pepper is a fascinating delve into the cultural attic of a decade and an insight into the richness and ambition of McCartney’s mind especially, hanging out with beat writers like Burroughs and Ginsberg, listening to avant garde composers. While Harrison’s fascination with Hindu spiritualism is expressed in 3 gurus and the goddess Lakshmi. John in stockbroker belt Weybridge will soon break out. Decades before we began presenting carefully curated profiles of our influences on social media, the cover of Sergeant Pepper is an analogue template. 40 years before MySpace and decent digital photo manipulation here is the very idea of a personalised web presence composed in real time, with decaying flowers and bits of card and sticky tape.

Luke has found some breaktaking bits of archive, notably the jeering mockery of Diana Dors on an edition of Any Questions. Listen out for it ahead of her Desert Island Discs. It’s a sobering reminder of the attitude lag among powerful public figures towards younger people and any women in the public eye who defied conservative social convention. And for those of you who cherish her presence in Adam and the Ants’ Prince Charming video, it will make you love her more.

Dion Dimucci, one of only 5 survivors from the cover, reflects on his presence and the fact that he was supposed to be on the plane that crashed, carrying Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper. And for anyone who grew up fascinated by the disappearing world of old Hollywood, variety and music hall there are gems aplenty in our 13 hours of programming to keep them alive in our collective memory.

via GIPHY

The Stars of Sergeant Pepper is on BBC Radio 4 Extra from 9am to 10pm on Saturday June 3rd and iplayer after.

The making of The Stars of Sergeant Pepper What are Mae West and Diana Dors doing on the cover of Sergeant Pepper' Lonely Hearts Club band?

#60s #beatles #culture #Hollywood #media #music #Sergeant Pepper

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