MovieFest

Earlier this month, we reported that the pressures of both playing Batman and directing  The Batman  were getting to Ben Affleck, with him lightly freaking out a couple of times when people asked about the status of the film. Essentially, he was annoyed that nobody cared about  Live By Night  as much as they cared about the iconic comic book character (I wander why) that has enjoyed a consistent level of popularity for several decades, with Affleck even going so far as to say that the constant  Batman -related questions were “a pain in the ass.” well then quit I don't want you as batman, and not like you get payed a shit ton of money for doing it, nobody cares for live by night because it was shit, how can you compare that to batman you dick. Now (thank god), it looks like Affleck has finally caved to that pressure. According to  Variety , he will be stepping down as the director of  The Batman (woooooo)  but he will still star as the ...

Author Ness penned this adaptation of his own novel, which is as poignant as his beautiful book and features brilliant performances by Jones, MacDougall, and Neeson. Director J.A. Bayona is no stranger to depicting intense mother-child dynamics. His 2012 historical drama  The Impossible  captured a mother and son's fraught post-tsunami journey; in  A Monster Calls , there's just as treacherous a disaster looming over every interaction between Conor and his beloved mum -- the unspoken cancer that's eating away at her slowly but surely. MacDougall gives one of the finest youth performances of 2016 as angry, sad, confused Conor, who's hoping beyond hope that his mum will get better but who also knows (as the Monster's visits and stories symbolize) that the inevitable is on its way -- and who's desperately afraid to admit that tangled up with anticipatory grief is a sense of possible relief.  FelicityJones is also wonderful as a mother who desperately ...

Chief Jim Hopper isn't fucking with the latest swath of  Trump inhumanity . While accepting the award for Outstanding Performance in an Ensemble in a Drama Series (Beating Game of thrones, which is such a great feat) at Sunday's  Screen Actors Guild  ceremony, David Harbour brought the damn house down with a phenomenally  hyped speech that was  exactly  the rallying cry we all needed before diving into this surely exhausting week. Check video below: "In light of all that's going on in the world today, it's difficult to celebrate the already celebrated  Stranger Things ," Harbour said when accepting the award alongside his  Stranger Things  co-stars. "But this award from you, who take your craft seriously and earnestly believe like me that great acting can change the world, is a call to arms from our fellow craftsmen and women to go deeper, and through our art to battle against fear, self-centeredness, and exclusivity of our predo...

  The Friday-Sunday estimates are in. As reported by Entertainment Weekly yesterday,  Resident Evil: The Final Chapter  made $13.9 million at the US box office to land in the No. 4 position for its opening weekend. The No. 1 movie was M. Night M. Night Shyamalan's  Split , which has been on top for two weeks running now.  The Final Chapter  was also outperformed by  A Dog's Purpose  ($18.4 million) and  Hidden Figures  ($14 million). You can see the full Top 10 list below. The Resident Evil movie series historically performs better when it goes out internationally. That's already the case for  The Final Chapter , as it's made $64.5 million of its $78.4 million total from international regions. The series is poised to pass $1 billion soon; there have now been six entries in the series dating back to 2002. Split  – $26.3 million A Dog's Purpose  – $18.4 million Hidden Figures  – $14 million Residen...

Ok now being a man I'm somewhat sceptical of doing this list, but I watch anything and everything and I also have a heart and these films pull at my heartstrings so if your having "one of them days" (Which we all have mind you), Whip out the ice cream and get depressed. So on that note, here is my top 15 gut-renching films for you to cry to. 1) The boy in striped pyjamas The son of a Nazi befriends a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp and disaster strikes when he finds himself on the wrong side of the fence. Really kills your insides and destroys your soul. You will be sad for days. 2) Kubo and the Two Strings  One of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. From start to finish such a warming/loving story and at the heart of it a young boy who is inspirational. Personally for me I cried several times throughout so this earns it second place. 3) If I Stay  All I'll say is prepare to feel broken and emotionally numb inside. 4) The imp...

The creator and stars of  “Legion”  pull back the curtain on the upcoming X-Men drama in a new first-look featurette from FX. Be warned, though, as the actors admit they’re not quite sure what the series is actually about (so just as confused as us). I’m still trying to figure that out,” explains Aubrey Plaza, perhaps best known for her role on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation.” Luckily, creator Noah Hawley (“Fargo”)  can   provide some insight about the show, which centers on David Haller — the son of Charles Xavier — a diagnosed schizophrenic who’s confronted with the possibility that he’s actually the most powerful mutant mind on the planet. “He doesn’t know if what he’s seeing is real or not real,” Hawley explains, “and the audience should have that same experience.” He continues to explain, “The structure of the story should reflect the content of the story,” he continues, “so you play with the structure, and we play a lot with reality and memory and dream. ...

The upcoming Tomb Raider movie has added another cast member. The Wire  star Dominic West will play Lara Croft's father in the upcoming film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Alicia Vikander portrays Croft. Jon Voight played Croft's father, Lord Richard Croft, in the Tomb Raider movies that starred Angelina Jolie. The story for the new movie follows Lara Croft as she goes on her first adventure to complete the research that her father started but didn't finish, leaving him disgraced. West and Vikander have acted together in a father-daughter relationship before, in the 2014 film  Testament of Youth . So you would expect there on-screen presence together to be bang tidy.   The new Tomb Raider movie also features the immense Walton Goggins ( Sons of Anarchy ) as the bad guy, while Daniel Wu ( Warcraft ) portrays a ship captain who works with Croft on her adventure. The untitled Tomb Raider film comes to theaters on March 16, 2018. ...

Every couple of months I'm going to choose a film that I personally recommend you should see on the big screen with your partner or on your ones, a film that isn't your obvious choice, not superhero based or owned by Disney, an underrated film if you will. So my choice for March/April 2017 aside from the obvious of which we all know i.e. Logan, is LIFE an upcoming American-British Science fiction thriller directed by Daniel Espinosa (Child 44). The film stars Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), Jake Gyllenhaal (Nocturnal Animals) and Rebecca Ferguson (The girl on the train). The official synopsis is as follows: The six-member crew of the International Space Station is on the cutting edge of one of the most important discoveries in human history: the first evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars. As the crew begins to conduct research, and their methods end up having unintended consequences, the life form proves more intelligent than anyone ever expected. I mean come on that ...

10. Scream (1996) Both director  Wes Craven  and writer Kevin Williamson have plenty of successes in their career, but Scream remains a big highlight for both men. Williamson's script managed to deftly be so many things -- it was a sly meta/self-parody about the horror genre that didn't cross the line into goofiness, while also playing as a successful whodunit and, most importantly, an effective horror film in and of itself. Finally a group of horror movie characters made it clear that yes, they'd seen all the same movies we had, and were aware of the rules and clichés that come with the genre. But no one was more knowledgeable than the killer (or is that killers?), who toyed with the victims by asking them horror movie trivia that plenty of us in the audience could have fun playing along with. But when the killer actually showed himself, it was terrifying, with several extremely well-executed suspense scenes by Craven, which proved again just how good he w...

After everyone including me went absolutely crazy over  Stranger Things  last year, and the absolutely astounding performance from the young Millie Bobby Brown, it was pretty obvious that studios were going to sign the young talent up to some potentially monster sized blockbusters, and you don't get much more monster sized than   Godzilla. The Hollywood Reporter  has reported (as they do) that Legendary Pictures has signed up Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven in  Stranger Things ) for the sequel to their 2014 hit starring Aaron Taylor-Johson, Bryan Cranston and Ken Watanabe. Details about Brown's role, or indeed the plot, are pretty scarce - which makes sense considering the film isn't slated to come out until March 22, 2019. What we do know is that everyone's favourite radioactive lizard will come up against other giant beasties Rodan, Mothra and Ghidorah, and  Krampus  director Michael Doughterty is taking the reins. ...