Matthew Monagle
Morgan Spurlock’s ‘Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!’ Is Headed to YouTube
It isn’t very often that a documentary becomes a hit with mainstream audiences, but that’s exactly what happened with Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me back in 2004. The documentary followed Spurlock on a month-long experiment in unhealthy diets, with the filmmaker eating exclusively at McDonald’s for weeks on end. The result was a smash hit: Super-Size Me grossed $11.9 million dollars — good for 25th all-time among documentaries — and even garnered an Academy Award nomination. More than that, though, is the effect the film had on the fast food industry, with publications like Refinery29 saying years later that Spurlock’s film likely helped companies “increase consumer awareness of size, as well as ingredients and nutrition.”
Margot Robbie Had Never Heard of Tonya Harding Before Shooting ‘I, Tonya’
If you’re not lucky enough to attend the Toronto International Film Festival this year, you can spend it like the rest of us: keeping an ear to to the ground and trying to decide which TIFF releases will be must-see movies of 2017 and 2018. One early standout is I, Tonya, a humorous look at the life of infamous figure skater Tonya Harding. Our own Senior Editor has described it as darkly hilarious film with dynamite performances (review coming soon!), and that seems to be the general consensus: it’s funny, it’s twisted, and, for as much as any of you care, it’s an early contender for all kinds of award season glory.
Universal Studios Orlando Is Shutting Down Its ‘Terminator 2’ 3D Experience
If you’ve been reading the site for any length of time, then you know that movie-themed amusement park rides are a bit of a passion for Editor-in-Chief Matt Singer. Matt has previously written about the end of the Great Movie Ride and run pieces on the upcoming Avatar amusement park as well; that, combined with his love of all things Terminator 2, means that he should probably be the one to write up this news item. But since he’s not here and I am, I guess I’ll deliver the bad news: the Terminator 2 3D ride is being shut down.
Spike Lee and Jordan Peele Will Team Up for KKK Thriller ‘Black Klansman’
Of all the news stories you expect to be fake, “Black Sergeant Infiltrates the Klu Klux Klan” would have to be pretty far up there. Only it really happened. For years during the ’70s and ’80s, Officer Ron Stallworth dedicated his life to infiltrating gang cultures, in particular that of the KKK. This is what led Stallworth to become (against all odds) a black card-carrying member of the Klu Klux Klan in the 1970s; unsurprisingly, this is also what makes Stallworth’s story ripe for cinematic adaptation in the year 2017.
Armie Hammer Will Play Mr. Ginsburg in ‘On the Basis of Sex’
It’s hard not to like Armie Hammer. The actor has been a standout since his early days as a television guest star; even when his biggest role was a minor recurring character on Reaper, you got the feeling that he was going to be something special. Not only that, but Hammer comes with one of the greatest what-if stories in the modern history of Hollywood: what if Warner Bros. had allowed director George Miller to make his star-studded adaptation of the Justice League movie and Armie Hammer had become our quintessential Batman? Who knows, man. Who knows.
‘One of Us’ Trailer Exposes the Dark Side of Modern Ultra-Orthodox Religions
With the Toronto International Film Festival in full swing this weekend, studios are giving us our first good look at a handful of films and documentaries due to hit theaters this fall. One such film is One of Us, a new documentary from the filmmakers of Jesus Camp that also tries to expose the way a community’s religious requirements affect believers and non-believers alike. And if the film is anything like its first trailer, it’s not going to be a particularly easy watch.
Daniel Radcliffe Gets ‘Jungle’ Fever in the Survival Thriller’s First Trailer
While there are probably those who would describe Daniel Radcliffe as an actor who has never amounted to much after the Harry Potter franchise, I’ve found his decisions over the past few years to be breathtakingly daring, a risky collection of screw-you titles that could only come from a place of supreme financial security. From Horns to Swiss Army Man and everything in between, Radcliffe has proven himself a gifted performer with a voracious appetite for genre films, becoming something relatively unique in the horror genre: an A-list actor with B-list tastes.
William Friedkin Describes His ‘Terrifying’ ‘Devil and Father Amorth’ Shoot
For months now, cinephiles have been anxiously anticipating the release of William Friedkin’s documentary The Devil and Father Amorth, the documentation of a real-life exorcism by the man whose film The Exorcist made the practice (in)famous. Last December, Friedkin wrote an op-ed piece in Vanity Fair detailing some of the things he had seen happen during the exorcism of Rosa, an Italian woman who was undergoing her ninth exorcism with Father Amorth. Skeptic or not, the possibility of a true crime angle to the practice of exorcisms — one that explores the science and psychology of the practice, bookended by some shocking footage of the exorcism itself — was a really hard thing to pass up.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Hitman’s Bodyguard’ Wins a Historically Bad Weekend
There are bad weekends, there are bad weekends, and then there are historically terrible weekends the likes of which haven’t been seen in decades. Guess which one applies to this past weekend? With the overall box office dipping more than $30 million from last week, and the overall numbers landing as historically bad, we seem to be ending August on a terrible note. Nevertheless, here are the box office numbers through Sunday afternoon:
Josh Brolin Calls ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ the Most Fun He’s Ever Had
You know who’s having quite the August? Josh Brolin is having quite the August. The past few weeks have brought us no fewer than three decent-sized stories featuring Brolin’s work, including our first look at his character in Deadpool 2, the news that he had been cut from George Clooney’s upcoming Suburbicon, and, perhaps my most favorite, the fact that James Cameron cussed him out for turning down a role in Avatar 2. Some actors are lucky if they have a single movie make news headlines in a month; Brolin has made the rounds with three fun stories from three entirely separate franchises.
The Early Buzz for ‘It’ Promises a Scary and Heartfelt Horror Film
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of The Dark Tower isn’t that it failed to live up to expectations decades in the making, or even that it mangled Stephen King’s source material in a way that die-hard fans found unforgivable. No, the most frustrating aspect of The Dark Tower is that it’s just… fine. Despite the plethora of negative reviews, it isn’t some disastrous flop a movie, nor is it an ambitious mess that reached for the stars and came crashing back to earth. It’s just sorta there, a Young Adult action-fantasy film that limps through its paces before ending with a thud. Really, how do you even make a King adaptation that doesn’t have a little bit of ambition?
Weekend Box Office Report: Audiences Take a Shine to ‘The Hitman’s Bodyguard’
Welcome to Augusts, where overall weekend grosses can decline for three consecutive weekends — $122, $116, and $95 million, respectively — and a new action-comedy can be the surprise winner of the weekend. Audiences might still be interested in creepy dolls, but it was a hyper-violent buddy film about professional killers that took home the gold. Here’s the box office projections, as of Sunday afternoon: