Friends, let me tell you about a little movie called Miami Connection: One part '80s rock 'n' roll musical, another part martial arts extravaganza, this forgotten gem made in 1987 by future Tae Kwon Do Grandmaster Y.K. Kim is the cult pic of the year.
When else will you ever see a team of multicultural orphan BFF rock musicians-slash-college students take on biker ninjas and economically frustrated rival bands in totally '80s suburban Florida, complete with insanely catchy original tunes AND a throwaway plot involving "stupid cocaine?" I'll tell you when: Never.
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New York City officials are already teed off over Ken and Sarah Burns documentary The Central Park Five — but just wait until they see the poster for the headlines-generating film. The stark, black-and-white image simply, effectively — and immediately — communicates the idea that the scales of justice did not work for the five men who were convicted and later cleared in the racially charged 1989 Central Park jogger case that rocked the city. more »
RZA's kung fu actioner The Man With The Iron Fists is already a must-see thanks to its pedigree (RZA co-wrote, directs and stars, Eli Roth co-wrote and produces, Quentin Tarantino "presents"), cast (Lucy Liu, Gordon Liu, Pam Grier to name a few) and stylistic influences (Shaw brothers meets Wu Tang? Yes please!). Speaking with Movieline, RZA dropped another worlds-colliding tidbit that might blow minds when Iron Fists hits theaters November 2: Russell Crowe's mysterious, dagger-twirling character Jack Knife was influenced by none other than the late rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard.
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Ever wonder where Donald Trump got his take-n0-prisoners executive style? Well, based on his favorite movies, it's part Corleone family, part Tommy DeVito, part Rhett Butler and part Blondie from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, although, frankly, it was Clint Eastwood who could have used a little of the Donald's mojo when it came to that lame-ass speech the actor-filmmaker gave at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. more »
Paul Dano says he plays "a bit of a prick" in So Yong Kim's For Ellen, but pricks are humans, too. And in this making-of clip, Dano's character — a rock musician who's hit the skids named Joby Taylor — appears ready to regain some of his misplaced humanity. After agreeing to sign divorce papers in order to make some money off the sale of the marital home, Joby discovers that the agreement requires him to forfeit custody of his six-year-old daughter Ellen (newcomer Shaylena Mandigo). With his lawyer (Jon Heder) unable to modify the terms, Joby makes an eleventh-hour visit to his daughter and estranged wife's home to figure out if he is able to walk away from his child or somehow reconcile with his wife. more »
Rising filmmaker Julia Loktev won the Prix Regards Jeune at Cannes in her first feature, 2006's Day Night Day Night, and nabbed the AFI Grand Jury Prize with her sophomore follow-up, the thriller The Loneliest Planet (in theaters October 26 via Sundance Selects). After the jump, check out Movieline's exclusive debut of the poster for The Loneliest Planet, about a couple (Gael García Bernal and Hani Furstenberg) touring the wilds of the former Soviet Union who find their relationship tested by a random, irrevocable incident.
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Actress and funny lady Penny Marshall made her name in television (Laverne & Shirley) before making an unexpected leap into directing with 1986's Jumpin' Jack Flash. But it was her sophomore feature, a fantasy about a boy transformed into a 30-year-old by a wish, that launched a career behind the camera — and made her the first woman director to gross $100 million. But as Marshall tells it in her wry, vivid memoir My Mother Was Nuts, everyone in Hollywood had passed on Big, Tom Hanks included — until, that is, an unlikely actor threw his hat into the ring: Robert De Niro.
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Thrown together for five months of real-life training and preparation — during which time they witnessed some harsh times, indeed, while preparing to play LAPD officers — Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña put in extraordinary dedication to bring authenticity to David Ayer's End of Watch. In an exclusive featurette, the duo (along with Ayer and co-star Anna Kendrick) share their experiences making the gritty found footage cop drama (and love for one another): "[Peña] and I spent over half a year together, going through some of the scariest situations that I’ve been through in my life," says Gyllenhaal. "Mike’s my other half."
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This week the Miami-based rapper/Men In Black 3 ditty composer known as Pitbull makes his acting debut in the martial arts/action film Blood Money playing himself, naturally — a rapper who just happens to drop club bangers before giving sage drug game advice like "Go hard or go home!" to stone-faced visitors after the show. WHY THE HELL NOT. And yes, Blood Money is actually about a Shaolin priest who becomes a hitman after his family is killed, and it stars Zheng Liu, billed as "the next Bruce Lee," not to mention Hong Kong legend Gordon Freaking Liu (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, 8 Diagram Pole Fighter, Kill Bill). My takeaway from that is: At long last, bald twins Pitbull and Gordon Liu are in the same movie!
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How to Survive a Plague turned on the water-works and other outpourings of emotion when it debuted at Sundance earlier this year. Its subjects, the driving-forces behind AIDS activist groups ACT-Up (the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) and TAG (Treatment Action Group), took matters into their own hands against a massive tide of fear, discrimination and government failure to deal with the disease that ravaged the gay community in the '80s and '90s. Director David France profiles the heroes of the movement who moved the needle in forging treatment and official recognition against extraordinary odds, and today Movieline has your first look at the official poster.
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Most movies get a soundtrack after they've been filmed. Boyd Tinsley doesn't work that way. On Aug. 30, the violinist for the Dave Matthews Band will premiere Faces in the Mirror a film that was shot after Tinsley and a group of musicians that included Matthews, other DMB members and the groups Maktub and The Silent Comedy. more »
Sibling rivalry in pre-war Central California, the American dream, and... dick jokes? John Steinbeck's dusty, angsty 1952 opus East of Eden is a staple tome known to every Lit major on earth, but the tale of two brothers caught up in family dramarama hasn't been told quite like it is in Victor Quinaz's new short film (exec produced by Zachary Quinto), premiering today at the Hollyshorts Film Fest. Buoyed by the surprisingly swaggerific comic timing of Gossip Girl's Penn Badgley as the mercurial bean-farming bro Caleb Trask, this is East of Eden like you've never seen it before.
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Paul Dano intends to rock you — musically and emotionally — this fall. In the So Yong Kim-directed For Ellen, the indie-film darling plays Joby Taylor, a rock musician who puts aside his fading dreams of stardom to fight for custody of his six-year-old daughter Ellen, played by newcomer Shaylena Mandigo. more »
Back in 2006 Mike Judge's satire Idiocracy was legendarily screwed over upon release by Fox, who quietly dumped the underrated comedy with virtually no promotion and in just seven cities resulting in a paltry $444,093 domestic total. But the cautionary tale of an average Joe (Luke Wilson) who wakes up in an America populated by idiots went on to earn a cult following, featuring a scene-stealing turn by Terry Crews as five-time Ultimate Smackdown champion and porn superstar President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho — and as Crews tells Movieline, President Camacho may soon be returning in a long-awaited Idiocracy spin-off.
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A community of survivors exists on the outskirts of a Louisiana levee, where a six-year-old girl with a boundless imagination and a deep connection to the world around her lives with her father. In Movieline's exclusive clip, enter the world of Benh Zeitlin's impressive feature debut/Sundance hit Beasts of the Southern Wild (in limited release this week), as seen through the eyes of the film's pint-sized heroine, Hushpuppy (played with tremendous fearlessness by discovery of the year, Quvenzhané Wallis).
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