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Fantastic Fest XVII Review: GIVE ME AN A, Natasha Halevi’s Hellish Assortment Of Horror And Dark Humor Sends A Message To All

Lee B. Golden III

Virginia Madsen plays coach to a team of cheerleaders who perform a jubilating screed against the patriarchy, inaugurating the brutalist, vividly gruesome, horrific and satirical multi-angular stories among the fifteen shorts told in Give Me An A, the latest feature-length call to action shepherded by writer/director Natasha Halevi. Supported in part by crowdfunding efforts over at Seed And Spark following a four week shoot, the new anthology now arises at film festivals to make its case following the Supreme Court’s leaked opinion overturning Roe V. Wade back in May and their ruling a month later. The film’s inspiration from this eventful decision is made abundantly clear in Meg Swertlow’s “The Voiceless,” the first of fifteen shortfilms from Halevi’s team of directors in which here, a woman is resigned to panic and grief when she looks in the mirror and notices her mouth has been completely sealed off. The tone shifts […]

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Fantastic Fest XVII Review: HEROES OF AFRICA: TETTEH QUARSHIE, A Thrilling, Mystical Look At A Real-Life Hero

Lee B. Golden III

Tetteh Quarshie remains a celebrated figure in Ghanian history for bringing cocoa crops to his region. The “how,” of course, was tentatively subject to scruitiny when local filmmaker Frank Fiifi Gharbin set out to adapt the late 19th century agriculturalist and blacksmith’s tale for his third feature film only to hit a legal snag with Quarshie’s family earlier this year ahead of a planned screening. That his film, Heroes Of Africa: Tetteh Quarshie, is circulating at festivals otherwise indicates that the film now checks all required boxes to satisfy the Quarshie estate, and with none other than Bernard Adusi-Poku starring in the title role from a script also by Gharbin. Our story sees Quarshie endowed with an enchanted amulet by a forest deity, which she says will protect him from harm until his very last breath. Later that day, Quarshie met with weasley friend Ofui (Kwadwo Nkansah), expressing that he […]

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OUTRIGHT LOSER, HIDDEN MASTER: Yen To Shepherd New Action Series In Slate From ‘Wu Xia’ Director’s New Production Banner

Lee B. Golden III

Donnie Yen will reteam with Wu Xia director Peter Chan for Outright Loser, Hidden Master, according to Variety coverage out of Busan this month. The action fantasy drama about tells of “an Asian American who discovers that martial artists in Hong Kong are mysteriously extending their lineage by imprinting their memories, martial art skills and techniques onto the bodies of strangers.” The series is one in a raft of independently produced shows on the roster from Chan’s newly launched Changin’ Pictures, which looks to become a powerhouse production entity for the current momentum and potential for distribution of content featuring Asian talent for streaming platforms. Yen was one of two stars cited as part of the agenda among the five shows listed, with the other being actress Zhang Ziyi’s starring role in The Murderer, which Chan will direct. “Infinite possibilities can be found when filmmakers share the same vision,” said […]

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BERLÍN: Cameras Roll For The New ‘Money Heist’ Spin-Off Series

Lee B. Golden III

Production is officially underway for La Casa De Papel (a.k.a. Money Heist) spin-off series, Berlín, with actor Pedro Alonso back the title role. Cameras began rolling in Paris following a press conference a week ago with creators Esther Martínez Lobato and Álex Pina on hand with the cast: “Berin’s character has the most sparkling personality to place it in another universe. We loved the idea of introducing a new gang around Berlin in a completely different emotional state.” Plot details are unknown, whileAlonso, whose character recurred throughout all five seasons of La Casa De Papel, was also present last week to share a glimpse of what’s to come, reciting an opening line of dialogue from the first episode: “There are only ten things that can turn a terrible day into a wonderful one. The first is love. And the truth, that wasn’t the case. My third wife had just left […]

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Fantastic Fest XVII Review: HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS, A Love Story Wrapped In A Jubilee Of Zany, Cinematic Indie Wonder

Lee B. Golden III

October 3, 2022: Film duo Ryland Brickson Cole Tews and Mike Cheslik have already made strides in recent years with the harrowing 2018 adventure comedy Lake Michigan Monster, and judging by the looks of their latest endeavor, they’re clearly sticking to what works. For this, we turn to their dialogue-free Hundreds Of Beavers, marking Cheslik’s feature debut with Tews in a starring capacity for a rousing contemporary approach to a classic style of cinema, blending a little bit of everything you could enjoy while rooting for the underdog. Our pointman, in this case, is a happy-go-lucky 19th century drunkard and applejack owner named Jean Kayak (Tews), who finds himself out on his ass one day when he realizes his business has been destroyed. He’s forced to survive in the bitter and harsh elements of the wintery wilderness while struggling to keep warm against tempermental wind and trying to find ways […]

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MANIFEST WEST: A Family Defends A Mountainous Homefront In The Official Trailer

Lee B. Golden III

Samuel Goldwyn Films has released the official trailer for Manifest West, the new Western drama thriller directed by Joe Dietsch and Louie Gibson. The film stars brother to the latter, actor Milo Gibson (All The Devil’s Men), and Annet Mahendru, with Lexy Kolker leading the cast. MANIFEST WEST is a coming-of-age story, told through the eyes of a ten-year old girl whose family moves off the grid into untamed North American Wilderness. It’s their attempt to establish normalcy, to thrive off the land, and escape the pressures of modern society. But the family has its own internal pressures building, and you can’t escape what’s going on in your own household, no matter how far you move up a mountain. Manifest West previously screened back in February at the Mammoth Film Festival, where it won Best Genre Film. The film also stars Tim Heidecker and Michael Cudlitz and will release in […]

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Fantastic Fest XVII Review: MISSING, On Finding Closure With Cataclysmic Effect

Lee B. Golden III

Trigger Warning: This review discusses topics pertaining to suicide and depression. I’ve covered actor Jiro Sato in mostly comedy roles since he first landed on my radar with Gintama, The Fable, the sequels to both, and eventually From Today, It’s My Turn!!. So, it’s definitely been rewarding to get to explore more of Sato’s dimensions in Siblings Of The Cape helmer and Bong Joon-ho vet Shinzô Katayama’s crime drama, Missing, in which he stars opposite young actress Aoi Ito, who’s been a burgeoning talent for nearly a decade now. The film is actually one of a few credits the two actors share together with the other being NHK series “Hikikomori Sensei”. I haven’t seen that show, although still, I reckon anytime actors reunite from a previous project, then it’s usually a good thing. At least here in Missing, it shows, with Sato and Ito in the respective roles of former […]

THE LAST BUTTERFLIES: Whitney Elaine Wegman-Wood Contemplates Motherhood In A Perilous World For Her Newest Passion Project

Lee B. Golden III

Actress and screenwriter Whitney Elaine Wegman-Wood (The Evil Rises, Mystery Highway) is two weeks into her latest campaign for her new short, The Last Butterflies. The project is the result of a personal journey Wegman-Wood began a few years ago stemming from a row of anxiety nightmares which compelled her to tell her story, comprised of details and disclosures all which boil down to one simple tagline as written: How far are you willing to go at the end of the world? The Last Butterflies is teaming Wegman-Wood with producer Sue Vicory of 501(c)(3) production company, Heartland Films, in addition to director Patrick Rea (They Wait In The Dark, I Am Lisa) and actor Cooper Andrews (Den Of Thieves, Shazam!). Tier-based perks are available with more info on Wegman-Wood’s story, the team involved and how to donate over at the project’s official Indiegogo page, as well as with updates also […]

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KALEIDOSCOPE: Alexander Nevsky Tackles Serial Killer Thriller With ‘Rio Bravo’ Director

Lee B. Golden III

Promise director Joe Cornet will film Kaleidoscope this Fall, reteaming with actor and producer Alexander Nevsky. The two will also be joined by actress Bai Ling (The Crow) who will play “a mysterious beautiful woman who may or may not be a serial killer” according to an e-mail announcement this week following earlier news broken via JoBlo last week. Says Ling: “With my excitement I’m sharing this good news with you: I’ll be starring in a new thriller called KALEIDOSCOPE! Script is very good and I love my character. She’s very classy and special, she has all the good qualities you would like to see in a woman. But she may be really dangerous… I look forward to working with director/writer Joe Cornet and my friend Alexander Nevsky!” Cornet is co-starring in the film which he and co-scribe Kent Hill wrote. The film marks a reunion for Nevsky and Ling […]

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BERLÍN: Pedro Alonso Heads Up New Cast For ‘Money Heist’ Prequel Spin-Off Series

Lee B. Golden III

The creators of hit Netflix series, La Casa De Papel (a.k.a. Money Heist) are moving forward with prequel series spin-off, Berlín, according to announcements made this week and hinted several days prior at various news outlets. The cast was also announced on Wednesday via Twitter, listing Michelle Jenner, Tristán Ulloa, Begoña Vargas, Julio Peña Fernández, and Joel Sánchez, and with none other than leading man Pedro Alonso reprising his role from the aforementioned inaugural hit series. It’s been five years since the first season of La Casa De Papel landed on the streamer and became a supercharged hit running five seasons. The show features Alonso aligned with a ragtag team of thieves initiated by a brilliant-minded “Professor” as they spend months incognito preparing to rob the Spanish Royal Mint of nearly a billion Euros. The heist unravels in the first two seasons of the show as it toggles back and […]

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Fantastic Fest 2022 Review: SOLOMON KING, A Runaway Blaxploitation Classic Worth The Upgrade

Lee B. Golden III

Deaf Crocodile Films has been on a roll this year with its slate of restored and remastered classics. One such title is the 1974 indie classic, Solomon King, directed by Jack Bomay alongside leading man Sal Watts in the title role, taking the mantle for an opportune move toward the zeitgeist of Blaxploitation cinema at the time titles like Hammer, Black Caesar and Black Belt Jones were the talk of the town. Penned by Watts with a script storied by Jim Alston, Solomon King dives right into the thick of it when Hassan, a power-hungry sheikdom in an oil-rich foreign country, has usurped himself into power, marking the king and his daughter, Princess Oneeba (Claudia Russo), for death. With his brother Manny (James Watts) caught in the crossfire, CIA-trained nightclub owner Solomon (Sal Watts) is alerted to the latest attempt on their lives and is summoned to protect Oneeba upon […]

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COOLER: Dave Bautista Headlines New Action Thriller From ‘Hotel Artemis’ Director

Lee B. Golden III

Drew Pearce will reunite with Hotel Artemis co-star Dave Bautista for Cooler, a new action thriller out of FilmNation Entertainment’s new Infrared production label which films in Summer of 2023. The film is the first title to emerge in a first-look deal etched out a few weeks ago between Infrared and Bautista’s Dogbone Entertainment banner. Cooler “follows a South Beach bouncer Ray Sagona, played by Bautista, who is on the brink of finding redemption and getting his family back. But when a drug-filled safe is stolen from the club he works at, Ray is blackmailed into finding it before the Miami PD narcotics bureau comes to retrieve it on Sunday night. Now, as his past and present collide in ever-more dangerous ways, Ray must survive an epic 36-hour odyssey across Miami Beach to get that safe back… one final Herculean task on his journey towards absolution.” Pearce will direct from […]

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Fantastic Fest XVII Review: AMAZING ELIZA, Exploring Trauma To Reveal A Bigger, More Peculiar Picture

Lee B. Golden III

As far as she’s concerned, Eliza (Jana San Antonio) is no ordinary girl. Point, in fact, she is thoroughly convinced that she is a superhero and that the only thing that sets her apart from her favorite comic book superhero is that she herself doesn’t have a dog… This is just part and parcel to the surreal goings-on we see in writer/director Sadrac González-Perellón’s new drama, Amazing Eliza. Slow-moving and pensive and sometimes chilling, the story toggles between several arcs, the second of which also centers on the troubled marriage between artist and gallery owner, Hector (Asier Exteandia) and his paraplegic wife, Ursula (Silvia Abascal), and third of which revolves around a mysterious woman who also happens to be something of a living personification of Eliza’s favorite superhero. These three arcs all culminate into what González-Perellón crafts as a surrealistic psychological drama that tries to speak to the ways in […]

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DEADPOOL 3 Claws Back In With Hugh Jackman As Wolverine

Lee B. Golden III

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hugh Jackman (@thehughjackman) Marvel Studios and 20th Century Studios are officially moving forward with a third installment of the Deadpool franchise, and as of Tuesday’s announcement from star Ryan Reynolds, with the addition of Hugh Jackman back in the saddle one more time as X-Men favorite, Wolverine. The rapport between Reynolds and Jackman dates back as far as the 2009 film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, with Jackman cameoing in a paper cutout at the tail-end of the Tim Miller’s inaugural Deadpool adaptation in 2016. David Leitch’s Deadpool 2 entrenched itself a little further into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with several more cameos of the recent X-Men cast. Shawn Levy is tapped to direct his Free Guy and The Adam Project star along with Jackman with franchise scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick for a September 6, 2024 release.

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Fantastic Fest XVII: Award Winners Announced!

Lee B. Golden III

The seventeenth installment of Fantastic Fest is currently underway and we’re already getting our reviews together as we speak. In the meantime, the festival announced its award-winning titles for 2022 and you can now check them out below, including The Five Devils, Holy Spider, Piggy and more. Read on, and visit the official website for more info! Austin, TX – September 27th, 2022 – Fantastic Fest is pleased to announce this year’s Fantastic Fest Award winners. It has been an outstanding year for features and shorts, making the job of honoring a select crop all the more difficult, but our esteemed team of jurors have done the nearly impossible and chosen the best films of the festival. “We really gave our jury members a tough job this year. We have no idea how they were able to choose between so many amazing films,” Festival Director Lisa Dreyer said. “We are […]

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Fantastic Fest XVII Review: HUNT, A propulsive, explosive action-packed directorial debut from SQUID GAME star Lee Jung-jae!

Published September 27, 2022: Set in the ‘80s, Hunt takes place during the disruption of an assassination attempt on the president. Two South Korean agents (Lee Jung-jae and Jung Woo-sung) from different departments are tasked to uncover a North Korean spy within their agency; who threatens to reveal top secret intel. But things escalate when the intel is revealed; leading the two agents to investigate each other. An action-packed directorial debut from renowned actor Lee Jung-jae; Lee takes on multiple duties (director, co-writer, producer and lead actor) to deliver a professionally mounted (many of the crew have worked on numerous Park Chan-wook productions) political thriller that leaves no room for subtlety, nuance or even levity. Entertainment is the name of the game and Lee delivers with tons of frenetic shoot-outs (with striking sound design that makes the gunfire stand out), numerous plot twists and many dramatic mano-a-mano stare-offs between lead […]

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HELLFIRE: Isaac Florentine Returns For New Action Headliner With Stephen Lang

Lee B. Golden III

Fans following actor Johnny Yong Bosch’s social media posts in recent weeks probably took notice of some set photos from a film production that just wrapped. News as of Monday confirms just that, with details on Hellfire, reuniting Bosch with seasoned Power Rangers franchise vet, Undisputed franchise director Isaac Florentine and starring Stephen Lang (Avatar, V.F.W.) in the lead role. According to Deadline’s Valerie Complex, the film was written by Richard Lowry and centers on ” a mysterious past who arrives in a small town and finds the residents in the grip of a ruthless crime boss and realizes he has to help them.” The film also stars Harvey Keitel and Dolph Lundgren, in addition to Bosch and co-stars Scottie Thompson, Michael Sirow, Chris Mullinax, Maurice Compte, Levon Panek, and Natalie Canerday. Bosch previously worked with Florentine on several installments of the Power Rangers franchise. The famed action director also […]

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REACHER: Alan Ritchson Claps Bigly As Season Two Rolls On For The Hit Amazon Prime Series

Lee B. Golden III

It’s a damn good day to be a Reacher fan as production on the second season of the hit Amazon series is now underway. Even lead actor Alan Ritchson took the mantle on Friday to host the festivities in bigger-than-big fashion through his Instagram page: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Alan Ritchson (@alanritchson) Season one of the show aired back in February featuring Ritchson in the title role of the fictional former U.S. Army MP major, based on the work of author Lee Child. In eight episodes, the show chronicles Reacher’s journey to a small town where he’s framed for murder and must team up with the town’s reluctant chief detective and another officer to solve a mystery involving a criminal conspiracy that goes even further up the ladder than they realize. Ritchson recently wrapped his part for the current production of Universal Pictures’ tenth installment […]

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KIDS VS. ALIENS: Don’t Miss The First Teaser For Jason Eisner’s New Sci-Fi Thriller

Lee B. Golden III

Hobo With A Shotgun helmer Jason Eisner is back with Fantastic Fest-selected sci-fi thriller, Kids VS. Aliens. The film was recently fully financed and acquired through partnership between RLJE Films and AMC’s Shudder, and will release the pic early next year. All Gary wants is to make awesome home movies with his best buds. All his older sister Samantha wants is to hang with the cool kids. When their parents head out of town one Halloween weekend, an all-time rager of a teen house party turns to terror when aliens attack, forcing the siblings to band together to survive the night. Kids VS. Aliens stars Dominic Mariche, Phoebe Rex, Calem MacDonald, Asher Grayson Percival and Ben Tector from a script by Eisner and co-writer John Davies.

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BAD CITY: Well Go USA Acquires ‘Hydra’ Director’s Latest Crime Thriller For Q4 2022 Release

Lee B. Golden III

It may have seemed pretty likely at some point that anything stunt multi-hyphenate and filmmaker Kensuke Sonomura did would immediately be welcome by North American distributor Well Go USA, given the reception for his 2019 feature debut, Hydra. Fast forward to this week’s launch of the 17th installment of Fantastic Fest, where attendees can finally catch what Sonomura had been up to last year with the production of his sophomore debut, Bad City. Neuchâtel premiered the pic earlier this summer while slowly rolling out its promotional campaign, and now, with a trio of screenings at Fantastic set from this Saturday through the 28th, trade news on Friday is making it official with Well Go USA’s acquisition of the Yakuza crime thriller as a Hi-YAH! Original release, followed by theatrical and wider VOD releases later this year. I can assure you there’s plenty to dive into this year at Fantastic Fest, […]