1. We open with Scorsese’s new.
Well, it’s nice to know that the movie isn’t really three hours of Leonardo DiCaprio next to the table. This damn PR picture accompanied every article about the film for a year and I already wanted to throw a shoe at the screen every time I saw it (I only stopped myself because it’s a pity on the screen). And I admit that I did not expect to be so excited by a trailer with De Niro and DiCaprio together in a Scorsese film (And I’m not counting whatever it is), though other than that the trailer looks exactly what I’d expect a trailer for Scorsese’s new movie to look like: amazing.
Now we have to wait and see if the film will get an official Hebrew name when it is released by Forum Film this October, despite Apple’s hatred of translating the names of their content.
2. So the negotiations with the Screenwriters Guild of America failed and all Hollywood screenwriters went on strike. Originally there was a long text detailing which series and films were affected by the long strike, a list that included, among other things, the nightly talk shows (oh no, what would we do without the fake laugh of Jimmy Fallon?), three Netflix series that were in the middle of working on the final season (you know, a pretty rare thing on Netflix): “Stranger Things”, “Cobra Kai” and “Big Mouth”, and also “Yellow”, “Detachment”, “Family Man”, “American Dad”, “The Last of Us” and “The Handmaid’s Tale”, as well as productions that continue to be filmed as usual but without the presence of showrunners on the set, including “House of the Dragon”, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and “Andor ” So it is quite likely that they will also be affected by the strike one way or another.
But the bitter truth is that we have no, and will never have, a way of knowing what the true effects of the strike are. Because who knows – maybe the winner of the Oscar 2025 will no longer receive a green light from the studios because there is no time and the work is too much, and you will no longer get to know your favorite new series because the producers will want to reduce costs. As sad as I am for the series and movies that we know about, I am sadder for the series and movies that we will no longer get to know.
And to your question about what the screenwriters actually want: the answer is mainly, well, to work like humans: a fixed minimum of screenwriters in every television production, a fixed number of weeks for production and not to be excluded from streaming revenues, revenues that are currently a significant share of the industry.
Beyond that, the screenwriters demand regulation on artificial intelligence. The screenwriters understand that it is impossible to stop the revolution of artificial intelligence, but they fear a future where they and their colleagues will be hired to rewrite drafts written by Chat GPT and his friends (and for rewrites, the rate is, obviously, lower) and therefore they demand that this bleak future be killed outright, and define content written by intelligence as non-original material. Successfully.
3. If you can’t wait for season 3 of “Only murderers in the building”, which is on August 8, then on June 8 the spin-off “Only murderers in the neighborhood” comes out. Just, not really. But, like – see for yourself.
For those of you who are at work right now and can’t play trailers otherwise important people will know you’re not working, it’s a crime comedy where Chris Messina and Kelly Cuoco are a married couple from the suburbs who start a podcast about a serial killer who hangs around the neighborhood, and the two involve the real killer as part of the podcast.
On the face of it, interesting. All episodes of “Based on a true Story” (“based on a true story” or “based on a true story?” because what actually based on a true story?) will be released on June 8 on the Peacock network.
4. Remember “Loki”? It’s okay if not, it’s been almost two years since it ended. In any case, the series will return for another season on October 6 – which, mind you, is a Friday. Is Disney bringing back Friday as their New Episodes Day instead of Wednesday? It is not certain that “Echo”, the spin-off series of “Hawkeye” that will deal with the character of Mia Lopez, will be released on November 29 – which is a Wednesday.
But with “Echo” Disney is trying something new, at least when it comes to the Marvel and Star Wars series: all its episodes will be uploaded at once. Does Disney not believe enough in the series and prefer to end it at once, or do they think it is simply built for binge? We will find out in November.
And just in case you forgot: “Secret Invasion”, in which Nick Fury tries to stop a not-so-secret invasion, will be released on June 21. It comes out Wednesday. And if you say “But what about all 12 series that were announced at some point? When are they coming out?” So, apparently, sometime. Marvel has been serious about releasing only a little bit of content at a time, and that means that with the amount of content they’ve announced, the next time they’ll have to announce a new series won’t be until after Kang joins the cast of “Dynasty” or whatever is going to happen in Avengers 5 and 6.
5. And as for the Madev series that we reviewed here on the website and that was broadcast on a streaming service that went from Friday to Wednesday and now it returns to Friday (no, I’m the king of transitions): remember “The Mossad”? So it too will return for another season on the 14th In July, which is Friday.
Two things I forgot while the series was not airing: how beautiful this series is, and the whole plot.
6. A new original anime movie, “Komada: Family of Whiskey” (Komada Jōryūsho e Yōkoso) has been revealed and it comes with a cool poster.
The plot of the film is about Roy, a young girl who takes it upon herself to manage her family’s whiskey distillery after her father’s death. But the new work will not be easy, because otherwise it will be a short and boring film, and also because Rui has to deal with financial difficulties, a dysfunctional family and the consequences of a natural disaster that destroyed the distillery.
“A Family of Whiskey” will be released in Japan in November, but even before that it will compete as part of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France this coming June. There is also a 12-second teaser.
7. And another film that will be screened at the Annecy Animation Film Festival is “Nimona” which many of you are impatiently waiting for, and it finally has a teaser:
Well, I haven’t read the graphic novel and I have absolutely no idea what it’s about beyond the basic synopsis (something about a shape-shifting teenage girl who informs a villain named Shalazar Shorlev that she’s his new apprentice) but the trailer promises a very fun movie and I’m into it. The film itself will be released on Netflix on June 30.
8. New trailer for “Oppenheimer” (and with a guest appearance by Albert Einstein. Looks relatively good for someone who has been dead for several decades).
It looks like a movie that looks great, made great, one that should really be seen on as big a cinema screen as possible – and that I probably won’t watch again. July 20 in theaters near you. Technically even in the distance, if you like to challenge yourself.
9. And speaking of a fedora hat-hating hero who hates Nazis (maybe I need a promotion to Emperor of the Crossings. Just saying), Lucasfilm has solemnly announced that all four Indiana Jones movies will be on Disney+ on May 31st, and that includes the Indiana Jones series The Young Man”, a series that originally ran between 91 and 92 and which was accompanied by four TV movies between 94 and 96; But in 1999, George Lucas did to the series what George Lucas likes to do, re-edited the entire series and films in chronological order, added scenes that had been edited out and created 22 films from all this material under the name “The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones” ” – and it seems that this is the version that will reach Disney+. If you’ve ever wanted to see Indiana Jones fight Dracula, watch the series.
-10. Hollywood continues to try and adapt video games for the big screen in a way that won’t make any viewer bleed from the eyes, and next in line, it seems, is “Five Nights at Freddy’s.”
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As a horror movie it seems not bad. If you somehow missed all the tens of thousands of YouTube videos about the series, the first game in the series is about animatronic dolls that terrorize a security guard on night shift at a family pizzeria; This overall nice idea resulted in eight more games, including what appears to be a spin-off set in space. I haven’t played any of the games, I’m just guessing that a game called “Freddy in Space 2” doesn’t take place in Oklahoma.
The movie itself, which is based on the first game, will be released simultaneously (or as my daughter says: “temporarily”) for streaming on the Peacock network on October 27th, just in time for Halloween. And if the film is successful, expect two more after it. And if they succeed, then, as mentioned, we could someday see Freddy in space or something.
11. If you’ve ever wondered “Hmm, I wonder how Gal Gadot got the role of Wonder Woman?” So good news: “Eshte Hail” is an independent biographical film that deals with the difficulty of the beloved actress on her way to conquer Hollywood, while fighting anti-Semitism. A completely authentic and serious story!
12. Love unnecessary sequels? Hollywood hopes so because two of them have been announced.
The first is a sequel to “Inverted Friday” which will also include the return of Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. Will they eat the same Chinese fortune cookie again or will the exchange of bodies this time be with other characters? It is not clear. And why can’t anyone learn from Makoto Shinkai and create body swaps between people who don’t know or are related to each other? How about a movie where a debauched college student wakes up in the body of a Genghis Khan Mongolian warrior, and a Genghis Khan Mongolian warrior wakes up as a debauched college student?
The second sequel is to Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. Burton returns to the director’s throne, and the sequel is written by the guys behind Netflix’s successful “Wednesday”, and series star Jenna Ortega also joins the film in the role of Winona Ryder’s daughter from the original film. Don’t worry, Winona Ryder is also returning, alongside Catherine O’Hara and of course Michael Keaton (otherwise what’s the point of calling the movie “Beetlejuice”?). They are joined by Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci and Justin Theroux, who I will forever confuse with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The film is slated for release on September 6, 2024 – a date currently reserved for Marvel’s Blade as well, but something tells me it won’t stay there for long.
13. New trailer for the horror comedy “Haunted Castle”.
Well, it’s not the same without Eddie Murphy. But who am I to complain about a cast that includes Keith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito and Rosario Dawson? What is surprising is that “Haunted Castle” is intended to be released and not directly to Disney+, and in the middle of August! Also, along with “Haunted in Venice”, will Disney release two movies that take place in a haunted location, one month apart? Yes, the answer is yes.
14. Warning, clickbait headline: People named Christopher Nolan will hate the following trick!
In recent years, we are all familiar with the following problem, especially if we watch content without translation: i. it is possible to understand. what. They say (because most of us don’t have a home theater system and all the complex sound mixing falls on the shoulders of one poor speaker). Well, Amazon is at your service: a new feature in Frame Video called Dialogue Boost boosts the dialogues in the film without changing the music and effects in the background, and you can even adjust the sound to your satisfaction. You are a crap company, Amazon, but sometimes you do good things.
15. First teaser for “Poor Creatures” by Yorgos Lanthimos: a half-minute teaser, but it doesn’t skimp on beautiful shots.
The film, for those who don’t read this column regularly, is about a young woman (Emma Stone) who met her death in a tragic way, and was brought back to life by a mad scientist (Willem Dafoe, but who?). Mark Raffaello is here too. In the US, the film is scheduled to be released on September 8. In Israel, it will either be released very closely or will be postponed to some February and will be called “Love beyond the grave” or something.
16. David Mamet announced a new movie, “Assassination” that will deal with the assassination of John F. Canadian. Mamet hasn’t directed a movie in a decade and a half (don’t worry, he wrote a lot of plays during that time and also wrote a lot of political rants). “Assassination” will depict the assassination of the president from the perspective of the mafia that organized the assassination (wait, those weren’t aliens?!) and will star Al Pacino, Viggo Mortensen, John Travolta, Shia LeBeouf and Courtney Love. Nowhere on the internet is it written which of them will play John F. Kennedy. I hope it’s Courtney Love.
17. “Black Mirror” will return for a sixth season sometime this year, and there is also a teaser that shows a lot but shows absolutely nothing.
Unlike the previous seasons which were mostly futuristic, the new season takes us into the past with one episode, “Demon 79”, which takes place in 1979 and deals with a sales assistant who is forced to do a terrible thing to prevent a tragedy, and another episode, “Beyond the Sea”, which depicts an alternate version of The Flight to the Moon, with Aaron Paul in the title role (“Yo Mister White I’m in Space, Beach”).
Apart from them, the other episodes don’t seem to jump far ahead and take place, it seems, in our time: “Mazey Day” is about a network star who is involved in a hit-and-run accident, “Loch Henry” is about a couple who go to Scotland to shoot a documentary and then things happen (I guess it’s related somehow to the Loch-Ness monster) and last but not least, and the most intriguing of all, is “Joan is Awful”, about a completely ordinary woman who is amazed to discover that a streaming giant has created a prestigious drama about her life starring Salma Hayek.
18. A new project at Screenplay, which began as a tribute to a podcast on a similar topic, deals with the biggest oversights of the Oscars throughout its 95 years of existence: acting, cinematography, directing, music, best film, editing and even foreign film nominations. that should have happened and just didn’t. You are welcome to read the first part and get angry (about the Oscar, not about the project. Or both, we don’t judge).
19. A new animated series by one of today’s greatest animators, Gennady Tartkovsky (“Ancient”), began its broadcast this month, “Unicorn: Warriors Eternal” it’s called, and you are invited to watch its first episode for free on YouTube and legally. The series takes place in a Victorian setting where three heroes transform into the bodies of teenagers. But who cares what the plot is, it’s a series by Gennady Tartakovsky.
20. And we’ll finish with Tenacious D’s new music video, their first in 5 years, and it’s all dedicated to Jack Black’s love for… video games.
Now, one can and should wonder about the timing of the clip with the release of “Super Mario Brothers – The Movie” (especially when “Bowler for Mark” also covered “Hey Mario”) but 30% of the clip (it sounds like a lot, but the entire clip is only 77 seconds long ) is dedicated to Black’s love for “Red Dead Redemption 2”. Random and great as I expect from stubborn D.
And it’s a good time to conjure up the 1982 commercial for the game “Pitfall” for the Atari 2600 console, starring 13-year-old Jack Black.
