The first sequel spin-off of The Walking Dead finds Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan doing more of the same, only now in New York City.

Plot: Follows Maggie and Negan traveling into a post-apocalyptic Manhattan, long ago cut off from the mainland. The crumbling city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world full of anarchy, danger, beauty, and terror.

Review: After eleven years on the air, The Walking Dead aired its series finale just seven months ago. While the series wrapped up many storylines, it failed to feel like a finale as it laid the groundwork for not one or two but at least three spin-offs. While the Rick and Michonne series and the Daryl Dixon story won’t debut until later, Dead City is the first new title in The Walking Dead universe. Led by Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Maggie Rhee and Negan, Dead City finds the adversarial duo forced to team up to rescue Maggie’s son, Hershel, from a villain with a connection to Negan’s past. Despite featuring all-new geography to explore the walkers and living remnants of humanity. Dead City is very much like the flagship series in tone and style. What it does have in its favor is a limited length of just six episodes which keeps the story focused and tight for a more intense viewing experience.

Dead City wastes no time and jumps right into Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) scoping out the zombie-infested shoreline of the island of Manhattan. She then tracks down Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who works small jobs and cares for a mute girl, Ginny (Mahina Napoleon). Maggie reveals to Negan that her son, Hershel (Logan Kim), has been kidnapped by The Croat (Zeljko Ivanek), who has also stolen all of the grain from The Hilltop. Because The Croat knows Negan, Maggie begrudgingly needs the help of the man who killed her husband. Negan reluctantly agrees, and the pair begin their quest while being pursued by Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles), a marshal from New Babylon, who is tasked with bringing Negan in for crimes he has committed. All of this is revealed in the first episode of Dead City, which takes Maggie and Negan from their familiar surroundings into the heart of the dilapidated remains of New York City.

Over the course of the six episodes of Dead City, Maggie, and Negan continue their tenuous relationship despite the finale of The Walking Dead showcasing a heartfelt apology from Negan for the brutal murder of Glen. While Maggie did not accept the apology, this series presents the strong, fan-favorite character as almost ignorant of that key scene. The exchanges between Maggie and Negan were highlights of the main series, and they spend so much time together in this series that we begin to see where they have more connection and respect one another. Lauren Cohan’s performance as Maggie began to feel one-note in the middle of The Walking Dead, but here she hones in on her primal need to save her son at any cost. On the flip side, Jeffrey Dean Morgan has so fully realized the angles of Negan that I was surprised to see him bring even more nuance to the character here. The challenge in transforming a diabolical and evil antagonist into an anti-hero is that you undermine the depravity of their villainous tendencies. I never liked the transformation of Negan into a protagonist, but Dead City does some interesting things with his arc.

Having seen the entire season of The Walking Dead: Dead City, I have some qualms about the overall narrative. None of these can be voiced here without spoiling the reveals through the season, but I can say that the few elements that worked for me include Zeljko Ivanek as The Croat and Logan Kim as Hershel. Ivanek has had a long career as a character actor and is one of the better villains that The Walking Dead has had, serving as a good counterbalance to Negan. Logan Kim, taking over his role from Kien Michael Spiller, is excellent as the son of Maggie and Glen. Unlike Rick’s daughter, Judith, Hershel is given a very different narrative in Dead City than I expected, which will have ramifications for this series should it move into a second season and beyond. The other main addition to this season is Gaius Charles as Perlie Armstrong, a lawman who speaks like an old west cowboy and follows the tenets of his profession as admirably as Rick Grimes. I am not sure if Perlie works as well in the context of Dead City as the writers wanted, but he does serve as a solid extension into the larger world of this universe.

Created by Eli Jorne, a producer of The Walking Dead as well as Heels and Dummy, Dead City is also very much focused on giving us the bloated, disgusting zombies many of us have come to expect from this franchise. Having the walkers confined to an island does not change their look or movements, but the special effects continue to reveal the gory possibilities of the undead. There are some brutal kills in Dead City as well as some intriguing creative designs that I appreciated seeing. Dead City, like The Walking Dead at large, uses zombies as a device rather than the focus, as the human characters are the key to these shows being popular. Jorne scripted four of the six episodes this season along with Keith Staskiewicz and Brenna Kouf. Directing duties were handled by Kevin Dowling and Loren Yaconelli, who used the urban landscape of a destitute New York City to their advantage. Since HBO’s The Last of Us has debuted, it is hard to feel like we are seeing anything new in this series, but that is a pitfall of carrying on the legacy of characters we have been watching for over ten years.

Even though it clocks in at less than half the length of the last ten seasons of The Walking Dead, Dead City still feels overlong. The story is tighter and more focused, but this tale could have been condensed into a standalone movie rather than a series. But Dead City is designed as an ongoing story rather than a limited series, and there is more setup in these chapters than resolution. Fans of The Walking Dead will likely enjoy the focus on just Maggie and Negan. However, I still remain skeptical that this show will amount to more than just another glimpse at the worst of humanity from a slightly different angle. It is hard to completely discount Dead City, thanks to the solid performances from Morgan and Cohan, but I cannot help but feel underwhelmed by the familiarity of it all.

The Walking Dead: Dead City premieres on June 18th on AMC.

6

For summer tentpole releases from DC Comics and Disney-Pixar, the analysts have come up surprisingly short on the opening weekend.

The box office predictions for some of the summer’s big-name movies have interestingly been tracking to be lower than one would assume. It was reported that Harrison Ford’s return to the adventure forefront with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was expected to rake in only $60-$70 million for its opening weekend in the Fourth of July weekend — a prime movie-going occasion. Analysts are presently tracking low numbers for Michael Keaton’s iconic return as well with The Flash as well as an original IP with Disney-Pixar’s newest outing, Elemental.

According to Variety, these two titles, both of which come from popular genres and studios, are predicted to open to a soft weekend debut. The Flash is tracking for a $70 million opening, which is rather low for a superhero tentpole movie with a lot of hype behind it, and Elemental, which is being released by the usually reliable Pixar, is aiming to hit around $35 million. The Disney animation film is also not based on any previous franchise that could attract audiences on name alone. Additionally, Variety states that “insiders and analysts are split on the final weekend number for The Flash, with some expecting an even softer $68 million and others projecting as much as $85 million.”

The Flash, despite being a popular superhero with a rich legacy, had undergone an untraditional promotional process. Its star Ezra Miller is not appearing for the press at all to promote the movie due to the star’s tumultuous public behavior in recent years. The studio has been relying on a word-of-mouth approach where advanced screenings have produced such phrases as “greatest superhero movie ever made” with names outside the usual demographic praising it. The marketing had also re-focused the attention on the big screen return of Michael Keaton in the cultural-defining role from the cultural-defining movie Batman.

The small numbers for the movie from a juggernaut such as Pixar are comparable to the studio’s past underperforming titles like 2015’s The Good Dinosaur, which garnered $39 million, and 2020’s Onward, which also raised $39 million, although it’s important to note that Onward would be released in the year at the start of the pandemic. Pixar has been struggling as of late, whereas the studio never truly used pre-existing franchises as a crutch, except for maybe the Toy Story extended sequels. However, with both Disney+ and the pandemic altering the theatrical showing windows, the studio is currently not meeting its usual expectations.

Julia Ormond of The Walking Dead: World Beyond stars in the psychological horror film Home Education, filmed in Italy

Variety reports that Julia Ormond (The Walking Dead: World Beyond) and Lydia Page (Blue Jean) have been cast in Home Education, a psychological horror movie that’s set in “the scenic Sila plateau in Italy’s Southern Calabria region”. They were actually cast a while back, because filming has already wrapped and a first look image has been released to give us a glimpse of the character Ormond plays in the movie. The image can be seen at the bottom of this article.

The feature debut of writer/director Andrea Niada, Home Education is based on the filmmaker’s London Film School graduation short. The story centers on a family that are followers of an esoteric cult and live in a secluded house deep in the woods. Page’s character is Rachel, a teenager raised according to the cult’s beliefs. When her father Philip dies, Rachel’s domineering mother, Carol (Ormond), driven by the belief that Philip’s lifeless body will revive itself, forces her daughter to live with the corpse. While inside the home everything flows according to Carol’s strict rules, Philip’s disappearance arouses suspicion outside. Then a local boy named Dan strikes a friendship with Rachel and breaks this insane tranquility, posing a threat to Carol.

Rocco Fasano (SKAM Italia) plays Dan.

Coming our way from Warner Bros Entertainment Italia, Indiana Production, and BlackBox Multimedia (with support from the Calabria Film Commission), Home Education is an English-language film and was shot in and around the mountain hamlet of Camigliatello Silano, in the Sila National Park, over the course of four weeks. SquareOne Productions is co-producing and handling international sales. Warner Bros. Pictures will be handling distribution in Italy.

Individual producers are Daniel Campos Pavoncelli, Marco Cohen, Benedetto Habib, and Fabrizio Donvito of Indiana Production, with Giuliano Papadia and Chiara Cardoso of BlackBox. Alex Proyas, the director of The Crow and Dark City, serves as executive producer with Al Munteanu.

Niada provided the following statement: “I feel incredibly grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with such a talented and generous cast and crew, who are giving it their all to bring this vision to life. The captivating beauty of the Calabria region, with its rugged landscapes and untamed woods, has been a source of inspiration throughout the filmmaking process.“

Does Home Education sound interesting to you? Let us know by leaving a comment below – and while you’re scrolling, take a look at this image of Julia Ormond’s character:

Writer/director Boots Riley delivers a surreal and epic fantasy series about a 13-foot-tall hero.

Plot: A darkly-comedic fantastical coming-of-age joyride about Cootie, a 13-foot-tall young Black man in Oakland, CA. Having grown up hidden away, passing time on a diet of comic books and TV shows, he escapes to experience the beauty and contradictions of the real world. He forms friendships, finds love, navigates awkward situations, and encounters his idol, the real life superhero named The Hero. I’m A Virgo is a mythical odyssey that questions the purpose of the mythical odyssey.

Review: Boots Riley’s feature film directional debut, Sorry To Bother You, was a festival darling when it premiered in 2018. It has taken Riley half a decade to bring his sophomore effort to the screen. I’m A Virgo is a seven-episode series premiering on Prime Video, which has given Riley three times as much space to tell an epic and surreal story that is part fairy tale, part parable, and utterly unique. Evoking the same off-kilter filmmaking style as his feature film debut, Riley has delivered one of the weirdest streaming series in recent memory that pulls together statements on unemployment, racial bias, exploitation, and class warfare within the guise of a comic book-themed superhero adventure. I’m A Virgo is weird and weirdly wonderful.

Set in present-day Oakland, California, I’m A Virgo opens with the birth of an extremely large baby. Taken in by his Aunt Lafrancine (Carmen Ejogo) and Uncle Marisse (Mike Epps), the infant is named Cootie. Growing up in seclusion so that no one learns of his shocking size, Cootie is taught to fear the outside world. Becoming well-read and intelligent, Cootie grows to thirteen feet tall. When he is 19, Cootoe (Jharrel Jerome) yearns to explore the world and try a hamburger from fast food restaurant Bing Bang Burger. Francine and Martisse tell Cootie he cannot leave until he is twenty-one, but Cootie sees The Hero (Walton Goggins), a comic book writer turned real superhero, and wants to be free. Eventually, Cootie sneaks out, befriends a trio of people his age, and develops a crush on Bing Bang employee Flora (Olivia Washington).

As he explores more of the world, Cootie learns about the oppression of Oakland and surrounding neighborhoods. As his legend grows, Cootie becomes increasingly famous and a target for everything from celebrity agents to a cult awaiting the return of a giant to the world. There is a secret about Cootie and his origin that could change his life forever. Over the course of the season, clues and twists reveal an endgame that will take Cootie from a freak and an anomaly to a central figure in his own comic book adventure come to life. This comes with a heavy dose of satire, parody, spoof, and political commentary reminiscent of Boots Riley’s Sorry To Bother You blended with a take on Marvel and DC-style origin stories. I’m A Virgo also takes the ideas and themes from Boots Riley’s debut and ups the ante with a larger storytelling sandbox, thanks to Amazon Studios.

There is so much going on in each half-hour episode of I’m A Virgo that I expect some viewers to be turned off by the weirdness on display. The story moves at a unique pace, often taking detours to allow Cootie to explore the world. A lot of time is dedicated to his friends Felix (Brett Gray), Scat (Allius Barnes), and a sensational turn by Kara Young as Jones. The sweet relationship between Cootie and Flora is also a welcome element to the plot, but one of the best roles belongs to the fantastic Walton Goggins as Jay Whittle. From his very first scene holding a gun to his head, Goggins exudes energy few other actors can, and it works perfectly in the world Riley has created here. I’m A Virgo feels at home with the films of Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, and more while thriving on an energy wholly unique from those acclaimed directors.

From his roots as a musician, Boots Riley brings a rhythm and beat to I’m A Virgo that imbues the series with a look and feel that is at once expertly crafted with an air of DIY creativity. The set designs blend the large scale of Cootie’s perspective with the standard size of the rest of the world, while the special effects and production design reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich. Riley’s musical group, The Coup, lends music to the series along with indie band Tune-Yards. While Riley directs all seven episodes, he shares writing credits with Tze Chun (Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai), Marcus Gardley (The Chi), Michael R. Jackson, and Whitney White. The story of I’m A Virgo practically defies categorization, at once every genre and a new approach altogether.

The messages conveyed in I’m A Virgo range from subtle to blatant, but none feel heavy-handed or too on the nose. This series may be too bizarre for mainstream audiences, but those willing to take a chance on this series are sure to be enamored with this story. Boots Riley took half a decade to follow up Sorry To Bother You, and I am glad he did not sacrifice his vision to try and fit this story into a feature film. I’m A Virgo is very funny, sweet, weird, and altogether special in a way that very few series or films get to be these days. I hope I’m A Virgo ends up clicking with more audiences than I expect, as this will surely become one of the most acclaimed series of the year.

I’m A Virgo premieres on June 23rd on Prime Video.

7