Stern Pinball announces Uncanny X-Men as the silver ball company’s latest Marvel-inspired pinball machine to take players beyond the page!

To me, my Pinball Wizards! The Stern Pinball company is mixing it up with mutants for its new Uncanny X-Men pinball machine, featuring many of Charles Xavier’s best warriors for mutantkind in a time-warping trip filled with Sentinels, Danger Room traps, and high-risk scenarios for the Children of the Atom to overcome!

According to Stern’s official Uncanny X-Men pinball machine press release:

Stern‘s new The Uncanny X-Men pinball games feature Wolverine, Professor X, Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Beast, Rogue, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Jean Grey, Bishop, Kitty Pryde, and Magneto, along with a supporting cast of allies and foes. The adventure takes players to familiar X-Men locations, including the Danger Room, Beast’s Lab, the X-Mansion, and Genosha. Players will also interact with fabled X-Men devices like Cerebro and the X-Jet.

The Uncanny X-Men playfield is a unique pinball layout that features an array of new crossing shots and ramp designs with surprising ball trajectories to deliver kinetic satisfaction. The all-new Danger Room design, located to the left of the main flippers, offers a high-risk, high-reward experience that includes a mini-flipper and a novel outlane spinner. Premium and Limited Edition models also include an all-new elevated captive ball vari-target themed as Beast’s Lab.

The Uncanny X-Men pinball game features a mechanically articulated Sentinel for the player to battle. The Sentinel’s large robotic head changes its state based on the player’s actions. In the Premium and Limited Edition models, the Sentinel rises from underneath the playfield and fights back by destroying the player’s ramps or attacking the ball with its extended hands.

Stern alum Jeremy Packer, aka Zombie Yeti, provides the stunning artwork for Stern’s Uncanny X-Men pinball machine. Each version of the game features a custom X-Men-inspired soundtrack with diverse musical styles articulating different eras designed to bring X-fans closer to the action than ever before. Does the soundtrack do hard? Charlie Benante of Anthrax and Pantera fame composed the score, so you tell me.

Stern’s Uncanny X-Men pinball machines recreate the classic Marvel storylines “Days of Future Past” and “Mind Out of Time,” which the game company notes “takes place in Marvel’s Earth-811 timeline. Stern’s numbered Limited Edition games will be limited to 811 globally for The Uncanny X-Men.  The highly collectible Limited Edition model includes the new Speaker Expression Lighting System with X-Men-themed game effects, a “Danger Room” inspired mirrored backglass, reflective foil “Future vs. Past” high-definition cabinet decals with artwork by Zombie Yeti, exclusive “Sentinel Armor” powder-coated pinball armor, a custom designer-autographed bottom arch, upgraded audio system, anti-reflection pinball playfield glass, shaker motor, a sequentially numbered plaque, a signed Certificate of Authenticity, and a digital Insider Connected LE owner’s badge on registration.

Each game includes Stern’s “ever-expanding Insider Connected platform, which enables players to interact with the game and a global network of players in multiple ways. Through Insider Connected, players can track progress, earn game-specific Achievements, and discover new mutants with Cerebro. Every player who logs in with Insider Connected will discover their own mutant power to aid them with online Quests. Original buyers of The Uncanny X-Men pinball will also receive new Uncanny X-Men themed Pro, Premium, and LE owner’s badges after initial registration of their game. Ongoing code updates from Stern Pinball will enhance and extend the player experience.”

Stern’s Uncanny X-Men pinball machines give players a chance to become a part of one of the most iconic comic book stories ever written, with plenty of tricks, hidden gems, clever strategies, and ingenious table design to keep you entertained and excited to share your score with players worldwide. Will you help the X-Men rewrite Marvel history to prevent future mutants from past mistakes?

Visit Stern Pinball’s official website for more details about how you can pre-order your Uncanny X-Men pinball machine!

Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber lead a spoiled family in a silly murder mystery limited series.

Plot: Amelia Sacks is about to marry into one of the wealthiest families on Nantucket. Her disapproving future mother-in-law, famous novelist Greer Garrison Winbury, has spared no expense in planning what promises to be the premiere wedding of the season — until a body turns up on the beach. As secrets come to light, the stage is set for a real-life investigation that feels plucked from the pages of one of Greer’s novels. Suddenly, everyone is a suspect.

Review: There are so many marquee series to choose from these days that it can be unbearable trying to decide what to watch. From star-studded, acclaimed projects that win countless awards and raise the bar for what long-form storytelling can do to big-budget spectacles that rival the biggest summer blockbuster, there is an option for every taste. But, while there is a time and a place for an elegant meal of fine cuisine, sometimes you want a greasy cheeseburger. It is satisfying and immediate but holds no benefit in the long run. That is exactly what The Perfect Couple is. The latest in the line of soapy drama series that Nicole Kidman has headlined over the last decade, The Perfect Couple is a blend of mystery whodunit with the wealth-porn that has been the core of series like Yellowstone and Succession. A surprisingly funny limited series with an overly complex series of twists, The Perfect Couple is too ridiculous for its own good.

Set on the ultra-rich beachfront of Nantucket, The Perfect Couple centers on the nuptials of Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson) to Benji Winbury (Billy Howle), the middle child of best-selling novelist Greer Garrison Winbury (Nicole Kidman) and her generationally wealthy husband Tag (Liev Schreiber). Coming from a middle-class family, Amelia is not accustomed to the life of the one-percent Winbury clan, including eldest son Thomas (Jack Reynor) and youngest Will (Sam Nivola). As the preparations are made for Amelia and Benji’s wedding, a murder puts the entire clan into a suspect pool including Thomas’ wife Abby (Dakota Fanning), Benji’s best friend Shooter Dival (Ishaan Khattar), Amelia’s best friend and famous influencer Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy), family friend Isabel (Isabelle Adjani), and even the police chief’s daughter, Chloe (Mia Isaac). As Chief Carter (Michael Beach) and Detective Nikki Henry (Donna Lynne Champlin) investigate the murder, secrets and lies begin to unravel, involving every single member of the family and their inner circles.

Over six episodes, the police investigation reveals so many things that most series would have needed twice as many episodes to address. Because The Perfect Couple crams them into a half dozen chapters, you rarely get through an episode without changing your suspect list multiple times. There are extramarital affairs, drugs, hush money, drugs, drinking, cheating, drugs, and the occasional social media meltdown to keep the members of the family at each other’s throats, figuratively and literally. Where a series like Succession mined the verbal abuse lobbed between characters for satirical value, The Perfect Couple seems unsure whether it wants to mock the protagonists. Liev Schreiber plays Tag as a perpetually stoned patriarch who is ignorant of the gravity of what is happening around him and shifts from a figure of prominence to almost a spoof of himself by the end of the series. Jack Reynor and Dakota Fanning are very good at playing spoiled brat adults, while Meghann Fahy does solid work in a role that echoes her turn on The White Lotus. Isabelle Adjani chews the scenery in a supporting role that will hopefully drive many to check out her illustrious filmography, which shows how much great work she has done.

The biggest roles in this series belong to Eve Hewson and Nicole Kidman. Kidman seems to be spending more of her time working on series like this than ever before, with The Perfect Couple fitting right alongside Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers as another role as an affluent mother and wife whose life is upended by a death. Kidman is good here, as she usually is, but this may be the shallowest of her small-screen leading roles in recent years. Seeing her play off of the actors who portray her family is entertaining, especially when she is opposite Eve Hewson. Hewson, who had a breakout role in The Knick, Bad Sisters, and last year’s Flora and Son, is one of the few characters not born into wealth in this series and sees the rotten core she is preparing to marry into. Kidman and Hewson have two of the least funny roles in the series, which has so many jokes that it made me wonder if this was a drama that was supposed to be funny or a partially dramatic comedy. It is so unevenly handled that it undermines the whole series’s tone.

Based on the book by best-selling novelist Elin Hildebrand, The Perfect Couple was the writer’s first mystery after a successful career in romance novels. Created by Resident Alien actress Jenna Lamia, who wrote or co-wrote all six episodes, The Perfect Couple has a heavy dose of humor that seems at odds with the dark subject matter. The whole series was directed by Susanne Bier, who has done phenomenal work with the film Bird Box and the dramatic series The Night Manager. Bier reunites with Nicole Kidman, whom she directed in The Undoing, another tale of a family torn apart by a heinous crime. While Bier’s previous efforts centered on the characters and the tension of the driving crime, she seems a bit lost in the humor in this adaptation. Playing any of this subject matter as a pitch-black comedy would have been a direction, but everything is so light and breezy that it never feels like the stakes are real. The massive Bollywood-esque dance number that serves as the opening credit sequence for the series is the perfect statement of how manufactured and fake this story is.

There are a lot of moments in this series, especially the entire final episode, where I was laughing at the jokes the characters were delivering. I was not laughing because they were particularly funny but because of how out of place they felt compared to the subject matter. Within any sequence of this series are scenes in which half the actors are playing them as comedy, and the others are playing them as serious, almost as if they are in two different shows. The limited run of six episodes also means that so many elements introduced through the series end up serving little or no purpose at the show’s end. The Perfect Couple is anticlimactic and underwhelming, even if it looks like everyone involved had a lot of fun making it. You will certainly not have as much fun watching it.

The Perfect Couple premieres on September 5th on Netflix.

Ghostbusters movies ranked: all of the franchise’s films listed from the very worst to the very best!

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire got off to a slow start at the box office, but ended up making over $100 million domestically, showing the franchise still has signs of life. Some will say this is the fourth Ghostbusters film, but of course, we all know it’s actually the fifth, as you have to count Paul Feig’s reboot to a certain extent. While critics have been cool on Gil Kenan’s addition to the franchise, fans seem to really be enjoying the film, which gives the OG Ghostbusters enhanced roles. All this got me thinking: what are the best Ghostbusters films? So, I had to do it – here’s my Ghostbusters Movies Ranked list. I’m sure this will inspire a little debate, so let me know what you think of this list in the comments below – even if you hate it. Note that this list is from worst to best.

Ghostbusters (2016): 

Let me be clear: I didn’t hate Paul Feig’s female-led reboot as much as a lot of people did. I remember this being one of the most debated films of all time here on JoBlo, and when I gave this a mildly positive review I got angry emails for years! I’m not kidding. Even now, I sometimes get comments on YouTube saying, “We can’t trust this guy because he liked Feig’s Ghostbusters.” That said, it was a bad idea. I don’t know what possessed Sony to attempt to remake the original film with an all-female cast, but it was all but sure to torpedo at the box office as the discourse behind it became so politicized. I actually think this would have done okay had it kept the original Ghostbusters film canon. Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones all do their best here, and Chris Hemsworth is actually funny as their dopey secretary, but it was doomed to fail right from the get-go.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024): 

So, in my review, I gave this a 6/10, but I was maybe “a little” harsh, as some Ghostbusters-fanatic friends of mine dragged me kicking and screaming to it earlier this week, and I actually had fun watching this with a crowd. Do I think it’s a great movie? No, as there’s way too much world-building going on, but Dan Aykroyd’s extended role is touching, and the ending re-teaming the original Ghostbusters put a smile on my face.

Ghostbusters 2 (1989): 

For a long time, the popular sentiment was that this was a bad sequel, but it’s not at all. While it’s nowhere near as good as the original, it has some great moments. The first third of the film is legitimately great, with us seeing the now broke, depressed Ghostbusters trying to eke out a living, with Bill Murray especially good at showing Venkman becoming a hack TV psychic host. I also like Venkman’s believably shitty New York City apartment, with empty beer bottles beside the bed, expertly conveying how depressed he’s been since Sigourney Weaver’s Dana left him (I’ve been there, bro). That said, they made a massive mistake not bringing Elmer Bernstein back to do the score. I think if this had the old Ghostbusters themes, people would have liked it a lot more. I also like the romance angle between Rick Moranis’s Louis and Annie Potts’ Janine. 

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021): 

One of the reasons I liked Afterlife so much was that Jason Reitman hit exactly the right tone, giving us a legit sense of threat, but also a nice American Graffiti meets Ghostbusters vibe that hit the perfect note for me. The ending, which reunites the OG guys with Egon’s ghost, hit me in the feels, and I really think this is an underrated movie. If you want to reboot a series in a way that brings in new characters but also doesn’t piss off the old fans, this is pretty textbook. Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, and Mckenna Grace are great additions to the franchise… and that Olivia Wilde appearance is pretty cool, too.

Ghostbusters: 

Gee, did anyone actually wonder what my pick for the best Ghostbusters movie would be? Fact this, Ghostbusters 1984 is a masterpiece, with it hitting the sweet spot between comedy and horror so perfectly that it inspired many clones that could never pull it off like Ivan Reitman could. The score is great, the soundtrack is phenomenal, and the cast is God-tier. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Rick Moranis, Sigourney Weaver, William Atherton, Annie Potts, they’re all amazing. (And don’t sleep on that performance by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.) If you’ve never seen this movie theatrically, I highly recommend taking the opportunity to see it with an audience if you get a chance. I’ll never forget seeing this at TIFF a few years back with Bill Murray himself in attendance. It was magical.

So there you go. What would be your rankings for the movies in the Ghostbusters franchise? Let us know in the comments!

Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow return in the much different and more intense second season of the spy thriller series.

Plot: Former CIA agent Dan Chase and former FBI Assistant Director Harold Harper set off on their most important mission to date — to recover Emily Chase after she is kidnapped by Faraz Hamzad, a powerful Afghan tribal leader. With all three men claiming her as their daughter, Emily finds herself in an identity crisis that has dire implications.

Review: The first season of The Old Man was a unique take on the espionage drama, pitting the great Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow opposite one another despite not sharing the screen until the final episode. Truncated by Bridges’ cancer diagnosis and recovery along with a bout of COVID, the first season of The Old Man concluded with three episodes less than originally intended. Still, the series presented two of our best acting talents, complemented by solid performances from Alia Shawkat and Amy Brenneman, as the series set up an even more exciting sophomore run. The second season of The Old Man is a vastly different series that still boasts a unique take on the genre while keeping the tone and format that set the first season apart from other shows. With an even more engaging plot and Bridges and Lithgow sharing every episode together, season two of The Old Man is better than the first.

In season one, The Old Man follows former CIA agent Dan Chase (Jeff Bridges), who is on the run and being hunted down by former friend Harold Harper (John Lithgow). Teaming with love interest Zoe McDonald (Amy Brenneman) and his dogs, Chase’s backstory unfolded over the first season, revealing his friendship with Harper during the 1980s in Afghanistan, where they befriended Faraz Hamzad (Navid Negahban). As an asset, they cannot let loose; assassins and killers are deployed to track down Chase, who can thwart them with his particular set of skills despite being of advanced age. As the first season unfolded, we learn that FBI agent Angela Adams (Alia Shawkat) is actually Chase’s daughter, Emily. The finale dropped the bombshell that Angela/Emily is not Chase’s daughter at all but the child of Hamzad. Kidnapped by her biological father, Chase and Harper finally meet and decide to head across the Atlantic to rescue Angela/Emily from Hamzad.

While the first season flashed back and forth between the younger versions of Chase and Harper, played by Bill Heck and Christopher Redman, the bulk of the season was spent trying to determine how the secret life led by Chase and his romantic entanglements with Abbey/Belour Hamzad (Leem Lubany in flashbacks, Hiam Abbass in modern scenes) led to his current predicament. There was a chess match in Harper trying to find Chase while secretly protecting his friend, and Chase and Zoe avoided hitman Julian Carson (Gbenga Akinnagbe). Season two opens in Afghanistan as Chase and Harper show that even if they are decades past their prime, both men have field expertise that makes them viable operatives even in their golden years. This also greatly alters the narrative direction of the second season from the first, as Harper and Chase are now openly allied in their quest to rescue Angela. Chase has been able to use his skills more than Harper has, but both men are not to be trifled with. Over the five episodes made available for this review, the duo has multiple obstacles, both overseas and in the United States, which further complicate the allegiances of everyone involved.

I wanted nothing more than Bridges and Lithgow to share more screen time this season, and I definitely got my wish. The pair are virtually in every scene together this season and are both more than up to the task as veteran operatives. Bridges shows no slowdown after recovering from cancer but plays Dan Chase as susceptible to the ravages of age. Lithgow has long been one of the best actors working, and his transformation from suit and cell phone boss to field agent this season is impressive, to say the least. The supporting cast is all very good, especially Alia Shawkat, who has much more to do this season than before. The entire supporting cast is excellent, including Jessica Harper as Harold’s wife, Cheryl, and Janet McTeer as Harold’s ex. Amy Brenneman gets more to do this season as well. The other big supporting actors this season include Navid Neahhban, Rade Serbedzija, and Joel Grey, all adding more dimension and menace to this story as it evolves from a spy on the run tale to a rescue and revenge narrative.

While the first season featured Jon Watts helming the first two episodes, the second run does not boast the Spider-man: No Way Home filmmaker behind the camera nor the skills of directors Greg Yaitanes or Zetna Fuentes. Jet Wilkinson, who directed the first season finale, returns to direct an episode of this season along with Steve Boyum, Uta Briesewitz, and Ben Semanoff. Showrunner and series co-creator Jonathan E. Steinberg returns to script or co-write all eight episodes of this season alongside Hennah Sekander and Elwood Reid. Based on the standalone novel by Thomas Perry, The Old Man deviates significantly from the source material this season. Where the book had a concrete ending, Steinberg and his team expanded the scope of Dan Chase’s story beyond the original conclusion and took things in a distinct direction. This means there are several characters who do not factor into the series, which is designed to continue for multiple seasons. What we still have are flashbacks that shed light on character actions in past decades, which rear their head in the current story, intriguing opening title imagery that adds to the mystery of these characters, and a solid leading cast doing something special with what could have been a generic spy story.

By forging an original narrative that does not follow the source material, The Old Man deepens the relationship between Dan Chase and Harold Harper, giving us some of the best acting of the year between Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow. The production values are stellar, and each episode is even more intense than anything in the first season. Alia Shawkat and Amy Brenneman are excellent, as they get a lot more to do in a season that feels better realized than the truncated first. The Old Man was a good show that took the leap to great and delivered a nail-biting run, which is one of the best second seasons I can recall. No one is safe in this story that sees a hefty body count while never being about violence for the sake of violence. The Old Man has grown beyond its title into something that embraces the age of the lead actors while not letting it define them. This is a story of the consequences of youth haunting you later in life, and I cannot think of better actors to overcome the challenge.

The second season of The Old Man premieres with two episodes on September 5th on FX.

Warner Bros. courting All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger to direct George Clooney & Brad Pitt in Ocean’s 14.

The Ocean’s franchise is a hell of a lot of fun, but it’s been 17 years since George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and the rest of the fantastic ensemble cast tackled their last caper. Time to bring it back, baby. In that regard, Deadline has heard that Warner Bros. is still moving forward with Ocean’s 14, with both Clooney and Pitt set to return as Danny Ocean and Robert “Rusty” Ryan. They’re also now courting All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger to helm the project.

As Deadline’s report states, it’s still in the early stages, but Berger’s star is certainly on the rise. All Quiet on the Western Front received numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.

George Clooney actually teased another Ocean’s project last year, saying, “We have a really good script for another Ocean’s now, so we may end up doing another one. It’s actually a great script.” The actor wouldn’t spill any other details, only to say that “the idea is kind of Going in Style.” The film Clooney refers to is a 1979 heist comedy starring George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg as three friends who decide to rob a bank. The film was remade in 2017 by Zach Braff, with Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin, and Michael Caine starring.

Edward Berger’s latest film, Conclave, recently debuted at the Telluride Film Festival and has been earning rave reviews. “Following the death of the Pope, the reluctant Cardinal Lomeli (Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with overseeing the group of Cardinals from across the globe responsible for selecting a new leader for the Church,” reads the description. “But as the political machinations inside the Vatican intensify, he realizes that the departed Pope had kept a secret from them that he must uncover before a new Pope is chosen.”

The film was also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (which has now begun), and our own Chris Bumbray was a big fan. “Fiennes delivers an incredible performance as the sharp-witted Lawrence, who has to become something of a detective amid his duties, with his performance bringing to mind Sean Connery in the classic In the Name of the Rose,” Bumbray wrote. “Fiennes expertly depicts Lawrence’s humanity and increasing disillusionment with some of his fellow men of God.” You can check out the rest of his review right here.

Peacock has given a straight-to-series order to a remake of classic ’80s comedy The Burbs which will star Keke Palmer.

Keke Palmer is set to star in and executive produce The Burbs, a contemporary series adaptation of the 1989 movie of the same name starring Tom Hanks and Carrie Fisher. Peacock has given the project a straight-to-series order. Celeste Hughey (Dead to Me) will write and executive produce it.

“Set in present-day suburbia, The ‘Burbs follows a young couple — with Palmer playing the wife — returning to the husband’s childhood home,” reads the description. “Their world is upended when new neighbors move in next door, bringing old secrets of the cul-de-sac to light, and new deadly threats shatter the illusion of their quiet little neighborhood.” The series will be filmed in the backlot of Universal Studios Hollywood, which is the same location as the original movie. Seth MacFarlane is onboard as an executive producer alongside Eric Huggins and Aimee Carlson for Fuzzy Door. Briar Grazer, Kristen Zolner, and Natalie Berkus will also executive produce for Imagine Entertainment, which produced the original movie.

The original film was directed by Joe Dante and featured such a fun cast. In addition to Hanks and Fisher, the film also featured Bruce Dern, Corey Feldman, Rick Ducommun, Wendy Schaal, Rance Howard, Gale Gordon, Henry Gibson, Courtney Gains, Robert Picaardo, and more. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Joe Dante film without an appearance from the late, great Dick Miller.

Keke Palmer will next be seen in Good Fortune, an upcoming comedy which will serve as Aziz Ansari’s featured directorial debut. In addition to directing, Ansari also stars as a down-on-his-luck man who works for a rich asshole (Seth Rogen). He’s visited by an angel (Keanu Reeves), who swaps the lives of the two men, hoping it will make Ansari’s character realize that wealth won’t solve his problems. But the plan backfires, and he refuses to go back to his old life as, wouldn’t you know it, money really does solve a lot of problems.

Although Good Fortune will be Ansari’s first movie as director, it wasn’t meant to be. He was in the midst of production on Being Mortal when a sexual assault allegation against star Bill Murray forced production to shut down, and it never resumed.

Netflix has released the first trailer for Will & Harper, a documentary that follows Will Ferrell’s road trip with his long-time friend Harper Steele after she comes out as a trans woman.

As Ferrell explains in the trailer, the pair met on Saturday Night Live many years ago when Ferrell joined the sketch comedy series as a performer and Steele as a writer. “I met a guy hired as a writer the same week I was hired. He wrote a bunch of sketches for me, and eventually became the head writer of SNL,” Ferrell said. “And, over the years, he became one of my closest friends. And then one day I got this email. ‘Hey Will, something I need you to know. I’ll be transitioning to live as a woman.’” Cue a road trip across America.

“In this intimate, honest, and heartfelt documentary, Will and Harper hit the open road together to process this new stage of their friendship and reintroduce Harper to the country that she loves – this time, as herself,” reads the official description. “Over 16 days, the two drive from New York to LA, visiting stops that are meaningful to them, to their friendship, and to America. Through laughter, tears, and many cans of Pringles, they push past their comfort zones as they re-examine their relationships to these spaces, and to each other, in this new light.“

Will & Harper premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and our own Chris Bumbray found it to be a hopeful, uplifting story. “[Will & Harper shows] how people across all political and social spectrums react to the trans community. To its credit, no one is especially vicious to Harper’s face outside of a sequence where they read cruel tweets,” Bumbray wrote. “She’s misgendered a few times, but it’s pretty much always by accident, and she never takes it personally – nor does Ferrell. They don’t go around lecturing people; they’re just honestly interested in how people genuinely feel – and for the most part, everyone they meet face to face is tolerant and means well.“

Bumbray continued, “As such, Will & Harper is a hopeful, uplifting film that feels like a story of our time. Director Josh Greenbaum includes plenty of Will Ferrell schtick (he once again takes his clothes off for comic effect) and starry cameos from their real friends (including Kristen Wiig, Tim Meadows, and Will Forte, among others). Still, he doesn’t overload the film with comedy. Ultimately, it’s a slice of life that will resonate for many of us.” You can read the rest of Bumbray’s review right here.

Will & Harper will debut in select theaters on September 13th before premiering on Netflix on September 27th. 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star Micheal Keaton is ready to take back his real name, so Michael Douglas better watch out.

Many celebrities use stage names. They can be variations of the name they received at birth or something completely different, yet I nearly always find myself shocked when I learn that someone whose name I’ve known my entire life turns out to be a lie. That might be a bit dramatic. I should get out more. Some of you may have already known this (it’s never been a secret), but Michael Keaton was not born Michael Keaton; he was born Michael Douglas, and he’s looking to take the name back. Perhaps some Highlander-type battle is in order.

When Michael Keaton started his career in the 1970s, he was forced to choose a different name as the Screen Actors Guild doesn’t allow members to use another member’s professional name. Michael Douglas was already taken by… Michael Douglas, and there was also Mike Douglas, the talk-show host, so that option was out as well. Keaton told People that he may have actually turned to a phone book to pick his stage name.

“I was looking through — I can’t remember if it was a phone book,” Keaton said. “I must’ve gone, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I went, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable.” After over forty years as Michael Keaton, the actor said he’d like to use a hybrid of his birth name and stage name: Micheal Keaton Douglas. He had wanted to use the new moniker on Knox Goes Away, the thriller which he directed and stars in as a dementia-afflicted hitman, but forgot to make it happen. “I said, ‘Hey, just as a warning, my credit is going to be Michael Keaton Douglas.’ And it totally got away from me,” Keaton said. “And I forgot to give them enough time to put it in and create that. But that will happen.“

Michael Keaton, or Michael Keaton Douglas, will next be seen in Beetlejuice Beetljuice: “Beetlejuice is back! After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened,” reads the official synopsis. “With trouble brewing in both realms, it’s only a matter of time until someone says Beetlejuice’s name three times and the mischievous demon returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem.” The film has been praised as a return to form for Tim Burton, with our own Chris Bumbray calling it the director’s “most energetic, playful, and creative film in years.” You can check out the rest of Bumbray’s review right here.

The film will be released in U.S. theaters on September 6th.

From special effects to action, the new season of the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy epic improves upon the first in every way.

Last Updated on August 29, 2024

Plot: Sauron has returned. Cast out by Galadriel, without an army or ally, the rising Dark Lord must now rely on his own cunning to rebuild his strength and oversee the creation of the Rings of Power, which will allow him to bind all the peoples of Middle-earth to his sinister will. Building on Season One’s epic scope and ambition, the new season plunges even its most beloved and vulnerable characters into a rising tide of darkness, challenging each to find their place in a world that is increasingly on the brink of calamity. Elves and dwarves, orcs and men, wizards and Harfoots… as friendships are strained and kingdoms begin to fracture, the forces of good will struggle ever more valiantly to hold on to what matters to them most of all… each other.

Review: Two years ago, Amazon Studios’ massive investment in expanding J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic fantasy epic debuted. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was a prequel set in the unexplored Second Age of Middle-Earth and introduced us to the days before Sauron rose to power. The first season ended with the shocking reveal that Halbrand was Sauron in disguise, and the second season was set on a direct path to Mordor going to war with the Elves, Humans, and Dwarves. With anticipation riding high, the second season is here. It does not disappoint with a stronger narrative, improved special effects, and a faster pace that should appeal to veteran Tolkien fans and newcomers alike. The Rings of Power finally finds some consistency in this much-improved sophomore run that eclipses the first season in every way.

Set thousands of years before The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power spent the first season introducing us to the various factions of elves, dwarves, halflings, and humans. The series gave us the first cinematic look at the land of Numenor, across the sea from Middle-Earth, as well as the origins of the Elves from their original home of Valinor. As the series chronicled multiple storylines at once, it only began to come together towards the end of the season after the forging of the first three rings, which drove a wedge between friends Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and Galadriel (Morfydd Clark). By the finale, many characters find themselves in different circumstances, especially Nori (Markella Kavenagh), the Harfoot guiding the magical and mysterious Stranger (Daniel Weyman), who may be the wizard we all know as Gandalf. As season two opens, there are still seventeen rings yet to be forged by Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), but war is brewing amongst the orcs of Mordor, led by Adar (now played by Sam Hazeldine).

While only the first three episodes of the second season were made available for this review, they are packed with action and momentum that was lacking in the first season. The premiere episode begins with a flashback to the origins of Sauron leading up to his appearance in the first season, deepening his motivation to rule all of Middle-Earth. The first three episodes focus on multiple storylines without trying to fit too much into each hour-long chapter. Most of these first episodes focus on the rift between Elrond and Galadriel once they reveal that Hallbrand is Sauron. Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker) entrusts the two Elvish leaders to try to stop Sauron and inform Celebrimbor of Hallbrand’s duplicitous nature. Both Morfydd Clark and Robert Aramayo deepen the motivations for their characters as they develop into the characters we know from The Lord of the Rings. This storyline also gives Celebrimbor attention, which shows how his quest to create the rings echoes the devolution of Gollum in later tales. It is fascinating to see take root; the actors all do immense work here.

The journey of Nori and The Stranger is also given ample screentime as their travels echo the Hobbit path in the Tolkien novels. While they have not yet revealed the name of the Wizard, his mannerisms become more familiar with each episode. This season also introduces other Wizards, known as Istari, some of whom we know from the movies and others making their first live-screen appearances. There are many familiar locations from Peter Jackson’s films that get a lot of exposure in these episodes, including Khazad-dum and the Mines of Moria, where Disa (Sophia Nomvete) and Durin IV (Owain Arthur) deal with the fallout of their friendship with Elrond as well as the fate of their realm. Numenor also gets focus as the power struggle there in the presumed death of Isildur (Maxim Baldry) looms over them. Meanwhile, Isildur finds himself across the sea and interacting with Middle-Earth.

So much of The Rings of Power is rooted in the ample appendices and historical records created by J.R.R. Tolkien, which showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have taken to heart. This is a reverent adaptation with the majority of the first-season writing team back, along with a few new additions. The biggest changes this season include moving the production from New Zealand to England, something fans of the franchise met with disdain. But, I am glad to say the location shooting in the Canary Islands and the ample production budget never impacted the visual scope of the series. This season also brings back director Charlotte Brandstrom (The Witcher, Shogun). While Brandstrom helmed two episodes of the first season with J.A. Bayona on two and Wayne Che Yip helmed the remaining four, the veteran filmmaker directed or co-directed every episode this season with support from Sanaa Hamri and Louise Hooper. The consistency of the visuals this season is exceptional, and the series feels far closer to Peter Jackson’s approach than anything in the first season did.

The first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was met with a divisive response from fans, while critics were much more positive. I can understand how many were underwhelmed by the pacing of the first season and deviations from the source material. A significant amount of world-building needed to take place for the first season to create a foundation for an ongoing narrative, and I am impressed by how much stronger the series The Rings of Power is in season two. From the pacing to the character development alone, The Rings of Power is significantly better. The score by Bear McCreary remains solid, but everything else has improved. The vision of director Charlotte Brandstrom is consistent and epic, while the visual effects are superior in every way. If you rewatch the first season leading into the second, I am positive you will be wowed by how much better this series has grown in just one season. Without having seen the remaining five episodes of this season, I may reserve my judgment on how good this show is, but if the comparison between the first three entries in this season and the last, it is a night and day difference. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has found its stride and is ready to rule us all.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power‘s second season premieres on August 29th on Prime Video.

Tim Burton treated the production of his new film unlike most big budget movies. He would be very improvisational with filming.

Last Updated on August 29, 2024

With an unconventional filmmaker like Tim Burton, who has a specific vision and a known signature style, he’s been known to butt heads with movie studios. He’d suffer pushback after being given carte blanche on Batman Returns after parents found the film too disturbing and he didn’t get to return for a third film. His famous jettisoned film Superman Lives is one that’s still a sensitive issue for him. However, Tim Burton has gotten the chance to return to one of his earlier works as he revisits the strange world of Beetlejuice. And this revisit is one that revitalized him after feeling lost.

The Hollywood Reporter says the director was in high spirits at the Venice Film Festival, where the sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set to make its world premiere. Burton spoke on how the film was a return to his roots. He explains, “Over the past few years I got a little bit disillusioned with the movie industry, [I sort] of lost myself. For me I realised the only way to be a success is that I have to love doing it. For this one, I just enjoyed and loved making it.” He spoke about being improvisational with the making of the film, which is atypical of big Hollywood productions. Burton continued, “We did everything quickly. The things that usually take months we did quickly. We’d go buy a doll from a toy store and rip it up and put rods on it and do some stuff. That was the spirit, and it doesn’t always happen in films. It has it an energy and a personal nature to it that everybody contributed to.”

Burton would even encourage the actors to be improvisational. “Even the ending wasn’t written. We were playing with everything,” he confessed. And his excitement about returning to the fun of practical effects was something he’s been enthused about since the movie was filming, “It’s not going to win any Academy Awards for special effects, but it doesn’t matter.” The Edwards Scissorhands director would even admit that he approached this movie without even going back and revisiting the original. A curious move, considering Burton had long delayed making a sequel as he says he “never quite understood why it had been a success.”

Burton also cites working with Jenna Ortega on Wednesday as inspiration to find a narrative behind this movie, “And meeting [Wednesday star] Jenna [Ortega] obviously was such an important thing for me. Working with her and just thinking about the Lydia character and what happened to her 35 years later, and thinking about my own life, about what happened to get kids or relationships. It just became a very simple, emotional movie. It’s like a weird family movie, you know? It was never [about making] a big sequel for money or anything like that. I just wanted to make this for very personal reasons.”

About the Author

E.J. is a News Editor at JoBlo, as well as a Video Editor, Writer, and Narrator for some of the movie retrospectives on our JoBlo Originals YouTube channel, including Reel Action, Revisited and some of the Top 10 lists. He is a graduate of the film program at Missouri Western State University with concentrations in performance, writing, editing and directing.