Plenty of genre television is out there right now for viewers at home to consume. But discovering that one that is so exceptional is truly an exciting thing. So you might stumble through Tales from the Loop or Locke & Key or Briarpatch and give up before you even get to the halfway point, but then you land on The Mandalorian and know what great genre television has the potential to be.
Merry Christmas!
It’s that time of year again, time to take a look forward at what movies should be on your radar for 2020. Are you going to see them all? Heck no. These are the genre films we think borg readers will want to know about to make their own checklists for the coming year–and they are only the films we know about so far. We pulled 85 of the hundreds of films that have been finalized or are in varying stages of final production, slated for next year’s movie calendar.
What looks to top the list for most fanboys and fangirls? Ghostbusters: Afterlife! Scarlett Johannson solo in Black Widow! A new James Bond movie, No Time to Die. Vin Diesel in Bloodshot and a new Fast & Furious. The original Tom Clancy novel series is finally continuing with an adaptation of Without Remorse. Comic book adaptations are in less supply in 2020, but look for Venom 2, Wonder Woman 1984, Eternals, The New Mutants, Morbius, Birds of Prey, The Old Guard, and did we mention Black Widow? Compare the below list to our 2019 list and even the 2018 list, 2017 list, 2016 list, 2015 list, or 2014 list, and your takeaway may be seeing the studios moving genre content from the big screen to the small screen via streaming services.
Do you like sequels? There are far less coming to theaters in 2020 than in 2019, but many more remakes of movies, books, and TV shows are on the way. In fact, with all the blockbusters in 2019, 2020 looks pretty tame as the cinema marquee is concerned. Some films don’t have locked in release dates yet: Amazon Studios and Netflix haven’t revealed dates for the following 2020 releases (those we know you’ll find on the calendar below):
Some of these films will have revised release dates, or get pushed to 2021.
So grab your calendar and start making your plans–here are the movies you’ll want to see in 2020 (and some you might not!):
January
The Informer – Thriller, starring Joel Kinnaman, Rosamund Pike, Ana de Armas, Common, and Clive Owen – January 10.
Underwater – Thriller, stars Kristin Stewart in underwater horror story – January 10.
Dolittle – Family/Comedy, stars Robert Downey, Jr. in remake of the classic, with voices of Tom Holland, Rami Malek, Octavia Spencer, Emma Thompson, Antonio Banderas, Ralph Fiennes, and Michael Sheen – January 17.
Review by C.J. Bunce
Jawas, Ugnaughts, and Bounty Hunters… oh, my.
With three episodes in and a new episode dropping today on the new Disney+ streaming service, it’s time to dig into the latest entry in the Star Wars universe. Great music, callbacks to prior Star Wars elements, and the best alien creations of any sci-fi or fantasy that have come along in years provide fans a lot to talk about. With a complete story arc, and what is essentially a new, full-fledged Star Wars movie in the A Star Wars Story vein, The Mandalorian might be the greatest innovation in the Star Wars saga since the original movie that started it off back in 1977.
If there are faults in The Mandalorian, it is in its faithfulness to George Lucas’s world building. Sometimes that includes clunky, simple dialogue. Sometimes that includes characters with names that lack creativity (such as a mercenary named Greef, since a General Grievous wasn’t enough). Sometimes that includes lack of rich character development and layered storytelling. That said, there is so little fan service in the major creative franchises, so that when–at last–someone is listening to fandom, and the people pulling the strings grew up with the original trilogy like they did (I’m talking about you, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau), and they artfully deliver in such a satisfying way, well, the perceived faults just don’t seem to matter. The Mandalorian is the dream of every kid who lived through Star Wars in multiple viewings in the theater in 1977. Every kid who played with a Jawa in a plastic Kenner Sandcrawler. Every kid who had action figures of Boba Fett, IG-88, and Bossk, battling each other, and mashed up his/her Ugnaught action figure from The Empire Strikes Back with a patrol dewback toy from the first movie. And every kid who still thinks Boba Fett can’t be surpassed as the word “cool” is defined, despite lots of variants on the character in the prequels and animated shows. All that plus so, so many Easter eggs to find.
But The Mandalorian probably couldn’t have happened before now. It relies on the effectiveness of Roger Christian’s lived-in distressed look of buildings and objects replicated so well in Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One in 2016. It relies on the confidence that the Western is not dead, as tried on for size in Ron Howard’s Solo in 2018. And it even skips over The Empire Strikes Back to find what may be a simple Western story framework as seen in Lucas’s original Star Wars, itself an interpretation of Akira Kurosawa and Jin Yong’s legendary heroic adventures. In good writer style, it has all those beats needed so that the first three episodes could have been released with only little tweaks in theaters, and shown on the big screen, as a standalone. Say, The Mandalorian: A Star Wars Story, as a major motion picture. You need a good story and good writing, regardless of genre, to grab viewers. This first tale may not be complex, but compare it to the first three episodes of any other sci-fi or fantasy series or any movie, and it’s The Mandalorian that rises above the rest.
Is that Bossk?
The trailers look just like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Solo: A Star Wars Story, which both reflected so much the original Star Wars from 1977 more than the other entries in the franchise. It’s not so much that Disney and Lucasfilm put together a movie based on every kid in the 1980s’ favorite background character, because George Lucas already made a movie about that guy, his dad, and a whole army of lookalikes. It’s hard to find a cooler character than Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back, until Lucas delivered on the fan service and inserted him into the original, special edition of Star Wars. It’s not only that. Or that, like Solo: A Star Wars Story, it’s clearly a full-fledged space Western. Or that fans get to see familiar elements of the franchise again, like carbon freezing, speeder bikes, scout walkers, patrol dewbacks, familiar bounty hunters, and Imperial bunkers hidden in the forest. And it’s not that the lead is played by its rising young actors known for badass characters, Pedro Pascal and co-star Gina Carano. Or that the series features a story by genre favorite Jon Favreau, with a host of episode directors like Thor: Ragnarok’s Taika Waititi, or noted Star Wars animaster Dave Filoni, or Solo director Ron’s daughter, actor Bryce Dallas Howard.
Well, it’s that, but not only that. It’s that added gravitas that Star Wars is better at than possibly any other franchise. It’s adding those dynamic, major character actors in supporting roles who make the magic happen sometimes even from the corner of the screen, from the likes of Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Christopher Lee, Terence Stamp, Brian Blessed, Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Linda Hunt, Mads Mikkelsen, Forest Whitaker, Max von Sydow. Would Star Wars be Star Wars without the characters these actors brought to life? Definitely not.
For the second trailer for the new streaming series The Mandalorian, that means more Carl Weathers–who we saw in August’s first public trailer and April’s “sizzle reel” at the annual Star Wars convention. Along with Giancarlo Esposito and that toughest of older tough guys in movies, director and Jack Reacher villain Werner Herzog, we have plenty to look forward to. As the norm these days, unfortunately to watch this series you’ll need to subscribe to another streaming platform, this time that’s the Disney+ streaming service (or… once the Blu-ray arrives should you not want to feed the Disney machine any further).
So check it out–your next look at The Mandalorian, plus five new official posters:
Fans of director Yimou Zhang′s international mega-production The Great Wall didn’t need to go all the way to the Great Wall of China to have a chance at obtaining a piece of the 2016 film this past week. Auction house Prop Store′s Los Angeles location joined with Legendary Entertainment to offer 477 lots of both key and background costumes, armor, prop weaponry, and set pieces from the first partnering of the United States and China on a giant blockbuster film. The Great Wall is a Chinese dynasty fantasy set at the famous landmark, merging giant battles and action with the mega-sized monster genre, pairing China’s biggest stars with an international cast, backed by a crew from 100 countries. Although the movie received mixed reviews from critics, what can’t be denied are the visual concepts and craftsmanship of New Zealand’s Weta Workshop and Mexican costume designer Mayes Rubeo, who designed imagery for the film never seen before. Check out our review of the movie here at borg back in 2016, along with Abbie Bernstein’s ground-breaking book The Great Wall: The Art of the Film (reviewed here).
Weta Workshop kitted out the armies of The Great Wall with an arsenal of color. The workshop design studio rendered more than a thousand concepts for the film, with 6,000 final weapons used by the key cast and 600 extras, including shields, spears, axes, daggers, crossbows, swords, and arrows featured in the auction. Mayes Rubeo, known for her designs in Thor: Ragnarok and Avatar (and she created costumes for both the original Total Recall and the halted Mouse Guard live-action movie), utilized historic Chinese fabrics, textiles, techniques, hand embroidery and applique, and leathers in each costume with about 18 components per person, all featuring an animal and unique color combination: the blue crane corps, red eagle corps, gold tiger corps, black bear corps, and purple deer corps.
It should be no surprise that the top costume sales went for the two stunning, blue, armored costumes worn by the film’s Chinese star Tian Jing as Commander Lin Mae. Featuring sheathed swords, helmets, leg daggers, feathered suit and hard armor, they sold for slightly more than $9,000 and $17,500 each. Other hero costumes that sold included Matt Damon as William costume variants ($1,687, $2,625, $4,375 and $5,125), The Mandalorian actor Pedro Pascal′s character Tovar’s costumes ($937, $1,625, and $1,687), Willem Dafoe′s character Ballard ($344, $531, $875, and $1,437), General Shao’s (Zhang Hanyu) black armor ($2,187 and $4,500), Commander Wu’s (Eddie Peng) gold armor ($2,750 and $4,250), Commander Chen’s (Kenny Lin) red armor ($2,250 and $3,875), Commander Deng’s (Xuan Huang) purple armor ($1,625 and $3,875), and Strategist Wang’s (Andy Lau) costumes ($1,000 and $2,500). A variety of historically-inspired, ornate hero (lead actor-used) swords ranged from $400 to $3,875 for one of the swords unique to Tian Jing.
At Disney’s annual “D23” Expo this weekend, attendees can expect to get another big fix of Disney, and that includes costumes. The costumes are from the more recent Disney years, with one display showcasing the new Mary Poppins Returns outfits, Time from Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Captain Jack Sparrow and Barbossa’s costumes from the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Another wing featured Disney’s recent animated-turned-live action movies, and another focused on the villainy of the live-action films, all within a gallery of dozens of costumes foreshadowing a new book coming next month, The Art of Disney Costuming: Heroes, Villains, and Spaces Between, available now for pre-order here at Amazon. Check out a 16-page preview of the new 176-page hardcover volume below.
The book isn’t about Star Wars costumes (for that, we recommend Brandon Alinger’s Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy, reviewed previously here at borg, and Trisha Biggar’s Dressing a Galaxy: The Costumes of Star Wars, reviewed here). But that didn’t keep Disney and Lucasfilm from showcasing a dozen costumes of Star Wars armor tracing back a design history of Star Wars stormtroopers. Check those out below.
Lucasfilm also previewed the new hero cast costumes from The Mandalorian streaming series from Disney+ (previewed here yesterday). And note: Ewan McGregor confirmed he will be reprising the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in a forthcoming Disney+ series.
Check out this preview of The Art of Disney Costuming: Heroes, Villains, and Spaces Between and some Star Wars franchise costumes on display at D23 this weekend:
It’s not so much that Disney and Lucasfilm put together a movie based on every kid in the 1980s’ favorite background character, because George Lucas already made a movie about that guy, his dad, and a whole army of lookalikes. It’s hard to find a cooler character than Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back, until Lucas delivered on the fan service and inserted him into the original, special edition of Star Wars. It’s not only that. Or that, like Solo: A Star Wars Story, it’s clearly a full-fledged space Western. Or that fans get to see familiar elements of the franchise again, like carbon freezing, speeder bikes, scout walkers, patrol dewbacks, familiar bounty hunters, and Imperial bunkers hidden in the forest. And it’s not that the lead is played by its rising young actors known for badass characters, Pedro Pascal and co-star Gina Carano. Or that the series features a story by genre favorite Jon Favreau, with a host of episode directors like Thor: Ragnarok’s Taika Waititi, or noted Star Wars animaster Dave Filoni, or Solo director Ron’s daughter, actor Bryce Dallas Howard.
Well, it’s that, but not only that.
It’s that added gravitas that Star Wars is better at than possibly any other franchise. It’s adding those dynamic, major character actors in supporting roles who make the magic happen sometimes even from the corner of the screen, from the likes of Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Christopher Lee, Terence Stamp, Brian Blessed, Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Linda Hunt, Mads Mikkelsen, Forest Whitaker, Max von Sydow. Would Star Wars be Star Wars without the characters these actors brought to life? Definitely not.
For the latest trailer for the new streaming series The Mandalorian, that means Carl Weathers–who we saw in April’s “sizzle reel” at the annual Star Wars convention (yet to be posted by Lucasfilm, but check out a watchable version below), with a first look at Giancarlo Esposito, and that toughest of older tough guys in movies, director and Jack Reacher villain Werner Herzog. Not seen in this trailer, but expected to be added to the list, is Nick Nolte, who we can imagine could get us to that similar kind of character as Woody Harrelson or Paul Bettany in Solo.
So check it out–your next look at The Mandalorian:
Review by C.J. Bunce
Is he a superhero?
A character who gives of himself to save lives, repeatedly, using his unusual mental and physical abilities–that’s pretty much our definition of superhero. If The Punisher is a superhero, if Batman would be a superhero without the costume, then you have the The Equalizer. Denzel Washington is back again, in the sequel to the surprise 2014 reboot of the 1980s television series, and if you missed Washington as this character in 2014, it’s time to catch up, as The Equalizer 2 makes its way to several steaming platforms, including Vudu and Amazon Prime, and it’s now showing on Starz.
And what a sequel! It is another one of those rare films that surpasses its predecessor. More intrigue, more action, and even without the origin story from the first movie, The Equalizer 2 proves audiences don’t need it to jump into a finally crafted story of spies and revenge. Washington is back as Robert McCall, and he’s The Saint, Ethan Hunt, James Bond, and The Shadow all rolled up into one. This time he’s started a new life in Boston, and learns about the city through his job as a Lyft driver. Diehard film fans really only need to see the one other name on the marquee with Washington to know what they’re in for: Antoine Fuqua. Fuqua (Training Day, Shooter, The Magnificent Seven) directs the film like he does all his others, like he has something to prove. The Equalizer 2 is worthy of its popular and critically acclaimed star, and Fuqua adds to the character with a spectacular setting for the film’s finale: a hurricane pummeling the coast of Massachusetts.
If you’re looking forward to the new Star Wars television series The Mandalorian, you have another reason to catch The Equalizer 2, as the series star Pedro Pascal (Kingsman: The Golden Circle, The Great Wall) plays a former team member of McCall in his CIA days. The subplots may even be better than the main story, and in one McCall mentors a young neighbor played by Ashton Sanders (Moonlight). Other supporting roles are filled by some familiar faces, including returning actors Melissa Leo (Homicide, Oblivion, Wayward Pines, Veronica Mars) and Bill Pullman (Deceived, Independence Day, Spaceballs), plus the always versatile Sakina Jaffrey (Heroes, Sleepy Hollow, Mr. Robot).
Merry Christmas!
It’s that time of year again, time to take a look forward at what movies should be on your radar for 2019. Are you going to see them all? Heck no. These are the genre films we think borg readers will want to know about to make their own checklists for the coming year–and they are only the films we know about so far. We pulled 78 of the hundreds of films that have been finalized or are in varying stages of final production, slated for next year’s movie calendar.
What looks to top the list for most fanboys and fangirls? The last of the nine films in the Star Wars saga. Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Shazam! is DC’s contribution. Quentin Tarantino returns to movies to direct Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Martin Scorsese is back with an all-star cast in The Irishman (on Netflix). M. Night Shyamalan finishes his dark superhero trilogy with Glass. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton return in Terminator. Jordan Peele is back with another horror film with Us.
Do you like sequels? This is your year. Another Men in Black, X-Men, Shaft, Happy Death Day, Lego Movie, Hellboy, John Wick, Kingsman, Jumanji, The Secret Life of Pets, How to Train Your Dragon, Fast and the Furious, Zombieland, Addams Family, Charlie’s Angels, Godzilla, Shaun the Sheep, Annabelle,and Stephen King’s It and Pet Sematary—Disney is trying to get you to move into your local theater with another Toy Story, Aladdin, Dumbo, Frozen, and Lion King–all in one year. Yep, lots and lots of sequels are coming.
Some films don’t have locked-in release dates yet. Amazon Prime and Netflix haven’t revealed dates for these 2019 releases:
Some of these films will have revised release dates, or get pushed to 2020.
So grab your calendar and start making your plans–here are the movies you’ll want to see in 2019 (and many you might not):
January
Glass – Superhero, M. Night Shyamalan trilogy part 3, stars Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy; continues where Unbreakable and Split left off – January 18.
Serenity – Mystery/Thriller, stars Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, Jeremy Strong, Diane Lane; sorry, no relation to Firefly – January 25.
King of Thieves – Heist Comedy, stars Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Charlie Cox, Michael Gambon, and Ray Winstone – January 25.
Review by C.J. Bunce
The new sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service (reviewed here at borg.com) starts as you’d hope for, immediately slamming viewers into high gear with a frenetic car chase featuring BAFTA-winning actor Taron Egerton’s Brit spy Eggsy, defending himself from a kidnapping with the same level of over-the-top superhero moves that saved him from similar threats in the first film. After the introduction of Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which opens this Friday nationwide, the film loses the freshness and style of the original and shifts from a faithful James Bond homage to Bond as it might be interpreted by the Coen Brothers. Where the original careened into the stuff of a Quentin Tarantino film in its major action sequences, the sequel shifts into a quirky blend of gore, explosives, and caricatures that moves beyond Bond homage to more of an Austin Powers parody.
The sequel offers up a top tier cast. BAFTA winner Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes, Stardust, Kick-Ass, Green Lantern, John Carter, Zero Dark Thirty) returns as Merlin and–no surprise from the trailers–Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, Shakespeare in Love, Pride and Prejudice) is back as agent Galahad and Edward Holcroft (Wolf Hall) returns as rejected Kingsman Charlie. Audiences saw both die in the original. Firth is picture-perfect in every scene, as if he was always destined to have a 007 role. Holcroft, who you might easily mistake for Chris Evans, offers up a more fleshed out character this round, and he gets some of the better one-on-one battles against Eggsy, complete with a nifty Swiss Army multi-functional borg arm.
New to the world of the Kingsmen are their American spy agency counterparts. The leader is played by Academy Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, RIPD, Hell or High Water, Tron, True Grit, Iron Man) in a classic Southern-accented delivery, appearing for a few brief scenes. Pedro Pascal (The Great Wall, The Adjustment Bureau, Game of Thrones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), whose moustache makes him a ringer for a 1970s Burt Reynolds, breaks out in his performance as an agent with some mad lasso skills. And true to form, genre favorite Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street) shows up with the swagger of a Southern lawman, but in only the briefest of scenes, much like his smaller roles in G.I. Joe: Retribution and Hail, Caesar! The U.S. spy squad is full of Hee Haw-vibed caricatures of Americans, albeit echoing Joe Don Baker’s drawling U.S. roles in three Bond movies (The Living Daylights, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies). The women have the better parts in Kingsman: The Golden Circle: Academy Award winner Halle Barry (X-Men series, Catwoman, Monster’s Ball) is the American “Q” with the nicely Ian Fleming name of Ginger Ale–the former “Bond girl” flipping sides this time from Bond co-lead and love interest (Die Another Day) to the current Ben Whishaw I.T. guru role. And Academy Award winner Julianne Moore (The Big Lebowski, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Children of Men) is the film’s villain, a drug kingpin named Poppy–a strange, comic books-meet-Coen Brothers baddie bent on world domination, with scary calm Jack Nicholson Joker insanity and a 1950s chic. We’ve seen some Bond villains far out there, but Moore’s Poppy is one who could out-crazy them all.
