Thirty years after Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home forever put a stake in the ground that whaling is a bad thing, you wouldn’t think a true-life whaling story would fare well, especially in movie theaters. And you’d be right–director Ron Howard′s In the Heart of the Sea unfortunately lost more money than it cost to make. And yet Howard’s deft direction combines some of genredom’s top stars with a solid script in a worthy interpretation of Herman Melville’s inspiration for Moby Dick apt to provide any audience with something to cheer about. Far and Away meets Apollo 13, sea disaster and cannibalism in this 2015 release, a prime survival story now streaming on multiple platforms.
It’s back. Discovery′s annual Shark Week programming returns this month and is bringing along a new giveaway. From August 9 to August 16 look for your annual week of shark-centered features. Shark Week is television’s longest running summer TV event. And you know what that means–Narragansett is back with an online store full of tie-ins to Steven Spielberg’s Jawsto coincide with Shark Week 2020. Not only is Narragansett one of America’s oldest companies (they turned 21 in 1911), Jaws made its beer famous again in 1975 when Robert Shaw′s character Quint downed a can and crushed it to look tough in front of Richard Dreyfuss′s character Hooper. Hooper created the the most humorous moment of the film, countering Quint by crushing his Styrofoam cup.
You’ll find a lot familiar about the journey in the new sci-fi thriller Underwater, but it’s certain to keep you on the edge of your seat, trigger your claustrophobia, and get most of the beats of the survival thriller genre right. Most of that is thanks to Kristen Stewart, who stars as an engineer named Norah, working in an oil drilling facility seven miles down at the bottom of the ocean. Stewart makes our own recent tour of isolation seem pretty tame, as her world literally explodes due to some deep-sea fracking that causes an earthquake, breaking up the facility and severely minimizing the opportunities to leave for the surface. If that weren’t enough, the earthquake releases some kaiju-inspired beasties. It all allows Stewart to create a character as tough and heroic as Alien’s Ellen Ripley with a modern homage to the original sci-fi survivor.
Discovery′s annual Shark Week programming is back beginning this weekend. From July 27 to August 5 look for ten days of shark-centered features. Shark Week is television’s longest running summer TV event. That means Narragansett is back with new promotions and local activities for those on the East Coast, and an online store full of tie-ins to Steven Spielberg’s Jawsto coincide with Shark Week 2019. Not only is Narragansett one of America’s oldest beer companies (they turned 21 in 1911), Jaws made its beer famous again in 1975 when Robert Shaw′s character Quint downs a can and crunches it to look tough in front of Richard Dreyfuss′s character Hooper. Hooper created the funniest moment of the film, countering Quint by crushing his Styrofoam cup.
Look for Naked and Afraid: Surviving with Sharks, Shark Trip, Isle of Jaws, Shark After Dark, Sharkwreck, Alien Sharks, Sharkpocalypse, Air Jaws, Sharks Gone Wild, Jaws Comes Home, Laws of Jaws, Sharkzilla, Shaq Does Shark Week, Ocean of Fear, Sharks in the City: LA, Guy Fieri’s Feeding Frenzy, and How Jaws Saved the World, and more, all throughout the week. Check out your local listings here at Discovery for air times.
Narragansett′s online shop has some great new T-shirts featuring Jaws and the Quint can, plus a foam stress can, a skateboard deck, stickers, pins, logo shirts, hats, hoodies, ornaments, sunglasses, beach towels, posters, even skis and hockey sticks–all featuring the image of the beer can design from 1975 or the shark or 1975 Narragansett logo–as it appeared in the film classic Jaws. The lager beer itself is also available in ‘Gansett markets with the retro cans. See the entire 1975 retro collection of tie-ins here at the Narragansett online store. And check out the Narragansett website here for a series of Jaws screening parties along the East Coast all week, plus other parties, trivia contests and more, announced via the company’s Twitter account: @Gansettbeer.
The trailers didn’t lie. With only a month to go, The Meg might be the most fun movie you’ll see this summer. The Meg has everything: a stellar international cast with plenty of chemistry, big action scenes, great sets, and even some drama. For Jason Statham fans, look for another must-see Statham movie with his tough-as-nails deep-sea diver Jonas Taylor getting in and out of some big crises. For fans of underwater adventure movies like The Abyss, Leviathan, and Sphere, a better movie has arrived. A combined production from China and the U.S., it also pushes past last year’s much bigger budget action film The Great Wall–the combination of the two cultures from these films is setting up the future of action films. If you liked the Pacific Rim franchise, recent Godzilla movies or Battleship, you’ll probably find The Meg a better all around production. For an only PG-13 rating, it’s loaded with blood, chum, and other viscera (the newfound terror gobbles up plenty of characters both major and minor), but it balances that out with some good worldbuilding, likeable characters, and plenty of humor along the way.
The trailers also didn’t give anything important away. Beginning with a John Hammond-esque deep-sea research base, we meet a perfect set-up of international personalities, led by Chinese superstar Bingbing Li (Resident Evil, Transformers series) as a scientist working with her father (1911 and Eat Drink Man Woman’s Winston Chao) on breaking through a new-found barrier to the deep sea. The movie is really two films–the first a slowly-building drama detailing the background and players in the research facility, and the second a 1980s/1990s Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, or Steven Seagal action-rescue movie (think Cliffhanger, Under Siege, Striking Distance, Executive Decision), sensibly swapping out the much younger Statham (who played Stallone’s #1 guy in The Expendables series), the modern incarnation of this brand of action star. For the action, we learn Statham’s Taylor quit diving for a rescue operation five years past that didn’t go as planned. He returns thanks to an old friend working at the facility (played by Fear the Walking Dead’s Cliff Curtis) when Taylor’s ex-wife, played by Australian actor Jessica McNamee, is piloting an exploratory vessel, along with scientists played by Japanese-American actor Masi Oka (Heroes, Hawaii Five-O) and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, BFG), which runs aground with the help of a mysterious creature. Rounding out the cast is The Office’s Rainn Wilson as the show’s Hammond, an Elon Musk-inspired exec who funded the facility, Rush Hour’s Page Kennedy as another scientist, and the new lead of the CW’s Batwoman, Ruby Rose, whose character designed the facility. Rose proves in The Meg she’s got the right stuff to dawn that red cape.
Based on Steve Alten’s 1997 science-fiction/horror book Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, this fish tale is somewhat Michael Crichton-lite. It’s surprisingly better than all the Jurassic sequels, as well as Crichton’s lesser action film adaptations like Congo and Sphere. But the marketing may have set expectations off-kilter in one regard: The shark–the megalodon–of the title may have you thinking Jaws or Sharknado. It’s neither. Think Godzilla and King Kong and you’ll be much closer. The chemistry among the cast is what makes The Meg really stand out. Statham and Bingbing Li (only six years apart in real life) make a great pair I’d love to see again. Statham and Curtis seem like they really have been pals for years. Young actor Sophia Cai may be the next best child actor, holding her own with both Statham, Li, Kennedy, and the rest of the crew. The camaraderie of everyone involved and top-level production values (thanks to King Kong and The Lord of the Rings’ Oscar-winning production designer Grant Major) beg for a sequel or series.
Jason Statham has a way with selecting movies that get noticed and re-watched. Or credit his agent. Seventeen years in big movies and still fighting the good fight in roles once played by Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis, he’s back this summer in what’s bound to be a big summer movie, battling a larger than life shark in The Meg. The latest trailer shows this new big monster mash was actually made on a real production budget, unlike dozens of forgettable attempts to both impress and scare moviegoers for more than forty years since Steven Spielberg’s original Jaws (remember Piranha, Crocodile, Barracuda, and Alligator?). Forget about the obviously goofy Sharknado series and see if this might bridge the gap between drama, humor, and jump-out-of-your-seat summer fun. Take a look below and see if you agree The Meg has a chance at surpassing some of the better B-movie efforts at a sea monster movie, like Anaconda and Lake Placid.
We first noticed Statham’s cool and cocky bravado under the direction of one of the all-time genre greats, John Carpenter, in Ghosts of Mars, playing opposite Pam Grier and Joanna Cassidy. He quickly led the first of his three Transporter movies beginning in 2002. Then he co-starred in one of the best heist movies of all time with an all-star cast in 2003’s The Italian Job, followed five years later in one of the best heist movies of all time without an all-star cast in The Bank Job. And he’s co-starred in both The Fast and the Furious franchise and The Expendables, played Donald E. Westlake’s well-known crime lead in Parker, and starred in a dozen other single-word action flicks, including Collateral, Cellular, Revolver, Crank, Safe, and Redemption.
Now it’s time to see Statham take on a giant squid and a not-so extinct megalodon aka “The Meg.” The film is expected to score in the China market, also featuring major star Bingbing Li (Transformers: Age of Extinction, Resident Evil: Retribution). The Meg also features a handful of familiar television actors, including The Heroes star Masi Oka.
It’s that time of year again, time to take a look forward at what movies should be on your radar for 2018. Are you going to see them all? Heck no. These are the genre films we think borg.com readers will want to know about to make their own checklists for the coming year. We pulled 55 of the hundreds of films that have been finalized or are in varying stages of final production for next year’s movie calendar.
What looks that it may top the list of most fanboys and fangirls? How about Ready Player One in March? Solo: A Star Wars Story and Avengers: Infinity War in May? Sequels to Deadpool and The Incredibles in June? X-Men: Dark Phoenix in November? But don’t over look other films that look promising, like Winchester in February, Tomb Raider in March, and The Predator and The Equalizer sequels in August.
So grab your calendar and start making your plans for next year–here is the list of the movies you’ll want to see in 2018:
The Commuter – January 12 — Liam Neeson’s next action thriller finds him on a train with an offer he can’t refuse. Co-starring Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson.
Proud Mary – January 12 — A hitwoman played by Teraji P. Henson (Hidden Figures, Empire) has her life go sideways when a mob hit goes bad. With Neal McDonough and Danny Glover.
Ophelia – January 22 — Daisy Ridley stars as Ophelia in a twist on Shakepseare’s Hamlet told from her perspective. Co-starring Naomi Watts and Tom Felton.
Please Stand By – January 26 — Dakota Fanning, Toni Collette, and Alice Eve star in a story about a young woman with autism who sets her sights on winning a Star Trek writing competition.
Winchester – February 2 — Inspired by true events, the story of the heir to the Winchester firearms fortune finds herself haunted by the deaths of all killed by the weapons, leaving her to try to avoid them in an incredible mansion. Starring Helen Mirren and Jason Clarke.
Cloverfield 3 (yet to be titled) – February 2 — A crew of astronauts fight for survival on a space station. Starring Elizabeth Debicki, Daniel Brühl, and David Oyelowo.
Peter Rabbit – February 9 — Fox Studios brings a great cast of voice talent to their adaptation of the classic Beatrix Potter story. With Daisy Ridley, Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki, Rose Byrne, and Domhnall Gleeson.
Monster Family – February 9 — A family is turned into monsters in this animated romp. Starring the voices of Jason Isaacs, Emily Watson, Nick Frost, and Catherine Tate.
Black Panther – February 16 — Ryan Coogler directs Marvel Comics’ king cat superhero Black Panther in his own standalone movie. Starring Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, with a reunion of The Hobbit’s Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis.
