On paper, it seemed like a done deal. Salma Hayek as a voluptuous prostitute fighting for a life against the cronies of her jilted ex-lover, a nefarious pimp who carries a samurai sword and cackles like a Bond villain? Sign me up. But for a fun-sounding exploitation flick - think Kill Bill meets Die Hard with a more bodacious lead - Everly is an astonishingly punishing watch, dragging Hayek through all kinds of uncomfortable tortures without offering much of anything else to pick up the narrative slack, be it humor, thrills or any semblance of depth.
Between new looks at Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, franchise aficionados have already enjoyed a very jam-packed week, and now 20th Century Fox is throwing its hat in the ring with an extended trailer for this summer's Fantastic Four reboot.
It's hard to dislike Tom Hardy as an actor. Whatever cinematic challenge the actor takes on, from atypically brainy blockbusters like Inception and The Dark Knight Rises to taut dramas like Bronson and Locke, he always gives it his all, digging under his character's skins with a diligence and canniness that elevates him above possibly any other actor of his generation. Along the way, he's found particular success in embodying strong, silent types, the kinds of men who more resemble wild animals than well-mannered gentlemen. Hardy's characters are like caged wolves - as much as you want to reach in and pet them, you might lose your hand if you do.
Maori myth is at the heart of Tatau, BBC America's curiously trippy new drama about two British tourists who become embroiled in a maze of hallucinatory visions, murder plots and local secrets while vacationing in the Cook Islands. It's an intriguing and unusual subject for the channel to tackle, and the resultant oddness of the show as a whole is what immediately sets it apart from the network's previous supernatural dramas In the Flesh and Being Human (though Tatau, with its photogenic cast and fast-paced plot, is certainly geared toward the same teenage demographic).
After stunning audiences and critics alike with his gripping, grotesque performance in Foxcatcher, Steve Carell is taking on another dramatic project that will move the Office actor further from his comic roots. Carell will star in Robert Zemeckis' Marwencol, a feature adaptation of the 2010 Jeff Malmberg documentary.
Though Blumhouse Productions has creatively branched out in recent years with Oscar nominee Whiplash and steamy thriller The Boy Next Door, the studio is still far better known for its micro-budget horror affairs, like Paranormal Activity, Insidious and Sinister. And by the looks of it, Blumhouse has another major hit on its hands this summer, with the wide release of a tiny horror pic called The Gallows. Lacking an established director or any palpable star power (unlike the studio's recent disappointment The Lazarus Effect), the pic is flying way under the radar in a summer season packed with trailer-happy blockbusters. And that may be what ensures its success.
After proving highly capable at balancing comedy and drama in his Joseph Gordon-Levitt cancer pic 50/50, Jonathan Levine will be taking on another project that mines laughs from dark places. He's attached to direct Miles Teller in Home Is Burning, an adaptation of the upcoming memoir by Dan Marshall.
After being put on ice by Warner Bros., a Fletch reboot that aims to turn the 1980s Chevy Chase movie into a franchise has been thawed out over at Relativity Studios.
There's a scene in "Bad Seed," the fifth episode of FXX's riotous new 'toon Major Lazer, when the title character is battling a giant weed boogeyman named Mr. Mary-Jane and becomes snared in his opponent's vine-like clutches. "I'll keep growing back, Major Lazer, you'll never kill me!" The creature snarls. Blissed out as always, the Rastafarian soldier replies, "Why kill weed, when I can smoke weed?" Activating his lazers, Major Lazer proceeds to literally smoke Mr. Mary-Jane to death. It's that kind of toked up madness that both characterizes Major Lazer and almost makes it beyond my mere powers of critical comprehension.
The first season of HBO's The Leftovers was brutal, bleak, baffling and very occasionally breathtaking in its exploration of a town in grief, but when it returns to the network this summer, viewers will be in for a drastically different show, according to TVLine.
