Charles Bramesco
Watch Michael K. Williams Say ‘What Now, Pioneer?’ in New ‘Assassin’s Creed’ Trailer
A great many things happen in the new trailer for Justin Kurzel’s upcoming adaptation of the popular video game Assassin’s Creed. Great thespians Jeremy Irons and Charlotte Rampling have a staring contest while saying the words “the Apple of Eden” with a straight face. A giant robotic arm grabs Michael Fassbender and throws him into the past. There’s a burning at the stake and smoke bombs and a double-neck-stabbing and so much more, and yet this all pales in comparison to the magnificent sight of Michael Kenneth Williams saying “What now, pioneer?” to our hero. It’s like seeing the aurora borealis, or Niagara Falls, or the miracle of a new life beginning. It’s majestic, elemental even. Clearly, other things will happen in this movie, but in a way, is Assassin’s Creed not a documentary about the former Omar Little saying “What now, pioneer?”
Spidey Gets an Upgrade Courtesy of Tony Stark in First ‘Homecoming’ Teaser
For a fresh start with Spider-Man, Sony had to give him something distinctive. To set Tom Holland’s take on the webslinger apart from Tobey Maguire’s (and way, way apart from Andrew Garfield’s), the studio sent the hero back to high school and returned him to his teenage roots. Spider-Man: Homecoming aims to be a new take on the comic-book mythos all over, in fact — a new girlfriend in pop star Zendaya, the first onscreen appearance of the villainous Vulture, and with a new teaser unearthed today, we learned that a key piece of latter-day Spidey tech will make it movie debut as well.
God Is a Woman of Color (and Has an Oscar!) in the Trailer for ‘The Shack’
What does God look like? It’s an eternal question with which fiction has tussled on plenty of occasions, from the standard-issue “bearded white guy clad in flowing robe” to the off-beat “wordless flower child Alanis Morisette” to the factually accurate “Morgan Freeman chilling.” The upcoming faith-based drama The Shack takes a rather unusual tack in its depiction of the Lord; the film adapted from William P. Young’s best-selling novel splits the divine presence into the Trinity, with Jesus Christ as a carpenter of Middle Eastern descent, the Holy Spirit as a meek Asian-American woman named Sarayu, and God portrayed by none other than Octavia goddamn Spencer. Let the record show — God’s real, she’s black, and she’s got an Oscar.
Is That Grand Moff Tarkin in the New ‘Rogue One’ TV Spot?
The late actor Peter Cushing, mainstay of Hammer’s horror films and erstwhile Star Wars cast member, cut a distinctive figure: cheekbones that could slice diamond, perfectly coiffed shock of grey hair, mouth permanently pursed into a single flat line. As the ruthless Empire commander Grand Moff Tarkin, Cushing left a lasting impression on generations of viewers, austerity coded directly into the lines on his face. He makes for an instantly recognizable silhouette — so is that really him, out of focus and in the foreground for a split second in the latest Rogue One: A Star Wars Story TV spot?
‘Why Him?’ Red-Band Trailer Touts Family, Christmastime Togetherness, Moose Testicles
The entertainment industry has done Bryan Cranston dirty. His award-hoarding turn as mild-mannered meth kingpin Walt White on Breaking Bad should have cracked Hollywood wide open for him, with high-power producers lining up to cast him in the next big prestige release. But for every Trumbo (which earned Cranston an Oscar nomination, despite plenty of shortcomings), there is a Why Him?, and the soggy prosthetic moose scrotum that goes with it.
‘Patriots Day’ Trailer: Mark Wahlberg to the Rescue
Noted actor, model and erstwhile Funky Bunch member Mark Wahlberg raised a few eyebrows in 2012 when he claimed that had he boarded the planes used for the September 11 terrorist attacks, things would have gone down a little differently. Suggesting that you could have singlehandedly prevented the most traumatic disaster in American history is big talk, but now Wahlberg will get the chance to pretend to put the money where his terrorist-fighting mouth is with Patriots Day, a dramatization of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. We may be too late for a Mark Wahlberg-led United 93 reimagined as a two-hour beatdown, but this looks like the next best thing.
It Takes a Village (Or Maybe Just Three Women) to Raise a Child in New ’20th Century Women’ Trailer
It’s 1979 in Santa Barbara: the hippie-dippie ‘70s are about to give way to punk and the wave of nihilism that goes with it, Jimmy Carter frets about a crisis of conscience on the TV set, and one kid’s trying to figure out how he fits into all of it.
The War Comes Home in Latest ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’ Trailer
We know more about Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk today than we did when the first trailer debuted back in May. Our own Erin Whitney was present for the film’s world premiere at the New York Film Festival earlier this month, and relayed their full scoop back to us through their review: Ang Lee gets a lot of points for sheer chutzpah, having shot the first feature-length film using highly sophisticated 4K 120 frames-per-second technology, but his gambit ultimately fails. The realistic look of the film is almost too real, its crisp movements too unnaturally fluid for their own good.