Mufasa: The Lion King

Busted out laughing when we got that close-up of – I’m assuming – grown up Mufasa. Like, yup, Barry Jenkins is definitely directing this, we got the Jenkins close-up. I don’t know, man. The idea of doing an original story here is more intriguing, even if it seems silly to retcon his lineage with the “no drop of nobility” line. But…I still don’t like this look, and the attempts at making the animals a bit more expressive looks just as weird as the stiffness of the last one. Jenkins isn’t credited as a writer, so I don’t know what he saw in this project, but his involvement will have me curious enough. But I’m not excited for it.

Mufasa: The Lion King hits theaters on December 20th.

 

Bad Behaviour

Not gonna lie. I don’t totally grasp what’s going on here. It’s some kind of maybe pseudo-spiritual retreat of some kind, I’m not entirely sure. It doesn’t surprise me at all that this is the directorial debut of an actor – Alice Englert in this case. It has a very “actors’ movie” kind of vibe. But I don’t mean that in a bad way. This looks like it could be fun. I’m super happy to see Jennifer Connelly be the lead in something like this, I feel like she’s been relegated to supporting roles for a while, and this is great to see. I’ll have to check this out.

Bad Behaviour hits select theaters and VOD platforms on July 14th.

 

Lee

What are the odds we’d have Civil War, a film with a character named Lee, who is named after and heavily inspired – in universe – by Lee Miller will come out the same year as a Lee Miller biopic. It doesn’t look half bad, it’s from director Ellen Kuras, who is more well known as a cinematographer who has collaborated with the likes of Michel Gondry and Spike Lee. It looks pretty good, has a compelling cast, it’s definitely a subject I’ve been curious to learn more about.

Lee opens in theaters on September 27th.

 

The Exorcism

Funny that Russell Crowe has now been in two exorcism movies. And like with The Pope’s Exorcist, this looks like goofy fun, and I am all for it. I like the meta angle as well. Hopefully this will add something fresh to the genre. I haven’t seen Joshua John Miller’s The Final Girls, but I have heard good things, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this will be a fun time.

The Exorcism opens in select theaters on June 7th.

 

Touch

I’m a sucker for a good romance, and this looks very sweet and heart wrenching. Kinda has a little Wong Ka-wai vibe to it. I believe this is an Icelandic film, and I haven’t seen a ton from that country, so I’m actually really interested in this. I hope it plays near me when it’s out, I’ll have to keep an eye out for it.

Touch will be released in theaters on July 12th.

 

Atlas

Interesting. I didn’t expect a good chunk of this movie to just me Lopez operating solo opposite this AI thing. Little disappointing, but it could still be compelling. Certainly looks like a lot of money went into this, so maybe there’s some faith that there is something interesting here. We already had one Netflix sci-fi movie where an actor was acting by himself for most of it opposite some non-human entity in the movie Spaceman. I liked Spaceman, so maybe this might scratch a similar itch, despite the tonal difference.

Atlas streams exclusively on Netflix on May 24th.

 

Thoughts on any of the trailers? Feel free to discuss in the comments!