Yes No Maybe So: Jacob Tremblay is a "Wonder"

by Nathaniel R

From a distance the forthcoming film Wonder (2017) looks like Mask (1985) for the junior high set. The film is based on the novel of the same name by RJ Palacio about Auggie, a boy who enters school after years of home schooling due to his many surgeries and complications with a rare facial deformity. Jacob Tremblay, in demand post Room, plays the main character Auggie. The film is directed by Stephen Chbosky who already has some experience with transferring YA novels to the screen since he transferred his own for his directorial debut The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012). Wonder is his sophomore effort though this time he left the screenwriting to another. Steven Conrad, who previously adapted The Pursuit of Happyness and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty to screen, adapts. 

Let's compartmentalize the first trailer with our Yes No Maybe So™ system after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Yes No Maybe So: "Battle of the Sexes" (plus some Holly Hunter trivia)

By Nathaniel R

Keep talking, Bobby. The more nonsense you spout, the worse it's going to be when you lose.

One of this fall's potential crossover films, in that it has both crowd pleasing and awards appeal (should it be any good that is) is the retelling of the super-famous Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs tennis match from 1973. Though I was alive at the time, I was way too young to know anything about that. I grew up in the age of Martina Navratilova vs Chris Evert and John McEnroe vs Everyone, though, and that match was a common cultural reference point. And tennis was the only sport I really fell in love with. Why? Couldn't say for sure but I suspect it was because it has more easily understood interpersonal dynamics (just two people... or four) at war... only non-violently. My best childhood friend and I even played tennis regularly together. I never got very good but later in high school he made the team! Which is all a terribly long way of saying, tennis movies hold instant interest in theory. They don't make them very often and they're largely unsuccessful when they do. Don't believe me, try to name more than one or two! (I'll wait).  

So let's breakdown the first trailer to Fox Searchlight's Battle of the Sexes after the jump. Are we optimistic, worried, or somewhere inbetween?

Click to read more ...

Teasing "The Last Jedi"

Click to see the poster largeStar Wars: The Last Jedi opens this December to once again hog all the media attention and all the box office and probably 3 or so Oscar nominations, too. (Here is the new poster to the left.)

The hilariously drama queen thing about the title and Luke Skywalker's pronouncement at the end of the new teaser is that we (i.e. everyone on the planet with any sense) know there will never be a "last" Jedi. Not with literally billions to be made every single year from milking this franchise until no one cares anymore ... an event that surely won't occur in our lifetimes. 

Exhausting as it can be sometimes to live inside a film culture that wants the exact same things annually: two Marvels, two DCs scattered from spring to Fall, a Star Wars movie each Christmas, at least 15 concurrent bi-annual franchises and a few ever-discussed franchises that are infrequent (James Bond for one), Disney has done a bang-up job stoking the fire for annual Star Wars adventures, a fire that would burn bright without any stoking whatsoever!

But they stoke well you must admit. Here is the excellent teaser for The Last Jedi, which is mostly focused on Luke and Rey with a few key shots reminding us of the other players. 

What'cha think? 

Yes No Maybe So: "My Cousin Rachel"

by Robert Balkovich

The Rachel Weiszenaissance looks to be continuing at full speed after last year's indie hit The Lobster and her good notices for the otherwise middling Light Between the Oceans. We now have the trailer for her latest project, a Victorian era thriller based on a novel by the OG spookmaster Daphne du Maurier called My Cousin Rachel.

There have already been a few film adaptations over the years, but none that star Rachel Weisz, so I'm very excited to see what this latest has to offer.

Let's do a "Yes No Maybe So" after the jump, shall we?

Click to read more ...

YNMS: Rough Night

Chris here. With the vengeful bitches of The Beguiled, the raucousness of Girls Trip, and the asskickery of Atomic Blonde coming for our eyeballs, it's shaping up to be a delightfully less macho summer movie season! And now the Broad City team of writer/director Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs is bringing another female-led delight for the summer, Rough Night. Scarlett Johansson leads the exciting cast of Zoë Kravitz, Kate McKinnon, Ilana Glazer, and Jillian Bell for the debaucherous (and deadly) bachelorette party - brace yourselves for "Bridesmaids and The Hangover meet Weekend At Bernie's" comparisons as this one opens.

The first trailer brings the NSFW laughs and shows off the ensemble - so take a look and we'll break down the Yes No Maybe So after the jump...

Click to read more ...