Movie News After Dark
The day’s top headlines in bite-size portions.
Easily the two biggest stories of the last 24 hours have to be the Westworld finale over on HBO and the release of The Mummy trailer. So before we dive into today, take a moment to catch up. Our own Rob Hunter has the dish on Westworld, and you can watch Tom Cruise fight the undead right here.
While we’re kind of on the subject of HBO, after the conclusion of the Westworld finale last night the network dropped a trailer for all the original series and events planned for next year, including looks at the new seasons of Game of Thrones and Curb Your Enthusiasm, the final seasons of Girls and The Leftovers, new series The Young Pope with Jude Law and Diane Keaton, The Deuce from The Wire creator David Simon about the porn industry in 70s-era NYC starring James Franco as twins, the highly-anticipated miniseries Big Little Lies starring Oscar-winners Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, and nominee Shailene Woodley, original film The Wizard of Lies starring Robert DeNiro as Bernie Madoff (and Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife), and lastly three new stand-up specials, one from Deadpool and Silicon Valley standout T.J. Miller. As for Westworld, it’s already been renewed for another season (as have other series Insecure, Divorce, Ballers, Vice Principals, Animals, Silicon Valley, Veep, and High Maintenance) but episodes won’t air until 2018, hopefully right at the beginning of the year. There’s more in store than what I listed above – including other new series, original films, documentaries, and sporting events – so check out the trailer and start scheduling your DVR.
Variety reported today that talk show host Jimmy Kimmel will be hosting the 2017 Academy Awards. Kimmel has a good amount of hosting experience (outside of his show, I mean) including this year’s Emmy Ceremony – which he also hosted in 2012 – the 2007 Espy Awards, and the American Music Awards five times. This will be his first time hosting the Oscars. Kimmel’s own show, Late Night With Jimmy Kimmel, airs on the same network as the Academy Awards, ABC, so if all goes well he could have the gig for a few years to come.
Watch him February 26, 2017, when the Oscars air.
If you’re not excited for the new FX series Legion that takes place in the X-Men universe (not the cinematic one, but the comics one), you’re about to be. Today the show dropped its latest trailer as well as a premiere date: February 8th, 2017, or just a hair over two months from now. Dig the official synopsis:
Legion, based on the Marvel Comics by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz, is the story of David Haller (Dan Stevens), a troubled young man who may be more than human. Diagnosed as schizophrenic as a child, David has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for years. Now in his early 30s and institutionalized once again, David loses himself in the rhythm of the structured regimen of life in the hospital: breakfast, lunch, dinner, therapy, medications, sleep. David spends the rest of his time in companionable silence alongside his chatterbox friend Lenny (Aubrey Plaza), a fellow patient whose life-long drug and alcohol addiction has done nothing to quell her boundless optimism that her luck is about to change. The pleasant numbness of David’s routine is completely upended with the arrival of a beautiful and troubled new patient named Syd (Rachel Keller). Inexplicably drawn to one another, David and Syd share a startling encounter, after which David must confront the shocking possibility that the voices he hears and the visions he sees may actually be real.
A haunted man, David escapes from the hospital and seeks shelter with his sister Amy (Katie Aselton). But Amy’s concern for her brother is trumped by her desire to protect the picture perfect suburban life she’s built for herself. Eventually, Syd guides David to Melanie Bird (Jean Smart), a nurturing but demanding therapist with a sharp mind and unconventional methods. She and her team of specialists – Ptonomy (Jeremie Harris), Kerry (Amber Midthunder) and Cary (Bill Irwin) – open David’s eyes to an extraordinary new world of possibilities.
I was a big X-Men fan as a kid, and Legion was always one of my favorites, not just for the devious backstory Claremont gave him, or the chaotic and slightly-frightening way Sienkiewicz depicted him (or really anything), but because his struggle was the greatest of all the mutants: not only did he have to deal with a superpower, he had to deal with dozens of them, and mental illness to boot. He’s easily the most tragic and simultaneously the most powerful X-person I can think of, and every indication seems to be that the series is going to have a lot of fun playing with this juxtaposition. Check out the trailer, then start counting off the days til 2/8/17.
That’s all folks. We’ll see you tomorrow night for more Movie News After Dark.
