The Spike Lee Movies That Never Happened

Spike Lee is one of the most important filmmakers working in contemporary Hollywood. While his “joints” are often very funny and entertaining, he injects most of them with some thought-provoking social commentary that’s relevant to the world at the time. Furthermore, he does so with originality and stylistic flourishings that are unmistakably his own, and that’s why the majority of his movies, including such classics as Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X and his recent Best Picture nominee, BlacKkKlansman, are worthwhile viewing.

Of course, the movie industry is unpredictable, and it’s commonplace for essential filmmakers to have projects fall apart. In Lee’s case, he’s been forced to give up several potentially awesome movies due to a variety of circumstances that were beyond his control. Now that he’s made the script to one of those movies, his planned Jackie Robinson biopic, available for public consumption, now is the perfect time to look back and wonder what could have been.

---

42

Lee planned to write and direct a film based on the life of Jackie Robinson to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the athlete breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Denzel Washington was touted for the starring role as well. However, creative differences with Turner Pictures resulted in Lee taking the project to Columbia Pictures, where it fell apart once again. The movie was eventually made in 2013, directed by Brian Helgeland and starring Chadwick Boseman as the legendary baseball player.

---

Save Me, Joe Louis

Lee hasn’t had much luck when it comes to making movies about popular sports figures. For this one, he wanted Terrence Howard to play the titular boxer in a story that would have centered around his fights with Max Schmeling. Arnold Schwarzenegger was interested in playing Schmeling, but Lee couldn’t acquire most of the budget that he needed to bring the story to life, and that was that. Unlike other biopics Lee was attached to, this one hasn’t been picked up by another filmmaker afterward.

---

Get On Up

This James Brown biopic was released in 2012 after Tate Taylor eventually inherited directing duties. Lee originally intended to helm the film back in the early 2000s, but issues over licensing Brown’s music caused the film to stall, and Lee moved on to other projects. Funnily enough, Boseman also plays the lead in Get On Up, making that two biopics he has starred in that Lee was attached to at one point.

---

Inside Man 2

Following the success of his heist film Inside Man, Lee entered negotiations to oversee a sequel with a tentative filming date of 2009 in mind. Washington and Clive Owen would have reprised their respective roles as the cop and robber who become entangled in a battle of wits, this time during a brand new criminal scheme. Jodie Foster and Chiwetel Ejiofor were also expected to return. Unfortunately, Lee was unable to secure funding for the follow-up and the movie was canceled in 2011. A direct-to-video sequel, titled Inside Man: Most Wanted, was released last year, albeit with a new cast of characters.

---

Selling Time

After Inside Man, Lee considered making this supernatural thriller for Fox. The story would have revolved around a man (played by Tom Cruise) who sells parts of his life in order to relive and change the worst day he ever had. Prior to Lee’s involvement, Forest Whittaker almost directed the movie, which he wanted Will Smith to star in. Selling Time seems destined to remain in development hell, even though other directors, including DJ Caruso, have attempted to resurrect it throughout the years to no avail.

---

Time Traveler

Lee also wanted to write and direct this adaptation of Dr. Ronald Mallet’s Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission To Make Time Travel a Reality. The book dramatizes the scientist’s experience, from growing up in poverty and obsessed with science fiction to becoming one of the first African Americans to receive a Ph. D in theoretical physics. Mallet has dedicated his career to researching the possibility of time travel and his ideas are fascinating, but his story is inspirational and would make for a great biopic in the right hands. This project just sort of went quiet and is presumably an afterthought for Lee at this point.

---

LA Riots

In 2008, Lee looked set to direct a movie about the Los Angeles riots, helmed from a script by John Ridley and Terry George. The idea behind the film was to provide an egalitarian perspective of the events told from several points of view, therefore requiring a sizable budget given the scope of the story. The project subsequently hit the brakes when Universal Pictures asked Lee to make a “scaled back” dramatization of the riots, which angered the socially conscious filmmaker. Lee hasn’t ruled out returning to this movie at a later date, though he’s claimed that it’s been shelved for now.

---

Brooklyn Loves Michael Jackson

Back in 2010, Samuel L. Jackson revealed that he and Lee were going to reunite for a movie about Michael Jackson. but it wouldn’t have been centered on the controversial pop star, of whom Lee is a big fan. Instead, the film would have marked a return to Lee’s Brooklyn-centric roots. According to Samuel L. Jackson, the premise centered around a group of Brooklynites who want to have MJ perform a concert in the borough’s park, but their plans aren’t welcomed by members of the gentrified area of the neighborhood. John Turturro, Julianne Moore, Rosie Perez, Anthony Mackie, and Kerry Washington were also rumored to star until the film was scrapped in 2011.

---

Nagasaki Deadline

Lee has never been afraid to confront hot-button issues in his movies, and in 2010, he almost tackled the War on Terror. Nagasaki Deadline would have focused on a troubled FBI agent and his attempt to thwart two terrorist attacks that are set to take place on American soil. This sounds like a fast-paced thriller that would have been very topical at the time given that it was announced shortly after the Times Square terror scare. However, the movie never came to fruition for whatever reason.

---

Marion Barry Biopic

This is another movie that went quiet shortly after being announced. If the HBO Films biopic about the former Washington DC mayor went ahead, though, it would have starred Eddie Murphy in the lead role and would have allowed the actor to showcase more of his dramatic chops. Barry was a larger-than-life politician who served as the mayor of America’s capital city twice, but his terms were separated by a six-month prison stint. He’s an interesting figure to make a movie about, and Lee is one of the few filmmakers who could do it justice.

---

Porgy and Bess

Lee has yet to make a fully-fledged musical, even though some of his movies have briefly explored elements of them, such as the jazz extravaganza scene in School Daze and the hip-hop-infused dialogue in Chi-Raq. Music plays a big part in a lot of his movies, and it’s clear that Lee’s been itching to try his hand at a proper musical for quite some time. He almost did as well, back in 2012 with a planned remake of 1959’s Porgy and Bess. The original movie — and the stage show that predated it — follows two ill-fated lovers as they try to find a way to be together in a town where no one approves of their relationship. Lee could work wonders with a premise like that, but fans will have to wait for him to showcase his musical chops.

---

Spinning Gold

There’s a trend developing here: most of Lee’s unmade movies are biopics. At one point, he was in negotiations to make this movie about Neil Bogart, a record label executive who discovered some iconic musical acts such as Donna Summer, Kiss, and The Village People. Justin Timberlake was reportedly in talks to star as Bogart, but those plans changed when the subject’s son, Timothy Scott Bogart, signed on to direct last year and gave Jeremy Jordan the part. The good news is that Spinning Gold will be released at some point in the near future.

---

Enter the Dragon

Oldboy, Lee’s last foray into remaking beloved movies from the Far East, didn’t exactly go down well. It’s his only downright terrible movie. However, in 2014, the director expressed an interest in remaking Enter the Dragon, the 1973 martial arts masterpiece that made Bruce Lee a household name. In this planned remake, Ken Yeong would have starred in the role made famous by Lee in the original, while Billy Bob Thornton was on board to play Roper. The last time any news was reported about this movie, David Leitch had signed on to direct it.

Read More

What Critics Said About ‘High Fidelity’

They Said What?! is a biweekly column in which we explore the highs and lows of film criticism through history. How did critics feel about it at the time, and do we see it differently now? Chris Coffel explores.

---

On March 31, 2000, John Cusack broke the fourth wall as Rob Gordon, the music-obsessed narcissistic record store owner, incapable of maintaining a healthy longterm relationship. Rob is, of course, the lead character and narrator in Stephen Frears’ adaptation of Nick Hornby‘s 1995 novel, High Fidelity.

Two decades later, it’s as relevant as ever. In 2006, a musical based on the book ran on Broadway for 13 shows. Since then, regional productions have sprung up in various cities across the US, with a couple popping up in Australia and London. Ten years ago, Chicago magazine ranked High Fidelity number one of their list of the top 40 movies filmed in the Windy City. Now, the book has been adapted into a TV series on Hulu.

Does the film’s lasting significance jive with what the critics had to say 20 years ago? Let’s dig in and find out.

Adapting a beloved book is never an easy task, and it becomes all the more difficult when significant changes occur. In the case of High Fidelity, this meant moving the distinctly London story to Chicago and crafting a decidedly American romantic comedy. Desson Patrick Thomson, then known as Desson Howe, began his review in the Washington Post openly stating that he expected to hate the film, echoing the skepticism of many fans of the book. But it left him pleasantly surprised.

“High Fidelity doesn’t feel bad for one moment about not being British,” he wrote. “Frears’ adaptation, co-written by Cusack, is effortlessly and eccentrically American. And, as far as I’m concerned, this movie’s a guaranteed pleasure for anyone who ever loved pop music, owned a record collection or suffered in love. Does that leave anyone out? I don’t think so.”

Stephen Holden didn’t seem to mind the location shift, writing in his New York Times review, “Despite the change of venue, the movie remains remarkably true to the novel’s spirit.” He continued: “Even more sharply than the book, the movie evokes the turmoil of urban single life with a quirky mixture of confessional poignancy and dry, self-deflating humor.”

Of course, you can’t talk High Fidelity without talking about the music, and many critics made this a focal point in their reviews. Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club praised the film’s musical choices saying that it “understands the psychological importance music plays in its protagonist’s life.” This is important because so often films that rely on pop music soundtracks fall into the trap of merely becoming a playlist of cliches.

High Fidelity wisely avoided such traps.

“The songs are so well chosen — never the most obvious choices, but always interesting ones — that they sometimes catch you up short,” Stephanie Zacharek wrote for Salon. She highlights this by applauding the way the film transitions from Belle & Sebastian to Katrina and the Waves in one early scene.

High Fidelity relies on prominent, scene-stealing characters that in any other movie would feel over the top. Here they strike the perfect chord and come across as genuine, something Roger Ebert made sure to note. “In its unforced, whimsical, quirky, obsessive way,” he wrote, “High Fidelity is a comedy about real people in real lives.”

The film’s stellar cast of great actors giving terrific performances deserves a lot of credit for helping the film feel so grounded. By and large, reviewers agreed. “Every single actor here rises to the occasion,” Zacharek wrote while singling out Joan Cusack, Jack Black, Iban Hjejle, and Todd Louiso.

Similarly, Holden raved about the entire cast saying, “The movie is sparked by more than half a dozen incisive performances.” He called Cusack “winning,” praising the actor for the way he found a balance between interacting with other characters on screen and talking directly to the camera.

Perhaps the most clever review came from Variety‘s Joe Leydon, who decided to lead off with his “top five reasons High Fidelity is some kind of wonderful.” The list began by calling Cusack “fearless and ferociously funny” and concluded by dubbing the film “the first great date movie of 2000.”

“Two hours of narcissism are difficult to take,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her LA Weekly review, proving that not everyone was a fan. She continued by saying, “High Fidelity wants to be hip, but it’s comically square” and declaring it to be nothing more than “Bridget Jones’s Diary for the other side.”

Dargis did manage to give the film a bit of a backhanded compliment while dragging other rom-com regulars, writing that High Fidelity is “a better romantic comedy than anything Nora Ephron or Garry Marshall will ever slough off.”

Joining Dargis in her disdain was Slate critic David Edelstein, who felt the film was lazy in its approach of taking the story from the page to the screen. He wrote that the film was never “fully dramatized” because it lacked any real narrative. “The story of a sourly self-absorbed jerk who can’t fully share himself with anyone,” Edelstein concluded, “becomes the story of a guy who never stops yammering.”

Well, you can’t impress everybody. But if I were to make a list of my top five all-time great John Cusack movies, High Fidelity would undoubtedly make the cut.

Read More

Watch: A Man & Dog Head to the Woods in 'Oscar's Bell' Horror Short

When things start getting frightening, there's nothing better than having a dog by your side to scare away the evil. Oscar's Bell is a new dialogue-free horror short film made by UK-based filmmaker Chris Cronin (also of the short films Balcony, Unkillable, and Sophie's Fortune). Paul Bullion (from "Peaky Blinders") stars as Duncan, who heads out on his weekly camping trip into the wilderness with his dog Oscar. However, when Duncan looks out into the woods, something else looks back. Also co-starring the dog Anti as Oscar. "Our goal was to create a longer film, really going back to the basics of the scary ghost story," they explain about making this. "During the writing we just kept asking ourselves, 'what would make this even worse for Duncan?', looking to heighten the horror until we had an ending we really felt delivered." It definitely does.

Thanks to Short of the Week for debuting this one recently. Brief description from YouTube: "Duncan (Paul Bullion) and his dog Oscar go on their weekly camping trip into the wilderness. But this trip, when Duncan looks out into the woods, something out there looks back." Oscar's Bell is directed by UK filmmaker Chris Cronin - see more of his work on Instagram, or follow him @filmcronin, or visit his official website. The script is written by Sam Cronin and Chris Cronin. Produced by Andrew Oldbury and Chris Cronin. Featuring cinematography by Sam Cronin, and music composed by Crypt Of Insomnia. "We took our inspiration from both the classic horror of the 70's and the modern horror of Creepypasta and No Sleep," the filmmaker explains. For more info on the short, visit SOTW or Cronin's website. For more shorts, click here. Thoughts?

Read More

Official Trailer for 'Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth' Documentary

"It's a scary, daunting prospect… You just worry for your child." 1091 Media has debuted an official trailer for a documentary titled Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth, which will be available to watch on VOD in June this year. Director Jeanie Finlay charts a transgender man's path to parenthood after he decides to carry his child himself. The pregnancy prompts an unexpected and profound reckoning with conventions of masculinity, self-definition and biology. The title is a reference to seahorses, obviously enough, because the male of the species carries the eggs deposited by the female in his pouch until they're ready to be released. This film seems like a bit of a shock at first, but when you get a look at the footage, it seems to be built upon a great deal of compassion and understanding. Which is something we do need more of in the world anyway.

Here's the trailer (+ poster) for Jeanie Finlay's doc Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth, on YouTube:

Freddy is 30 and yearns to start a family but this poses unique challenges. He is a gay transgender man. Deciding to carry his own baby took years of soul searching, but he was unprepared for the reality of pregnancy, both physically and challenging society's fundamental understanding of gender & family. To him what feels pragmatic, to others feels confronting; this was not part of his plan. Against a backdrop of hostility towards trans people, he is forced to confront his naivety. Made with unprecedented access &collaboration, Seahorse is an audacious & lyrical story about what makes us who we are. Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth is directed by British filmmaker Jeanie Finlay, director of the doc films Teenland, Goth Cruise, Sound It Out, The Great Hip Hop Hoax, Pantomime, and Orion: The Man Who Would Be King previously. This premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last year. 1091 will release Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth doc direct-to-VOD starting on June 16th this summer. For more info, visit the official website.

Read More

Wacky Trailer for Experimental Love Story 'She's Allergic To Cats' Film

"I can train you to be a true groomer." Whoaaaaa what is this?! An official trailer has arrived online for a film titled She's Allergic To Cats, a strange, experimental, fever dream love story that has been lost since 2016. This originally premiered back in 2016 at the Fantasia Film Festival (read the story about that wild premiere) but hasn't shown up anywhere since. Until now. It's getting a VOD release (on iTunes/Amazon) next month, almost four years after its initial debut. The film is about a dog groomer in LA who pursues the woman of his dreams. It "has something for everyone. From cats taking on the roles from Carrie, dogs being bathed in slow-motion, beats to bop to, and a loveable underdog to root for." And it sounds / looks wacky. "Boundaries between reality, fantasy, art, romantic-comedy and horror collide in an explosion of distorted video art and psychological insanity." Starring Mike Pinkney & Sonja Kinski, with Veronika Dash & Flula Borg. There's no other way to describe it, you just have to watch and see this footage yourself. Enjoy.

Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Michael Reich's She's Allergic To Cats, direct from YouTube:

A dog groomer in Hollywood aspires to be more than a dog groomer in Hollywood. Michael Pinkney is a man struggling with his lower income lifestyle in the shadow of the film industry. His job is degrading, his home is infested with rats and his mind constantly wanders into a lo-fi dreamscape that mirrors his analog video experiments. Michael's menial routine then spirals out of control when he meets Cora (Sonja Kinski), the girl of his dreams. On their first date his greatest hopes and worst fears are realized as they journey down a dark, twisted path that descends into surreal chaos… The boundaries between reality, fantasy, art, romantic-comedy and horror collide in an explosion of distorted video art and psychological insanity. She's Allergic To Cats is both written and directed by Los Angeles-based filmmaker Michael Reich, this film was his feature directorial debut after making numerous music videos and other short films previously. This initially premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal in 2016. Reich's She's Allergic To Cats will be released direct-to-VOD starting on April 7th, 2020 this spring. Who's going to watch this?

Read More

The Coolest Effect in ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ Was a Bloody Accident

Welcome to How’d They Do That? — a bi-monthly column that unpacks moments of movie magic and celebrates the technical wizards who pulled them off.

---

Thanks to the creative carte-blanche of its villain, the original A Nightmare on Elm Street is full of surreal practical effects. When you’re a demonic wise-guy who hunts victims in their dreams, you’re able to pull some freaky, nightmarish shit. From body bags erupting with eels to clawed hands emerging from bathtubs and stairs turning to mush, when it comes to terrorizing teens, Freddy Krueger likes to dream big.

But of all of Freddy’s dreamscape shenanigans, there’s one practical effect in Wes Craven‘s 1984 film that always leaves me in a daze. It has to do with a bed and a whole lot of blood.

Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) has learned the truth about the evil presence that’s been terrorizing her neighborhood: the spirit of a kid-killer named Fred Krueger (Robert Englund) is taking revenge on his murderers’ children by attacking them in their dreams. Nancy picks up the phone and warns her skeptical boyfriend, Glen (Johnny Depp): if he sleeps, he dies. They hatch a plan, and Nancy fixes to sneak out of her house to meet him. But her parents have put her on lockdown and escaping won’t be easy, so she gives Glen a call to loop him in. His parents pick up. He’s asleep and she ought to talk to him tomorrow. They leave the phone off the receiver. Oh god.

There’s a heavy flow joke in there somewhere.

Glen’s death is full of surprises. First, his body is sucked through the bed; a cavern forming in the mattress’ center swallowing him and his TV whole. And then the first burst of blood, more violent and propulsive than you’d expect. Who would have thought the crop-topped teen to have had so much blood in him? And it just keeps coming. Not only that, but this blood defies logic, pooling on the ceiling while the Glen-geyser keeps gushing. Finally, the blood streams unpredictably as if the room were in free fall. What a nightmare.

---

How’d they do that?

Long story short:

By pouring fake blood through a hole into an upside-down, rotating room.

Long story long:

Before we get to the bed geyser we have to talk about the showstopper death of Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss). Tina is the first victim of “Dream Demon” Freddy, and her demise makes one hell of an impression. While dreaming, Tina encounters Krueger (and his freaky elongated arms) in an alley and the creep sets about to teen murderin’. Meanwhile, in the waking world, Tina’s boyfriend Rod (Nick Corri) watches helplessly as Tina’s body is sliced, diced, and dragged up the wall and across the ceiling.

The wall-to-ceiling drag was accomplished with a rotating room created by mechanical special effects designer Jim Doyle (Academy Award-winning inventor of the Dry Fogger). In the essential making-of documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, Doyle explains that “Wes wanted something really big and fantastic and out there for the first death…so I suggested a rotating room.” Craven described the room as a “hairy situation,” with no wires just vertigo and panic attack-inducing rotations, with all items nailed down and the cameraman strapped into an “airplane seat” attached to the wall. The room itself was not mechanical; it took several crewmembers on either side of the contraption to manually flip the room around.

Even though it was a nightmare to shoot in, when it came time to film Glen’s death, the filmmakers went back to the rotating room. The pressure was on, not only because the blood effect was complicated (working with water always is), but because they had one take to do it. The room was flipped upside down and the crew prepared for the effect. A sheet-lined shoot for the blood was carved out of the middle of the bed, with crewmembers positioned “above” on the outside of the room, poised to pour in the gallons of blood-colored water. With the bed now positioned at the “top” of the room, Craven, strapped into a camera chair, gave the word “go.”

As cinematographer Jacques Haitkin explains in Never Sleep Again, when the crew began to dump the water through the hole “as soon as it hit the ceiling and hit the light it immediately electrified the water. So the guy pouring the water got electrocuted.” Or, as Doyle puts it: “oops.”

“Oops”

Not only was the water now electrified, but as Haitkin describes, the water began to slosh from side to side, which threw off the weight of the room, causing it to shift and the operators to lose control. The room rolled all the way over and crew members lept out of the way as cables and ropes ripped out of their rigging. As Craven recounts in the documentary, the water “went into all the lights and there were these huge flashes in the dark…we were spinning in the dark with all these sparks going on.”

The wall had a window in it and of course, the blood poured out onto the operators desperately trying to regain control of the room. The room finally stopped rocking once all the liquid poured out, leaving the crew still attached to the structure suspended, upside down, for around 20 minutes in the dark and covered in blood.

The up-is-down and vice-versa rationale of the original geyser is easy enough to wrap your head around, but thanks to the series of unfortunate events, the blood didn’t just pool on the ceiling. After the initial splash, the liquid slips and streams at angles that just don’t make sense; it’s a lurch that defies all logic. Gravity: as it exists in dreams, which is to say elusive, frustrating, and terrifyingly unpredictable. Even if they’d had the resources to do a second take, I don’t think they could have replicated the effect as it appears onscreen. And for that: a happy accident indeed.

Miraculously no one was hurt and even more miraculously…they got the shot. Fun fact: as detailed in the Larry Cohen biography Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters, the cult director employed the Nightmare crew to pull off a rotating room stunt for The Stuff: “I was lucky that nobody got hurt,” Cohen explains. “But the scene looks great.” Such is the gamble of a manually operated rotating room, it seems.

---

What’s the precedent?

While pouring heaps and heaps of fake blood into an out of control, electrified rotating death box might be a first, Hollywood has a long and illustrious history of rotating sets. Indeed, they have been around since the early days of cinema, with gravity-defying sequences in the likes of When the Clouds Roll By (1919) and The Boat (1921).

The direct influence cited in Never Sleep Again is Stanley Donen’s Royal Wedding (1951), which features a sequence where Fred Astaire dances over every square inch of a living room. The showstopping “You’re All the World To Me” dance, which lasts a whopping four minutes, was accomplished with a cameraman harnessed inside a 20-foot-diameter rotating barrel that contained the nailed-down set. I highly recommend checking out this video from Galen Fott, which highlights Astaire’s superhuman ability to make tapdancing in a drying machine look effortless.

Fred Astaire defying gravity in ‘Royal Wedding’ (1951)

While the wheel-like interior of the Discovery spacecraft in 2001: A Space Odyssey is perhaps the most well-known example in genre cinema, rotating sets do have a particular affinity for horror. Released two years before A Nightmare on Elm Street, Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist bares the closest family resemblance to Craven’s room effect. Both movies utilize their rooms for an identical purpose: to give the impression of an invisible, gravity-defying supernatural menace. In Poltergeist, Diane, the mother of the family, is attacked by the titular pissed-off spirit. She does some serviceable Linda Blair bed thrashing and is sent rolling up the wall, across the ceiling, and down the other side of the room.

What’s remarkable is that despite their differences in budget, Poltergeist and A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s rotating set pieces (ha!) aren’t noticeably different in a technical sense. Poltergeist‘s budget was roughly 10 times that of Nightmare‘s. That’s insane when you consider how similar the two special effects look. The budgetary constraints also explain why Nightmare had to cut corners: why their set wasn’t motorized, why they had limited takes, and why they tried to get the most out of the set as they possibly could. It’s a great example of resourcefulness and a tried-and-true, replicable cinematic special effect — a solid, simple, time-tested trick. At a certain point, throwing more money at a box in a hamster wheel is only going to pay for more set decoration. Or more blood, depending on what you’re into.

Read More

Official Trailer for 'To the Stars' Starring Kara Hayward & Liana Liberato

"I don't care if people like me." The first official trailer has debuted for a small town indie drama titled To the Stars, which initially premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It also won the Festival Director's Award at the Cinetopia Film Festival last year. Originally in B&W, now being shown in color, the film is a "coming-of-age tale, a story about finding power and comfort in one’s own skin" set in 1960s Oklahoma. Under small town scrutiny, a withdrawn farmer's daughter forges an intimate friendship with a worldly but reckless new girl. To the Stars co-stars Kara Hayward and Liana Liberato, along with Jordana Spiro, Shea Whigham, Malin Akerman, Tony Hale, and Adelaide Clemens. Featuring cinematography by Andrew Reed (also of Land Ho!, Gemini). This picked up great reviews at Sundance and other fests, and seems like a worthy drama with some style and substance to offer. Not sure why they dropped B&W though.

Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Martha Stephens' To the Stars, direct from IMDb's YouTube:

In a god-fearing small town in 1960s Oklahoma, bespectacled and reclusive teen Iris endures the booze-induced antics of her mother and daily doses of bullying from her classmates. She finds solace in Maggie, the charismatic and enigmatic new girl at school, who hones in on Iris's untapped potential and coaxes her out of her shell. When Maggie's mysterious past can no longer be suppressed, the tiny community is thrown into a state of panic, leaving Maggie to take potentially drastic measures and inciting Iris to stand up for her friend and herself. To the Stars is directed by American filmmaker Martha Stephens, director of the films Passenger Pigeons, Pilgrim Song, and Land Ho! previously. The script is by Shannon Bradley-Colleary. Produced by Gavin Dorman, Stacy Jorgensen, Kristin Mann, Erik Rommesmo. This premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year. To the Stars will arrive in select theaters + on VOD sometime this year.

Read More

What’s New to Stream on Netflix for April 2020, and What’s Leaving

Some people spend their days arguing over the merits of Netflix, but the rest of us are too busy enjoying new movies, engaging series, and fun specials. It’s just one more way to re-watch the movies we already love and find new ones to cherish, and this month sees some of both hitting the service.

The complete list of movies and shows hitting (and leaving) Netflix this month — April 2020 — is below, but first I’m going to highlight a few that stand apart from the bunch.

---

Netflix Pick of the Month

There are plenty of folks who dislike Ricky Gervais for his caustic sense of humor and sometimes abrasive personality, but there are far more of us who find his attitude both refreshing and entertaining. No matter which side you’re on, though, his new series After Life should act as something of a salve to help bring people together as it delivers terrific laughs and an incredible amount of heart with its small town story about a man grieving the recent death of his wife. Season two arrives on April 24th and once again sees Gervais channeling the loneliness and anger we all feel from time to time, and along with a fantastic supporting cast he creates a beautiful world built on bitter truths and immense warmth.

---

A Pair of Trilogies That Start Strong…

The first Lethal Weapon (1987) film helped redefine the buddy cop action/comedy genre, the second (1989) improved things further, and the third (1992)? Well it’s still good fun. All three films in the trilogy are now available and well worth a revisit. FYI, something called Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) is also on Netflix, but I can’t recommend it in good conscience. The Matrix (1999) was even more of a groundbreaking experience, and while its sequels, The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003), are far from essential viewing there’s still fun to be had.

---

Netflix Originals of Note

Netflix Original Films are an unpredictable lot, but sometimes we get lucky, as with March’s brilliant The Platform. Will this month’s Originals be nearly as good? Here’s hoping. Coffee & Kareem spills on April 3rd with its action/comedy tale of a cop (Ed Helms) who finds trouble when his new girlfriend’s son tries to scare him off. Alan Yang’s Tigertail arrives on April 10th with an acclaimed story about an immigrant family trying to make it work in America. Sergio stands tall on April 17th with a true story about a UN diplomat during the US invasion of Iraq, and it stars Wagner Moura and Ana de Armas.

---

Westerns!

Sometimes you just want to lie back and relax with the comforting sound of horse hooves, gun shots, and memorable music scores. Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) begins its legendary standoff on April 2nd and is always worth a re-watch as Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach face off in glorious manner. Sam Mendes’ Road to Perdition (2002) may not technically be a western, but come on, it’s a western set amid gangsters and hitmen in early 1930s America. It’s also fantastic.

---

The Complete List

April 1st
40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)
Bloodsport (1988)
Cadillac Records (2008)
Can’t Hardly Wait (1998)
Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke (1978)
Community: Season 1-6
David Batra: Elefanten I Rummet — NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL
The Death of Stalin (2017)
Deep Impact (1998)
The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)
God’s Not Dead (2014)
The Hangover (2009)
How to Fix a Drug Scandal — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show — NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL
Just Friends (2005)
Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
Kim’s Convenience: Season 4
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
Lethal Weapon 3 (1992)
Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)
The Matrix (1999)
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Minority Report (2002)
Molly’s Game (2017)
Mortal Kombat (1995)
Mud (2012)
Nailed It!: Season 4 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon: S3: Sun & Moon – Ultra Legends
Promised Land (2012)
Road to Perdition (2002)
The Roommate (2011)
The Runaways (2010)
Salt (2010)
School Daze (1988)
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
The Social Network (2010)
Soul Plane (2004)
Sunderland ‘Til I Die: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Sunrise in Heaven (2019)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Wildling (2018)

April 2nd
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll

April 3rd
La casa de papel: Part 4 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Coffee & Kareem — NETFLIX FILM
Money Heist: The Phenomenon — NETFLIX FILM
Spirit Riding Free: Riding Academy — NETFLIX FAMILY
StarBeam — NETFLIX FAMILY

April 4th
Angel Has Fallen (2019)

April 5th
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

April 6th
The Big Show Show — NETFLIX FAMILY

April 7th
TERRACE HOUSE: TOKYO 2019-2020: Part 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

April 9th
Hi Score Girl: Season 2 — NETFLIX ANIME

April 10th
Brews Brothers — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
LA Originals — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
Love Wedding Repeat — NETFLIX FILM
The Main Event — NETFLIX FILM
Tigertail — NETFLIX FILM
La vie scolaire — NETFLIX FILM

April 11th
Code 8 (2019)

April 14th
Chris D’Elia: No Pain — NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL

April 15th
The Innocence Files — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
Outer Banks — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

April 16th
Despicable Me (2010)
Fary: Hexagone: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Fauda: Season 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Hail, Caesar! (2016)
Mauricio Meirelles: Levando o Caos — NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL
Jem and the Holograms (2015)

April 17th
Betonrausch — NETFLIX FILM
#blackAF — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Earth and Blood (La terre et le sang) — NETFLIX FILM
The Last Kids on Earth: Book 2 — NETFLIX FAMILY
Legado en los huesos — NETFLIX FILM
Sergio — NETFLIX FILM
Too Hot to Handle — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

April 18th
The Green Hornet (2011)

April 20th
Cooked with Cannabis — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
The Midnight Gospel — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
The Vatican Tapes (2015)

April 21st
Bleach: The Assault
Bleach: The Bount
Middleditch & Schwartz — NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL

April 22nd
Absurd Planet — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Circus of Books — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
The Plagues of Breslau — NETFLIX FILM
El silencio del pantano — NETFLIX FILM
The Willoughbys — NETFLIX FILM
Win the Wilderness — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

April 23rd
The House of Flowers : Season 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

April 24th
After Life: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Extraction — NETFLIX FILM
Hello Ninja: Season 2 — NETFLIX FAMILY
Yours Sincerely, Kanan Gill — NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL

April 25th
The Artist (2011)
Django Unchained (2012)

April 26th
The Last Kingdom: Season 4 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

April 27th
Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Never Have I Ever — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

April 29th
Extracurricular — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
Nadiya’s Time to Eat — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
A Secret Love — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
Summertime — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

April 30th
Dangerous Lies — NETFLIX FILM
Drifting Dragons — NETFLIX ANIME
The Forest of Love: Deep Cut — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Rich in Love (Ricos de Amor) — NETFLIX FILM
The Victims’ Game — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

What’s Leaving?

Leaving 4/4/20
American Odyssey: Season 1

Leaving 4/8/20
Movie 43

Leaving 4/15/20
21 & Over

Leaving 4/16/20
Lost Girl: Season 1-5

Leaving 4/17/20
Big Fat Liar

Leaving 4/19/20
The Longest Yard

Leaving 4/24/20
The Ugly Truth

Leaving 4/29/20
National Treasure

Leaving 4/30/20
A Cinderella Story
A Little Princess
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Blade Runner: The Final Cut
The Craft
Crash
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Dirty Dozen
Dirty Harry
Driving Miss Daisy
Friday the 13th
Good Burger
GoodFellas
The Hangover
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
Police Academy
Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment
Police Academy 3: Back in Training
Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol
Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach
Police Academy 6: City Under Siege
Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow
Rosemary’s Baby
Rounders
Scream 2
Scream 3
The Shawshank Redemption
Space Jam
Spy Kids
Step Brothers
Strictly Ballroom
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
True Grit

Follow all of our monthly streaming guides.

Read More

30 Perfect Shots to Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of ‘TMNT’

Thirty years later, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles holds up. The film is an earnest, hopeful, action-adventure, centered by four brothers coming of age while battling Shredder and his nefarious Foot Clan (no, they’re not a club for funky pediatrists, but a straight rip-off/homage to Frank Miller’s Daredevil ninjas known as The Hand). The concept was born out of a laugh, but when the giggles faded, a titanic franchise stood, and while many movies and cartoons have followed in its gargantuan wake, none can compare to the 1990 original.

How can such a movie work so well? How did the proposal make it past the first door slam?

A couple of buddies were joking about a roadside turtle strong enough to kick a bus into a tailspin. The image tickled their fancy, and days later, one buddy mutated the turtle into a ninja via a pen and ink sketch. The other friend took a stab with his own design. The friends, Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman loved each others’ dumb jokes a little too much, taking these scribbles to heart and forcing them into a forty-page comic book with a print run of three thousand in 1984. The comic was an instant success; four years later, it was already selling for two-hundred dollars, and today you can find copies floating on eBay for nearly $80,000.

From the comic, came the cartoon, the toys, and the inevitable film. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles received mostly ridicule from the suits who guarded the money, but for those that saw the potential behind the funky title, a mountain of cash awaited. Gary Propper, who was the road manager for the comedian Gallagher, got his hands on the comic book and sensed the cinematic possibilities of the title. Propper took the idea to producer Kim Dawson, and he brought on Bobby Herbeck to concoct a story. Together, they approached Golden Harvest, the studio behind most of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan’s films.

What began as a six million dollar venture quickly escalated into a thirteen and a half million dollar risk. Director Steve Barron made his bones shooting music videos, and he’s responsible for several iconic early works of the medium, including A-ha’s “Take on Me” and Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” Previously, he shot the pilot episode for Jim Henson‘s The Storyteller, which encouraged the master puppeteer to lend his expertise toward the film’s crucial animatronic artistry despite his objections to the violent nature of the screenplay.

Barron needed a cinematographer who understood how to shoot foam rubber suits as if they were skin, so he hired his Storyteller DP John Fenner (who also went on to shoot The Muppet Christmas Carol and The Borrowers). Both Barron and Fenner were not interested in making a cartoon; they were looking to replicate the dark, black and white, outlaw feel from Eastman and Laird’s comics. As such, Barron also threw out the initial screenplay approved by Golden Harvest and hired Todd W. Langen to reintegrate as much of the book’s plot points as possible.

All movies are a team effort, but when you dig deeper down the line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you discover a bevy of notable creatives. While the majority of the film was shot on sets in North Carolina, production designer Roy Forge Smith (Jabberwock, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) and Art Director Gary Wissner (Wyatt Earp, Seven) busted their humps to bring New York City to the forefront, constructing massive sewer sets, warehouses, and rooftop battles on the Carolco backlot. Two years before she first partnered with Quentin Tarantino on Reservoir Dogs, editor Sally Menke cut her teeth on Turtles. Golden Harvest was ultimately unsatisfied with her work on the film and fired her, bringing on James R. Symons (Rambo III, Tank Girl) and William D. Grodean (The Cannonball Run, Beethoven) to finish.

When the film finally landed in theaters on March 30, 1990, audiences, already primed on the cartoons and action figures, went mad for the adaptation, shelling out $200 million by the end of its box office run. However, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is not some kiddie cash-in (the sequels can claim that crown). The film is made by artists who deeply respected the source material and worked tirelessly to bring you an authentic experience starring a quartet of immature, martial arts badasses with a penchant for pizza. Barron loved the weirdos splattered on Eastman and Laird’s pages, and he wanted you to love them too.

The work committed by The Jim Henson Company is simply stunning and puts the bulky CGI brutes of the most recent adaptation to horrendous shame. These turtles not only come alive through their suits, but the magic and philosophy fostered by Henson through his puppeteers, as well as the other actors who surround them. Give a big “Bravo” to Judith Hoag and Elias Koteas as Turtle sidekicks April O’Neil and Casey Jones.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a damn good time out at the movies, and it is also a gloriously attractive one. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, we’re bringing out a parade of One Perfect Shots as evidence to the film’s majesty. These frames are designed to highlight the artistry crafted by all departments, from the cinematography to the production design to Henson’s creature work to the momentous introduction of Sam Rockwell. Turn the page, but do so with a cheer of “Cowabunga!”

Read More

‘Deep Space Nine’ Dared to Go Where No ‘Star Trek’ Had Gone Before

This article is part of our One Perfect Binge bracket project. Follow along with here for updates, and on Twitter, keep tabs via #OnePerfectBinge.

---

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was a series ahead of its time. Instead of retreading the then-familiar format of a top of the line spaceship exploring the stars, it offers another angle on the utopian galaxy that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had envisioned. Created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, the third series in the television franchise abandons the nomadic format of the previous incarnations, focusing instead on a space station located near the war-torn and recently liberated Bajor.

That’s not to say they entirely abandoned the Star Trek creed to find “new life and new civilizations, boldly going where no man had gone before.” In the pilot episode of Deep Space Nine, a wormhole to the other side of the galaxy is discovered, turning the titular station from a dreary dead-end assignment to a bustling hub of trade and exploration.

Deep Space Nine is officially the longest series on the One Perfect Binge Bracket. It ran for a full seven seasons, making a total of 176 episodes. This kind of serialization caused the show to suffer at the time (when most people watched television live) but is optimized for a voracious binge. It gives watchers a lot to dig their teeth into, with rich story arcs and complex, well-developed characters.

Take Benjamin Sisko, the commanding officer: As cliche as it may be to argue over who is the best Star Trek captain, each commanding officer sets the underlying tone for their series. Kirk is a raucous cowboy. Picard is a philosopher. Janeway is a survivor. Deep Space Nine is headed by Commander Sisko (Avery Brooks). Not only was he the first person of color to serve as a commanding officer on Star Trek, but he was also a widower and a single father who begins his journey disenfranchised with Starfleet and considering resigning his commission.

Brooks’ multifaceted performance as Sisko is raw and intense. He shifts expertly from a gentle, sensitive father cooking homemade jambalaya to a stern war leader willing to conspire with spies. He blackmails barkeeps, plays baseball on the holodeck, and punches Q right in the face. Throughout the run of the show, he is put through the wringer as he becomes an unwilling religious icon for the Bajoran people and finds himself commanding the front line of an intergalactic war.

He is joined by a diverse ensemble crew including old soul Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), former Bajoran freedom-fighter Major Kira (Nana Visitor), shapeshifting Chief of Security Odo (René Auberjonois), wet behind the ears Doctor Bashir (Alexander Siddig), and Star Trek: The Next Generation veterans Chief O’Brien (Colm Meaney) and Worf (Michael Dorn). Beyond the bridge crew, the station becomes home to a rich blend of civilian, military, religious, and political figures. More than just a crew, it’s a multicultural community that you’ll want to immerse yourself in and never leave. The show takes advantage of its huge cast and equally huge airtime, giving each character a rich backstory and room for growth.

The stationary setting ties together the Star Trek universe in an unprecedented way, preferring complex and series-long narrative arcs over the monster-of-the-week format that The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Voyager favored. Going beyond two-parter episodes, it features multi-episode arcs like the six-part run that opens the sixth season. This long-form storytelling is more reminiscent of modern television shows than its contemporaries, and the show is better for it.

Deep Space Nine follows one primary conflict throughout the series: the Dominion War saga. This conflict puts the station at a strategic position on the front lines of an all-out war, digging into ugly issues like shifting borders and alliances, the line between freedom fighters and terrorism, living with PTSD, and the dangers of over-reaching security. Many of these themes are more relevant to a modern audience than they were when the series first aired in the mid-1990s.

Deep Space Nine also takes the time to develop species and concepts introduced in earlier series, establishing a deeper geopolitical context for all of the Star Trek that has come since. This blend of moral ambiguity and mysticism paved the way for darker and more complex science fiction to come, like the 2004 Battlestar Galactica remake as well as current incarnations of the Star Trek franchise.

Throughout their compromises and sacrifices, the crew members of Deep Space Nine find themselves in situations where they have lost not only their peace and freedom but also their moral conviction. Through that darkness, light always shines through. Despite deconstructing Roddenberry’s utopia, Deep Space Nine does not do so out of malice, and it never abandons his dream of a better future. Sisko and crew start out as reluctant strangers who learn to trust and support each other as they fight for their lives, and for the survival of their ideals. By the end of this binge, you aren’t going to want to leave Deep Space Nine any more than they would.

Read More

Watch: Ben Berman's Short Film 'The Follow-Up' Made in Quarantine

"Keep your head up, keep your heart open." Humans crave connection. We need to talk, and hear from each other, converse, and interact. How do you do that if you're a filmmaker with no friends, stuck at home? Let's ask Benjamin Berman: "I made a new film! The first film made completely in quarantine??? Possibly. Get yourself a little human connection and check out The Follow-Up." Berman made a doc film that premiered last year called The Amazing Johnathan Documentary, and this is kind of / sort of his follow-up. As much as this might seem to be a film about connection during quarantine, beneath the surface it seems to be about how we're so desperate to connect we will pay excessive amounts of money to have washed up celebs record videos to make us feel better. Which really does make this a good follow-up to his doc. Check this out below.

Thanks to Anaïs at Raconteur for the tip on this. Brief description from Vimeo: "Lonely. Scared. Insecure. But how's it going with you? Is this the first film to be made completely in quarantine? Possibly." The Follow-Up is a short film made by filmmaker Ben Berman (aka Benjamin Berman) who made his feature directorial debut last year with the film The Amazing Johnathan Documentary. So what exactly is this? "In the midst of the pandemic, The Follow-Up explores what a filmmaker with a need to tell stories does when they suddenly find themselves on lockdown and all of the production industry on pause indefinitely? In Berman's case, they start to explore the world of Cameo as a tool for human connection." This was made entirely by Ben at home. For updates, follow him at @LipsBerman or on Vimeo. For more shorts, click here.

Read More

Get Lost in Time With ‘Quantum Leap’

This article is part of our One Perfect Binge bracket project. Follow along with here for updates and on Twitter, keep tabs with #OnePerfectBinge.

---

Quantum Leap is the best and most binge-worthy television series of all time, and here’s why — it delivers the perfect blend of the familiar and the fresh with each and every episode. Narrative shows almost exclusively feature the same cast in the same place going through relatively similar stories — cops are going after bad guys, doctors are saving lives, etc — while anthology shows typically maintain a general tone through new stories and characters. Quantum Leap marries the two formats into one meaning the show can shift from comedy to drama to suspense to genre thrills from one episode to the next, all while maintaining a warm and engaging story line carried through its two lead characters and entirely new supporting players.

If you’re not yet familiar with the basic premise of Quantum Leap, prepare to be teased into wanting to watch the show immediately. Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) is a physicist working on the development of time travel. He believes it should be possible to travel back and forth within one’s own timeline, and with outside pressure mounting, he decides to step into his quantum accelerator for a human trial. It works, and he’s immediately thrust into the past — and into the body of someone else. His own memory is sometimes “Swiss-cheesed” by the process forcing him to quickly get brought up to speed by a hologram only he can see and hear of his friend and lab partner Admiral Al Calavicci (Dean Stockwell). The bigger challenge, though, is figuring out whose body he’s occupying… and why.

The crux of the show comes down to this, as spoken in the opening narration each episode: “And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.” Sam and Al quickly reach the conclusion that he’s there to fix a moment in someone’s life, and once that’s complete he automatically leaps out again. The hope is he’ll return home, but something other than their lab computer is controlling the journey meaning each successful mission sends him into someone else’s body in some other time and place. Creator Donald P. Bellisario struck gold with this pseudo anthology format after delivering more traditional narratives with the likes of Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982-1983), Airwolf (1984-1986), and Magnum, P.I. (1980-1988) — and yes, it is one of life’s great missed opportunities that we never got a crossover episode with Sam leaping into Thomas Magnum.

These “missions” can be as small and simple as helping a bent boxer go straight or ensuring that a local rock ‘n roll radio station stays on the air, or it can be far more serious as he deals with race relations, spousal abuse, murder, and more. It shares some DNA with The Incredible Hulk (1977-1982) in this way as Sam helps people, moves on, and hopes to ultimately help himself. Most of the stories and characters are fictional, but the series does a great job touching on historical events and real-life people too, sometimes in surprising and creative ways. It’s easy enough for those inclined to discount and dismiss the series as merely sci-fi fun, but when its storylines focus on humanity’s darker truths and this country’s shameful history it’s never sugarcoated. Sam doesn’t always succeed in changing things as sometimes what he wants to fix isn’t the reason he’s there, and it’s that reality that’s returned to more than once as he tries to affect his own family’s past.

While the majority of the episodes are stand-alones, two recurring themes run throughout — first, the lab back in Sam’s present is working to bring him home, and second, Sam himself is hoping to change his own family’s history. That latter thread finds real heart and heartbreak in season three’s two-part premiere in which Sam leaps into his own teenage self and scrambles to stop his sister from eventually marrying an abuser, his father who he knows will die of a heart attack years later, and his older brother who’s heading off to Vietnam where he’s killed. None of these are the reason he’s even there, and Sam is forced into some tough calls. Similarly, the friendship between he and Al is shown to have emotional roots well beyond the entertaining banter they share during missions, and all of it works to deliver a show that hits all the right notes from one week to the next.

Quantum Leap has the benefit of telling an ongoing story across multiple seasons while also delivering a fresh adventure each episode. Where many shows continue a vibe with the same story beats by design, this one drops its lead character into a wholly new person each episode with stories that range from the comedic to the dramatic to the suspenseful to the historical to the casual to the intense to the time he jumped into Lee Harvey Oswald to the time he influenced Stephen King to the introduction of an Evil Leaper to the chance to save his own brother’s life to the tragic love story that is his wife waiting at home in the future for a husband who might never return. It’s just the best.

Read More

Watch ‘Tiger King,’ Then Watch These Movies

This edition of Movies to Watch After… recognizes the direct and indirect cinematic roots of Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness as we recommend fans go back and learn some film history, become more well-rounded viewers, and enjoy likeminded works of the past, even if it’s the fairly recent past. As always, I try to point you in the easiest direction of where to find each of these highlighted titles.

---

Okay, you’ve had your fun. Looking for the perfect weekend binge, you tuned into Netflix’s Tiger King anticipating a docuseries about animal cruelty and captivity and you got a menagerie of wild humans on parade. Or maybe it was vice versa, though the limited series does not offer much in the way of the actual issues. What begins as a debate in the form of a rivalry about the ethical treatment of big cats and other animals becomes more of an unbelievable true-crime story without a lot of substance.

So, leave it to me, your resident add-on specialist and documentary enthusiast, to fill in the gaps with some essential films dealing with domesticated wild animals, private roadside zoos, preservation and conservation, and animal rights in general. Below, I also recommend some films about similarly eccentric human characters who are more or less respectively portrayed as relates to those in this seven-part chronicle of the war between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin.

Tigerland (2019)

While Tiger King spotlights Americans battling over the right way to preserve species in some form of captivity, there are others in Asia fighting to keep tigers alive in the wild through conservation efforts. Tigerland follows subjects in Russia and India today but also looks back on the important work of the famous naturalist and tiger protector Kailash Sankhala. The characters have different approaches in their shared mission, which entails dangerous situations made evident by the film.

Tigerland was made by Ross Kauffman, who won an Oscar for co-directing Born Into Brothels, and again he’s particularly focused on human subjects. This isn’t exactly a nature film, though the tigers themselves do get their time to shine with scenes of the big cats out in the wild. They serve as a reminder of what is at stake and why the men in the film, including Sankhala’s grandson, Amit, are so passionate about keeping them in existence and properly in their environment.

Stream Tigerland free on Discovery GO

---

Trophy (2017)

Anyone watching Tiger King firstly for the animal rights aspect won’t be eager to watch Trophy, which is about big game hunters. But it’s also about animal conservation and how the money from regulated game reserve hunting in Africa goes toward protecting the animals overall. There’s also an activist in the film who cuts off rhino’s horns so that poachers can’t get them and profit from the ivory instead. The film presents a difficult question: is it okay to kill a few animals to save the greater number?

The rivalry at the center of Tiger King involves a similar yet less deadly (or less intently so) conundrum. The argument had between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin concerns the exploitation of animals and how charging for the viewing, petting, and/or posing with the animals pays for the greater conservation of species done by roadside zoos and other private owners. Even Baskin, whose organization is supposed to be more of a rescue operation needs to exploit its big cats to a degree.

Stream Trophy on Netflix

---

Unlocking the Cage (2016)

This final feature by documentary legend D.A. Pennebaker is another collaboration with wife and longtime co-director Chris Hegedus (The War Room) and deals with the concept of personhood status for non-humans. The main focus of Unlocking the Cage is on a lawyer and activist, Steven M. Wise, who specializes in animal protection and rights, and the Nonhuman Rights Project, which aims to legally declare self-aware animals (apes, elephants, cetaceans) as persons rather than property.

At the center of Unlocking the Cage is a lawsuit for a chimpanzee, and the documentary primarily concerns primates who’ve resided in roadside zoos and in people’s homes who’ve either been directly abused or at least have been poorly treated and cared for. Tiger King may mostly feature big cats, which are not considered among the autonomous species fought for by the NhRP, but the series also shows many apes in captivity, including those displayed like human children for amusement.

Stream Unlocking the Cage via HBO

---

Blackfish (2013)

One of the most significant “issue films” of any kind as far as enacting great change in the world, Blackfish famously caused a huge decline in attendance of SeaWorld parks, which led to the company doing away with orca shows and breeding. The documentary also influenced a change to the ending of Pixar’s Finding Dory, which got a lot of attention, but the impact on both the awareness and the reality of orca captivity and the psychological problems with those animals specifically is its legacy.

Blackfish is not a perfect expose of an animal rights issue, though, at least for some activists as well as some documentary critics, because it’s still a very sensational film intended in appealing to a movie audience. Marketed somewhat like a horror release, Blackfish focuses on one particular “killer whale,” Tilikum, and the human deaths he caused while attempting to get tot he root of what led this serial killer to commit the murders. It’s not quite so narrativized as that, but thematically it plays as such.

Stream Blackfish on Hulu

---

Project Nim (2011)

Directed by James Marsh, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind Man on Wire, this near-equally perfect documentary follows the sad life story of Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was both a part of a university project and sort of a member of a family back in the 1970s. He was subject of a study in language and taught ASL (and was partly the inspiration for the Virgil character in the 1987 drama Project X) until he was no longer of use to scientists or as a pet and had to be sent to a sanctuary.

Obviously, only the humans involved in the story can be the storytellers — and not just because Nim died a decade before the doc was made — and some of them are set up for scrutiny like the many characters of Tiger King, but ultimately this is a tragic biography of a chimp. As depicted like a person who is the victim of being abused physically and psychologically as a possession, Nim comes off as compared to a foster child, albeit one without the same recognized rights.

Rent or buy Project Nim from Amazon

---

Tabloid (2010)

While many of the characters in Tiger King are likely happy for any kind of fame that the docuseries brings them, Carole Baskin is probably the one figure who probably expected to come out looking better than she does. At the start, she’s portrayed as not necessarily the hero of the story but maybe the “good guy” in the animal rights debate, at least as far as many activists and advocates for animals are concerned. In the end, though, she’s lumped in with the whole bunch of kooky characters.

The makers of Tiger King may not mean to encourage viewers to laugh at Baskin or anyone else in the series, but that’s still inevitable given its tone. Documentary characters shouldn’t be set up for such mockery, and that’s an issue that came up notably with the release of Errol Morris’ Tabloid, whose main subject in this story of kidnapping and sexual assault, Joyce McKinney, made a big stink (and filed a lawsuit) regarding her being made out to be a clown.

Whether she loved the attention, either way, is up for discussion. The same goes for Baskin, who loves to roll her eyes and otherwise go broad in her expression of innocence on camera. The fact that Baskin somewhat resembles McKinney and also is the subject of a scandal involving a romantic partner and also probably thought she was getting to defend herself properly makes Tabloid a nice pairing with Tiger King even if it has nothing to do with big cats or other wild non-human animals.

Stream Tabloid via Showtime

---

Crazy Love (2007) and The Cove (2009)

As far as Joyce McKinney believes, her story is more of a crazy romance than true crime, and she wouldn’t be the first to have a complex affair involving illicit elements, nor is she the first to have it all laid out in a documentary. Just look at Crazy Love, a feature co-directed by Tiger King executive producer Fisher Stevens (with Dan Klores). The film chronicles the lives of Burt and Linda Pugah, who got married after his 14-year prison sentence for paying to have her physically scarred and blinded by lye. Aside from the fact that Linda had been Burt’s ex-girlfriend at the time, it’s like if Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin wound up in love.

Stevens also produced The Cove, for which he won an Oscar, and maybe had more of a hand in the shaping of the documentary than director Louie Psihoyos. It documents the mass seasonal killing of dolphins, for their meat, in a specific Japanese cove and the activists trying to stop it. While Crazy Love relates to the human component of Tiger King, the animal rights stuff fits with The Cove, which like Blackfish was a huge success of nonfiction filmmaking and in the awareness of issues pertaining to endangered cetaceans — also see last year’s Sea of Shadows, which concentrates on the very nearly extinct vaquita. Also check out Psihoyos’ follow-up, Racing Extinction, which was also produced by Fisher and features Tiger King co-director Eric Goode for his role as the founder of his own conservation organization, Turtle Conservancy.

Stream Crazy Love on Magnolia Selects
Stream The Cove via Starz

---

American Movie (1999)

The other notable executive producer attached to Tiger King is Chris Smith, who between the docuseries and last year’s Fyre, seems to have the Midas Touch with phenomenally popular Netflix releases. His most notable work, though, remains this documentary feature that became an instant cult classic. It’s about best friends Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank as they attempt to make an independent horror movie in Wisconsin in the mid-1990s.

American Movie is a product of its time — when eccentric people were a hot commodity for documentaries that mine their subjects for equal parts comedy and empathy. And in the tradition going back to such classics as Grey Gardens and the early work of Errol Morris, Smith’s film has been labeled as both exploitative and affectionate, the latter typically making up for the former in the best of these kinds of films. Tiger King, meanwhile, lacks the affection to balance out the mockery of its characters.

Buy Amerian Movie on DVD from Amazon

---

Roar (1981)

Usually, these lists consist mainly of narrative films along with one obligatory documentary. This edition pulls a switch by recommending mostly documentaries joined by this single narrative feature. Of course, the true story of Roar behind the scenes is what makes the movie so interesting. Its production involved a Hollywood family and their own imported big cats, which caused many very serious injuries on set, leading to the reputation of being “the most dangerous movie ever made.”

Directed by Noel Marshall and starring himself, his wife Tippi Hedren, step-daughter Melanie Griffith, and sons John and Jerry Marshall, Roar is considered as something of a home movie but does follow a plot in which a family and other characters are attacked by lions and tigers who on a Tanzanian nature reserve, which also is home to the family’s patriarch, who studies big cats by trade. If Joe Exotic had ever made a movie at his animal park, it might have been something like this crazy cult film. Watch the making-of documentary Roar: The Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made afterward.

Buy Roar from FandangoNOW
Rent or buy Roar: The Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made on Amazon

---

Bring ‘Em Back Alive (1932)

Or maybe Joe Exotic would have wished to have a movie career like Frank Buck, the hunter and exotic animal collector who found enormous fame as an author and star of nonfiction and fiction films. Before becoming a celebrity, he was the first full-time director of the San Diego Zoo, but his ideas about the care of the animals clashed heavily with the board. Everyone is discussing the possibility of a Joe Exotic movie, despite Tiger King being sufficient. Well, Buck’s life would also make a good movie.

Bring ‘Em Back Alive was Buck’s first movie. Based on his own first bestselling book and a related NBC radio series, the documentary presents a number of relatively staged scenes involving snakes, tigers, panthers, crocodiles, and a baby elephant filmed during a trip to the Malayan jungle (and/or maybe a confined compound in Singapore). Mostly fights between animals, with the climax being a python versus a tiger. The film was a huge success for RKO and led to more docs and then fiction films starring Buck. In 1982, Buck was fictionally portrayed by Bruce Boxleitner in a short-lived adventure series on CBS of the same name based on his experiences and set in Malaya in the 1930s.

Buck is said to have been inspired by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper, best known for King Kong but also successful with earlier ethnographic and wildlife adventure documentaries Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life (1925) and Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927), and the latter is another good example of Tiger King‘s antecedents. Even earlier, though, there was a short documentary in 1910 called Hagenbeck’s Menagerie, which spotlights another prominent figure in the histories of exotic animal trade and zoos, including being a pioneer of the awful idea of human zoos.

Buy the DVD of Bring ‘Em Back Alive from Amazon

Read More