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      ‘The Tunnel’ Review: Fire in the Hole

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      Painfully cliché but sufficiently diverting, this is the latest in a string of disaster movies from Norway.Filled with breathtaking fjords and steep, snow-capped mountains, Norway relies on hundreds of tunnels to connect its hinterland communities to the rest of the country. Essential as they are, these tunnels — per “The Tunnel’s” foreboding opening titles — are also sites of potential devastation. A collision within these cavernous pathways could trigger a domino effect of raging fires, chaos and survivalist panic as blinding black smoke threatens to asphyxiate those struggling to find a way out.Surprise, surprise. This is precisely what happens in the director Pal Oie’s formulaic, but sufficiently diverting thriller, the unofficial third in a string of popular disaster movies from Norway with self-explanatory titles (i.e. “The Wave” and its sequel, “The Quake”).The crisis unfolds via multiple perspectives — a family of four trapped inside the tunnel; an obnoxious businessman who, by chance, avoids the accident; a traffic controller remotely guiding rescue efforts. The bulk of the film, however, follows a burly firefighter, Stein (Thorbjorn Harr), whose feisty teenage daughter, Elise (Ylva Fuglerud), finds herself in peril after defiantly hopping on an Oslo-bound charter bus for the holidays. Stein and his crew of rescuers are out of their depth against the miles-long hellhole. Nevertheless, news of Elise’s whereabouts sends her intrepid father to the rescue.The human dimension is painfully cliché, and Oie’s clunky orchestration of intersecting individual stories flattens the film’s overall momentum. It does, however, manage to eke out moments of genuine suspense and harrowing claustrophobia with its straightforward premise and contained, small-scale action. “The Tunnel” isn’t a bad time, but it’s also not terribly memorable — a shame given the familiar jitters of driving down those long, dark passages.The TunnelNot rated. In Norwegian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters and on Apple TV, FandangoNow and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More

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      ‘The Power’ Review: Night Terrors During a London Blackout

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      The writer and director Corinna Faith doesn’t wait for the lights to dim to unleash a creaky, eerie atmosphere.In 1970s Britain, as the government and trade unions were warring, blackouts were regularly ordered to conserve power. During one of these pitch-black nights, a timid young woman named Val (Rose Williams) finds herself working the dark shift on her first day of duty as a trainee nurse at a run-down London hospital. The writer and director Corinna Faith doesn’t wait for the lights to dim to unleash the uneasiness in “The Power.” The creaky, eerie atmosphere is felt even in daylight as Val starts to hear children’s indecipherable whispers. “A place people die in should never be allowed to get that dark,” one nurse says, anxiously building up the frights to come, which work to a mixed degree.When the lights do go off, the terrors ramp up with bent finger joints, bodily fluids and a heart-pounding synth score when a disturbed spirit latches onto Val. Faith displays a familiarity with the language of horror with these spectacles and shots of ghostly reflections that effectively play with the notion of a spectral possession. She also nicely complements supernatural tensions with hostile human ones as Val clashes with other employees, namely the hospital matron and an old friend who also works as a nurse. But Val remains so wide-eyed and naïve for so long that you spend most of the runtime wondering when she might grow a backbone.By the final act, “The Power” reveals a double meaning with its title, with Faith introducing a feminist-bent social commentary — it refers not just to electrical power but the manipulative kind. Unfortunately, that message and the previous happenings feel so disjointed that the film stumbles in delivering a cohesive vision.The PowerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. Watch on Shudder. More

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      ‘Slalom’ Review: First, Abuse, Then a Steep Downhill

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      This French drama from Charlène Favier presents a sensitive and discomforting view of sexual abuse within alpine sports.In competitive skiing, athletes balance the rewards of downhill glory against the dangers of a fall. The sensitive, discomforting drama “Slalom” follows Lyz (Noée Abita), a 15-year-old recruit to a ski facility in the French Alps. There, young skiers are molded into champions by an ambitious trainer, Fred (Jérémie Renier).From their first meeting, the relationship between Lyz and Fred is physical. Fred asks Lyz to undress so he can monitor her weight, her musculature, her menstrual cycle, her fitness. Lyz blossoms under his attention. Her skiing improves, and she begins to win tournaments.But when Fred oversteps his role as a mentor to initiate a sexual relationship with Lyz, the intensity of their dynamic has dire consequences for her sense of well-being. The relationship is not technically criminal, and the choice to make Lyz the recently proposed age of consent in France seems deliberate. But the affair is unmistakably predatory, built on power dynamics that rob Lyz of her agency.The writer and director, Charlène Favier, had previous experience as a competitive skier, and she is attentive to the textures of mountainside sports and how abuse plays out in this setting.Fred smears ice on the back of Lyz’s neck before a heat, and he picks her up to carry her to the winner’s podium — succinct and specific signs of blurred boundaries.For the races, Favier’s camera doesn’t survey from a distance; in this film, there is none of the safety of Olympic sports footage. Instead, the camera weaves between the poles alongside Lyz, ripping down the mountain, mimicking her giddy, frightening abandon.SlalomNot rated. In French, with subtitles. In select theaters and on virtual cinemas. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More

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      ‘Voyagers’ Review: In Space, Everyone Can Hear You Scream

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      Emotional anarchy derails a space mission in this insipid sci-fi drama.Essentially a zero-gravity “Lord of the Flies,” Neil Burger’s “Voyagers” nevertheless plays like a CW sci-fi pilot for those who find “The 100” too unsanitary. Set aboard a sterile spaceship hurtling toward a distant planet — though any claustrophobic, closed-off environment would have served just as well — this dull dig into human nature owes more to the aesthetics of Calvin Klein than the terrors of outer space.The year is 2063, Earth is heating up, and a couple of dozen children have been trained to colonize a new world. Bred for intelligence and compliance, these docile pioneers, watched over by a sad-eyed surrogate father named Richard (Colin Farrell), begin an 86-year journey. Almost all will be dead before they reach their destination, so they have been designed to reproduce at timed intervals. Considering they’ve all grown into lissome, blandly attractive young adults, this should not be a problem.We soon learn, though, that the crew’s universally robotic affect is not simply a deficit in the cast’s acting ability, but the result of a sedative designed to suppress emotion. Figuring this out, Christopher (Tye Sheridan, all pout and pique) and his friend Zac (Fionn Whitehead, in the film’s only vivid performance), stop taking the substance and discover that they’re both hot for the same woman (Lily-Rose Depp). In short order, the noncompliance spreads and the situation on board devolves predictably into an orgy of dancing, wrestling, copulating and running down long corridors. Worse is to follow.A movie of cold light and hard surfaces, “Voyagers” owes its antiseptic glamour to the cinematographer Enrique Chediak, whose talents far outclass Burger’s underdeveloped script. Mysteries abound, including why Richard (who has been sidelined by an incident I won’t spoil) chose to accompany the voyagers, and why he wears a permanently pained expression.“I wouldn’t miss a thing,” he tells superiors before he leaves Earth, hinting at a tragic past that’s never explained. Neither is the alien that might be messing around outside the ship — or, as the increasingly maniacal Zac suggests, inside one or more of the crew.In replicating a society torn apart by lies and fear and gaslighting, “Voyagers” might feel, for some, a bit too close to home for comfort. And as the chaos and violence escalated and rival factions formed, I amused myself by pondering who might be running the ship. I concluded it was the alien.VoyagersRated PG-13 for picturesque coupling and ugly behavior. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More

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      ‘Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a Moustache’ Review: Beyond Belief

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      In this drama from Khyentse Norbu, a Kathmandu entrepreneur searches for spiritual enlightenment after receiving unnerving visions.In Khyentse Norbu’s “Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a Moustache,” a Nepalese entrepreneur searches for spiritual enlightenment, hoping to avert a fatal prophecy. Looking to set up a new cafe, Tenzin (Tsering Tashi Gyalthang) sees unnerving visions after scouting an abandoned temple. With mounting fear, he follows the gnomic suggestions of a Buddhist monk in shades and a master sage, who insists that he find a goddess manifest on earth, known as a dakini.The writer-director Norbu, a Buddhist spiritual leader making his fifth feature, presents Tenzin as a hip modern guy in bluejeans with a wide smile that vanishes as soon as he has to seek self-awareness. The cozy streets of Kathmandu become like a place without a map to Tenzin as he scans passing strangers for signs of divine femininity and leaves his business partners in the lurch. There’s a slight narrative echo of romantic comedy as the monk and the master sage feed him tips and ritual gestures, and it appears the woman he seeks could be right under his nose, in the form of a singer (Tenzin Kunsel) from his music lessons.Mark Lee Ping Bing, Wong Kar-wai’s magic-making cinematographer, shoots phantasmic riverbanks and saturated vistas of the countryside. As I scanned the sights and people along with Tenzin, I began to worry that I was missing something too, wondering if I was reading the signs wrong, or dwelling on the lead’s desultory acting. Still, at least for the uninitiated, the drift of the filmmaking seemed to fall short of the transcendence envisioned by its story.Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a MoustacheNot rated. In Tibetan and Nepali, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas. More

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      Angelina Jolie Trapped Between Fire and Assassins in First 'Those Who Wish Me Dead' Trailer

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      [embedded content]

      The ‘Maleficent: Mistress of Evil’ star plays a firefighter assigned to a fire tower where she encounters a young boy in danger and is determined to protect him at all costs.

      Apr 8, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Warner Bros. Pictures has released the first official trailer of “Those Who Wish Me Dead”, a neo-Western survival action thriller starring Angelina Jolie. The Oscar-winning actress portrays Hannah, a smoke jumper who is still reeling from the loss of three lives she failed to save from a fire when she comes across a traumatized 12-year-old boy with nowhere else to turn.

      The young boy, Connor Casserly, who is portrayed by Finn Little, witnesses the murder of his father near a large national forest. Pursued by assassins intent on silencing him, he soon meets the veteran fire warden and wilderness survival expert, Hannah, who offers him shelter in her lookout tower.

      When the assassins set fire to the forest in order to cover their tracks, the pair must both survive a deadly blaze that threatens to consume them and outwit the killers on their trail.

      “Those Who Wish Me Dead” is directed by Taylor Sheridan, the writer of “Sicario” and co-creator of “Yellowstone”, with the screenplay written by Michael Koryta and Charles Leavitt and Sheridan, based on the book of the same name by Koryta.

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      Described as “a female-driven neo-western set against a wildfire in the Montana wilderness,” the film also stars Nicholas Hoult as Patrick Blackwell, a trained assassin, Aidan Gillen as Patrick’s father Jack Blackwell, who is also a ruthless assassin, Jon Bernthal as a sheriff in Montana, and Tyler Perry in an undisclosed role.

      “She carries a lot of guilt, and is quite broken,” Jolie told PEOPLE of her character. “She’s a smoke jumper, and a bit of an adrenaline junkie, but she’s also somebody that has experienced tragedy, and she feels responsible for it.”

      She went on elaborating what the film is about, “On its surface, the story feels like a thriller, with a lot of really interesting characters and a great adventure across unusual terrain, inside a great fire. But, underneath, it’s an emotional film about people who are thrown together to survive.”

      “Those Who Wish Me Dead” is set to arrive in theaters and on HBO Max on May 14.

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      Snoop Dogg Added to Star-Studded Voice Cast of 'Pierre the Pigeon-Hawk'

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      WENN

      The ‘Doggstyle’ rapper has become the latest addition to the star-studded voice cast ensemble of the upcoming animated kiddie-friendly movie directed by John D. Eraklis.

      Apr 8, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Snoop Dogg has joined the voice cast of animated film “Pierre the Pigeon-Hawk”.

      The rapper has been cast alongside Jennifer Hudson and will.i.am in the upcoming animated film.

      The John D. Eraklis-directed film is set in New York City and tells the story of Pierre, who was born out of a relationship between a hawk and a pigeon.

      In a bid to find himself, Pierre – who is played by Will – sets out on a journey and makes a host of new friends en route.

      His new pals include an Owl played by Jennifer and a pair of city squirrels called Scratch and Sniff, played by Snoop and comedy star Keenan Thompson.

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      The upcoming movie actually features a host of big-name stars, including the likes of Jennifer Coolidge, Luis Guzman, Evan Ross, and Ashlee Simpson.

      The musically-driven project is being produced by Ciaran Crampton and Chase Muratore.

      Meanwhile, Snoop previously claimed that his self-belief and hard work have been the secrets to his success.

      The chart-topping star – who is one of the best known musicians in the world today – thanked himself after receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2018.

      “I want to thank me for believing in me,” he said at the time. “I want to thank me for doing all this hard work. I want to thank me for having no days off. I want to thank me for never quitting. I want to thank me for always being a giver, and trying to give more than I receive. I want to thank me for trying to do more right than wrong.”

      “I want to thank me for just being me at all times.”

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      Sylvester Stallone Won't Return for 'Creed 3'

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      Warner Bros. Pictures

      The original ‘Rocky’ actor will not reprise his role for the upcoming third installment which will become the directorial debut for the Creed depicter Michael B. Jordan.

      Apr 8, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Sylvester Stallone will not appear in the third “Creed” movie.

      The 74-year-old actor created the character of Rocky Balboa in the 1970s and previously played a starring role in the first two “Creed” films – but a spokesperson for the actor told The Hollywood Reporter he’ll be absent from the upcoming movie – although no additional explanation was offered.

      Stallone first appeared as the underdog fighter in 1976’s “Rocky” and subsequently established the character as one of the most iconic in recent cinema history.

      He reprised the role for the “Creed” franchise as Rocky became a mentor to Michael B. Jordan’s character, Adonis ‘Donnie’ Creed.

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      In fact, his performance in the first “Creed” movie led to an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, as both of the “Creed” movies proved to be critical and commercial successes.

      Jordan is confirmed to take double duty for the upcoming third installment. The film, which is scheduled to hit cinema screens at the end of 2022, will be his directorial debut.

      “Directing has always been an aspiration, but the timing had to be right,” he said. “Creed III is that moment – a time in my life where I’ve grown more sure of who I am, holding agency in my own story, maturing personally, growing professionally, and learning from the Greats like Ryan Coogler, most recently Denzel Washington, and other top tier directors I respect. All of which sets the table for this moment.”

      This franchise and in particular the themes of Creed III are deeply personal to me. I look forward to sharing the next chapter of Adonis Creed’s story with the awesome responsibility of being its director and namesake.”

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      Allison Janney Doesn’t Want to Have Kids and Then Regrets It

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