Interview: Chad Taylor

For this latest edition of Interview, Last Resort Films president Phil Dolan interviews acclaimed screenwriter Chad Taylor (Booster Gold II: The Booster Gold Story, The Squared Circle) about his upcoming films and the recent success of the the second Booster Gold film.

PD: After briefly losing the top box office position to Splinter Cell: Double Agent, the sequel to Booster Gold claimed the spot. What does it mean to you that audiences love the character so much?

CT: It makes me smile, honestly, because I think the people see what I saw in this character. He has always been one of my favorites because he is there to be laughed at but comes off a bit endearing, especially in his bond with Beetle. I've brought up Deadpool and Star-Lord in the past and I think the shared success of these three characters says something. But I've always preferred to put him more in the mold of Star-Lord than relying too heavily on meta jokes and gross-out humor. And like Pratt in his role, I don't think any of this success could be possible without the performance of Billy Magnussen.

PD: You're making your debut as a director with the upcoming Somewhere, Somehow. What made you want to take the jump from writer to director?

CT: Having been on many sets now, I've always been fascinated by the role of director and I always prioritize building a good rapport with the ones on my films. More than fifteen films later, I have grown a hunger for trying my own hand at that craft. I always knew that if I directed something, it would be a smaller scale production because I don't want to bite off more than I could chew with something like a huge blockbuster. Looking back now, Somewhere, Somehow feels like the only film that could've been my debut. As I was writing the script, I immediately felt an urge to pour some personal observations into it and as this kept happening, I knew that this was the film that needed me behind the camera. Directing was very stressful and I'm still a writer at heart so I have no plans to direct again just yet unless the right project comes around.

PD: Another film you have coming out this season is a western. Why do you think that genre still captures the imagination of writers?

CT: It's really quite interesting that writers and directors continue to revisit the western, decades after it had been declared dead. I'm sure part of it is that we all love film and it's really hard to love film without having crossed paths with at least a few westerns. I personally have an affinity for revisionist westerns of the 70s like Little Big Man and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and I wanted to do something like that with mine. I was particularly intrigued by the Chinese laborers of the California Gold Rush and wanted to write a film centered on someone from that background. Not only does the western usually limit its characters to White/Hispanic/Native American, but we also rarely see immigrants to the west coast during this period (as opposed to the Europeans hitting America's East Coast). And I have a feeling that that sensation of mine - being interested in a very peculiar aspect of the old west - is similar in other writers, just for many different things. On film, The West provides such a compelling landscape that brings familiar tropes and characters with it and so it is exciting to find new ways to bend something so tried and true into your own. The western may not be as popular as it was in its heyday but I think the blank canvas it provides will lure in writers for generations to come.

PD: Are there any upcoming releases from the studio you're especially excited for?

CT:Yes! This may be a bit biased due to my closeness to LRF's DC Universe but I'm pumped to see what APJ has in store for Green Arrow and company. I thought the first film was just a lot of fun and I love the pairing of Armie and Vanessa. Extending upon that, I'm intrigued by the long-gestated Huntress film to finally see the light of day. And I'm keeping a close eye on Blue Heat, as well. It's amazing that it has taken this long to get Will Smith in front of LRF cameras. Plus I am a fan of both Taron Egerton and John Boyega and am eager to secure them roles in future films of my own.

In Development

Decrescendo: Rounding out the cast of Jean-Marc Vallee's French-Canadian music biopic will be Ben Kingsley (Steins Gate, Operation Finale), Jean Reno (The Last Face, The Promise) and filmmaker Xavier Dolan (Boy Erased, Martyrs). Kinglsey will play a doctor, Reno will play a songwriter, and Dolan will play the owner of a gay night club. Ann Morrow wrote the script based on the life of singer Alys Robi.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: Danny Trejo (Grand Theft Auto, Bullets of Justice), Luis Guzman ("Code Black", Keanu) and Mel Rodriguez (Overboard, "The Last Man on Earth") have all signed on to appear in the currently shooting Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Guzman will play the leader of a drug cartel, Trejo will play the head of a local Cuban gang, while Roriguez will play a sleazy drug smuggler. David Leitch is directing the film based on a script by Mo Buck.

Somewhere, Somehow: Four more of joined the cast of award-winning writer Chad Taylor's upcomin directorial debut. Harry Styles (The Beatles, Welcome to Paradise), Charlie Plummer (All the Money in the World, King Jack), Aaron Eckhart (Displacement, Paradiso) and Rebecca Romijn ("The Librarians", Good Deeds) have been cast in the project. Eckhart and Romijn will play Alex Wolff's parents, while Styles and Plummer will play two of his best friends.

The Story of the Assassin: Writer Meirad Tako (Merdeka, Real is Better) is back with a historical Middle Eastern-set action story. Rami Malek ("Mr. Robot", The Mummy) will headline the project as an ancient assassin. Zoe Saldana (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Star Trek Beyond) will co-star in the film as a woman who joins the assassin on a journey. Mike Newell (Great Expectations, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) has been tapped to direct the film.

Blue Heat: Will Smith (Bright, Suicide Squad) is set to star in his first film for Last Resort Films. He will play a veteran cop tasked with taking down a gang of bank robbers. Young stars Taron Egerton (Carbon, Kingsman: The Golden Circle) and John Boyega (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Detroit) will join him on the project. Egerton will play Smith's rookie partner, while Boyega will play the leader of the bank robbers. Gareth Evans (The Raid, Mortal Kombat) will direct the film based on a script by Jack Ryder (Nobody, Numero Uno), which in-turn is based on the Jackie Chan-led film New Police Story.

Queen Mary: Right off the success of Nobody, Tom Holland (Avengers: Infinity War, Nobody) has been cast to star in this horror project alongside Tye Sheridan (Deprogramming, Ranger) and Nick Robinson (Synthetic, Blood Meridian). The film, which is curiously based on an episode of internet personality Shane Dawson's YouTube channel, will depict a group of college kids who search for signs of the supernatural on a supposedly haunted ship. Eli Roth (Demons, The House with a Clock in Its Wall) has been hired to direct the film, which will be the second film from writer Alex Conn (Life of a Champion).

Now Showing: Halo: Reach

Halo: Reach
Genre: Action / Sci-Fi
Director: Colin Trevorrow
Writer: Dominic Wilkins
Series: Halo series
Based on the video game series
Cast: Sam Worthington, Daniel Craig, Jason Statham, Morena Baccarin, Patrick J. Adams, Dave Bautista, Robin Wright, Peter Stormare, Sarah Gadon, Clive Owen

Plot: We see the planet Reach, a human colony located in a galaxy far far away. We zoom in to see a crashed UNSC frigate. We zoom even closer to see several damaged helmets lying on the ground.

SPARTAN-B312 (Sam Worthington), a newly recruited SPARTAN, is driving a Warthog on Reach. He’s driving towards a UNSC outpost. Two Falcons fly over his head. As the SPARTAN arrives, the passengers of the Falcons come down, led by Colonel Urban Holland (Peter Stormare). They all enter a room and Holland briefs them on their mission. He says the UNSC has lost contact with the Visegrad Relay last night. He sent troopers but they all went MIA. He thinks it might be the work of a group of Rebels. This is why he’s sending the Noble Team in. The team consists of Carter, aka Noble One (Daniel Craig), Catherine, aka Noble Two (Morena Baccarin), Jun, aka Noble Three (Jason Statham), Emile, aka Noble Four (Patrick J. Adams), Jorge, aka Noble Five (Dave Bautista) and the newly arrived unnamed Spartan, aka Noble Six (Sam Worthington). He shows them the Visegrad Relay location on the map and talks about various tactics and information the planet. Everyone on Earth thinks sending a SPARTAN team is a waste of resources, but Holland disagrees. The Noble team get in Falcons and fly away.

Carter, the de facto leader of the Noble squad tells them that they will not act aggressive towards whoever disabled the Visegrad relay. They’re going to talk to them and try to learn what happened to the other units while Catherine will get the relay back online. Six deacons appear on their HUD, possibly all from the missing units. They get down the Falcons and decide to investigate, since they don’t see anybody. They arrive near a burning Warthog. Emile finds a deacon and throws it to Catherine. She can’t identify who it was too, but she can tell it’s UNSC. They try to learn what killed them and they think it’s a plasma grenade, but it can’t be, not on Reach, the Covenants aren’t on Reach. They see smoke coming out of a house and decide to investigate. A group of farmers come out, they speak the local language. Jorge comes to translate. They’re trying to tell them that they heard gunfire last night and that a creature killed their son. They capt something on their heat radar. Inside, they find two UNSC soldiers pinned to the wall by their head. They hear movement of the roof. The Noble team is attacked by Covenants. They kill them all and enter a Warthog to drive the to the relay to get a message to Holland saying the Covenants are on Reach. They reach the relay, but the door is jammed. Catherine is trying to get it to open while the rest of the team is busy keeping the Covenants away. They’re able to enter the relay and shutting the door, locking it. They find several civilians tied up inside and some badly beaten soldiers. Jorge takes off his helmet and talks to a woman. She whispers with a short breath that they’re still here. The Noble team gets sneak attacked by Elites with Energy Swords. They’re able to kill all of them, but every single hostages is dead. Catherine is able to put the relay back up and contacts Urban Holland. She tells him about the Covenant attack. He doesn’t believe them at first and he finally engages the WINTER CONTINGENCY protocol, where every available unit must fight the Covenants to protect the colony.

Following their encounter at the relay, the Noble team flied to the Sword Base, a research facility under attack. Noble Six and Catherine are dropped first, while the others are dropped later. Six and his partner are tasked to clear the main gate, which proves not to be an easy task, especially after two enemy tanks appeared. Their tenacity helped them in the fight and they got out of it alive. A Pelican arrives and rapidly drops a Warthog to Six and Catherine. They must drive all the way an array to reactivate it. The Pelican is soon destroyed. While Six defends Catherine, who’s activating the array, the rest of the Noble team clears the sky, which is rather easy with the Pelicans’ and Jorge’s machine guns. They all meet inside the Sword Base, where the Noble team meets Dr. Catherine Halsey (Robin Wright), the creator of the SPARTAN program and the designer and engineer behind their armors. She reprimands the Noble Team, especially Carter for not protecting the information they had stored at the relay. Catherine, who had stolen a data module from one of the fallen Elite, gives one to Halsey, in order for her to shut up, but also to know if they had retrieved any sensitive information about the Reach colony. She asks to leave, to give her time to examine the module.

The Noble team returns to the UNSC base where they initially landed on Reach. They meet once again with Colonel Holland. He shows the team a Covenant dark zone, a sort of outpost for the enemy forces. He wants it neutralized. He intends to send two members of the team to eliminate as much Covenant as possible at night to make the attack the next day easier. This is where Jun steps ahead and announces himself as part of the mission. He chooses Noble Six to come with him, to find out if he’s good enough to joint the team, as If he didn’t prove it already. The rest of the squad stays with Holland, waiting to hear back from Nobles Three and Six.

Jun and Six are dropped in the middle of the night with sniper rifles. They quickly take out guards and are now face to face with a Guta, a native creature of Reach who attacks them. They’re able to kill it by shooting it between the eyes. They move silently in the dark zone knocking down guards in the process. They enter a small unoccupied building, only to find militia troopers who went MIA a couple of days ago. They went there to recover UNSC weaponry, but obviously failed. They also tell them about a huge pylon the Covenant set up earlier. On the radio, Catherine tells them it must be the source of the dark zone. Holland tells them to put a remote control bomb on it as they planned a surprise for the Covenant tomorrow. They free the troopers and tell them the directions to leave the dark zone. They attack the guards in front of the pylon and Jun places the bomb. They continue their progress in the dark zone and continue to silently take out Covenant. They reach the top of a cliff where they see a Covenant landing zone. They take out a lot of enemies before being spotted and they retreat to the base.

The following day, on the orders of Colonel Holland and following Jun and Six’s great work the previous night, the UNSC decided to strike against the Covenants. After all the WINTER CONTINGENCY protocol was activated. Catherine and Noble Six are in a Pelican together, along with a bunch of Marines. They’re dropped just before the dark zone begins. They’re tasked to destroy anti-aircraft units, to allow the UNSC to land. They silently progress in the dark zone and are able to place charges on each unit. They step back a little and detonate the bombs. It alerts the Covenant who start shooting at Kat and Six. They’re soon overwhelmed, but two UNSC frigates and several ships arrive and start the war against the enemy forces. In all the chaos, three Scarab tanks are destroyed, along with several tanks on both sides. Six joins Jorge on a Pelican to evade the battle. As they’re flying away, the engines turn off and they crash just a little further, away from the action. They crawl away from the debris and discover that an energy shield at the top of a tower deactivated their engines. As Jorge is killing the Covenants coming out of the tower with his machine gun, Noble Six hijacks a Banshee and flies to the top to destroy the shield. The rest of the Noble team arrives, their mission accomplished. One of the biggest UNSC ship flies over them, the UNSC Grafton. Out of nowhere, there’s a flash and the Grafton is split in half by the Long Night of Solace, a Covenant supership who just arrived. Urban Holland screams on the radio. He asks to Emile and Jun to head to a beach to defend it and for the rest of the squad to pilot Sabre ships in space to destroy the Long Night of Solace.

There’s a bomb in a UNSC ship already in space, the UNSC Savannah. The team needs to defend it as much as possible and to drop the bomb on the enemy’s supership in order to destroy it. Jorge boards the Savannah to defend it against enemies who try to hijack it and the others try to hijack the Long Night of Solace. Six, Catherine and Carter destroy towers on the Covenant supership with their Sabres, while Jorge puts the bomb on a Pelican in order to move it closer to the supership. He’s stopped by attacking Covenant forces who try to destroy the bomb. During this time, Six hijacks the supership and shuts off its engines, in order to make it more accessible for Jorge’s bomb. He leaves the supership and goes back to the Savannah. He sees Jorge and badly destroyed Pelican. The bomb is still intact, however. Jorge tells him that he will deliver the bomb himself. Six urges him to stop. Jorge shoves Six in a SAS and sends him back to Reach by pressing a button. Jorge opens the door leading to space and he seizes the bomb. With his portable jet pack, he’s able to control himself between the Banshees and Sabres. Jorge lands on the Long Night of Solace and activates the bomb. It was a special bomb and rather than the ship exploding, every thing who was in contact with the bomb, including Jorge, is sent to an unknown location as the bomb opened a Slipspace rupture. The UNSC fleet, including the rest of the Noble Team, was heading to the surface of Reach when a massive Covenant fleet arrives from a portal.

Six awakens in his pod, the shock had been brutal and Six was knocked down when it landed. He finds himself just outside the city of New Alexandria. Six walks in the city and stumbles upon UNSC forces who announce him that the Covenant are still here and actually starting to win the war. He joins them in their operation, clearing a tower of its Covenant occupants, to allow civilians to escape using the helicopters on top. They’re able to free the tower and proceed to evacuate civilians. A Falcon arrives and Six gets on it and announces Jorge’s sacrifice to the others, who thought during all this time that he was with Six. Each and every single one of them is shocked by the news.

They soon find out that the Covenant are jamming their communication signals with three jammers installed all around New Alexandria. The Noble team takes three different Falcons, Carter goes alone, Jun with Emile and Six with Catherine. They all fly away and all manage to destroy the jammers. Colonel Holland contacts them urging them to retreat to the ONI headquarters, as the city is falling, it’s filled with Covenants. They land their Falcons in a hurry a couple of meters away from the entrance to avoid landing on civilians. While they’re running, they shoot Convenant coming to kill them and everyone else. Catherine is shot in the head and falls on the ground. Six picks her up and they’re the last one to enter the headquarters before they shut down the doors. Catherine dies in Carter’s arms as the screen fades to black.

Three days later
The Covenants left the city. The Noble team walk out of the headquarters to a devastated city. A Falcon picks them up. Holland tasked them to destroy what remains of Sword Base, to prevent the Covenant from finding out about their research.

They arrive at the facility and meet with Dr. Halsey who’s the only one left. She guides them through the facility. She was the one who asked Sword Base to be destroyed. She’s done with her research on the Forerunners, a highly advanced species who was destroyed years ago by the Flood and the Gravemind. She shows them the glowing Forerunner artifact she’s been working on and also the AI in which she stored everything, Cortana (Sarah Gadon). Cortana chooses Noble Six to be her carrier, so he inserts her in his helmet. Jun leaves the team behind to escort Halsey away from Reach, while the rest of the team will fly to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, a ship awaiting their arrival. Sword Base explodes as they distance themselves.

The three remaining members of the team, Six, Emile and Carter are in their Pelican. They’re attacked by Covenant and the Falcon suffers heavy damages. Carter lowers their altitude to allow Six and Emile to jump from it and continue to deliver the package on foot. He will remain in the air to create a diversion. They go in caves to try to make contact with the less enemies possible, but it’s not really the right choice. They kill several Covenants and are able to come back up. Their path is blocked by a Scarab, which is almost impossible to destroy while on foot. They deck its plasma attacks and kill Covenant at the same time. Out of nowhere, Carter arrives with his falling Pelican and crashes it in the Scarab, destroying it, but also sacrificing himself. The two remaining Spartans run to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn. It’s still flying, unable to land, due to intense Covenant activity on the ground. Emile gets inside a huge canon, shooting at Pelicans and Banshees, while Noble Six clears the ground. A Pelican comes out of the UNSC ship and lands on the ground. Captain Jacob Keyes (Clive Owen) comes down and retrieves Cortana from Noble Six. Emile is overwhelmed with his canon. A Phantom is able to unload, dropping several Elites. They go directly for Emile. He’s able to kill the first one with his shotgun, but the second one impales him with his energy sword. With his last breath, he’s able to fire at the Phantom. Keyes orders to Noble Six to come with him on the Pillar of Autumn. More and more Covenant arrive and Six refuses the offer. He wants to sacrifice himself for the cause and he will serve as bait as Keyes returns to the ship. Six and Keyes kill the remaining Covenant and Keyes gets on his Pelican. Noble Six runs to the canon and starts shooting at Phantoms, getting their attention. Keyes is back on the Pillar of Autumn. He looks back one final time before he orders the ship to get away from Reach as soon as possible. Six starts fighting the Elites on the surface. He’s able to shoot and kill at least five Elites with his assault rifle, before he’s impaled for the first time. He reaches his pocket knife and kills the Elite who impaled him. He blasts another with his shotgun, before three of them jump on him. He takes a grenade and the camera zooms back. It explodes and his helmet flies away and lands directly in front of the camera.

Post-credit scene : The Pillar of Autumn used a time jump to transport itself in another galaxy. Keyes is talking to Cortana, asking her if they lost them. He looks in a window and sees the Convenant fleet approaching. He leaves the room in a hurry with a transportable Cortana. He sees Sergeant Avery Johnson (Chadwick Boseman) and tells him to start The Cole Protocol, which he does. He runs with Cortana on the ship and enter a small poorly-lit room. He says it’s time to wake up an old friend. Cortana approves and she turns on the lights. The Master Chief, John-117 (Alexander Skarsgard) is waking up. It’s the beginning of the first Halo movie.

Release: Nobody

Nobody
Genre: Drama
Director: Marc Webb
Writer: Jack Ryder
Cast: Tom Holland, Jaden Smith, Justice Smith, Joey King, Angourie Rice, Kathryn Newton, Yara Shahidi, Marisa Tomei, Nick Offerman, Adam Sandler





Budget: $24,000,000
Domestic Box Office: $40,801,772
Foreign Box Office: $25,499,003
Total Profit: $14,095,082

Reaction: A nice tidy profit for this coming-of-age film. Teen-oriented dramas tend to not gross a lot, so we're pretty pleased with the performance of Nobody.

"Nobody may not be a very complicated movie, but what it attempts to do, it does pretty well. Most of the characters come across as likeable - and films like this live or die with its characters." - Dave Cone, New York Post

"While there isn't anything particularly original on the screen in Nobody, it still comes across as a solid teen film due to its smart casting, especially the adults, and the strong work from director Marc Webb." - Reggie Dunn, Sacramento Bee

"It is not a terrible movie, but it is a movie completely devoid of any stakes or urgency. Tom Holland doesn't have any unique problems, just the usual boring teen insecurities. A lot of the pieces work, but it ultimately comes across as an insignificant effort." - Matt Carson, Arizona Republic

Last Resort Films Jukebox: Nobody

1. "Rubber Band" - David Bowie

2. "Starman" - David Bowie

3. "Under Pressure" - Queen & David Bowie

4. "Space Oddity" - David Bowie

5. "Without You" - David Bowie

Now Showing: Nobody

Nobody
Genre: Drama
Director: Marc Webb
Writer: Jack Ryder
Cast: Tom Holland, Jaden Smith, Justice Smith, Joey King, Angourie Rice, Kathryn Newton, Yara Shahidi, Marisa Tomei, Nick Offerman, Adam Sandler

Plot: Stephanie Hayes (Marisa Tomei) and Sara Hayes (Joey King) are sitting on their Dining table and calling Tim to join them for dinner. A dressed up Tim Hayes (Tom Holland) comes down and says he is going to Stu's birthday, Sara joins Tim who was thinking to go solo. Stephanie asks Tim what did he order from her card but Tim didn't hear what she said and went out.

Tim and Sara meets Stu Benzie (Jaden Smith), a childhood friend of Tim. They both take Stu to the school where a surprise birthday party was hosted by Tim, Ramona Smith (Kathryn Newton) and Joseph Parker (Justice Smith). A lot of other students of their school are also present there. They all cut the cake and start the party. Stu, Sara, Ramona and Joseph pair up and start dancing. A lone Tim is approached by Tasha Devon (Yara Shahidi) for a dance but Tim says no and say's he is not into dancing. Tasha sit's down with Tim and just chats. A window breaking incident alerts the watchmen who finds the students partying and Tim and the gang makes a run for it.

Next day when the school re-opened, Tim and friends finds the school is a complete mess. They all are called in the principal office. They all go in the office and find an angry Principal Busk (Adam Sandler) waiting for them. Busk asks them what was the occasion and whose idea was this. After a few moments Tim takes the blame saying he just wanted to party and threw it. Busk asks everyone to leave the room except of Tim. Busk sits near Tim and says that he knows that Tim was not the alone culprit in the party held yesterday, Busk says he admires that Tim stood up for his friends but this can't go unpunished and gives Tim a month of detention and asks him to clean up the mess the party made in the detention hours.

History teacher Mr Park (Nick Offerman) is teaching the class of Tim, Stu, Ramona and Joesph when Principal interrupts the class and introduce a new student who will be joining their class. Alicia Williams (Angourie Rice) walks in the classroom, Tim is smitten by her. Mr Park informs the class that whoever is interested to apply for the position of class monitor should summit their application by tomorrow. Tim and friends discuss who should send their applications. Stu believes he should try that this year, Tim starts to say something but is cut off by Ramona who says that she is going to apply and orders everybody else to not surprisingly everybody else agreed.

Tim shows up at the detention room where Mr Park is waiting for him to take him to the school backyard to start the clean up. Tim starts cleaning the mess, Tasha comes and joins him in the cleaning. Tim says she doesn't need to be here she replies that she can't help that her school is looking like a mess. While talking they listen that Mr Park is humming to Rubber Band by David Bowie and both join him.

Tim tries to approach Alicia but fails. He finally finds the courage to speak to her and sits beside he in the lunch to talk to her as soon as he trades pleasantries they are joined by Ramona. Alicia and Ramona connect well to each other and Ramona invites Alicia to her home. Tim is checking out Alicia and Ramona's Instagram to see what they are up to, Sara walks in and sees what Tim is doing and teases him of being a stalker. Tim stops checking out Instagram.

After a few days Tim gets time to meet the whole gang at the first game of the season their school basketball team after a long time due to his detention. Joseph stars in the teams victory and they all decide to celebrate. They all tease Tim that he is dating Tasha by seeing them spend time together in detention. Tim denies it and says that they have become friend. Tim sees Alicia and Ramona kiss, he is a bit shocked but Joseph tells him that they have been dating for some time now. Time checks Instagram and their profiles are filled with each other. Tim gets a bit sad.

Few days later, When Stu doesn't replies to his messages, Tim calls him and asks where is he at the moment Stu replies that he is with Joseph and helping him practice for his games and will be with him for all night. Tim gets a bit sad then Sara and Stephanie bursts in his room with a cake wishing him a happy birthday, with Tim eyes searching if there is anyone else behind them to his disappointment. He has a sad smile while the celebrations continued which a concerned Stephanie notices. Sleepless, Tim is tossing around in his bed at midnight when he hears David Bowie's "Starman" playing from his window, he moves aside the curtain to find Tasha standing on the other side. Tim opens the window so that Tasha can enters, Tasha enters the window and wishes Tim a happy birthday to which Tim is surprised. Seeing Tim perplexed Tasha explains that she was in the neighborhood and while checking her phone she saw Sara posting a pic of you all celebrating his birthday so she decided that she should wish him. Tim offers her the leftover cake and they both eat it while listening to "Starman" on repeat. Tasha now leaving initiates a chat standing outside the window. She leans in for a kiss but a tired Tim doesn't notices it and starts saying his goodbye's to her and she leaves.

The next day while Tim is in the class, the class hears a loud noise from the campus and when they go on to check that see that Joseph has fallen from the staircase with his bicycle while riding near it. He has broken his hand is taken to a nearby hospital. Tim and the gang spend nearly all the day at the hospital. It is revealed that Joseph has broken two of his large bones and some small bones are also injured, it would take him 10 weeks to heal and plus some more weeks with casts on. They all would regularly visit the hospital to see him.

Principal Busk and Professor Park comes to review the final paint job done by Tim and Tasha to clean the mess. After completely checking it Busk compliments Tim and Tasha and let them go to the schools basketball match. While going there Tasha strikes a conversation with Tim to ask whether they will see him around but Tim doesn't gives a firm reply. When they reach the court they see that without Joseph their team is taking a beating, Tim sees that Alicia and Ramona are sitting apart and sits beside Alicia and asks her the reason, he comes to know they have broken-off, after some conversation they plan that they will study together tomorrow in the Library. Tasha sees them from far.

Tim goes down with a viral fever and is advised a week of bed rest, he tells Alicia about it and they can't meet today. While Tim recovers a bit faster than expected, he starts cleaning his room expecting his friends to visit him. A few days goes by but nobody visited him, making him question his value to his friends. Tim starts spending all his day on the bed. Stephanie notices that his fever is down but he looks more tired and sad than before. Stephanie sees the clean room and assumes he is dejected that none of his friends visited him. Stephanie without asking him the reason advises him that he should stop worrying about others and what they think about him and he should do what he likes to do, she says people come and go from life but it is the moments that live on both sad and happy moments. Stephanie takes out a still packed package Tim ordered months ago and hands it to him and says live the life with things you like. While Stephanie was leaving she hears loud music from Sara's room and goes there and after some seconds comes back in Tim's rooms with a music player and plays Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie and asks Tim for a dance to which a reluctant Tim agrees to and they both end up laughing after some time. Stephanie talks with Sara and asks her to keep an eye on Tim and be there with him.

Tim meets Professor Park and gets study material from him to be distributed in the class for the coming Mid-term. Tim organizes a get together at his home for the gang to study, the time comes but nobody shows up, after two hours Ramona and Alicia come to Tim house, they say that they put aside their differences and are back together to celebrate it they decided to go and watch a movie from there they are coming. A distraught Tim asks what about Joseph and Stu, they tell him that Joseph has holed up in house since the injury and rarely leaves it and Stu has been acting very weird since few days and is being an absentee to a lot of events. A worried Tim calls Stu a lot of times, after a lot of tries Stu picks up the phone. Tim asks his whereabouts and goes to meet him.

Tim meets Stu at a abandoned court where Stu tells Tim that this where he and Joseph used to practice. Tim asks why Stu is so sad, a sad Stu says he can't see his friend Joseph suffer like this. While he is injured and the team performance going down the hill, Joseph is taking it all this very seriously and is very badly affected by all the events. Tim realizes that everybody has their own set of problems that keeps them busy. They discuss what could help Joseph and they both agree that if the team could win some matches it would be a great help but they see that the team lacks a good replacement for Joseph's position. Tim suggests Stu should audition for that role as Stu and Joseph both used to practice together, Stu says that playing for the school was something Joseph wants he is more than happy to play with just him, Tim encourages Stu to try it for Joseph, Stu successfully auditions for the position.

They all appear for their Mid-terms and on the last Mid-term the schools next basketball match was going to be played, Tim forcefully brings an angry Joseph to the court who is surprised and then happy to see Stu in the court playing for the school. The team scraped a win with the help of Stu which makes Joseph joyous. Tasha comes towards Tim and thanks Tim for what he did and before he could say anything she confesses that she likes him and would love to go out with him some time and leaves leaving Tim perplexed.

Stephanie goes in Tim's room and sees that he is not there but sees that the package is open and the inside item not present in it. Stephanie tells Sara that she has to go solo to the Mid term party at the school as Tim is not here.

Sara goes in the party and meet the gang, Stu asks the whereabouts of Tim to Sara who doesn't know. Suddenly music hits the speakers and when the gang turns to see they see that Tim is on the stage with a brand new Guitar. Tim starts singing Space Oddity and crowd is enchanted by his singing. All of his friends and Sara are surprised initially but slowly they all start enjoying themselves. After finishing that Song he starts singing "Without You" by David Bowie and comes down the stage while singing it and stands in front of Tasha, singing the song to her. Ramona and Alicia dance together, while Sara kisses Stu on his cheeks and gets away a laughing Joseph teases a stunned Stu and Tim kisses Tasha after the song ends.

Release: Blood on the Moon

Blood on the Moon
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Director: John Hillcoat
Writer: Dwight Gallo
Based on the novel by James Ellroy
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Don Johnson, Johnny Knoxville, Rose Byrne, Carla Gugino, Melanie Lynskey, Rodrigo Santoro, Ethan Embry, Brooklynn Prince, Alicia Witt, John C. Reilly



Budget: $44,000,000
Domestic Box Office: $35,921,091
Foreign Box Office: $27,477,333
Total Profit: -$9,450,832

Reaction: Disappointing results for this James Ellroy adaptation, especially considering how well White Jazz performed for the studio. Perhaps audiences are still getting used to seeing Vince Vaughn in serious films again.

"Like a lot of writer Dwight Gallo's other screenplays, there are strong darkly comedic elements that you wouldn't normally associate with films of its genre. It helps the film standout in the ranks of recent detective films." - Mark Rawls, Seattle Times

"James Ellroy is a great novelist, but so much of his style is lost when translated to the big screen. There is a lot to like in Blood on the Moon, but it ends being more of a standard cop thriller than one would hope for." - Paul Onkean, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Vince Vaughn's recent career reinvention has been interesting to watch. After over a decade as a comedy star, he has decided to pick smaller, gritty films that utilize his naturally intimidating physicality to great effect. Blood on the Moon successfully uses these traits to create a memorable big screen anti-hero." - Geoff Bray, Slant Magazine

Now Showing: Blood on the Moon

Blood on the Moon
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Director: John Hillcoat
Writer: Dwight Gallo
Based on the novel by James Ellroy
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Don Johnson, Johnny Knoxville, Rose Byrne, Carla Gugino, Melanie Lynskey, Rodrigo Santoro, Ethan Embry, Brooklynn Prince, Alicia Witt, John C. Reilly

Plot: Los Angeles - 1983. Legendary LAPD Sgt.-Detective Lloyd Hopkins (Vince Vaughn) is called onto the scene of a discovered body in an apartment building. When he enters the house he finds the aftermath of the brutal murder of a young woman. There is blood every where as the woman's body hangs over her bed. Hopkins notices a great deal of feminist literature on her bookshelf, as well as two classified ads for anonymous sexual encounters. He heads to a bar after work and has several drinks.

When he returns home he accidentally knocks over a lamp, waking up his 8-year-old daughter Molly (Brooklynn Prince). Molly begs her father for a story. He takes her back to her bed. He then launches into a graphic description of one of his cases, much to the girl's delight. His wife Penny (Melanie Lynskey) orders him to stop, and they have an argument over the inappropriateness of his stories. Frustrated, he calls up his buddy Dutch Pelz (Don Johnson). Dutch was Hopkins' first partner and mentor when he first entered the detective ranks. They meet up at the same bar Hopkins recently left and decide to they go on a stakeout for a case of Dutch's. They catch the suspect threatening his girlfriend (Alicia Witt) and confront him. He pulls a gun on them, so Hopkins shoots him. Hopkins asks Dutch to stay at the scene and file the paperwork so that he can take the suspect's girlfriend home and have sex with her.

Hopkins tracks down Joanie Pratt (Carla Gugino) through the classified ads at the victim's apartment. Pratt is a failed-actress turned escort. She also hosts swinger parties, and the victim was planning on attending one of the parties to research a book. Back at the station, Hopkins opens a letter that was sent to the victim. It is a poem written in blood. Hopkins realizes he is now hunting a serial killer. He asks Dutch to get him all the files for unsolved murders of single women in the past 15 years. When he returns home, he finds a note from his wife explaining that she has taken their daughter and left. Pratt phones Hopkins, and he goes over to her place to have sex. After narrowing down the unsolved murders to a few cases, Hopkins summons Deputy Sheriff Delbert Whitey Haines (Johnny Knoxville) to a meeting and interrogates him about two suicides that took place on June 10th, one year apart, on his beat. Later, Hopkins breaks into Haines' apartment and discovers a wiretap which has captured Haines dealing drugs.

Short on further leads, Hopkins decides to see if there is anything to the feminist literature found in the apartment. In the process of canvassing feminist bookstores, Hopkins visits one run by Kathleen McCarthy (Rose Byrne) who agrees to accompany him to a party at Dutch's house. They have sex after the party back at her apartment. While in bed, McCarthy reveals a high school trauma where she was gang raped by a group of boys who were hostile towards her feminist poetry club. She also tells Hopkins that an anonymous suitor has sent her flowers and a poem every year. Looking through her old yearbook, Hopkins is stunned to find a picture of Haines and a male prostitute nicknamed Birdman whose name was mentioned on the surveillance tapes made at Haines' apartment.

When Birdman (Ethan Embry) turns up dead in a motel room, the wall is smeared with blood, and the motto from McCarthy's high school is written in the stains. Hopkins returns to Haines's apartment and surprises him as he comes home, carrying Birdman's police file. Haines claims Birdman is simply his snitch, but Hopkins knows that Haines was running drugs and male prostitutes through Birdman. He puts a gun to Haines's head and gets him to confess to raping McCarthy with Birdman in high school. Haines offers information on police corruption to get off the hook. Then, he tries to surprise Hopkins with a shotgun, but Hopkins kills him.

Dutch tells Hopkins to lay low while the mess he has created is sorted out. Pratt invites Hopkins over for sex, but when he gets there, she has been murdered and placed on the stove in the position that she last had sex with Hopkins. At the station, Hopkins and Dutch get McCarthy to go through the yearbook against a cross-reference of suspects. They are interrupted by their superior Captain Fred Gaffney (John C. Reilly) who suspends Hopkins. When Hopkins returns to the interrogation room, he sees that McCarthy has run to a phone booth across the street. She calls Bobby Franco (Rodrigo Santoro), who was in the poetry club with her, warning him that Hopkins is dangerous and will suspect that he is the killer. She realized Franco has sent her the poems every year, and she refuses to believe that he could be a murderer. When Hopkins grabs the phone, she hears Franco threaten him and realizes that he is in fact the killer. Franco and Hopkins agree to meet at the high school, where they have a shootout in the gym. When Franco runs out of bullets, he taunts Hopkins, believing that he has to lawfully arrest him. Hopkins tells Franco that he's suspended, and quickly shoots Franco three times. Dutch arrives on the scene and tells Hopkins to get lost before Gaffney catches wind of the events. Hopkins heads back to the bar and has another drink. He decides to call his wife from a payphone in the bar. He and his wife talk for a minute before Hopkins asks to speak to his daughter. Hopkins then starts describing his latest case to her.

Premiere Magazine #73

Release: Booster Gold II: The Booster Gold Story

Booster Gold II: The Booster Gold Story
Genre: Action/Superhero/Comedy
Directors: Phil Lord and Chris Miller
Writer: Chad Taylor
Cast: Billy Magnussen, Scoot McNairy, Natalie Dormer, Jesse Plemons, Lee Pace, Mahershala Ali, Lea Seydoux, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Hader, Emmy Rossum, Dan Stevens




Budget: $202,000,000
Domestic Box Office: $616,390,447
Foreign Box Office: $600,202,892
Total Profit: $599,012,575

Reaction: Wow! While grossing about the same domestically, this sequel took a big jump in foreign box office to allow Booster Gold to reclaim the box office crown from Tom Cruise and his Splinter Cell series.

"BG II does exactly what you want out of a quality box office sequel. It allowed things to get bigger, but without losing the character development of the first entry." - Mark Rawls, Seattle Times

"The comedy and the action are both ramped up in this one. All of the talent involved seems more comfortable with the tone this time around." - Ben Bernard, New York Times

"While not quite as good as the first Booster Gold, this one is still a solid superhero film (that is quite a bit funnier than the first one). I really missed out on some of the time travel and fish out of water elements that were more prevalent in the the first entry." - Roger Taggart, Chicago Tribune

In Development

Nobody: Rounding out the cast of Marc Webb and Jack Ryder's upcoming coming of age story will be Marisa Tomei (Cosa Nostra, A View from the Bridge), Adam Sandler (The Week Of, The Meyerowitz Stories) and Nick Offerman (Hearts Beat Loud, The Founder). Tomei will play Tom Holland's mother, Offerman will play a history teacher, while Sandler will take on a small role as a high school principal.

Halo: Reach: Robin Wright ("House of Cards", Wonder Woman) and Peter Stormare (John Wick: Chapter 2, 22 Jump Street) have joined Halo: Reach, a prequel to the first film in the series. Wright will play Catherine Halsey, the creator of the SPARTAN-II project, while Stormare will play Col. Urban Holland, the commanding officer to the SPARTAN unit. Colin Trevorrow directs from a script by Dominic Wilkins.

Maximum Ride: Colin Ford (Every Day, Disconnect) and Abby Ryder Fortson (The Life Ahead, Ant-Man) will complete the casting on the YA adaptation Maximum Ride from director Joss Whedon and writer H.G. Hansen, based on the book series by James Patterson. Ford will play the son of Kevin Costner who leads a groups of Erasers who are after the flock, while Fortson will play the daughter of Salma Hayek's character.

Decrescendo: Jason Bateman (The Death of the Honest Man, Revolution), John Carroll Lynch (Lucky, Private Life), Michael Sheen (Reality, Last Rites) and Jason Patric (Hiroshima, The Yellow Birds) will join the Christina Hendricks-led Alys Robi biopic. Bateman will play comedian Olivier Guimond, who had a romance with Robi. Lynch and Sheen will play music managers, and Patric will play the legendary Frank Sinatra. Jean-Marc Vallee makes his return to the studio to direct from a script by Ann Morrow.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: The latest Grand Theft Auto film has added to its already impressive cast with the additions of Jamie Foxx (Dishonest, Hunt), Bobby Cannavale (The Lady in the Lake, A View from the Bridge), Woody Harrelson (Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Carmilla) and Antonio Banderas (Road Rash, Bullet Head). Foxx will play Lance Vance, a drug runner. Cannavale will play the head of the Forelli crime family. Harrelson will play Avery Carrington, a brutal businessman who hires the main character, played by Vince Vaughn. Banderas, meanwhile, will play a retired South American colonel. David Leitch is directing the film based on Mo Buck's script.

Somewhere, Somehow: GRA winning writer Chad Taylor (Pressing Luck, The Squared Circle) will be making his directorial debut on the coming of age story Somewhere, Somehow. Alex Wolff (Cleopatra, Hereditary), Madison Iseman (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, "Still the King"), Garance Marillier (Raw, Amelie) and Haley Lu Richardson (The Edge of Seventeen, Split) have joined the cast. Wolff will lead the cast as an average teenager, Iseman and Marillier will play his love interests, while Richardson will play a lifelong friend. Taylor wrote the script which is very loosely based on the famed novel The Age of Innocence.

Last Resort Films Jukebox: Booster Gold II: The Booster Gold Story

1. "Keaseby Nights" – Catch 22

2. "You Get What You Give" - New Radicals

3. "Country Grammar" - Nelly

4. "If You’re Gone" – Matchbox Twenty

5. "Summer Girls" - LFO

6. "Every Morning" – Sugar Ray

7. "Higher" - Creed

8. "Believe" - Cher

Now Showing: Booster Gold II: The Booster Gold Story

Booster Gold II: The Booster Gold Story
Genre: Action/Superhero/Comedy
Directors: Phil Lord and Chris Miller
Writer: Chad Taylor
Cast: Billy Magnussen, Scoot McNairy, Natalie Dormer, Jesse Plemons, Lee Pace, Mahershala Ali, Lea Seydoux, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Hader, Emmy Rossum, Dan Stevens

Plot: In 1999, Maxwell Lord (Lee Pace) is at the United Nations waiting for the organization’s approval of the Justice League International. Assuming it will easily reach the numbers it needs, Lord already has a headquarters under construction. There, Ted (Scoot McNairy) and Michael (Billy Magnussen) are playing with some of the new technology, with Skeets (Kumail Nanjiani) explaining what it does. In walks J’onn J’onzz (Mahershala Ali). J’onzz introduces himself as Lord’s appointed head-of-command for the JLI. He tells them his backstory, of how he is the last living being from Mars and that he is also known as the Martian Manhunter. He now uses his shape-shifting abilities to act as a detective on Earth. Behind his back, Michael and Ted make fun of J’onn’s plain demeanor and cool-headedness and make a bet on who can make the man laugh first. When he returns, he tells the two of them that he can read minds and heard everything they just said. As they sit frozen still (Michael with his face clinched, trying not to think anything wrong), J’onn asks the two of them if they want to go on their first mission before the others arrive and Michael jumps out of his seat to accept.

CUT TO: Booster and Beetle travelling in Ted’s flying Bug with Booster seeming bummed. He complains that they are not getting headlining villains like Doosmday and instead are stuck with the C-level baddies. Ted insists that all they need to do is get the job done here and they slowly establish themselves as Earth’s best heroes. Booster rolls his eyes. Upon arriving at a television station, Booster tells Ted to go ahead and he will catch up. Ted arrives to find Oswald Loomis (Bob Odenkirk) – a former host of a local TV show where he pulled pranks on people but was fired after multiple public scandals – holding people hostage live on air. He is threatening his formers colleagues at gunpoint and demanding he get a gig back at the network.

While Blue Beetle starts to negotiate with Loomis, Booster checks on his looks in the mirror and does a quick floss. After Booster makes his grand entrance, Loomis asks what’s wrong with Booster’s hair. Booster, having just checked, freaks out while Loomis offers to help – reaching behind his head and pulling a penny from behind his ear. “Oldest trick in the book!” he proclaims while Booster is furious at falling for the Prankster’s trick on live TV. Loomis gives Booster the penny for consolation and explains to him that Metropolis and Honolulu are the only two places in the United States where taking a coin from someone’s ear is illegal.

After falling for a penny-behind-the-ear trick from The Prankster, Booster is embarrassed for being tricked on live TV but then finds that Loomis’s penny has special powers and has frozen Booster in place. As Loomis re-ups his demands, a gang of lower level Metropolis villains burst onto the set and the studio give them the money. Loomis is pissed as they are stealing his thunder while Beetle soon becomes out-matched in the numbers game. The criminals are just as confused explain that someone called him in and invited to reap the rewards of this hostage situation. Ted realizes that Michael was the one that called them, but he is quickly subdued by the vast amount of enemies. Martian Manhunter arrives and takes out the criminals and aids police in the arrest of Loomis as Booster regains movement.

CUT TO: Lord, standing in front of the United Nations, his face flushed with embarrassment as everyone watches that news unfolds. His proposal is rejected immediately.

Beetle, Booster, and Manhunter ride silently in Beetle’s Bug. Booster explains that he thought simply defeating The Prankster would look lame so he wanted to improve the optics by giving them an against-all-odds situation. Complete silence. He tries to make a joke (and get Manhunter to laugh). Complete silence He then tries to turn on some music but his hand is slapped away when it gets near the dial. Manhunter shakes his head in disapproval, while Ted looks the most pissed he’s ever been in his entire life.

One year later. With the assistance in funding from Michelle (Natalie Dormer), Ted has resurrected his deceased father’s tech company Kord Industries. He has not talked with Michael since the Prankster incident. Michael is down in the dumps after the fall-out with Ted and April breaking up with him over his antics. With multiple films now under his belt, he has now turned more of his attention to Goldstar Inc. and his film career and is working towards making his magnum opus: The Booster Gold Story. While Michelle knows how much this project excites him, she advises against revealing to the public that he is from the future.

Michael arrives at the first pre-production meeting as a producer on the film. Claude Collins (Jesse Plemons) is quick to introduce himself to Michael, who thinks Clause must be from catering or something. Michael Bay (Bill Hader), the director of the film, enters the conversation and asks Michael what he thinks about the man who has been chosen to play him in the film. Michael pulls Bay aside and tells him Collins is way too ugly to play him. Bay insists that despite this being Claude being a total unknown, he killed it in his audition and this will be his big break. Michael demands that he be fired from the movie but Bay won’t back down. Bay has a major meltdown and says that if Claude goes, he goes. Michael walks out of the meeting and tells the rest of the crew that he will now be directing and starring in this film.

Claude goes back home to his lonely life and is totally dejected. After thumbing through a number of audition calls, he spots an ad for equipment tester at Kord Industries that pays well. On his first day on the job, Claude’s inexperience shines through and he accidentally causes a fire that severely burns his face. While Ted visits Claude in the hospital and apologizes profusely, Claude throws a fit upon returning home from the hospital – knowing his acting career is over and he will be rejected by potential lovers for the rest of his life.

As Claude falls deeper into his loneliness, he notices that his skin is starting to develop lumps and feel claylike. When walking outside, he is ridiculed by strangers and retreats back to his home. He becomes so self-conscious that he can’t go out in public anymore. As his skin intensifies in its transformation, Claude begins to realize that he can expand the size of his body and body parts. He reasons that the radioactive substances in Kord’s equipment is what caused his deformation.

Max Lord has dinner with Ted and J’onn and tells them that enough time has passed since the Prankster incident and that they should be able to restart their attempt to get the JLI approved. While John says the circumstances must be right, Ted is skeptical as he wants to help his company get off the ground. In order to try and sweeten the offer, Lord offers to help secure funding for the company but Ted is resistant. Ted does tell him that he is worried that the company is going to be wrecked by a lawsuit from a disgruntled employee, upon which Lord says he can handle that.

After some routine crime-fighting, Michael flies through the city with his portable radio and hears a contest that is announcing a giveaway for two tickets to the local Creed concert. He uses Skeets as his telephone and ends up being the lucky caller. Michelle recommends he take Ted and that she orchestrate a reconciliation between the two of them. Although at first resistant, Ted gives in to Michelle’s request and agrees to meet with Michael. Michael, meanwhile, can’t find his Creed CD to listen to on the trip to show.

With the help of Skeets, he goes on a covert mission and breaks into Lord’s offices to retrieve his CD. While rummaging through the different cabinets, he accidentally activates a secret compartment of the facility and discover a collection of Lord’s files that are labeled classified. They are in-depth reports on the different superheroes of Earth – Beetle, Manhunter, himself, etc. They go into detail about the weaknesses of each and how they could be vulnerable to attack. Booster is disgusted by it all, but especially the fact that “bad taste in music” is listed under his weaknesses. He steals his file, finds his CD, and makes his way out. Later in the day, Lord’s assistant Sasha Bordeaux (Lea Seydoux) thinks the the office seems a bit different and discovers Michael’s little mission on security footage and contacts Lord.

Lord and Sasha visit Claude. Claude is surprised to find an attractive female at his apartment and lets them in give that she is unbothered by his grotesque looks. They to compensate Claude reasonably well if he chooses not to press charges against Ted. Lord tells him that they are willing to pay for him to get facial reconstruction, or if he prefers, Sasha could perform favors on him. Claude tells him that while those things are nice, the first he wants is revenge on Ted and Michael. Lord says that Ted is off-limits but he knows where Michael is at all times and can help out in that regard.

At the reunion with Ted, Michael apologizes for everything before. Ted accepts the apology and says he was sorry to hear about his relationship with April. When Michael says his life has been weird without Ted in it, Ted responds by saying that he has kinda had Michael in his life since he’s dating his twin sister and Michael jokingly cuts him off there. He asks if he’d like to go to a Creed concert with him and Ted accepts. Michael then decides to bring up Lord’s documents and says he thinks Lord might have some sinister intentions. Ted becomes disappointed and thinks this whole meeting was a set-up for another one of Michael’s zany plans. He reasons that Lord had the weaknesses so he could improve the JLI’s defense abilities to cater to the team’s strengths as he plans to bring up the proposal to the U.N. again. Ted storms out and says he’s not going to the concert.

Michael turns to his next option: J’onn J’onzz. Michael firsts asks if he can call him Eminem and J’onn remains unamused. When he starts to ask if he wants to join him at the concert. J’onn rejects the question before Michael can even finish it. Next, he tries to call April but she doesn’t answer. Ted, meanwhile, tells Michelle that he feels a little bad for walking out again on Michael and if he should go back to join him. She tells him it is up to him.

Before Michael goes to the concert, he tells Skeets that he is leaving him at home – he’s going to this totally solo. As Michael travels to the concert, Claude tracks him from afar. At the concert, Michael tries holding it in but has to urinate even though they are about to play his favorite song ‘Higher’. Claude, using his clay-like form, has squeezed through the gates and arrives on stage. He expands his size to be 15 ft. tall and the crowd cheers – thinking this is a mascot for the band’s latest album ‘Human Clay’, which they start to chant. Human Clay surveys the crowd but can’t find Michael and he starts violently rummaging through the crowd with no regard for the audience members. The band runs off stage and the crowd starts to panic. Michael returns from taking a leak to this scene, but is unsure what to do without his suit or Skeets. Human Clay finally spots Michael and quickly makes his way to him. He forms his hand into a hammer and knocks Michael over, before taking him captor.

Human Clay takes Michael on stage and warns the audience to say goodbye to their beloved Booster Gold. He tells him that Michael that he won’t be starring in anymore movies anytime soon before starting to seep his claylike form into Michael’s eyes, nose, and mouth (suffocating him). Suddenly, Blue Beetle’s flying bug swooshes in and lands on stage. Beetle leaps out to fight him but finds that his weapons are useless against Human Clay since they were made through the same methods. Claude, realizing this is Ted Kord, lets out a sadistic smile takes ahold of him, too.

Suddenly, an even bigger ship lands on the stage, piloted by Maxwell Lord and Sasha Bordeaux. Out walks Martian Manhunter and Michelle in the Booster Gold gear. Together, they are able to capture Human Clay in a metal container and rescue Michael and Ted. Ted tells Michelle that he never expected to be this turned on by seeing Booster Gold, causing Manhunter to let out a brief chuckle. Ted immediately turns to Michael and lets out a victory shriek as he won their bet. Michael hugs his sister and asks how she ended up here. She says Skeets flew to her apartment and let her know that Michael was in trouble. Plus, after hearing Michael go on and on about superheroes growing up, she figured she would see what the whole hubbub was about. She says they can call her Goldstar (with a wink). Ted and Michael shake Manhunter’s hand as Michael begrudgingly gives Lord a nod. The crowd begins to shuffle back in and cheers the heroes for their work to stop Human Clay. Lord whispers to Michael “Now, THIS is good publicity”. The band comes back on stage and start to play ‘Higher’ again, with the heroes on stage.

Epilogue text updates us on where the characters went after this: After the setback, Ted establishes Kord Industries as one of the most competitive tech companies in the world. Michelle gets a second suit and fights alongside Booster and Beetle as Goldstar before becoming homesick and eventually going back to the future to fight crimes there.

Collins is sent to Arkham Asylum and is annoyed by the label “Human Clay” so his fellow inmates to call him “Clayface” (the inmates laugh at that as well).

Although he does not get approval for a new Justice League International, the good press from the Creed concert helps land Lord the position as the head of the government’s metahuman spy agency Checkmate.

Manhunter, in conjunction with Lord, continues to fight crime but also uses his detective/telepathy skills to travel the world and keep tabs on all the metahumans for what he assumes would be an eventual task force, if needed in the case of an emergency in the future. Booster meanwhile…

2007. At the world premiere of the long-gestated ‘The Booster Gold Story’, Michael is preparing to go on stage to introduce the film. April (Emmy Rossum) pays him a quick visit and tells him to hurry up as everyone is waiting and gives him a kiss before exiting. As he practices his lines, a time sphere crashes into the room – a slight variation of the one Michael uses. A man steps out that introduces himself as Rip Hunter (Dan Stevens) – a name that rings a bell to Michael but he can’t put his finger on it. Rip says he can’t explain who he is or where he is from but it is urgent that Michael not release this film. It is imperative that no one know of Michael’s time-traveling abilities. Michael agrees to cancel the screening but as soon as Hunter leaves, Michael looks at the camera and says “Yeah right, what does he know?!” and cockily walks out on stage.

LRF 100: Top 10 Films

To celebrate the 200th release from Last Resort Films, the studio's writers were asked to vote on 100 top choices from those 200 films. The votes were split up into 10 categories, and each writer chose their top 10 choices in the category. First place votes were worth 10 points, while 10th place votes were worth one point (you can do the math for the votes in-between). In parentheses next to the film's title will be the number of first place votes the film or actor received. And now for the results of the final category: Top 10 Films...

TOP 10 FILMS
10. Deprogramming
"Interesting subject matter and a film that keeps you captivated throughout." - Seth Overton
9. Blood Meridian
8. Flicker
"Quite possibly the studio's most underappreciated film." - Dwight Gallo
7. To the White Sea
"I loved the mature approach to the subject matter!" - Seth Overton
6. Death Dream (1)
5. Guilt
4. Cosa Nostra
3. Into Thin Air (1)
2. Jonestown (1)
1. The Prisoner (6)
"It's a sci-fi epic from one of the best directors around and has everything you need from a film." - Chad Taylor

Release: The Creature: The Beginning

The Creature: The Beginning
Genre: Horror/Fantasy
Director: Robert Eggers
Writer: Ben Collins
Prequel to The Creature
Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Luke Evans, Amanda Seyfried, Sam Claflin, Alexandra Daddario, Riley Keough, Olivia Munn, Dylan Minnette, Ian McShane, Josh Stewart



Budget: $52,000,000
Domestic Box Office: $45,903,771
Foreign Box Office: $66,890,666
Total Profit: $3,678,120

Reaction: Slightly better numbers than its predecessor. The more horror-centric take on this prequel probably helped sell the film to international audiences. The slightly higher budget, however, meant that there was not much of an increase in box office between the two films.

"This is a rare prequel that actually improves upon the prior film. It not only built a backstory for the first film's characters, but it also told it's own entertaining story - something a lot of prequels forget to do." - Sean Sullivan, Financial Times

"If the one mermaid from The Creature wasn't enough for you, now writer Ben Collins and director Robert Eggers give you a whole clan of mermaids. The film had potential, but a lack of character development - especially when it comes to the mermaids - really hindered the story." - Madison Bennett, Vanity Fair

"If you liked the first film, you'll probably enjoy this one too. It features another creepy, but alluring performance from Amanda Seyfried, and strong work from Taylor Kitsch in the lead role." - Lisa Winger, Newsday

Now Showing: The Creature: The Beginning

The Creature: The Beginning
Genre: Horror/Fantasy
Director: Robert Eggers
Writer: Ben Collins
Prequel to The Creature
Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Luke Evans, Amanda Seyfried, Sam Claflin, Alexandra Daddario, Riley Keough, Olivia Munn, Dylann Minnette, Ian McShane, Josh Stewart

Plot: The story is set in Scotland, where some people think they have seen strange creatures like beautiful girls swimming in the water. These people are not believed by others and defined as crazy. One day one of these people, a fisherman named Sullivan (Josh Stewart), was approached by a businessman named Mr. Woolrich (Ian McShane) who asked to tell the story. Sullivan says that during a trip he found a series of small islands not marked on the maps and at night his boat was attacked by strange creatures with long hair with the appearance of young girls, he was the only survivor despite the sinking his boat. It was found on a piece of wood a few days later by a large ship that passed. Woolrich seems entranced and confides in Sullivan that he wants to capture one of these creatures. Sullivan, terrified, does not want to follow Mr.Woolrich and shows the businessman where the place where he was attacked should be attached. Mr. Woolrich gives Sullivan a golden coin as a reward.

Mr. Woolrich sends a team to those places, including his son Sam (Taylor Kitsch). Sam was very skeptical and before leaving he had a fight with his father because he believed that the trip was useless and that the sightings were just hallucinations caused by hunger and thirst.

In the first days of travel, the trip seems to be going well, the weather was good and the crew was very playful and in a good mood. After a few days the boat arrives near the "Forbidden Islands" and a crew member named Alan (Luke Evans) tells the captain that he thinks the situation is very strange and that they will have to pay attention. Sam still tells Alan that he does not have to worry, no animal will destroy their ship.

The first day near the islands was quiet, only the dolphins and even a whale in the distance were spotted. During the night the first events began. While Sam was in his booth, he heard Alan and Rallen (Sam Claflin), Sam's deputy captain, speak animatedly. Sam came running and said that all the maps had disappeared and the cabin was untidy. At that moment, Brooks (Dylan Minnette), a young sailor, rushes into the frightened cabin and says he saw something jump off the ship. So the four men are arguing they heard noises in the water and the screams of the other crew members. They rushed to the bow of the ship, but no one remained, only silence. Brooks has a panic crisis and is sedated and brought to rest.

At dawn, Sam saw that many devices had been tampered with, including the engine. The only hope was now that Mr. Woolrich, having no more news sent by his son would send a recovery team. During the day nothing happened, except that occasionally female laughter could be heard coming from the water and so the survivors decided to hide all the food supplies.

With the arrival of the evening, with the darkness, the laughter became incessant and frightening and the survivors began to feel blows on the sides of the ship. The young Brooks looked out for a moment to see what was happening and was captured by two hands and brought underwater. Sam, Alan and Rallen were confused and terrified and did not know what to do. At this point they quickly closed below deck and from the portholes they could see strange figures in the distance. Alan saw a blonde girl with a fish tail and a smooth body (Amanda Seyfried). He approached the oblo and with a disquieting smile greeted Alan, immediately after his arrival, another creature with brown hair (Alexandra Daddario) gave her a shove and gave a blow to the glass of the porthole and immediately jumped into the water laughing. The three survivors they start to look scared as the creatures, the sirens, continue to jump on the ship scaring the three survivors.That was at that moment that a red-haired mermaid (Riley Keough) showed up laughing with the head of poor Brooks in his hands, amused by the frightened reaction of the others. Alan says it looked like the creatures were playing with them and kept looking at the blond haired mermaid and told Rallen that the blonde was named Lily, while the one with the red hair Ross, but she did not know how she knew that. ship began to swing, creatures must surely be many. Suddenly there was a kind of shrill cry, Alan and Sam covered their ears while Rallen, almost hypnotises he took the key and tried to open the door. Alan threw himself on him and after a fight he recovered the key. Rallen kept saying, "I have to open the door," "They want us to go with them." Sam took a piece of wood and hit him on the head making him faint. Meanwhile the brown-haired mermaid kept looking at the scene from the porthole with an amused look. The blonde Lily instead, seemed to behave differently from the other sirens and escaped into the water with an almost sad face.

After a while they began to see the first light of dawn and a terrifying silence fell on the ship. After a few hours Rallen woke up, barely remembering what had happened, said that the creatures were checking him and talking to him. He said that the creatures, in the past, were human beings who had lost themselves at sea and were transformed many years ago by a giant monster that lives in the abyss in sirens and their purpose of life was to capture new travelers to eat them or to be transformed into new sirens.

About noon they came out of their hiding place to check the ship's situation and saw two severed legs stuck to the bow.

As the evening approached, the fear began to take possession of the three survivors, who brought under the lights they could find on board the ship, hoping that the sirens were really afraid of the light.When it was sunset, they closed down in their hiding place. After a while the creatures started to knock on the ship and their evil laughter was heard. The three men agreed on what to do in case the sirens tried to hypnotize one of them. At that moment, Sam hoped that the creatures could not hypnotize them all together as he looked out the porthole. He was looking at the usual Lily, who rummaged with some objects in the cabin while a new siren (Olivia Munn) arrives on the ship, a wonderful creature with a strange object in her hair. The other sirens treated her with respect and Sam thought that perhaps she was the queen of the sirens. The other sirens moved and the new sirens closed their eyes, opening their mouths. After a few seconds, he heard the shrill cry of the night before and Alan and Rallen were hypnotized together while Sam tried to fight the strange feeling with little success. All three came out and came face to face with the creatures, they were many and all beautiful. The two sirens, the red-haired and brown, invited the three to dive with them and disappear into the water. Alan and Rallen followed them immediately and disappeared into the waves. Despite the resistance, Sam took two steps forward and was close to diving. Suddenly he felt the voice of Lily in his mind trying to communicate telepathically with him and told him not to dive and turn around. At that moment Sam turned and immediately lit a match and threw it close to the queen on a barrel of fuel that caught fire. The queen was frightened and Sam's mind was released as the ship began to burn. Suddenly Sam feels grabbing from behind and takes him underwater. Sam recognized the creature in Lily before losing consciousness.

Then the scene passes in a ship, Sam wakes up in a booth and next to him is his father, Mr. Woolrich, who says he controlled the situation from a distance and saw everything that had happened and intervened when the fire broke out. Sam begins to despise his father for putting him in danger and sacrificing the life of his crew and says he would tell it to everyone. Mr. Woolrich replied that if he had said a word about what had happened he would have him locked up in a madhouse and with a syringe he still put Alan to sleep. Later we see Mr. Woolrich and the captain of the ship talking about how the object is and then we see the poor mermaid Lily tied to cry.

The film ends with the gaze of the mermaid queen full of anger and a scary scream.