All The Movies to Catch this March-April 2024
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
28 March
Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) finally gets the respect he deserves as he returns alongside Dan Aykroyd to lead the new team of Ghostbusters following their first outting in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things), Mckenna Grace, and Paul Rudd return and some new faces crop up in the form of comedian James Acaster, Kumail Nanjiani and Patton Oswalt. Don’t worry, the 2016 SNL crew led ghostbusters is still not canon and never will be.
This time round the crew leave sleepy Summerville, Oklahoma and return to the firehouse in New York where the whole series kicked off. The original Ghostbusters have been beavering away at new tech to better take down ghosts, but will it be enough when the entire city is threatened with a second ice age. If it wasn’t caused by ghosts I’d say that Greta Thunberg would probably be the one I’d call if an iceberg went crashing through my ranch sliders.
For the baddies in this outting director Gil Kenan dipped into the 80s cartoon spinoff The Real Ghostbusters for their “wild, original and weird-as-f*ck villains”. “We wanted to bring that show’s looseness and fearlessness to this movie,” Kenan told Empire. “I think it’s going to surprise people just how big this film is.”
This one’s for the fans.
3 Body Problem: Season 1
21 Mar, Streaming on Netflix
The 3 Body Problem books are a big deal in China, on par with the likes of Star Wars in terms of popularity. They’re incredible sci fi novels and I recommend them.
They’re pretty quick reads. Now the dramatisation is upon us helmed by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, otherwise known as the dudes who railed Game Of Thrones. This time though, their source material is actually finished. The story starts in communist China when first contact is first made, and the show will take place over a series of time skips as we slowly learn more about what the universe has to offer, and whether we should have ever reached out in the first place.
Beyond Utopia
Streaming on Docplay, Out Now
Beyond Utopia is an edge-of-the-seat documentary focusing on the dangerous journey out of North Korea to the south. It follows a pastor in the South who organises the underground smuggling of NK families. Footage is shot undercover and taken by the escapees themselves, and provides a terrifying glimpse into a country few of us will ever see. It feels more like a political thriller than a documentary, and has had gained critical acclaim among both critics and audiences.
The Convert
In Cinemas 14 March
Directed by Once Were Warriors Director Lee Tamahori finally gets back to the time of warriors and 1830s New Zealand. Guy Pearce plays a recently transplanted preacher with a rough past offers a small pakeha settlement the veneer of civilization with a new church. Instead he gets embroiled in the power plays and blood letting of the local tribes, and must decide his place in the world, and whether his faith has any place in it.
The Beatles, Again and Again
Film studios have been looking for sure fire hits. Not all of us have the time to build up and then run massive franchises like Star Wars or Avengers into the ground. But if you don’t have preexisting IP’s and big name actors to get bums in seats what do you have? The answer is musicians and their pre-existing fanbases.
The 2022 Elvis film smashed it at the box office and rocketed Austin Butler to instant stardom. His child bride Priscilla Beaulieu recently got her own flick ‘Priscilla’, and it’s rating even higher critically.
Not to be outdone The Beatles are about to get the Lord Of The Rings treatment by getting one movie EACH… At the same time. Directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Skyfall, Spectre) the films will work from each members point of view and will follow the bands history up till their 1970 breakup. I’m not entirely sure we need this many Beatles films but then again I’m not the target demographic.
Even more surprisingly all four films are slated for a 2027 release essentially competing with each other at the box office.
I suppose shared scenes could use alternative angles, and each layer of story could inform the others. No doubt all will be shot at the same time. It’s a fascinating strategy, and Sony Pictures seems pretty confident about it.
Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group chairman/CEO Rothman said “I know I speak for our CEO Tony Vinciquerra, who was instrumental in making this happen, and every Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group colleague around the world when I say: ‘yeah, yeah, yeah!’”
Thanks for the cheese, man.
