by: “Doc” Hunter Bush, Podcast Czar

Well, you done got me Jared Leto! You fooled me good! Though I’m writing this slightly ahead of time, I’m sure that, come April 1st, we’ll all realize that Morbius was a colossal April Fools Prank perpetrated by the new master of goofs - Jared Leto.

*applauds*

Well done, sir. I should have seen it coming. With the benefit of hindsight, obviously there was no way that Morbius was supposed to be a real movie, but Mr. Leto’s commitment to the bit is unimpeachable. From setting up a fake IMBd page, to sending out bogus screening invitations, to getting a bunch of his Hollywoo pals to appear in the fake trailer; all the details were just right. But by initially setting the release date much earlier, then repeatedly pushing the date back, again and again until finally settling on April 1st (the plan all along) he got me hook, line, and sinker. All I can say is… Bravo!

Welcome fellow fools to Everything Old Is New Again, the column where I review the trailers for upcoming films and series based in some way on a previously existing idea. Maybe it’s a book, a comic, a TV series, an older film, a song, whatever - if there’s something new being made from it, I’ll endeavor to cover it. And yes, occasionally I get fooled by an Andy Kaufman-level performance art prank from Jared Leto.

Down at the bottom of the column, I’ll spotlight something on streaming that isn’t new, but still meets EOINA criteria and tell you a little bit about why. So even if none of the new releases tickle your fancy, there’s one last recommendation for you to check out.

Let’s get started!

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PREMIERES

EOINA relevant films coming to screen of all sizes

APRIL 8th

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (dir. Jeff Fowler)
Where: in theaters

Back in 1991, the Sega Genesis home gaming system introduced us all to the plucky blue hedgehog who liked to go fast: Sonic. The sequel introduced us to his pal Miles, the fox with 2 tails which he could use to fly like a helicopter, and their co-op gameplay helped you, the gamer, complete Sonic’s main goals: collect rings and chaos gems, defeat the villainous Dr. Robotnik, and of course - go fast. Over time, the games and spin-off animated series’ and comic franchises have elaborated the game to have a huge and weirdly operatic storyline with dozens of characters, none of whom have had the kind of cultural penetrations of Knuckles the echidna, an initially adversarial character who softens into a kind of anti-hero (spoilers?) over time. Taking a cue from its source, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is introducing both Tails (voiced by Colleen O’Shaughnessey) and Knuckles (voiced by Idris Elba) and bringing Robotnik (Jim Carrey) back from the weird fungi dimension he found himself in at the end of the original with even more and greater powers to torment Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz) and his human pal Tom (James Marsden). The plot this time seems more centered on the gems than the rings, but we’re definitely building towards a more game-familiar version of Robotnik as we see him here piloting an enormous mecha-something-or-other to wreak havoc!

Big Sonic fans aside, this might look like a pretty skippable offering, but it has a not-so-secret secret weapon: Jim Carrey. It took me a little while, but when I finally got around to watching the first film, I fell in love with Carrey all over again. As a character, Robotnik is kind of a blank slate. Besides his look and his continual failures to convert all animals into robots, there isn’t a lot to work with, a fact that Carrey uses as a platform to get back to some classic Carrey wackiness. I’m still not personally visiting theaters, but I cannot wait for this to hit VOD.

Ambulance (dir. Michael Bay)
Where: in theaters

Michael Bay - director of films like the excellent Armageddon and recently the increasingly abysmal Transformers franchise - is back, directing an action movie about some people in an ambulance that probably will not transform into a big robot (but I can’t say for sure). Based on a 2005 Danish film from director Laurits Munch-Petersen, Bay’s Ambulance stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jake Gyllenhaal as Will and Danny Sharp (respectively), brothers who rob a bank. Before you go judging them, Will has a good excuse: he needs the money! Oh, wait. Maybe that’s not a super great excuse. I mean, he doesn’t even say what exactly he needs it for, but he keeps mentioning his wife & daughter so maybe they have gambling debts or something. Anyway, the robbery doesn’t go as planned and the two are forced to flee into an ambulance containing an injured police officer and go on the run. So they’ve upgraded from armed robbery to kidnapping, BUT on the plus side (for them) the police, lead by Capt. Monroe (Garret Dillahunt), are unwilling to openly fire on them since they’re in the presence of “a brother cop”.

This trailer has a lot of dialogue leading me to believe that they might be examining what exactly makes someone “the bad guys”. Is it the guys committing a non-violent yet still armed robbery, or the guys just itching to open fire on them? Or perhaps the larger financial system? Regardless, I don’t expect much of a deep dive into these themes and concepts, but I do expect explosions, which the trailer has to spare.

My biggest qualm with Ambulance is that for some reason someone in the marketing dept. is obsessed with audiences knowing that it’s set in Los Angeles. In the logo, the L and A in AMBULANCE is highlighted and the trailer features the Bobby Womack version of California Dreamin’, (but instead of just playing the song, it’s still chopped and screwed so as to become much more annoying, as is the style of film trailers at this time). I just don’t get it. Is that a sales tactic? Are Los Angeles set films more likely to draw theatergoers? Wouldn’t we just be able to tell from watching the flick? Cuz if not, that’s a whole other problem, right? But does it matter?

I’m sure this’ll be fun. I’ll catch it streaming.

15th

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (dir. David Yates)
Where: in theaters

J.K. Rowling is a hateful stain on popular culture and nobody even seems excited for this twaddle. Just reboot Harry Potter, since that’s what you’re building up to, and get it over with. We live in a franchise mobius strip hell anyway, let’s not belabor the point.

22nd

The Bad Guys (dir. Pierre Perifel)
Where: in theaters

Based on a series of kids graphic novels from Australian author Aaron Blabey, The Bad Guys follows a group of animals (wolf, shark, piranha, snake, and tarantula) usually not thought of in the best light. These anthropomorphic animals (voiced by Sam Rockwell, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Awkwafina, and Marc Maron respectively) are thieves, burglars, and all around nogoodniks. BUT what if they weren’t? What if people stopped viewing them as “bad guys” and treated them …good? Yes, I know what you’re thinking: it  *IS*  a very similar thematic through-line to Ambulance, but this one seems more fun.

This animated flick sees the titular group pretending to reform and then, after Wolf (Rockwell) receives genuine praise for good behavior, actually attempting to turn over a collective new leaf. A lot of the gags here are visual, and the animation really sells them but I think we can all agree, Shark’s most famous theft being stealing the Mona Lisa while disguised as the Mona Lisa is a hilarious concept all around. The animation here (from DreamWorks Animation) is really smooth, very pretty and has a great sense of motion. I’d never heard of this, but it looks great!

SPOTLIGHT - Not new, but recommended EOINA material

1st

William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) (dir. Baz Luhrmann)
Where: HBOmax

On the podcast I cohost - Hate Watch/Great Watch - we’ve been running through the films of Baz Luhrmann (a bit of a change of format for us, but it’s been fun). We started with Romeo + Juliet, and not only did it hold up exceptionally well for me despite my not having seen it in a decade plus, but after discussing it with my cohost Allison Yakulis, I found new things about it worth appreciating. If you haven’t seen this in a long time, or perhaps never, AND if you can handle the whole modern setting/archaic language conceit, I cannot recommend this enough. And after you (re)watch it, listen to our episode HERE!

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Thanks as always for reading. If you find anything above that you’d like to talk about, drop a comment below or reach out on some social media platform - twitter, instagram, letterboxd - or another! Let’s talk movies! Thanks also to the MovieJawn crew of course, for making MJ a great place to read about/hear about/talk about movies!

If you’d like more from me, the aforementioned Hate Watch/Great Watch podcast is a great place to start. Alongside Allison Yakulis, in April we’ll be finishing up our Baz Luhrmann miniseries - Lovin’ with Luhrmann - with an episode on his very first feature Strictly Ballroom (1992) dropping on the 6th! Then, if you’re tired of all the high-falutin talk about love and craft and passion that Lovin’ with Luhrmann brought about, we’re pulling a complete tonal 180 to talk about 1998’s scumbag comedy Dirty Work starring the late great Norm MacDonald and directed by the sadly also late great Bob Saget (both of whom were missing from the Oscars’ In Memoriam presentation btw). That episode drops on the 20th, so blaze it if that’s your thing and then catch the episode via MovieJawn or anywhere YOU get podcasts!

Until next time - Long Live the Movies!

And don’t take any wooden nickels from Jared Leto.