FIFTY SHADES REJUVENATED
Book Club unites screen legends; Deadpool has more wisecracks, Chris Lackner writes.
MOVIES
Big releases on May 18: Book Club; Deadpool 2.Big Picture: Book Club is about four older women whose lives are reinvigorated and reinvented — sigh, soft whimper on behalf of human civilization — after reading Fifty Shades if Grey. Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen co-star. It’s like Sex in the City meets Golden Girls. Expect a lot of jokes about spanking and Viagra. Meanwhile, Deadpool returns for more cold-blooded, sarcastic violence and killing — all while mugging for and commenting directly to the film’s audience. This time the anti-hero grows a conscience in forming a ragtag team of mutants called the X-Force to protect a young mutant a from the timetravelling, half-cyborg named Cable. It’s like Terminator meets … Deadpool. “We need them tough, morally flexible and young enough to carry their own franchise for 10 to 12 years,” he says in assembling his misfit mutants. Forecast: You would have preferred Dead pool 2: Book Club.
TV
Big releases: Cargo (May 18, Netflix); Fahrenheit 451 (May 19, HBO).
Big picture: Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon star in an HBO film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel. “Words are a terror, son” Jordan’s soldier is told and “knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Thanks HBO. Releasing an adaptation of THIS famous novel while Donald Trump is still U.S. president? The man has never read a book and now you help him see a potential utility for books: kindling! Meanwhile, Martin Freeman (Watson in Sherlock, Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit trilogy) stars in this Australian zombie thriller about a dad carrying his baby through a Mad Maxian zombie-filled dystopia. Set in Oz, this one ends in a search for “the clever man” and his Indigenous “good medicine” in the Outback. It’s Walking Dead meets Sundance.
Forecast: People against book burning will change their minds after watching Book Club.
MUSIC
Big releases on May 18: Matthew Sweet (Tomorrow’s Daughter); James Bay (Electric Light); Ray LaMontagne (Part of the Light). Big picture: Bay’s second studio album features the usual block of breakup and yearning pop numbers. LaMontagne’s seventh studio album will be brighten up your playlist. He’s been compared to Van Morrison, Nick Drake and Otis Redding for a damn good reason. Meanwhile, Matthew Sweet proves his ’90s pop rock sugar hasn’t gone sour with this mature effort. Forecast: more albums with the word “light” in the title.