When we first meet John Link, Mel Gibson’s grizzled ex-con anti-hero in his latest thriller Blood Father, he’s in the midst of an impassioned soliloquy at an AA meeting. A self-proclaimed “real success story,” Link is a recovering alky two years out of the slammer, whose wife left him and whose daughter is in the wind, leaving him with no one in his corner and with no one to blame but himself. It’s a fitting noir-esque introduction to Link, but also—perhaps more appropriately, especially as he’s talking straight at the camera when he says it—it seems to be coming from Gibson himself.Directed by Jean-François Richet, who helmed 2008’s gripping gangster diptych Mesrine, Blood Father seems at first glance to be another addition to the tried-and-true Gibson formula: a brutal guy on the wrong side of the tracks takes on those who wronged him, often in typically gruesome fashion. Certainly, John Link could be blood brothers with Porter and Driver, Gibson’s violent protagonists from Payback and Get the Gringo. Living on the fringe of society while scratching out a living as a tattoo artist from his grungy desert trailer, Link is as blunt and terse as his monosyllabic name would suggest. The difference is that Blood Father feels like Gibson confronting the demons that put him and his career on the skids over the last decade. His performance feels like penance, and not in a negative way. Gibson’s mainstay has always been passion—in both definitions of the word—and here he bares himself to the bone.

The couple whose marriage is in the target zone is played by Cobie Smulders (The Avengers, “How I Met Your Mother”) as exhausted mother of three Ruby, and Vincent Piazza (“Boardwalk Empire”) as the long-ago-gave-up-trying Peter. The others are played by Melanie Lynskey (“Two and a Half Men”) as Annie, who has continually postponed her wedding to super nice guy fiancé Matt played by Jason Ritter; Natasha Lyonne (“Orange is the New Black”) as Sarah, long-time partner to Ruby’s sister Jessie (Clea DuVall); and Ben Schwartz (“House of Lies”) as Jack, who brings his free-spirited, much younger girlfriend Lola (Alia Shawkat, State of Grace).

Louise and Kasper, a Danish couple, live in an isolated villa in the middle of the forest away from modern life, technology and even electricity. Louise’s biggest dream is to become a mother but she is unable to have children. She finally decides, out of desperation, to seal a pact with her Romanian maid, Elena. Elena accepts to bear Louise’s child as a surrogate mother in exchange for a large amount of money. The life growing inside of her is taking shape too fast, affecting the lives of everyone like an evil force. Paranoia and horror set in around the inevitable birth…

As a war between rival queen sisters Ravenna and Freya escalates, Eric and fellow warrior Sara, members of the Huntsmen army raised to protect Freya, try to conceal their forbidden love as they combat Ravenna's wicked intentions

We always knew they were coming back. After INDEPENDENCE DAY redefined the event movie genre, the next epic chapter delivers global spectacle on an unimaginable scale. Using recovered alien technology, the nations of Earth have collaborated on an immense defense program to protect the planet. But nothing can prepare us for the aliens’ advanced and unprecedented force. Only the ingenuity of a few brave men and women can bring our world back from the brink of extinction.
Independence Day: Resurgence went quietly into the night this weekend, taking second at the box office to Finding Dory with $42 million. Digitally the movie performed well with over 135 million trailer views shared across Facebook FB -2.73% and YouTube, although a lack of true wider interest could be indicated by the 120,000 tweets prior to release. If ID:R had driven closer to 200,000 tweets that would have been a good indicator of a real blockbuster opening being on the cards.
The digital campaign had some nice touches such as the webcam showing what would have happened to your street after the alien invasion and vox pops from the perennially popular Jeff Goldblum in character. The movie’s weekend performance probably rests more with the lack of Will Smith and the strength of the competition than with what happened online.
At the other end of the scale we have The Shallows, which leveraged a digital heavy campaign to reach distinct genre target audiences and deliver messaging tailored specifically to those groups. The campaign hit home with its target, which saw The Shallows beat expectations and take over $16 million when many had it pegged to barely break into double digits.
The key demo for modern horror movies is younger women and The Shallows created partnerships with brands, publishers and platforms which speak strongly to this audience. The movie took over the film section of Refinery 29 “Blockbust-her” which also seeded content inspired by the movie’s star Blake Lively. Buzzfeed sent their most popular video stars “The Try Guys” to swim with sharks alongside a branded custom content series which lived on site. Motherboard also produced a documentary on shark attacks in conjunction with the movie.
All of these videos clocked up millions of views on branded content in addition to an already impressive 20 million trailer views prior to release, alongside over 90,000 tweets, demonstrating the wide interest the campaign stirred up which fueled the over-performance this weekend.

Tarzan, having acclimated to life in London, is called back to his former home in the jungle to investigate the activities at a mining encampment. Here is a fun fact- Tarzan is the most rebooted and reimagined franchise of all time. Here is another fun fact- The Legend of Tarzan adds nothing to the legacy and really has no purpose for existing unless you REALLY want to see Alexander Skarsgård’s shirtless chiseled up body for almost 2 hours. It’s beyond ridiculous how in your face it is, but I digress and go back to my original point that this movie is nothing more than extraordinarily boring. The Legend of Tarzan picks things up with our revered hero after all the classic stories have already happened, which at first glance seems like a good idea considering that a refreshing story will probably be told. Not really, as there are about 50 different flashbacks to the origins of Tarzan anyway (is there anyone really going to see this movie that doesn’t know the original story of Tarzan) with a few reworked tidbits here and there, but for the most part all of this adds nothing. The first half of the movie (a.k.a. the scenes Alexander Skarsgård wears clothes in) shows Tarzan as an aristocratic trade emissionary, which is about as boring as it sounds. He lives in a castle leading a normal civilized life, viewed as a pariah to the locals of the land, while Jane (played by Margot Robbie in the first misfire of her career as far as acting and project picking goes) wants him to get back into the jungle. By the way, there is a flashback of how they meet, and it is completely ridiculous.