News

• Ryan Coogler, the young director behind the surprisingly good Creed and the devastatingly good Fruitvale Station, is apparently in talks to direct Marvel’s Black Panther movie. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Cooler’s a strong newcomer, so it might be a shame for Marvel to go all Edgar Wright on him.

• Ethan Hawke will join Clive Owen, Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne in Luc Besson’s Valerian, adapted from the epic sci-fi comic. We know next to nothing else about the film, but that’s quite a core cast.

• Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence won the International Documentary Association’s top honors last night, which was a surprise to few after Oppenheimer’s crushing The Act of Killing. Silence is currently on the 15-film contender’s list for this year’s Academy Awards, a list that unfortunately excluded the excellent (and currently streaming on Netflix) documentary The Wolfpack.

• We’re happy to announce that Motion State is hereby and forthwith declared a Force Awakens spoiler-free zone. If you’re not interested in going to your favorite website and seeing something like “Mark Hamill Breaks His Silence on the Fact that Luke is Evil Now and Also Han Dies” plastered all over the front page, well…get a new favorite website!

Trailers

Shane Black’s The Nice Guys got a red-band trailer this past week, and it looks as gleefully drunk on flashy noir as his previous Kiss Kiss Bang Bang:

The rote-looking Exposed, starring Keanu Reeves and a mustachioed Shooter McGavin, also got a first look this week:

And lastly a strange trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice featuring a poorly CG’d Doomsday (?), Batman holding a gun (??) and the actual inclusion of the “I thought she was with you” line (???):

In Cinemas

December 11th stateside releases include Ron Howard‘s In the Heart of the Sea and the quirky Don Verdean. Your alternative is to save your money to see The Force Awakens five or six times the following weekend.

On TV

The second season finale of The Leftovers airs tonight. Predictions? Theories? Will Meg kill those people revealed at the end of “Ten Thirteen”? Or will she be heralded as a rescuer, as a savior? Wait, what? You’re not watching The Leftovers? Get on it!

On Netflix

Jessica Jones is well worth a watch for superhero and non-superhero fans alike (though Daredevil is far more hard-hitting). New December releases include the oddly charming Netflix Christmas “variety show” A Very Murray Christmas (pictured above), the frankly hilarious Darkman, and the undoubtedly hilarious Cradle 2 the Grave. Also recommended is Tangerine, a so-so movie that’s nevertheless awesome for the fact of it being shot entirely on an iPhone.

Review of the Week

Our latest Face Off pits the original Flight of the Phoenix against the 2004 remake, making for one of the finest battle royales in cinematic history. Or not.