YNMS x 3: Wonder Wheel, Crooked House, Replicas
Monday, October 9, 2017 at 10:09AM Time to catch up on recent trailers that slipped pass us in a difficult week. Ready set - go for discussions on the latest star vehicles for Kate Winslet and Keanu Reeves and a new Agatha Christie movie Crooked House.
The trailers with quickie YNMS breakdown are after the jump...
WONDER WHEEL (2017)
yes COLOR. We like it when movies go there. The period Coney Island setting looks wonderful and something about this looks like a filmed play which, one realizes, is not usually meant as a compliment. But in this case, I mean it so. Also: Kate Winslet rocking hair that Clementine would probably approve of.
no Does Justin Timberlake narrate this whole thing? Yikes.
maybe so Woody Allen's minor gangster fetish (not as pronounced as his peers like Coppola & Scorsese, but still) feels deeply been-there-done-that at this point. So let's hope there's enough juice in the character drama to make the crime drama merely "setting"
REPLICAS (2018)
yes The premise (cloning dead loves one) is intriguing in that it's not exactly the same "artificial intelligence are all too human!" creepy thing that the movies are always harping on, even if it's the in the same sci-fi horror tinged 'don't mess with god's creations' wheelhouse.
no That said this could easily be Z grade and the visuals do not appear fresh or well executed enough, at least in these bite sized doses, to instill confidence.
maybe so We ❤️ Keanu but you have to cast him just-so for him to work wonders. Some of brain doctor / scientist seems like risky territory for everyone's favorite earnest goofy retired surfer type action star.
CROOKED HOUSE (2018)
yes Murder mysteries > movies about murdering. And what a cast! They're not people you see in every movie... least of all with each other.
no It looks like it's trying awfully hard (music color DRAMA) but that could just be an overly caffeinated trailer-editor
maybe so The success depends on the confidence of the filmmaking (Gilles Paquet-Brenner had a minor hit with Sarah's Key but people seemed to hate his most recent movie Dark Places). Well that and how well the cast gels. Will they cohere into an exciting ensemble or will they all seem like they're in separate movies?
Which of these films are you a yes on?
Reader Comments (30)
What is it with Woody Allen and gangsters? It was fun in Broadway Danny Rose and Radio Days, but after that....
I somehow missed news of "Crooked House" entirely - easily the most exciting of the three. Might even be better than "Orient Express", since it looks leaner.
I know that "Wonder Wheel" is a period piece, but even so - I read somewhere that Winslet plays "Ginny, a clam house waitress"??? Yikes. It makes me think of the "Difficult People" line about how Woody Allen thinks "cigarette girl" is still a job.
Oh, how I wish JT would stick to SNL.
I'm a yes all the way for Kate with Woody's dialogue and 50s Coney Island.Less intrigued by the gangster subplot, but still a yes.
Huge yes on Crooked House. I've been looking forward to it for months, and am much more excited about it than I am for Orient Express.
As y'all know, I love Winslet and I do want to see Wonder Wheel, but I look more forward to Crooked House.
"Crooked House" doesn't look that different from the BBC tv adaptations, which are also entertaining. One thing I do like about Agatha Christie mysteries is that the victim isn't a girl or child who has been kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered. The Christie victim is often an old white unethical male capitalist. The array of possible suspects shows how the victim poisoned all levels of society.
"Wonder Wheel". No. Oh god, no. Two things to avoid, Justin Timberlake movies, and Woody Allen movies. I don't like how the wife, Winslet, is abused (again) and that's just normal, and she brought it on herself.
"Replicas". Yeah, okay, meet you there. I have a hypothesis that some movies Keanu does are "rehearsal movies", like "Johnnie Mnemonic" before "The Matrix". The rehearsal movie doesn't quite gel, but in a follow up movie in the same genre, Keanu gets it exactly right.
Love that Crooked House cast. And having read the book, it's one of Christie's more audacious mysteries. If they follow the novel, it could be challenging to pull off but very interesting if they do.
adri -- ohmygod i love this theory of yours. I'd read a whole article about it ;)
Love the Crooked House trailer a lot. What a cast and yes I don't think they appeared in the same film before (although Max Irons and Glenn Close were both in The Wife) so we'll see how they play off each other. Truth be told, I already read the novel a long time ago and I know how the story is resolved at the end but I am still interested to see how Gilles Paquet-Brenner makes it all work. It might be fun to observe little things in the film given that I know who the killer is/was.
I like the colors and vibrancy of Wonder Wheel but Justin Timberlake's rather anachronistic look (in my eyes at least) at 1:09 is hilarious and not in the best sense. I would watch it for the story, for Kate Winslet and Juno Temple and Jim Belushi. The titling looks modernised, and I kinda miss the Windsor-font names of the cast against the old black-background in Woody's old films. But maybe Amazon had a say in the modernised look, no?
Kate Winslet looks very stiff and actressy in that trailer. Justin Timberlake ... why?
Very happy to hear that there’s a Crooked House movie in addition to the Murder on the Orient Express film. Hope they are quickly followed up with And Then There Were None (though it’s been done so often) or The Death of Roger Ackroyd (which hasn’t been done as much and, with ‘And Then’ and ‘Orient Express’ has one of the three best solutions to any of her novels).
Woody Allen sent a clip on Graham Norton show which Winslet introduced,she came off fine as usual,hard to grasp it was a 90 second scene,exasperated is how I would describe her in the clip and funny.
Wonder Wheel is a yes for Winslet, the color/look and for the drama/intrigue, but a no for gangsters, Timberlake and Woody Allen's general mediocrity. So I guess I'm ending up a Maybe So?
Crooked House could be a lot of fun. Any film that's smart enough to use Hendricks has me intrigued.
I always want to see Winslet and Woody at their best, and I'm a "yes" for Wonder Wheel simply for that reason, but I am really disappointed by this trailer. The 1950s can be such a cinematic period, but they look really depressing here (though the cinematography is beautiful despite that), and what we learn of the plot doesn't interest me either.
Wonder Wheel: Maybe-No. Looks really mediocre. Even Winslet looks off.
Crooked House: Yeah, that looks good.
Replicas: NO.
YES YES YES on Crooked House. I'm a debout Christie fanboy, and this appears to be the perfect formula. Hopefully it will undo some of the damage the misguided MOTOE remake will do. It says here it's for next year, but the FB page says it's for this Christmas. It would be a lovely holiday gift for movie fans.
Judging from the trailer, Winslet is off the table for Best Actress - thank God!
The movie looks really bad, too.
One of Woody's quickly written and slight movies - like most of his movies post 1999.
The story seems so boring - old hat.
And I hate Timberlake as an actor.
Solid NO.
I'm a YES to Crooked House - because of my undying love for Christina Hendricks.
I don't even wanna bother with Replicas.
Glenn Close is killing it lately.
Definitely Wonder Wheel because it looks like one of Woody Allen's winners.
Evan, you should check out the And Then There Were None miniseries back from 2015 from BBC and A&E. Good stuff.
I concur that the Wonder Wheel trailer looks boring as fuck.
I'm guessing Winslet's character has a secret, she's killed a man or some shit and the climax will revolve around that.
Oy, 'Wonder Wheel' looks all over the place. Almost feels like something that is being translated from the stage to screen...overblown emotions and dialogue that doesn't feel quite right on screen vs on a stage. Winslet looks alright, but judging from the trailer alone, I feel like Best Actress looks sort of off the table for this year.
Wonder Wheel is good yes to me... I thot both Kate n Juno look promising in the trailer. The academy luvs Kate, so she still has a fairly good chance.
A huge yes to the slick n gorgeous looking Crooked House. If it is released by this year, Close may still have a chance at BSA in the coming Oscars!! She looks marvellous in it n that gets me v excited!! 😁
We ❤️ Keanu? Ooooookay. (His inexplicably wondrous career longevity is something to behold, I'll give him that.)
The cast of Crooked House = yum. How great is it that Christina Hendricks get the "and" honor? I ❤️ Christina!
I think Wonder Wheel looks "all over the place" because it's a poorly cut trailer. Winslet should be front and center and she's not. Love the color, but it just seems distracted.
Uhhh...Crooked House...YES YES YES
I said the same thing about Wonder Wheel looking like a play that was filmed. And the colors.
I think Juno Temple is about to become an Academy Award nominee and Kate Winslet will be battling for her second win.
I wish Evan Rachel Wood coulda had a shot at that Juno Temple role though, I'm still waiting for her to blow up in the way she should have post-Thirteen.
@Claran
I wish you're right -- that Close gets a chance in the (already crowded) BSA category for her work as Lady Edith in Crooked House sight unseen. It would be a pleasant surprise for sure. Though I am not sure if the film is any good despite the stellar cast and the fact that this whodunit had an unusual ending.
i have similar reservations about wonder wheel's trailer to many that have been voiced here - but i went back and watched blue jasmine's trailer which was similarly blah, so i have faith that it could be the same type of trailer woe here.