Hello again Awesome Friday readers. I’m glad you’ve both stuck around! It’s been another week and here are the highlights. And maybe some low-lights, depending who you are asking.

Just kidding they’re all highlights. There’s even a new dinosaur movie for you to watch this weekend!

Joker wins the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival

Yes, you read that right people. Joker, directed by Todd Phillips (The Hangover, War Dogs) has won the big prize at Venice. That’s right, Joke is in charge, the boss, the head man, top dog, big cheese, the head honcho, and honestly has a pretty good shot an an Oscar now? That seems a super weird thing to actually write down, but last year Roma won at Venice and then won three Oscars. The year before The Shape of Water won and then took home best picture.

This is a thing that might be happening people. Better brace yourself for how pleasant the internet will probably be about it. Joker is out on October 4th.

(source: Screen Crush)

Rian Johnson on Knives Out (& Star Wars)

The Last Jedi & Looper (and The Brothers Bloom and Brick and ok I’ll stop now) director Rian Johnson has given an interview with Mike Ryan of Uproxx in support of his new movie Knives Out (which we are extremely excited about) in which there are a few juicy tidbits.

First, we can confirm that his new Star Wars trilogy is still happening but it’s in very early phases still.

Second, if Knives Out does enough business at the box office he might do more whodunnits. Quoth the man:

I’ll tell you, the truth is I had such a great time working with Daniel Craig and I had so much fun doing this on every level, from writing it to making it. I’ve never really been interested in doing sequels, but this, the idea of doing more of these with Daniel as his character, is not sequels. It’s just what Agatha Christie did. It’s just coming up with a whole new mystery, a whole new location, all new cast, whole new mechanics of the appeal of a mystery and everything. It’d be a blast.

Look I’ve only seen the trailer for Knives Out and I know that I want to see more Rian Johnson directed / Daniel Craig starring mystery stories so what I am telling you all right now is to make sure that you all go see this movie so that we can all go see more of them.

Unless it turns out to be bad, but as of this writing (10 Sept 2019) it’s sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and as much as I haet to invoke them, movies that are just pretty ok don’t get that high.

Check out the whole interview at Uproxx.

HBO orders season 2 of The Righteous Gemstones

Praise be to he! Or she! Look, whoever signed the paperwork to make a second season of The Righteous Gemstones happen, praise them. The new Danny McBride, John Goodman, and Adam DeVine starring series is waaaay darker than the advertising would lead to believe but that’s far from a complaint. I can’t wait to see how the first season wraps up and where they go in season two.

(source: Variety)

There is a Face/Off remake in the works because of course there is.

Yup. That 90s action classic is being remade. No, I don’t know why, but I guess someone thinks they can make a bunch of money. I don’t know how they are going to re-create the perfect storm of Nic Cage and John Travolta at their career peaks, John Woo finally landing big in Hollywood, and, you know, the bonkers time for action movies that was the 90s, but hey that’s never stopped anyone before.

I’ll embed the "Nic Cage as a priest" scene from the original below to make you feel better.

(source: Deadline)

Feast your eyes on this 4700+ piece Lego Star Destroyer

Yes, the next Lego Ultimate Collector Series release is a 4783 piece, 110cm long Imperial Star Destroyer. I mean, just look at the thing.

It’s ain’t cheap though, it’ll set you back $850 here in Canada. That’s a lot of cash, but on the other hand did you notice the tiny Tantive IV that it comes with?

You can get one starting October 1st.

(source: Lego)

There’s a new Jurassic World short film, Battle at Big Rock, premiering Sunday on FX

Dinosaur enthusiasts rejoice, there is an 8 minute short premiering on FX this weekend. Sunday –tomorrow!– in fact. Apparently it is 8 minutes long, is directed by Colin Trevorrow, written by him and Emily Carmichael (they’re also writing Jurassic World 3 together, and he’s directing that too).

Here’s what it’s about from Trevorrow himself:

Battle At Big Rock is a short film that takes place one year after the events of Fallen Kingdom. It’s about a family on a camping trip to Big Rock National Park, about 20 miles from where the last film ended. There have been a few sightings, but this is the first major confrontation between dinosaurs and humans.

Look this all sounds ok to me. The cast also sounds good: André Holland, Natalie Martinez, Melody Hurd, and Pierson Salvador. Admittedly, I am not a huge fan of Colin Trevorrow’s work but I do love dinosaurs and people confronting dinosaurs. Plus, it’s only 8 minutes!

In America, Battle at Big Rock will premiere right after a showing of Jurassic World Sunday the 15th and will be posted online on Monday the 16th. I don’t see it in my listings for FX Canada, so I assume we’ll get it in the days following.

(source: Collider)

James Gun announces full cast list for The Suicide Squad (which hopefully won’t suck).

Yes, Suicide Squad is getting a sequel. It’ll be a sequel to a bad movie –Like, real bad– but it’s getting a sequel, or reboot, or another movie anyway from James Gunn. Gun n signed the deal after he has been ousted from Disney based on a bad faith campaign mounted by internet nazis to get him fired, but before Disney came to their senses and re-hired him for Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.

Today announced via twitter the full cast list for The Suicide Squad today, so let’s take a look.

It’s a hell of a cast, there’s no denying that. There were two bright spots in the first one: Will Smith and Margot Robbie as Deadshot and Harley Quinn respectively. Good news is that Margot Robie is returning. The bad news is that Will Smith isn’t. I had originally heard that Idris lab was replacing him in the role, but I’ve also heard that he’s playing a new character so who knows.

Nice to see names like Peter Capaldi and Taika Waititi and Sean Gunn up on there. James Gunn makes films I like, too, so it has that going for it along with this cast.

But Suicide Squad was bad so will The Suicide Squad be able to escape that shadow? I honestly hope so, but I’m still filing this one under "cautious optimism". We’ll find out in August 2021

The End

That’s all I have for this week, but that’s week two in the bag. Three will be a full blown pattern! We’ll be back with more news in a week.