Yearly Archives: 2025

INTERVIEW: Michael Cera Talks ‘Reckless’ Road Trips for New Movie Sacrament

Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek’s network of contributors”I’ve been on a lot,” says Michael Cera of road trips. One of them ended in his car getting totalled.That’s not the subject of his new movie Sacramento, a warm buddy comedy-drama directed by and co-staring real-life friend Michael Angarano alongside Kristen Stewart, but it certainly provided some requisite travel experience.”Before we had kids we used to drive all over the country,” Cera tells Newsweek. “And I had a Corolla for 15 years until it got totalled one morning. I wasn’t in it. I was parked on the street and I went to go in it, and it had been ripped apart like a can of tuna. I think a garbage truck hit it. I got a good cheque for it. And then we got a Camry.”

Michael Cera is one of the stars of Sacramento
Michael Cera is one of the stars of Sacramento
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Angarano, who plays Cera’s long-time best friend Rickey, had an equally eye-opening road trip. Together with Sacramento co-writer Chris Smith, he drove from LA to Sacramento, and the experience provided some inspiration for the film.”I mean, actually a very key thing that we learned on that trip was that there is a real MMA community in Sacramento. And so that whole little side quest that they go on when they meet these women in Sacramento and they show them their gym, that was born out of that that trip that we actually took. We met people in a bar that told us there was this huge MMA and fighting community in Sacramento.”What is Sacramento About?In Sacramento, the arrival of Rickey (Michael Angarano) kicks off an impromptu road trip for he and best friend Glenn (Michael Cera). Meanwhile his wife Rosie (Kristen Stewart) is preparing their lives for the imminent arrival of a baby.The movie stays true to the Sacramento setting. In fact, many scenes were shot on-location, in public, with the town’s actual residents appearing in the background. This, at times, proved challenging.”Friday night at a bar in public, we’re in there making a movie and hoping they don’t look at us and look at the camera. We’re just trying to be in character, and that was our last day of shooting too. That was sort of like, ‘well, let’s see what we get here.'”

Michael Angarano stars in Sacramento
Michael Angarano stars in Sacramento
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Speaking of challenges, Cera’s cough was another. It was so persistent, it threatened to derail the entire shoot.”So in terms of challenge, I mean, just making movies in general is stressful and I couldn’t eat for the first two weeks, just because I was stressed out and I had such a bad cough,” says Cera. “It was hard to speak at times.”He refused to believe that he had a serious cough,” added Angarano.Cera’s next film is The Running Man, a remake of the 1988 Arnold Schwarzenegger classic action caper. It couldn’t be more different to Sacramento. “I’m only in it a little bit,” Cera says, “but I was shown some of it, and it’s going to be really fun.””It’s kind of just one big action sequence after another, and it’s just pure fun.”

The Multiverse Trend Finally Got The Horror Movie It So Desperately Needs

Mothership Motion Pictures

The phrase “breaking the cycle” typically signifies putting an end to a repetitive pattern of damaging behaviors — whether it be cycles of abuse, addiction, oppression, trauma, or grief. As destructive as the cycle may be, it’s difficult to break out of for reasons that go beyond the systemic forces keeping people trapped within. After all, there’s also an odd sense of familiarity that often paralyzes us from wanting to try something different. Even if it’s bad for us, at least we can predict the outcome and prepare for what it brings. In Kevin and Matthew McManus’ “Redux Redux,” a mother named Irene Kelly (Michaela McManus) has invested in a machine sold on the black market that gives her the ability to jump between parallel universes of our world. Multiverse stories are having a huge moment, but Irene isn’t transporting herself for curiosity’s sake or to defeat an interdimensional villain; she’s looking for a timeline where her murdered daughter is still alive.
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Irene’s daughter was kidnapped and killed by a serial killer named Neville (the always great Jeremy Holm), who usually works as a fry cook but sometimes has other jobs, depending on which multiverse she arrives in. Unfortunately, for the countless times she’s jumped, the result has remained the same: Her daughter is dead, Neville is the one who killed her, and Irene is going to process her grief by enacting her own, cold-blooded revenge on her daughter’s perpetrator. By the time we meet Irene, she’s killed Neville so many times she’s lost count. Her cycle of grief has evolved into a cycle of violence, one she’s unsure she’ll ever be able to break.
The McManus Brothers have mainstream credibility, having produced and written episodes of both “American Vandal” and “Cobra Kai,” but their feature filmography is a fascinating array of styles. Their debut feature “Funeral Kings” is a scrappy, coming-of-age comedy about altar boys who get into hijinks after working at funerals, while “The Block Island Sound” is an aquatic sci-fi thriller that Kalyn Corrigan described in her review for /Film as “a fever dream of a movie.” Now, they’ve delivered their strongest film yet, one that quickly became one of the most talked about flicks at the Overlook Film Festival.
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Redux Redux shows you can’t kill your way through anguish

Mothership Motion Pictures

Unlike all those multiverse stories that display parallel universes as fantastically different (like the one where Loki is an alligator), “Redux Redux” never takes its feet off the ground despite its inherently sci-fi premise. Each new universe is nearly identical to the one visited before, so much so that Irene is able to stockpile keys for getaway trucks, rent vacant hotel rooms, and anticipate Neville’s daily routine. In some universes, he doesn’t get the day off as usual and Irene is forced to kill him in broad daylight at the diner where he works, but these are minor inconveniences compared to the agonizing pain she endures every day as a grieving mother.
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The science behind “Redux Redux” isn’t overcomplicated and requires some serious suspension of disbelief, but the how behind Irene’s journey isn’t nearly as interesting as the why. Take, for example, Irene’s habit of catching an occasional cocktail with the chatty Jonathan (Jim Cummings), a man who is also experiencing grief in every universe but is unaware whenever he meets Irene that this isn’t the first time they’ve crossed paths. Rage is no way to cure yourself of sorrow, but she’s willing to keep trying, even if it kills her.
Irene’s new cycle is only interrupted when she crosses paths in one universe with a young woman named Mia (Stella Marcus in a fantastic debut), a would-be fellow victim of Neville who managed to escape his grasp. She’s feisty and sharp-tongued, providing a needed light-hearted salve from Irene’s painful seriousness. Her intrusion into Irene’s adventure not only prevents “Redux Redux” from feeling, well, repetitive, but her presence also allows us to see a new side of Irene — the woman she was before Neville ruined her life.
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Redux Redux is a refreshing adventure in lo-fi sci-fi horror

Mothership Motion Pictures

There are countless movies about grieving mothers, but we seldom get to see the loving, motherly side of their personalities before tragedy transformed them into Sarah Connor-archetypes. It’s quite touching to see how quickly “mom mode” comes flooding back to Irene, reflexively interjecting conversations with reminders of what Mia should do to take better care of herself. It’s also jarring considering we’ve seen Irene graphically obliterate Neville in countless ways, a reminder that many of our own mothers would slice, dice, stab, shoot, and set on fire anyone who would take us from them.
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By keeping the film in a lo-fi setting, “Redux Redux” feels like a film that would be right at home with the work of Rustic Films, especially last year’s fellow Overlook Film Festival standout, “Things Will Be Different.” In an era when studios are inflating already-obscene budgets in the hopes of building CGI multiverses only for their tentpoles to underperform at the box office (inspiring executives to shrug their shoulders and act as if there was no way to predict that the movie wouldn’t be a hit), “Redux Redux” is a phenomenal reminder that money will never be a match for a great story brought to life with incredible actors. These are the kinds of stories that we should be investing in and the type of creative voices we should be fostering.
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At least we can take solace in knowing that in another parallel universe, we are.

China Will Play Fewer Hollywood Movies Due To Trump Tariffs – And The Box Office Will Suffer

20th Century Studios

What has already been a rough year at the box office (make that a rough handful of years) is about to get even more rough. As we recently reported, U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs led China to consider a pause on allowing any Hollywood films to play in the country. Recently, Trump put a 90-day hold on his tariffs throughout much of the world, with the exclusion of China. Instead, he raised the tariffs once again on the country, escalating the trade war between two of the world’s biggest economies. Now, that trade war is officially coming for Hollywood.
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According to a new report from Bloomberg, Chinese regulators are officially going to reduce the number of U.S. films allowed in the country in response to the tariffs imposed by Trump. Just how severe the reduction will be remains to be seen, but China has already been favoring homegrown titles of late, including this year’s “Ne Zha 2” (which made more than $2 billion from Chinese ticket sales alone). The China Film Administration had this to say about it in a statement:

“The wrong action of the US government to abuse tariffs on China will inevitably further reduce the domestic audience’s favorability towards American films. We will follow the market rules, respect the audience’s choice, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported. China is the world’s second-largest film market. We have always adhered to a high level of opening up to the outside world and will introduce more excellent films from the world to meet market demand.”

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While Hollywood movies have been making far less in China since the pandemic, it remains the second-biggest moviegoing market in the world. Plus, certain movies still perform very well there. “Avatar: The Way of Water” made $2.3 billion globally, with a whopping $246 million of that total coming from China. With Disney due to release James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” in December, this newfound policy’s potential impact is coming into focus.

The box office will suffer in the short term, but what about the long term impact?

Paramount Pictures

In total, U.S. imports made around $950 million in China in the 2023 calendar year. That is but a small fraction of the country’s overall market now, but Hollywood needs every dollar it can get. “The Way of Water” still would have been a $2 billion movie even without China. But something like 2021’s “Godzilla vs. Kong” made $188.7 million of its $467.8 million global total in China. That movie was straight-up saved by those ticket sales.
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Granted, in most cases, theaters keep around half of the money from the box office, whereas studios only see about 25% of that money from China (due to international taxes and other factors). Nevertheless, 25% of $188 million is still a lot of money, while 25% of $950 million is a whole lot of money. That’s the larger point here. A lot of money studios could really use right now is going to evaporate.
The other issue, as the CFA pointed out, is that Chinese moviegoers may not be as inclined to support American movies right now, given the ongoing trade war. So, even if a movie like “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” can secure a theatrical release in China, it may be even tougher sledding than it has been of late.
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For years now, mind you, Hollywood hasn’t been able to depend on China’s box office like it used to. That’s to say, major studios couldn’t depend on robust grosses from the country even before this mess. But there’s a big difference between not being able to depend on it and wiping that money off the board entirely. That’s what we’re looking at now, and at a time when the box office is more volatile than it’s ever been, the industry at large can ill-afford such setbacks. And yet, here we are. One can only hope that this is merely a short term issue and that there aren’t long term ramifications for the relationship between Hollywood and China, though that does seem like a distinct possibility.

Sinners Review: Ryan Coogler’s Bloody Vampire Masterclass Is 2025’s Movie To Beat

“Sinners” is several things at once — a monster movie, a blood-soaked action film, a sexy and sensual thriller, and a one-location horror flick as intense and paranoia-driven as anything from the original “Assault on Precinct 13” or Quentin Tarantino’s filmography – but its greatest strength comes from how well Coogler blends every big idea on his mind. Music plays an enormously important role in the narrative, emphasized by the world-building details of how these vampires get involved in the first place. According to legend, preternaturally gifted musicians can sometimes have their music act as a mystical conduit between life and death. Throughout the film, we see how it wears its love for the artform on its sleeve. Music can be an expression of cultural traditions, of dreams for the future, of community, of outright defiance … and, on the flip side, of temptation and greed.
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It’s no coincidence that the vampires of “Sinners” aren’t only after the blood of their victims. Remmick and his ever-growing followers also have a legitimate worldview, one that’s defined by doing away with cultural divisions in favor of a “heaven on Earth” and a world ruled by pithy truisms about being kind and polite and “one people” who are “together forever” — a darkly hilarious sentiment coming from undead vampires with razor-sharp fangs and blood-red eyes. Importantly, Coogler’s script positions these villains as genuinely talented musicians in their own right, even earning a respectful nod from the trigger-happy Stack as they perform a catchy folk song in an attempt to enter the premises of their juke joint. But as Remmick menacingly growls to Sammie at one point, “I want your stories; I want your songs.” These are culture vultures in every sense of the phrase, and that added dose of real-world horror only makes them all the more terrifying.
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Everything comes to a head in a barn-burning sequence drenched in hazy lights and shadows, shot largely in a single take during Sammie’s performance and making full use of the IMAX screen and its dramatic aspect ratio changes. Almost certainly destined to end up among the best and most memorable scenes in all of 2025, this transports viewers across a dreamlike tableau of Black characters in true communion with ancestors and descendants alike — a moment of actual movie magic that needs to be seen to be believed. Director of photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw (reuniting with Coogler after “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”), editor Michael P. Shawver, and the entire sound department deserve no end of kudos here, as does Caton’s breathtaking musical performance and composer Ludwig Göransson’s essential bluesy score. And, somehow, “Sinners” only ramps up even higher from there in a chaotic final act that I dare not spoil.
If the ending drags on somewhat indulgently (including both a mid- and post-credits scene, amazingly), well, Coogler more than earns the right. This is a one-of-a-kind experience that simply doesn’t come around very often. Hyperbole or not, I’m willing to bet we’ll be talking about “Sinners” for a long time to come.
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/Film Rating: 9 out of 10
“Sinners” opens in theaters on April 18, 2025.