Hello, everyone! It’s One Of Us’ weekly article series, “The Weekly Wrap-Up.” Covering everything from film announcements to comic books, “The Weekly Wrap-Up” ensures that the biggest stories of the week are analyzed and discussed by our team of writers. This week we talk about the trailer for Shane Black’s The Nice Guys and celebrate the long-awaited return of Samurai Jack!
The Nice Guys Trailer
While most would argue that the heyday of the “buddy cop” film sub-genre have come and gone, Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) is one of the few filmmakers who still manages to make the all too familiar genre fun and exciting. This is made strikingly apparent with the release of the first red-band trailer for The New Guys, the latest film directed and written by Black.
Set in 1970s Los Angeles, The New Guys follows hired enforcer Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), who finds himself entangled in a mystery about a missing girl and her strange connection to the suicide of a porn-star. Teaming up with the extremely incompetent Holland March (Ryan Gosling), a private detective, the two discover a sinister conspiracy that involves the seediest members of LA’s criminal underworld. In addition to Crowe and Gosling, the film co-stars Kim Bassinger, Matter Bomer and Keith David.
If there’s one thing to take away from the trailer it’s that Black hasn’t lost his dark sense of humor. Sure, we see some goofy moments like Gosling being repeatedly undermined by a stubborn bathroom stall door, but we also get more than a few glimpses of people being brutally beaten and murdered in a rather droll kind of way. While only a trailer, its scenes like these that showcase’s Black talent of finding amusement in the most horrific of situations.
The Nice Guys is will be in theatres on May 20, 2016.
Samurai Jack Returns
Samurai Jack is back, people! While the return of the hit-animated series has been rumored for almost a decade, it’s finally been revealed by the shortest of teaser trailers that the samurai out-of-time will be battling the forces of evil once again. Though only five seconds long, the teaser does state that Samurai Jack will be coming to Adult Swim in 2016. It has also been confirmed that Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory, Sym-Biotic Titan), the original creator of Samurai Jack, will return as an executive producer for the series.
For those unfamiliar with Samurai Jack, the animated series follows Jack (Phil LaMarr), a samurai sent to the distant future by the evil shape-shifting demon known as Aku (Mako Iwamatsu). Finding himself in a strange and frightening new world, Jack spends his entire life trying to return to his time in order to stop the spread of Aku’s tyranny. Making its premiere on Cartoon Network in 2001, the series went on for 52 episodes and four seasons. Despite critical acclaim, Samurai Jack suffered from low ratings and was cancelled in 2004. Despite the show’s cancellation, Jack’s story has continued in other mediums, including a Samurai Jack comic book written by Jim Zubkavich and drawn by Andy Suriano.
I for one can’t be more excited for Samurai Jack’s return to Cartoon Network. Though I’ve always appreciated the fervor that grew around the series years after it made its debut, I was always disappointed that it never received much love from mainstream audiences when it was originally on television. Still, I’m grateful that show is coming back and I’m very much looking forward to seeing a proper conclusion to Jack’s story.
