Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower' finally hits the big screen, while 'Wet Hot American Summer' and 'Sharknado' take over TV — again.


The Dark Tower

The long-awaited adaptation of Stephen King’s eight-book opus stars Idris Elba as a wandering gunslinger who is the last hope of the fallen land. He is charged with finding the Dark Tower while battling his nemesis — the Man in Black, played by Matthew McConaughey.
Unlike other villains, McConaughey’s character is “just plain effing evil — there's no excuse. He's not trying to say, 'Well, I was mistreated as a child,' none of that," director Nikolaj Arcel told THR. "There's no excuse for his badness. He is pure evil. He wants chaos.” Also quite chaotic: the frustratingly low reviews for the Sony fantasy film.


Detroit

Kathryn Bigelow directs the Annapurna Pictures drama, which recounts the true and gripping story of one of the darkest moments during the civil unrest that rocked Detroit in the summer of 1967, and has remained a largely forgotten act of police brutality against a group of young black men, and two young white women, in Michigan’s biggest city.
It the third collaboration over a nine-year stretch between Bigelow and writer Mark Boal, after The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. John Boyega, John Krasinski, Anthony Mackie, Will Poulter and Jacob Latimore are among the cast of the movie, which is shot in docudrama style.
After opening in limited theaters last weekend, Detroit now expands nationwide. A box-office challenge for the movie, which is already earning Bigelow Oscar buzz, is its tough subject matter. Legal questions have also arisen as to whether the movie risks a lawsuit from the real-life cops at the center of the story.


Kidnap

Halle Berry stars in the thriller as a mom who takes matters into her own hands to rescue her abducted son. “This movie is an homage to all of the mothers in the world," said Luis Prieto of the action-packed Aviron release. "We’ve all heard stories of mothers lifting cars to rescue their kids, because that’s what mothers are: They’re heroes. They will do anything to protect their kids. But we never get to see movies about that.”
Berry echoed the sentiment for all women at the movie’s premiere: “We get to see men save the day all the time, but you know what, ladies? We can, too.”


Step

Directed by Tony winner Amanda Lipitz, the documentary centers on the first graduating class of the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women, which opened in 2009 with a mandate to send every student to college, despite the barriers that their home lives and community might present. The doc follows three irrepressible seniors and their “Lethal Ladies” step dance team as they navigate a nerve-wracking college application process and strive to elevate the creative outlet that keeps them united and fighting to reach their goals. It may soon be the basis of a dance movie, as Fox Searchlight also nabbed narrative remake rights to the Sundance hit.

Wind River

Jeremy Renner stars in the crime drama as a wildlife officer who teams with an FBI agent, played by Elizabeth Olsen, after discovering a dead woman’s body on a Native American reservation in Wyoming. The Weinstein Co. release marks the feature directorial debut of Taylor Sheridan, who wrote the critically-acclaimed Sicario and Hell or High Water.
In fact, the screenwriter-turned-director sees the three films as somewhat of a thematic trilogy. “Each is an exploration of the modern American frontier — how much has changed, how much hasn’t changed, and how much it still suffers from that settlement and assimilation,” Sheridan told THR at Sundance. “And all three are a study in fatherhood, in degrees of endearing and failing.”


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