by Emily Nagle
Australian actress and singer Olivia Newton-John died yesterday, August 8, after battling breast cancer for three decades. She was 73.
Born in England in 1948, Newton-John emigrated to Melbourne, Australia with her family at age six when her father secured a job at her music career began at the age of fourteen when she won the televised talent show “Sing, Sing, Sing” and formed a girl group with her classmates. Newton-John’s discography consisted of mostly country and soft-rock.
Her acting career took off when she was casted as Australian transfer student Sandy Olsson in the musical rom-com film “Grease“, which she landed with minimal acting experience. The film became the biggest box office hit of 1978, was the highest-grossing musical film at the time it debuted, and eventually got selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 2020 for being culturally significant. She would later go on to star in musical film “Xanadu”, and then reunite with “Grease” co-star John Travolta for “Two of a Kind”.
Travolta paid tribute to his co-star in a heartfelt Instagram post, in which he wrote, “My dearest Olivia, you made all of our lives so much better. Your impact was incredible. I love you so much. We will see you down the road and we will all be together again. Yours from the first moment I saw you and forever! Your Danny, your John!” He played the role of Sandy’s love interest, bad boy Danny Zuko, in “Grease”.
Newton-John’s death was confirmed by her husband John Easterling, who posted a statement on his wife’s verified Instagram account. She is survived by Easterling in addition to her daughter Chloe, sister Sarah, brother Toby, and fifteen nieces and nephews.
by Emily Nagle
Top 5 Highest Grossing Films for Weekend of August 5-7, 2022
5. Minions: The Rise of Gru ($7.1 million)
4. Thor: Love and Thunder ($7.7 million)
3. Nope ($8.5 million)
2. DC League of Super-Pets ($11 million)
1. Bullet Train ($30.1 million)
The first weekend of August kicked off at the box office, with American movie theaters raking in a total of $87.8 million. Nearly a third of that came from “Bullet Train”, which grossed over $30 million in its first weekend. It has received mixed reviews from critics, but audiences have given it positive reviews for its performances, high-speed action sequences, and writing. It’s also been met with criticism for its casting; despite the film being based on a Japanese novel, many of the characters are played by white actors.
Second place this weekend goes to “DC League of Super-Pets”, which released last week and has already grossed more than $80 million. Recently, Dwayne Johnson (who voices Krypto the Superdog) posted the film’s full post-credits scene on his Instagram, which features Krypto and Superman playing fetch and running into Black Adam and his own superdog Anubis. In the caption, Johnson revealed that in addition to voicing Krypto, he lends his voice to the antihero and his dog. He will also portray a live-action Black Adam in the upcoming film of the same name, which is slated to release on October 21, 2022.
by Emily Nagle
Just on the heels of the cancellation of a plethora of Warner Bros. films (most notably Batgirl), more details have broken regarding the future of HBO Max as the streamer’s merger with Discovery+ has finally been given a release date.
On the company’s Q2 earnings call earlier today, CEO and president of global streaming and interactive for Warner Bros. Discovery JB Perrette unveiled a detailed timeline for the merger, as well as their visions for the new platform.
Despite customer views of HBO Max skewing more negative lately, Perrette’s discussion of what WarnerMedia’s streaming service will bring to Warner Bros. Discovery’s upcoming streamer both technical-wise and content-wise was quite positive. HBO Max is rich in content but has “performance and customer issues”, while Discovery+ boasts a more stable infrastructure, but less content.
by Emily Nagle
Comedian and actress Pat Carroll passed away on Saturday, July 30. She was 95.
Her Hollywood career that lasted nearly eight decades kicked off in 1948, when she got her first film role in “Hometown Girl”. Her television debut came four years later, when she first appeared on The Red Buttons Show. Carroll made appearances in other variety shows between the 1950s and 1970s before appearing in various sitcoms, including “Laverne & Shirley”, “The Danny Thomas Show”, and “Busting Loose”. During her long-spanning career, she won Emmy, Drama Desk, and Grammy Awards, and was nominated for a Tony.
It wasn’t until the late 1980s when Carroll got into voiceover, scoring roles in various Hanna-Barbera animated series including “Pound Puppies”, “A Pup Named Scooby-Doo”, and “Yogi’s Treasure Hunt”. This is also when she got her most well-known (and one of Carroll’s personal favorite) role of her entire career, voicing evil sea witch Ursula in “The Little Mermaid“. She even returned to voice the character in subsequent theme park attractions, the “Kingdom Hearts” video game series, and television shows.
Carroll’s death was confirmed by her daughter Karry Karsian, who notified The Hollywood Reporter that she had died of pneumonia at her Cape Cod home. Pat Carroll is survived by her two daughters Karry and Tara, and her granddaughter Evan.
by Emily Nagle
Top 5 Highest Grossing Films for Weekend of July 29-31, 2022
5. Top Gun: Maverick ($8.4 million)
4. Minions: The Rise of Gru ($11 million)
3. Thor: Love and Thunder ($13.2 million)
2. Nope ($18.6 million)
1. DC League of Super-Pets ($23 million)
This weekend saw the premiere of Warner Bros.’ “DC League of Super-Pets”. The first animated DC film since “The Lego Batman Movie” focuses on the heroes’ super-powered pets for the first time ever, primarily Superman’s (John Krasinski) dog Krypto (Dwayne Johnson). When the Man of Steel and the rest of the Justice League get kidnapped by Lex Luthor (Marc Maron), Krypto rallies together a motley crew of animals to rescue the team of superheroes. “DC League of Super-Pets” has been met with mostly positive reviews from critics, and grossed in the low end of projected opening weekend performance.
Coming in at number two was Jordan Peele’s sci-fi horror film “Nope”, which experienced a sharp 58% decline compared to its premiere last week. Recent news broke that the movie will be available to stream on demand within the next month.
by Emily Nagle
Today on Shark Spotlight, we’re discussing the sci-fi horror film “Raiders of the Lost Shark”!
To set the scene, this movie is about a group of four friends who take a boat to a private island for a vacation. It’s all going smoothly until they discover a genetically engineered killer shark is on the loose, and now it’s up to them to defeat it.
Despite its title being a play on “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, the movie doesn’t even come close to spoofing it. Which is kind of weird. I mean, maybe the boat that our heroes take to the island could be considered an ark. But don’t be fooled by the title; it’s nothing like the Indiana Jones movie. You could probably say the same thing about “Sharks of the Corn”, but at least that movie actually had cornfields in it. “Raiders of the Lost Shark” is not an action-packed adventure.
It’s got awful visuals, with terribly animated sharks (and not terrible in a good way, like the ones in “Bad CGI Sharks”!) and shark attack scenes that look like they’re made on one of those free iPhone apps. Like, we’ll see a shark leaping out of the water, and then 3 seconds later it’ll cut back to perfectly calm water. The poorly animated shark attacks scenes are hilarious, and definitely my favorite part of the whole movie.
Another wonderfully bizarre aspect of the movie is how the characters keep taking their clothes off. All the female characters try to be sexy about it, and for some reason they always magically have swimsuits on under their clothes. Almost 100% of the time, though, it’s just super awkward. Like, they’ll freak out when someone else gets attacked by a shark, but then take their time removing their clothes before wading into the water to investigate the incident. It makes absolutely no sense, and it’s amazing.
The last two shark movies I watched, “House Shark” and “Sharks of the Corn”, both faced the problem of being way too long for a low-budget horror film. It was refreshing to find out that “Raiders of the Lost Shark” is only 70 minutes long. Sure, it’s shorter than the average hour-and-a-half to two hour runtime that feature films typically have, but for the purposes of being a movie that doesn’t take itself seriously, this is perfect. It’s not so long to the point where the joke gets dragged on.
With all this being said, I rank “Raiders of the Lost Shark” as Galxy’s second-best shark movie! It’s just the right length for over-acted, poorly-animated chaos (even if it doesn’t live up to its name). Here’s an updated ranking:
4. House Shark
3. Sharks of the Corn
2. Raiders of the Lost Shark
1. Bad CGI Sharks
“Raiders of the Lost Shark” is free to watch on Galxy, as are all the other above movies!
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