Midsommar Star Will Poulter Had ‘Terrible Nightmares’ After Watching The Film

If you’re heading to see Midsommar in the coming days, you might want to block off a bit of time for when you leave the cinema – find a dark room, some solitary place, to go and either repress or ruminate on what you’ve just seen. Ari Aster’s follow-up to Hereditary is another overwhelming horror experience, this time following a group of American tourists – including Florence Pugh’s Dani and Jack Reynor’s Christian, a couple going through a rough patch in their relationship – as they’re invited into a remote Swedish festival with all kinds of unsettling rituals and practices. Needless to say, Stormzy and The Killers aren’t headlining this one. What happens there will delight and disturb the most hardened of horror fans – and even had a profound effect on its stars.

Actor Will Poulter – who plays fellow festival attendee Mark – spoke about his visceral reaction to seeing the finished film. “I had the worst night's sleep of my life the night after,” he admitted on the Media. “Terrible, terrible, full-on nightmares. Which is strange, because I wouldn't actually describe the film as being typically scary, or even as scary as 

Ari's first film, Hereditary, or some of the other films it might be compared to, or has been compared to. But it is utterly disturbing. And it's that kind of disturbing feeling that I think lingers longer than a fright. A fright has a very limited life-span. This idea that humans are capable of what you see in Midsommar is kind of what's most disturbing about it. I was slightly caught off guard by it, despite reading the script and despite being in it and shooting it, and presumably knowing what to expect, I was still caught massively off guard.”

He’s not the only star of Midsommar to feel side-swiped by the film – after watching it for the first time, Florence Pugh shared her stunned reaction on Twitter, calling it “one helluva ride”.

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Not Katrina Kaif, Jacqueline Fernandez to shake a leg with Prabhas in Saaho?

It is rumoured that Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez has been roped in to do a special number in Prabhas upcoming film, Saaho.

Prabhas is upbeat about his upcoming flick, Saaho, which is gearing up for a grand release on August 15 this year. Directed by Sujeeth, the spy-thriller flick has a stellar cast of Prabhas, Shraddha Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Arun Vijay, Jackie Shroff, Chunky Pandey and Lal in prominent roles.

Sources close to the team revealed that there is a special number in the film. Names of Kajal Aggarwal and Katrina Kaif were doing the rounds. However, it looks like the makers have finalised Jacqueline Fernandez to shake a leg with Prabhas in the film.

A source told Mumbai Mirror that Jacqueline shot for the song in Austria. "Jackie was in Austria for three days for the fun song with Prabhas, sung by Badshah. She also shot some scenes during the schedule which wrapped up on Tuesday and there are other surprises in the store. A lavishly-mounted romantic track with Prabhas and Shraddha was also shot at Innsbruck and Tirol. It was choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant," the source was quoted as saying.

However, an official confirmation regarding Jacqueline Fernandez's inclusion is yet to be made by the team. Saaho's post-production work is currently underway and is expected to be wrapped by later this month.

The makers of Saaho took to social media to reveal that a song named 'Psycho Saiyan' will be out soon. The songs from the album will be unveiled one by one this July.

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Singer Halle Bailey Will Be Disney's New Little Mermaid

There have been a number of casting announcements for Disney's new, live-action/CG version of The Little Mermaid, which as Mary Poppins Returns director Rob Marshall in charge of bringing it to life. He's now found the person he wants to play the title character, as singer/actress Halle Bailey has scored the role of Ariel.

Following a months-long casting trawl to find the right combo of musical chops and performance, Marshall has opted for Bailey, who is normally to be found in R&B act Chloe X Halle with her sister Chloe. She was seen relatively early in the process and stuck in the director's mind. "After an extensive search, it was abundantly clear that Halle possesses that rare combination of spirit, heart, youth, innocence, and substance — plus a glorious singing voice — all intrinsic qualities necessary to play this iconic role," Marshall said in a statement.

David Magee wrote the current draft of the script for the film, which will update the story of the young mermaid who dreams of living above the waves when she meets a prince. She strikes a Faustian bargain to make her dreams come true. Jacob Tremblay is on to voice Flounder, her fishy best pal, while Awkwafina will be Scuttle, a seagull who is also a pal. Melissa McCarthy, meanwhile, is in talks to play Ursula, the sea witch who offers Ariel the dangerous deal.

Original composer Alan Menken has worked on some additional tunes for the movie alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda, and with the central casting complete, the question becomes when the movie will be out.

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Spider-Man: Far From Home movie review — Tom Holland is incredibly enjoyable in solid epilogue to Avengers: Endgame

The biggest reason behind Marvel’s success is not that they are pumping in billions every year to make films – it is that they continue to make films that are potentially ‘more of the same’ but somehow end up surprising you. Spider-Man Far From Home is yet another one in their sprawling Avengers catalogue that delights and entertains, even if the setting and characters are now overly familiar. It is no match for Sam Raimi’s excellent Spiderman 2, but is a solidly enjoyable Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film that works both as an epilogue to Avengers: Endgame and a prologue to what comes next.

The story picks up immediately post the events of Avengers: Endgame. The kids in Peter Parker’s high school, who had disappeared after Thanos’ snap, are back, but are hilariously five years younger to their classmates. Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is dealing with the loss of his mentor Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) and also struggling to ask his crush MJ (Zendaya) out. As Peter heads out for a school vacay to Europe with his buddies, a strange water demon appears, who seems to have a bone to pick with buildings, and a new superhero named Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal) appears to help Spidey save the day. 

Director Jon Watts, who crystallised all the funny shenanigans of American high schools as seen in Spider-Man: Homecoming somehow manages to keep things interesting in Far From Home, despite returning writer Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers losing out on the novelty factor. The banter between Parker and his friends is as crackling as ever, as is the dynamic between him and his aunt May. There is an added bit of hilarity between May and Happy Hogan (John Favreau), which becomes a running gag of sorts, furthering the presence of John Hughes’ ghost in the creativity department. Holland is once again incredibly lovable as the naïve yet heroic yet awkward kid, practically mirroring the innocent charms of Michael J Fox from the '80s.   

This has been said before but must be done again: it is nice to see the scale of conflict bottled down to simply a city or two, as opposed to the intergalactic threat that the villains in the MCU pose. Watts seems to understand the balance between making a friendly neighbourhood superhero story while addressing the fact that the neighbourhood hero is also part of a team of titans. Pulling the action scale back and grounding the story to real conflicts between characters is the way to go forward, as DC’s Shazam proved earlier this year. Even if these films resemble TV sitcoms, it is okay because it gives the filmmakers a chance to play outside the sandbox of evil world destroying baddies.

This is all doable in Far From Home because the story has a lot of heart and warmth, with Spiderman’s sense of self discovery, and him grabbing the torch from the late Tony Stark being the focal points of the film instead of generic CGI battles (even though there is plenty of that there too). Cleverly, Watts and his writers address the showmanship of epic superhero battles with the villain’s modus operandi. The bad guy’s process makes up for the super predictable unmasking. Frankly, the only awful aspect of this film is the way the villain literally looks at the camera and spells out his master plan because the filmmakers could not come up with a way to render the twisty exposition. It makes one wonder if Marvel should have given the filmmakers six more months to polish the film and release it in November. It would also have given audiences the time to digest the fact that Iron Man is dead and experience Parker’s sense of loss. 

The post-credit scenes in Far From Home are absolutely show-stopping, shining an exciting light beam on the next phase of the MCU. As long as Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige understands that superhero fatigue is a very real threat, the MCU is in good hands.

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