The Crop: Valkyrie The Studio: United Artists The Director: Bryan Singer The Writers: Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander The Producer: Singer, Mcquarrie and Tom Cruise (As Exec Prod.) The Actor: Cruise The Premise: Claus von Stauffenberg, a conscience-stricken German WWII hero, joins a clandestine military resistance operation dedicated to toppling Adolph Hitler by any means … Continue reading
Michael Haneke, that cheery chronicler of abject inhumanity, is frustrating our expectations in new and, hopefully, exciting ways. After the art house success of Caché in 2005, the director blew minds all over the cineaste-sphere when he decided to do an English-language remake of his excellent 1997 mindfuck, Funny Games. Now, with Funny Games ’07 … Continue reading
You might not have noticed (I know I hadn’t), but it’s been a full five years since we last saw Goldie Hawn on the big screen. As a fan of the 1970s ditz icon turned movie star (and longtime shacker-upper with Kurt Russell), I’d be sad about this if I felt Hawn had any interest … Continue reading
"Bring any weapons?" "Of course not." "You ain’t changin’ nothin’." For about two minutes, the Cannes John Rambo showreel, currently being hosted by our pals over at Ain’t It Cool News, is muted, melancholy and contemplative – a nice companion piece to last year’s Rocky Balboa. Then… well, I don’t know how else to put … Continue reading
For those of us who’ve been advocating for Gerard Butler’s stardom since Timeline (don’t look at me like that unless you’re going to buy me a drink), it’s gratifying to see the Scottish thesp toplining a box office smash, 300, while booking starring roles in exciting new ventures like… Game and, according to Variety, Nim’s … Continue reading
If you were Daniel Craig, would you pass up the opportunity to work with Fernando Meirelles in order to make an Edward Zwick liberal guilt epic? I’m hesitant to editorialize on this one because I don’t have all of the details, but the talk all over Hollywood today is that Craig is off Blindness, Meirelles’s … Continue reading
Everyone makes a big deal over what a racist caricature Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu was, but, if these overly sensitive critics would deign to read just one of Rohmer’s wonderful books, they’d learn differently. To wit (from The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu): "Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare … Continue reading
Say what you want about Smokin’ Aces (and a lot of you did), it was a pleasure to have Joe Carnahan once again orchestrating cinematic mayhem after an interminable five year layoff (just another reason to hate Mission: Impossible III). Though the script was little more than an excuse to get a bunch of badass … Continue reading
With regards to the Transformers character design argument, I’m staying way the Terry Funk out of it – mostly because I don’t care, but also because my grading scale on giant robots is insanely forgiving. Basically, if they look like they could throw a Big Boy the length of three football fields, then they’re alright … Continue reading
The trouble with the Shrek movies is that their admirable message of self-acceptance is drowned in a deluge of pointed pop culture references that’s essentially the result of one rich white guy (former Disney CEO Michael Eisner) snubbing another rich white guy (Jeffrey Katzenberg, former heir to Eisner’s throne and now the "K" in Dreamworks … Continue reading