If Hugh Jackman really "passed" on The Lovely Bones (and this does seem to be the case), then consider Ryan Gosling a major upgrade of a second choice. Don’t take this as a slight against Jackman; he’s a fine actor who just turned in the best performance of his career a year ago in The … Continue reading
***SPOILERS TO FOLLOW!!! TRANS-VIRGINS SHALL NOT PASS!!!*** Michael Bay’s giant fucking robots are here, and they are dead-set on destroying lots of property, so it’s fortunate that, in anticipation of the edifice-toppling third-act tilt, they’ve landed in Los Angeles, where great architecture is as disposable as a socialite’s virginity. The only drawback to Bay’s final … Continue reading
Paulo Coelho, who wrote the best selling book The Alchemist, traffics in bullshit yuppie spirituality, kind of a better dressed Carlos Castaneda who just loves doing book signings. Check out ‘The Magus,’ a profile of Coelho in an issue of The New Yorker this past May – the guy acts like a rock star to … Continue reading
Three cheers for 300. The "little" movie that could (and did) has reopened the doors for big concept, smaller-budget filmmaking where the unsuccessful experiment of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was labeled as having incidentally squeezed it shut*. Since 300‘s successful release (built on production chassis of Sky Cap‘s failure), it’s been interesting … Continue reading
This fourth Die Hard installment opens with the Fox logo going dark. We’re meant to take the power outage simply as an indication of the plot shortly to unfold. In fact, we’re seeing the death of a series, at least as far as this episode is concerned. Live Free Or Die Hard is a kindred … Continue reading
“Did you really like it?” That’s what my brother asked me when I told him that the first DVD to carry my quote was now in stores. My own brother. I understand where he’s coming from. Not only am I an opportunistic prick, but the world is filled with unbelievable, unsupportable quotes from disingenuous hacks … Continue reading
Any time I mention Djimon Hounsou, I have to fight the urge to do two things. One is making any sort of joke that involves Digimon (thanks, Nick!) or Moon Knight. Two, which is just barely more important, is to not immediately mentally replay his death scene from Deep Rising in a loop. You see, … Continue reading
With the massive fiscal success and equally as massive critical and popular disdain for Spider-Man 3, Sony’s probably surer than ever that any collection of light and sound labeled “Spider-Man” that could run in a projector for 90 minutes or so would be an automatic money maker regardless of budget of quality. And they wouldn’t … Continue reading
Michael Ondaatje, the Booker Prize winning author of The English Patient, is too obdurately non-linear in his storytelling to churn out a commercial adaptation of Hitchcock’s silent non-classic The Lodger, but, given the project’s pedigree, I’d rather see an intellectual with an adventurous sense of narrative take on the Jack the Ripper-esque yarn than some … Continue reading
Walking out of Live Free or Die Hard, my first thought was, ‘Man, we could really use another Die Hard right about now.’ Some of you may not have been alive at the time, but the original Die Hard was a landmark because of how it went against the grain of the other action movies … Continue reading