Archive for the ‘Comic strips/Super heroes’ Category
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006
X-MEN 3: THE THIRD AND LAST STAND OF THE X-MEN
Fellas,
In the talkback for my review of last week’s big movie, SEE NO EVIL, Brycemonkey requested that I review X-MEN 3: X3 THE THIRD X-MEN. As someone who strives for excellence that puts me in a tough position because on one hand I want to make the newsies happy by reviewing the movie, but on the other hand I’m not sure they’ll like it because I don’t know jack and/or shit about the X-Men outside of these movies.
Ordinarily that would be okay, most movies you’re not expected to do twenty years of preparatory research before you are allowed to have an opinion about them. But X-Men is different. I don’t know if anybody else has ever noticed this before, but through my personal experiences here and there I’ve made an observation that some people take this comic strip shit VERY seriously. Don’t worry, I’m not talking about you. You’re cool. But those other guys are fuckin NUTS. what a bunch of nerds, am I right? ha ha we’re different though.
Don’t worry I’m not gonna turn this into some attack on comic strip fundamentalism, but I just want to establish that some of you will still hate this movie, even though it’s good. Because I’m not looking for the same things you are. I don’t even know what to look for. But as someone who was surprised to enjoy the first two pictures (hell, read my review of part 2, RIGHT HERE it’s literally a love letter) I was satisfied with part 3. To my ignorant eyes, it’s just as good.
The movie picks up a little bit after X PART 2. Jean Grey is still dead underwater (like Godzilla) and Cyclops (remember, the whiny douchebag with the sunglasses) is real grim and brooding. You can tell he has been deeply changed by this tragedy, because he has stubble. However things seem pretty good otherwise because the president of the US was so impressed by Professor X-Man stopping time and making a big speech at the end of part 2 that he appointed a furry blue mutant to his cabinet as the Secretary of Mutant Affairs. This is of course Kelsey Grammar from ‘Cheers’ and although he does a good job this is probaly gonna be pretty controversial. The writers took alot of poetic license with his character, he doesn’t eat cookies or have googly eyes anymore and they call him “Hank.” (more…)
2 people like this post.
Tags: Brett Ratner, Hugh Jackman, Vinnie Jones
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 7 Comments »
Thursday, May 4th, 2006
ROAD TO PERDITION is that gangster movie that came out to pretty good reviews a couple years ago that we all forgot about already, but I never saw it until now so I’m late to the party I guess. Please disregard.
This movie is modeled after old fashioned gangsters movies. But it’s based on a comic book by Max Allan Collins. The comic book itself is modeled after LONE WOLF AND CUB, either the Japanese comic books or the great movies based on the comic books, I’m not sure which. Also I’m guessing it’s a little bit based on some real life historical type business since it’s got Al Capone and whatsisdick Nitti in there and I think somebody said Elliot Ness is in the comic book, and maybe some other historical figures like Thomas Jefferson or Voltaire or one of those guys. As you know I don’t read comic strips, but I have read a good book by Collins called TWO FOR THE MONEY. Actually it’s two books reprinted as one by Hardcase Crime, taken from the Nolan series, which is modeled after Richard Stark’s Parker series.
So there’s a whole lot of adapting and homaging and alluding and what not going on here and to be honest, somewhere in all that monkey business I think the translator got fucked up. This is not a bad movie by any means and it really stands out in certain areas, but it’s not the great movie that an individual with high standards, such as you or I, demands. I guess that’s sort of Sam Mendes’s thing. This is his second movie as a director, after Academy Award winner for Best Picture AMERICAN BEAUTY and before Art Director’s Guild nominee for Excellence in Production Design – Contemporary Feature Film JARHEAD. After getting so much (partly deserved) acclaim for AMERICAN BEAUTY he’s sort of in the “A-List Director” category so you hold it more against him when he makes his type of movie: pretty good but then if somebody starts saying they’re great you get annoyed and start imagining that they’re terrible. But really they all have their moments. (more…)
Only 1 person likes this post. Kinda sad.
Tags: Daniel Craig, Tom Hanks
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Crime, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Friday, March 17th, 2006
V FOR VENDETTA is a big exciting futuristic comic book movie, produced and written by the Wachowskis, starring Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman, playing in Imax in some towns, but not here. It’s a movie nerds are pretty excited for, but the talk is less about is he wearing the right cape, are his powers depicted in exactly the way I personally imagined them, etc., and more about the politics. Because although it features a guy in a cape and mask who fights bad guys in dark alleys, the story is more of a 1984 type deal than a spiderman. Apparently the comic strip book was written in England in the 1980s in response to the Margaret Thatcher administration.
I saw a review in Entertainment Weekly that talked about references to Bush and Bill O’Reilly and Abu Ghraib and what not, but I figure this is more like STAR WARS prequels: it’s about all the assholes throughout history, and the leaders we have now just so happen to be members. It’s like I always say, if your government is strikingly similar to the dystopian sci-fi stories of the past then you got a problem there, in my opinion.
Hugo Weaving is the main character V, a revolutionary in a Guy Fawkes mask who spins knives around and is waging a bombing campaign against the totalitarian british government. He goes on TV and announces that he’ll be blowing up the Parliament in one year and if you agree with him that the government is a bunch of assholes, you should be there to show your support.
Natalie Portman plays Evey, an assistant at a TV station who V rescues from rapist government agents when she’s out after curfew. This puts her in league with “the terrorist” as far as the government’s concerned, so she ends up forced to hang out with him and hear his side of things. (more…)
2 people like this post.
Tags: Hugo Weaving, James McTeigue, John Hurt, Natalie Portman, Stephen Fry, Stephen Rea, Wachowskis
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | No Comments »
Thursday, June 9th, 2005
I got two thrilling stories for you today boys. First up is my review of this new Batman picture. Second is an unrelated, earth shattering movie scoop that you have not seen on access hollywood, E.T. – The Entertainment Tonight, the Michael Jackson trial re-enactments, or any of those shows. Possibly it was in some newspaper column in a city called Rochester, but I have not confirmed that yet. Anyway enough preamble let’s get down.
STORY #1 starring Batman
You know how RAMBO 2 tried to help our nation get over Vietnam? Well this one is trying to help us get over Joel Schumacher. The idea of BATMAN BEGINS is to pretend none of that other shit ever happened and start over. And they do a good job taking a 98.9% different approach.
One thing they figured out, if you want a good comic strip type movie you gotta hire a great maniac to play the super hero. Take for example Eric Bana, who gave one of the best performances of whichever decade that was in CHOPPER. Absolutely brilliant as a lovable psychotic murderer who cuts his own ears off, so they cast him as (The [Incredible]) Hulk. Same thing with Christian Bale here, many of us are most familiar with him as a sadistic yuppie with perfect abs running around naked with a chain saw, biting women on the ass, etc. So he’s perfect for Batman.
This one’s pretty different from AMERICAN PSYCHO. His character (name’s Bruce Wayne I believe) is another rich guy but he wants to make the world a better place and that kind of crap. Not shoot women with nail guns. But at first we don’t know that, we first meet him as an american con in a hellish Chinese prison. He’s a bad motherfucker we know because 1. he’s probaly gonna turn out to be Batman I bet and 2. he purposely goes to Chinese prison to practice on criminals. Good stuff. (spoiler note: unfortunately we do not get to see some sort of badass escape from Chinese prison, a forgivable offense but also the first sign that this is not a perfect movie sent down from the Heavens like the internet would have you believe. Let’s have realistic hopes here, fellas.) (more…)
5 people like this post.
Tags: Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, David S. Goyer, Gary Oldman, Katie Holmes, Ken Watanabe, Liam Neeson, Mark Boone Junior, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, prebootquels, Rutger Hauer, Tom Wilkinson
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Friday, April 1st, 2005
There’s alot of comic strip books turned into movies but usually they Hollywood em up alot. They change the story and the super hero clothes and turn brits into americans and alot of the fans are fundamentalists so they get pretty upset. Batman doesn’t have nipples because bats don’t have nipples, Super-man isn’t supposed to wear that shade of blue it is actually a different shade of blue, that kind of thing.
So what Robert Rodriguez did for this comic strip SIN CITY, he actually brought in the writer/cartoonist from the comic, made him co-director, and apparently pretty much used the comic as storyboards and script. He used his cool digital movie cameras and convinced a great cast to come in and fuck around in front of green screens and used computers for almost all the backgrounds. According to my team of expert nerds, there are scenes and lines from the funny pages that they cut out here and there and they mixed things together a little bit at the beginning in order to combine three stories into one. But for the most part the shots are based on the drawings and everything written on the page is said out loud in the movie. An obsessive level of faithfulness never thought possible even by Harry Knowles himself. Maybe the most faithful movie adaptation of anything ever, including plays, novels and trading cards.
So what this is is a very ballsy and ridiculous experiment, like Gus Van Sant’s PSYCHO. Like most experiments in science, it’s a big failure. But you gotta fuck up in order to invent cancer or whatever. I’m glad these guys did it anyway even though it really doesn’t work.
Based on my detailed research beforehand, I was a little skeptical going in, and I think my hunch was right. See, the comic strip is drawn in stark black and white in order to look like film noir. But then the movie is done with high tech digital effects and makeup in order to look like the comic. Not like film noir. You see the problem here? It’s like a snake eating its tail, or I guess probaly a tail shitting out a snake’s head. The whole concept don’t make sense. (more…)
4 people like this post.
Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Bruce, Carla Gugino, Clive Owen, Frank Miller, green screen, Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, Robert Rodriguez
Posted in Action, Bruce, Comic strips/Super heroes, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
Dear Harry,
Here is a review of a movie I saw starring Keanu Reeves (guy from the Matrixes)
Okay, first I got a warning for some of you comic strip wise guys out there. If you like the comic strip this movie is based on, DON’T WATCH THE MOVIE. It’s just not worth it, man. You’re gonna be mad because, according to my sources, in the comic strip the dude is British, and even if he wasn’t British, he wouldn’t be Keanu Reeves. Hey man I’m a purist too sometimes, I understand this. I’d be pissed if they made DIE HARD into a comic strip, but they got John McClane wearing shoes or something. Or playing a guitar. It’s gonna be hard to get past what they did here so forget it man, save your time, save the stress. Go get a massage or something.
But since I don’t read that kind of business, it’s okay with me. I’m allowed to watch CONSTANTINE. For all I know Keanu Reeves actually IS John Constantine, who is (at least in this movie) some self loathing chainsmoking supernaturally gifted freelance exorcist type who finds out he has lung cancer and tries to figure out how the fuck he’s gonna get into Heaven when he tried to kill himself as a teenager. And he uses his connections with angels and knowledge of demons to try to straighten things out.
For me, the movie immediately drew me in as the studio logos rotted away like they were burning in Hell (where they probaly belong) leading into a short and perfectly executed teaser involving a biblical relic showing up in Mexico and causing some trouble. (You know how those magic spears and shit are.) Smoking is a big part of the movie, so we’re introduced to John Constantine’s cigarette before we are to him – hanging out of a car, dropping on the ground, looking cool like cigarettes like to do in movies. When Constantine strolls into an apartment building where there’s a veiny faced girl in serious need of an exorcism, he tries to leave his smoke on the edge of a table while he does the deed, so as not to waste it. (Much later, he’ll snub one out in a pool of his own blood.) (more…)
Tags: Djimon Hounsou, Francis Lawrence, Keanu Reeves, Peter Stormare, Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBeouf, Tilda Swinton
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Horror, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
DONALD WESTLAKE DOUBLE FEATURE:
THE HOT ROCK and THE STEPFATHER
Most of you fuckers probaly think Donald E. Westlake is just the creator of your precious Father Dowling Mysteries*, but actually he’s got a whole big resume behind him. In fact, in these parts he’s more famous as Richard Stark. I’m not sure which one is the real guy and which one is the alter ego but Richard Stark is the hard motherfucker who wrote the Parker books I love so much. Twenty Parker novels so far and also four about Parker’s part-time actor, part-time thief associate Grofield. Stark’s books inspired POINT BLANK, PAYBACK and several not as memorable but pretty good movies.
[*I'm just jerkin your chain there bud, I never watched that show either]
And then Donald E. Westlake writes funnier ones, they say. Richard Stark is his dark side, they say. (Stephen King even named the dark half character in The Dark Half George Stark.) But I am here to tell you that Westlake has two sides to him regardless of Stark. And the proof is right here with THE HOT ROCK, a goofy light-hearted heist comedy based on one of his books, and THE STEPFATHER, a fucked up horror/suspense/family values satire that he actually wrote the script for.
THE HOT ROCK is from one of the Dortmunder novels, I never read em but judging from this movie he’s the opposite of Parker: a thief with a sense of humor that has fun with what he’s doing. Robert Redford plays John Dortmunder. Fresh out of the joint and George Segal (his brother in law, no relation to Steven Seagal) already has him on a job trying to steal a jewel from some museum.
Basically the plot is they gotta steal this rock, but every time they do they fuck up and then have to go steal it from somewhere else. Like the first time they almost get away except the guy with the stone gets caught. So he runs around the corner and swallows it first. Then Dortmunder and the gang gotta break him out – not sure if it’s for his sake, or for the rock only. Anyway it turns out he doesn’t have it anymore, he hid it in a cell at the police station before he got transferred. So now they gotta break into the police station. Etc. (more…)
Tags: Brian Garfield, Donald Westlake, George Segal, Joseph Ruben, Moses Gunn, Peter Yates, Robert Redford, Terry O'Quinn
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Crime, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
Anybody seen this movie. its probaly pretty old but – I just got out so I haven’t seen that many movies, but i just saw men in black at a girl’s house and it wasn’t that bad. personally i thought it was pretty stupid but there was some funny shit at times. she liked it i think i will ask her if i see her again (probly well, wink).
a couple a comments – number one, the black guy is okay i guess, but i don’t think he would last long inside. number two, i guess it was pretty funny at times. the woman, whatserfuck, she looked pretty good.
sorry if this has already been cover – first timer here
–vern
Tags: Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 2 Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
(Written for The Ain’t It Cool News, but they never put it up.)
Dear Harry and Moriarty,
I saw a new movie you guys might be interested in, called HELLBOY. It’s about this guy with a giant hand. He is red but he works for the government. Then he fights monsters because he’s in love with the girl from STORYTELLING, but she catches on fire. etc.
Actually come to think of it it’s based on a comic strip so I would not be surprised at all if you boys heard of it already. This is NOT the Punishing guy, this is a different guy, named Hellboy.
What I liked about this movie was the character of Hellboy, who is played by Ron Perlman (BLADE II). He is a guy from Hell who decides he’s not into being evil. So he does other stuff. I always thought Perlman was funny when he was on that Beauty and the Beast show with the gal from TERMINATOR. Because he is this scary lion man and the women loved him because he was sensitive and wore a blouse and because it was only a TV show so they didn’t have to face the reality of what a guy smells like if he lives in the sewer. Believe me man, you ever spend more than two days in a sewer, hiding out or whatever, it’s curtains for your love life for at least a year. Not to brag or nothin. I guess that is not a brag though. Just my 2 cents.
Anyway the point I was getting at was that when he took the makeup off, he still looked like a fuckin beast. This is a grizzled looking dude. He plays in makeup all the time so I guess it’s no big deal for him to be painted red and have a tail and horns and a giant hand and whatever other shit they pasted onto the dude. He doesn’t even notice, to him it’s just like wearing pants. So he is able to give a real acting performance and make this a great character. (more…)
4 people like this post.
Tags: Guillermo Del Toro, Jeffrey Tambor, John Hurt, Ron Perlman, Selma Blair
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
Man I tell you, I wish it was possible for lightning to strike 3 times in the same spot. It would be useful for many things including meteorological research and movie trilogies. But it’s not possible. Never happened. Not once. Only once has it hit the same exact place twice. And that place was the exact spot where Blade was standing at the time. Both times.
What I’m saying obviously is that BLADE III – and I will not call it BLADE TRINITY because what the hell kind of name for Blade III is BLADE TRINITY – is no BLADE or BLADE II. And there are many reasons why. The most immediate thing you notice: it just doesn’t look as good. Steve Norrington and Guillermo Del Toro were both so careful and artful. BLADE felt so exact and carefully composed, II was so spooky atmospheric with shiny gold tinted edges. III (directed by the guy Dave Goyer who wrote all the other ones but only directed the small indy drama ZIG ZAG) tries hard to imitate some of both of those looks. It has the same cinematagraphist as the last one, and I mean it’s not an ugly movie. But you can tell it’s not quite real. Not it’s own look, not quite capturing the previous looks. I think I read this was more expensive than the others but to me it feels cheaper. Almost like a really damn impressive TV version of the Blade universe. But not quite the real Blade universe.
And then you notice the villains. Parker Posey is real cool as a bitchy vampire ex-girlfriend of a young wisecracking white dude who saves Blade from the FBI (long story). But her crew are just not up to BLADE standards. In the first one the vampires were all exotic and interesting looking, plus Donal Logue. The second one raised the bar, making the villains weirder, scarier and more sympathetic. Here you just got a couple cheeseballs, one of them a big wrestler guy with bad hair. Like Tyler Mane in X-MAN but not as appealing. They work out of some fancy hipster office building, like they are the well paid staff of some smarmy vampire magazine. I don’t really understand what they are doing there, but there are lots of good catwalks to tumble from and windows to break through. (more…)
5 people like this post.
Tags: David S. Goyer, Dominic Purcell, Dracula, Jessica Biel, Parker Posey, Ryan Reynolds, Wesley Snipes
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 10 Comments »
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