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Posts Tagged ‘Channing Tatum’

Logan Lucky

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2017

The prodigal son has returned. Four years ago, Steven Soderbergh (OUT OF SIGHT) had gotten burnt out on directing and decided to retire. After the 2013 doubleheader of SIDE EFFECTS and BEHIND THE CANDELABRA he hung it all up, and in the interim he’s done nothing but kick back, lay low, recharge his batteries, start his own brand of Bolivian muscat brandy called Singani 63, do an edit of HER for Spike Jonze, create his own alternate cuts of PSYCHO, HEAVEN’S GATE, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and 2001: A SPACY ODYSSEY for fun, shoot and edit MAGIC MIKE XXL, direct, produce, shoot and edit 20 one-hour episodes of The Knick, and relax. And now, finally, he’s back to work!

I guess that makes BEHIND THE CANDELABRA his Black Album and LOGAN LUCKY his Kingdom Come. But fortunately without a duet with Coldplay at the end.

If it was anybody besides Soderbergh it would seem weird that it was this one that pulled him back in – arguably as close to hack-work as he’s ever done. It’s sort of a redo of his three OCEAN’S movies but with hick characters and locations. But even a weak Soderbergh movie has always been worth seeing, and one of his talents is finding the compelling in the routine. It’s a bouncy, far-fetched caper story, but he seems completely invested in the lead character and the time he spends with his precocious little daughter (Farrah Mackenzie, DOLLY PARTON’S COAT OF MANY COLORS), and gives those scenes weight that really anchors the movie. (read the rest of this shit…)

Magic Mike XXL

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015

tn_mmxxlMAGIC MIKE XXL is a movie about a group of musclebound dudes going on a road trip together to enter a big competition. Along the way they pick up girls, get drunk, get high, meet new friends, reunite with old ones, repair old wounds, learn lessons, fall in love, get laid, confess vulnerabilities, get in a wreck, go to a hospital, all the things you would expect. And yet it feels one-of-a-kind in its attitude.

Like the first MAGIC MIKE this stars and was produced by Channing Tatum, inspired by his past as a “male entertainer,” or stripper, and written by his friend Reid Carolin. People don’t seem to remember this, but Tatum was kind of the co-lead of that first movie, trying to get out of the game while showing the ropes to The Kid (Alex Pettyfur), who ends up becoming a drug addict, turning the fun times into a cautionary bummer. I liked the movie but the sequel is significantly better for ditching The Kid and focusing on Mike taking a vacation from his designer furniture company to get in a food truck with the boys and take One Last Ride to Myrtle Beach.

The team is no longer led by Matthew McConaughey as Dallas. That sounded like a problem when the news first got out, but it’s actually an asset. With his character no longer there to absorb all your attention the movie gives way more shine to the other dancers, especially Joe Manganiello (SABOTAGE) as the towering, abrasive but large-hearted doofus Big Dick Richie, and Matt Bomer as the eyebrow plucking pretty boy Ken, who reveals a funny New Agey side. Like all of their eccentricities they tease him about it but also accept it. True friendship. (read the rest of this shit…)

Jupiter Ascending

Monday, February 9th, 2015

tn_jupiterascendingFirst of all, I’d like to thank the Wachowskis for their unprecedented run of crazy, idiosyncratic big budget studio genre movies, and wish them luck in whatever their new vocation is.

I love the Wachowskis without reservation. BOUND is alot of fun and THE MATRIX is a brilliant sci-fi action classic and then everything they’ve made since then has been messier and crazier. But for them to make sane movies would be a waste of their talent. They can keep pushing the envelopes of special effects technology and storytelling technique as long as they also keep challenging the limits of what a studio can sink hundreds of millions of dollars into. And while I understand some of the disappointment in the MATRIX sequels, I also think that most of it comes from people wanting them to just do the same exact shit again. To me those movies are brimming with excitement about which unexpected turn they can make while also continuing to top themselves in action spectacle.

And then they got to make SPEED RACER. And they must’ve suspected that wasn’t gonna light the world on fire. They are heroes.

Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy their new sci-fi-fantasy joint JUPITER ASCENDING like I did the MATRIXes or SPEED RACER, and didn’t intellectually admire it as much as CLOUD ATLAS. It has way less ambition than that one and a little more boredom. I can respect that it’s something that nobody else would ever make, or want to make, or want to have made. It’s ballsy in how shamelessly corny it is. But it’s a shame that their worst one by far will be their last. (I’m assuming. After this many big budget flops in a row you gotta figure they’ll be washing dishes at Warner Brothers until they’ve worked off their debt.) (read the rest of this shit…)

Foxcatcher

Monday, December 29th, 2014

tn_foxcatcherFOXCATCHER is an eerie examination of a true story about two brothers, Mark and Dave Schultz, who won gold medals in wrestling at the 1984 Olympics and a couple years later went to live on the Pennsylvania estate of a rich guy named John E. du Pont. The guy said he was a patriot and wrestling fan and wanted to help America win again. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but you immediately get the sense – in part from the foreboding grey skies and long, dry stretches with little dialogue and no music – that it’s gonna be something bad. I felt pretty confident this would end in some sort of fucked up tragedy and not with a Survivor song playing over a freeze frame on a joyful Channing Tatum (who plays Mark) being lifted by a congratulatory crowd of sports enthusiasts.

Steve Carrell plays du Pont and he makes him very odd. He leans his head back and leaves his mouth slightly open, like he’s watching you and is perpetually about to offer an observation. He wears a comically large fake nose and a nerdily tight Team Foxcatcher sweatshirt or windbreaker. Occasionally he has lines absurd enough to be in a Will Ferrell movie: “Don’t call me Mr. du Pont. My friends call me Golden Eagle, or just Eagle.” But whatever comedy may be inherent in the role, he’s intentionally un-milking it. This is his Serious Role, his Playing Against Type, his Robin Williams in ONE HOUR PHOTO. I mean, I’m sure it’s funnier than that magician movie he did, but it’s his most dramatic, not-going-for-laughs movie, and he’s successful at being creepy in it.
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Side Effects

Monday, July 1st, 2013

tn_sideeffectsSIDE EFFECTS is supposed to be Steven Soderbergh’s last theatrical release before handing in his camera and his DGA card, not counting BEHIND THE CANDELABRA, which went straight to cable in the U.S. I haven’t seen that one yet but thank Christ it came out already because I was real worried about him there, ’cause you know what tends to happen to guys right before retirement. Congratulations to him on making it out. I hope they gave him a gold watch.
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White House Down

Sunday, June 30th, 2013

tn_whitehousedownYou know me, I can enjoy a good DIE HARD type movie. Or a bad one. I like SUDDEN DEATH. I love the UNDER SIEGES, of course. And 3 of the 4 official DIE HARD sequels. But this year is trying to knock me off the wagon. We’ve had three mediocre to bad DIE HARD type movies so far and while A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD was obviously the one that was soul-crushingly disappointing, this is the one that I found most boring. I mean, I’m not gonna pretend Roland Emmerich is known for movies that are worth your time to actually watch, because that would be a bold faced lie. But I figured with this good of a cast and a classic template to follow he could make an enjoyably stupid movie. He mostly just got the second part. (read the rest of this shit…)

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Monday, April 1st, 2013

tn_gijoe2BruceGI JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA was a stupid fucking movie from a shitty director. I loved it. It was just so un-self-consciously ludicrous that it was hard not to enjoy. Like a hyperactive little kid that you would never want to be a parent to but just seeing him jump around giggling for a minute makes you laugh.

The directionist was Stephen “THE MUMMY” Sommers, a veteran of loud, dumb, rhythm-less and weirdly low rent big budget summer blockbuster type movies. The guy couldn’t direct his way through a “DIRECTORS ONLY” door, but he’s excited enough about ninjas and funny masks and shit that he accidentally made a fun one. I would say he made RISE OF COBRA fun not so much through his talents as through a series of coincidences. (read the rest of this shit…)

Magic Mike

Thursday, November 15th, 2012

Remember when it got out that Channing Tatum had been a stripper before he was an actor? I forget if he said it in an interview or if it was Wikileaks or something, but there were alot of stories about it in the entertainment journalism and it was a big joke to everybody. But who’s laughing now, motherfuckers? Tatum found the best possible way to own that on the set of HAYWIRE when he convinced Steven Soderbergh that his experiences would make a good movie. It might’ve gone a different way if it was on the set of GI JOE and it was Stephen Sommers that ended up directing MAGIC MIKE. But Soderbergh is the guy to take any subject matter, find what’s interesting about it, bring out the innate and sometimes unknown talents of his cast, and shoot it beautifully. He’s made one of his little independent character pieces, but he threw in just enough shirtless cowboys humping stages to advertise that for the ladies.

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The Son of No One

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

tn_sonofnooneTHE SON OF NO ONE is the new one from Dito Montiel, who got onto my radar thanks to the unexpectedly interesting FIGHTING. This one also stars Channing Tatum, this time as a rookie NYC cop. Katie Holmes plays his wife. Al Pacino plays his cop dad’s partner. Ray Liotta plays his boss. Tracy Morgan plays his mentally disturbed childhood best friend. Juliette Binoche plays a reporter for a leftie weekly who seems poised to ruin his life by exposing a secret from his past. How the hell did I never hear about this movie until the day before it came out DTV?

Oh yeah, for the obvious reason. It’s not very good. But I’ll put it in the respectable try column if I ever start using a column-based system for categorizing movies, and if I remember this movie at that point, which seems doubtful, but you never know. (read the rest of this shit…)

Haywire

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

tn_haywireBSteven Soderbergh’s take on an action/spy thriller – built around “The Face of Women’s MMA” Gina Carano after he saw her on Strikeforce while flipping channels around – lives up to my high expectations. It’s written by Lem Dobbs and it’s like the kid sister of THE LIMEY, mixing the style of that Soderbergh classic with kind of a more upbeat ex-Marine-badass-operative-betrayed-and-on-the-run type of story. It has THE LIMEY’s sense of quiet, deliberate pace and dread and also its dry you-just-fucked-with-the-wrong-person type of humor. Of course, professional fighter Carano has different strengths as a performer than Terence Stamp does, so her movie has less emotion and more punching, kicking, choking, armbars, heads broken through furniture, foot chases, etc. Gina’s not gonna mourn the loss of the daughter she never knew, and Terence isn’t gonna climb up onto a roof. In my opinion. And it’s great to have both of them. (read the rest of this shit…)