Hanna (Saoirse Ronan from ATONEMENT and THE LOVELY BONES) is a young girl raised by a single dad (Eric CHOPPER Bana). She grew up away from the city and was home schooled, so she’s different from other kids. And by that I mean she grew up completely isolated in a remote cabin near the Arctic Circle and spent all her time training in combat, hunting and the speaking of multiple languages. Her dad is a rogue CIA guy but instead of doing freelance work like Seagal he just spends all his time growing a Unabomber beard and turning this bright little girl into a murder machine. She’s the girl Beatrix Kiddo hopes Vernita Green’s daughter never turns into. Some day when Hanna decides she’s ready she’ll literally flip a switch that will set off a war with the bitch (Cate Blanchett) that killed her mom.
(more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Eric Bana’
Hanna
Monday, April 11th, 2011
Love the Beast
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
From the cover, LOVE THE BEAST looks like some indie movie starring Eric Bana, Jay Leno and Dr. Phil. What the hell? When did Bana enter Dolph’s co-starring-with-daytime-talk-show-hosts period? Well it’s not that, and it’s not THE COLLISION COURSE: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS. It’s actually a documentary about Bana’s love for the Ford Falcoln Coupe he’s had since he was young, and for the 4-day Targa race across the scenic roads of Tasmania. He directed it and it’s so clearly a labor of love that the enthusiasm is contagious.
Heavily narrated by Bana, but admirably low on talking head interviews, it shows Bana’s dedication over the years to his “beast” (nickname for the car) and his “mates” (Australian for “homeys” or “doggs”). One of his friends thinks it’s hilarious that he still works on that same damn car even though he has money to buy new ones. And it’s true – he might be the only Marvel super hero still driving his high school car. In ‘05 though he decided to sink his money into rebuilding the whole thing into a top of the line race car, then raced it in the Targa for the first time since before he was Chopper. (more…)
Funny People
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
As a producer and an influence, Judd Apatow dominates the current comedy movie scene. His movies re-popularized the R-rated, filthy-mouthed comedy, they started a much-imitated improvised approach to comedy scenes, his TV shows and movies started or kickstarted the careers of Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Siegel, Jonah Hill and others. In a few years he’s completely changed comedy movies, started a few cliches, and gained the inexplicable antagonism of talkbackers.
But just a couple years ago he was a hard-working, mostly ignored writer and producer whose name you’d see on stuff like The Larry Sanders Show, ZERO EFFECT and ANCHORMAN. He was a behind-the-scenes guy for Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey. He rewrote THE CABLE GUY from Chris Farley vehicle to the weird stalker comedy it became. Apparently he wrote Jim Carrey some jokes for the AFI Salute to Clint Eastwood. Nobody hated him back then. He was just another joke writer who had been roommates with Adam Sandler. (more…)
Star Trek (2009)
Sunday, May 10th, 2009
Never thought they’d be able to pull a trick like this, but somehow they made STAR TREK cool. I’m not even sure if I can say cool again. I guess when the first couple movies came out it passed as cool. Anyway, this is some top grade movie magic here because it takes this pop culture phenomenon that has for generations been the #1 cliche nerd obsession and makes it into something that we, as a society, can share peacefully and enjoy together.
Going on opening night of course I saw it in a sold out crowd that must’ve contained some hardcore Trekkos (that’s what they prefer to be called – the word “Trekkies” was made up for the classic documentary and to true Trekkos is considered ten times worse than the n-word) but I never even felt a twinge of that nerdophobic uncomfortableness I felt when I went to see SERENITY. Midnight show in Imax might’ve been a different story, I don’t know, but my point is this thing is reaching far outside of the nerd audience. They said we weren’t ready for a black president, and they were wrong. They never said we weren’t ready for a cool STAR TREK, because nobody was even gonna argue that one.
Some Trekkos may feel sad to see their favorite band going top 40, but as a guy who never gave two shits out of a rat’s ass about STAR TREK it was fun to be let into the treehouse for a minute. I mean I got nothing against the Star Trek shows or movies, I can see some of the things that are good about them, but they never meant anything to me. I should revisit WRATH OF KHAN to see what everybody’s raving about, but I don’t know – somebody just reminded me Kirstie Alley was in it. I guess I do still listen to that one Prince album she’s on. Maybe I’ll give it a shot. (more…)
Chopper
Thursday, April 24th, 2008CHOPPER came out in 2000 and in the 8 years since I don’t think I’ve seen too many characters or performances as good as Eric Bana playing Mark Brandon Read, whose friends call him Chopper and he calls himself Uncle Chop Chop. I never heard of him before the movie but he’s a real Australian criminal who became a celebrity writing his memoirs while he was locked up. And the movie’s based on some of those.
It’s kind of a weird movie. It threw me at first because it doesn’t have much of a structure and it’s kind of a small story. Maybe I was expecting some kind of crime epic or something, but instead a bunch of stuff happens and then it ends. I prefer a tight story but it still had me. It was so captivating I ended up watching it again the next day.
And the reason is this character of Chopper. He’s so funny and likable and yet clearly a dangerous psychopath. Maybe you can forgive him killing criminals, but then he punches his girlfriend. And when her mom intervenes he headbutts her! I mean come on. You don’t disrespect someone’s mama, and in my opinion headbutting is a sign of disresepect.
Chopper is a scary lookin dude. He’s big, covered in shitty tattoos, he’s got some fake teeth in the front and after a certain point in the movie his ears are fucked up. Because he had a guy cut them off in pirson. Long story. But his real talents are mental, he knows how to fuck with people. Like when he visits the house of Jimmy, his old friend who betrayed and stabbed him in prison. And he scares the shit out of him by being too friendly, too jokey. “Wife and kids, eh? The sort of thing that could be used against a fella,” he laughs as if it could really be just a couple buddies teasing each other. (more…)
Munich and Sword of Gideon
Wednesday, January 11th, 2006You know, MUNICH is almost the movie I was hoping SYRIANA would be. SYRIANA has alot to say about the complicated way the world works, but it doesn’t get you excited about it. You’re probaly not gonna be sitting on the edge of your seat. More likely you’ll be scratching your chin saying, “Interesting, interesting.” I’d rather see a movie that can be complex and political without sacrificing in the awesome department. A good balance of substance and badass. And that’s what this is.
Okay so maybe MUNICH isn’t as true to life as SYRIANA (in fact, some people think the real guy it’s based on made up the whole story and never worked for Mossad) but it sure is a more entertaining movie. Eric Bana (winner of the secret, recently declassified 2001 lead badass outlaw award for CHOPPER) plays Avner, a small time Israeli agent personally chosen by the prime minister to lead a team of assassins to kill 11 people believed to be involved in the planning of the massacre of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
I read a quote from Steve Spielberg (who, incidentally, is the director of this movie) that got me real excited. He talked about a scene where Bana’s character has a conversation with a PLO terrorist, and he said “Without that scene it’s just a Charles Bronson movie.” I thought Oh shit, a Charles Bronson movie with one extra scene? I’m there!
Really it’s not a Charles Bronson movie though, and not just because Charles Bronson isn’t in it. I mean I’m sure he would’ve been if he could’ve, but that’s not the point. The point is that the dialogue actually specifically says that Avner is not Charles Bronson, he’s pretty much a regular guy, not a hot shot agent who could be suspected of this type of business. (more…)
Vern’s Amazingly Late Summer Preview
Sunday, August 31st, 2003Well friends I’m back after a few months of travelling around the world learning every martial art known to man, or maybe just not being inspired enough to write. One of the two. I would like to thank the people who wrote me nice e-mails to make sure I was okay or encourage me to Write again. Also I would like to thank the people who sent me advice about paying my mortgage, penis enlargement, the hot new mother and daughter pictures, my details and especially the wicked screensaver.
As usual, it is hard to write about politics these days because holy jesus, where do you even start? I have noticed that there were a whole lot of us who were right, and a couple people on tv who were wrong, and yet I haven’t seen anybody saying I told you so. Thanks alot assholes, for taking the fun out of “I told you so.” It sucks to be right when being right means that all those troops you supported so god damn much are left rotting in the desert with no mission, no welcome, no desire to be there, and no hope for coming home any time soon, unless they run over a bomb and lose a couple limbs. Every once in a while you see one of them on tv looking sad, and you have to imagine a little thought balloon over their head that says, “4 more years!?” Oh well, it’s a volunteer army, I guess you can’t really complain that you got shipped off to your doom by the same assholes who turned around the very next day and cut your benefits and your pay. I wonder how many of those congress bitches were still wearing their american flag pins when they signed that into law? No biggie, when we’re done arguing about gay marriage and the ten commandments maybe we’ll look into bringing them home. IF there’s time. I doubt it but maybe. Keep your pants on, troops. Go USA.
But hey, you already know how I feel about that so for now, FUCK THAT SHIT. This is a web sight about the god damn Films of Cinema, is it not? So what exactly is the deal here, Vern? The last summer movie I reviewed was THE MATRIX RELOADED and I believe that was before summer technically started. So today what I want to do for you my friends is go back and review all the big summer movies I didn’t bother to review before. So put on your shorts and get ready for a nostalgic journey WAY back to the beginning of summer. (by the way, just because every fucking day was DO THE RIGHT THING this summer doesn’t mean there’s global warming. that’s all a big coincidence.) I want you to close your eyes, well not actually close your eyes because you should be reading this, but anyway I want you to open your eyes and remember a time when all anybody was talking about was a hulk, and not just any regular hulk but an incredible hulk. I guess maybe technically speaking he is not called an incredible hulk he is just HULK, however the incredibleness of this particular hulk goes without saying. (more…)
