Posts Tagged ‘Gary Oldman’
Thursday, June 19th, 2025
June 15, 2005
If there’s a universally agreed-upon absolute banger of a summer blockbuster type movie from 2005, it’s gotta be Christopher Nolan’s BATMAN BEGINS, right? I’ve watched it many more times over the years, it holds up completely, and also seems historically significant as, among other things, a transition point between the ‘90s era of comic book movies and the seemingly endless one we’re in now. It kind of blows my mind that I reviewed it early for The Ain’t It Cool News and here I am two decades later writing more thoughtfully about it for a much smaller (but better) audience. Like a memory cloth cape tailored to fit a rigid skeleton when a current is put through it, time flies.
I haven’t experienced an era when people weren’t complaining about there being too many sequels and remakes, but I do remember a time before people complained about reboots, because it wasn’t until this movie that I ever heard that term. Nolan’s co-writer David S. Goyer (KICKBOXER 2) used it to explain that they were completely starting the series over. Not a sequel, or a sort of sequel with the same actors playing Alfred and Commissioner Gordon, but a do-over, a totally different take on Batman. I wish that definition had stuck – it’s useless now that it can mean that or a sequel or a remake.
Nolan’s successful turning on and off of the bat-computer seemed revolutionary in part because his notion of a stripped down, quasi-realistic Batman was so unexpected for the character. The expressionistic movies of former animator Tim Burton had birthed the mega-garish ones by former costume designer Joel Schumacher – the series was synonymous with lavish artifice. BATMAN & ROBIN made money in 1997, but it became so widely hated that many believed it would be the end of Batman movies, and maybe even super hero movies as a whole. Luckily that gave Warner Bros. an opening to consider acclaimed indie directors with drastically different approaches. They tried developing one with Darren Aronofsky (who had only done PI and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) before they settled on the guy who did FOLLOWING, MEMENTO and (at the recommendation of Steven Soderbergh) INSOMNIA. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, David S. Goyer, Gary Oldman, Hans Zimmer, Katie Holmes, Ken Watanabe, Keysi Fighting Method, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, ninjas, Richard Brake, Roger Yuan, Rutger Hauer
Posted in Reviews, Comic strips/Super heroes | 45 Comments »
Thursday, November 14th, 2024
A couple months ago I got on a Jean-Michel Basquiat kick. You probly know who that is, but if not, he was a New York City graffiti artist in the early hip hop era, transferred his skills to paintings for galleries, became rich and famous and friends with Andy Warhol and stuff in a brief, prolific life before (like so many bright lights) dying of a drug overdose at 27.
Set aside the inspirational underdog story, the meteoric rise, the quirky details, the tragic ending. All interesting, but you don’t need any context for his art to be incredible. Labelled a “neo-expressionist,” he just has this lively, messy style, an explosion of scratches and scrapes and colors and doodles and words. If they are child-like, then the child in question must’ve remained young for 100 years, evolving his drawing into highly sophisticated crudeness. There are traces of influences from cartoons to African art, he sometimes references boxers and current events and social issues, but he translates it into these distinctive scribbles and cryptic/poetic phrases, sculpting beauty and humor from garbage and decay and vandalism. I don’t know of anybody quite like him, and lately (even before… you know) I’ve really been feeling it’s important to honor and glorify the true originals and pure artists among us, through my chosen medium of, uh, movie reviews. So here I am, glorifying Jean-Michel Basquiat. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amos Poe, Andy Warhol, Anne Carlisle, Becky Johnston, Benicio Del Toro, Christopher Walken, Claire Forlani, Courtney Love, David Bowie, Debbie Harry, Dennis Hopper, Edo Bertoglio, Elina Lowensohn, Eszter Balint, Fab 5 Freddy, Gary Oldman, Glenn O'Brien, graffiti, hip hop, Hope Clarke, Jean-Claude La Marre, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeffrey Wright, John Lurie, Julian Schnabel, Lee Quinones, Michael Holman, Michael Wincott, New York City, Parker Posey, Paul Bartel, Rockets Redglare, Saul Williams, Tamra Davis, Tatum O'Neal, Vincent Gallo
Posted in Reviews, Documentary, Drama | 10 Comments »
Wednesday, November 10th, 2021
Francis Ford Coppola’s BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA is an incredible fucking movie that I previously mistook for a pretty good one. I saw it first on opening night in 1992, when I thought it was cool and weird, if flawed. (If you would like to imagine my wild teen years, I remember it was a foggy Friday the 13th and I was bummed that I hadn’t done anything good on Halloween, so I drove a carload of friends to an evening show, blasting the score from NIGHTBREED in the tape deck.)
The second time was in 2000 after reading the book (Dracula by Bram Stoker, not Bram Stoker’s Dracula: The novel of the film by Fred Saberhagen and James V. Hart Based on the Screenplay by James V. Hart from the Bram Stoker novel, which I have not read and can’t afford). At that time I wrote about it along with a bunch of other Dracula movies, and you can see I was pretty hard on the “ridiculous origin story” and “trying to make him into a more sympathetic Dracula,” among other things.
But it felt overdue for a revisit and on this viewing all that stuff finally clicked for me. Though I always thought it was a stylish looking movie, I feel like I didn’t fully appreciate just how much, or how special that made it. And everything else worked better this time too. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Hopkins, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Eiko Sihioka, Francis Ford Coppola, Gary Oldman, gothic horror, Greg Cannom, James V. Hart, Jim Steranko, Keanu Reeves, Mike Mignola, Monica Belluci, Pete Ramsey, Roman Coppola, Sadie Frost, Tom Waits, vampires, Winona Ryder, Wojciech Kilar
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Romance | 48 Comments »
Thursday, May 17th, 2018
May 15, 1998
In the mystical past of summer of ’98, “animation” meant drawings. TOY STORY was the only computer animated feature that existed, so that was still just a novelty, not the entire industry. It wouldn’t be until the Fall that dueling bug movies kicked off the war for computer animation supremacy, so nobody wanted to be Pixar yet. They still wanted to be Disney.
The previous November, Fox Animation Studios had made their Don Bluth directed version of a Disney movie, ANASTASIA. In December Dreamworks would release their Biblical version, PRINCE OF EGYPT. And this was Warner Bros. Feature Animation debuting with their sword and sorcerer version. They took a little bit of the dark fantasy of THE BLACK CAULDRON and early Don Bluth, but mostly tried to make a musical in the vein of the ’90s classics like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and ALADDIN.
The operative word being “tried.” This is a terrible fucking movie. Nothing can compare to FOODFIGHT!, but as far as professionally completed animated features given a wide release in theaters, QUEST FOR CAMELOT (a.k.a. THE MAGIC SWORD: QUEST FOR CAMELOT in some countries) is one of the worst I’ve watched all the way through. The shamelessness with which they try to copy Disney, combined with the clear lack of understanding of why people like the stuff they’re trying to rip off, and the substandard execution of it, is honestly depressing to watch. Like any animated feature there are surely many talented people who worked on it, but it’s very obvious that the direction at the top came from a bunch of clueless executives who just had no respect for the audience or the art form, and no idea what the fuck they were doing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bronson Pinchot, Cary Elwes, Celine Dion, Don Rickles, Eric Idle, Gabriel Byrne, Gary Oldman, Jaleel White, Jane Seymour, Jessalyn Gilsig, John Gielgud, King Arthur, Pierce Brosnan, Summer of '98
Posted in Cartoons and Shit, Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 53 Comments »
Tuesday, May 8th, 2018
Every summer it hits me. The sun comes out and I start thinking about a certain type of movie: the summer blockbuster popcorn type movie. It doesn’t even matter if I’m excited for the ones coming out this summer or not. And I’m not, really – there’s a couple Marvels and a Star War, but I’m still high off the last ones, and don’t think these will match them. Otherwise MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE FALLOUT is the main event.
Still, I get the fever, I get nostalgic for the old ones, just the feeling of them being out there. The ones I love, the ones I didn’t, the ones I didn’t see. I love the time travel of watching them and writing about them and remembering the time. This summer I have chosen the summer of 1998 as my topic, my destination. It doesn’t seem like twenty fucking years ago. But then again it does.
This first movie was released on April 3rd, which obviously is not summer. But that’s just because they kept making “summer movie” release dates earlier, like Christmas decorations. It had action figures and fast food tie-ins and was designed to stick around for the season. It counts. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Akiva Goldsman, based on a TV show, Gary Oldman, Jared Harris, Jim Henson Creature Workshop, Lacey Chabert, Matt LeBlanc, Mimi Rogers, Stephen Hopkins, Summer of '98, William Hurt
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 51 Comments »
Thursday, July 28th, 2016
CRIMINAL is way too generic a title for this distinctive Kevin Costner action thriller, another enjoyable under-the-radar, higher-minded-than-advertised b-movie to put on the shelf next to 3 DAYS TO KILL. Costner would be the criminal of the title, a gruff, uneducated death row inmate with the strong action movie name of Jericho Stewart. He’s said to have some kind of condition that leaves him no capacity for empathy, like that creepy kid in MALEVOLENCE and BEREAVEMENT, so he experiences what the internet calls “the feels” for the first time when he’s the subject of an experimental surgery that implants another man’s memories into his brain.
I couldn’t help but think of FACE/OFF. Not that it has any of John Woo’s heightened filmatism or outlandish action – the tone, grounded world and love of intelligence agency war rooms are closer to a BOURNE movie – but that’s the only other movie I can think of that uses a sci-fi gimmick in a non-futuristic world and then puts an emphasis on exploring its emotional consequences.
The story starts with Bill Pope, not the cinematographer of THE MATRIX, but a CIA agent on the run in London, played by an uncredited Ryan Reynolds (BLADE TRINITY). He’s in the middle of a mission gone south – something about Spanish anarchists and a hacker and a buy, and people chasing him around town trying to trap him. When he ends up dead, CIA director Quaker Wells (Gary Oldman sporting another action movie name that’s not messing around) is desperate to find out what Pope was working on, because he was the only one getting close to a hacker (blackhat?) who may be able to remotely control military weapons. So Wells – actually, can I call him Quaker? – Quaker turns to this guy Dr. Franks (Tommy Lee Jones, UNDER SIEGE) who has been developing this memory-implanting theory for years. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gal Gadot, Gary Oldman, Kevin Costner, Ryan Reynolds, Scott Adkins, Tommy Lee Jones
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 36 Comments »
Monday, July 14th, 2014
Review of the Movie of The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
When there’s no more room in Hell, the apes will ride the horses. This new PLANET OF THE APES series has decided to start titling in Romerical order, so #2 is DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Sounds good, but since they’ve used the title we can now rule out a future chapter with apes living in an abandoned shopping mall and then they get attacked by biker apes. Also, if this is DAWN OF THE then where is the Hare Krishna ape?
2011’s RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES was exciting because it looked like a total joke and then it caught me with its touching and nuanced story of the super-intelligent ape Caesar, wedged inside a dumb sci-fi story with one dimensional human characters. DAWN loses the advantage of surprise but gains the advantage of building off the first one to create a way better movie. They wisely skip ahead 10 years to when the human population has been decimated by the virus and Caesar has led the apes to build a village in the Redwoods. They’re nearing an Ewok level of advancement with wooden treehouses and spears, war paint, a few crowns and jewels made of teeth. No hoods or hang gliders yet. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andy Serkis, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Mark Bomback, Matt Reeves, Toby Kebbell
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 42 Comments »
Sunday, February 16th, 2014
Many remakes, even good ones, remove or weaken the meaning or subtext of the originals. The classic example is Zack Snyder’s DAWN OF THE DEAD (by this same production company, Strike Entertainment), which is a fun action movie version of Romero’s masterpiece, but doesn’t have much time for the questions about our voluntary enslavement to consumerism and materialism. How do we keep our humanity in the face of this apocalypse? Did we have it in the first place? Who gives a shit. Zombies!
Another one is LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. A surprisingly good remake, in many ways more artful than the original, but with its last act tweaks and audience-pleasing ending it completely ditches the thing that makes Wes Craven’s version worth stomaching: its angry illustration of the dehumanizing effect that revenge has on those who commit it. According to the last scene of the remake fuck all that, sadistic revenge is funny and cool.
ROBOCOP 2014’s goals and tone are very different from Mr. Verhoeven’s 1987 classic, but it’s the rare remake that’s arguably even more directly political than the movie it’s based on. Most would say, and I agree, that Verhoeven’s (or really Neumeier and Miner’s) message about privatization and corporate greed is more powerful because of its hilarious bluntness. It was the sarcastic cop movie that Lee Iacoca and Ronald Reagan’s America was asking for, a movie where amoral corporate assholes run the police force for profit, turn a dead body into a cyborg cop, then unleash him to do high caliber battle with savage DEATH WISH style supercreeps and get mixed up in a feud within the company, reconnect with his old self and turn on them. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abbie Cornish, Ed Neumeier, Gary Oldman, good remakes, Jackie Earle Haley, Jennifer Ehle, Joel Kinnaman, Jose Padilha, Joshua Zetumer, Michael K. Williams, Michael Keaton, Michael Miner, remakes, robots, Samuel L. Jackson
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 91 Comments »
Monday, December 3rd, 2012
Remember after THE ROAD director John Hillcoat had this movie called THE WETTEST COUNTY IN THE WORLD that was written by his THE PROPOSITION writer (and famed singer) Nick Cave, he had at-that-time-hot-stuff Shia LaBeouf signed on and everything but nobody would fund the fuckin thing. Then suddenly a mysterious benefactor named Megan Ellison comes into Hollywood and gives him money and gives P.T. Anderson money to make THE MASTER and Andrew Dominik to do KILLING THEM SOFTLY and a bunch of other guys like this. So the legends were true, there are some good rich people out there.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Dane DeHaan, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce, Jason Clarke, Jessica Chastain, John Hillcoat, Mia Wasikowska, Nick Cave, Noah Taylor, Prohibition, Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 27 Comments »
Monday, August 20th, 2012
TRUE ROMANCE is an entertaining, uniquely textured crime movie, a celebration of youthful love, kitsch, Asian exploitation cinema, and great character actors. At the time it seemed like a new feel, especially coming from Tony Scott. Now it’s more notable as a record of young, undisciplined Quentin Tarantino manning the word processor. (Roger Avary was hired to restructure the original non-linear story and write an ending where the hero doesn’t die – yeah, that sounds like young QT all right.)
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brad Pitt, Bronson Pinchot, Chris Penn, Christian Slater, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, James Gandolfini, Michael Rapaport, Patricia Arquette, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Saul Rubinek, Tom Sizemore, Tony Scott
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 43 Comments »
