NEXT is a 2007 Nicolas Cage sci-fi vehicle from director Lee Tamahori (ONCE WERE WARRIORS, xXx: STATE OF THE UNION). I finally got to it because I saw that KILL THE IRISHMAN movie and liked it enough to want to look up what else Jonathan Hensleigh has been up to. He’s credited as a writer on this along with Gary Goldman (BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, TOTAL RECALL, NAVY SEALS) and Paul Bernbaum (Riptide, The A-Team, 21 Jump Street, etc.). I got a hunch which one was the primary visionary behind this, but I’m not gonna say it. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Jessica Biel’
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Saturday, August 13th, 2011
The A-Team
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
More like THE C+/B- TEAM if you ask me! Nah, I’m sure somebody beat me to that one, and they probly graded lower. THE A-TEAM is semi-enjoyable but not nearly as good as I wish it was and truly believe it could’ve been even if it’s an adaptation of a stupid ’80s TV show where everybody fires guns and nobody ever gets their head blown off. Directed by Joe Carnahan in a toned down version of his SMOKIN’ ACES hyperactive style, using a script he took over from an individual responsible for THURSDAY, SWORDFISH, HITMAN and WOLVERINE, it’s a movie that only partially earns its swagger. I kind of went back and forth on my feelings about these characters constantly laughing as they pull off ridiculous digitized feats in jets and choppers. It’s kind of relatable and endearing, kind of frat boy and smarmy. It’s the only action movie I can think of where after multiple action beats the characters yell “THAT WAS AWESOME!” (more…)
Stealth
Thursday, August 11th, 2005Director Rob Cohen’s STEALTH, which would be called WHOOOSSSHHHH! if it was up to me, takes place in the near future. In the near future, the world’s three best and also sexiest pilots have been specially trained to combat terrorism. The way this works is, they fly around and drop bombs on the terrorists. They got this shit down to an art, so for example the CIA calls and says listen up super flyers, we know for sure that three evil terrorist cell leaders who are planning an imminent and deadly attack are going to be meeting up in 24 minutes in a completely empty skyscraper in Rangoon. Have at it, kids.
Even though they know for sure that there are no innocent office workers, janitors or burglars inside the building, our three top guns check out some statistics on their onboard computers to make sure this is morally sound. They know this is in the middle of downtown so they have to plan out a way to implode the building so that it will be all neat and tidy and no bricks will fall on anybody’s heads or anything. And they pull it off!
So this is actually a pretty optimistic near future where the pilots are not only interested in preventing casualties, but given the tools to do it and the courage to turn down the mission when it will harm civilians. It’s also optimistic because despite the amazing technology on display here, they have not gone and militarized space, which would make this super plane flyers obsolete.
Another thing that might make them obsolete, and the reason we are gathered here today to discuss a movie, is EDI, pronounced Eddie. That’s the new plane they got with a robot brain. He is their “new wingman” and they gotta teach his robot brain (which looks like it was made in a collaboration between Macintosh and Tron) how to fight terrorists. Eddie of course gets struck by lightning, his brain starts to evolve and he decides to disobey direct orders and go start selecting his own targets to attack. Which could cause some problems, is what the military people start to worry. (more…)
Blade: Trinity
Saturday, January 1st, 2005Man 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…)
The Rules of Attraction
Saturday, January 1st, 2005Not even Mr. McTiernan’s ROLLERBALL managed to scare up as much hatred in movie critics as THE RULES OF ATTRACTION, the latest by Roger Avary, Oscar winning screenwriter best known as the guy who worked at the video store with Quentin Tarantino. I knew there were a handful of fans but many of the reviews were filled with the kind of angry blubbering you usually get when somebody talks about that last Batman and Robin movie or the 30th Anniversary version of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD where they added in extra scenes and changed the music. The kind of thing where you’re so appalled by the movie you can barely even speak English anymore. The film critic at a local alternative weekly interviewed Avary about the movie and the first question was “What were you thinking?”
So I was kind of surprised by how good the movie actually is. Sure it’s pretty pretentious. And if all you see is a “rich college kids are fucked up” message then no, it’s not an original message. But then neither is “war is hell” and that hasn’t made anyone declare the end of the war movie genre for all of eternity. I didn’t find this movie profound (I didn’t find it empty either) but I really thought the execution of it was exceptional. And there is some truth to the story it paints of people being attracted to horrible people and things turning out bad. (In fact, real bad.)
Based on a book by Bret Easton Ellis, who also did AMERICAN PSYCHO, the story is about the painful mating rituals of some college kids. First of all you got the kid who plays Dawson Creek on tv. I believe his tv character is a goody two shoes type but here he is a real asshole coke dealer misogynist named Sean Bateman, apparently the brother of AMERICAN PSYCHO Patrick Bateman. He describes himself as an “emotional vampire” searching for victims. Dawson does a good job, doesn’t really seem like a stunt although it’s a little overboard when he does evil slasher expressions while hitting on women (actually the opposite of his brother Patrick, who looks like a normal guy hitting on women when he is actually a slasher looking for victims). (more…)
