Archive for the ‘Fantasy/Swords’ Category
Wednesday, September 12th, 2012
In the story of Snow White, if you remember, the huntsman is the guy who the evil queen sends to bring Snow White out into the woods and murder her. He’s gonna do it, ’cause work is work, but then he looks at her and falls in love with her beauty or is touched by her innocence or what have you and he just doesn’t have the stomach to, you know, cut open her stomach. (If she was ugly this would be a shorter tale). The Queen wants to know for sure the girl is dead but probly thinks it would be rude to make this guy haul back the whole body, so as a compromise she asks him to bring back some organs (lungs and liver in the original, heart in the Disney version) so he carves up a pig and brings her impostor parts.
In this new movie-fication of the story the huntsman (Chris THOR Hemsworth) has to go find Snow White (Kristen PANIC ROOM Stewart) in the woods and bring the heart back to the Queen (Charlize Theron) because she needs it to magically stay young forever. He doesn’t know who the girl is and there’s not much tension like he’s really gonna kill her, he just doesn’t do it and then they travel on one of those slow, boring fantasy journeys occasionally enlivened by monster appearances. No pigs are harmed.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bob Hoskins, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Eddie Marsan, fairy tales, Ian McShane, Kristen Stewart, Nick Frost, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 95 Comments »
Thursday, May 31st, 2012
I remember when this movie came out everybody said it was terrible, then the longer director’s cut came out and it started to build up a reputation as underrated. Just to be safe I wanted to allow some time for that rep to foam over and then dry up and harden into a solid surface. The effects of oxygen on the polished surface create the ideal viewing circumstances. So I watched it 7 years later. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Thewlis, Edward Norton, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, Kevin McKidd, knights, Liam Neeson, Marton Csokas, Michael Sheen, Orlando Bloom, Ridley Scott, The Crusades, William Monahan
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 124 Comments »
Saturday, March 31st, 2012
10 years after the titans clashed, Zeus (Liam Neeson, NEXT OF KIN) and Hades (Ralph Fiennes, STRANGE DAYS) are about to feel their wrath. See, they’ve had their asshole dad Kronos imprisoned in the underworld forever, but with humans not praying to them they’re losing the power to contain him, and Ares (Edgar Ramirez) and some of their other kids are conspiring to set the old man free. And when he gets out he’s gonna get his revenge.
I should mention that Kronos is not a man, he’s a giant lava monster that makes the Kraken from part 1 look like a shrimp. So by “get his revenge” I basically just mean that he’s gonna walk around and stuff is gonna get destroyed. In fact Zeus and Hades don’t seem as bad now that I realize the type of family they grew up in. I’m sure even during peace time Kronos is constantly “getting revenge,” unless there is some sort of all-lava-monster community he can go to. If he’s expected to integrate with the mortals or even the Olympians there’s always gonna be a size and heat difference that’s gonna be problematic. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Nighy, Danny Huston, Edgar Ramirez, Greek mythology, Jonathan Liebesman, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Rosamund Pike, Sam Worthington, Toby Kebbell
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 67 Comments »
Thursday, March 29th, 2012
Like some sort of mythological Greek hero whose companions have been struck down in the midst of a daring journey, I stand alone on this: I liked the CLASH OF THE TITANS remake.
I cannot lie. I thought it was good. Don’t sacrifice me to a kraken, I have the right to admit this publicly. Remember, the first amendment is about protecting all speech, no matter how vile. Just give me a chance to try to explain where I’m coming from here.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Greek mythology, Liam Neeson, Louis Letterier, Mads Mikkelsen, Ralph Fiennes, remakes, Sam Worthington
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 84 Comments »
Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
“We have… we have a flying horse!”
The original CLASH OF THE TITANS has most of the things I don’t like about ’80s fantasy movies: a bland, dorky hero (Harry Hamlin), slow pacing, stiff action, lifeless settings in dusty wastelands or fake-looking soundstages, interchangeable nameless non-characters in helmets or robes. On the other hand it has the best and final pre-retirement work of stop motion monster legend Ray Harryhausen. These are really cool depictions of Greek mythological monsters and other shit – Medusa, a two-headed pooch, a giant buzzard, etc. – and that’s enough to make it stand out and be worth watching. Most fantasy movies don’t have that. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Greek mythology, Harry Hamlin, Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Neil McCarthy, Ray Harryhausen
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 61 Comments »
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
JOHN CARTER is your typical Civil-War-veteran-transported-via-magic-cave-to-Mars-to-fall-in-love-with-a-princess-and-fight-a-war tale. I mean, how many movies can we have on this topic?
Oh wait, I was thinking of can-you-fuck-your-friend-all-the-time-and-not-fall-in-love romantic comedies. That’s the more common one. The civil war veteran on Mars deal is not that big of a genre this year, and this new (partly) live action take from Disney might be the last one. It’s not shaping up to be the smash hit required to make back its big budget, and the box office trainspotters are already giggling and high-fiving each other as they dig it a shallow grave in an unused lot behind Space Mountain. That’s too bad, ’cause it’s a hell of alot of fun.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: adventure, Andrew Stanton, Brian Cranston, Cieran Hinds, Disney, Edgar Rice Burroughs, James Purefoy, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong, Mars, Samantha Morton, Taylor Kitsch, Thomas Haden Church, Willem Dafoe
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 164 Comments »
Thursday, January 19th, 2012
HOOK, man. What went wrong? Let’s try to figure it out.
One thing I noticed about HOOK: it’s not called PAN. The title HOOK implies a new perspective on the PETER PAN tale, like we’re gonna see it from the pirate’s perspective, or even like it’s gonna be a Captain Hook biopic. Maybe we would learn about his struggles growing up, how he wrote his first hits, rose to the top of the charts, substance abuse, falling in love, the thing with the crocodile, etc. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Dante Basco, Dustin Hoffman, Gwyneth Paltrow, J.M. Barrie, Robin Williams, Steven Spielberg
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 65 Comments »
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
For those keeping score, THE SCORPION KING 3: BATTLE FOR REDEMPTION is the sequel to the prequel to the prequel to the sequel to the re-imagining of THE MUMMY. It would’ve been worth reviewing just to point out that important fact, but the truth is I have a sincere interest in the Scorpion King saga. There’s only one movie in that entire lineage that I like alot (THE SCORPION KING starring The Rock), but I believe it’s a series they could do something fun with, even on lower budgets and without The Rock. I believe in hope. I believe America. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy Zane, Dave Bautista, DTV, DTV sequels, Kimbo Slice, Roel Reine, Ron Perlman, Temuera Morrison, Victor Webster
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 74 Comments »
Friday, September 23rd, 2011
THE TEMPEST is the story of this wizard lady named Prospera (Helen Mirren) who lives on a small island with only her cutie daughter Miranda (Felicity Jones) and her monster slave Caliban (Djimon Hounsou). Also she has a slave named Ariel (Ben Whishaw) who’s like a naked sprite guy (with boobs?) who flits around and does her magical bidding.
She’s got some books and beakers and shit but this is an island made up mostly of volcanic rocks. There’s not much of a night life or anything, it’s gotta be kinda lonely. Her daughter’s never even seen a human man before, what’re they gonna talk about? Rocks? Trees? Beakers? (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Cumming, Chris Cooper, David Strathairn, Djimon Hounsou, Helen Mirren, Julie Taymor, Russell Brand, Shakespeare
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 53 Comments »
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
VALHALLA RISING is a slow, quiet mood piece about back in the day when Christians had “pushed the heathens to the fringes of the earth.” Mads Mikkelsen, the bad guy from CASINO ROYALE, plays one of those heathens and he starts out the movie in those fringes, locked in a cage, then tied to a pole like a junkyard dog, forced to beat other warriors to death. Not in a cool action type of way but in an upsetting “oh shit, he just exposed that guy’s brain” type of way.
Before long he’s free and traveling toward “home,” wherever that is. He tells people he came from Hell, and he’s such a scary motherfucker they tend to take that literally. Actually, he doesn’t say a word, but a little boy accompanies him, speaks for him, and names him “One Eye.” “Well, you need a name,” he explains. “And you have one eye.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: arthouse badass, Denmark, Mads Mikkelsen, Nicolas Winding Refn, vikings
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 130 Comments »
