Posts Tagged ‘Colin Farrell’
Thursday, February 29th, 2024
A little over 20 years ago, in a whole different cinematic era, they made a movie of the Marvel Comics super hero Daredevil. It was a strange, in-between period for comic book movies – they were neither the exciting novelty they’d been in the BATMAN-inspired ‘90s or the dominant cultural force they would soon become with the MCU. BLADE, X-MEN, BLADE II and SPIDER-MAN had come out, so Marvel finally had a track record of successful movie adaptations. But none of these took place in the same world, and there was even a famous outtake from X-MEN where a guy in a Spider-Man costume ran into a scene as a prank, and it seemed hilarious at the time.
DAREDEVIL was a test of what The Ain’t It Cool News and other self-declared “geek” voices on the internet had been preaching. In fact, Harry Knowles wrote a rave review of the script more than a year before filming started. It’s meant to be a dark, gritty and faithful adaptation of a character beloved by comics fans, but not very well known to civilians. Sure enough it was a hit, though only enough to get a spin-off and not multiple sequels like Blade, the X-Men and Spider-Man got. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ben Affleck, Cheung-Yan Yuen, Colin Farrell, Coolio, David Keith, Erick Avari, Ericson Core, Graeme Revell, Jeff Imada, Jennifer Garner, Joe Pantoliano, Jon Favreau, Mark Margolis, Mark Steven Johnson, Marvel Comics, Michael Clarke Duncan, nu metal, Paul Ben-Victor, Tanoai Reed
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comic strips/Super heroes | 27 Comments »
Monday, February 6th, 2023
THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN is last year’s best picture nominated movie from writer/director Martin McDonagh, and I think my favorite from him so far. (The other best is his debut IN BRUGES, and he also did SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS and THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI). This one is set in 1923 in a small island village of Ireland, and concerns the simple topic of two old friends after one of them decides they shouldn’t have any contact with each other anymore. It’s not in response to some specific action, it’s a decision to redirect his life, and a rejection of the value of spending any time with this other person. It’s a sad movie and also a really funny one. Since it didn’t make me cry, despite my middle age status as an easy crier, I say it’s more funny than sad. You may disagree.
The rejected party is Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell, DEAD MAN DOWN), who opens the movie in comical obliviousness, walking into town saying hello to everybody he passes like it’s a damn Disney movie. There’s even a rainbow. But when he knocks on Colm (Brendan Gleeson, TURBULENCE)’s window Colm won’t acknowledge him, and later at the pub won’t sit with or talk to him. And after some pushing Colm tells him the friendship is over. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barry Keoghan, Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Gary Lydon, Ireland, Kerry Condon, Martin McDonagh, Sheila Flitton
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Drama | 14 Comments »
Friday, March 11th, 2022
(there will be spoils)
Yes it’s true, comic book super heroes hold too much of a monopoly on movies and television right now. I agree, we get it, but also I enjoy the genre. And of all the ongoing super hero franchises the one I get most excited about is Batman.
Tim Burton’s 1989 BATMAN was a foundational movie for me, and I believe it kicked off the first real era of comic book movies, since SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE didn’t have many riding its coattails. I don’t think it could’ve happened with another character. There was something about the zeitgeist at that time, that the world was ready to see Batman on screen, and the marketing ingeniously took advantage of that. More importantly, the specific psychological and visual qualities of the “dark” Super Friend and his evil clown nemesis attracted Burton and gave him a weirdly perfect canvas on which to fuse his particular talents with blockbuster filmmaking, and create something that felt simultaneously of our past and completely new.
Because that was the first one, a distinct, stylized look was an expected element of comic book movies throughout the ‘90s, paving the way for the likes of DICK TRACY, THE CROW, TANK GIRL… I’d even throw in gaudier digital age ones like SPAWN and THE MASK for at least having their own looks. And Burton’s followup, BATMAN RETURNS, is still one of the most beautiful looking comic book movies to date. It only makes sense, being adaptations of an illustrated medium, but it’s a tradition somewhat neglected in the era of shared universes and realistic CG. I think THE BATMAN is one of the ones that brings it back. It looks stunning, and completely unlike other movies of the same genre, or even about the same character. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andy Serkis, Barry Keoghan, Colin Farrell, DC Comics, Greig Fraser, James Chinlund, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Matt Reeves, Michael Giacchino, Paul Dano, Peter Craig, Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 137 Comments »
Tuesday, November 20th, 2018
When last we heard from director Steve McQueen U.K., his movie 12 YEARS A SLAVE had won best picture. Five years later he finally has a followup, and it’s a violent, artfully crafted heist movie. Now you’re earning that name, my friend.
It’s credited as “based on ‘Widows’ by Lynda La Plante,” which seems to refer to the 1983 ITV mini-series, though there’s also a book version that says “SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE” on the cover, and I have found no definitive answer as to which La Plante wrote first. Anyway, McQueen adapted whatever it was he adapted with Gillian Flynn of GONE GIRL (both book and movie) fame.
Liam Neeson (THE DEAD POOL), Jon Bernthal (THE ACCOUNTANT), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO) and Coburn Goss (MAN OF STEEL) star as a Chicago-based crew of highly skilled, even highlier armed and armoured robber motherfuckers in the vein of HEAT or L.A. TAKEDOWN or DEN OF THIEVES or POINT BREAK or POINT BREAK REMAKE. And by “star” I mean for a couple minutes at the very beginning we see a tiny bit of their heist intercut with them saying goodbye to their wives beforehand and then they get blown up. You barely even see that last guy’s face. Because this is not about dudes like that. It’s about their loved ones who have to clean up their mess. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: based on a TV show, Brian Tyree Henry, Carrie Coon, Chuck Inglish, Coburn Goss, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, Elizabeth Debicki, Garrett Dillahunt, heist, Jon Bernthal, Kevin J. O'Connor, Liam Neeson, Lukas Haas, Lynda La Plante, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Michael Rocks, Michelle Rodriguez, Robert Duvall, Steve McQueen UK, Viola Davis
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 12 Comments »
Friday, August 9th, 2013
Nothing has changed since yesterday. I’m still against WWE Studios flying their prestigious banner above movies starring non-wrestlers. But I gotta admit that DEAD MAN DOWN is probly the best movie they’ve had their initials on so far. It stars Crusher Colin Farrell, Notorious Noomi Rapace and Terrence Dastructshon Howard in a moody revenge romance. (The token actual wrester is somebody named Wade Barrett as some character called “Kilroy.”) I think the movie it reminded me of most is LEON, but it’s a little more downbeat, and no uncomfortable underage business. But that’s a pretty abstract comparison, I don’t even know what it is that connects them. This is the rare movie that feels like it doesn’t really follow an existing template. Or if it does it’s a bunch of different templates collaged together in a weird way that’s hard to recognize. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Colin Farrell, Dominic Cooper, F. Murray Abraham, Isabelle Huppert, J.H. Wyman, Niels Arden Oplev, Noomi Rapace, revenge, Terrence Howard, WWE Films
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 36 Comments »
Friday, February 8th, 2013
Now that I’ve seen SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS I understand why the ads made it look so dumb: it’s too hard to explain. They made it look like some corny post-Tarantino “isn’t it funny, they’re hardened criminals but they’re arguing over a Shih Tzu!” type bullshit. And that’s in there – writer/director Martin McDonagh (IN BRUGES) is about the only guy whose style can remind me of Tarantino in a good way – but overall it’s weirder and more distinct than that.
In IN BRUGES the protagonists were hit men, and there was a subplot about a movie being filmed near where they’re staying. In this one the movie business is more central. Colin Farrell plays a clearly idiotic screenwriter trying to write something called SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, but he doesn’t have much more than a title. He doesn’t even have seven psychopaths, so he just spends his time trying to think of concepts for different psychopaths, sometimes based on stories he’s heard or seen in the news. So we see these stories in his head, or going on around him, and fictional reality begins to blend with fiction-within-fiction. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brendan Sexton III, Christopher Walken, Colin Farrell, Crispin Glover, Gabourey Sidibe, Harry Dean Stanton, Kevin Corrigan, Linda Bright Clay, Martin McDonagh, Michael Pitt, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sam Rockwell, Tom Waits, Woody Harrelson
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Reviews | 31 Comments »
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
IN BRUGES is an intimate crime story about two hitmen – I know, but hear me out – forced to stay in the titular Belgian town while things cool down after a job gone wrong. Ken (Brendan Gleeson) is the veteran who’s happy to take advantage of the down time to relax and look at tourist spots, Ray (Colin Farrell) is his young partner who has no interest and pouts like a kid dragged along on the wrong vacation. He’s also the one that fucked up the job and is racked with guilt and depression.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brendan Gleeson, Christmas, Christmas crime, Colin Farrell, Martin McDonagh, Ralph Fiennes
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 67 Comments »
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
I remember the original FRIGHT NIGHT being an okay movie, but I haven’t seen it since the ’80s, so I don’t remember it well enough to compare the remake to it. But on its own I did find the remake to be an entertaining-if-not-entirely-original take on the ol’ vampire shit.
Anton Yelchin plays the hero Charley, Imogen Poots (CENTURION) plays his way-out-of-his-league girlfriend Amy, Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays his friend “Evil Ed,” who gets bit by his neighbor Jerry. Because Jerry is a vampire – don’t worry, it’s not some weirdo biter guy.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anton Yelchin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Colin Farrell, Craig Gillespie, good remakes, Imogen Poots, Marti Noxon, remakes, Toni Collette
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 46 Comments »
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
(pretty big spoilers in this one, sorry)
This is not the romantic one where Christian Slater has a baboon heart, this is the dramatic one where Jeff Bridges may soon need a baboon liver, on account of his country singer lifestyle. I heard alot about CRAZY HEART being good only for Bridges’s about-to-win-an-Academy-Award performance. (Did you know he was also nominated for THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT?) But I thought the movie itself was pretty damn good too, let’s give it some credit please. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Colin Farrell, Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 28 Comments »
Monday, August 7th, 2006
MIAMI VICE is the movie version of the old TV show from the ’80s about Crocket and Tubbs. It’s written and directed by Michael Mann, executive producer of the TV show, now known as the humorless, pretentious, talented jackass behind COLLATERAL, HEAT, etc.
Remember that show? We, as a nation, stopped wearing socks when that show came on. We stopped shaving. We started wearing pastel shirts under white Armani jackets. We drove Ferraris and had pet alligators. We listened to Phil Collins and Glenn Frey and all that shit. Our hearts pumped to the rhythm of Jan Hammer’s awesome electronic drum pads. It was who we were as Americans. At least that’s what I keep reading in reviews of this movie. Actually, it is partly true, everybody loved that show and people did try to dress up as the characters. Like you Star Wars freakos only it was considered legit. Everybody from little kids to old men in walkers was wearing those ridiculous white suits and sunglasses. Pretending to be an actor on TV pretending to be a cop pretending to be a drug dealer. It was a fun time and it might be fun to make a movie that transports us back to those days. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ciaran Hinds, Colin Farrell, Gong Li, Jamie Foxx, Justin Theroux, Michael Mann, Naomie Harris
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews | 34 Comments »
