Posts Tagged ‘Dan Stevens’
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024
ABIGAIL (2024) is the new humorous horror-crime movie from directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, a.k.a. Radio Silence, the team behind SOUTHBOUND, READY OR NOT, SCREAM (2022) and SCREAM VI. The screenplay is credited to Stephen Shields (THE HOLE IN THE GROUND) and the usual Radio Silence guy Guy Busick.
I enjoyed this one, it’s a fun movie, but it kinda seems like it was designed without considering how it would have to be advertised. In order to explain the premise the trailers had to reveal information you don’t get until surprisingly far into the movie. It feels weird how long it pretends we don’t know, and how much of a shock it seems meant to be when it happens. You can see how much more fun it will be for anyone who sees it by accident on cable or whatever other blind viewing opportunities may exist. So in case someone out there still has that possibility, I’ll follow the movie’s example in taking my sweet time with the set up and then I’ll warn you when to cut out.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alisha Weir, Angus Cloud, Dan Stevens, Giancarlo Esposito, Guy Busick, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, Melissa Barrera, Radio Silence, Stephen Shields, Will Catlett
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Horror | 29 Comments »
Thursday, April 4th, 2024
GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE is the fifth of the “Monsterverse” movies, and to me the best one. Don’t get me wrong, I kinda liked the attempt at a serious Spielbergian approach in GODZILLA, and the more fun and colorful (but weirdly nostalgic for Vietnam War imagery?) take of KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and the Hesei nightmare atmosphere of GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS, but my previous favorite was GODZILLA VS. KONG, because it finally went headlong into having cool giant monster fights where you’re still in awe but you get to see what’s going on.
GxK is the first one with a returning director (Adam Wingard, YOU’RE NEXT) and he’s able to hit the ground running and improve on GvK with a crazier mythology and a better-integrated human story. I had a big smile on my face pretty much the whole time, without having to say “Well, too bad they were just traveling in that tunnel for a third of the movie.” My only real complaint is that the great Brian Tyree Henry (WIDOWS) still has a dumb one-joke character to play – a Roland Emmerich type “funny conspiracy guy” updated to have a podcast and a Discord – but he not only gets some laughs but gets to be around the actual monsters this time instead of trapped in a needless b-plot. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Wingard, Anthony Brandon Wong, ASL, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, kaiju, Kaylee Hottle, Monsterverse, Rebecca Hall
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Monster | 36 Comments »
Monday, April 24th, 2017
Disney’s new live-action rendition of Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is a tale as old as time, a collection of songs as old as 1991, plus new ones created in 1993 for the Broadway musical. Unlike Jon Favreau’s excellent computer-animation-that-seems-like-live-action remake THE JUNGLE BOOK, which melded beloved elements of the 1967 animated classic with more serious drama from Rudyard Kipling’s book, this is a very faithful, at times scene-for-scene re-enactment of the 1991 best picture nominated hit. But that’s the idea: it’s the movie version of the stage version of the animated version of the traditional fairy tale. Director Bill Condon (CANDYMAN 2: FAREWELL TO THE FLESH) and adapters Stephen Chbosky (RENT) and Evan Spiliotopoulos (HERCULES with The Rock) seem to look at it much more as a restaging than a reinterpretation. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Condon, Dan Stevens, Disney, Emma Watson, Ewan McGregor, fairy tales, Ian McKellen, live action remake of cartoon, Luke Evans
Posted in Family, Fantasy/Swords, Musical, Reviews | 55 Comments »
Thursday, September 25th, 2014
Sometimes a man just has to walk among the tombstones, you know? Stroll within the grave markers. Saunter betwixt the memorials. Seagal did it in PISTOL WHIPPED and now my man Liam Neeson (THE DEAD POOL) is taking a turn. He’s doing it in a mystery thriller based on book #10 in a series by Lawrence Block. The movie version is written and directed by Scott Frank, the guy that wrote OUT OF SIGHT, so it’s more about capturing that crime novel feel than being another Neeson vehicle like UNKNOWN or NON-STOP. That said, he is allowed to be awesome, and there are some scuffles.
Admittedly the opening scene is better than anything else in the movie. It’s a flashback to 1991, but has a ’70s feel. Stringy-haired, racial-slur-using asshole police detective Matthew Scudder (Neeson) walks into an empty bar where cops get free drinks. And this is how you know he sucks: the bartender greets him by name, and he doesn’t even say hi or look at him. He just knocks on the counter and then sits down at a booth with his back to him. Fuck you, man! I guarantee you this prick doesn’t tip either. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Boyd Holbrook, Dan Stevens, Eric Nelsen, Lawrence Block, Liam Neeson, Scott Frank
Posted in Mystery, Reviews | 48 Comments »
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014
First I gotta give you that dreaded warning that more than the usual amount of fun in this one comes from not knowing what type of movie it’s gonna be. Not like it’s some crazy rollercoaster or mindblowing, rug-pulling shocker of a twist or anything, but it mixes up genres a little bit and I’m glad I didn’t know where it was going. So you might want to do what I did and just know it’s from the director and writer of YOU’RE NEXT and give it a shot. That worked well for me. But if you want to read my review beforehand anyway, be my guest.
Dan Stevens, who you know from playing the libidinous chandelier designer Lord Downington Abernathy on Downton Abbey, but who I know from playing the douchey soul-patched heroin trafficker in the other new movie I watched the day before this, plays a soldier called David Collins who shows up on Mrs. Peterson (Sheila Kelley)’s doorstep one day. He knew her son Caleb, who died in Afghanistan, says he promised to come check on the family for him and tell them he loved them right to the end. This brings up alot of emotions of course but she invites him in (like a fucking vampire) and he befriends her drinking, Henry-Winkler-esque husband Spencer (Leland Orser, SEVEN), her cool 20-year-old waitress daughter Anna (Maika Monroe) and her put-upon high school son Luke (Brendan Meyer, SPOOKY BUDDIES). So he ends up sticking around for a while. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Wingard, Brendan Meyer, crazed veterans, Dan Stevens, Ethan Embry, Jesse Luken, Joel David Moore, Lance Reddick, Leland Orser, Maika Monroe, Sheila Kelley, Simon Barrett, synth score
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 74 Comments »
