Posts Tagged ‘Dane DeHaan’
Wednesday, August 16th, 2023
First thing I want to say is that I’ve been calling this movie “Oppy” while having no idea that it’s what everyone calls him in the movie. I guess it’s just the natural, instinctive nickname that comes to mind for J. Robert Oppenheimer, even before “J.R.”
Second thing I want to say is that I was so wrong about the phenomenon of OPPENHEIMER! I had been confused as to why people were talking about it as a sure-thing blockbuster smash, but here I am finally having seen it after 3 weeks of sold out shows at the Imax. I had to give in and buy the tickets a week in advance, and the show did sell out in the same theater that never filled up for DEAD RECKONING, JOHN WICK 4, CREED III, DIAL OF DESTINY, etc. There’s lots of hype about it being shot for Imax format, and this is is the only full Imax format screen in the state, so that’s important context. But still – a 3-hour R-rated drama about a scientist selling out every show every day for weeks? Just because Christopher Nolan directed it? Hooray for the auteur theory! (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alden Ehrenreich, Alex Wolff, biopic, Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Dane DeHaan, David Dastmalchain, David Krumholtz, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Imax, Jack Quaid, James Remar, Josh Hartnett, Macon Blair, Matt Damon, Matthias Schweighofer, Rami Malek, Robert Downey Jr., Scott Grimes, Tom Conti
Posted in Reviews, Drama | 30 Comments »
Tuesday, November 15th, 2022
I don’t know why it took me so long to see A CURE FOR WELLNESS. I guess I missed it at the time and kept putting it off due to mediocre reviews, but what the fuck, Vern? You’ve liked this director since fucking MOUSE HUNT, you were won over by his remake of THE RING which you were ready to hate, you loved all three of his PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies (even that third one, after everyone turned on them), and you especially loved his widely hated (and now harder to vouch for for external reasons) THE LONE RANGER. Why would you care what anybody told you about this one?
Not that I liked this as much as most of those. But it’s a pretty good movie, it’s definitely a distinct one, and I’m disappointed in myself for neglecting the principle that a director who has already proven interesting is worth keeping track of even after everybody else dismisses them. Among other things, because of his lingering clout in the industry at the time this stands out as one of the rare modern horror movies done with lavish studio production values. It cost about $40 million (more than IT) and because it’s Verbinski every set and prop seems designed and built from scratch to fit into this world. We don’t need all or most horror movies to be this detailed, but it’s a treat to get one every once in a while. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Benjamin Wallfisch, Bojan Bazelli, Carl Lumbly, Dane DeHaan, Gore Verbinski, Harry Groener, Ivo Nandi, Jason Isaacs, Justin Haythe, Mia Goth
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 11 Comments »
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2017
Ladies and gentlemen, we have the movie that the director of THE FIFTH ELEMENT makes eight years after he sees AVATAR. One of the first scenes in Luc Besson’s VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS, the one right after the title, brings us to the island paradise planet of Mul, where elongated, glittery-skinned beauties with star-shaped irises fill their giant shell backpacks with pearls, and they feed one to a little pangolin-like creature who puffs up and starts pooping duplicate pearls from under his scales that drop into a hole as an offering to the planet, but suddenly the skies are darkened by an apocalyptic event and the destruction of the planet wakes up our hero Valerian (Dane DeHaan, THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES) while he’s napping on a beach chair somewhere. And at some point in the middle of that you realize that this is by far the most French-comic-book movie ever made.
And it continues like that, a two hour, 17 minute non-stop kaleidoscope-fantasia-carnival-parade of colorful creatures and planets and space ships and gimmicks inspired by the comics series Valérian and Laureline (1967-2010). The titleistical City of a Thousand Planets (Alpha for short) is a gigantic space station that started out by uniting representatives of every country on Earth, but kept expanding to encompass alien cultures. And since much of the movie takes place on this multi-species megalopolis, this intergalactic Epcot Center, it’s like a marathon of STAR WARS cantina scene after STAR WARS cantina scene. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cara Delevigne, Clive Owen, Dane DeHaan, Ethan Hawke, Herbie Hancock, John Goodman, Luc Besson, Rihanna, Rutger Hauer
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 59 Comments »
Tuesday, August 13th, 2013
From the trailers, THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, from director Derek Cianfrance (BLUE VALENTINE), seemed weirdly similar to DRIVE. Instead of a movie stunt driver who’s also a getaway driver, Ryan Gosling plays a carnival motorcycle stunt driver who becomes a bank robber. Instead of having a weird relationship with a married woman and her son he has a weird relationship with an ex-fling (Eva Mendes) who he’s just found out has his son (but lives with a boyfriend who doesn’t want him coming around). I’d heard that it wasn’t really what it looks like, that it “turns into something different,” that it’s “epic.” All these things are true, and I’m glad I didn’t know the specifics of it. But I gotta talk about those specifics if I’m gonna review it, so be warned. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: bank robbers, Ben Mendelsohn, Bradley Cooper, Bruce Greenwood, Dane DeHaan, Derek Cianfrance, Eva Mendes, motorcycle, Ray Liotta, Ryan Gosling
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | 20 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, November 12th, 2012
After the election on Tuesday, which brought us 4 historic gay rights ballot victories, the first openly gay Senator and the most women in the Senate ever, it was a no-brainer to spend Friday night watching Spielberg’s movie about Abraham Lincoln and his people’s fight to eke together a coalition to pass the 13th amendment to the Constitution, ending 400 years of slavery. Also, SKYFALL was sold out.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Bruce, Bruce McGill, Civil War, Dane DeHaan, Daniel Day-Lewis, David Strathairn, Gloria Reuben, Hal Holbrook, Jackie Earle Haley, James Spader, John Hawkes, Lukas Haas, Sally Field, Steven Spielberg, Tim Blake Nelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Tony Kushner, Walton Goggins
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 43 Comments »
Monday, June 18th, 2012
Yeah, CHRONICLE. I just shouldn’t watch these found footage movies, I guess. It doesn’t matter how good they are for their genre, I always think they pale in comparison to actual movies. But technically this isn’t a found footage movie, because they never claim that anybody found the footage, and they sometimes switch POVs from the one character’s camera to another character’s, or to security cameras. So it’s a footage movie.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: another fucking found footage movie, Dane DeHaan, fake Seattle, Michael B. Jordan
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 52 Comments »
