Posts Tagged ‘Emory Cohen’
Monday, February 17th, 2025
A Complete Unknown Pre-Game Triple Feature: HEARTS OF FIRE (1987) / OLIVER & COMPANY (1988) / HOT SUMMER NIGHTS (2017)
I want to review Best Picture nominee A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, but to set the scene I thought I’d first take a look at earlier works from some of the people involved. So here’s a movie starring the subject, one written by the director, and one with the same star.
First up chronologically is the rock ’n roll drama HEARTS OF FIRE (1987), which starts out like LIGHT OF DAY but goes a little A STAR IS BORN. It follows 18 year-old singer/guitarist Molly McGuire, played by Fiona, a real singer who at the time had two albums on Atlantic Records and had guest starred on an episode of Miami Vice. Molly fronts a bar band in a small town and one day she’s surprised to see reclusive former rock legend Billy Parker (Bob Dylan, PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID) sitting at the bar. She scares him off with her gushing, but on another night he impishly appears in the crowd shouting a request for “The Unusual,” his song she told him was her favorite. Actually I guess it’s a John Hiatt cover, but he comes up and performs it with the band – a highlight of their small time rocker lives. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Carl Weintraub, Disney, Dom DeLuise, Emory Cohen, Fiona, Jack Kesy, James Mangold, Jim Cox, Joel Esterhaz, Joey Lawrence, Julian Glover, Maia Mitchell, Maika Monroe, Mark Rylance, Richard Marquand, Richard Mulligan, Richie Havens, Robert Loggia, Roscoe Lee Brown, Rupert Everett, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Susannah Hoffman, Taurean Blacque, Thomas Jane, Tim Disney, Timmy Cappello, Timothee Chalamet, William Fichtner
Posted in Reviews, Cartoons and Shit, Crime, Drama, Music | 6 Comments »
Thursday, September 19th, 2024
REBEL RIDGE is the latest from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier, who’s now five for five in my book. He did the gory art world satire MURDER PARTY (2007), then broke through with the revenge deconstruction BLUE RUIN (2013), followed by the punks vs. skinheads gem GREEN ROOM (2015) and the eerie Alaskan Gothic HOLD THE DARK (2018). Like that last one, REBEL RIDGE is a straight-to-Netflix movie, but it already seems to be more of a crowdpleaser (being their number one movie for a week) and I appreciate that I’ve been able to watch it twice already, even if I would’ve loved to see it in a theater. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aaron Pierre, AnnaSophia Robb, C.J. LeBlanc, David Denman, Don Johnson, Emory Cohen, Jeremy Saulnier, Zsane Jhe
Posted in Reviews, Action, Thriller | 45 Comments »
Wednesday, June 26th, 2024
THE BIKERIDERS is writer/director Jeff Nichols’ (TAKE SHELTER, MUD, LOVING) version of a biker gang movie. It’s loosely adapted from a 1968 book by Danny Lyon, who spent several years riding with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club of Chicago. Nichols incorporated Lyon as a character (played by Mike Faist of WEST SIDE STORY and CHALLENGERS) who’s spending time with the fictional Vandals motorcycle club, taking photos and recording interviews, and if you step back you can picture a version where he’s the lead. We would learn about this world along with him and then it would sort of become his story as he deals with the macho insecurities raised by trying to fit in with these guys. Eventually he realizes it’s bringing out a dark side of him but in the end he learns about himself or some shit. You know the drill. Like a sleeveless version of Matthew Rhys’ character in A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Austin Butler, Beau Knapp, Boyd Holbrook, Damon Herriman, Danny Lyon, Emory Cohen, Happy Anderson, Jeff Nichols, Jodie Comer, Karl Glusman, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, motorcycles, New Journalism, Norman Reedus, Toby Wallace, Tom Hardy, Will Oldham
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Drama | 14 Comments »
Thursday, January 16th, 2020
SWEETHEART is a simple little horror movie from second-time writer/director J.D. Dillard (SLEIGHT). It only has a couple characters, most of the time only two, and only one of those is human. Jenn (Kiersey Clemons, DOPE) wakes up face down on an island shore, life vest on, having survived some unspecified boat disaster. A friend or acquaintance of some kind, Brad (Benedict Samuel, the Mad Hatter on Gotham), has washed up too, but he’s impaled on some kind of shell, and he doesn’t last long.
So it’s a castaway movie. Jenn immediately proves to be very resourceful, smashing through a coconut with a sharp rock to get water. She finds her luggage, and manages to be well dressed in beach attire throughout the movie. She also finds luggage from someone else who’s been on the island, but maybe a long time ago. Long enough to have a Gameboy.
For a bit it seems like some puzzle-oriented video game like Myst, because she’s looking at objects and photos, piecing together a bit of a backstory for characters we never even see. There’s a journal, but it got wet enough that all the ink smeared away. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Benedict Samuel, Blumhouse, Emory Cohen, Hanna Mangan-Lawrence, J.D. Dillard, Kiersey Clemons, monster movies, stranded on an island
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 14 Comments »
Thursday, February 25th, 2016
BROOKLYN is my best-picture-nominee-completist viewing for this year. When the nominations were announced the only ones I hadn’t seen were THE REVENANT (which was about to come out and I was excited to see), ROOM (which I had been told was very good so I was already interested) and this one (no interest). And I’m not saying it changed my life or nothin, but it’s a good movie I never would’ve watched otherwise.
Saoirse (pronounced sur-shuh) Ronan plays Eilis (pronounced AY-lish) Lacey, a young woman who works in a shop in a small town in Ireland in 1952 (pronounced nyn-teen-fiff-tee-too). But she doesn’t get paid much and people are starving and her older sister Rose (Fiona Glascott, RESIDENT EVIL) arranges for her to go to the U.S. where there might be better opportunities. A priest (Jim Broadbent, SUPERMAN IV) sets her up with a home at a boarding house, a job at a department store and even night classes in bookkeeping at a college.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Emory Cohen, Fiona Glascott, immigration, Ireland, John Cromwell, Julie Walters, Nick Hornby, Saoirse Ronan
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 12 Comments »
