Posts Tagged ‘Ethan Hawke’
Monday, October 20th, 2025
BLACK PHONE 2 is an interesting sequel, and not just because they dropped the ‘THE’ and streamlined the title, FAST & FURIOUS style. It’s also because it follows the somewhat forgotten slasher sequel tradition of having to invent some new mythology to continue a story that seemed pretty damn wrapped up last time. The first movie (based on a short story by Joe Hill) used the supernatural elements of ghosts and psychic dreams, but its villain was just a plain old mortal human who kidnaps kids in a particular suburb of Denver. And then he got killed. Can’t really redo that, so what they came up with feels fresh.
The protagonist of the first one was Finney (Mason Thames, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON live action version), who gets abducted and locked in a basement by the Grabber (Ethan Hawke, EXPLORERS), and the titular telecommunications device allows him to speak to the ghosts of previous victims, so they pool what they know about the place their in and the Grabber’s activities, and together conceive an escape plan. Meanwhile his younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw, AMERICAN SNIPER) is at home surviving their abusive alcoholic father (Jeremy Davies, DARK HARVEST) and having psychic dreams with clues that help her locate Finney.
For the sequel Finney is back, older and tougher, having taken over for the bullies who used to beat the shit out of him at school, and also partaking in quite a bit of weed. Thames has grown into such an authentic 1982 rocker dude face that I was a little thrown off by him wearing a Peter Gabriel t-shirt, but that’s okay. Finney avoids categorization. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arianna Rivas, C. Robert Cargill, Demian Bichir, Ethan Hawke, Graham Abbey, James Ransome, Jeremy Davies, Joe Hill, Madeleine McGraw, Maev Beaty, Mason Thames, Scott Derrickson
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
Recently, events converged to remind me there was a (sort of) remake of John Carpenter’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 back in 2005. Well, really what happened was that movie PLANE came out – the Gerard Butler one with the plane – and that’s from the same director, Jean-François Richet. He did a couple gritty French crime movies in the ‘90s and then his phone rang and Hollywood said, “Hello, this is Hollywood, would you be interested in remaking ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, or as you call it in France, ASSAUT?” I imagine he very thoughtfully said “Oui” and then hung up.
According to his commentary track they didn’t have the script yet when they hired him. He chose James DeMonaco to write it because he’d just seen THE NEGOTIATOR, a movie this does seem kinda similar to. DeMonaco had also written a film for Francis Ford Coppola*. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aisha Hinds, Brian Dennehy, Dorian Harewood, Drea De Mateo, Ethan Hawke, Gabriel Byrne, Graeme Revell, Ja Rule, James DeMonaco, Jean-Francois Richet, John Leguizamo, Kim Coates, KRS-One, Laurence Fishburne, Maria Bello, New Year's Eve, siege movies, Titus Welliver
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime, Thriller | 12 Comments »
Monday, June 27th, 2022
(beware The Spoiler)
THE BLACK PHONE is a solid, straight forward horror tale set in a Denver suburb in 1979, when a succession of boys have gone missing. Locals blame it on someone they call “The Grabber.” The story centers on a kid named Finney (Mason Thames, young Walker in the new version of Walker: Texas Ranger), who’s either in middle school or high school (definitely pre-driver’s license age).
His life is not the easiest, but he gets by. He and his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw, AMERICAN SNIPER) have to walk on egg shells around their alcoholic father (Jeremy Davies, punk rock Toyota commercial) as well as various bullies closer to their own age. On Fridays Gwen sleeps over at a friend’s and Finney “takes care of” Dad – tucking him in and watching Emergency! by himself.
It’s a pretty tight movie, but I appreciate that it doesn’t rush the section where it establishes Finney’s daily life and the ominous mood of the place and time. One day there’s a fight outside of school, some big creep named Moose (J. Gaven Wilde, HALLOWEEN KILLS) calling a smaller kid named Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora) a slur and taking a swing at him, at which point we learn that Robin is some kind of junior high Billy Jack who this kid absolutely should not have fucked with. Finney doesn’t know how to do that when he gets chased into the restroom by three dickheads, so it’s a relief when Robin walks in. Turns out they’re friends, though I get the sense it’s one of those friendships where one (Finney) is in awe of the other and feels surprised and lucky the guy even talks to him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: based on a short story, Blumhouse, C. Robert Cargill, E. Roger Mitchell, Ethan Hawke, J. Gaven Wilde, James Ransome, Jeremy Davies, Joe Hill, Madeleine McGraw, Mark Korven, Mason Thames, Miguel Cazarez Mora, Scott Derrickson, Troy Rudeseal
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 25 Comments »
Wednesday, April 27th, 2022
THE NORTHMAN is the new one from Robert Eggers (THE WITCH), his version of a badass viking revenge story. Of course that’s filtered through his arcane sensibilities, making it a cousin to David Lowery’s fantasy-by-way-of-A24 movie THE GREEN KNIGHT and, moreso, Nicolas Winding Refn’s VALHALLA RISING. It’s actually a little bit more straightforward and traditionally entertaining than either of those, or at least doesn’t descend into an abyss of strangeness with no visible exit sign. But it’s not GLADIATOR either. It won’t pass as a movie made for normal people.
It has a basis in Icelandic folklore, especially versions of the story of Amleth, which inspired Hamlet. Eggers wrote it with an Icelandic author named Sjón, who wrote REYKJAVIK WHALE WATCHING MASSACRE and LAMB, but also grew up with Bjork, co-wrote some of her songs and performed with The Sugarcubes under the name “Johnny Triumph,” so he got her to have a cameo as a prophetic witch or whatever. A significant casting coup there in my opinion. She doesn’t act that much but it would be cool if this gave her the bug again and then she got to be a villain in FAST X or something. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alexander Skarsgard, Anya-Taylor Joy, Bjork, Claes Bang, Eldar Skar, Ethan Hawke, fantasy sword dudes, Gustav Lindh, Hafbor Julius Bjornsson, Iceland, Nicole Kidman, Robert Eggers, Sjon, vikings, Willem Dafoe
Posted in Action, Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 48 Comments »
Tuesday, August 24th, 2021
August 16,1991
The only thing I remembered about MYSTERY DATE was that Gwar was in it. It’s a once-crazy-night movie where this kid Tom (Ethan Hawke, EXPLORERS) nervously takes out his crush Geena (Teri Polo, BORN TO RIDE) and tries to impress her, and they end up at a place called Club Voltaire during a Gwar show. We briefly get to see them roaring and thrashing and performing a cartoonish decapitation – pretty great choice for the “band that would seem intimidating to these people” scene. (In Keanu’s THE NIGHT BEFORE it was Parliament-Funkadelic.)
What I did not remember is that Tom finds a dead body in his trunk, accidentally kills a cop, and gets in a war with the Chinatown mafia. I thought it was gonna be a normal horny romantic comedy type deal.
Tom is a shy recent high school graduate. Since he looks like Ethan Hawke they don’t try to pass him off as a total nerd – he wears a Los Lobos t-shirt and has posters of The Stranglers, The The, Elvis Costello, UB40, and that Lynda Barry “Poodle with a Mohawk” cartoon, all suggesting he’s, like, a guy who listens to college radio or whatever. But he doesn’t make it clear what other passions he may have, save for this “mystery girl” next door (I think she’s housesitting?) who he spies on through a telescope (unethical). He lives in the shadow of his brother Craig (Brian McNamara, SHORT CIRCUIT), who’s at law school, and his parents’ dog, who they’ve taken out of town for a dog show. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: B.D. Wong, Brian McNamara, Candy Dulfer, Danny Glover, Ethan Hawke, Francis Veber, Gwar, Harry Shearer, Jonathan Wacks, Martin Short, Nadia Tass, Oliver Wood, Sam Wanamaker, Scott Wilson, Sheila Kelley, Summer of 1991, Teri Polo
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 15 Comments »
Monday, February 1st, 2021
CUT THROAT CITY may be the capital of CUTTHROAT ISLAND, I’m not sure, but the one I’m here to write about is the crime film set in New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina, and it’s the latest directorial effort of The RZA.
As you may know I’m a fan of RZA’s music (Wu-Tang Clan, GHOST DOG score), acting (THE PROTECTOR 2, BRICK MANSIONS, THE DEAD DON’T DIE) and film scholarship (the commentary track on THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, his 36films.com livestreams). I’m also a big fan of his first film as a director (and writer and star and composer), THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS. I have some issues with the way he shot the fights, but I absolutely love the old school kung fu fantasy world he created and the many characters, clans and weapons within it. So I take him seriously as a filmmaker. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Demetrius Shipp Jr., Denzel Whitaker, Eiza Gonzalez, Ethan Hawke, Hurricane Katrina, Isaiah Washington, Joel David Moore, Kat Graham, Keean Johnson, New Orleans, P.G. Cuschieri, RZA, Shameik Moore, T.I., Terrence Howard, Wesley Snipes
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Monday, July 13th, 2020
July 12, 1985
Director Joe Dante came up in the world of Roger Corman – first cutting trailers, then directing PIRANHA – before his success with THE HOWLING (1981) brought him to the attention of Steven Spielberg, who produced TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983) and GREMLINS (1984). So it’s notable that Dante’s Summer of ’85 entry EXPLOR
ERS is another that (like D.A.R.Y.L. or especially COCOON) seems like it wouldn’t have existed without the influence of Spielberg’s films.
In an interview with Podcasting Them Softly, screenwriter Eric Luke confirms, “The thing that sold it, that Paramount thought, let’s make this was like the one sentence concept, because E.T. had just come out and been the biggest hit ever, so my answer to that was three boys build their own space ship and go into space and it all works, it’s not just a fantasy, there’s some scientific underpinning.”
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amanda Peterson, Bobby Fite, Ethan Hawke, James Cromwell, Jason Presson, Jerry Goldsmith, Joe Dante, Leslie Rickert, Mike Ploog, River Phoenix, Rob Bottin, Robert Picardo, Summer of 1985
Posted in Family, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, February 26th, 2019
FIRST REFORMED is another Paul Schrader broken-man-slowly-boiling-over character piece in the tradition of TAXI DRIVER and ROLLING THUNDER. This time his subject is Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke, DAYBREAKERS), the very nice and thoughtful reverend of a small 250 year old church in upstate New York that still exists because it’s a historical landmark. He sermonizes to about half a dozen people on Sundays, but his duties also include being a tour guide and stocking the gift shop.
He cares about the job, but it seems like it’s one of those transferred-to-Antarctica type situations. We slowly piece together some of the problems he has, the things he’s punishing himself for and how his life went south after the death of a son in the military. He writes journal entries in a spiral-bound composition notebook which we hear as calm, reasonable sounding voiceover, but sometimes he’ll casually drop in some bit that makes you do a double take, like when he laments, “If only I could pray.” Uh… you seem like a guy who would pray, is all I’m saying. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amanda Seyfried, Cedric the Entertainer, Christianity, Ethan Hawke, Michael Gaston, Paul Schrader, Philip Ettinger
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 30 Comments »
Wednesday, November 29th, 2017
24 HOURS TO LIVE is a new VOD movie (theatrical in L.A. and New York starting December 1) that could be described as Ethan Hawke’s JOHN WICK. Not that it’s a very similar story, or a martial arts movie, but it has action beyond the modern standards, takes place in a world of elite killers, and has some un-self-conscious absurdity in its basic premise that’s grounded in very effective, heartfelt emotions. I guess this means they don’t consider Hawke and Rutger Hauer big enough names to sell an action movie in wide release these days, but it doesn’t at all feel like DTV. Both quality and production value-wise it’s completely legit, and I liked it better than many of the Jason Statham, Gerard Butler and Liam Neeson pictures I’ve paid to see on the big screen.
In classic international co-production fashion it begins with an Interpol agent, Lin (Xu Qing, FLASH POINT), under attack by militants in South Africa while transporting a whistleblower (Tyrone Keogh, BLAST, STARSHIP TROOPERS 3) to testify to the U.N. It’s meat and potatoes machine-guns-rocket-launchers-and-jeeps type action that immediately shows you the movie means business. Heads are popping, bodies are bouncing off windshields and rolling under tires. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Smrz, Ethan Hawke, Paul Anderson, Rutger Hauer, Tyrone Keogh, Xu Qing
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 14 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 »
