Posts Tagged ‘Joaquin Phoenix’
Monday, May 15th, 2023
We all agree here, unanimously, to a person, that Ari Aster is a great director with two undeniable modern horror classics to his name. And it goes without saying that A24 is a cool company that has produced many good and/or interesting movies*, and even if you weren’t into those it would be weird to have some kind of a grudge against them. Since we have always been on the same page about those things, I’m sure we also agree that it’s cool that the company now let Aster step outside of horror for a much more niche dark comedy with a budget the armchair bean-counters say they won’t be able to make back. And that it was worth every penny.
As much as I loved HEREDITARY and MIDSOMMAR, I actually didn’t think BEAU IS AFRAID was a sure bet for me. When I saw the trailer it looked visually impressive, but seemed to be going for a Charlie Kaufman/Michel Gondry type of thing. I love those two filmmakers (both together and separate), but it’s their one-of-a-kindness that makes them great. Even the best imitators of their stuff tend to feel hollow and disposable. Was Aster going to go from an original in horror to a copycat in… whatever genre this is? (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A24, Amy Ryan, Ari Aster, Denis Menochet, Joaquin Phoenix, Kylie Rogers, Michael Esper, Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Patti Lupone, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zoe Lister-Jones
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 23 Comments »
Tuesday, October 8th, 2019
I think my favorite movie by director Todd Phillips (ROAD TRIP, STARSKY & HUTCH) is still his 1993 student film HATED: GG ALLIN & THE MURDER JUNKIES. It’s a documentary about an infamously transgressive punk singer skipping parole to do a tour where he kind of plays music, but the shows usually end soon after he shoves someone’s banana up his ass or smashes a woman’s nose with a beer bottle or shits on stage and throws it in the crowd. Phillips was clearly aware of the absurdity of his subject, but also in awe of someone living their life as a human middle finger. The director’s new film, JOKER, won the Golden Lion at the 76th Venice International Film Festival, and shows an evolution in his film craft, but not necessarily in his world view.
Let’s take a moment to consider that when BATMAN & ROBIN came out there is no way in hell any of us could’ve guessed that in 22 years one of our generation’s most respected actors would star in a super-fucked-up hard-R ‘70s period piece Scorsese knockoff character study vaguely based on (and officially branded as) an iconic Batman villain. Much less that it would be controversial only for reasons other than “it’s too scary for kids.” It’s a crazy world we’re living in. Almost like… the Joker. Oh my god. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brett Cullen, Brian Tyree Henry, DC Comics, Frances Conroy, Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Scott Silver, Todd Phillips, Zazie Beetz
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Drama, Reviews | 91 Comments »
Monday, April 23rd, 2018
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE is the latest example of what I call “Arthouse Badass” – movies with subject matter and tropes from our beloved crime/action/tough guy movies, but with more interest in formal experimentation and subverting expectations or cliches than in delivering on traditional money shots. It’s based on a novella by Jonathan Ames that sounds like a pretty straightforward action kinda thing, but it’s written and directed by Lynne Ramsay (WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN). Joaquin Phoenix (U TURN) stars as a scary dude who, in the opening scene, has just killed some sex traffickers or somebody and is making an escape. But there will be little emphasis on how badass he is and alot on how damaged and haunted and sad he is.
Like Riggs he regularly contemplates suicide (holding a knife over his mouth, pulling a plastic bag over his head, peering over bridges and onto train tracks). Like Rambo he’s covered in scars and sees flashes of war crimes and other traumas, and at one point breaks down crying about the people he’s killed. Like Leon the professional, Creasy the man on fire, The Equalizer, Logan, Statham in SAFE or Seagal in OUT OF REACH he finds some kind of life’s purpose in protecting a little girl.
But he’s not cool. He’s a husky, baggy-pants-and-pullover-hoodie guy, with a belly and greasy unbrushed hair and a bushy, graying beard, and he mumbles and lays around lazily eating jellybeans, and the last thing he does in the movie is loudly slurp up the dregs of a melted milkshake. He looks more Jack Black than John Wick, more Devin Faraci than Chow Yun Fat, more George R.R. Martin than Lee Marvin, more guitar tech for Ratt than elite operative. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Manette, arthouse badass, Ekaterina Samsonov, Joaquin Phoenix, John Doman, Jonathan Ames, Judith Roberts, Lynne Ramsay
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 14 Comments »
Thursday, January 16th, 2014
HER by Spike Jonze – his fourth feature film in 14 years – is a completely unique movie. It’s a touching relationship drama mixed with light sci-fi and cultural satire that’s somehow brutally accurate and gently affectionate at the same time. It’s the story of this depressed writer Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) who’s in the middle of a divorce, and he meets someone who he really connects with… only it’s not a person, it’s the artificially intelligent voice in his computer (Scarlett Johansson). Yeah, he thinks it’s weird at first too, but it just happens. You can’t argue with your heart I guess.
Spending his life with his operating system has its share of challenges. He has to carry a little camera around for her to see the world. It’s awkward introducing her to people. They can’t hold hands or take a picture together and when they get it on it’s basically phone sex. They’re dealing with alot of handicaps here.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amy Adams, Joaquin Phoenix, Olivia Wilde, Rooney Mara, Scarlett Johansson, Spike Jonze
Posted in Reviews, Romance | 27 Comments »
Sunday, September 30th, 2012
As I start writing this I haven’t read any reviews or comments on THE MASTER yet, but I’m betting there’s alot of this:
1. It’s a masterpiece, if you don’t get it you’re dumb, why don’t you go see some mainstream movie like whatever that one movie is called, the one that you like, I don’t know the name because I don’t watch that kind of crap or know what it is
2. It’s pretentious nonsense that is pretentious, if you like it it’s Emperor’s New Clothes. It’s totally meaningless. Boring. The critics! Fuck!!!!!
Probly heavier on #2.
I would like to propose a third view, which is B. Kind of in the middle of the two. But in a separate column I think.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amy Adams, Joaquin Phoenix, Kevin J. O'Connor, Laura Dern, Paul Thomas Anderson, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 80 Comments »
Friday, August 3rd, 2012
Before seeing SAVAGES I wanted to catch up on some of the recent Oliver Stone pictures that I’d skipped. It turns out this one is 15 years old, so you could argue that I’m a little behind on Stone. Do you guys know if JFK is any good? What about PLATOON?
This is his most straight-forward crime genre picture before SAVAGES so I figured it was a good one to check out. Based on the book Stray Dogs by John Ridley (RED TAILS, UNDERCOVER BROTHER), it’s about this dirtbag Bobby (Sean Penn), an ex-tennis player in debt whose fancy-ass car breaks down in the middle of Tiny Desert Town, Hell (actually Superior, Arizona) on his way to delivering a bunch of cash to the guy who cut off some of his fingers, and then things get way worse. But he fucks Jennifer Lopez at least. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy Bob Thornton, Bo Hopkins, Claire Danes, Ennio Morricone, Jennifer Lopez, Joaquin Phoenix, John Ridley, Jon Voight, Julie Hagerty, Laurie Metcalf, Liv Tyler, Nick Nolte, Oliver Stone, Powers Boothe, Sean Penn
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 61 Comments »
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
Is it just me, or do some of these movie titles start to blend in together after a while? The ones I have trouble with are: I’M STILL HERE, I’M NOT THERE, LET ME IN, and NEVER LET ME GO. Well, now that I’ve actually seen one of these maybe I’ll remember which one that is and it’ll help me straighten out which is which between the other ones by narrowing the choices a little. I hope so, because I’m not sure what else I got out of this one, exactly. I mean, I got something, I think. Just a something that’s hard to identify.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Casey Affleck, Edward James Olmos, fakumentary, Joaquin Phoenix, P. Diddy
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 57 Comments »
Saturday, December 31st, 2005
You can’t compare Johnny Cash to anybody, but you can’t help but compare WALK THE LINE to the movie RAY. There aren’t many truly great musician biopics, if any, and they all end up being about the same shit. If you’re a legendary musician it’s pretty much guaranteed that you struggled for a while, got a lucky break, became a superstar, cheated on your wife, then had a drug problem that fucked up your career and relatinships for a while. Then you either died tragically or kicked the drugs. (One exception: small plane crashes.) In the case of both Ray and Johnny they kicked the drugs. But just because they didn’t die young doesn’t mean they had it easy. According to the movies, both had a brother who died when they were kids and were haunted by it for the rest of their lives.
Both RAY and WALK THE LINE benefit from great performances by celebrities playing other celebrities, but in the case of RAY I think without that performance you’d just have a pretty good TV movie. WALK THE LINE is a better movie even if the imitation is not quite as uncanny. (These actors did go the extra mile though and record all the songs themselves. It’s weird because you know it’s not the real John and June but you do know it’s the same John and June you’ve heard talking to each other so it seems to work.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: James Mangold, Joaquin Phoenix, Johnny Cash, music biopic, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Patrick
Posted in Reviews | No Comments »
Friday, August 2nd, 2002
There are bigger fans of M. Night Shymalan than me. He seems a little too nice to me, trying too hard to please everybody. They call him a new Spielberg but if so he’s a new Spielberg who skipped over the young vital years of Spielberg when he made shit like DUEL and JAWS. Still, I really like this young man’s style. He seems to have a couple of trademarks already. He treats supernatural themes very seriously and in a unique style that tricks mainstream audiences into thinking they are not watching a genre picture. He populates his stories with precocious child actors and movie stars who give uncharacteristically quiet performances. His stories have themes of tragedy and loss, and they are much more about character and suspense than about actual action. SIXTH SENSE was about discovering what’s goin on with these ghosts, not running from them or fighting them. And UNBREAKABLE was a super hero movie without a single scene of somebody swingin on a rope or shooting a laser or something. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: aliens, Joaquin Phoenix, M. Night Shyamalan, Mel Gibson
Posted in Mystery, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Thriller | 1 Comment »
