Posts Tagged ‘Mark Strong’
Tuesday, January 17th, 2023
VÉRN ON TÁR
By now if you’re the type of person who would see TÁR but hasn’t seen TÁR you’ve probly already heard that TÁR is good and you don’t need me to sell you on it. It is indeed a great acting vehicle for Cate Blanchett (HANNA), a really smart and thought-provoking character study, and just an all around engrossing, original cinematic experience that doesn’t fit any of the templates of the kind of stuff I normally watch, and is all the more captivating for it. So I would encourage you to go through with it.
It’s written and directed by Todd Field, who we of course know mainly as the actor who played Nick Nightingale in EYES WIDE SHUT, and he was also in EYE OF THE EAGLE 2: INSIDE THE ENEMY, BACK TO BACK, TWISTER and THE HAUNTING. He suddenly became an acclaimed filmmaker with IN THE BEDROOM in 2001, then LITTLE CHILDREN in 2006, and then he disappeared into a puff of smoke until finally returning last year holding TÁR above his head like baby Simba.
Blanchett plays Lydia Tár, famous and respected classical composer and conductor, introduced to viewers as well as a live New Yorker Festival audience within the movie with a torturously long list of credits and achievements. She’s giving a faux-humble-but-clearly-very-impressed-with-herself Q&A, saying all her clever lines and opinions, explaining her interpretations of the meanings of famous musical works, brushing off being the first female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and being called “maestro” and not “maestra.” The audience loves her. She says she’s experienced no gender bias. Maybe just no other woman in history was ever qualified until her. That must be what it was. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Allan Corduner, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong, Nina Hoss, Noemie Merlant, Sophie Kauer, Todd Field, Zethphan Smith-Gneist
Posted in Reviews, Drama | 26 Comments »
Monday, January 27th, 2020
I’ve never been a war movie guy. I’m not actively against them like when I was young and rebellious and thought they were propaganda, but I don’t seek them out. Of course there are some great ones, but I wasn’t in the market for Sam Mendes, director of AMERICAN BEAUTY and AMERICAN LONE WOLF AND CUB (and producer of Shrek: The Musical) doing his take on DUNKIRK. So when I saw the trailers for 1917 I wasn’t buying.
That is, not until they started playing little featurettes showing off that Roger Deakins (THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE, JARHEAD, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE ETC. ETC., PRISONERS, BLADE RUNNER 2049) is the cinematographer and he did it all in connected long takes. Okay, that I’ll watch. I’m into shit like that.
I thought it was funny that in the interview Mendes says that when they looked at the script they realized that was the way to tell the story – as if there was some way to have written the script not planning that. What are you, a pro-wrestler, you gotta tell obvious lies to make the story sound better? Be honest with me Mendes. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay, Mark Strong, Roger Deakins, Sam Mendes
Posted in Reviews, War | 55 Comments »
Tuesday, August 20th, 2019
SHAZAM!, as a super hero premise, is no Batman. Or Aqua Man. Or Plastic Man. Or Meteor Man. He’s just some kid who meets a fuckin wizard in a cave who gives him the ability to turn into your standard adult muscular flying off-brand Superman-type cape guy. For the several years that they were talking about making a SHAZAM! movie, even when The Rock was gonna play the bad guy, I assumed I wouldn’t bother to watch it. But when it finally got made by LIGHTS OUT director David F. Sandberg – The Rock has a producer credit, but isn’t in it – it had a good enough trailer that I gave it a shot on video.
It begins in the past, when a kid (Ethan Pugiotto, MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 2) and his dad (John Glover, MEET THE HOLLOWHEADS, BATMAN & ROBIN) and older brother (Landon Doak) are involved in a car accident, and as it’s happening the kid somehow flashes from the backseat of the car to the cave where the wizard (Djimon Hounsou, ELEPHANT WHITE) explains the mythology of the movie, which involves magic powers he has to pass on to a new hero, and monster statues representing the seven deadly sins. But after some simple testing I guess the wizard determines this kid is a dick and not worthy of the powers in question, so he turns him away. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Asher Angel, Cooper Andrews, David F. Sandberg, DC Comics, Djimon Hounsou, Ethan Pugiotto, Faithe Herman, Jack Dylan Grazer, John Glover, Landon Doak, Mark Strong, Marta Milans, Zachary Levi
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 52 Comments »
Monday, June 22nd, 2015
Well, I wasn’t sure if I could do it, but I did, you guys: I enjoyed KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE. Although I have this idea of director Matthew Vaughn as an overhyped Friend of the Internet, when I look at his filmography it’s really only KICK-ASS that I have a beef with. But since KINGSMAN is the director and writers of KICK-ASS adapting from another comic from the same guy that did KICK-ASS you can see why it would be a concern.
Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is a young British man of drinking age. His dad died in Iraq when he was a kid, his mom has an abusive asshole boyfriend, he hangs out at the pub with his friends, gets in fights, doesn’t have a job. This could be the beginning of another GREEN STREET sequel, but when he gets busted for stealing some asshole’s car it’s not a soccer fan club that helps him out, it’s a stranger who claims to be a friend of his dad.
Little did Eggsy know that his father was in a secret society of highly skilled, well-financed super-spies working independently of any government. This guy who helps him, code named Galahad (Colin Firth, THE KING’S PEACH), says he owes Eggsy’s dad for saving his life. Galahad notices Eggsy’s squandered potential (he quit the Marines as well as an Olympics-bound gymnastics career) and decides to recruit him to try out for their organization. But it’s a tough audition. It’s kinda like trying out for the SEALs but only one person gets to join. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Colin Firth, Hanna Alstrom, Mark Millar, Mark Strong, Matthew Vaughn, Samuel L. Jackson, Sofia Boutella, Sophie Cookson, spies, Taron Egerton
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 107 Comments »
Wednesday, September 4th, 2013
Okay, I know it’s after Labor Day, so it’s weird that I’m continuing with this retrospective on summer movies. But you know what, they also say to never wear white shoes after Labor Day. Did that ever stop Run DMC? Fuck no. So I’m gonna keep going until I get to 2012.
Also, consider global climate change. It’s still go-out-at-night-with-no-coat weather here even though it’s Seattle, so it doesn’t seem like summer’s over to me. Therefore I find myself watching STARDUST.
The nice thing for me about this series is seeing movies that I never had much (if any) interest in, never heard anything that great about, so I watch them with no expectations at all. It’s been kinda funny how easy I’ve been on some of these and then you guys jump in and stab them a thousand times and eat their skin off and pee on ’em (metaphor). Like, I was surprised how much most of you hated VAN HELSING and especially MR. & MRS. SMITH, which I didn’t think was good but didn’t say much bad about. I think that’s ’cause alot of you saw them on the big screen when they were new and there was still hope for them to be classics. And I’m watching them having already written them off years ago.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Henry Cavill, Mark Strong, Matthew Vaughn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Neil Gaiman, Peter O'Toole, Ricky Gervais, Robert DeNiro, Sienna Miller
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 91 Comments »
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
JOHN CARTER is your typical Civil-War-veteran-transported-via-magic-cave-to-Mars-to-fall-in-love-with-a-princess-and-fight-a-war tale. I mean, how many movies can we have on this topic?
Oh wait, I was thinking of can-you-fuck-your-friend-all-the-time-and-not-fall-in-love romantic comedies. That’s the more common one. The civil war veteran on Mars deal is not that big of a genre this year, and this new (partly) live action take from Disney might be the last one. It’s not shaping up to be the smash hit required to make back its big budget, and the box office trainspotters are already giggling and high-fiving each other as they dig it a shallow grave in an unused lot behind Space Mountain. That’s too bad, ’cause it’s a hell of alot of fun.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: adventure, Andrew Stanton, Brian Cranston, Cieran Hinds, Disney, Edgar Rice Burroughs, James Purefoy, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong, Mars, Samantha Morton, Taylor Kitsch, Thomas Haden Church, Willem Dafoe
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 164 Comments »
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
KICK-ASS is the new movie that for the first time since DEFENDOR, MIRAGEMAN, SPECIAL and the first part of SPIDERMAN where he wears the pajamas asks the question “What would happen if a comic book nerd dressed up as a super hero and tried to fight crime?” The answer is partly the same as DEFENDOR’s (he’ll get beat up badly, except when he has clubs) but partly different (a little girl will fly around spinning knives and doing kung fu, murdering dozens of people and give him a jetpack and [SPOILERS for KICK-ASS and DEATH WISH 3] he’ll kill a mob boss DEATH WISH 3 style).
Either the movie is confused or just I am, because I really thought this was gonna be about what would happen if people tried to be super heroes in the real world. I thought this mainly because the lead nerd (who buys a mask and scuba suit and comes up with the dumb name Kick-Ass for himself) narrates through the entire movie and explains explicitly and in detail that that is in fact exactly what the story is about. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Evan Peters, Mark Strong, Matthew Vaughn, Nicolas Cage
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 243 Comments »
