Posts Tagged ‘Robert DeNiro’
Monday, April 3rd, 2017
MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN is director Kenneth Branagh’s attempt to redo the story as a romantic period melodrama. You still got your mad science lab, but also wigs and corsets and all that shit. Branagh himself plays Victor Frankenstein, and this is in the era when men in historical dramas had to have long Fabio hair. He cast himself as the doctor who creates his monster while shirtless, running around pulling heavy levers to show off his glistening muscles.
Branagh playing a beareded, wet-behind-the-ears college student while in his mid-thirties somehow reminds me of Chris Elliot in CABIN BOY. He’s a fancy lad who interrupts a medical lecture to argue with the professor about mixing medicine and philosophy. The teacher is outraged and the filmatism implies that he’s stickin it to the man, but personally – I don’ t know about you guys – I don’t take medical advice from Victor Frankenstein. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Helena Bonham Carter, Ian Holm, John Cleese, Kenneth Branagh, Mary Shelley, Patrick Doyle, Richard Briers, Robert DeNiro, Tom Hulce
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 60 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 »
Saturday, February 23rd, 2013
In the beginning of LIMITLESS, Bradley Cooper is actually pretty limited. He somehow has a contract to write a sci-fi novel, but it’s overdue and he hasn’t even started. He doesn’t seem to know how to clean his apartment or brush his hair. His ex-girlfriend (Abbey Cornish from SUCKER PUNCH) is still supporting him, but bristles at his attempts to rekindle their love. He also has an ex-wife who won’t even talk to him. At least he doesn’t have the drug problems he had back when he lost her.
Then he runs into his ex-brother-in-law/dealer on the street, reluctantly goes for a drink with him and ends up leaving with one free sample of a pill this guy claims has been approved by the FDA and will go on the market soon for $850 a pop. Supposedly we only use 20% of our brains and this unlocks our access to the rest. I’ve read that that we-only-use-part-of-our-brain thing is an urban legend, but maybe this guy just doesn’t understand how the pill works. However they do it, they unlimit you. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abbey Cornish, Bradley Cooper, Neil Burger, Robert DeNiro
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 25 Comments »
Tuesday, January 8th, 2013
THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is a quirky dramedy-romance about people with mental problems, based on a novel I guess. That’s not my usual beat, but I like this writer-director, David O. Russell (THE FIGHTER, THREE KINGS) and there’s a small part for Chris Tucker, his first non-RUSH HOUR since RUSH HOUR, believe it or not. That’s 14 years! I like Chris Tucker, so like these characters with their mental illnesses, you’re just gonna have to deal with it.
Bradley Cooper stars. He was a natural to play Face in THE A-TEAM, but here he’s Murdoch. His mother (Jacki Weaver from ANIMAL KINGDOM) takes him out of a court-ordered mental facility where he’s been since an incident that caused him to lose his wife and house. He comes to live with Mom and OCD, Philadelphia Eagles-obsessed Dad (Robert DeNiro) while he uses a self-prescribed regimen of exercise, reading and positive thinking to attempt to win back his wife. Although the restraining order does prove to be an obstacle. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: bi-polar, Bradley Cooper, Chris Tucker, David O. Russell, Jacki Weaver, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 13 Comments »
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
(KILLER ELITE is enjoyable if unspectacular. Luckily it’s more in the vein of the sort-of-classy studio action thrillers like THE BANK JOB than the gloomy Millennium Pictures joints I halfway expected it to be like. So it co-stars Robert DeNiro, the legendary actor, and not Robert DeNiro, that old man from the 50 Cent movies. But the star is definitely Jason Statham, looking exactly the same in 1980-81 as he does in any other time period (minus the track suit). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: assassins, Ben Mendelsohn, Clive Owen, Dominic Purcell, Jason Statham, Robert DeNiro, true story
Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 28 Comments »
Sunday, September 5th, 2010
MACHETE is the story of Machete, a man with alot of machetes. That is why he is named Machete. Danny Trejo (MARKED FOR DEATH, URBAN JUSTICE) stars alongside Steven Seagal, Robert DeNiro, etc.
You know what, I just remembered that you guys already know what MACHETE is. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Don Johnson, fake trailer adaptations, Jeff Fahey, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Michelle Rodriguez, Robert DeNiro, Robert Rodriguez, Seagalogy, Shea Whigham
Posted in Action, Reviews, Seagal | 156 Comments »
Thursday, May 11th, 2006
aka GODFATHER: RESURRECTION
When last we saw The Godfather part II (Al Pacino, DICK TRACY), he was in a room, closing a door. Nobody knows what happened inside that room, probaly some gangster shit. But THE GODFATHER PART II picks up years later with Michael Corleone now living in Las Vegas. Remember, he sent poor Robert Duvall there to stake out some territory, well apparently that went well. It seems there is some mafia roots in modern day Las Vegas. Huh, go figure.
Now, part 2 is even more epic than part 1. This one actually has time travel in it. It skips back and forth between The New Adventures of Michael Corleone and The Young Vito Corleone Chronicles. Hell it goes all the way back to the motherland. Remember that villa where Michael hid out in part one, then he married a girl with no nipples and watched her get blown up? Turns out that’s Vito’s childhood hood, and that place Michael lived is where the OG Godfather lived, and killed Vito’s mom. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Al Pacino, Francis Ford Coppola, Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, Robert Duvall
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | 16 Comments »
Tuesday, September 24th, 2002
Yeah I know, this Iraq deal is getting even worse but let’s just take one fuckin column to talk about what I used to talk about, the movies.
This month has been hard on the wallet not just because of the economy but also because of numerous high quality dvd releases of important films of Badass Cinema. Today I will take some time to review a few of those dvds.
First of all we got my pick for the best movie of the year so far, BLADE II. I feel I have already written enough about the many fine qualities of this picture so I will focus this review only on the many fine dvd extras brought to you by one of our best directors, Mr. Guillermo del Toro. This is a part of the “New Line Platinum Series” which I have come to know and trust as a series of dvds with extra material above and beyond your “theatrical trailer” or your “chapter stops” or even your “weblinks.” (Does anybody really have a DVD-ROM drive? And if so, do they really need a dvd to figure out how to find the web site for BONES?) BLADE II is no exception, in fact it has even better extras than BLADE I. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bridget Fonda, Chris Penn, David S. Goyer, Don Gordon, Guillermo Del Toro, Harvey Keitel, Michael Campus, Michael Madsen, Pam Grier, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Pryor, Robert DeNiro, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, vampires
Posted in Crime, Drama, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller, Vern Tells It Like It Is | 2 Comments »
Monday, October 9th, 2000
Well chances are by now you motherfuckers’ve heard about the new hit comedy Meet the Parents. This movie is sweeping the nation. All the sudden everybody loves to laugh. It is the new big thing. People are telling their friends about it. “This is a picture where you laugh.” There is already talk of a sequel even though, I mean how in fuck do you do a sequel to this picture. You can’t.
So let me give you my take on it. The Vern take. In case you’ve been in the can or something and haven’t fallen into Parentmania, what this is is the type of picture where Ben Stiller has to meet his girlfriend’s parents for the first time. In fact he wants to propose to the gal but first he has to ask the father’s permission. Only problem is the father is the King of Comedy himself, Robert DeNiro. Robert’s character is a crazy ex-CIA maniac obsessed with surveillance. So Ben tries his damndest to make a good impression, but every fucking thing possible goes wrong.
Okay so you’ve probaly seen the ads and think, yeah okay we know everything that happens. Truth is out of context that stuff may not seem funny but I would argue that in the movie, yes, it is funny. Because this Ben Stiller is a very special individual. He is the world’s only Human Humiliation Sponge. He will soak up any indignity known to man. And make it funny. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ben Stiller, Jay Roach, Robert DeNiro
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Romance, Vern Tells It Like It Is | No Comments »
