Posts Tagged ‘Toni Collette’
Thursday, November 7th, 2024
In Clint Eastwood’s JUROR #2, Nicholas Hoult (THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD) plays Justin Kemp, an upstanding magazine writer in Georgia who gets summoned for jury duty. He tries to get dismissed because his wife Ally (Zoey Deutch, THE DISASTER ARTIST) is expecting soon in what he describes as “a high risk pregnancy,” but he ends up seated on the jury for a murder trial.
The prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette, xXx: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE) and public defender Eric Resnick (Chris Messina, BIRDS OF PREY) are friends, or at least professionally friendly enough to talk to each other at the bar they both hang out in. Faith is running for district attorney and feels putting away a real scumbag like this may put her over the top; Eric insists she’s got it wrong this time, the guy is really innocent. Defendant James Sythe (Gabriel Basso, THE KINGS OF SUMMER, also unfortunately played dictator elect J.D. Vance in HILLBILLY ELEGY) is a known asshole who was seen arguing with his girlfriend Kendall (Francesca Eastwood, M.F.A.) at a bar (a decidedly different one than the lawyers go to) until she stormed off, refusing a ride home. The next day a hiker found her dead under a bridge on Old Quarry Road.
As the story is being told to the jury, Justin has a growing “oh, fuck” look on his face, and if you haven’t heard the premise of JUROR #2 you’re gonna be shocked too: he’s realizing that he was there when that fight happened. He remembers the date, because it was Ally’s due date from the last pregnancy, when they lost twins. He took his depressed, recovering alcoholic ass to the hideaway, stared down a drink but didn’t give in, then on his way home his car hit something on Old Quarry Road. He got out, couldn’t find anything in the dark, saw a deer crossing sign and hoped to God that explained it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cedric Yarbrough, Chris Messina, Clint Eastwood, court room drama, Francesca Eastwood, Gabriel Basso, J.K. Simmons, Jonathan Abrams, Kiefer Sutherland, Leslie Bibb, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Zoey Deutch
Posted in Reviews, Drama | 29 Comments »
Thursday, March 24th, 2022
“Folks here, they don’t make no never mind who you are or what you done.”
The first shot in Guillermo Del Toro’s Depression-era noir movie NIGHTMARE ALLEY is of Bradley Cooper dragging a wrapped-up corpse into frame. It reminded me of the teaser trailer for THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 (2007). That was not a good movie, but it was a great teaser, so when a best picture nominee reminds me of it, that’s pretty impressive. If BELFAST or THE POWER OF THE DOG started out like the legendary Lady in the Lake teaser for LEATHERFACE: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III they would move up a notch for me, personally.
Cooper’s character Stan is inside a small house in disrepair, and he drops the body into a hole in the floorboards, puts on his coat and hat, takes a moment to contemplate and light a cigarette, sets the place on fire and leaves. If anybody walked into the movie exactly two minutes and saw him on a bus out of town they probly spent a good chunk of the movie thinking he was a good ol’ salt of the earth everyman trying to survive day-to-day through hard, humble work. The rest of us had to watch him very unsettled, wondering what he’s up to, questioning the sincerity of everything he says or does. ‘Cause you can never fully trust a corpse dragger. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bradley Cooper, carnival, Cate Blanchett, Clifton Collins Jr., Dan Laustsen, David Strathairn, Guillermo Del Toro, Kim Morgan, Mark Povinelli, Peter MacNeill, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, Troy James, Willem Dafoe
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 44 Comments »
Monday, December 2nd, 2019
I was a Rian Johnson skeptic for years. I can’t deny it. I recognized BRICK as original and well directed, but couldn’t swallow its stylized world of teen noir (“in my day a dude walking around with a duck cane was in for a serious ass beating, he would not be running a drug empire,” I wrote), skipped the second one because I thought it was gonna be bootleg Wes Anderson, liked LOOPER but recoiled at people talking like it was the Second Coming (“I feel a little out of step here. I mean I like it, but I don’t want to fuck it”), and this may be out of line but I have always thought his credits should read “Written and directed by Rian [sic] Johnson.”
Then STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI came along – a movie I didn’t think he was qualified to direct, but it turned out to be so much better than I expected, and so reinvigorating to a trilogy I thought was going in an emptier, more obvious direction. All the sudden I wanted to hear everything the guy had to say, listened to interviews, started spelling “Ryan Coogler” as “Rian Coogler,” and even considered maybe seeing THE BROTHERS BLOOM some day.
So I was much more open-minded for his new laughdunit mysteryblast KNIVES OUT, which sure enough is a fun time for all without anything that felt too corny, forced or self conscious for me. Only in the last shot did I think “oh, this is kind of Wes Andersony.” And by then it wasn’t gonna bother me much. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, Christopher Plummer, Daniel Craig, Don Johnson, Frank Oz, Jamie Lee Curtis, Katherine Langford, LaKeith Stanfield, M. Emmett Walsh, Michael Shannon, Noah Segan, Rian Johnson, Toni Collette
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Mystery, Reviews | 44 Comments »
Thursday, June 14th, 2018
Many horror movies have a little bit of the ol’ status quo at the beginning, a seemingly normal day to contrast with when things start getting crazy. HEREDITARY starts with a funeral, but it’s fairly uneventful, so that’s our calm day to want to get back to when the world starts shitting right into a fan.
Annie Graham (Toni Collette, SHAFT, xXx: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE) has just lost her mom. But the family’s feeling strange about it because Grandma Ellen, from the sounds of it, was a weirdo and a total pain in the ass. Annie starts hallucinating her mother’s presence and decides to go to a support group. Her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne, END OF DAYS, COOL WORLD) looks out for the family. Their teenage son Peter (Alex Wolff, MY FRIEND DAHMER) doesn’t really care and just wants to smoke weed and stuff, while their younger daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro, Tony winner for playing Matilda on Broadway!) is… strange. Builds things out of junk, plays with dead animals, munches on a chocolate bar next to grandma’s open casket.
Eventually, weird shit happens. There are apparitions, seances, paranoia, pretty standard stuff. But it’s put together and unfolded in ways that feel new. I’m trying to be non-specific, even though it’s the type of movie that would be hard to spoil. The things that happen are too wild to pin down as a premise or plot twist that can be succinctly explained. It’s a good one, as you may have heard. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Wolff, Ann Dowd, Ari Aster, Gabriel Byrne, Milly Shapiro, Toni Collette
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 73 Comments »
Monday, January 23rd, 2017
It’s weird how long I’ve been anticipating xXx: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE. I didn’t actually like the first one very much other than the lovably ridiculous first chunk before the actual mission starts. The second one starring Ice Cube is a fairly enjoyable B movie, but doesn’t live up to part 1 director Rob Cohen’s talk before he and Diesel left. He really sparked my imagination in the interview where he said one of the scripts he was developing “takes place in Washington DC, where, I think, our most colorful character will go up against all the grey men. I can see him mountain-biking on the top of the Capitol Dome, where in a domestic context, as opposed to an exotic context, he gets to shake up old George Bush and all that he represents.”
Nevertheless, ever since Diesel announced his intention to star in a xXx part 3 ten years ago (!) I’ve been anxiously awaiting it. And that optimism, though unearned, wasn’t wrong. RETURN OF XANDER CAGE (no “THE” for some reason) is just the stupid movie I always wanted out of this series. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: D.J. Caruso, Deepika Padukone, Donnie Yen, F. Scott Frazier, Kris Wu, Michael Bisping, Nina Dobrev, Rory McCann, Ruby Rose, Samuel L. Jackson, Toni Collette, Tony Jaa, Vin Diesel
Posted in Action, Reviews | 43 Comments »
Monday, December 5th, 2016
Krampus – the child-punishing anti-Santa Claus of Alpine folklore – is one of those things that a certain type of American nerd is a little too proud to know about. The same ones that make Cthulu jokes. But despite them it’s a good idea for a Christmas monster movie, and I think this one is good enough to reclaim the old half goat, half demon’s honor.
KRAMPUS came last year from director Michael Dougherty, the X2, SUPERMAN RETURNS and URBAN LEGENDS: BLOODY MARY writer who turned director with TRICK ‘R TREAT, the DTV anthology that seems to be growing into a minor Halloween tradition. I remember that being pretty good, but I think I liked this better.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Scott, Allison Tolman, Christmas, Christmas horror, Conchata Ferrell, David Koechner, elves, Michael Dougherty, Toni Collette, Weta
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 35 Comments »
Friday, March 15th, 2013
How do you make a narrative film about Alfred Hitchcock filming PSYCHO? Adequately.
Anthony Hopkins (BAD COMPANY) plays Alfred “Hitch” Hitchcock, fresh off of NORTH BY NORTHWEST, anxious about his reputation and itching to do something new. He doesn’t want to turn into some by-the-numbers hack so he turns down bullshit like some stupid “Casino Royale” movie they want him to do, whatever the fuck that is. (keep in mind parkour had not been invented yet so it wouldn’t have been that good back then.) He doesn’t want to repeat himself and he’s fascinated by the gory true story of Ed Gein, famed Wisconsin killer, cannibal, grave robber and mama’s boy. When Robert Bloch’s Geinsploitation book Psycho comes out he decides it’s his next movie, but Paramount disagrees. Through his stubbornness, tenacity and a good agent he finds a way to fund it himself and have them distribute it. He makes them his errand boy. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Hopkins, Danny Huston, docudrama, Ed Gein, Helen Mirren, Jessica Biel, Michael Wincott, Ralph Macchio, Scarlett Johansson, Toni Collette
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 27 Comments »
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
I remember the original FRIGHT NIGHT being an okay movie, but I haven’t seen it since the ’80s, so I don’t remember it well enough to compare the remake to it. But on its own I did find the remake to be an entertaining-if-not-entirely-original take on the ol’ vampire shit.
Anton Yelchin plays the hero Charley, Imogen Poots (CENTURION) plays his way-out-of-his-league girlfriend Amy, Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays his friend “Evil Ed,” who gets bit by his neighbor Jerry. Because Jerry is a vampire – don’t worry, it’s not some weirdo biter guy.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anton Yelchin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Colin Farrell, Craig Gillespie, good remakes, Imogen Poots, Marti Noxon, remakes, Toni Collette
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 46 Comments »
