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Gangster Squad Review
January 11, 2013 12:36pm ESTGangster Squad the new movie from genre-blending filmmaker Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) has a tone problem. The scatterbrained approach to the vigilante tale is summed up in one particular sequence: the "Squad " cops given permission to take down the goons of Los Angeles gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) by any means possible bust a dope smuggling operation at an airport in Burbank. Instead of tailing the criminals making off with the drugs they engage them in a car chase full of gunfire explosions and hyper-stylized CG-assisted camera work. When they finally do capture Cohen's men the squad leader Sgt. John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) interrogates them then shoots the cowering thugs in the back of the legs before rolling them down a hill. Within seconds the movie jumps from outlandish comic book roller coaster ride to gritty crime fiction exploring the moral complexity of defeating crime lords. The two mix onscreen like water and oil. Fleischer packs it all into Gangster Squad and rarely does any of the material shine. Brolin works as the hard-nosed policeman dedicated to justice physically perfect with beady eyes and a square chin. But that's all his character has to offer with his squadron offering even less. Ryan Gosling appears as the whippersnapper cop on the verge of corruption expressing his doubts with the whiniest '40s accent ever to grace the screen. Anthony Mackie Michael Pena Giovanni Ribisi and Robert Patrick fill out the group — after sleek Ocean's 11-style introductions — bringing identifiable traits that open the door for one or two oh-right-that's-why-you're-here moments throughout the film. They feel barely existent in Gangster Squad's zippy script convinced to work outside the law all too easily and following O'Mara into suicidal missions that likely have sounder alternatives. For O'Mara whatever takedown creates the biggest mess — be it the aforementioned chase or setting a Cohen-owned club aflame — is top priority. The saving grace is Penn playing Cohen like a long lost castmember of Warren Beaty's Dick Tracy. Every moment he's on screen Penn is scarfing down scenery and spitting it in our faces going over the top and sticking to it. He loves money he loves women he loves fudge sundaes. Penn makes a choice one the movie desperately needs. Surprisingly Emma Stone can't keep up as his arm candy Grace Faraday who falls head over heels for Gosling because it's an old fashioned noir throwback and well you certainly can't have one without hammy dialogue and paper thin romance. The nods to Hollywood's golden era upgraded with flashy costumes and special effects would work if Gangster Squad didn't insist on bringing reality into the picture. Too often the movie resorts to moments of shocking violence much of it intensified by the slow motion shots of a tommy gun. The violence is raw while the film surrounding it is cartoonish. The choice raises questions Gangster Squad never answers: is O'Mara in the right when he takes the law into his own hands? Ribisi's techie character — a WWII vet like O'Mara and someone deeply changed by his war experiences — asks these questions challenging his boss' choices. Briefly. O'Mara and the film brush off the debate any time it comes up making room for more slick scenes of action. Muddled in some of the most heinous digital photography in recent memory (no exaggeration: half the movie is motion blur) Gangster Squad is an experiment in modernization gone wrong. As Brolin and Penn trudge their way with entertaining choices Fleischer's film goes rogue around them. In this case entertaining outside the law doesn't work. ="font-style:>
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Which Superhero Movie Star Might Star In 'Godzilla'?
January 10, 2013 1:23pm ESTHe may not be your typical superhero, but it looks like he might be saving the world from a giant reptile. Aaron Johnson might be starring in Godzilla, the Gareth Edwards-directed, Frank Darabont-re-written reboot, Deadline reports. However, Johnson won't make a final decision until he sees the final script. Hollywood.com has reached out to Johnson's reps for comment, but confirmation was not immediately available. The reboot is scheduled to begin production in March, and has a tentative release date of May 16, 2014. The reboot is already going through a major overhaul: Legendary Pictures is replacing producers Dan Lin and Roy Lee (both of Warner Bros.), but as of yet the release date hasn't been altered. Johnson is best known for playing the unlikely titular superhero in Kick-Ass (and the upcoming sequel Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall), but was most recently in Anna Karenina and Savages. [Photo Credit: WENN] Follow Sydney on Twitter @SydneyBucksbaum More: ‘Godzilla’ + Zombies? ‘Walking Dead’ Creator to Rewrite Script Comic-Con 2012: Godzilla Returns! First Look at the New Creature Design Comic-Con 2012: First Posters for 'Man of Steel,' 'Godzilla,' and 'TDKR' Goes Artsy From Our Partners: Megan Fox’s 12 Hottest Moments (Moviefone) Ryan Gosling’s ‘Airbrushed’ Abs: Plus 19 More Reasons We Love the Actor (Moviefone)
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Sean Penn and Josh Brolin's Gangster Squad punches were for real
January 10, 2013 4:00am ESTFilm producer Dan Lin claims the two stars trained for their fight scene in the movie by sparring at Penn's home after director Reuben Fleischer told his leading men he wanted the scrap to look as real as possible. Lin tells HollyScoop.com, "They would train in front of Sean's front yard once in awhile. I mean, they really got into it. "Sean and Josh are in tip top shape and they really train... It (fight scene) looks so visceral and real and makes our climax really exciting." Brolin, who plays a tough 1940s cop in the film, recently admitted the brawl scenes were challenging to shoot because Penn, who portrays Mafia boss Mickey Cohen, had not perfected the fight choreography. He told WENN, "The fight I did with Sean Penn (was the most challenging scene). He didn't rehearse as much as I did so his fists were flying wildly during the fight, hoping they (camera operators) got something that was usable. It was a tough fight and I love the way that it turned out, but I think for both of us being the current and ex smokers that we are, that was the most challenging on an oxygen level."
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‘Godzilla’ + Zombies? ‘Walking Dead’ Creator to Rewrite Script
January 07, 2013 8:31am ESTFrank Darabont has made his cinematic career on bringing old monsters back to life. In addition to his recent Walking Dead fame (he created and was subsequently ousted from the AMC hit series), screenwriter Darabont handled the scripts to big screen horror remakes, sequels, and adaptations like Frankenstein, The Blob, The Mist, The Fly II, and Nightmare on Elm Street 3. Deadline reports that the pattern will pick up with a new union between Darabont and Legendary Pictures: the monster movie mainstay is allegedly joining the production company's developing Godzilla film to rewrite the script. Hollywood.com has reached out to Legendary for further confirmation. According to Deadline, the film in undergoing a kaiju-sized overhaul. Legendary is opting to remove producers Dan Lin and Roy Lee (both of Warner Bros.) from the project. Although we haven't seen much of this new Godzilla feature yet (the only material thus far released was exclusive to San Diego Comic-Con attendees), we might be in for a massive change in whatever WB already had pickling in the brine. Still, the film is slated for its original release of May 2014. In addition to this potential feature, Darabont also has his non-monster-related L.A. Noire series on the horizon for FX. [Photo Credit: Toho] More: 'Texas Chainsaw 3D' Stars Alexandra Daddario and Trey Songz Promise Big Scares New 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Photos Show Kirk, Pike, Scotty, and Baddie John Harrison 'Carrie' Remake Delayed, Headed for a Spookier, Halloweenier Release From Our Partners: ’Texas Chainsaw’: Top 5 Leatherface Kills (Moviefone) Quentin Tarantino’s Most Bad-Ass Music Moments (Moviefone)
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The Odd Life of Timothy Green Review
August 13, 2012 3:13pm ESTThe ‘90s are back with a vengeance but some parts of the apparently beloved decade belong back in that beloved decade. Case and point: the classic ‘90s magical family movie. Disney’s latest The Odd Life of Timothy Green plays heavily on the visual and musical cues that we children of the ‘90s may recognize from films like The Santa Claus and even Hocus Pocus. The problem is that the film opens that door without fully walking through it. The Jennifer-Garner starrer rests in a nebulous place between wacky contemporary comedy and a nostalgic throwback. But it can’t be both. Centered on the unfortunate reproductively-challenged couple Jim and Cindy Green (a perfectly adequate Joel Edgerton and Garner) the film follows the duo as they give up on having kids and spend a night with a bottle of wine writing down their won’t-be child’s perfect characteristics with a good old pencil and paper (pay attention now because that pencil part is pretty important). They bury the papers in a box in Cindy’s perfectly-kept garden and while they sleep the box sprouts into a little boy - their little boy only with a few leaves on his legs since he grew out of the ground after all. This part of the story combined with the film’s obvious affinity for the good old days as evidenced by the Greens’ home town and its dependence on a classic pencil factory lends itself to that nostalgic feeling. It’s a few gratuitous and tonally dissonant moments that throw us back out of our reveries and into an uncomfortable space. Both Cindy and Jim have what should be comically horrible bosses played by Diane Wiest and Ron Livingston respectively. But between Weist’s mind-bogglingly goofy scene in which little Timothy paints her scraggly chin-hair and all and Livingston’s many off-colour moments - including one in which he instructs Jim to fire half the factory staff before lifting an over-sized “THE BOSS” mug to his face - are rather jarring in a film that is largely wistful. But it’s not totally Odd Life’s fault. Modern audiences demand these sorts of gags in their light-hearted movies. The problem is that it’s up to the filmmakers to give us what we need not what we want. Odd Life’s story is largely melancholy throughout as Timothy’s fate is betrayed in the first two minutes of the film. While some levity is necessary the moments of light need only to come from the film’s main light source: the wonderful little boy at the center of the story. Ultimately Timothy’s sweetness and Garner’s incomparable ability to create a lovable albeit neurotic mother save the film and allow for an emotionally satisfying end to the family tale. There are just far too many bumps along the way.
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That's My Boy Review
June 15, 2012 9:40am ESTThe magical R-rating is both a gift and a curse to Adam Sandler's signature brand of lowbrow humor. In That's My Boy the comedian returns to the dim-witted roots that made him a star in early outings like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore (complete with high-pitched mushmouth accent) but with a ramped up "ew" factor. Unrestrained Sandler piles on as many expletives and gross-out scenarios as a two-hour movie can hold — and it works out quite well. With costar Samberg nailing the disgusted straight man role Sandler's penchant for acting like a fool is enhanced by the sick stylings of director Sean Anders (Sex Drive) and only occasionally teetering into truly offensive territory. Laughs aren't guaranteed but the movie provokes (which is a big step up from Jack and Jill). Back in the '80s Donny had a secret relationship with his teacher Ms. McGarricle that resulted in a son Han Solo (he's a middle schooler what do you expect?). The torrid affair put McGarricle in jail Donny into celebrity tabloid spotlight and Han Solo in the hands of a tween father. Thirty years later everyone's screwed up: Donny (Adam Sandler) is a drunk on the brink of jail time for tax evasion McGarricle's still in jail and Han Solo (Andy Samberg) now "Todd " is a successful number-cruncher with severe social issues. On the weekend of Todd's wedding Donny reenters his life hoping to bring revive their relationship and reunite him with his mother — that is on camera so Donny can make $50 000 from a gossip TV show and stay out of the slammer. Posing as Todd's long-lost best friend Donny stirs up trouble becoming buddies with Todd's friends and family and acting like a imbecile. The wedding setup is overdone but always prime for comedy: plenty for a numbskull to screw up logical progression (there's a wedding at the end!) and a bachelor party scene to squeeze in the most disgusting bits and have them make sense. That's My Boy makes the most of its conventions — including what we all know and expect from a Sandler comedy — by continually one-upping itself. After a night of heavy drinking at the local strip club/omelette bar that results in do-it-yourself ear piercing and robbing a convenience store with Vanilla Ice Todd returns home to expel the night's worth of drinking all over his fiancee's wedding dress. Then he makes love to the dress. Then his fiancee (Leighton Meester) wakes up to find the dress. Then it goes even further than one would care to imagine. Grossed out yet? Amazingly lower-than-low brow material is handled with clever timing and great delivery. It's just that the foundation is bodily fluids. That's My Boy falters when it throws in gags that serve zero purpose to the story. Strange racist humor a mentally retarded bar patron played by Nick Swardson (a Sandler mainstay) random allusions to Todd Bridges' drug habits — barrel-scraping one-offs that have nothing to do with the movie. At two hours the movie needs slimming and the fat is apparent. Thankfully the main ensemble goes to great lengths to make the hard R comedy click with Sandler and Samberg playing well off each other (although Samberg doesn't have the making of a leading man after this movie) and SNL alums like Will Forte Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer driving by to bring the funny. Even Vanilla Ice's extended cameo fits the anything-goes tone playing a version of himself that befriended Donny in his celebrity days. Now he works at an ice skating rink. After a few lame ducks That's My Boy is a return to form for Sandler. It wavers in quality but it has energy and color. A cash-in this is not and for any Sandler fan with a stomach for hardcore bathroom humor it's a must-see. ="font-style:>
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Safe Review
April 26, 2012 11:27am ESTJason Statham headlining a gritty action thriller is as routine as the sun coming up. But the man has the role down to a science — whether he's a down-on-his-luck cop former CIA agent ruthless assassin or any of the other stock characters that open up the Pandora's Box of butt-kicking Statham can deliver. Safe embraces these expectations throwing together an amalgamated central character (Luke Wright a currently homeless former NYPD cop who was secretly black ops maybe assassin hired by the blah blah blah) who goes to battle with every bad guy New York City can offer. Russian mafia Chinese mafia corrupt cops — name the group Statham breaks their tracheae. If that sounds delightful and fresh Safe is a must-see. Wright's metropolitan misadventure begins after he crosses path with a young Chinese girl Mei (newcomer Catherine Chan) whose endless memory holds the combination to a locked up unknown prize. Every immoral guy in town wants the information — Han Jiao (James Hong) and his gang who kidnapped the girl from her home country want their lost property back; Vassily Docheski (Joseph Sikora) wants to make his mob operation richer; Mayor Tremello (Chris Sarandon) and Captain Wolf (Robert John Burke) want to keep the whole thing under wraps so they continue extorting the crime families. Then there's Wright just a nice guy looking to do a nice thing for a girl in trouble. Commence gun fire and painful deaths. Writer/Director Boaz Yakin does his best to innovate within the Statham formula utilizing some tricky camera work and snappy comedy dialogue. Simple things keep us on our toes; when Wright first rescues Mei from the clutches of pursuing goons the two jump into a car. We're in the back seat witnessing Statham slamming people back and forth the rear view mirror catching all of the action behind us. In a movie where violence is prioritized over plot the little things really count. Yakin knows it. Tonally Safe never clicks and it's a major barrier for enjoyment. On one hand it's all about realism — the emotional trauma undergone by a child the real world implications of criminal activity and the bigger picture issues at hand (Sarandon's mayor character just had to go and make it a 9/11 thing didn't he). On the other countless people are gunned down in array of cartoonish violence. Safe isn't Crank; this fact makes rooting for Statham as he punches and shoots his way through crowds of mafiosos a little uncomfortable. The movie's too heavy for its own good even for a strongman like Statham. ="font-style:>
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The Cabin in the Woods Review
April 10, 2012 8:51am ESTLike the seemingly generic location at the center of the movie The Cabin in the Woods has a purposefully familiar exterior. But it's a facade and in the film's first few minutes writer/director Drew Goddard draws back the curtain to unveil an innovative and unexpected world. The setup is simple: five twenty-somethings head for a vacation in a lone shack upstate but when they arrive things quickly take a turn for the worse. The run-of-the-mill supernatural antics aren't simply for our amusement — there's another force behind the scenes orchestrating the quintet's demise for a bigger purpose. The mystery behind those horror movie tropes is Cabin in the Woods's clever twist a riff that's wickedly funny and endlessly fulfilling. The first people we meet in Cabin in the Woods aren't the soon-to-be-terrorized young folk but two technicians Sitterson (Richard Jenkins) and Hadley (Bradley Whitford) who coordinate the Cabin's entertaining mischief. They're like employees pulled out of Office Space susceptible to the same droll ups and downs of any job —their gig just involves murdering co-eds. They sit in a control room orchestrating each piece of their plan with well-placed hurdles (cue the creaky door!) and rehearsed extras (enter: mysterious gas station owner). If that screams spoiler don't fret; the who the what the where and the why are all kept secret unraveling in parallel and commenting on the routine horror plotline. Goddard and co-writer Joss Whedon don't let the scary movie thread fall to the wayside painting their ensemble with colorful characters and great talent: despite being stunning creatures the perfect types for a serial killer to chase down with a a giant knife Dana (Kristen Connolly) and Jules (Anna Hutchison) are smart savvy and sharp (a tangible sign of Whedon's influence); Curt (Chris Hemsworth) and his buddy Holden (Jesse Williams) are big and brutish — but not without personality; and Marty (Fran Kranz)... loves weed. Only after they arrive at the cabin a whiff of pheromonal gas in the air do they transform into the archetypical horror characters. All according to plan. Cabin in the Woods has its cake and eats it too simultaneously clicking as a terrifying horror film a cackle-worthy satire and a thought-provoking dissection of the genre. Alongside its send-up of the overplayed "cabin in the woods" mechanics are grander ideas. Why do we watch? Goddard evaluates every perspective but never in a didactic fashion. There's a fury of imagination in every scene every joke Goddard and Whedon's script taking every opportunity to push the concept to unanticipated places. Across the board all the actors are able to balance the unusual heightened realism with Hemsworth proving his knack for comedy and versatility as an up-and-comer. Cabin in the Woods is non-stop fun from beginning to end concluding with a grand finale that no amount of spoilers could ever dilute. At SXSW I called Cabin "the most crowd-pleasing movie of all time" and while that may seem sensationalist I assure I'll be rewatching this one for a long time. ="font-style:>
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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Review
December 14, 2011 1:15pm EST2009’s Sherlock Holmes found unexpected synergy in the pairing of Robert Downey Jr.’s impish charm and Guy Ritchie’s macho kinetic visual style reinventing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s master detective for a modern blockbuster audience. The follow-up Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows employs the same winning formula while adhering judiciously to the Law of Sequels and its more-more-more dictates: more action bigger set pieces higher stakes and a darker more convoluted plot. But more as so many past sequels have taught us is rarely better. Game of Shadows marks the emergence of Doyle’s most famous villain James Moriarty (Jared Harris). Glimpsed only in darkness in the first film Moriarty takes center stage in the sequel as Holmes’s foremost criminal foil a genius-level university professor whose extracurricular interests range from horticulture to homicide. Holmes has deduced him to be at the center of a wave of terrorist bombings as well as the seemingly unrelated deaths of various titans of industry but can’t quite discern just what the professor’s endgame might be. Composed and calculating to a menacing degree Harris makes for a promising counterweight to Downey’s manic verbosity. But as in the first film Game of Shadows’ best moments are found in the comic interplay between Holmes and his reluctant sidekick Dr. Watson (Jude Law) who is plucked from his honeymoon to accompany the detective on a trans-continental trip in search of clues to Moriarty’s machinations. And it’s very much a boys-only trip. The female leads from the first film Rachel McAdams and Kelly Reilly are tossed aside – literally in the case of the latter – in Game of Shadows while the cast’s highest-profile new addition Swedish star Noomi Rapace (best known as the original non-emaciated Lisbeth Salander) is a curious non-factor in the role of a Gypsy (or Roma if you prefer) fortune-teller. The film maintains only the slimmest pretense of a romantic subplot between her and Downey. Rapace looking perhaps a bit lost in her first English-speaking role can’t hope to eclipse the Holmes-Watson traveling road show. Ritchie’s technique with its signature blend of rapid cutting and slow-mo and super-high frame-rates – perfect for admiring the odd apple tossed in the air or a piece of bark shot off a tree – is once again evident in the film’s awe-inspiring (and occasionally coherence-defying) set pieces the most memorable of which is set in a munitions factory with Watson wielding a gatling gun like an early T-600 prototype. But some of the novelty of the stylistic juxtaposition has faded since the first film. Ritchie tries to compensate by ramping up the firepower to limited effect. Absent amid the hail of mortar blasts and automatic weapons fire is any real sense of intrigue or suspense which proves to be Game of Shadows’ most vexing mystery.
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Warner Bros. Revisiting 'The Bodyguard'
February 24, 2011 5:19am ESTIf Kevin Costner is back in the news one more time this week, he'll tie Charlie Sheen's record for most nauseating headlines in a five-day period. The first story focused on the Oscar winner's possible involvement in Warner Bros. high-priority reboot of its treasured Superman property, but today's news is about one of the studio's (and Costner's) biggest and most unlikely hits of the 1990s: The Bodyguard. According to Deadline, WB is ready to revisit the romantic thriller that grossed over $400 million at the worldwide box office and sold a ton of records featuring the music of the film's co-star Whitney Houston. Dan Lin (Sherlock Holmes), a Warner-based producer with shepherd the project while Mark Bauch serves as co-producer. They've already hired Jeremiah Friedman and Nick Palmer, whose action comedy script Family Getaway made the 2010 Black List and is a priority project at Warner Bros, to adapt the screenplay (the original was written by the great Lawrence Kasdan). The new version will skew close to the original. The male lead will play an Iraq War veteran (instead of a former Secret Service agent) who returns home and takes a job protecting a young star as his first gig after leaving the Army. Twitter, Google Maps, TMZ and various technological advances will play a significant role in the plot as they are used by obsessive fans to stalk the singer. The goal is to take a young female singer with global appeal and give her the platform that the original did Houston (sounds like a job for Rihanna). From a qualitative perspective, this sounds awful. The 1992 original is far from good, but in the age remakes I don't see a reason why a company wouldn't redo one of its most successful financial hits, especially since this won't be a film with a particularly exuberant negative cost. If Warner's can nab someone like Rihanna, a Grammy winning globally recognized star who happens to be already making her film debut in a much bigger picture (2012's Battleship), and pair her with a young heartthrob from the cover of Teen Beat (sounds like a job for Taylor Lautner) there's great potential for major box office. However, I know I won't be buying a ticket. Source: Deadline
