Batman, JoKeR, Dent, Two Face and Alfred…..One WeeK!!!
Posted on July 10, 2008 in the Highly Anticipated, Movie Reviews, The Dark Knight | Batman Begins 2 category
Its finally here, its finally here, one week until the release of one of the best comic book adaptations on the planet. Christian Bale will reprise his role as The Dark Knight, along with Michael Cain as Alfred, Morgan Freeman as Mr Fox, and join the cast is the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes, Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent and Two Face and Gary Oldman as the not yet commissioner Gordon. The wait is finally over. All of the debate over Who is the Best Batman, all of the questioning on how Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes, will do, the in depth look at the New Bat suit, and finally we looked at the The top five reasons The Dark Knight , will be the best Batman movie to date.
I am incredibly excited for this realistic adaptation of the comics coming to life. For the first time we have a villain who is not comical and can actually live up to the hype. A villain who is evil enough to counter balance the heroics of the new Batman.
Basically this movie was why I first built this site, and now it has branched off into other reviews and movies, and I have decided to dedicate this site to all upcoming movies that need real fan reviews and try to focus on one new upcoming movie that is very highly anticipated “The Dark Knight”, was the first but it won’t be the last. I can’t wait to see Hellboy 2 The Golden Army” tonight and if it weren’t for The Dark Knight coming out in a week I would be much more excited to see it, but for now it just comes off as a warm up. I obviously give Dark Knight an A+ and everyone should go and see it.
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Ironman | Robert Downey Jr. | Gwyneth Paltrow | Terrance Howard
Posted on May 19, 2008 in the Highly Anticipated, Movie Reviews, Movies You Should See, Top Three Must See Movies category
When I heard of “Ironman” for the first time, let’s be honest, I thought of Guitar Hero and even though I had a stereotype going into the movie I was pleased to be proven wrong. The reason I did not think I would like “Ironman” is becuase I am not a huge fan of super hero movies that have out of this world, stylized, unrealistic, over the top violence and fight scenes. However, Jon Favreau did an amazing job of making the movie believable, exciting, action packed, surprisingly funny, and very fun to watch.
The casting choice Jon made definitely did not hurt the movie that is for sure. Robert Downey Jr. the star who plays Stark and Ironman is a hilarious version of the super hero but not so funny you can’t take him serious. He has great on screen chemistry with all of his cast mates including Gwyneth Paltrow who plays “Pepper Potts”, Terrance Howard who plays “Jim Rhodes” and Jeff Bridges who plays “Obadiah Stane” and “Iron Monger”. This chemistry comes through on screen and makes for a great movie. Casting these actors is what is essential to the success of the film and the reason it is exciting, funny, and thrilling. I think it is a must see and I give it an A!
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Resurrecting The Champ | Josh Hartnett | Samuel L. Jackson
Posted on May 5, 2008 in the Movie Reviews, Movies Still Out and Still Good, Movies You Should See category
“Resurrecting The Champ”, directed by Rod Lurie is a memorable piece of film making that can inspire but also make one think. This is not the best movie I have ever seen but the acting is solid, and the storyline is good. The film stars Josh Hartnett and Samuel l. Jackson who both do a very good job with their roles. Jackson however, is stunning in his portrayal of a washed up boxer who is living off the street. The film is entertaining and intriguing and I give it a B+.
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Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead | Ethan Hawke
Posted on May 5, 2008 in the Don't Waste Your Cash, Movie Reviews, Ok Movie but Wait for DVD category
“Before the Devil Knows Your Dead”, directed Sidney Lumet disappoints. This movie disappoints because the plot never really has a focus. There is not a protagonist throughout the movie. The watcher does not know who he is suppose to be rooting for. Ethan Hawke is the closet thing we have to a protagonist be even he causes a horrible death because of his greed and he is also having sex with a married women played by the stunning Maris Tomei. His brother played by Philip Seymour Hoffman is by far the worst character throughout the movie. He is greedy, selfish, cruel, a drug addict, and a jerk. So at least we know who we are not suppose to be rooting for. Throughout the movie one does not really know where the plot is headed because it doesn’t really have a direction. The acting is actually very good, but that can not save the movie. I give it a C.
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Hellboy 2 | Based on exclusive interview with directo Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman
Posted on April 28, 2008 in the Highly Anticipated, Movie Reviews category
Director Guillermo del Toro of Hellboy and most recently Hellboy 2 “The Golden Army”, and Ron Perlman star of both movies previously mentioned both sat down with with msn movies Don Kaye for an exclusive interview. Here is the high points of that interview.
MSN Movies: This is the little movie franchise that could, isn’t it? You had a long, hard struggle to get the first one made, and it seems like you’ve had to go through the same thing on this one.
Guillermo del Toro: You know, we released the first one in 2004, and during post-production I started prepping “Pan’s Labyrinth.” I started writing and preparing it. So then later, when I was doing post-production on “Pan’s Labyrinth,” I began writing the script for “Hellboy II.” There were a lot of places thematically where the two films mingled, but when I finally had the “Hellboy II” script ready, as [producer] Larry Gordon says, I delivered the screenplay so late that the studio went broke! [Laughs] The week I was finishing the screenplay was the week that Revolution was announcing it was going to downsize. And then the problem was that the deal we had with Revolution was so difficult to get somewhere else. We went to Sony, we went to Dreamworks, we went to Paramount … all these places had weeks, if not months, of being interested.
The first movie cost $66 million and we were looking at making this one considerably bigger, so when Universal came in and was interested, we settled for making it for $85 million. We went through a complicated rebate structure, we ended up shooting in newly constructed studios in Budapest, we did a lot of — frankly — bending over backwards to make the movie. But it always seems to be like that, because incredibly enough, we were having meetings about the second movie that I felt like we had already had for the first movie. There were questions like, “Can we call the movie ‘B.P.R.D.’ [Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense] so that we don’t have to use the word ‘hell’?” It was the same questions all over again. But in the end, I’m grateful that anyone wanted to make it.
Ron, what drew you initially to this character and what brought you back to him the second time around?
Ron Perlman: First of all, it’s a great opportunity to work with Guillermo again, and you don’t need any more compelling reason than that. But then there’s the fantasy element of it, in terms of my life, being handed a character that, on the one hand, has these epic, sort of unique powers, and on the other hand, is the most ordinary slob, the most underachieving of all superheroes. He truly lives in a bachelor pad from hell. If I was gonna want to play any superhero, it would be that guy, the guy who would probably sleep in on the day the world was going to be completely compromised. This is a guy who’s perpetually servicing his adolescent, completely undisciplined impulses. But he’s also asked to do these things that test him, and when the game is on, he’s a bad-ass. And if you’re fighting with him, he’s gonna trash talk you. He’s gonna trash talk you into being so emotionally out of control that he’s gonna get the upper hand.
It’s a beautiful character to play, and his heart is very, very dear to me, what he finds important and worth dying for — his innate sense of what is just and unjust. I’m a very, very lucky guy to be handed this gift, and I appreciate every single day I get to play it. It’s as much fun as I’ve ever had as an actor.
Guillermo, you mentioned a thematic link between this movie and “Pan’s Labyrinth.” Can you elaborate on that?
Del Toro: The link is the same thing I’ve been attracted to in all my movies, which is the clash — if that’s what you want to call it — between the most mundane everyday life and fantasy. “Cronos” is like that, “Mimic” is like that, and so on. All my life I’ve collected fairy tales and mythological books and so forth, and I was fully immersed in that with “Pan’s Labyrinth,” so I just think they overlapped. The idea was that the most vulgar reality is killing fantasy — as a species.
For me, the beauty of “Hellboy” is that, in the first movie, it was him awakening to the idea of “OK, I’m human even if I don’t look it.” And the second movie is him saying, “Maybe I have misplaced my loyalty. Maybe I really don’t belong here.” That is the question this time. And if there ever is a third movie, it will be the final question: “Will you destroy the world?”
There are so many mythological, historical and legendary underpinnings in the “Hellboy” comic books, which give them a really extraordinary texture. How do you work that material in without stopping the movie dead in its tracks?
Del Toro: You cannot do those underpinnings with the precision that Mike does. If you read the screenplay of either “Hellboy” movie, but especially the first one, there’s a lot of really, really creamy, rich exposition [laughs]. The speech that Professor Bruttenholm (John Hurt) gives about how the Bureau was formed in 19-whatever under the auspices of President so-and-so is so beautiful and so on the money of how the comics are. But when you put it in a film as dialogue, it’s “blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda.” People just let it go by. So it’s very difficult to do that.
What I tried to do on this film, which is what I also tried to do on “Pan’s Labyrinth,” is different. I tried to give through film — through appearance, texture, color, and movement — the illusion of a well-worn, legendary fairy tale. You create this feel that these things must be real because they look timeworn, they look raggedy, and they look edgy. That is more valuable than just putting exposition out there.
Is “The Golden Army” an original story or based on anything from the comics?
Del Toro: No, it’s an original story, but by coincidence, it goes in a direction that Mike has been taking with the comics. And that happens to be a direction I am most interested in, which deals with the death of fantasy. Hellboy essentially steps into a dying world. He comes in to hunt the last white rhino. He gets completely confused by this. At the end of the day, he’s thinking, what are humans going to do with the life he gives them? They’re gonna make more parking lots, more shopping malls, more corrupt politicians. And then on the other hand this other world is so precious … that has something to do with “Pan’s Labyrinth” too: the balance of reality and fantasy.
You two have done four films together. What keeps you coming back to each other?
Del Toro: I love that guy.
Perlman: It’s a mutual kind of … the moment we met, he was getting ready to do his first film, “Cronos,” and because he’s fascinated by monsters, he ultimately had to do a major exploration of special effects makeup in order to serve his own imagination and the things he wanted to put on-screen. So I guess in his research period, he stumbled upon my work and ended up writing me this beautiful letter, asking me if I’d consider being part of his first film. He sent me the script and we finally met in Los Angeles at this Indian restaurant. His first statement to me was, “I’d like to start with dessert, how about you?” From that point on, I knew we were gonna be brothers.
Del Toro: We actually started with two desserts!
Perlman: Yeah, once he realized I was game, it became two desserts. That was the beginning, as they say, of a beautiful friendship — two guys who are truly hedonistic and truly driven by an impulse to never grow up, which is probably where our ideas about storytelling meet. Without movies, I’d be homeless. Without the acting profession, I’d be homeless. There’s no other thing I could do or care to do.
Del Toro: With it, we barely manage! [Both laugh.]
Perlman: But first and foremost, it’s this relationship, which is as close to being brothers without having blood ties as I’ve ever experienced.
Del Toro: And we fight, don’t get me wrong.
Perlman: But we fight like brothers.
Del Toro: We fight like brothers — actually better, because my real brother used to beat the s— out of me. We have the tough talk when it’s needed, we don’t dote on each other, we do the work, we demand from both sides that the work gets done properly. We don’t have a loose attitude with each other. But the love is the first thing.
Perlman: But to be the muse that is the recipient of the guy he would play if he was an actor …
Del Toro: That is absolutely true.
Perlman: … I understand and appreciate that. To be charged with playing Hellboy, which, if Guillermo was being truthful and honest, he would play it himself … he wouldn’t have any damn actors, he wants to play Hellboy. But I, unfortunately for him, am the guy that gets to have all the fun, which sometimes pisses him off [laughs] because he wishes it was him doing it.
When the first film came out, there was a lot written about the fact that you had to fight to get Ron the role and you had to cut the budget as a result …
Perlman: I remember thinking that the fans were probably like, “We finally get a movie of our favorite comic book and the best you can come up with is this guy?”
Del Toro: Rick Baker said, “We’re gonna have to put very little makeup on him,” but we did, we put a lot of makeup on him. But Ron’s bone structure and his eyes and the way he talks and the way his mouth is shaped, it’s all so very much like Hellboy — the leonine shape of his head. That was all perfect, and so was the energy. I think Ron is very, very Hellboy-ish, in the sense that he either moves in for the kill or not at all.
Perlman: That is so true. I’ve never been able to truly decide whether I’m the laziest guy I’ve ever known. It’s all or nothing at all.
Del Toro: But the beauty of the character is that he does what he does because he has to. For the fanboys who like their superheroes perfect, this movie is not for them. This was written from the start by Mike Mignola as a much more quirky creation, with a lot of sardonic humor. You need far more than three movies to capture the breadth of Mignola’s imagination, because the comic embodies so much.
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