Looks like Marvel can pat themselves on the back now. They put a female hero in the title of something! After being a moderate success in Marvel terms this summer, it looks like Ant-Man will be returning in his own solo movie, which the studio announced on Thursday. The film will be called Ant-Man and …
It takes 45 wobbly minutes for director Peyton Reed’s film to find its rhythm, but it closes with some ingenious action set pieces that leave you feeling satisfied. ‘Ant-Man’ is a quirky little orphan that will probably need some time and distance from its cinematic brethren to be fully appreciated.
“It’s best not to think of her as a woman. That would be a mistake.” These words are uttered by Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) to freelance operative Paul (Michael Fassbender) in a scene somewhere toward the end of Steven Soderbergh’s truly excellent but much ignored action movie Haywire. The woman they are referring to is Mallory …
The 1990’s introduced the world to Quentin Tarantino, saw the creation of the NC-17 rating, and began the slow call toward fully computer animated films. It began the slow (still slow) movement toward a more diverse industry, with the first African-American director earning an Oscar nomination (John Singleton for “Boyz in the Hood”). And the …
Wonder Boys Directed by Curtis Hanson Written by Steven Kloves from a novel by Michael Chabon USA, 2000 The written word is an art form that is almost as old as mankind itself. To form sentences which eventually comprise paragraphs and so on to create beauty and evoke powerful emotion in readers is a skill …
While most movies end with ‘happily ever after’, real life is rarely that generous. Rob Reiner’s latest romantic-comedy, And So It Goes, ponders the challenges of love and loss for the senior set.
A Perfect Murder is anything but. Far from a complete misfire, Andrew Davis starts things off very nicely and definitely manages to cover some of the cracks in the armor with some slick direction and an impressive cast, but the script is woefully uneven, even unsure of itself at times. It makes for a decent thriller but all three leads have been in far better movies than this.
Behind the Candelabra Written by Richard LaGravenese Directed by Steven Soderbergh USA, 2013 Steven Soderbergh thoughtfully details the purported destructive indulgence of Liberace’s most intimate relationship in Behind the Candelabra. A film replete with the salacious dirt and glamorous high living of a legendary celebrity, this project is perfectly tailored to Soderbergh’s nuanced flair for …
In early 2012, while most of the film world was caught up in Oscar prognostications, one film quietly came and went through theatres, earning less that $20 million domestically, and just over $30 million internationally. That film was Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, with Gina Carano taking on the lead role of Mallory Kane, and its quiet box office reception is in no way indicative of the film’s quality. While it may appear, on the surface, to be a standard action thriller – and there’s certainly no issue with that, as the genre is littered with efforts that fail to even be competent in their execution – in true Soderbergh style, there’s a lot more going on in Haywire than it may appear at first glance.
Call it what you must, but if Steven Soderbergh is truly exiting the cinematic frontier for a while, Behind the Candelabra marks a very fitting and appropriate departure for the director. Adapted from the autobiographical novel by Alex Thorleifson and Scott Thorson, Candelabra is a rather direct biopic shedding light on the private life of Liberace (Michael Douglas) and his 6-year relationship with younger lover Scott Thorson (Matt Damon).
This article is dedicated to Andrew Copp: filmmaker, film writer, artist and close friend who passed away on January 19, 2013. You are loved and missed, brother. **** Looking at the Best Actor Academy Award nominations for the film year 2012, the one miss that clearly cries out for more attention is Liam Neeson’s powerful …
Arbitrage Directed by Nicholas Jarecki Written by Nicholas Jarecki USA/Poland, 2012 It’s starting to look like you need an Economics degree to watch movies. Last year, there was a small gem of film called Margin Call that, despite its incredibly legalese name, managed to be a gripping and insightful look into the backstabbing and ass-covering …
Javier Bardem has quite a slate of films ahead of him. He is set to star as the villain in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street 2 (yes, that is actually happening) alongside Shia Labeouf and Michael Douglas. And in a crazy twist, Bardem will be playing the principle villain in the sequel, not Douglas’ Gekko (but …