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Tropic Thunder (2008)
Tropic Thunder (2008)
2008 | Action, Comedy, War
Hilarious but devisive comedy with a all star cast, it's a little silly in places and the gore level ramps up pretty quickly, however it's a laugh riot that has satirical bite, and a cameo from Tom Cruise was a master stroke, and who could forget Robert Downey Jr's character who never goes full retard! genius!
  
Dead Man (1995)
Dead Man (1995)
1995 | Drama, Western
Johnny Depp (3 more)
Gay Farmer
Black and white beauty
Cool guitar soundtrack by Neil Young
Indie Western Wizardry
Seemingly meek & mild William Blake (Depp) travels from Cleveland to the town of Machine, with all his hopes pinned to taking up a a promised position as an accountant. Soon after arriving he finds the job already taken and his path taking an unexpected and deadly turn, that leads him into the spirit world of Nobody, his new and strange Indian friend.
This film is a little dark, alot violent, pretty mysterious and atmospheric. As well as the amazing work of Depp and Farmer, there is a star studded cost including, Robert Mitchum, John Hurt, Gabriel Byrne, Billy Bob Thornton & Iggy Pop to name a few. Depp is nothing less than brilliant as he evades those hunting him down and as he follows Nobody deeper and deeper into his unusual world.
  
The Irishman (2019)
The Irishman (2019)
2019 | Biography, Crime, Drama
Robert De Niro (1 more)
Al Pacino
The CGI De-Aging (0 more)
So after months of hype does this all star blockbuster live up to the hype...well yes it does.

It's been many years since we have had a great gangster epic and the master of those films finally brings one that will be enjoyed for many years to come.Unlike his other epics this film focuses more on the relationship between the main protagonist frank sheeran and his boss jimmy Joffa.The violence is not as extreme as you would find in goodfellas or casino.

The only tiny criticism I have was the de-aging process used on some of the actors,the faces seemed a little animated and fake.

De Niro was incredible and has to be a strong favourite for the best actor oscar,pacino and pesci were brilliant as well and could get a supporting actor oscar nomination.
  
Enola Holmes (2020)
Enola Holmes (2020)
2020 | Adventure, Crime, Drama
The other Holmes sibling
Sherlock Holmes?

Yep, I'd heard of him.

Mycroft Holmes?

Less well-known, but again: yes. Mainly because of the recent(ish) TV series Sherlock, and the Robert Downey Jr starring films.

Enola Holmes?

I'm afraid to say: nope, never heard of her.

I actually thought at first she was a completely new creation for this Netflix movie, until a little bit of research showed me that she is actually the main character in a series of young adult mystery novels, by American author Nancy Springer (sorry, Nancy: can't say I know who you are either.)

Starring 'Stranger Things' actor Milly Bobby Brown as Enola, I wasn't keen on the talking-straight-to-the-viewer aspects of the movie, which never really held my attention all that much.

I have to say, though, it does contain some considerable 'star power', including the likes of Helena Bonham Carter as the Holmes matriarch (whose disappearance triggers the whole thing) and Henry Cavill - Superman himself! - as a very different take on the middle of the Holms siblings, Sherlock himself
  
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
1996 | Action, Sci-Fi
It’s a close run thing with “Wrath of Khan”, but this tops it as my favourite Trek film. There are so many memorable scenes:

The dramatic opening shots of Picard strapped into the Borg ship (and the subsequent jolts x 2!);
The comical drinking scene between Troi (Marina Sirtis) and Cochrane (James Cromwell);
The “Big Sleep” style holodeck sequence;
The spectacular entrance of the Borg Queen (Alice Krige);
The first warp flight;
The first contact scene, framed by Jerry Goldsmith‘s spectacular theme.
We’re up to the Enterprise-E in this one, and even that gets a self-destruct sequence! These movies must be playing havoc with their insurance premiums!

There are some nice touches for Trek fans in here: the first appearance of Robert Picardo‘s holographic doctor (before he became a regular on Star Trek: Voyager); and Dwight Schultz reprising his role from the TNG series as the nerdy fan-boy Lieutenant Barclay. In addition, the whole cast (including Gates McFadden’s Crusher) get a fairer share of the air time under Jonathan Frake’s direction.

Once again, the time travel (particularly the return journey!) is just a bit too trite and convenient. But other than that, this is a top-notch Trek movie. It features (in Alfre Woodard, just BAFTA nominated) a strong role for a female of colour. And it provides a great chance to showcase Stewart’s acting talents, as he wrestles with his own ‘great white whale’.

Given my love for the movie, I was tempted to give this one 5*s. The one thing holding me back is just a single line of dialogue. Do you know the one? Zephram Cochrane’s line…

“So, you’re astronauts? On some kind of a star trek?”.

It is just SO UTTERLY CRASS that I manage to throw up a little in my mouth as that scene happens. WHY WRITERS, WHY???
  
Insurgent (2015)
Insurgent (2015)
2015 | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
A little soulless
There hasn’t been a better time to be part of the Young Adult revolution. From Stephanie Meyer’s underwhelming Twilight saga to Suzanne Collins’ superb Huger Games trilogy and everything in between, there is something about this genre that audiences love to read and to watch.

Coming a little late to the party is Veronica Roth’s Divergent franchise. After last year’s bland debut, a new director in the shape of Robert Schwentke (Flightplan, Tattoo) takes on the second film in the series, Insurgent, but can it finally bring something to the table?

Insurgent continues the story of a post-apocalyptic America that has been divided into ‘factions’ based on the personality traits of survivors. Being placed in a faction helps you live your life in accordance with the rules of the governing body of the time. However, having traits belonging to all five categories makes you a Divergent – a risk to peace in other words.

This action sequel follows Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) and Four Eaton (Theo James), two Divergents on the run from Kate Winslet’s domineering Jeanie Matthews as they try to find out the truth about who they are and what is really going on behind the scenes.

For the uninitiated, Insurgent is a tiresome process and requires some prior knowledge of the first film to truly understand what is going on. However, in comparison to its dull and overly long predecessor, there is much to enjoy here.

The obliterated city of Chicago is given much more room to breathe and the beautifully choreographed shots of well-known landmarks draped in moss and ferns are a stunning addition and look much more realistic than the computer-generated imagery used for the Capitol in the Hunger Games series.

Moreover, there are some great acting performances scattered throughout, Woodley really gets her teeth stuck into the lead role after her disappointing turn in Divergent and Theo James provides the eye candy in a Liam Hemsworth-esque characterisation.

However, it is in Kate Winslet and newcomer Naomi Watts’ performances that we really see something special.

Despite their lack of screen time, they command each sequence they are a part of and it’s a shame they’re not used more throughout the near 2 hour runtime.

Unfortunately comparisons to other YA adaptations are unavoidable. Put Insurgent up against its main rival The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and the odds simply aren’t in its favour. The sheer star power the latter film commands is enviable and despite Winslet and Watts’ excellent performances, it just isn’t quite enough.

It all feels a little hollow, a bit flat and non-descript as the audience is thrown from one mildly entertaining set piece to another, right up until the obligatory gasps as you realise it’s another year to pick up where that cliff-hanger left things.

In the end, Insurgent improves on its overly convoluted predecessor and is much better than anything the Twilight saga threw at us, but it pales in comparison to the treat of watching ‘The Girl on Fire’ strut her stuff.

Alas, sitting in the middle isn’t quite enough in this highly competitive genre and despite some stunning cinematography and great acting, Insurgent feels a little soulless.

https://moviemetropolis.net/2015/03/22/a-little-soulless-insurgent-review/
  
Tropic Thunder (2008)
Tropic Thunder (2008)
2008 | Action, Comedy, War
Deep in the jungles of Vietnam, one of the most expensive films in history is underway. The film is based upon a best seller by war hero Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte), and stars three of the biggest stars in Hollywood so naturally expectations are very high for the film to become a box office blockbuster.

Unfortunately the production is troubled by one gaffe after another and finds itself lost in budget over runs, issues amongst the stars, and more drama than a Shakespeare festival.

The film is “Tropical Thunder” and Director and star Ben Stiller has assembled a talented cast that includes Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. in a biting satire of the Hollywood machine.

Stiller stars as Tugg Speedman, a declining action star who sees the war film as his big chance to break away from his recent failures and move into more serious work. Tugg is overshadowed by the presence of multiple Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), who prepares for a part so intensely that he literally becomes the character he is portraying. Toward that end, he has undergone a skin pigment procedure in order to portray an African American soldier.

Rounding out the group, literally, is Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), the star of flatulence based film comedy series and a man wracked by addiction to the point that he hides his drugs in a candy package and refers to them as his jelly beans.

After a staggeringly costly and impressive pyrotechnic display by the sets explosive expert Cody (Danny Mc Bride), the film is in danger of being halted by the money behind the film, an intensely angry Producer named Les Grossman (Tom Cruise).

In an effort to keep his film alive and salvage their careers, Four Leaf and the film’s Director decide to drop the cast in the thick of the jungle and shoot the film gorilla style with hidden cameras and various tricks to produce a grittier film and get the cast to start acting like the soldiers they are supposed to be portraying.

In a hilarious turn of events, the cast ends up trapped in the jungle and surrounded by members of the locale drug cartel. Convinced that it is all part of the film, Tugg and company blindly trudge along thinking all is going as scripted until things go hopelessly wrong, and force the cast to come to grips with the situation as well as their fragile egos and personal issues.

While the premise of the film is solid, and there are a good number of laughs in the film, for the most part “Tropic Thunder” is a hit or miss venture.

Robert Downey Jr. is amazing in his portrayal as he constantly steals his scenes with his expressions and one liners and almost single handled carries the film during some of the more tedious moments.

Stiller plays the patented Stiller character once again, the slow witted loser with a heart of gold, and despite his efforts, he is just not given enough material to fully push his character over the top, despite some funny moments.

The biggest disappointment for me was Jack Black who is sadly underused in the film. Jack is a very gifted and talented actor but he is given very little to work with, and precious few moments to let his talents shine. Owen Wilson was originally supposed to be in the film, and at times it seems that this part was written more with Wilson’s more subdued style of humor in mind.

Aside from the laughs, the film does have an abundance of celebrity cameos, and this truly helps the film. Sadly though, the plot really does not do justice to the premise nor talent in the film, and unfolds in a very unspectacular manner that had me expecting more.

This is not to say it is a bad film as I found myself laughing on more than one occasion, sadly it became fewer and father between laughs as the film unfolded to a very disappointing finale.
  
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JT (287 KP) rated Safe House (2012) in Movies

Mar 10, 2020  
Safe House (2012)
Safe House (2012)
2012 | Action, Mystery
6
5.9 (14 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Contains spoilers, click to show
Denzel Washington always gets the cool names, Tobin Frost is added to a long list, not that the actor cares too much? He just goes about his business. Here though, both he and Reynolds are suited adversaries in a film that never really has time to catch its breath.

Reynolds plays Matt Weston, an enthusiastic CIA agent who spends his time staring at four walls and surveillance equipment, as the resident of one of the many safe houses that are dotted the world over. When infamous rogue agent Tobin Frost is brought in, Weston gets caught up in a cat and mouse game of government espionage, where its better to trust in enemies than in friends.

Washington just oozes uber cool, and his screen presence in all his characters is exemplary, here Frost is a cold and calculated killer. Nothing seems to phase him and he wastes no time in getting under the skin and inside the head of the young agent.

Cape Town is the films backdrop, and its an unusual choice from anything that could be portrayed on America’s homeland with the action taking place in and amongst city streets and shanty town districts.

But I liked that, it made for some amazing action set pieces, including a car chase that will surely rival Ronin and a brilliant panic driven standoff at Green Point stadium. Giving too much a way would spoil the anticipation, of what is to come.

The supporting cast are not knock out’s but provide a brief interlude from the ensuing mess and turmoil that Weston and Frost are going through.

Brendan Gleeson, Vera Farmiga and Sam Shepard all do a job that fits in with the plot, there is a nice little cameo from Robert Patrick whose team are responsible for brining in Frost, [PLOT SPOILER] but fans of the former Terminator star will be saddened to know that he doesn’t last too long.

It’s a roller coaster ride there is no doubt about that, and its loud, very loud!
  
Season of the Witch (2011)
Season of the Witch (2011)
2011 | Action, Drama, Mystery
4
5.8 (6 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Nicholas Cage, Warriors, Demons, Witcraft; Season of the Witch really does have it all. However, all that appears interesting is lost in Dominic Sena’s (Whiteout) bland and forgettable biblical road movie.

Whilst it may not be the worst film in the past twelve months, something which still seemingly belongs to Clash of the Titans, there is little here to differentiate it from the frequent blockbuster drivel that Hollywood seems to spit out these days.

Nicholas Cage and Ron Perlman star alongside a host of two dimensional characters which bizzarly includes home grown star Robert Sheehan (Misfits) who perhaps plays the films best role in newfound warrior Kay. Unfortunately, his stellar performance is overshadowed by a script that’s as bland as the special effects.

The saving grace of the film is in its fabulous set pieces which really do shine through, the choice of location and fabulous cinematography especially in the early battle sequences are fantastic and made the film look like it was going to be more of a success than it actually was. It is here that Sena must be given credit as the movie could’ve been much better if it had followed from the quality of the opening.

It is important to note that the CGI and special effects are not being praised here because on a budget of around $40m, the designers could’ve done a whole lot better than some very questionable looking wolves and melting metal.

Cage, who isn’t without his fair share of criticism as an actor is completely miscast in his role, speaking contrived one-liners that won’t shake off those critics who say he cannot act in anything but action movies, but to be fair, this is not entirely his fault, the script leaves much to be desired and poor old Nick is stuck slap bang in the middle, sitting on the fence between his wrongful characterisation and his need to please the critics.

Alongside Cage is Claire Foy, a relatively unknown actress trying to make a big budget breakthrough as ‘the girl’, a rather unfair accreditation at the end of the film. She actually plays the ‘witch’ and does so well, but there isn’t enough dialogue for her to become a central role in the film, so in the end, she sits in a cage for the entire duration and looks menacing; if that’s what you want to call it. This is a problem that blights the entire film, there are only a handful of characters but the alarmingly poor script means that much of what they say is forgotten.

Overall, director Dominic Sena has missed a trick with this biblical tale, unfortunately it doesn’t do enough to make it stand out and therefore it’s lost in a muddle of poor scriptwriting and poor special effects. However, a few standout performances do save it from being a complete disaster and as such, it just about becomes a passable tale.

https://moviemetropolis.net/2011/01/12/season-of-the-witch-2011/
  
Ghost stories (1 more)
Well-written
Only a few stories (0 more)
This collection of tales will transport you to a time when staircases creaked in old manor houses, and a candle could be blown out by a gust of wind, or by a passing ghost. Penned by some of the greatest Victorian novelists and masters of the ghost story genre, these stories come alive alongside exquisitely eerie art in this special illustrated edition.

Since this is a short story collection, I will list the stories with a short synopsis and what I liked and disliked about them.

"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" by M.R. James
A professor decides to go on vacation to work on his golf game while doing a little side work in the town's archaeology, but when he digs up an old whistle and blows into it, he instantly regrets what the whistle brings.
Liked: the buildup to the climax was done masterfully, and the superstition that was used as the premise of the story
Disliked: that the ending is never explained

"The Old Nurse's Story" by Elizabeth Gaskell
When a governess and her ward are taken to a haunted house, they found out that everyone has to pay for their misdeeds.
Liked: the perfect example of what Victorian ghost stories were
Disliked: Nothing; I really enjoyed this one

"The Signalman" by Charles Dickens
A railroad signalman tells a co-worker that he is seeing a ghost that warns him of future accidents, but his co-worker can't tell if he's telling the truth or losing his mind.
Liked: an excellent ghost story; I wish it were an entire novel
Disliked: nothing

"The Body-Snatcher" by Robert Louis Stevenson
When a medical student realizes that the 'donated' bodies are murder victims, he's not so sure he can live with the consequences.
Liked: the ending wasn't predictable
Disliked: at the start, there's a little confusion among who is who

" The Captain of the Pole-Star" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A group of whalers are stuck in the middle of the ocean because of ice burgs, but the ice is the least of their problems when they begin to hear and see supernatural things out on the ice.
Liked: the plot of the story was really good
Disliked: the run-on sentences, some of the accents were hard to decipher, and the ending wasn't explained

"The Phantom Coach" by Amelia B. Edwards
A young man loses his way while on a hunt, but soon finds help with an old man that is convinced the supernatural is real, and when he senses the young man does not, he puts him up against forces from the other side.
Liked: the story never lulled, and the descriptions of the undead were amazing
Disliked: nothing, I thought the story was really good

"The Screaming Skull" by F. Marion Crawford
When the friend of a family finds a skull in the latter's home, he begins to question whether or not the husband murdered his wife.
Liked: I love that this story is actually based off an urban legend
Disliked: the way the author kept breaking away from the story to talk to the audience; it caused the flow of the story to stop

Overall, the Victorian-era authors knew how to write a ghost story. I absolutely loved this collection of short stories. I highly recommend this book to people who love a good 'ol fashioned ghost story (not the gory ones we have today).