It's not so much that I hate romance, or love, or relationships. It's that Valentine's Day after awhile gets so sweet, so saccharine, that you begin to feel like you've eaten too many conversation hearts. If you're single, it's the time when all your singleness comes home to you, what with the big boxes of heart-shaped candy and endless romantic movies on every single TV station. If you're in a relationship, it's a time of great hassle, when you have to make certain to buy cards, buy flowers (or expect flowers), make reservations, find out that you waited too long to make reservations, or argue about what movie you're going to watch on TV. It's just a hassle and there tons of expectations for all of us.
I for one am pretty damn excited about Danny Boyle’s newest film Trance. A great cast – James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel and Rosario Dawson – and a great director at the top of his game. But it also represents a return to the darker, weirder generic style that gave Boyle get his start. The newest red-band trailer makes this one look like Shallow Grave with art dealers.
We all know that Bruce Willis is a badass. Even in Moonlighting, he was a badass. Hell, when he did the voice of that baby opposite John Travolta? Even THEN he was a badass. He was a badass when he was just being Bruce, a badass when he was playing a character, a badass even when the role did not demand badassery.
I’m slowly becoming obsessed with the secretive plot machinations of Disney and Brad Bird's upcoming Tomorrowland. First the name was changed from 1952, then that photograph of the box containing all sorts of goodies was released, and now rumors abound concerning the contents of the box and what it all means! And the question I keep asking myself is: why do I care?
Oh. Dear. God. First Fox beat up my childhood with Horton Hears A Who! Then, Universal and Illumination Entertainment turned The Lorax into a pandering piece of colored plastic. Now, as if that was not enough, the same folks who brought us that piece of trite, embarassing hogwash (I wanted to use a stronger word, but this is a family site) have set their sights on yet another version of a beloved Seuss story: How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
We’re all getting very excited for Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. Who wouldn’t be, with a cast like this? We’ve got the return of Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson and Jamie King, and new comers Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin, Eva Green, and Ray Liotta, to name just a few. Now the Sin City sequel has picked up another villain in the form of Stacy Keach.
I have a real soft spot for Sean Bean. Maybe it’s because he dies in just about every film or TV series he’s made, but I just want to see the guy catch a break and make it all the way through to the credits. Perhaps he’ll manage to do just that in his new role in the Wachowski siblings' next work Jupiter Ascending.
When Star Wars Episode VII was announced in the aftermath of Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm, I was not optimistic. The memories of the prequels are still too fresh. When they announced J.J. Abrams as the director of said Episode VII, I was a little more interested. When rumors began circulating that Zack Snyder was making a stand-alone Star Wars samurai-style epic, I almost burst into tears. Now there’s talk of the very first Star Wars standalone being headlined by Master Yoda himself. I have no idea what to do.
Sigh. Oh, Johnny. You’ve been very trying of late. First a less than stellar turn in Dark Shadows, next a questionable role in The Lone Ranger. And you were once the most interesting actor in Hollywood too. Well, maybe breaking away from Burton and Gore Verbinski for a little while will bring Mr. Depp back into the ‘hey, he’s actually a good actor’ fold. We have word that Depp has been attached to the Whitey Bulger biopic Black Mass.
There are some directors that I’m always willing to give the benefit of the doubt: Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, Guillermo del Toro, Werner Herzog … and Pedro Almodovar. The Spanish filmmaker tends to vary the tone of his films, from the darker than dark films like Matador and The Skin I Live In, to the color-saturated comedies like Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown or Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down. Based on the new trailer, Almodovar’s latest film I’m So Excited looks like it’s one of the latter.
