Category Archives: actors

Fist Fight – Trailer 1

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screenshot-2016-09-26-00-53-21Richie Keen’s Fist Fight looks to be pretty funny (and Charlie Day looks pretty short, especially when you consider that Ice Cube can’t be any taller than 5’6, give or take) but it also looks particularly one-note.

And while I haven’t seen the movie, I get the feeling that it’s going to end one of two ways:  Ice Cube beats Charlie Day within an inch of his life (possible, though unlikely), or some deus ex machina enables Day to get out from receiving the beating of his life.

What I don’t expect to happen–unless the movie movie is much more clever than I give it credit for–is that Ice Cube somehow gets his arse handed to him by a guy that the trailer establishes as pretty incompetent as far as fighting goes.

Ghost in the Shell- Official Sneak Peek

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screenshot-2016-09-22-15-59-32And by ‘Sneak Peek’ they mean they aren’t going to show us anything that’s in the least bit interesting.

Though that not quite true. Keep in mind that there was a controversy earlier this year over not only the casting of Scarlett Johannson as a character that in the anime was Japanese, but rumors that producers were intending to make her look Asian.

Seeing her appearance in the Sneak Peek, it’s possible that making her look Japanese is what they were doing, especially when you take into account how her hair’s cut. That being said, it doesn’t appear that her eyes have been altered to mimic epicanthic folds, either digitally or via make-up, though it’s hard to tell definitively.

The worse thing is that the choice of Johansson needn’t have been a controversial one because all they needed to do was the create a new character that happened to be American.

And sure, there would be some people who would complain about that–particularly fans of the anime who tended to be purists–but that discussion would be significantly better, and certainly less strident, than one of whitewashing, which is pretty indefensible.

Split – Trailer into Reaction

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Split posterM. Night Shyamalan continues to have a very interesting career.

For awhile, he was by some considered the heir apparent” to Steven Spielberg, which is very rarified air.

And I can’t imagine that not going to his head a little bit, which probably has at least a little to do with Lady in the Water.

That being said, I thought you could see a decline in his powers with movies like Signs and The Village, despite both of those movies being very profitable and well-received–for he most part–by critics.

Though it was with the followups, Lady in the Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender and After Earth that his creative bankruptcy became apparent.

It’s also no coincidence all four underwhelmed at the box office as well.

Though Shyamalan continued to work, producing movies like Devil and working in television.

He came back to the cineplex in 2015 with The Visit.

And while not as good as his strongest works, such as The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, it was a return to form. It was released by Blumhouse Pictures, a studio built on low-budget horror and thrillers.

His follow-up, Split, also comes via Blumhouse and stars James McAvoy as a man suffering from multiple personality disorder.

Can Geoff Johns Save The DCEU?

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Can Geoff Johns save the DCEU, otherwise known as the DC Extended Universe?

Let’s just say I HIGHLY doubt it.  And it’s worth mentioning that I speculate out of love because–while DC characters like Batman and Superman aren’t my favorites–I don’t wish them ill, either.

Which is why I find the movies released so far just vexingly disappointing.

Check out my reasons why in the video below.

Stop Implying Nefarious Motives For Ghostbusters (2016) Box Office Performance

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Screenshot 2016-08-11 17.23.06For a movie who’s job was to reboot a blatantly uncontroversial movie, the 2016 reboot of Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters proved remarkably controversial.

And while I’d rather not rehash the whole  debate, I was reading a story from Brett White from Comicbookresources‘ Spinoff Online, where he draws a comparison between the way numerous movies are treated; commenting upon which get a sequel, and which don’t.

One of the points he raises is how Ghostbusters is doing better than numerous other movies from a financial standpoint, such as Star Trek: Beyond, at a comparable time and yet while that latter is apparently receiving a sequel yet Ghostbusters isn’t.

Though there are problems with White’s logic.

First, just because a studio says that a movie is getting a sequel doesn’t make it so. I mention this because Star Trek: Beyond has earned just over $198 million, which means that despite Paramount saying that there will be one doesn’t mean that there will actually be the case (and if its box office doesn’t increase significantly before it leaves theaters, the likelihood of that diminish accordingly).

Second, he makes a comparison between the box office of Ghostbusters and X-Men: Apocalypse but that’s a problematic comparison at best because the latter movie has earned over $534 million during it’s theatrical run, on a budget of $178 million.

So, despite the relatively weak legs of Fox’s X-movie it’s made enough to get a sequel.  If Ghostbusters had earned as much–legs or no legs–then it would as well.

Though it hasn’t.

And that’s not to say that there weren’t bad actors on Sony’s side as well as the fan community, but when all is said and done–despite all the mud-slinging and vitriol–if Ghostbusters were profitable, then who said what to whom would be irrelevant.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter – Teaser Trailer

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Did you know that George Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Creepshow, The Dark Half-one of the better adaptations of a Steven King story) was in contention to direct the first Resident Evil movie before Paul W.S. Anderson was chosen?

That the father of the modern day zombie movie somehow couldn’t approach a property that revolves around the walking dead to the satisfaction of Capcom (the creator of the Resident Evil video games) I find particularly interesting.

That being said, I haven’t  read Romero’s screenplay so I have no idea why it was rejected, though having seen virtually all the movies that make up the franchise, I have to wonder if some executive in Japan aren’t kicking themselves.

Or maybe committing seppuku if he hadn’t already (and yes, I’m reasonably sure that most , if not all, of Capcom’s executives are male).

Because, while the first movie is pretty decent, the latter certainly aren’t and in fact they get progressively worse as the series moves toward this, the the penultimate chapter.

The Great Wall – Trailer

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What is it with Matt Damon and comments and/or activities of a racially-dubious nature?

First there were the comments made during his and Ben Affleck’s HBO series–now cancelled–Project Greenlight, where Damon finds diversity okay, as long as it’s in its place.

If I recall, that happened sometime last year (or earlier this year).

Now Damon is starring in The Great Wall, where he apparently acts as a savior of the Chinese people.

From the trailer the movie looks like a fantasy–which is fitting in ways the producers probably didn’t take into account–and doesn’t reflect reality (the monsters attacking the Great Wall are a dead giveaway).

That being said, in the multi-cultural world we now live in–which has always been that way, though many people didn’t like to think of it that way, so therefore it wasn’t–it’s in particularly bad taste to have white people come to the rescue of people of color, especially when it doesn’t reflect any objective reality.

That being said, Matt Damon is near the peak of his box office powers.  His most recent movie, Jason Bourne has debuted to $60 million; a nice chunk of change.

And besides,The Great Wall was produced by Legendary Pictures (which was recently purchased by a Chinese company) and is directed by a renown Chinese director, Zhang Yimou and has many Chinese actors in its cast.

So Damon is bringing something to the production besides his whiteness, though I just wish as a person (and as an actor) he were a bit more cognizant of some of the more dubious choices and decisions he seems to make pretty consistently lately.