Twenty minutes into Adam Sandler's Grown Ups and I realise this really is just a bunch of has-been comedians with tired jokes and some daft ones.
Adam Sandler needs to cease from his glut of bad children's or family films. Or is Grown Ups for adults?
Bring back the Adam Sandler of the 1990s or get him to play a villain or a serious role as in Punch-Drunk Love. Fine, Punch-Drunk Love was the kind of rare great film that few actors can be expected to star in twice.
Nevertheless, I'd like some more Waterboy and some less Just Go With It. I did say he would be in that animated film about monsters, so maybe that is a start.
I went to the permiere of the co-South African - co-Canadian produced "The Bang Bang Club" this week.
The movie is based on the stories of four South African photographers who took photos of much of the violence in 180s South Africa.
It is based on a book about them but I ofund the film played to emotions and lacked believability.
A more in depth review of the film may be published on this blog in the near future.
I will say that I found the actual premiere boring. There were none of the international stars and the public, which was invited to attend, by paying R70 each, seemed confused. As far as celebrities go, I think I saw Elana Afrika there. Apparently, the Clegg family also counts. But where were all of the movie celebs?
Next time a movie is filmed in SA or with SA people, let's hope the industry is better represented.
Danny Boyle's 2000-directed film, The Beach was on eTV on Thursday night. It is a good film in my opinion. I could even stomach the "gameboy jungle run".
However, this post is not a review. What struck me about the movie was it made me ask the question again; what happened to the French costars of the man who is now one of the world's biggest actors, Leonardo Di Caprio?
Well, both the guy, Guillaume Canet and the girl, Virginie Ledoyen respectively, went on to star in French movies. I think they did this because they enjoy French cinema or people in the US do not rate them as actors or they have just been unlucky in getting roles in US films.
It has been about eight years but I still have not got over how awful Terminator 3 was. It was on eTV on Sunday, which reminded me of its evil. It may have seemed less disgusting if Terminator 2 was not as good as it was but number three was an embarrassing piece of excrement. I know some people thought T3 was decent but it had so little imagination. I was not bowled over by Terminator Salvation (T4) either. The only redeeming factor of T3 was the Gavin Rossdale - Blue Man Group song called The Current, which was played at the end.
This is better than most people could expect from a sequel 11 years on. In fact, the team behind Scream 4, has not only made a more than decent sequel, but also managed to reach the heights of Scream 1, with this mostly fresh, entertaining movie. If you do not enjoy this, you have no concept of what makes a good horror movie. You are probably some clown who gets excited every time that there is another Saw film. Those movies lose more sense with every torrid incarnation. Director, Wes Craven, creator Kevin Williamson and the rest of his crew have made a very clever film that makes Scream a stylish parody that deserves praise.
Director: Wes Craven. Screenplay: Kevin Williamson. Producers: Kevin Williamson, Wes Craven and Iya Labunka. Cinematographer: Peter Deming. Editor: Peter McNulty. Music: Marco Beltrami. Distributor: Dimension Films. Starring: David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Adam Brody and Rory Culkin. Age Restriction: 16VL. Running Time: 111 Minutes.
The movie is set 15 years after the first film and ten years after the third. Sidney Prescott returns to the small town of Woodsboro, to release her autobiography, which is part of her healing process. But when she arrives, a killer, who looks like Ghostface, starts killing students from Woodsboro High, including her younger cousin's friends. Sidney wanted to move on from all the pain but someone won't let her. She, Dewey Riley, who is now a sheriff after being a deputy in the original trilogy and Gail Weathers Riley, Dewey's new husband and the reporter-turned novelist, set out to investigate the murders.
They have to learn from the teenagers of the school what the new rules of horror movies are as they try to survive. The movie's tag line is new decade new rules and the film makers poke fun at recent horror movies and their reliance on gore and voyeurism.
Neve Campbell plays Sidney. She has not appeared in many big box office movies since Scream 3. She plays Sidney well in this movie and fans should enjoy the role which "broke her" as an actress in the 1990s. One of the clever things that Scream 1 did was to kill off its biggest star at the time, Drew Barrymore, in the opening scene. Campbell had been seen in the TV series, Party of Five and in the cult horror movie, The Craft, but Scream elevated her career, at least for a while. I thought she was great in Three To Tango and The Company. She probably made audiences a bit light-headed while sitting in the bath in the former and dancing in the latter. Let's not forget Wild Things, which was a sleazy film, which definitely excited many teenagers.
Cox and Arquette are both good and the joining cast is entertaining. The movie must be commended for all of the interesting nuances in the dialogue. It even has a cheesy take on society, which makes it more entertaining.
The new generation's cast of Hayden Panettiere, Rory Culkin, Emma Roberts, Anthony Anderson and even Adam Brody, all deliver solid performances. They may be playing bratty teenagers, which is not particularly new, but the viewer actually cares a bit about them. The film makers make us want to see people survive the movie. There may be some characters that one would not mind seeing get ripped to shreds by a knife-wielding maniac, but on the whole you support the characters and become fairly freaked out by the killings, even if they seem de-sensitised to the violence. The film makers are telling us that the youth has become de-sensitised to violence and maybe lost some of its innocence.
This is a gory, funny, sometimes silly film that respects its series and has enough smart extras to be worth a couple of viewings.
Verdict: This is a clever movie that should be beyond pretentious gits who expect it to be an entirely new take on horror films. The movie instead returns to the parody-serious formula of the original, which works well. It may make horror movies popular again but essentially, Scream 4, has made the series it was born from cool again.
I'd almost forgotten this movie. Actually I had forgotten it. But when I was a lot younger I used to watch this movie to dance along to it. And it's easy to see why. Starring The Village People, yes the Indian, the Cop, the Cowboy, the Dodge-a-rama dude and the Construction Worker in this their first and only silver screen outing. Don't believe me, watch the trailer.
I couldn't believe it when I saw it tucked away in the DVD store. But there it was, with it's neon light flashing.
Proof that even directors like Alan Carr (Grease) can get it wrong, this is a non-stop cheese fest. Let me take that back. Alan Carr did get it wrong again, have you ever sat through Grease 2? Don't. It's also an opportunity to see Bruce Jenner way before he ended up as a bit part in the daily drama of the Kardashians. Sad to say this was his only film role, and was hot on the heels of his Olympic glory and before he succumbed to the plastic surgeon.
The film's plot is loosely based on the Village People's rise to fame. All in all it's rather silly, and the roller skating (note skating not blading), disco tunes and tiny short wearing dancers all add up to a glimpse into the decade that taste forgot.
It's all very camp as well, and not surprisingly has featured recently at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
The new Marvel movie, Captain America: The First Avenger will just be called The First Avenger in certain countries, Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
Paramount Pictures and Marvel Studios were worried that anti-American sentiment would turn many viewers in foreign territories, away from the film, giving distributors around the world the option of shortening the title to "The First Avenger".
Yet the only countries that did this were Russia, Ukraine and South Korea. The villain in the film and comic book upon which it is based is called The Red Skull. He is supposed to be a Nazi but he looks red so maybe he could be seen as a Russian by some folks too? Some Ukrainians may feel similar but I do not know how South Korea fits in.
Poison Ivy and Mr Freeze ham it up. Photo courtesy of flickr.com; taken by schumachergirl1956
I may write a few posts like this, in which criticise the garbage that sometimes smears its excrement on our movie screens. Bad movies can be enjoyable guilty pleasures to watch, however, so here are a few that you may enjoy:
Avatar: The Last Airbender
This movie makes no sense despite looking fairly cool. It also had awful child actors in it.
Batman and Robin
A classic stinker. I love watching this film for laughs. It was the fourth film in the series and second directed by Joel Schumacher and it was awful, a rare blight on 1997; a great year for entertainment.
Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy: Mammals, a day of reckoning is coming. That's right, the same plants and flowers that saw you crawl from the primordial soup will reclaim the planet. And there will be no-one to protect you.
Gossip Gerty: You must be new in town. In Gotham City, Batman and Robin protect us... even from plants and flowers.
Robin: Where's the snowman?
Batgirl: Maybe he melted.
Batman: No, he's just hibernating.
Mr. Freeze: I will blanket the city in endless winter. First Gotham, and then the world.
Poison Ivy: Just what I had in mind. Everything dead on earth, except us. A chance for Mother Nature to start again. Behold, the dawn of a new age. My mutant plants have the strength of the deadliest animals. Once you have frozen mankind, these babies will overrun the globe, and we shall rule them, for we will be the only two people left in the world.
Mr. Freeze: Adam and Evil!
Ms. B. Haven: Freezy, I'm feeling hot.
Mr. Freeze: I find that unlikely.
Ms. B. Haven: Okay, so my hair is brittle and my skin is dry. I'd wear the blizzards just to have you. You're the most perfect man I've ever known. What do you say we heat things up?
Mr. Freeze: My passion thaws for my pride alone.
Ms. B. Haven: Ooh. Talk about your cold shoulder.
Batman to Mr Freeze: Mr Freeze, the heat is on.
Mr. Freeze: In this universe, there's only one absolute ... everything freezes! What killed the dinosaurs? The Ice Age. Mercy? I'm afraid my condition has left me cold to your pleas of mercy. If revenge is a dish best served cold, then put on your Sunday finest. We aim to ... freeze. You won't be sending me to the cooler! Chill!
Town and Country
Bad acting, complete trite.
Apparently Beatty was ocnfused with what the film was about.
Apart from being a business magazine, Forbes Magazine is perhaps most most well known for its annual lists of the wealthiest people in various fields such as sports and film as well as their Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans. They have recently released their list of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood and to be honest there are no real shocks here. It's pretty much the usual suspects with newbie Kristen Stewart (Twilight Saga) thrown in for good measure but that's hardly a surprise. Check out the full list below:
1. Angelina Jolie and Sarah Jessica Parker - $30 000 000
3. Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon - $28 000 000
5. Julia Roberts and Kristen Stewart - $20 000 000
According to the Huffington Post, Johnny Depp is said to be in talks for Pirates of the Caribbean 5. The reason? The fourth film, On Stranger Tides, was thought to be a 'fresh start' for the series. This was no doubt as there was no sign of Orlando Bloom or Keira Knightley. Somehow I think the 'fresh start' has more to do with the ringing of the cash register rather than any attempts at inconsequential things like story, plot, pacing.
Is there really a need to drag out a story based on a Disney park ride to five, five, 3 hour long movies? Yes the first was fun, the second was okay, by the third it felt like been-there-done-that, and the fourth was kind of fun, but not entirely redeemed by Penelope Cruz and a new storyline. Does sucking every last ounce of life out of an idea always work?
One quick trip down memory lane will attest. Jaws 4: The Revenge. Policy Academy 4, 5, 6......Lethal Weapon 4, 5. Die Hard, even. And that one started fabulously. When the heck does someone call it a day? When it goes straight from studio to DVD?
I won't be watching another Pirates film. How about you?
Adam Sandler receiving his spot on Hollywood's Walk of Fame
Comedic stalwart Adam Sandler and a few other funny people have been confirmed to voice characters in Sony Pictures Animation's new 3D family comedy, Hotel Transylvania, Hitfix said on Tuesday.
Adam Sandler is gathering some scary pals for the 3D family comedy "Hotel Transylvania" for Sony Pictures Animation. Sandler will voice the lead role of Dracula in a comedy homage to classic monsters movies. The movie will be directed by the genius who created the cartoons: Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack; Genndy Tartakovsky.
The movie also features The King of Queens' Kevin James, as Frankenstein, the Nanny's Fran Drescher as the Bride, Just Shoot Me's David Spade as Quasimodo, singer Cee Lo Green as the Mummy, and the best thing about Saturday Night Live, Andy Samberg, as Jonathan, a 21-year-old man who checks into the hotel. Brilliant actor Steve Buscemi, and Molly Shannon will also feature.
Many people may be tired of Sandler's bad romantic comedies and corny children's movies but the ensemble cast and talented director should result in a good film. It will be better received than Sandler's 2D animated movie, 8 Crazy Nights (2002), which was decent, I thought.
With the latest film in the giant fighting robots franchise on course for $416 million worldwide in it's first seven days of release, it's likely that it will top at out at over $1 billion worldwide and thereby making it a no-brainer that there will indeed be a Transformers 4 in the near future. Director Michael Bay and lead actor Shia LaBeouf have confirmed that they won't be back for the next instalment so it is pretty much guaranteed that Transformers 4 will be reboot. As much as I've mostly enjoyed all three films (even the supposedly abysmal Revenge Of The Fallen) there are some changes that I would like to see in the next film. Here are my suggestions for Transformers 4:
1. More Cybertron Please!
If Avatar made one contribution to humankind, it was to show that the general movie-going public isn't as averse to strange new CGI worlds as most Hollywood execs would have you believe. Therefore I believe that there's no good reason why the next Transformers shouldn't be set mostly, perhaps entirely, on Cybertron. Hopefully it'll be a prequel where we get to see how the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons first broke out. That would pretty awesome.
2. A Half-decent Screenplay Would Be Nice
A reboot requires fresh new ideas and therefore Paramount needs to hire a new screenwriter for the next batch of sequels. Ehren Kruger's screenplays have been the weakest link of the last two films so he definitely needs to go and hopefully they bring in some new writing talent.
3. Bring On The Dinobots
If you think that Transformers that change into cars look cool, wait till you see the Dinobots who, you guessed it, transform into dinosaurs. They're pretty cool and badass plus they would be an awesome way of introducing the wider world to an expanded Transformers universe so I'm definitely keen on seeing them on the big screen.
4. Less Humans, More Robots
This ties in to points 1 and 3 but I want to emphasise it because this really is what Transformers is all about. The events that take place on Earth form a relatively small part of the canon and I believe that the best way for the series to reboot is to move away from Earth to other more exotic and frankly interesting parts of the Transformers universe.
5. NO MORE DORKY HUMOUR!!!
Please for the love of God make it stop! A straightforward action-thriller, no-nonsense Transformers would be the best thing ever. The humour in the current series is at best unfunny but mostly excruciating to sit through.
What changes would you like to see in the next Transformer film?
Here are a few trailers for you to enjoy. Sometimes trailers give away the plot to films they preview but they can be entertaining nonetheless. Enjoy:
Spy Kids: All The Time In The World
Why is there a fourth Spy Kids movie? None of the first three were good films but some youngsters enjoyed them. Robert Rodriguez directs again. I think he was lucky in making the Desperado series, including Once Upon A Time in Mexico, as every film he has helmed since has been rather unimpressive in my opinion, except for Sin City, which was excellent. Jessica Alba starred in that and she features in this new Spy Kids film too. Perhaps she will deliver an interesting performance? She probably has some kind of motherly or old-sister role so that could force more out of her.
The Three Musketeers
We have another Three Musketeers movie. This one could me worse than the watchable 1994 movie or maybe even better. It is quite difficult to predict, seeing that it has the likes of Mathhew Macfadyen, Christoph Waltz and even Orlando, what happened to him, Bloom. It also features Mads Mikkelsen and Milla Jovovich. These actors all have shown some level of quality in their performances but the sometimes awful, hardly ever good, Paul W.S. Anderson directs. I would be less critical of him since I enjoyed his Event Horizon, Resident Evil movies and Mortal Kombat, which he directed but he made a weak Death Race. This guy has been an action movie man his whole career but hopefully he will couple this film with a decent storyline and acting.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet agent within MI6's echelons. - Imdb.com
The negative press emanating off the latest Tom Hanks film Larry Crowne could power an entire nuclear waster disposal unit for the rest of humanity's existence. It has yet to release here, so I'm not going to join in the trend. But it did make me think about Hollywood, the career of an actor or actress and the damage of the typecast.
Last night I watched A Breath of Scandal, a rather forgettable but pleasant enough oldie with Sophia Loren as a spoilt Viennese princess who falls in love with an American (John Gavin, who I can't say rings any huge bells). But to my point, La Loren pouts her way through the material looking bleached and frou-frou. If you looked closer, you could make out the rumblings of the superb actress underneath, but it was hard to tell under all that cheese. Which led me to wonder. Would we have Sophia Loren screen icon, if she had been typecast earlier in her career. I doubt it.
Tom Hanks likes to play a lovable, nice guy who sort of stumbles upon extraordinary circumstances (Splash, Big, The Green Mile, Cast Away, The Terminal), when he's not acting as a slightly slow Gump of a man (Forrest Gump), voicing a toy cowboy (Toy Story franchise), and every now and then breaking the mold (Philadelphia, Road to Perdition). He is a multiple Oscar winner and to all intents and purposes, a movie hero, an American sweetheart. Slow and steady. So what's with his apparent lack of pulling power?
Maybe audiences, who have grown used to Tom Hanks over the years, know what they're going to get. If it's Tom Hanks, well, you know that it will probably be a good film, and it will probably have the right elements of drama and comedy, and slightly bittersweet ending.
And maybe that's enough to have them staying at home content to wait for the DVD or the TV re-run. Just a thought.
Film site TotalFilm.com reported on Monday that the new Snow White And The Huntsman film will be a trilogy.
Producer Joe Roth said the Kristen Stewart-starring fairytale revamp would constitute three films.
"It's meant to be the first in a series of films," he said.
"This story will end, but there will be questions remaining for these three characters."
It sounds to me like a Stewart-vehicle to make yet more money. She has been in a bunch of Twilight films so why can she not star in another slew of fantastical movies?
She plays Snow White, who is sent away by Charlize Theron’s evil queen. Snow White then meets the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth of Thor).
"We retain the basic story in the same way we retain the basic story of Alice, a young girl meant to be the queen who is cast out," Mr Roth said.
"The Huntsman is a mercenary, in the sense that he's a guy who is very able in the woods, more able than most anyone. His job is to capture runaway girls, who are all fleeing the kingdom because of the queen.
"He's a nondescript bounty hunter, as we first meet him... He's not a nice guy, but not only that he’s someone who has lost hope and lost faith. He has lost his wife, given up on everything," he said.
I think Hemsworth may be able to act but Stewart leaves me with questions. Theron may make a good queen.
Who'd have thought it? Judd Apatow's gross-out comedy for women has topped Sex and the City to become the top R-rated female comedy of all time.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, SATC earned a $152.6 million with Bridesmaids already coming in at $152.9 million. And that was before the Independence Day end of run.
This is somewhat reassuring. Somewhat in that I can't see any other female ensemble cast comedies waiting in the wings. Sure, we've got the drama, like the recent For Coloured Girls, and any number of similar 'he did me wrong' stuff, ditto the traditional romcom. But funny women together? Let's see if this marks a change. I won't hold my breath.
Dare I even ask, do you think female comedies are funny?
Love him or hate him, the fairly consistent box office earnings of Tyler Perry's films mean that he sure knows how to please his core audience. Whether or not the actual films are any good is debatable because box office earnings are NOT directly proportional to great film making. So is the latest film in the Madea series any good? See my full review after the jump.
The third film in the Transformers series has proven to match up with the two previous films. It is not much better and not worse, pretty much the same things happen with a slight change in storyline.
Toy Story 3 may be a seen as a child's film about talking toys but it was made for adults who grew up with its predecessors. The first film in the trilogy was groundbreaking for its use of 3-D animation and well-written story. The second was a decent follow-up. The third finishes the tale well. It may make some adult viewers feel nostalgic but will also gain some new child fans, who could then watch the first two films.
Rating: 3/10 - Very Bad
There is said to be a curse that affects the Best Actress Oscar winners. They either lose their errant husbands, choose dud roles or slide into obscurity. Or all three. I was hopeful that Reese Witherspoon would not be one of them. From her performance in Man in the Moon to Walk the Line, she showed a certain style in her choice of film. Then along came this one.
Hello and welcome to our weekly Friday afternoon series where we highlight the best films to watch on TV during the weekend from Friday evening till Sunday night. See what those films are after the jump.
First look at the trailer for Spielberg's latest film, set to be released later this year. Based on the children's novel of the same name, War Horse is about the relationship of a young boy and his horse set against the back-drop of the First World War.
It looks like a first-class tear jerker. What do you think?
