Hokum. Lots of good actors, but c’mon. Hokum. If you’re going to watch one rousing hurt-men-using-fighting-to-heal from 2011, watch Real Steel, which relishes its loony cliches.
That said, I would happily watch another film, without mixed martial arts, that let Joel Edgerton and Nick Nolte mix it up. (Tom Hardy is smothered in Brando sauce, so he doesn’t get much room to shine here.)
As in “lean,” as well as “enumerate”–I have missed quite a few potentially worthy films, besides not yet having access to a bunch of others. But, still: ’tis the season. Great filmgoing (or dvdviewing) experiences of the year: Continue reading List
I had a little, happening to start what I expected to be 6 or 7 minutes of channelsurfing before opting for a book–and saw that HBO ran an early premiere of the new Milch/Mann track show. Full of hambone outsized sweaty scruffy performers and way too many introductions and a wee bit too much melodrama and an absolutely shit soundtrack, but with thickets of knotty, interesting Milchian prose and some invigorating thundering hooves and asses and flying dirtclods and three stables’ worth of great actors, most of whom showed promise but were a little hamstrung by the ham of their introductions… except Dustin Hoffman who pulls off a brilliant final scene and Dennis Farina who’s dialled it down below everyone else and commands your entire attention.
I am in. This already has me hitched, and with Nolte in the background and Michael Gambon and Joan Allen in the wings… it’s unlikely to snap a leg and fall flat.
I haven’t found a post on this film, directed by Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer), though I don’t trust our site’s sucky search engine, so maybe I missed this one. I sort of liked this, but it should have been a lot better. That’s a lame caveat I know, but in this case I think I know exactly what would have put this film over the top (right now it’s stalled at “well, okay”).
There is a new French action film. This is a category not unlike healthy fast food or Republican historian. It stars a guy with Barney Rubble eyes. His wife gets kidnapped, and there is a lot of running around. People are not what they seem to be! Or at least they aren’t to Barney, who is running so much he has trouble thinking. Why have so many of these recent French faux-llywood shindigs been so resolutely dull? At least Luc Besson has excess going for him.