October 16, 2012 2:36 pm
By Matt Ford
How to describe Seven Psychopaths:
Take a dash of goofy/gritty crime classic Snatch, throw in a Coen Brothers twist of nihilism, and sprinkle the disjointed (but purposeful) vignetting of Pulp Fiction. Then add a hearty helping of Christopher Walken, and you have Seven Psychopaths.
Shorter: It’s like a better version of Smoking Aces.
Seven Psychopaths is about a Los Angeles screenwriter, played by a (surprisingly?) capable Colin Farrell, whose writer’s block is mended by his homicidal homeboy (Sam Rockwell). The two end up teaming with a dog kidnapper (Walken) who steals Woody Harrelson’s shih tzu and has to suffer the consequences.
From the get-go, this movie is wildly entertaining. The humor is biting, the storytelling is suspenseful, and the character development is well-executed.
Here are five reasons why you should see Seven Psychopaths:
September 7, 2012 11:17 am
By Justin Elliott
To evaluate these adult playgrounds I used the following criteria:
1. Drinking
2. Gambling
3. Walking around
4. Weather
5. “Scenery”
6. Wild Card/Shenanigans
I ranked each city 1-10 in each of the categories. In the spirit of gambling, I’m setting the line: Vegas -11.5.
July 23, 2012 1:18 pm
By Matt Ford
The Good:
Rebounding from Maggie Gyllenhall, who wouldn’t sleep with you DESPITE KNOWING FULL WELL YOU ARE FUCKING BATMAN, to Anne Hathaway in full-body spandex. Let’s hope the girl who first played Rachel Dawes achieves a similar narrative.
Marion Cotillard. Quietly putting together one of the best resumes in Hollywood since 2009 — Inception, Midnight in Paris, Dark Knight Rises, Contagion, Public Enemies — Mademoiselle Cotillard is nailing down the “Not Bat-Shit Crazy Female Actress Who Is Not Just Hot But Can Also Act” niche previously occupied by Natalie Portman and never once occupied by Megan Fox.
Riding the wave of the Occupy movement. DKR manages to at least pay homage to the most significant cultural protest in half a century.
The Bad:
A truly ridiculous appearance by The Scarecrow, which caused the crowd in my theater to actually LOL the moment he appeared on screen. The only explanation I have for scenes with The Scarecrow are that Dark Knight Rises had to adhere to the International Law stating Cillian Murphy has to be in every Christopher Nolan movie.
Verdict: Tough to nitpick at a great movie — overall, DKR gets at least a 9 on the scale of 1-to-Dark Knight.
June 27, 2012 3:46 pm
Matt Ford
HBO and Aaron Sorkin are a match made in heaven: People will watch a show on HBO just because it’s on HBO, and people will watch anything Aaron Sorkin writes just because Aaron Sorkin wrote it.
So, guess that explains how an hour-long show about a bunch of rich white people working in a Manhattan office got green-lit.
The point of the show is to demonstrate the value in “playing up” instead of dumbing down news content to avoid controversy. Having said that, the news network is called “Atlantis,” which might be the most obvious allusion to “Something Beautiful That Has Since Been Lost And Is Irrecoverable” since I mentioned “1996 Britney Spears” right now.
So, should you watch The Newsroom?
I think The Newsroom will be like that soggy slice of pizza you order at 3 in the morning after a night out in New York. It’s the worst thing you will definitely eat every bite of, because in your heart, you know it’s a good idea for your future well-being.
June 26, 2012 11:59 am
By Chris Badders
There we were, 4:30am on the Bonnaroo campgrounds, weaving through row after row of RV’s that had already set up camp. We’d only been there 15 minutes and I could already tell that this was not going to be your average ‘Roo experience.
It’s not just a music festival. It’s that warm cup of cocoa on a cold winter day when you’ve come in from playing in the snow. It’s the first plunge into the ocean on a hot summer day. It’s the hug from your mother when you come home for a family reunion. It’s sitting in a hammock on a windy spring day. It’s the best party you went to in college. It’s the best sex you’ve ever had and the best drug you’ve ever taken – all wrapped into one.
It’s home.
June 12, 2012 10:17 am
By Matt Ford
Prometheus can only be described as an un-scary horror movie that purports to be “thinking” movie, whose only problem is that it was written by someone with no brain.
Everyone values different traits in movies. Some value the experience of a visually amazing film, and Prometheus is surely that.
But when you see the girl who played Lisabeth Salander in the Norweigan Dragon Tattoo films zipping Michael Fassbender’s severed, yet still-speaking head into a duffel bag, you start to wonder exactly how long the screenwriters spent developing the plot.
Prometheus’ marketing and framing seems to suggest the main question behind the film is, “Who created humans and why?” That question is fairly heavy, right? The movie starts to build toward answering that question, but goes in a totally different direction, ultimately asking, “Who are the grandparents of the alien in ‘Alien?’” (I’m serious. Keep reading.)
May 31, 2012 4:00 pm
By Chris Badders
Historical evidence is shady on how the fued between the Hatfields and McCoys started, but from what the series tells us, it began when William Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield (Costner) deserted his regiment of the Rebel Army during the Civil War, leaving a sour taste in the mouth of Randolph “Ole Ran’l” McCoy (Paxton). Apparently Ran’l was a man of God and a man of honor, and he thought Hatfield was neither.
That’s one theory.
Or maybe the feud began when Jim Vance (or was it Jim Nantz?), Costner’s uncle, shot a McCoy after he enlisted in the Union instead of the Confederacy.
Or maybe it started when a Hatfield man stole Ran’l McCoy’s pig.
Are we seeing a pattern here?
May 21, 2012 11:08 am
By Matt Ford
Sacha Baron Cohen is In the Rafters because of what he shouldn’t do. He is so willing to go anywhere for a laugh that he is truly dangerous. We never know what to expect of him. He could kiss Will Ferrell on the lips. He could kidnap Pamela Anderson. He could run through a hotel naked wrestling another naked, obese man.
You or I might get the joke, but the people who don’t are Baron Cohen’s muse. And he tests everyone extensively to see if they can’t take a joke, or at what point they become the joke themselves.
The Dictator works because Baron Cohen’s “Supreme Leader Admiral-General” Aladeen is a really complete comic character (and will be the most popular Halloween costume this year, I guarantee that). He is as brutally offensive, sexist, racist, ignorant, and vain as you should expect. The humor has Baron Cohen’s weird fingerprints all over it.
May 14, 2012 5:47 pm
By Matt Ford
Think about how many superhero movies there have been in the last ten years. An incomplete, but wildly lengthy list: Three Batmans (pending Dark Knight Rises), two Iron Mans, two Fantastic Fours, Two Hellboys, and about 30 X-Men flicks.
With all of that superhero clutter, how do you make a good superhero movie in 2012?
Simple! Put 20 superheroes on screen together and have them all fight an army of aliens in New York City.
