22 Thursday Jun 2017
Posted in Movies
Meryl Streep and Bruce Campbell both celebrate their birthdays today, which prompts the obvious question:
Why haven’t they co-starred in a movie yet?
Ash vs Florence Foster Jenkins perhaps? Or maybe a remake of Death Becomes Her (1992) with Streep reprising her role, and Campbell taking over from Bruce Willis? Whatever the idea or the combination, someone, somewhere, get these two together in a movie – now, before it’s too late…
17 Saturday Dec 2016
Posted in Movies
You’re an accomplished comedienne known for being “edgy” (whatever that really means), and for your award-winning TV show. In 2015, you appear in a comedy drama playing a thinly-veiled version of yourself that picks up a fair degree of critical acclaim. The world, it seems, is your oyster. You can choose your next movie project with the confidence of someone who has put a great big dent in people’s conceptions of who you are. The movie you made is Trainwreck, and you are Amy Schumer. And the project you’ve decided to make next is Snatched (2017).
So, with that in mind, this impromptu, unexpected Question of the Week is really quite simple:
Amy Schumer – what were you thinking?
23 Wednesday Nov 2016
Posted in Movies
Tags
$10 billion, Box Office, Captain America: Civil War, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Question of the Week
First, the answer to the last Question of the Week from 13 November 2016: which of the five stars mentioned – John Goodman, Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, Ryan Gosling, Kristen Wiig – didn’t appear in one of the following movies: Infamous (2006); Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011); Lullaby (2014); Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011); and The Midnight Meat Train (2008)?
The answer is Kristen Wiig, and she didn’t appear in Lullaby (2014).
This week’s Question of the Week is connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This year, the release of Captain America: Civil War saw Marvel pass the $10 billion mark in box office returns. It’s an amazing feat – based on just thirteen movies – and Doctor Strange‘s returns have already passed the $500,000 mark, so there’s no sign of their success slowing down, or being curtailed, any time soon. With that in mind, this week’s Question of the Week is:
Could another studio ever achieve the same level of success as Marvel is currently enjoying?
NOTE: This will be the last Question of the Week for the foreseeable future. It’s making way for the return of Poster of the Week.
13 Sunday Nov 2016
Posted in Movies
Tags
Maribel Verdú, Matchstick Men, Odd One Out, Performances, Question of the Week, Sam Rockwell, Y tu mamá también
Sometimes, when you’re looking through an actor or actress’s filmography, you discover a movie you’d either forgotten they were in, or that you didn’t even realise they were in it in the first place. This happened to me earlier today when I was checking the career of Spanish actress Maribel Verdú, and was reminded that she was the “older woman” in Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también (2001) (well, it was a while ago, and I haven’t seen the movie since it came out).
It got me thinking about other stars and the movies they’ve appeared in “back in the day”. Not their first performances, but roles where the passage of time has meant that it’s unlikely you’d remember them being in a certain movie, such as Sam Rockwell in Ridley Scott’s Matchstick Men (2003). Using this as an example of early onset Alzheimer’s, here are five stars and five movies they may or may not have appeared in.
John Goodman Infamous (2006)
Sandra Bullock Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)
Bradley Cooper Lullaby (2014)
Ryan Gosling Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)
Kristen Wiig The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
All of which leads to this week’s Question of the Week:
Which star didn’t appear in which movie (and no looking it up on IMDb)?
29 Saturday Oct 2016
Tags
Ouija: Origin of Evil, Ouija: The Devil's Game, Plagiarism, Poster, Question of the Week, You Will Kill
This week’s question is a really, really simple one, but also one that relies on people’s awareness of Lulu Wilson’s character and appearance in Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016). The poster below is for the UK re-release on DVD of You Will Kill (2015) (aka Ouija Summoning). Take a look at it, then ask yourself this week’s Question of the Week (see below).
Should the makers of Ouija: Origin of Evil sue for copyright infringement?
20 Thursday Oct 2016
Posted in Movies
This week the question is a simple one, and is based on a simple premise. How do some actors and actresses manage to find regular employment in movies when they clearly can’t act their way out of a paper bag? (That’s not this week’s question, that’s just part of the preamble.) These are actors and actresses that are well-known, have appeared in many well-known movies, but have yet to give a decent performance in any of them (well, maybe once, to be fair). And yet they keep getting hired… and hired… Is it because they have great agents who are very good at getting them parts time after disappointing time? (That’s still not the question.) Or are they just very, very, lucky – or always available? (Wait for it…) So, in the light of all this, this week’s Question of the Week is:
Just how do Liam Hemsworth and Chloë Grace Moretz manage to keep on working?
08 Saturday Oct 2016
Posted in Movies
Disney’s decision to remake their animated classic, The Jungle Book (1967) as a live-action movie has certainly paid off handsomely at the box office, having taken $966,220,138, while also garnering quite a bit of critical approbation. And though they’ve tinkered with this sort of thing before now – 101 Dalmatians (1996), Alice in Wonderland (2010), Cinderella (2015) – it’s looking as if the House of Mouse is going all out to re-invent its animated classics as live-action classics as well. 2017 will bring us Beauty and the Beast, with Emma Watson, while various other projects are in equally various stages of development, from Dumbo (to be directed by Tim Burton), to Pinocchio, to Mulan. It’s an ambitious scheme, and some movies are likely to stand or fall based on how popular they were in their animated form, so it will be interesting to see which movies get adapted and which ones are successful. But one burning question remains, and it’s this week’s two-part Question of the Week:
Has Disney gone remake crazy at the expense of more original projects, and if so, should we be pleased and excited, or deflated and demoralised by the prospect?
24 Saturday Sep 2016
Posted in Movies
With the news earlier this week that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are getting divorced “for the good of the family”, there’s a feeling that their break up was inevitable. After all, they’re not the first couple to make a movie together and then decide it’s not working (the marriage, not the movie; though sometimes it is both). Having made the less than absorbing By the Sea (2015) – about a failing marriage, no less – the end of Brangelina appears to have occurred as an expected consequence. Make a movie where you play a couple who are no longer happy with each other, and as Woody Harrelson’s character in Now You See Me 2 (2016) puts it, “Bingo, bango, bongo!”, you’ve got a predictable case of Life imitating Art.
And they’re not the first couple to end up fighting each other in the tabloids and/or a courtroom. Who can forget the unlikely pairing of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman – as a real life couple, not as an on screen one – in Eyes Wide Shut (1999)? Again, a serious movie about relationship troubles, and soon afterwards, a marriage in tatters. And on a lighter note there’s the always doomed Bennifer, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, in the so-bad-it’ll-only-be-a-cult-movie-when-everyone’s-dead celluloid disaster, Gigli (2003) (Jeez, was it really that long ago?). At least they didn’t have to fight over the kids.
Of course, and all joking aside, married couples who act together don’t always split up. Take Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith who appeared together in Autómata (2014) – oh, hang on, no, they split up the same year. Well, if not them then there’s Ben Affleck (him again) and Jennifer Garner – oh no, hang on, they split up last year, and they didn’t even make a movie together. Oh well, you can’t win ’em all (just ask Brad Pitt, who now gets to add suspected child abuser to his resumé). So with all that in mind, this week’s Question of the Week is:
Should married couples who act, appear in movies together, and should they appear as a couple fighting to save/end a doomed marriage?
13 Tuesday Sep 2016
Forget the obvious question: why make another Ring movie? Instead, watch the trailer:
…and then ask yourself this very simple question:
Wouldn’t it be great if Samuel L. Jackson showed up and said, “I HAVE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERF*CKING RINGS ON THIS MOTHERF*CKING PLANE!”?
(Or is it just me?)
04 Sunday Sep 2016
Posted in Movies
Finally… it’s the Disney animated movie you’ve been waiting to see for so long that it’s almost as if it was never going to be released. You’re an adult, sure, but you’ve been watching Disney’s animated movies since you could run around in your garden pretending to be Mowgli. But there’s a problem: the movie’s being released during the school holidays. The screenings at your local cinema will be full of fidgeting, talking, drink-slurping, popcorn-munching, easily distracted children. They’ll continually ask their parents what’s going on, or who a particular character is, or why somebody is doing something. And if they don’t like the movie, they’ll start to complain that they’re bored and they want to go home, or that they want to see another movie altogether. They will tax your patience to the very limit. And you will sit there inwardly fuming – at the children, at their parents for bringing their unruly offspring with them to the cinema, and at whatever deity you choose to call out for letting this situation happen every single time you go to see a so-called children’s movie.
But what can you do? You can’t tell a child to be quiet/behave/sit still or you’ll take its head off (definitely not advisable). But what other option is there? Well, there’s one, but it will need cinema chains to think outside the box a little bit. All of which leads us to this week’s Question of the Week:
Should there be adults only showings of children’s movies such as Finding Dory or Ice Age: Collision Course?
24 Wednesday Aug 2016
Posted in Movies
In today’s must-have-it-as-soon-as-possible society, the use of sites such as Pirate Bay and KickAss Torrents means that the availability of movies is that much more widespread, and the choice of movies that much greater. A look at Pirate Bay today reveals the availability of movies such as Wiener-Dog and Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, titles that are either still showing in cinemas or have yet to be released on DVD/Blu-ray. Whether or not you agree with the illegal downloading of movies, what’s evident from the popularity of these sites and the sheer volume of movies that can be accessed, is that this avenue of access is here to stay. The studios and production companies trot out the usual cries of woe about loss of sales and how it’s harming future investment, but this phenomena has been around for a long time now, and cinema sales are still pretty buoyant each year. What seems incredible is that the studios et al haven’t found a way of embracing the system these sites offer, and making huge profits from our need to see movies as soon as possible. So, with that in mind, this week’s Question of the Week is this:
Should all movies, whatever their source, be available across all platforms – cinema, home video, digital download, streaming, pay-per-view – on the same day of release?
13 Saturday Aug 2016
Posted in Movies
Currently, there is no more divisive subject in mainstream cinema than the quality of the Warner Bros.’ movies set in the DC Extended Universe. Ever since Man of Steel rebooted the Superman franchise back in 2013, the merits of each successive movie in the DCEU (as it’s referred to) have been subjected to the critical equivalent of a full-scale autopsy. On the one hand you have fans of the DCEU who rail against any notion of these movies being anything other than entertaining, excellent examples of modern superhero movie making. On the other hand you have the naysayers (fans or otherwise) who decry these efforts as dreadful, cynical money-making exercises. There’s very little middle ground, although there are some folks out there who are able to voice more constructive opinions, but these opinions aren’t really being heard in the maelstrom of vitriolic arguments that seem to be the only response DCEU fans and their “opponents” can muster when confronting each other.
There are as many fans and detractors on the Marvel front. The air of superiority that Marvel fans lord over DCEU fans, and which stems mostly from Marvel’s continued dominance at the international box office, can often lead to the same arguments that dominate the DECU debates though. This movie is bad, that movie is better, they should do this, the movies would be better if they did that. Everyone except for the writers and producers and directors seems to know what will make these movies work. (Already, and with nearly a year to go before its release, Wonder Woman has been referred to as “a mess”, as if this is of any relevance to anything. Think about it.) With so much time and money and effort involved in making these movies, you’d hope that the results would be better each time, but there’s clearly something wrong with the DCEU movies that isn’t happening (as much) with Marvel’s output. Which makes this week’s Question of the Week a simple one:
Why do the current spate of DCEU superhero movies still inspire such devotion and passion when they’re clearly not working to their full potential – or is that the point?
07 Sunday Aug 2016
Posted in Movies
This week has seen the release of the first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, which is due out next year. I won’t dwell too much on the content – you can see for yourselves below what it’s made up of – but what does seem baffling is the point of releasing it at all. The movie won’t be released until July 2017, so with around a year to go, why put out a trailer, and a teaser trailer at that, that allows us just the briefest glimpses of material that, if Nolan’s previous movies are anything to go by, will be part of a movie that runs for over two hours? I can understand the idea of whetting our appetites, but as the trailer tells us so little (which isn’t completely a bad thing, not in these days of trailer overkill), why bother? As a collection of random images it’s fine, and you could argue that Nolan’s take on the rescue mission will be a suitably atmospheric one, but still – did it need to be released a) so far ahead of the movie’s arrival, or b) with so little in it to pique our interest? With all that in mind, this week’s Question of the Week is as follows:
Is there a genuine place for the teaser trailer in today’s modern marketing strategy, or is it just an outdated tool that’s no longer useful in promoting a movie?
30 Saturday Jul 2016
Posted in Movies
Fans of Matt Damon will be intrigued, or just plain excited, by his presence in Yimou Zhang’s latest epic, The Great Wall, due later this year. It’s a fantasy/action period piece that asks the question, why was the great wall built? Was it to keep people out, or was it to keep out – speak of it only in hushed tones – something far worse? If you’ve seen the trailer by now then you’ll already know the answer (and let’s just say it’s not Po the Kung Fu Panda). But if you haven’t, and you’re wondering what on earth Matt Damon is doing appearing in an historical drama set in China, then… join the rest of us.
Perhaps it was being able to work with Yimou, still one of China’s most distinctive and exhilarating movie directors, even if it’s been ten years since he made Curse of the Golden Flower (2006), perhaps his last movie to gain both critical and commercial plaudits worldwide. Or maybe it’s the chance to spend time in China itself, a kind of busman’s holiday. Either way, Damon is there taking part and kicking – whoa there! Nearly gave it away (let the trailer do that).
But it’s not the first time an A-list Hollywood star has appeared in a movie set in historical China. Tom Cruise was once The Last Samurai (2003), while more recently we’ve seen the likes of Adrien Brody and Nicolas Cage donning historical armour and pitching up in Chinese movies – Brody opposite Jackie Chan in Dragon Blade (2015), and Cage taking Hayden Christensen under his wing in Outcast (2014). In all three of these movies, the presence of such stars has no doubt been encouraged to help boost international sales (and The Last Samurai was hugely successful, raking in over $450 million), but the so-called Marco Polo effect really only works when the Occidental character is, well, Marco Polo. So, with that all in mind, this week’s question is (obviously):
In this day and age, is the presence of a globally well-known star still the (potential) guarantee of box office success that Oriental movie makers seem to think it is, or are they being hired purely because they’re the best actor for the role?
22 Friday Jul 2016
Posted in Movies
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Lionsgate have announced that they’re thinking of releasing the last movie in the Divergent series, Ascendant, on the small screen instead of in cinemas. And with new characters that will allow the company to develop a spin-off TV series.
Now, if you’re a fan of the Divergent series – and if box office returns for Allegiant are any indication, there are fewer of you than when Insurgent was released – this might feel as though Lionsgate have betrayed their initial promise to bring Veronica Roth’s YA novels to the big screen. But while Allegiant was very disappointing due to its downplaying of Tris’s role and revelation that the Big Bad behind everything was a bean counter, you could argue that Lionsgate did themselves no favours by splitting the last novel into two movies.
Which makes their decision to move forward with a TV movie and spin-off series all the more confusing. If audiences are dwindling so badly, and interest in the movie series is waning, on what creative or financial level is it a good idea to develop a TV show from the same material? Lionsgate have been greedy before, and it’s worked, with two-part releases for Twilight: Breaking Dawn and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay being very successful indeed. But clearly their strategy has backfired on them this time. So with this in mind, this week’s question is:
Should companies adapting book trilogies for the big screen adopt a movie-by-movie approach to making them, or should they take the approach used on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies and make them all at once?
07 Thursday Jul 2016
Posted in Movies
Tags
London Has Fallen, Mandrake the Magician, Question of the Week, Sacha Baron Cohen, Serials, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Zootopia
Before we get to this week’s question, here’s the answer to Question of the Week – 3 July 2016. The question was:
All three of the movies pictured below were released at the same time in March 2016 – but which is the odd one out?
The answer should have been obvious to anyone who’s seen all three movies: the odd one out is Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. The other two movies feature cartoon characters.
This week’s question has come about thanks to the announcement recently that Sacha Baron Cohen will be bringing Mandrake the Magician to our screens in 2019. Having seen and reviewed the 1939 serial starring Tristram Coffin (gotta love that name!), it strikes me that there’s a degree of barrel-scraping going on here. If so, then this week’s question is a straightforward one:
Can Hollywood reboot an old-time serial and make it work with a modern spin, especially if those old-time serials weren’t all that great to begin with?
Let me know what you think by leaving a comment. Until next time
03 Sunday Jul 2016
Posted in Movies
This week’s question is a simple one:
All three of the movies pictured below were released at the same time in March 2016 – but which is the odd one out?
(The answer can be found in the next Question of the Week, arriving on 7 July 2016.)
26 Sunday Jun 2016
Posted in Movies
Director’s Cuts have been with us for quite some time now, and often they’re the version of a movie that we should have seen in cinemas – it’s unlikely that anyone watching the extended versions of all three Lord of the Rings movies will want to go back to the theatrical cuts (or even prefer them). But whether Director’s Cuts provide us with a fully realised vision, or enable a director to add/extend scenes he/she wasn’t able to retain in a theatrical cut, there’s a market out there among movie buffs for so-called extended versions. Occasionally, some of these Director’s Cuts make it onto the big screen, as with Dances With Wolves (1990), which gave fans of the movie a whole extra hour to enjoy. But more often than not, the Director’s Cut is restricted to the home video market, where it still attracts fans and/or interested viewers, but isn’t given the acknowledgment it may (or may not) deserve. With this in mind, this week’s Question of the Week is as follows:
Should Director’s Cuts be given a theatrical release – if only for a limited time – so that fans or audiences in general, can see a movie exactly as their directors envisaged?
18 Saturday Jun 2016
As of today there are twenty-six movies that have made over one billion dollars at the international box office – and all but eight of them are sequels. It’s reassuring that the top two movies are original features (thanks, Jim!), but with big budget sequels driving and dominating today’s box office, it’s hard to believe that the make up of the Billion Dollar Club will change anytime soon (indeed, sixteen of the twenty-six movies in the list have further sequels planned to succeed them). With this in mind, this week’s question is:
Have audiences become unwilling to invest their time and money (and attention) in original material, and have they become too infatuated with the “cult of the blockbuster sequel” to stretch their cinematic horizons?
10 Friday Jun 2016
Posted in Movies
There’s been an awful (awful) lot of speculation recently about whether or not the next James Bond movie will see a different actor in the role, or if Daniel Craig will relent on his apparent assertion that he’s done with the part. Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that the role has changed hands, but in amongst all the talk of Tom Hiddleston or Idris Elba or Jamie Bell stepping into Bond’s shoes, one thing seems to have been overlooked. It’s not about the role per se, more about the nature of the Bond movies and their need for reinvention. Putting aside the involvement of George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton, this week’s question is:
With the franchise showing continual signs of decreasing returns in terms of quality once an actor has reached his fourth outing, should the producers now look to limit an actor’s involvement to only three movies before rebooting the whole set up again and again?
31 Tuesday May 2016
Posted in Movies
With X-Men: Apocalypse receiving a very mixed reaction from critics and audiences alike – it’s either a terrific adaptation that feels like a filmed comic book, or it’s turgid nonsense that lacks structure and has too many characters – the recent announcement by Bryan Singer that he won’t be around for the next X-Men movie may not have come as much of a surprise. Having returned to the franchise with X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), and steered it to nearly three quarters of a billion dollars at the international box office, it seemed certain that Singer – along with writer/producer Simon Kinberg – would be able to repeat that instalment’s success with X-Men: Apocalypse. But it’s a funny thing: maybe Singer isn’t to blame, and maybe it’s not Singer who should step away from the franchise (though he probably does want to make other non-mutant filled movies). No, perhaps it should be Simon Kinberg, the writer of X-Men: Apocalypse, and wait – hang on, the writer of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (that quote of Jean Grey’s – “At least we can all agree the third one is always the worst” – begins to make sense now). And wait just one second – he wrote Fantastic Four (2015) as well! (WtF?) With this in mind, this week’s question is an easy one:
With the latest X-Men trilogy now completed, is it time for a fresh pair of hands to take control of any further X-Men movies and bring a new perspective on it all, or should we let the same people carry on and potentially devalue the franchise even further?
25 Wednesday May 2016
Posted in Movies
Tags
Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, International Box Office, Marvel, Question of the Week
With the news this week that Captain America: Civil War has already reaped over a billion dollars at the international box office – $1,059,936,681 as of today – it seems that the Marvel Cinematic Juggernaut is well and truly here to stay (not that there was any real doubt about that). Doctor Strange is due this November, but it’s unlikely that anyone thinks it’ll do the same kind of business; for that to happen again, Marvel themselves are probably looking toward the two Infinity War movies to bring in that kind of money. Which begs this week’s question:
Given Marvel’s current dominance at the international box office, is there any likelihood of their “dropping the ball” in the next few years and seeing that dominance wane, or are we probably going to be seeing, say, Phase 10 in 2048?
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