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Showing posts with the label colin farrell

DUMBO (2019) - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

TIM BURTON'S DUMBO - PODCAST

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We talk about the upcoming Dumbo remake on The Big Rewind .

THE LOBSTER - REVIEW

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From director Yorgos Lanthimos, The Lobster is an absurdist black comedy set in a near future where single people are forced to pair up romantically with someone within a month and a half or else they get turned into animals. Colin Farrell is a newly single man who is escorted to a strange hotel where he begins his search for a new mate. He is given a specific number of days to meet someone and this time can only be extended if he manages to hunt and kill other single people who have escaped to live in the forest as they are not welcome in society. As you can see, this isn't exactly your typical rom-com and, in fact, it's a rather grim look at dating norms and the pressures of society in general. The very dry, deadpan humour makes it a more palatable satire but the film never sugarcoats the more brutal aspects of that dystopia. People literally lose their humanity, commit suicide, mutilate each other: this is a desperate and cruel world that forces emotional connections i

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM - REVIEW

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Because a franchise like Harry Potter is simply too popular to just stop, J.K. Rowling soon delivered Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them , a prequel of sorts following Newt Scamander, a wizard zoologist specialising in the strangest and rarest creatures. Eddie Redmayne is Scamander, the twitchy introvert with a briefcase packed full of "fantastic beasts" who gets stuck in New York after he accidentally switches bags with a wannabe baker. Scamander is then forced to not only recover every loose creature but deal with the stern Magical Congress plus a secret plot to take him down. There's something genuinely refreshing about a prequel that, not only doesn't just copy the original franchise, but expands its universe and introduces us to a new lead character who is very different. The biggest problem with the Harry Potter movies was always Harry himself: passive, bland and seemingly disinterested, he made Neo from the Matrix movies look like he was having the

10 COOL THINGS ABOUT... DAREDEVIL (2003)

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I try to find 10 cool things about Marvel's first attempt at a Daredevil movie. It wasn't easy...

DAREDEVIL - REVIEW

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As we celebrate the release of Netflix's second season of the Daredevil series, I look back at the Marvel character's first and only movie outing to date: the 2003 film starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. The film did well at the box-office upon its release but audiences and critics alike weren't too thrilled about it. Not that it was universally hated or anything, it just failed to bring the same level of excitement as the X-Men or Spider-Man movies of the time and was destined to a Hulk -style mass shunning. Daredevil did receive something of a cult following on DVD, especially after the release of the superior Director's Cut which wisely expanded the actual story thereby giving the film a more balanced pace and emphasising the mostly silly action sequences a little less. Ben Affleck pulls off that red leather costume more than people give him credit for and it's a bit unfair of those who make fun of it to also praise the new series since I would ar

SAVING MR. BANKS - REVIEW

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There's biopics and then there's sort-of-biopics which don't exactly go through a person's entire life's work but which instead focus on one specific, iconic event. Think Capote , Hitchcock or, more recently, Saving Mr. Banks : a look at how Walt Disney obtained the rights to Mary Poppins from the story's writer P. L. Travers. This one isn't even really a making-of movie as we see none of the filming for Mary Poppins or (wisely) meet any weird Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke lookalikes. Saving Mr. Banks limits itself to a few recording sessions with Travers (Emma Thompson) and The Sherman Brothers, who came up with all of the film's catchy songs, intercut with flashbacks depicting some of the writer's early life and conversations she had with Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) as well as Paul Giamatti's chatty driver. Finding out why Travers resisted Disney's offers to buy the movie rights to Poppins for so long and why Disney was this insistent

PHONE BOOTH - REVIEW

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Film premises don't get much simpler than that. A dude answers the phone in a phone booth and ends up being kept there by a maniacal sniper-wielding stranger who makes him do whatever he wants and sounds exactly like Jack Bauer. The entire film takes place, you've guessed it, in and around a single phone booth and attempts a Hitchcockian thriller within that limited setting. Colin Farrell plays the put-upon Stu, a douchy New York publicist "romantically" interested in one of his clients, played by the reliably squeaky-voiced Katie Holmes, despite being married. The voice on the phone, Kiefer Sutherland's voice that is, forces Stu into making awkward, morally grey decisions and the suspense rests on both whether Stu is smart enough to pull through and whether Sutherland's creep is as truly insane as he seems. It's unclear what the mysterious caller wants so, as the viewer, you're left to slowly make your mind up about that, which really helps bui

FRIGHT NIGHT - REVIEW

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Good vampire movies are hard to come by these days so when a vamp flick remake comes along, it's near impossible to get interested. Chances are, no pun intended, it'll suck. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found myself sitting there loving every bit of this ridiculously fun Fright Night remake. It wasn't meant to work, goshdarnit! And yet... it really does. Even the 3D adds a certain welcome trashiness to the whole thing making it a good old-fashioned slasher (with pointy fangs) the likes of which John Carpenter and Wes Craven probably wish they could still do. What tends to often kill that type of movie is its whiny teen cast but here we're given a likeable bunch you actually don't necessarily want to see get munched on and/or torn to shreds. Anton Yelchin makes a decent weasely hero while Christopher Mintz-Plasse does his McLovin schtick with added (and welcome) paranoia. Fine support is also given by Imogen Poots and James Franco's bro Dave, who m