Everyone thinks that Harrison Ford is the only man who can play Indiana Jones. I respectfully disagree.
In response to some talk that Harrison Ford wants Indy killed off in the next installment, I thought I’d repeat my argument: Either pass on the torch to Shia LeBeouf and have him play the new Indiana Jones, or cast someone else in the role, James Bond-style. My pick? Nathan Fillion.
Continue reading “The Case For Nathan Fillion to Play Indiana Jones”
Despite some excellent performances, Julie Taymor’s take on Shakespeare’s swan song doesn’t quite work.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
I love Julie Taymor. I don’t always love her movies.
Watching her lavish new adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest brought me back to a lot of things — my adoration of the play, my impatience with the play, my early days writing for CC2K. I also found myself reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of film versus theater and how they challenge filmmakers who try to usher Shakespeare’s plays onto the screen.
I also found myself contemplating the role of special effects in moviemaking and how computer-generated effects still have the capacity to fail so utterly. I hate to shine so harsh a light on the special effects in a Shakespeare movie, but The Tempest is packed with some jaw-droppingly bad ones. They got in the way, when they should have helped the movie soar.
As a fan of comic books and comic-book movies, I’m moved to take a long, hard look at one of the fundamental eccentricities of our chosen genre and ask ourselves: Why the hell would anyone dress up like that?
Continue reading “Thoughts on Justification, Retconning and Superhero Costumes”
Aw, what a great time.
Doug Liman calls on perennial tough guy Tom Cruise to play a wimp in the opening reels of his crackerjack-entertaining sci-fi action flick Edge of Tomorrow, and Cruise is up for the challenge. The movie falls into the same proud tradition of time-loop head-spinners like Groundhog Day, as well as some other memorable episodes from the annals of TV sci-fi. I’ll get to those in a moment, but first I wanted to touch briefly on Cruise’s performance and the relationship between “character” actors and leading men.
Bryan Singer’s sprightly Days of Future Past jettisons most of the youngsters from the 2011 reboot in favor of the series’ new leading men, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. It’s the right call, but the filmmakers commit one small blunder: They make Wolverine the hero.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Frank Pavich’s documentary, Jodorowsky’s Dune, looks at the fantasy of an ultimate, unlikely fanboy and asks what might’ve been. At the risk of committing geek heresy, I suspect we might be better off not knowing.
Godzilla director Gareth Edwards made the wise choice to go old-school with his 2014 reboot, tapping into the venerable franchise’s most potent power source: our shared dread of disaster, both natural and man-made.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
I can’t in good conscience recommend Harmony Korine’s haunting Trash Humpers to everyone. But there’s a certain subset of our audience who’ll find it irresistible.
Continue reading “Haunting Endurance Cinema: Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers”
Room 237, a delirious trip down multiple rabbit-holes of film fandom, provides me with constant assurance that no matter how obsessed I may become with a movie, there’s always someone more obsessed.
Robert J. Peterson, Author 