While it’s not as wacky or boundary pushing as one might expect given the creative comedic talents involved, Moonbase 8 is a dryly funny and surprisingly heartfelt series that seems custom tailored to our isolating times
John C. Reilly
Nowhere near as inspired, zany, or hilarious as one would expect from its cast and premise, Homes & Watson (which wasn’t screened in advance of its Christmas Day release for reviewing press) has a few light chuckles and an overwhelming and frustrating amount of missed potential.
John C. Reilly returns as Wreck-It Ralph today in Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet, and I had the distinct pleasure of chatting with the star about stepping back into the role.
A sequel that greatly improves on the original, Ralph Breaks the Internet makes better use of its characters, sprawling video game universe, and core concepts than Wreck-It Ralph.
A unique, beguiling, and subtly humorous take on the western genre, French filmmaker Jacques Audiard’s adaptation of Canadian novelist Patrick DeWitt’s The Sisters Brothers breathes ingenious new life into a cinematic artform that always feels like it’s on perpetual life support.
The idea of blending the 14th century bawdiness and morality tales of Boccaccio’s The Decameron with modern day potty mouthed deadpan comedy sounds like the potential recipe for a disastrously dry experiment in bad taste, but writer-director Jeff Baena’s The Little Hours instead strikes as a welcome, if somewhat uneven novelty. It’s strange, lightweight, and assuredly not to all tastes, but its unique set of sensibilities and influences are worth appreciating.
We all have our roles in life, but as the movie Wreck-It Ralph points out, it’s important to know the difference between who you are and what you do. In director Rich Moore’s Wreck-It Ralph, John C. Reilly stars as the voice of the villain, Wreck-It Ralph, from an eight-bit eighties-style game called Fix-It Felix, Jr.
Opening this week at a theatre near you: Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz star in the action-comedy, Knight And Day; John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill fight it out for the love of a woman in Cyrus; and Adam Sandler leads a group of aging guys in the reunion comedy, Grown Ups.
This week on DVD and Blu-ray, Matt Damon stars in Steven Soderbergh‘s corporate drama, The Informant!; Cameron Diaz and James Marsden play a troubled couple in the sci-fi film, The Box; plus a look at Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant and Sorority Row.
Happy New Year, everyone. The holidays are safely behind us now, and the epic pile of new releases that came out at the end of 2009 is slowly starting to dwindle. There are a few notable new films on DVD and Blu-ray though, including the wonderfully silly, The Final Destination, the animated sci-fi adventure, 9, not to mention the campy Jennifer’s Body, and the animated movie, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.