Bringing a reported close to the nearly twenty year cycle of X-Men movies for Twentieth Century Fox (although, depending on where you draw that line, it could only be nine years for the end of this cycle), Dark Phoenix caps things off with a half-hearted shrug of a climax where no one involved – in front of or behind the camera – seems like they want to be there very much.
After a troubled production that saw the film switch directors multiple times coupled with remarks that came out last week with regards to a rushed and incomplete shooting schedule from the eventual director Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In), The Snowman hit theaters last weekend. Based on an incredibly successful series of books from Norwegian author Jo Nesbo, The Snowman clearly has designs of spawning another film franchise, and its intentions are on display from the very start.
Capsule reviews from the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival including the horror film The Girl With All The Gifts, the genre thriller Free Fire, and the drama Trespass Against Us.
The Light Between Oceans hearkens back to the kind of awards bait prestige projects of the 1970s and 80s. It’s a restrained, stately looking effort full of simmering, restrained, tastefully delivered melodramatic emotions.
The third and final trailer for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past launched earlier this week, and it’s a big one, whether you’re a fan of the original comic books or coming in brand new.
Lazy Friday News is a weekly round-up of stories from across the spectrum of entertainment, or whatever happens to tickle my funny bone. This week: Zack Snyder has taken Superman’s underwear right off in Man of Steel; Waterworld might have been awful, but we may see it again; vegetables stand in for the new RoboCop; two past X-Men stars are coming back in X-Men: Days of Future Past; and the good and bad news about film piracy.
Despite the franchise that grew up from director Ridley Scott’s epic film, Alien, which debuted back in 1979, it’s worth remembering that Scott, for good and bad, only ever directed the original movie, and that’s fairly obvious once you watch his latest venture into the Alien universe.
Former mixed martial arts star Gina Carano is Mallory Kane, a freelance hired gun who works for governments to deal with tough situations, like hostage situations where normal covert tactics are not possible. As we first see her, waiting for someone at a small diner in the middle of nowhere, Mallory ends up getting the crap beaten out of her as an ex-coworker shows up to drag her back to her boss.
Michael Fassbender stars in director Steve McQueen’s Shame, a fierce drama about a man with an intense addiction to sex that is spiraling his life down into claustrophobic loneliness.
During the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, where the film made its North American debut, the confident and yet moderately self-deprecating actor chatted with the press about making this explicit film, why it was an important role for him, and his view on sexuality in film.
Steve McQueen is an intense, passionate director, and his latest film, Shame, is a dark example of his vision, and the performances he can inspire.
That performance by Michael Fassbender is still etched on my brain now, a day later, and it makes me think the star, who is probably most widely known as Magneto in X-Men: First Class, is going to have a huge career ahead of him.
