Tag: Michael Keaton

2024 In Film: Day Five (The Meh)

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Back To Black
Ups: Marisa Abela’s singing voice.
Captures the time period.
Emotional.
Downs: Doesn’t go quite as in-depth as it could.
Seems to hate its main character.
Occasionally seems like we’re watching a romcom about Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
Best Performer: Marisa Abela
Best Moment: The meeting between her and Blake is quite sweet.
Worst Moment: When her and her dad reject rehab. Makes them seem a bit shitty.
Opening: Family party. Lets us know the main characters and their dynamics. Good introduction.
Closing: Blake has a new partner who is now pregnant, Amy is sad and walks up some stairs.
Best Line: I want people to hear my voice and just forget their troubles for five minutes. 
Original review here

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice
Ups: It’s nice to see these characters again
Some fun moments.
Dark, but not in a scary way.
Downs: Pays too much reverence to a character played by a paedophile.
Burton hasn’t advanced his directing skills since the first one.
Unfocused, to the point where it seems like even the film itself doesn’t know what the story is.
Best Performer: Catherine O’Hara
Best Moment: The snake death, manages to be obvious but also comes out of nowhere.
Worst Moment: The wedding, mainly because the song choice feels wrong.
Opening: Lydia Deetz hosts a talk show. Would have been nice to see more of this.
Closing: Dream sequence!
Best Line: I want to make memories with people I love, rather than be haunted by them later
Original review here

Bob Marley: One Love
Ups: Good performances.
Genuine use of Jamaican patois in dialogue. Some may feel this is a “down” as it’s hard to understand, but I think it’s authentic, and it never affects how you understand the narrative, you just don’t understand certain sentences.
Downs: Unfocused narrative.
Lacks an emotional anchor.
Best Performer: Kingsley Ben-Adir
Best Moment: When he gets shot.
Worst Moment: The argument between him and his wife. Feels half-done.
Opening: He gets shot. Emotional, shocking, and sets the scene.
Closing: He dies. Spoilers. Doesn’t really have the emotional impact it could have. We don’t really see him mourn his own mortality and don’t get a sense of how his death was perceived. We are then shown real-life clips of Bob Marley on stage, and it makes you realise that Ben-Adir was too restrained in his performance, the real-life Marley was a ball of energy on stage.
Best Line: You can’t separate the music and the message.
Original review here

Don’t Move
Ups: Believable sociopath.
Minimalist cast.
Downs: Needs a hook. Something to make it stand out.
Quite plodding
Best Performer: Kelsey Asbille
Best Moment: When she finds the strange man. I was concerned he would turn out to be a creepy rapist. But nope, he’s nice, and helps figure out a way to converse with her and help her.
Worst Moment: The “I wanted to die” car conversation, feels very first draft.
Opening: The sound of screaming over a national park. Then cuts to Iris laying perfectly still in her bed. Neat if you know the concept of the film.
Closing: She survives, stands over his dying body and thanks him for making her want to live. So really he did a good thing.
Best Line: His explanation of the effects of the drug.
Original review here

If
Ups: Funny.
Cute.
Inventive.
Downs: Doesn’t make the best of Reynolds.
Bit predictable.
Some more coherent world-building would be nice.
Best Performer: Caily Fleming
Best Moment: When she changes the home. Magical. Although the moment when her grandmother dances is also excellent, but for different reasons. The dance is more emotional brilliance as opposed to whimsy.
Worst Moment: When you realise she’s been walking around New York on her own every day and nobody seems to care.
Opening: Rapid montage of Bea growing up. Could have done a better job of expressing just how important creativity is to her character, it would have helped sell some of the later reveals. Also, just because that’s quick, doesn’t mean the rest of the film is. It takes a long time to bring you the gimmick.
Closing: The most obvious twist ever. The very end, where her dad falls over his invisible imaginary friend is very funny though.
Best Line: Hey, Keith!
Original review here

The Critic
Ups: Feels like a time capsule
Subtly subversive
Looks good
Downs: Not as tense as it could be.
Best Performer: Mckellan
Best Moment: Him telling her why he doesn’t like her. Fantastic performances.
Worst Moment: Them coming up with the scheme. Doesn’t feel earned.
Opening: Jimmy is watching a play and is deliciously bitchy,
Closing: He’s in prison. The only way it could end really.
Best Line: There is art in you, Miss Land. My disappointment is in your failure to access it.
Original review here

The Trouble With Jessica
Ups: Very funny.
Moments of biting satire.
Downs: It doesn’t hit as hard as it could/should.
Doesn’t seem to know what to do with its own concept.
REALLY loses steam towards the end, with some baffling character changes which render most of the film pointless.
Best Performer: Shirley Henderson
Best Moment: The dinner itself. Very socially tense.
Worst Moment: The post-suicide. The use of establishing shots kind of takes away from the tense nature of the situation.
Opening: A preparation for a dinner party. Very stylish, much more than it needed to be, and I appreciate that. Sets up the “they’ll be moving soon” quite subtly.
Closing: A couple eats a clafoutis.
Best Line: “I fucking hate cross-examining rape victims. It’s impossible to do and not look like a cunt”
Original review here

Timestalker
Ups: There’s a very sweet unspoken relationship between her and Meg
Unique idea.
Fun.
Downs: Could have had more fun with the music.
Runs out of momentum.
SHOULD be great.
Best Performer: Aneurin Barnard
Best Moment: The entire 80’s section.
Worst Moment: The carriage wheel decapitation. Mainly because it’s much shorter than the others, but not in a fun and frantic way, more in a “we lost a lot in the edit” way.
Opening: A pink heart floating in the air like a Princess Peach power up. Then a woman operating a loom. Some really vibrant colours, and then it flashbacks to a man being brutally murdered. If you didn’t know what this film was about, this wouldn’t tell you. It’s only when she falls over and kills herself that you get the feeling this is going to be a bit weird.
Closing: She finally gets the “I love you”, and runs away from it.
Best Line: “It’s all in your head”
Original review here

Twisters
Ups: Characters speak genuinely.
Good action scenes.
Actual emotion.
Downs: One of the characters is too unlikeable.
Could tie into the original more.
Best Performer: Daisy Edgar-Jones
Best Moment: That opening.
Worst Moment: The almost vehicular manslaughter. Knocks this down further than any one scene has done to another film in quite a while.
Opening: Put it this way; it shows why tornados are dangerous. Shocking, and brilliant.
Closing: Standard romcom closing. Kind of dull compared to what came before.
Best Line: Can always trust a guy who puts his face on a t-shirt.
Original review here

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: Remember Beetlejuice? He’s back, in fog form.

I think I left it too late to watch the original Beetlejuice. I didn’t see it until I was in my late 20’s, by which time I was already over-familiar with the iconography and character, and it was too late for me to be obsessed with it. Also, I was never the biggest Tim Burton fan. His stuff has always seemed to be a case of style over substance, like a Zack Snyder who hasn’t yet discovered porn.

Maybe Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will change that? While I wasn’t a huge fan of the original, I liked it and consider it among his strongest works. So if anything could get me to buy a ticket to ride the Burton Bus it would be this piece of unfresh meat (if he ever gets accused of sexual improprieties then that sentence is going to seem so bad).

Spoilers, it doesn’t. I have the same issue with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (BB, pronounced Bébé) that I have with much of Burton’s work; the script. There are five different plotlines, most of them run episodically rather than alongside each other. There are moments which aren’t really storybeats, just stuff happening one after the other. It seems like it’s setting up a plotline or villain, and then it is resolved within 10 minutes.

None of this is the fault of the actors though; all of them are on top form. Winona Ryder continues to be the best, Jenna Ortega slots into this universe perfectly, Keaton is exactly what you expect, and Catherine O’Hara is a damn delight. Jeffrey Jones is missing from BB, but his character isn’t, appearing in animated form in a plane crash, and in live-action form walking around the afterlife without a head. The reason for this is that Jeffrey Jones is a gross paedophile, so having him in this would be a huge PR problem. I do have an issue with his character being in it though, especially being so revered and a major part of one of the characters’ plotlines. Dunno, it just feels a little weird. I know it’s not him, but it is slightly uncomfortable to see that much love shown to a character played by him. It would be like if you dressed up as Jimmy Savile and attended a kids’ birthday party; the adults would know that it’s not actually him, but they would still be a little bit grossed out.

There are moments where BB is better than the original, some of the visuals have a lot more creativity to them, the characters are better defined, and the world feels more real. The “involuntary karaoke” scene is definitely worse though, and that’s mainly down to song choice. The song is still good, but it’s not as well known, not as likely to be sung by drunk people at music festivals, and just not as bombastic and hilarious considering the scene. To the point where it feels like it only exists in this movie BECAUSE it was in the first one.

It’s a shame, this could have been great. It is pretty good, but it doesn’t make you think that Burton has developed much as a filmmaker since he made the original. If there was only a five-year wait for this to be released, that would be okay, but 36 years and THIS is the best he can do? It’s a little disheartening, and definitely not good enough for me not to sing the title of it to the tune of Lollipop Lollipop.

The Flash (2023) Review

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Synopsis: The Flash breaks reality by running fast (despite running fast multiple times in the past and it never being an issue) ending up not only in the past, but in a different universe with another Barry Allen.

I went into this with one thought in mind: this is going to be a complete mess. I mean; it had an advertising campaign which consisted of trailers that would play in the cinema and then have “full trailer available online” at the end, and fuck that. At the very least they could have done something cool and released the whole trailer early but sped up so it goes by in a second. That level of laziness when it comes to marketing is never a good sign. I assumed it would be worse than Morbius and that I’d hate it, but it would at least be fun to complain about. That’s why I’m actually slightly annoyed that The Flash is *whispers* kind of good.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some serious flaws here. The CGI is shameful at some points, and there are some characters who are underused. None more so than Sasha Calle’s Supergirl. The restructuring at DC makes me worried that this will be her only appearance in the role; which is a shame as she’s really good. She has the screen presence needed for such a lofty role. Then again, she HAD to be great, because if she wasn’t then the online reviews would consist of unwashed masses insulting her. I mean, those kinds of people are still going to insult her, but at least now they’re not backed up by the general public agreeing with them.

The other downside was the advertising. There were rumours Michael Keaton was going to reprise his role as Bruce Wayne from the early 90’s Batman movies, these rumours were confirmed when he was put front and centre of the marketing campaign, to the point where it didn’t really feel like The Flash was the main character in his own movie. It would have been nice to have that as a surprise, as without that there are not too many “OMG” moments (with the exception of one near the end). I get why the studio did this; with all the controversy over Ezra Millers’ behaviour, they needed to find a way to draw people into theatres; and the only way they could think to do it was “Look, Michael Keaton’s back!”. I think it worked, it got people interested, but it did have the unfortunate side effect of making people expect more.

Don’t get me wrong; there are some great moments and cameos in the final section, but they’re not important to the story and are only seen briefly, to the point where it feels like they’re only there for fanservice. There has been some controversy about this section as it involves CGI use of dead actors in a way that some people might be uncomfortable with. It is a bit uneasy to think about the potential applications of deepfakes of actors, particularly at a time when streaming companies are trying to use AI to screw over writers.

Now onto the good: The performances are all great. Keaton crushes it as Batman, the aforementioned Calle could not be better. The main issue with some of the supporting cast is a lot of them aren’t given enough to do. Michael Shannon, for example, is underutilized despite being the main villain. The story itself is pretty good. The worry with a multiverse story is how you make it simple enough for the mass public to understand. It turns out the answer is spaghetti. It’s a bit weird how the character who mentions it would know of it, but as far as exposition goes, there are worse examples.

I did LOVE one moment. There’s a section near the end where he works out how to fix everything but at a personal sacrifice. It’s absolutely perfect. By which I mean; that is EXACTLY how I would I have done it. The unsaid heartbreak, the crushing weight of responsibility that decision leads to, the wonder whether the other person is aware or not. It’s up there as one of my favourite moments of the year, just a shame the rest of the film doesn’t come anywhere close. Overall; nowhere near as bad as you think it would be, but not as good as it needs to be. Plus, it is a bit weird that it’s ANOTHER Barry Allen story, no Wally West (Which would have been nice) or Bart Allen (which could have led to something fun).

Baby Driver/Spiderman: Homecoming

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There’s something to be said for the accidental double bill. Films that have nothing to do with each other but seem like they belong together anyway. The best example of this lately I feel is Spotlight and The Big Short. They came out at different times, and were about completely different topics, but tonally they felt very similar. There’s a similar feeling with these two films, only this time it’s actually a lot easier to quantify; they’re both modern films containing a slight throwback feel to them. Baby Driver is basically a modern car chase film, a twenty-first century Bullitt, whereas Spiderman: Homecoming is basically a John Hughes movie with superpowers. Both of them are throwback films for the modern age, you don’t lose anything going into them without knowing the history of their respective genre-homages, but you do gain if you’re aware of them.

So what were they like? I’ll start with Spiderman. I actually liked it. The plot was simplistic but it was still better than at least 50% of MCU films purely because it had a compelling villain. Michael Keaton’s character (he plays some sort of Birdman) makes sense. You’re not watching it thinking “what a terrible person, glad he’s not real”, you’re thinking “he’s actually making a lot of sense. I see where he’s coming from, and in a way, I agree with him”. He’s the most compelling villain in the MCU so far, and the performance matches the writing. A lot of comic book fans were disappointed that they changed his appearance for the films, I don’t particularly care about it to be honest, mainly because it would be really hard to take THIS seriously.

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I know that this talk about “taking it seriously” makes this sound like it’s attempting to be super serious and gritty, thank God they didn’t do that, this film is fun as hell. Even the colours are better than lots of superhero films. A lot of films have orange and blue as the main colours, but use them against dark backdrops, this uses those colours but uses them against light. It’s very summer-ey in appearance. It’s also really funny. The characters are well written and have great lines, Zendeya’s character in particular is a great collection of sarcasm and apathy which I really identify with for some reason. She has the best lines throughout and is one of the films many comedic highlights. In terms of comedy though, most of the best moments from the non-main characters belong to Jacob Batalon’s Ned, who absolutely owns his role as “guy in a chair”. He also helps provide an audience surrogate, since the film starts with him already as hero, many people expected the origin to either be ignored, or told in flashbacks. It did neither, it had Ned ask questions and we found out small details from that, not so much that we were re-covering old ground, and not so little that people new to the franchise were confused. So in summary; very good, very fun, and I think it’s safe to say that Tom Holland is the best Spider-Man, although part of that is due to the way he’s written, he’s actually written as an adolescent, the villains he faces aren’t ones who are going to destroy the world, the main villain is basically an unfriendly neighbourhood villain.

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This scene is genuinely one of the best written scenes so far this year

So, onto Baby Driver. If you’re interested in film you need to see this, a true masterpiece of film-making. Almost the entire film has music alongside it, it’s a film which you could put on in the background at a party and just listen to it, and it would work (I will prove that one day). Yes, the plot is wafer thin, but it’s so fun you don’t notice. You don’t sit there thinking “well I know how this story is going to end”, you think “oh my God! Did you see that?”. It’s a non-blockbuster version of spectacle cinema. Everything about the way it’s made just works, the way the music complements the action and vice versa, the way the car chases are impressive without being unrealistic, the fact that Jon Hamm and Kevin Spacey continue to exist.

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Even Jamie Foxx agrees

The most annoying thing about this film is that you will never see anything else like it, but lots films will claim to be like it. The love and dedication that goes into this is obvious. This was not “film by committee”, this was a true passion project, and it shows through every inch of the screen. It’s also surprisingly American. The open road, the American dream, diners with endless coffee are all essential to the story, so it’s weird that such an American film was made by a Brit, this feels like the film where Edgar Wright has finally stepped away from under the shadow of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. In an ideal world Scott Pilgrim would have done that, but at least it has finally happened. One of the best films I’ve seen this year on a technical level, from the opening scene right through to the closing credits it never stops impressing, never slows down, which considering it’s almost 2 hours long is incredibly impressive.

So that’s Baby Driver and Spiderman:Homecoming. Both flawed but worth a watch. Both destined to be movies people put on and watch in large groups. Both have been put on my “buy on dvd” list. So how can I end this? The same way I end everything; cover song! Here’s an acoustic cover of the Spider-Man theme song, enjoy, then check out their other stuff on the youtube and their twitter.

5 Of The Best Comic Book Adaptation Castings

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For those of you who don’t live on twitter or facebook, and as such, don’t exist to me, International Woman’s Day on Tuesday. I felt I should commemorate this by doing a blog about it, maybe the best films directed by women? Maybe the best actress’s, or maybe the best female roles in films. The possibilities are endless. Then I realised, that’s condescending as f*ck so went with this instead: Enjoy!

1. Robin Lord Taylor – The Penguin (Gotham)

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I thought I’d start with the one that will annoy the most people. Not with picking someone that isn’t good, because he is VERY good in this, but because what it means for the rest of the blog. You see, I decided to limit myself in this blog to one per franchise. So this is the Batman one. Think about that, that means I’m not including Heath Ledger, I’m not including Jack Nicholson, Adam West, Anne Hathaway (which considering how much I love Hathaway, really says something), Michael Keaton, Mark Hamill, Robert Swenson.

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That alone should say how good I find his performance. But I’ll try to explain it better: before I watched the series I HATED the character of The Penguin. It seemed to cartooney, too silly to work, so something could never work in a modern gritty show. Yet with him, it works. He’s without a doubt the best part of the show, and makes it worth watching just for him.

2. Robert Downey Jr. – Iron Man (erm, Iron Man)

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Let’s get something straight, a lot of you don’t like the Iron Man character. You may think you do, but you don’t. You like Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. Let’s face it, when Marvel made this film it was risky, more than it would seem to be now. Captain America would have been a much safer bet as he’s more recognisable. But Iron Man was better as a character to introduce the audience to the universe. Luckily it paid off as now we have Guardians Of The Galaxy etc, on the downside, we also have Avengers: Age Of Ultron. So it’s not all good.

3. JK Simmons – J.Jonah Jameson (Sam Raimi Spider-Man)

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I’m not doing this blog in any particular order really, just the order I feel like, because I’m a rebel who don’t play by society’s rules, man! If I was doing them in order of how absolutely PERFECT the casting is, this would be top. Numero uno. Number one. Top Gun. Jaws. The Godfather.

It’s often said that certain actors are born to play certain roles, and this is the one that he was absolutely BORN to play. He’s not playing the character here, he is the character. He embodies absolutely everything about it. God knows who they replaced him with when they rebooted the series, probably some blonde sweepy haired blue eyed prick from Dawson’s Creek or something.

4. Ryan Reynolds – Deadpool

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I was tempted to go with James “Smugface” McAvoy for the X-Men section. He gave Xavier a certain vulnerability that Patrick Stewart was never really given the chance to. Then I thought, maybe Fassbender as Magneto? I mean, he OWNED that role. Or maybe Hugh Jackman for defying all odds and being amazing at Wolverine (odd to think now, but a lot comic book fans HATED the idea of him as Wolverine when it was announced. But then again they also hated it when Ledger was announced as The Joker and Ben Afleck was announced as Batman, so really this just proves they don’t have a f*cking clue). But then I thought; f*ck it, it has to be Reynolds. It really does. Not just for what he did in the film, but because of how he’s embraced the character out of the film as well.

5. Christopher Reeve – Superman

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Do you even need to ask why? I mean, LOOK AT HIM!

 

So yeah, that’s it for today. Subscribe, follow, comment, stalk us and send us cake. You know, the usual 🙂

Films Worth Seeing from 2015: The Serious ones

On By troubledproductionsIn List, Year round upLeave a comment

Dramas(ish)

Inside Out

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Yeah I’m putting this in the drama section; go fuck yourselves if you disagree. For every laugh out loud moment, which there are a few; Pixar’s latest masterpiece is littered with heartfelt and moving moments that will warm the cockles of your aging bitter heart and will make you cry. The idea behind it is amazing and while the plot it follows isn’t anything new, it’s execution is near flawless. I knew from the opening melody of the main theme Bundle of Joy (my pick for best original score of the year), that this film was going to be exactly what everyone wanted from a Pixar film, and it was.

Steve Jobs

steve-jobs-posterProbably the most intense and thrilling film of the year, and not one shot is fired and not one car is chased, it never goes beyond people just talking (and screaming). Set in three real-time acts spread across the 1970s-1990s, this film gets to the heart of Steve Jobs the man/the character (he was quite a dick it turns out), and the heart of what it means to be innovative and push the boundary of what technology can be for people. Thrilling, heartstopping, emotional, and surprisingly beautiful to look at, Steve Jobs is a breath of fresh airconditioned air for the Biopic genre…and the fact it made less that jObs is just depressing.

 

Youth

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Another funny but heartfelt film that is a meditation on fame, but even more so is about aging, love, and parenting. Directed by Italian autor Paolo Sorrentino, it’s led by a best in decades Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel, as two friends at a Swiss retreat in the Alps trying to keep their lives going. Now this is a bit of a tricky film to talk about, as its light on plot and heavy on strange things happening and characters reacting to them. So just trust me that Youth is a beautiful film and the kind of bold artistic statement that makes you glad that the studio process still lets creatives work their magic on us.

Spotlight

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An in-depth investigative drama that follows the journalist team who uncovered the Child abuse coverups by the Catholic Church in the early 2000s; and it will piss you off for all the right reasons. I’m a sucker for a good investigation film, like Zodiac or All The Presidents Men, and this was no different. Though I don’t think it’s up there with Zodiac, this is still a very well written and compelling drama/thriller that step by step will take you through the disturbing looking glass. Led by a stellar cast of Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and more, this film is a masterclass of restrained filmmaking and acting. With a topic as hot as this, Spotlight could have easily become an over-dramatic spotlight-S_070416_rgblifetime mess, but director Tom McCarthy made the wise choice of keeping everything restrained, realistic, and beautifully drab (never has a cast of A-listers looked so normal), all so the facts can speak for themselves, and they scream.

 

The End of the tour

film-sundance-end-of-the-tour-first-look-2b1b02c3b573cbe3Already talked about this in our 2015 Film Awards, where it was one of the films awarded with best picture, but I’ll talk briefly about it here. It’s a funny and heartfelt road movie that meditates on fame, creativity, and loneliness, through the indepth and witty conversations of its protagonists. Whether you know David Foster Wallace’s work or not, this is an accessible and great film.

Wild

WILD_movie_posterFollow a mesmerizing Reese Witherspoon on a thousand mile hike as she flashes back to the different traumatizing points in her life that led her to the hike. It’s a compelling character film of the purist nature, and with a combination of a great soundtrack, editing, and sound-editing, is the best film I have ever seen capture the feeling of fleeting thought.
But this is a bit of a divisive film it appears, depending completely on whether you like the main character, as she is not really a good person; and not in the love to hate them way, but in a realistic way. I did like her, or at least I was engaged by her, while my fellow Troubled Production’s producer did not, leading to me putting this as one of the best films of 2015, while he put it as one of his worst. (See his personal blog here).

99 Homes

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Michael Shannon is on terrifying form as a realtor looking to make money during the housing crises of 2010, and Andrew Garfield finally acts his age to heart-breaking effect, as a single father kicked-out of his home by Shannon, and taken under the corrupt realtor’s wing. Another film that finds it’s intensity in its emotions; this film grabs you by the throat and keeps you electrified as you watch a normal man grapple for his morality and his fall to ‘the darkside’ as it’s the only way to provide for his family.

 

 

Brooklyn

file_610952_brooklyn-poster-640x951The second Nick Hornby script on this list (the first was Wild), and it just shows you the versatility of his writing. In 1950’s an Irish immigrant moves to Brooklyn (go figure) where she finds love, life, and a future, but then finds herself torn between the life she wants in America and the life everyone else wants for her back in Ireland. Much more a classic Hollywood romance (in all the right ways) and less the love triangle bollocks the trailers made it look to be, this is really a beautiful film about striving to achieve your own happiness, and who you’re willing to hurt to keep it.