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Showing posts with the label Forest Whitaker

Liam Neeson and Maggie Grace return for Taken 3

I'm gonna toss this into the Enough Already pile, but given the success of Taken 2 ($376 million worldwide) it should come as no surprise that screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen have more Taken movies in the cannon. A third flick has been greenlit .

Jason versus The Last Stand

Arnold said he'd be back, and the Austrian Oak told no lies. Welcome back, King of the Action Movie ! The leader of a drug cartel busts out of a courthouse and speeds to the Mexican border , where the only thing in his path is a sheriff and his inexperienced staff. The Last Stand works on a lot of levels. Most importantly, it's a lot of fun. This is a breezy hour and 40 minutes of violent action, weird humour and surprising moments of drama. You read that last part right.  There's drama in an action movie. Deal with it. Not all of it is on Arnold Schwarzenegger's shoulders either. The Last Stand is as much an ensemble piece as it is a return to glory for Schwarzenegger. The moments when Ah-nold isn't on screen work just as well as when he is thanks to a strong supporting cast that includes Jaimie Alexander , Luis Guzman , Forest Whitaker and Peter Stormare. Director Jee-woon Kim has crafted a well-rounded flick, and it succeeds because of that. But w...

Jason and Shawn review: Repo The Genetic Opera and Repo Men

Repo The Genetic Opera Shawn: This has to be the sacrifice of the century for me. It's like watching a really long, weird-ass music video by a bunch of musicians who suck. A fitting role for Paris Hilton. Get it? There are a lot of elements that I really liked: dark, gory with a comic-book style from time to time. Even a decent story. But F-off with the music! It ruined everything! An Ugly from me. Jason: Finally, a movie where I get to see Paris Hilton's face fall off. A movie for me! Too bad it was a musical. I hate musicals. I think the music gets in the way of the story. I can't engage in the characters or plot because everything is revealed through the music. It's not a method of storytelling that I like. That said, Repo does work on its own terms, with some catchy music and the cool character of the Graverobber. His scenes and songs are great. But it's still a Bad rating from me. Repo Men Shawn: I wanted the Genetic Opera to be a real movie. Well, h...

Next on the chopping block: our repossession double bill

Every once in a while two movies come along that are so identical you wonder which one ripped the other off. Deep Impact and Armageddon come to mind. So do the underwater adventures Deepstar Six and Leviathan from the late 80s. Most recently there was Repo The Genetic Opera and Repo Men. What? Haven't heard of either? That's because both films came and went from theatres pretty fast. But each has found some kind of life on the video-store shelf and VOD. The Genetic Opera has become and cult classic. A big part of that success has to be that it's a horror musical along the lines of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We're taking the executioner's axe to both films tonight, attempting to shrug aside a personal bias against musicals in the process. It won't be easy, you can trust us on that. And, in "honour" of our rock opera, Shawn and I will discuss and play for you our favourite piece of movie score. We've also got new music from a couple of risi...