Despite his kinda batshit insane religious beliefs and her dumb vapid personality, I still think Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz make good movie stars. With that said, here’s the new trailer for their upcoming action flick Knight and Day. It strikes me as a bit like Mr and Mrs Smith but that’s probably just because of the guy and girl teaming up angle.
The film is set to open in the US on 25th June and as always there’s no release date yet for me here in Oz.
Written by: Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn and Dana Fox
Directed by: Peter Billingsley
Genre: Comedy
Yeah, I know I’m well behind the ball in reviewing Couples Retreat but I only just saw it and am in need of content for my little blog, and to be honest, when I first heard about this sometime last year I was super excited because it stars so many of my favourite actors and actresses. Look at this list:
Vince Vaughn
Jason Bateman
Jon Favreau
Kristen Bell
Malin Akerman
Kristin Davis
Ken Jeong
John Michael Higgins
That’s one super-impressive list of hot and funny people. Despite the low review scores I was still left to wonder how this film could possibly fail.
Because it’s an unfunny piece of shit that says nothing and goes nowhere, that’s how.
I’m kind of at a loss to put into words how totally average and unfunny the film is. I seriously don’t think I laughed once during the entire thing. The one guy I thought would shine despite the movie getting terrible reviews was Jason Bateman who you can always depend upon to bring the laughs with his understated dry delivery. But no, not even Michael Bluth himself ended up being funny. Instead he was probably the most annoying, insufferable person in the movie, easily trumping Jean Reno and his new age hippie routine. Every single person in Couples Retreat sank to a new low and yet I continued to watch for the chance to see some more bare flesh from the ladies.
After it became obvious within the first 15 minutes that the movie was painfully unfunny I stuck around simply for the chance to see the three beautiful ladies in either their underwear or bikinis. And it’s in that regard only that the movie can be called a success. The scene in the banner pic is hands down the best thing about the film and is the only reason I can see to give it even an average score. The sad truth is that Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn and Dana Fox cannot write good comedy. Favreau and Vaughn may be great in some of their previous roles, but good comedic acting does not translate to good comedic writing.
RATING: 5/10
CONCLUSION
Watch it for the stunning Kristen Bell, Malin Akerman and Kristin Davis standing on the beach in their underwear. Better yet, search Google Images for screencaps from the scene and save yourself from 113 minutes of completely unfunny shit.
I’m a pretty big fan of True Blood. I absolutely loved the first season and whilst I was let down by the second season, there was still a lot to like. Namely Godric and Sophie-Anne (the vampire queen). My fondness of the show is only enhanced by the fact that I bought the first season on Blu-ray whilst in New York for the very first time, and I watched a decent amount of the second season while I was staying at the Marriott in Brooklyn. Ah, good times.
Anyway, here’s the kinda cool teaser poster for the upcoming third season of the show, which is set to premiere on June 13th.
Written by: Dennis Lehane (novel) and Laeta Kalogridis
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Genre: Thriller, mystery, drama
My two weeks of legal training workshops, exams and hearings are now over so I have just a little time to sit down and actually do something for my site. If there’s anyone out there that does visit my site and is still checking in (considering I haven’t updated in weeks) I really will try and post more stuff now that the intensive part of my training seems to be over.
Anyway, I managed to find some spare time last week and I finally got to see Shutter Island. I was looking forward to it last year when I first saw the trailer and that anticipation didn’t die down even after it’s release date was shifted back. Leonardo DiCaprio has reached that point in his career where I’ll watch just about anything he stars in, hell, I even sat through almost an hour of Revolutionary Road. That’s how much I like him.
So as for the movie it was pretty damn awesome up until the twist…
SPOILER WARNING
5
4
3
2
1
Leo’s the patient.
I feel like 10 years ago this might have been a cool twist that left me awestruck and impressed, but now it just seems so tired. I felt completely cheated by the whole thing in the end and I wouldn’t have thought that Scorsese or DiCaprio would have attached themselves to something so by the numbers. It’s almost like that episode of Dallas where J.R. is shot but it’s all just a dream.
In my opinion I think the movie would have been far better if DiCaprio was just an FBI guy who is lured to the island in an effort to trap him and he has to solve the crime and escape. And for the majority of the film that’s exactly what it is until it veers off into M. Night Shyamalan territory. The trailer is far superior because the whole thing is based around the idea that DiCaprio goes to the island to solve a crime and is trapped there against his will. There’s nothing in it that makes you think any different.
As you’d expect with a Scorsese flick all the performances were sublime, as was the cinematography and score, and for 90% of the film it was just about the perfect crime/mystery/thriller. But that damn twist went and ruined everything. All in all I was quite disappointed in Shutter Island because I was hoping for another knockout from Scorsese and DiCaprio who’ve been on a very impressive roll together. I guess I’ll have to get my quality fix from DiCaprio from the upcoming Inception, which I have no doubt will be one of my favourite films of the year.
RATING: 6.5/10
CONCLUSION
I’ve spent about 400 words saying it, but the film would have been so much better without the twist.
I can’t believe it’s been around since 1998 and I’m only just finding out about it, but thanks to an article by The Hollywood Reporter about Cantor Exchange and their imminent push into domestic box office receipts movie futures I discovered probably the most enjoyable thing in a very long time. The Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX).
The basic concept is that you sign up (for free) and are awarded H$2 million which you use to buy stock in movies (through all phases of development), bonds for actors, derivatives, funds and which are all priced and adjust based on box office returns. Being very new at the process I’m a little hazy on how best to make money from actors, but with movies the process is quite straightforward. The price of stock in a movie is based on how much traders think the film will make over four weeks at the box office. For example, stock in Kick-Ass currently sells for H$124.32, which means the market thinks the film will earn $124.32 million dollars at the box office over four weeks. After the opening weekend the stock price is adjusted by the actual weekend receipts x 2.7. The 2.7 comes from the fact that a movie on average makes 2.7 times the opening weekend receipts over the course of four weeks. Therefore, if you bought the stock at a low price and it adjusts to a high price thanks to a strong opening weekend, when it delists after four weeks you’ll make a tidy profit.
It may sound a little complicated, and it is at first in getting used to the procedure and terms considering I have no idea when it comes to the stock market, but after a while it becomes insanely addictive. Just seeing my portfolio filled with positive growth is very satisfying. If there was an iPhone app for HSX I’d never get anything done again in my life.
This may be new, although I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this image before, but here’s another poster for Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning’s upcoming rock biopic The Runaways.
Wow. A long time between posts for me and I apologise to anyone who happens to visit my humble little blog. My legal training is taking up all my time, and between that, working, sleeping, eating and shiting, I don’t have any time to do anything else. Therefore my blog suffers.
Anyway, I found some time and also noticed that Pixar has released a new poster for the upcoming Toy Story 3, and this one blows all the others away. Enjoy.
