Darren

Going Straight: Comedic Actors in Dramatic Roles…

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Darren

New pictures from I, Alex Cross were introduced over the weekend. If you aren’t familiar with it, don’t worry – it’s an upcoming adaptation of an Alex Cross novel, the same series that gave us Morgan Freeman in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. While Along Came Spider wasn’t anything special, Kiss the Girls was a fairly decent nineties serial killer film, if not quite on the level of it obvious influences in The Silence of the Lambs and se7en. There were two surprises in these shots. The first was how incredibly freaky Matthew Fox looked – he looks pretty damn scary, so respect to Fox for pulling off that transformation. The second surprise was just how convincing Tyler Perry looked in the lead role. Perry is the latest in a long line of comedic actors looking to expand their range, and I can’t help but wonder why so many comedic performers tend to branch out so far.

Not a man you want to Cross…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: al pacino, Alex Cross, Along Came a Spider, Doubtfire, i alex cross, Idris Elba, jim carrey, Kiss the Girls, Madea, Matthew Fox, Morgan Freeman, Perry, robert deniro, serial killer, silence of the lambs, truman show, tyler perry | 9 Comments »

X-Men: The Age of Apocalypse Omnibus (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Darren

With our month looking at Avengers comics officially over, we thought it might be fun to dig into that other iconic Marvel property, the X-Men. Join us for a month of X-Men related reviews and discussion.

The nineties represent a contentious time for fans of the X-Men franchise. The decade saw comic books explode into a huge market, with ridiculous sales and publicity, and the entire X-Men franchise rode that wave perfectly. Chris Claremont and Jim Lee’s adjectiveless X-Men #1 remains the biggest-selling comic book of all time, after all, and the franchise quickly secured itself as Marvel’s premiere comic book franchise. On the other hand, the line had been thrown into disarray by the departure of long-term steward Chris Claremont and its era-defining artist Jim Lee. The family of titles had struggled to find a footing through some uneven crossovers and events like X-Cutioner’s Song and Fatal Attractions. However, I think the decade produced one gem that can be considered as a true classic, along with the best of Claremont’s tenure and the work of Grant Morrison. The Age of Apocalypse might seem an odd choice to identify as one of the highlights of the X-Men saga, but I think it deserves very serious consideration.

Apocalypse now…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Age of Apocalypse, apocalypse, chris claremont, David Lapham, grant morrison, marvel, marvel comics, psychology, Rick Remender, Social Sciences, time travel, walt simonson, x-force, x-men | 4 Comments »

More Than You Embargoed For: Thoughts on Review Embargoes…

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Darren

I know I’m a bit late on this one, but I’ve been thinking a bit about movie review embargoes of late. For those unaware, embargoes are those restrictions on when a reviewer can publish a review. They’re normally enforced by studios, limiting the publication of reviews to within a one week window of the movie’s release. I’ve had the fortune over the past few months to be invited to screenings of The Avengers and Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists long before the window, and have held my review until it’s okay to publish. Still, I can’t help but feel a little uneasy at the prospect.

Nothing to get too Fury-ous about…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 21 Jump Street, Albert Nobbs, art, avengers, David Denby, embargo, film, film criticism, Film festival, hollywood, jameson dublin international film festival, Level playing field, Movie, New York Times, review, review embargo, screenwriter, United States | 2 Comments »

Win! Moonrise Kingdom T-Shirts!

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Darren

The lovely folks over at Universal Pictures Ireland have give us ten T-shirts to give away from the latest Wes Anderson release, Moonrise Kingdom. It premiered at Cannes last week, and it opens here on Friday. To be in with a chance to win, answer the question below.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Bob Balaban, bruce willis, frances mcdormand, Jason Schwartzman, Moonrise Kingdom, New England, Tilda Swinton, wes anderson | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Rope

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Darren

Rope occupies an interesting place in Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography. The director himself was less than fond of it, allegedly quite happy that it remained out of circulation for some time after its initial release. Jimmy Stewart has apparently been critical of his own performance in the film, although I think it’s a wonderful example of a beloved actor playing against type. In the years since, however, it has been somewhat re-evaluated. While most film fans would be hesitant to describe it as an unqualified success, it’s certainly a technically ambitious little film, and the tight script and set-up allow Hitchcock to indulge his knack for creating suspense.

I hope nobody choked with all those ten-minute takes…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alfredhitchcock, arts, Brandon, Cut the Rope, David, film, games, Health, hitchcock, James Stewart, John Dall, Movie, murder, Murder Mystery, Necklace, non-review review, OpenSky, People, Performing Arts, review, Rope, Skipping rope, tom hanks, White Shadow | 10 Comments »

X-Men by Jim Lee and Chris Claremont (and Whilce Portacio) Omnibus, Vol. 2 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Darren

Gotta say this for the man — he knows how to make an exit.

– Archangel, X-Men #3 (Claremont’s last issue)

And so, this is the end. The end of Claremont’s quite simply epic run on the X-Men books. It’s amazing to look back on the writer’s output today, and simply try to consider the size of his contribution to the franchise. While he departed the books as they were at the height of their appeal (X-Men #1 famously being the best-selling comic book of all time), it’s hard to argue that X-Men ever would have reached that height without Claremont’s vision and style. While the writer undoubtedly had his weaknesses, I think his contributions to the medium are rather undervalued. While writers like Alan Moore and Frank Miller reinvented comic books, I think that Claremont was an expert at incorporating those radical changes into his work, and a writer who managed to secure the support of his fans by giving the X-Men a sense of pop culture resonance that a lot of subsequent writers tried and failed to capture.

Through X-tremes…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, chris claremont, Claremont, collected edition, crossroads, cyclops, Gulf War, Iceman, jack kirby, Jean Grey, jim lee, Louise Simonson, magneto, magneto was right, marvel omnibus, mutant massacre, Professor X, rubicon, Savage Land, Shadow King, stan lee, Starjammer, Storm, x-men, x-men #1, x-men omnibus, Zaladane | 5 Comments »

Righteous Fury: Nick Fury, The Avengers & Moral Ambiguity…

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Darren

I had the pleasure of seeing The Avengers for the second time last week, to try to make sense of my opinion on it. I still think that it’s an impressive action movie, even if it is a fundamentally flawed one. Strangely enough, though, I confess to finding the character of Nick Fury completely and utter fascinating, arguably the most complex character in the script. The problem, however, is that his complex moral ambiguity is very clearly contrasted with the idealism of his team of superheroes. However, I’m not convinced that they win the argument.

How does he patch things up with the team?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, Avenger, avengers, captain america, dark knight, hulk, iron man, IronMan, joss whedon, new york, nick fury, Pepper Potts, samuel l. jackson, skrull, superhero, Television, thor | 6 Comments »

X-Men: X-Tinction Agenda (Hardcover) (Review)

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Darren

X-Tinction Agenda makes for a potentially fascinating X-Men crossover, tying together Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor and New Mutants to tell a single cohesive story. It’s not a new approach – it was pioneered by The Mutant Massacre and Inferno – but it is perhaps the definitive approach to X-Men related crossovers (it’s still in use today for stories like Second Coming). It’s fascinating, because it sees the creative teams pick up on something that Claremont had introduced over thirty issues earlier, as if recognising a gem of an idea really deserved further development. That said, despite some decent writing and art, X-Tinction Agenda can’t help but feel like it wastes its potential, hitting on an absolutely fascinating premise and deftly tying the three on-going monthly comic books together, but ending up as little more than an explosive knock-down brawl.

The Wolv pack…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: 1990s, Cameron Hodge, chris claremont, Claremont, extinction agenda, Genosha, jim lee, magneto, mutant massacre, new mutants, Psylocke, Rob Liefeld, south africa, uncanny x-men, x-men, X-Men: X-tinction Agenda, X-Tinction Agenda, xtinction agenda | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Men in Black 3

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Darren

Men in Black 3 is a fine film. Like Men in Black and Men in Black 2, it’s a perfectly entertaining piece of popcorn entertainment if you’re willing to just go along with it. It’s not superb, it’s not exceptional, but it’s not bad either. It’s a decent movie. It manages to probably offer some better moments than the earlier two films, but these are averaged out by some painful deficiencies. You lose Tommy Lee Jones for most of the runtime, but you gain Josh Brolin. That’s a fairly reasonable trade, even if Brolin and Smith don’t share the same chemistry. You get the same wonderful production design, this time heightened by a sixties setting, but a plot that threatens to evaporate if you think about it too hard and any number of developments that are far too easy to predict. Nothing is truly fantastic, but nothing is exceptionally terrible. It just sort of is.

Putting the star in 69…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Agent J, Agent K, Alice Eve, arts, Barry Sonnenfeld, Boris, film, jemaine clement, Jones, josh brolin, Men In Black, Men in Black III, Movie, non-review review, People, review, Smith, tommy lee jones, will smith | Leave a comment »

New Snow White and the Huntsmen Clips…

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Darren

The guys over at Universal just sent on these three clips from the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsmen, the fantasy film starring Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth and Kristen Stewart. It will be released internationally next Friday (1st June). Check them out below. The lovely folks at Universal have also given us some prize-packs to give away. You can enter the competition here.