Release Date: August 30th, 1992 (UK – Edinburgh International Film Festival) Directed by: James Foley Written by: David Mahmet Based on:Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mahmet Music by: James Newton Howard Cast: Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce, Bruce Altman, Jude Ciccolella
GGR, Zupnik Cinema Group II, New Line Cinema, 100 Minutes
Review:
“You never open your mouth until you know what the shot is.” – Rocky Roma
As much as I like finance and business thrillers, as well as everyone in this incredible cast, I had never seen Glengarry Glen Ross until now.
Granted, I have seen most of the iconic scenes from the movie for years, as people have referenced and quoted this movie for decades now. I’ve probably seen the Alec Baldwin speech a dozen times whether it was sent to me via YouTube or clipped into something else I’ve watched. I almost know it verbatim but there’s much more to this movie than its most iconic, most quotable scene.
Narratively and visually, I’d consider this to be a neo-noir picture, as well as just being a great business flick. It has backstabbing, conniving and a crime plot but brings some mystery into the second half of the picture.
The neo-noir aesthetic is pretty clear with this film’s cinematography, especially in regards to the scenes shot at night or in the bar. Visually, it reminded me of the cinematography style of Robby Müller. Specifically, his work in The American Friend, Repo Man and Paris, Texas. The night scenes are full of high contrast between dark shadows and vivid lighting. The daytime office scenes, however, feel muted and a lot less lively, as if the office is a sort of colorless, boring hell.
The film’s plot surrounds the worst real estate office in a large company and how the four salesmen are pitted against one another for survival. The two who do the worst, will lose their jobs. With that, we see the worst parts of these men’s characters rise up from their apathy, as paranoia and survival instinct sets in over the course of two days.
The acting in this is absolutely stellar and it is completely a film driven by the astounding dialogue and masterful acting.
Having never seen this in its entirety, I didn’t know the ending. By the time I arrived there, it was like a real punch to the gut and I didn’t see the twist coming.
While many that are into business thrillers and movies about sales and finance are very aware of this picture, I feel like it’s grossly underappreciated amongst normies and general film buffs.
Rating: 8.5/10 Pairs well with: other business and finance movies of the ’80s and ’90s.
Also known as: P.O.T.C. 3 (promotional abbreviation), Pirates 3 (informal short title), Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (working title) Release Date: May 19th, 2007 (Anaheim premiere) Directed by: Gore Verbinski Written by: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio Based on:Pirates of the Caribbean by Walt Disney, characters by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie, Jay Wolpert Music by: Hans Zimmer Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush, Stellan Skarsgård, Bill Nighy, Chow Yun-fat, Jonathan Pryce, Jack Davenport, Kevin R. McNally, Lee Arenberg, Mackenzie Crook, Naomie Harris, Tom Hollander, Keith Richards
Second Mate Productions, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Walt Disney Pictures, 169 Minutes, 128 Minutes (censored Chinese version)
Review:
“You will listen to me! Listen! The other ships will still be looking to us, to the Black Pearl, to lead, and what will they see? Frightened bilgerats aboard a derelict ship? No, no they will see free men and freedom! And what the enemy will see, they will see the flash of our cannons, and they will hear the ringing of our swords, and they will know what we can do! By the sweat of our brow and the strength of our backs and the courage in our hearts! Gentlemen, hoist the colors!” – Elizabeth Swan
One of the three films had to be the worst one of the original trilogy and well, this is it. Regardless of that fact, it’s still one hell of an adventure movie that hits the right notes and sends these characters off with a well-deserved bang.
Had this been the actual end, people would’ve had a much brighter and appreciative view of the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. However, Disney’s gotta be Disney and they couldn’t leave well enough alone and stop while they were ahead.
Regardless of the films that followed, this was a close to prefect ending to the original three pictures and it brings everything full circle in a great way and finished the job of developing the main characters stupendously, making them some of the greatest characters in motion picture history, especially in regards to blockbuster cinema.
Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow is just as good as ever but the real treat of this movie is seeing the story of Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan come to a close. Sure, they have a cameo years later, but this really ends their story, as I’m assuming the cameo won’t lead to anything now that Disney wants to do a female reboot of the franchise. *cough* Good luck with that, Disney.
I liked seeing how the characters of Will and Elizabeth evolved from children in the beginning of the first movie, to a solid, badass couple that essentially saved the oceanic world by the end of this picture. It’s especially great seeing how perfect Elizabeth evolved, as she leaves this chapter as an incredibly strong, independent woman that an entire armada saw as a real leader.
The original Pirates trilogy should be a primer on how to make a great female character that isn’t a cookie cutter Mary Sue. Maybe J. J. Abrams and Rian Johnson should’ve watched these films before farting out the Disney Star Wars trilogy.
Anyway, this is the most over-the-top, insane Pirates movie of the lot but it all leads to an incredible final battle that sees the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman go to all out war while being sucked down into Calypso’s maelstrom a.k.a. a massive whirlpool.
I also really liked how they explored Bill Nighy’s Davy Jones even more, getting into his personal turmoil that shaped him into a monster and set him off on an extremely dark path. His story is handled with such great care, though, that it’s hard not to relate to him and his pain. But it’s also fantastic finally seeing him meet his end.
Additionally, I loved how this movie built up the already established mythos and expanded the Pirates universe pretty immensely. I didn’t necessarily dig every new thing they tried to do but it worked for this story and how it ended.
The thing that hits me the hardest in these films, however, is the story of James Norrington. What a fantastic and spectacular character arc! The guy goes through so much over the course of the three films, trying to do what he thinks is right, only to sacrifice himself, quite selflessly and courageously, for the woman he loves but knows he can never have. I fucking love that guy and he doesn’t get enough respect due to how he’s never really the biggest thing onscreen.
In the end, this is one solid movie (and trilogy) that is probably much better than it should have been. I have to tip my hat to Gore Verbinski’s superb direction, as well as just how great the actors were. I wish we could have more Pirates movies as good as the first three but that ship has most assuredly sailed.
Rating: 9.25/10 Pairs well with: the other Pirates of the Caribbean movies, especially the original trilogy.
Also known as: Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (working title), P.O.T.C. 2 (promotional abbreviation), Pirates 2 (informal short title) Release Date: June 24th, 2006 (Anaheim premiere) Directed by: Gore Verbinski Written by: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio Based on:Pirates of the Caribbean by Walt Disney, characters by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie, Jay Wolpert Music by: Hans Zimmer Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Stellan Skarsgård, Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Jack Davenport, Kevin R. McNally, Lee Arenberg, Mackenzie Crook, Naomie Harris, Tom Hollander, Geoffrey Rush (uncredited)
Second Mate Productions, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Walt Disney Pictures, 151 Minutes
Review:
“There will come a time when you have a chance to do the right thing.” – Elizabeth Swan, “I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by.” – Jack Sparrow
Man, this movie was so good and I found myself asking myself, “Why the hell don’t you fire up these movies more often, dummy?!”
While the first Pirates of the Caribbean flick is the best of the lot, this one is still a damn fine adventure movie with the right balance of swashbuckling, really cool lore and fun, complex characters that have immense chemistry with one another and superhuman levels of pure, unadulterated charisma.
The only real downside of this film is that Barbosa is only in it for about 5 seconds but if I’m being honest, you really don’t notice because everything before that ending cliffhanger is great.
The film picks up where the last one left off and we see Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan have their wedding day ruined by a government douchebag that wants to have them executed for helping Captain Jack Sparrow escape at the end of the first movie. This sets Will on a mission to find Jack Sparrow and to retrieve his magic compass for the shitty bureaucrat.
Pirates films can’t be that simple though, so we see our characters chase multiple MacGuffins for multiple reasons and we get a well-layered plot where everyone wants this film’s treasures for their own reasons. Jack wants to escape the curse of Davy Jones, Will wants to save Elizabeth and his father, Elizabeth wants to save Will, Norrington wants to redeem himself and Barbosa’s former stooges just want the treasure because they’re f’n pirates.
The film also introduces Bill Nighy as the physical embodiment of Davy Jones, one of the coolest onscreen villains in motion picture history, as well as the kaiju-like beast, The Kraken.
I’ve heard some people complain that the plot is too complex and hard to follow but I disagree. Each character is well-defined and their personal motivations are made pretty clear. And even though you feel you know them and understand them, there are still some surprises, twists, turns and double-crosses that only enrich the story and the series as a whole.
The film also has incredible special effects and it’s obvious that Disney didn’t waste a penny making this movie. Just the amount of time that had to go into Davy Jones and his crew must’ve been insane and a really painstaking process. But that hard work and time paid off, as the effects are near perfect and help to make this a more fantastical picture than the previous one.
This chapter in the series also brought in Hans Zimmer to score the music. While he uses the iconic themes of the previous movie, he builds off of them and provides his own brilliant original compositions that don’t betray the work done by the previous composer and in fact, enhances it.
There are so many stellar sequences in this film but the three-way sword fight between Jack, Will and Norrington is, hands down, one of the greatest swashbuckling moments in motion picture history.
Additionally, the whole cannibal island segment of the film was cinematic perfection. While it does get pretty slapstick-y, it doesn’t feel out of place or too hokey. I’ve said elsewhere that Depp’s Sparrow is his generation’s version of Chaplin’s The Tramp and that comparison seemed even more clear to me after revisiting this chapter.
Dead Man’s Chest is a great film. While it falls short of The Curse of the Black Pearl, it does so just barely. In fact, the only thing that really works against it is that it’s the first part of a two-parter and isn’t its own self-contained story.
Rating: 9.5/10 Pairs well with: the other Pirates of the Caribbean movies, especially the original trilogy.
Also known as: Pirates of the Caribbean (working title), P.O.T.C. (promotional abbreviation) Release Date: June 28th, 2003 (Disneyland premiere) Directed by: Gore Verbinski Written by: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie, Jay Wolpert Based on:Pirates of the Caribbean by Walt Disney Music by: Klaus Badelt Cast: Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Pryce, Jack Davenport, Kevin R. McNally, Lee Arenberg, Mackenzie Crook, Zoe Saldana
Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Walt Disney Pictures, 143 Minutes
Review:
“This is the day you will always remember as the day you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow!” – Jack Sparrow
I’ve wanted to revisit the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy for quite some time but as is apparent for those of you who read this site regularly, I watch a lot of stuff and usually cover film series in their entirety with one review per week scheduled in before moving on to another franchise. So since I had a lot on the docket before these pictures, it took some time to catch up and get reacquainted with them. Especially, since I’ve been working through all the major comic book movie film series.
I’ve also already reviewed the Pirates films after the original trilogy.
Revisiting this one was a lot of fun, though. I’ve always considered it the best film of the lot and I still think that’s true. It’s pretty much a perfect adventure movie that really hearkens back to the great swashbuckling films of yore, as well as the live-action blockbusters Disney made in the ’50s and ’60s.
This is highly energetic from start to finish without a dull moment or a wasted frame of film. And while the plot takes many twists and turns, this still feels less complicated than the other Pirates pictures. The objective of the film is made clear and this rich world is established and built up in a pretty effective way.
The film is well-balanced on every level between it’s world building, it’s character development, the adventure itself, the supernatural and fantastical elements, the comedic and jovial tone, as well as its big action sequences.
I generally enjoy Gore Verbinski’s directorial work but this is still his magnum opus. That doesn’t necessarily mean he peaked early, it just means that the guy has immense talent and he really made an exceptional film really early on in his career. Frankly, I’m surprised that he doesn’t actually direct films more often than he does.
Johnny Depp is the scene stealer in this picture but that should come as no surprise, considering how talented the guy has been from day one. Also, for younger fans, it may be hard to envision a world before Captain Jack Sparrow but seeing this character come to life back in 2003 was an incredible experience. Truthfully, no one else could have given us this Jack Sparrow and the character very much is Johnny Depp’s regardless of what was on paper before he took the role.
Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are also solid but my favorite person besides Depp is Geoffrey Rush. It’s like he was born to play a bastard of a pirate. His character, Hector Barbosa, is my favorite in the film series, as he has an incredible story arc despite his “death” in this picture. He grew to become just as important to these films as Depp’s Sparrow and he also became a more fleshed out, complex character with each new chapter in the film series.
Moving beyond the acting and directing, the film has incredible special effects that have aged pretty well, as we’re nearly twenty years into the future from when this was first released. God, that’ll make anyone feel old.
Out of all the movies in the series, this has the best story and it’s the best picture of the lot. It’s a movie that succeeded in what it set out to do and it’s perfect in every way.
I only wish it would’ve brought the swashbuckling genre back to prominence beyond just its own sequels.
Rating: 10/10 Pairs well with: the other Pirates of the Caribbean movies, especially the original trilogy.
Also known as: G.I. Joe 2 (working title) Release Date: March 11th, 2013 (Seoul premiere) Directed by: John M. Chu Written by: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick Based on:G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero by Hasbro Music by: Henry Jackman Cast: Dwayne Johnson, D. J. Cotrona, Byung-hun Lee, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce, Ray Stevenson, Channing Tatum, Bruce Willis, Arnold Vosloo, Walton Goggins, Elodie Yung, Rza, Matt Gerald, James Lew, James Carville (cameo)
“I came here when I was fourteen, with a life expectancy of thirteen. I was bounced around from home to home until this… became my home. Guys would line up outside that door to fight me. They whooped my skinny ass so much I started to enjoy it. Until one winter, I grew eight inches, gained sixty pounds, punched a guy so hard he couldn’t move his arm to tap out. Then when the Joes came recruiting to the hood, I’d already beaten down half of it. I became a Joe to serve. In the field. So if we’re fighting uphill, we take the hill.” – Roadblock
I really wish this movie would have done much better at the box office because it course corrected in a great way and fixed the mess that was G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
On one hand, this is a sequel but on the other hand, it is also a soft reboot. It doesn’t necessarily ignore that the terrible first film exists, it just buries it and moves on. But as awesome as this turned out, for the most part, the damage from the first picture was so severe that this Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis action extravaganza couldn’t save the G.I. Joe franchise on the big screen.
That being said, it still isn’t a perfect G.I. Joe film but it felt like a good bridge between the shit this crawled out of and the great movie that could have followed, based off of what this picture set up for a future story.
To start, Dwayne Johnson was genius casting and this should have been the perfect franchise for him to lead. While he isn’t exactly who I would’ve envisioned for Roadblock, he definitely filled the shoes of leadership after Duke presumably died and General Hawk also presumably died or went on vacation somewhere.
Other than Duke and Snake Eyes, there aren’t any other G.I. Joe members from the first movie present. I’d like to think that maybe some of them would’ve been back in a third film, as none of the actors were necessarily bad, it was just the first movie that was a massive pile of shit.
The film does bring back Cobra Commander, Storm Shadow and Zartan on the Cobra side of the equation and we do get a brief glimpse of Destro but he’s essentially left out of the main plot, in what I would presume means that he would’ve been back in a third film with his Iron Grenadiers in an effort to start a Cobra Civil War, which was a great event in two different G.I. Joe comic book series.
While I could speculate on what the future of this franchise could have been for quite awhile, this is a review of this film and not a wish list for a movie that will never happen.
So getting back to the film, it flows nicely and I like that it was kept pretty grounded and didn’t try to overdo things like its predecessor that tried to be more like Iron Man and Transformers than G.I. Joe.
My only real complaints about the film are the same that I have with most modern big budget blockbusters of recent years. The musical scores are dull and not memorable or iconic, the fight scenes are hard to follow due to super fast edits and shaky cams, and the film’s visual look is boring, sterile and generic. These are all things that could’ve been easily tweaked and would have made this a much better picture.
Now I mostly like the story, other than I’m tired of killer satellites as weapons of mass destruction. This is a trope that has been done to death more times than a beaver has built a dam. Although, I will give the writers props on coming up with a fairly original version of a killer satellite.
Unlike the first movie, I loved the look of the characters, especially Cobra Commander. I don’t know what the fuck he was supposed to be in the first film but he looked like Doctor Satan from House of 1000 Corpses trying to cosplay as Glacier from World Championship Wrestling in the ’90s. Now Cobra Commander looks right. In fact, by the end of the film, he looked fucking perfect.
They also refined the look of Snake Eyes and got rid of his weird rubber lips while making Storm Shadow look more badass. Plus, the introduction of Firefly was great, he looked great and he was played by Ray Stevenson, who is pretty damn great in everything. I was kind of pissed that he got killed but this is a comic book movie and they could easily bring him back if they made a third picture.
For an old school G.I. Joe fan, this is a movie that just felt right. Especially, after the first one was a massive misfire that insulted the fans and confused the normies. It gave me hope because it showed that Hasbro and the studio listened to the fans’ criticisms of the first movie. Less than ten years later, studios just blame fans as being “toxic” while dismissing their criticisms because apparently fans are idiots and studios are run by geniuses that think that failure somehow means success.
In the end, I wish that this would’ve done better and that it would’ve kept the G.I. Joe franchise on the big screen for years to come. Granted, this could’ve easily just gone the route of Transformers and gone right back to being an embarrassing piece of shit.
I guess we’ll never know.
But I also guess we’ll see how Hasbro and the studio handles the material once it is rebooted. Rumor has it that G.I. Joe will be part of a larger connected universe with Transformers, M.A.S.K. and other toy franchises but fuck all that. I just want them to make a good, consistent G.I. Joe movie series before they try to go too big and ruin the whole thing for another generation.
Rating: 7.75/10 Pairs well with: the early days of the original Marvel Comics run, as well as the first two seasons of the ’80s G.I. Joe cartoon.
Also known as: Dark Sky: First Strike (fake working title), G.I. Joe (Czech Republic, Japan, Spain) Release Date: July 27th, 2009 (Tokyo premiere) Directed by: Stephen Sommers Written by: Stuart Beattie, David Elliot, Paul Lovett, Michael B. Gordon, Stephen Sommers Based on:G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero by Hasbro Music by: Alan Silvestri Cast: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lee Byung-hun, Sienna Miller, Rachel Nichols, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce, Said Taghmaoui, Channing Tatum, Arnold Vosloo, Marlon Wayans, Dennis Quaid, Karolína Kurková, Brendan Fraser, Kevin J. O’Connor, Gerald Okamura, Grégory Fitoussi
“Technically, G.I. Joe does not exist, but if it did, it’d be comprised of the top men and women from the top military units in the world, the alpha dogs. When all else fails, we don’t.” – General Hawk
*Let me preface this by saying this review will have a massive amount of profanity. You have been motherfucking warned.
Directed by Stephen Sommers, a man that shouldn’t be allowed to touch a camera after The Mummy Returns and Van Helsing, this movie is a massive piece of shit and a huge disappointment to any fans of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, whether in cartoon or comic book form.
I don’t know where to start, as everything about this is bad but I have to point out the biggest issue with it and that’s the fact that it has no idea what G.I. Joe is, who these characters are or why any of this is awesome and really hard to fuck up. That is, unless you’re just someone that doesn’t give a flying fuck about the property your adapting and just see it as nothing more than a cash cow with a massive amount of built-in merchandise already attached to it.
Frankly, Hasbro needs to respect their own properties more and stop whoring them out to anyone willing to write stories and make movies and shows based on them. They’ve forgotten what their core brands represent and why they resonate with people. Between this film and the live action Transformers movies and that awful Jem film, Hasbro needs to get their shit together.
Anyway, they couldn’t have chosen a worse director than Stephen Sommers. Okay, they could’ve gotten Uwe Boll, but his film probably would’ve at least been fun and ridiculous for the right reasons.
What I hate the most about this is that none of the characters apart from the ninjas, are even close to who they are in the cartoon series or the comics. For fuck’s sake, Larry Hama wrote amazing comic stories that all could have translated well to screen. The cartoons even had some great epics mixed in that could have been adapted. Stephen Sommers and his staff of a half dozen writers couldn’t come up with a single scene in a two hour film’s script that represented anything close to what was great about the source material.
One of my favorite characters, the Baroness, wasn’t even close to what her character is. She is an incredible character with a great backstory and is really, the most vicious member of Cobra. Here, she is just a brainwashed American girl that can’t be the badass she should be because she’s got a hard on for Channing Tatum the whole picture and turns back into a good guy and helps defeat Cobra. What in the holy fuck?! This is the goddamned Baroness we’re talking about!
It’s not just her though, Cobra Commander was a joke, Destro was boring, Duke was lame, Ripcord was annoying and Scarlett was so terribly uncharacteristic that she should have just been named Ginger Brainy Girl.
In one of the biggest action sequences in the film, we get Duke and Ripcord running around Paris in generic Iron Man suits. Why? Those suits never existed once in any G.I. Joe continuity that I’ve ever seen and I’ve read and seen everything. This was a poor attempt at trying to piggy back off of the success of Iron Man a year earlier. But, Sommers, this isn’t a Marvel film, it’s G.I.-fucking-Joe!
Also, in the big finale, Cobra Commander tries to destroy the Joes by blowing up the ice shelf above them. What does ice do in water people? It fucking floats! So how in the hell does the ice come crashing down like boulders in the goddamned ocean? How?!
But there’s still so much more wrong with this motion picture.
Why does Snake Eyes have fucking lips?! He’s a ninja in a ninja mask. He doesn’t need rubber lips. His head looks like it was ripped from a full size sex doll.
Why does Duke have to be restrained from punching a hologram? It’s a fucking hologram!
How does Ripcord’s jet plane go from Moscow to Washington in just a few minutes? How?!
I mean, there are a lot of other stupid things in this film too but you probably get the point by now.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was an expensive movie, given to a four year-old, mentally challenged kid, that just wants to play with his G.I. Joe toys in the bathtub. I’m talking about Stephen Sommers, for the record. And while that may sound harsh, it’s not as harsh as Sommers was to this beloved franchise. Fuck this guy, he’s one of the worst directors of the last two decades.
I never wanted to see this film again but I suffered through it just to review it. The sequel to this was actually better but still far from great. Hasbro needs to stop whoring out their properties unless they can learn how to vet these filmmakers better. Seriously, Hasbro, G.I. Joe is a franchise deserving of a great motion picture. Hell, I’ll make it. I can certainly do better than this film and I know these characters because I’ve spent over 35 years with them.
Seriously, Hasbro. Call me.
Rating: 2.75/10 Pairs well with: It’s sequel, as well as the crappy live action Transformers movies.
Release Date: December 9th, 1997 (London premiere) Directed by: Roger Spottiswoode Written by: Bruce Feirstein Based on: the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming Music by: David Arnold Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Jonathan Pryce, Michelle Yeoh, Teri Hatcher, Joe Don Baker, Judi Dench, Desmond Llewelyn, Samantha Bond, Götz Otto, Ricky Jay, Vincent Schiavelli, Pip Torrens
Eon Productions, United Artists, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 119 Minutes
Review:
“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.” – Elliot Carver
I’ve been working my way through the Pierce Brosnan James Bond films, as they are my least favorite stretch in the franchise and I haven’t revisited them in quite some time. Brosnan was a great Bond but other than GoldenEye, his films were weak and not worthy of his talents. Rewatching these now, I have found them to be a bit better than I remembered but they still aren’t great Bond outings.
While this chapter in the saga isn’t anywhere near as bad as Die Another Day, the worst Bond film of all-time, this one certainly isn’t as good as GoldenEye and I’d also have to rank it lower than The World Is Not Enough. Still, I enjoyed it more now than I did in 1997.
I remember that when this came out, I was really excited to see that Michelle Yeoh was in it. She is one of the greatest actresses to ever come out of Hong Kong and she spent the majority of her career kicking ass with style. This film also adds in Teri Hatcher to the long list of Bond Girls but unfortunately, she’s snuffed out before this film even gets to the halfway point. It felt like a waste for Hatcher and honestly, I was kind of hoping she’d be a femme fatale and throw a wrench into Bond’s plans. Hatcher was the perfect choice for that type of Bond Girl but the filmmakers really missed the mark for her.
Michelle Yeoh did at least kick some ass in this but I still felt that her skills were underutilized. Maybe they couldn’t have her upstaging Bond but frankly, that would have added a good element to the film and I’d rather see her as the top female badass of the franchise with the potential for a spin off, rather than how they tried to do that with Halle Berry, two films later in the disastrous Die Another Day.
Typically, I like Jonathan Pryce. I mean, he killed it in Brazil and I loved him popping up in those earlier Pirates of the Caribbean movies but I’m not a fan of his character here. He plays Elliot Carver, a media mogul that looks like an evil Steve Jobs, assuming Jobs wasn’t evil – I think he was evil. Carver has a world domination plot that seemed like something from an old throwaway episode of G.I. Joe. He might as well have just been Cobra Commander and bumbled his way through a dumb scheme only to have Roadblock shoot his way into the evil command center and dump gumbo on his head. Funny, since Pryce was also in those live action G.I. Joe movies.
Pryce’s main henchman was also one of the worst in Bond history. He wasn’t gimmicky or cool, he was just some buff, blonde European. Is this a Bond movie or Die Hard 9? Plus, no buff, blonde European is going to top Red Grant of From Russia With Love. Sorry, but the Soviet uniform and his menacing presence makes it hard for most evil henchmen to top him and he was featured in this series over thirty years before Pryce’s right hand stooge.
Tomorrow Never Dies is mostly unworthy of boasting the James Bond name. While it had a few good and amusing moments, it’s definitely a film that is way down towards the bottom of the list, if one were ranking these movies.
Original Run: April 17th, 2011 – present Created by: David Benioff, D.B. Weiss Directed by: various Written by: various Based on:A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin Cast: Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harrington, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Iain Glen, Alfie Allen, John Bradley, Conleth Hill, Aiden Gillen, Gwendoline Christie, Issac Hempstead Wright, Jerome Flynn, Julian Glover, Liam Cunningham, Rory McCann, Nathalie Emmanuel, Ben Crompton, Daniel Portman, Charles Dance, Carice van Houten, Natalie Dormer, Jack Gleeson, Michaelle Fairley, Kristofer Hivju, Ian McElhinney, Jacob Anderson, Stephen Dillane, Kristian Nairn, Hannah Murray, Mark Stanley, Richard Madden, Finn Jones, Iwan Rheon, Diana Rigg, Jonathan Pryce, Jason Momoa, Sean Bean, Mark Addy, Alexander Siddig
Since I was a kid, I have always been a big fan of fantasy fiction. I never got into George R.R. Martin’s massive Game of Thrones books when they started coming out though. They were abnormally massive, had way too many characters with difficult names and although I like reading and I read pretty quickly, it is hard for me to give something so massive and seemingly tedious, that much of my attention.
I did not watch this show in the beginning. In fact, I figured that I’d put it off until after it was over and then just binge the whole thing. Years and seasons have gone by, however, and everyone and their mother and their mother’s mother has talked this show up like it is the second coming of Jesus. The hype and admiration for this show has been absolutely ridiculous. So when I got injured and was trapped in my house for several days with nothing to do, I finally fired up Game of Thrones.
Well, I am definitely in the extreme minority because I think the show is absolute shit.
In fact, I got a little over midway through the third season when I had to stop. I couldn’t suffer through anymore episodes, I had had enough and I didn’t care about a single person or situation on this show. Well, except for Maisie Williams’ Arya Stark. Really, she is the only interesting character out of the 817 that I was introduced to in two and a half seasons. Peter Dinklage, while a great actor and enjoyable on screen, just ran his course quickly. But he was the only other character I was even remotely engaged in. Fuck the Khaleesi and her stupid dragons, I’d rather have Shadowcat and Lockheed from the X-Men comics of the 80s.
The problem with this show is it is just talking and plotting and talking about plotting and then betrayal and more plotting and nothing really happens except a whole bunch of nothing. The fan boys who hated The Phantom Menace for all its long winded talkie bullshit should hate this show even more.
I mean, once in awhile a battle happens but it is always underwhelming and just leads to more talking and plotting and talking about plotting and betrayal and more plotting.
Game of Thrones is a fantasy epic for people who don’t like fantasy epics. It is one of the most boring shows I have ever seen. Occasionally you get a titty or two but the big stars stopped getting naked after season one. And all the fanboy love for Khaleesi is baffling to me. But maybe its because these nerds like girls who look twelve.
I hated Game of Thrones to the point where watching it felt like torture but I kept sticking with it because people kept saying, “Dude, stick with it, it’s the best show of all-time!” No it isn’t. If you even think this is even in the same ballpark as Breaking Bad, probably the actual greatest show of all-time, you’re fucking retarded.
I don’t usually get this frank and vulgar in reviews on Cinespiria but I feel like everyone I know fucking lied to me. Like Game of Thrones was just some big elaborate prank. If it was, you got me. You’re an asshole, but you got me.
Now HBO is planning like a half dozen spin-offs of this show. Why? I guess money talks but I’d rather have to sit through a nurse screwing up a dozen times trying to insert a catheter than to ever sit through another episode of this show.
Release Date: February 20th, 1985 (France) Directed by: Terry Gilliam Written by: Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, Charles McKeown Music by: Michael Kamen Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, Ian Richardson, Peter Vaughan, Kim Greist
Embassy International Pictures, Brazil Productions, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, 142 Minutes
Review:
Brazil is one of those movies that after you see it, you can’t get it out of your head.
The film follows Jonathan Pryce’s Sam Lowry, as he goes through his humdrum mediocre life in his industrial dystopia. He discovers that the government made an error in capturing who they suspect is a terrorist. The man they caught is killed and his family is left in serious distress. Lowry is tasked with resolving the error. In the process however, he sees a woman that looks like the mysterious girl he’s been dreaming about. The woman, Jill Layton (played by Kim Greist), is also trying to get to the bottom of the government’s mistake, as she is the neighbor of the victim’s family. Lowry obsesses over the woman and does everything he can, putting himself at risk, to prove the government’s mistake. The government, not privy of having its flaws exposed, responds with an iron fascist fist.
This is one of Terry Gilliam’s most critically-acclaimed films alongside The Fisher King, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, 12 Monkeys and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It is also the one that was the most influential on other filmmakers. The visual style and other elements have gone on to inspire Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, the Coen brothers, Alex Proyas, Tim Burton, Darren Aronofsky and Zack Snyder.
The film is similar to 1984 in its subject matter. However, it has a comedic twist and more action. The comedy is a mixture of satire and slapstick and it works really well for the picture. The action sequences are executed nicely, especially the fantasy segments pulled from Lowry’s dreams. Overall, the film is a surrealist playground with stellar set design, costumes and cinematography.
The acting is also pretty superb. While De Niro is in this, he only has a few scenes, despite being billed pretty high. It is refreshing to see De Niro play a character that isn’t just Robert De Niro, like all of his later films.
Despite the talent in this film, though, I thought that Kim Greist just couldn’t cut it as Jill. Apparently, Terry Gilliam felt the same way, as her scenes and screen time were cut down in the editing room. She delivered lines like a B-movie actress and just felt out of place, sticking out like a sore thumb while playing off of the incredible Pryce.
The only other complaint I have, is running time. I feel like some sequences were too drawn out. The film had an uneven pace at times but its positives far outweigh its negatives and I don’t want to be nitpicky for the sake of nitpicking.
Ultimately, Brazil is a fantastic dystopian fantasy and some of Gilliam’s best work. The performance by Jonathan Pryce was so good, that because of this film, I always light up when I see him pop up in other pictures.
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Talking Pulp 
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