Colin Farrell, donning a rather “Joaquin Phoenix in Her” disposition and attire, sits on the couch, facing away from his presumed wife as she tells him the details of the man for whom she’s leaving, doesn’t say much.
The good news is that the so-called “orgy episode” of this season is not nearly as gratuitous and exploitative of women as it could have been in a worst case scenario. The bad news is that it is still pretty gratuitous and unnecessary once it is made clear what exactly the show is trying to accomplish throughout the party.
The only truly frustrating part about “Other Lives” is that if the entire season to this point had been even a fraction as good, so many of the acting missteps and story misjudgments could have been more easily forgiven. Much of what works in this fifth installment of the season are things that could have been easily fixed before filming a second episode after the premiere, which is all the more infuriating now that things are even marginally smoothed out.
Back when Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos first clambered barefaced upon the international stage with his daring Dogtooth, quite a few hastened to mention its striking resemblance to Arturo Ripstein’s similarly self-contained The Castle of Purity, made some 35 years earlier. In the wake of his first English-language effort The Lobster, one might even go further and compare all that Lanthimos has done thus far to Ripstein’s film: the …
This premiere trades in the ritualistic and occult elements of season one for the everyday goings on of cops and criminals, depicting them with scenes that are overwrought with heavy language and meaningful glances.
Following weeks of rumors, months of amusing memes and hashtags and Colin Farrell leaking the news himself anyway, HBO has finally confirmed that Farrell, Vince Vaughn and Director Justin Lin are signed on for the second season of Nic Pizzolato’s True Detective. Via Deadline, Farrell will play a compromised cop in a corrupt Los Angeles …
Over the weekend, the Irish magazine The Sunday World featured an interview with Colin Farrell in which he confirmed that he will be in the next season of True Detective. “I know it will be eight episodes and take around four or five months to shoot. I know very little about it, but we’re shooting …
The procedural crime thriller, tales of murder investigation and corruption, a hallmark of hard boiled fiction from the 1970’s onwards, has tailed off. This is particularly frustrating when such a film emerges that should really have been a shot in the arm but was instead a bullet in the head. Step forward the hugely promising and ultimately disappointing Pride and Glory, a true Jekyll and Hyde.
Winter’s Tale Written and directed by Akiva Goldsman USA, 2014 It’s interesting to consider how readily we accept the notion of true love at first sight in animated films instead of live-action ones. We more easily appreciate the Disney princess stories of our collective youth where a handsome prince stumbles upon a fair maiden and, …
RoboCop Written by Joshua Zetumer & Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner Directed by José Padilha USA, 2014 Paul Verhoeven’s science-fiction films RoboCop and Total Recall take place in different environments and eras, but share a similarly raucous, ramshackle, satiric attitude. These films are products of their time, filled with garishly practical effects and grimy, tactile …
Saving Mr. Banks Written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith Directed by John Lee Hancock USA, 2013 “They said only God could make a tree,” Walt Disney says proudly as he strolls down Main Street, U.S.A. in the Disneyland theme park, late in Saving Mr. Banks. Walt, as he prefers to be known, gladhands all …
We are living in a golden age of animation, yet so many people working at Hollywood’s studio-funded animation companies are content working in the realm of the familiar. Too frequently, new mainstream animated films are like a big bowl of soup, with countless flavors that you’ve tasted before tweaked only slightly to not be total carbon copies of something bigger and often better.
Dead Man Down Directed by Niels Arden Oplev Written by J.H. Wyman USA, 2013 It’s hard to tell exactly when Dead Man Down topples over totally into an overwhelming sense of self-seriousness, to pinpoint which of Colin Farrell’s many soulful looks into the grim abyss of New York City is the one that pushes this …
Seven Psychopaths Directed by Martin McDonagh Written by Martin McDonagh USA and United Kingdom, 2012 Christopher Walken has become a gag in modern popular culture, a punchline to a joke no one’s actually told. His repeated hosting gigs on Saturday Night Live over the past two decades along with a series of bizarre appearances in …
Total Recall Directed by Len Wiseman Written by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback USA, 2012 Taken on its own terms, Total Recall is a passable but not particularly dazzling sci-fi action film that survives almost entirely because its cast isn’t unpleasant to watch. But it’s hard to take this remake of the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger …
The Way Back Directed by Peter Weir Written by Peter Weir and Keith R. Clarke USA, 2010 An old-school period epic in every sense of the idea, Peter Weir’s first film since 2003’s Master and Commander is a similarly pared-down, male-dominated tale of survival and strength of will, albeit tinged this time around with a …