Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams Headline State of Play, a Solidly-Crafted Political Thriller

In my opinion, Russell Crowe is at his best playing morally complicated figures as prone to darkness as they are helping people. When he's playing a straightforward biopic protagonist in something like A Beautiful Mind, I just can't buy him. Even his lead performance as the action hero in Gladiator doesn't quite work for me. But put Crowe in Noah, The Nice Guys or the 2009 movie State of Play, suddenly we're cooking with gas. Crowe's genuinely gifted at portraying rough and tumble figures who seem to have leaped out of reality rather than a studio executive's cliche-ridden idea of what a "tough guy" is.  There's actual menace and unpredictability to his best performances and he's even able to imbue a distinctly different personality to, say, his version of Noah compared to his Nice Guys role.

Triple Frontier, Thankfully, Evokes Treasure of the Sierra Madre More Than Lone Survivor

MILD SPOILERS WITHIN

According to Santiago Garcia (Oscar Isaac), it's time to get the band back together. By band, I'm referring to Garcia and his group of former soldier buddies which used to consist of Captain Tom Davis (Ben Affleck), Captain William Miller (Charlie Hunnam), Ben Miller (Garrett Hedlund) and Francisco Morales (Pedro Pascal). All five of these men, in addition to being the lead characters of the new Netflix motion picture Triple Frontier, served the U.S. during extensive tours of military duty that saw them all taking all kinds of injuries but now, with all of that in the past, all of them (sans Garcia, who's working in Brazil trying to track down a drug lord) have returned to conventional civilian lives full of woes ranging from financial issues to run-in's with the law.

Good Will Hunting's Best Moments Come From How It Drums Up Pathos And Robin Williams

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are regular fixtures of American cinema now, but twenty-one years ago, they were lesser-known individuals who first leaped onto people's radars with the highly acclaimed Good Will Hunting, easily the most financially successful movie Gus Van Sant has ever had in his nearly thirty years of directing feature films. The two got to write and star in this project which ended up scoring them both a Best Original Screenplay Oscar when they were just in their mid-20's. That's all mighty impressive, but massive box office and major Oscar wins do not a great movie make (right A Beautiful Mind?), but thankfully, Good Will Hunting is still a fine motion picture even when separated from all those pieces of hype.

The DCEU Goes From Churning Out Massive Disasters To Churning Out Major Messes With Justice League

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD 

 

And so, to quote the opening line of the Christina Aguilera cover of Car Wash from the movie Shark Tale...here we go again.

Though Better Than Expected, The 2003 Daredevil Movie Still Finds Itself Not Realizing Its Full Potential

Surprisingly, the 2003 feature film take on Daredevil does rise above a number of the middling or outright bad comic book movies that were being made in the era in which it was released. It's a thousand times better than Catwoman, it's far more interesting than The Punisher, it's less aggravating than the 2005 Fantastic Four film and I'd even go as far as to say it's at least on par with the 2000 X-Men movie in terms of overall quality. The problem here is that's probably the highest praise I can lather Daredevil with because it's still an erratic heavily flawed movie that's kept from being something truly special due to a pretty poor screenplay, though it does have its moments of charm or gusto goofiness, can't deny that.

Gone Baby Gone Kicked Off Ben Affleck's Directorial Career In A Somber Fashion

Ben Affleck's career circa the mid-2000's was not in a happy place. A number of high-profile box office and critical duds like Gigli, Jersey Girl and Surviving Christmas had left his profile tainted and he would only appear on-screen in two movies (Hollywoodland and Smokin' Aces) in the five year period between 2004 and 2009. But in that time span, Affleck decided to reinvent himself as a director by adapting the first feature film screenplay he had penned since his breakthrough movie, Good Will Hunting. The movie he would make his feature film directorial debut on was Gone Baby Gone, a sobering drama that, to date, is his only directorial effort that he does not star in.

Well Now, Ben Affleck May Not Even Make A Batman Movie, How About That?

Ben Affleck has a new movie entitled Live By Night opening in wide release next weekend, so naturally, all of the press interviews he's done for the movie concern reporters asking him question about why he chose to tell a story like Live By Night that is set in the Prohibition era, how he's grown as a director over the past decade and maybe his thoughts on the bigger picture of cinema in the world in 2016. Nah, just messing with ya, everyone's been asking him about that stand-alone Batman he's set to star in and direct. Previously, Affleck himself had said conflicting reports about the status the movie; he recently said it was aiming to start filming in the Spring (something actor Joe Manganiello backed up) while other times it was still in the development phase. 

Surviving Christmas Will Make You Lose Faith In Christmas, Comedy And Humanity

OK, so, the 2000 live-action Grinch movie is still awful awful awful, but holy hell, the only real compliment I can now pay it is that at least it isn't Surviving Christmas, which may indeed by the nadir standard for all of Christmas cinema to come. To watch this 2004 Mike Mitchell movie is to gaze into a deranged human beings interpretation of what dark comedy is as well as an unhinged conception of what constitutes an entertaining protagonist. God only knows what lured Ben Affleck and James Gandolfini into this trash but Jesus Christ, I hope they got a big paycheck. That's more than I got out of this torturous movie.

The Accountant Is Plenty Watchable But Also Sort Of A Mess

The Accountant is kind of an oddball movie. There's a lot of big actors wriggling around on-screen inhabiting a script that feels like it could have easily belonged to some sort of Steven Seagal and Charles Bronson action vehicle in the 1980's. It's an interesting dichotomy that actually makes the film watchable but it's kept from being truly as fun as it could have been by a script that seems to be hopping all over the place tonally and there's also the problem of the story being plagued by pervasive predictability.

Dazed And Confused Review (Classic Write-Up)

At this point, the rise of a new breed of indie filmmaker in the early 90's is practically a legend itself, with the rise of individuals like Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino ushering in a new age of cinema at the dawn of the final decade of the 20th century. Just as the likes of Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen shifted the paradigm of filmmaking in the 70's, these storytellers were changing everything as far as indie cinema, and even film in general, and among those directors altering the movie landscape at this time was a guy by the name of Richard Linklater. Emerging from Austin, Texas, his debut film, Slacker, had actually inspired fellow early 90's indie cinema auteur Kevin Smith to become a director.

J.K. Simmons Gets On Zack Snyder's Tempo, Will Play Commissioner Gordon In Justice League

After numerous false starts (one of which, back in 2007, even had George Miller onboard to direct!), a live-action Justice League movie is on the way from director Zack Snyder, with filming set to start on April 11, 2016. In terms of new characters in the film, there's no official word on who the bad guy of the production is, but some imagery from the Batman v. Superman promotional materials explicitly spells out the idea that Darkseid will factor heavily into the plot. But we do have word on another new character that'll be in the film, Commissioner Gordon, who will be played by J.K. Simmons in the film, and presumably will reprise the role in future DC Comics features like a solo Batman movie.

Entertainment Weekly Has Unleashed Tons Of New Images From Batman v. Superman!

Comic-Con is coming up next week, and Warner Bros. is bringing the heat by showing off their two DC Comics motion pictures next year. One of those films is Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, a film that has generated an enormous amount of debate, ranging from the casting to the quality of the new Batman suit to the lack of color in promo images for the movie. Entertainment Weekly, as part of their annual Comic-Con issue, is not only putting Batman v. Superman on the cover of the magazine, but also a number of images from the movie, as well as my analysis of each image, that you can view below!

Extract Review (Classic Write-Up)

Extract, Extract, Read All About It!

Once I finished watching Extract, I was left with this peculiar sense of unfulfillment. It's not that this 2009 Mike Judge feature was particularly bad or something, it's just that, by the end, very little of notable value had really happened. The characters weren't that notable, the laughs weren't too hearty and the plot didn't feel particularly exceptional. In fact, the story, in its execution, struck me as fodder for an episode of a sitcom in its seventh season than a major motion picture.

First Photo of Marvel's New Daredevil Netflix TV Show Released!

The Man Without Fear has spent 11 years away from the world of cinematic media, thanks to a poorly received 2003 feature starring Ben Affleck. But Daredevil is finally back home at Marvel Studios, and the company has big plans for the character in 2015. He'll be the first of five TV shows the media empire will create for Netflix and at the New York Comic-Con today, they revealed a first look at Daredevil, which you can catch below!

Will Arnetts Lego Batman Is Getting His Own Movie!

Adam West. Michael Keaton. Val Kilmer. Kevin Conroy. George Clooney. Christian Bale. Ben Affleck. These are the men who have brought Batman to life over the years through various mediums, with their interpretations of the Caped Crusader ranging from great (Bale, Conroy) to unknown (Affleck) to abysmal (Kilmer, Clooney). But the best version of him yet is the most recent, Will Arnetts turn as Lego Batman in this years spectacular The Lego Movie. And now, that particular version is getting its own film!

Gone Girl Review

My procedure for movies based on books is to not give the literature that inspired the feature a read prior to seeing the film. It's not that I'm against books in general, it's just that I want to treat the film as a separate entity as much as possible. Gone Girl adds an interesting facet to this tactic though by having Gillian Flynn, the woman who wrote the book that this movie is based on, write the films screenplay. If her books are anything like this films writing in terms of quality, I'll be sure to check out any and all of her work ASAP.

Here It Is! The Newest Version of The Batmobile, Zack Snyder Style!

March 2016 isn't too far, in fact, there's only 18 months until it arrives, so by definition, there isn't too much time until Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice arrives (it comes out March 25, 2016 dontcha know). The epic Zack Snyder film has Superman interacting with numerous people from DC Comics, most notably Batman. I'm sure everyone is completely unaware of the fact that Ben Affleck is playing the Caped Crusader, but now we have the first official images of the vehicle Afflecks Batman will drive in the feature.

Classic Write-Up: The Town Review

Don't Rob Yourself Of This Fantastic Film

Ben Afflecks recent resurgence in popularity can be attributed more to directorial projects like Argo (one of my favorite movies from recent years) and his 2010 feature The Town. If Argo is undeniably his quintessential movie, filled with top-notch filmmaking in every regard, then The Town at times feels like a warm-up session for that 2012 Best Picture winner. Affleck is dipping his toes into staging larger sequences of action, and while it's not quite perfect, I can honestly say I was amazed at how fantastic The Town was on its own merits.

Did Ben Affleck Kill His Wife In The Trailer For Gone Girl?

Three years ago, The Social Network hit theaters and changed this particular moviegoers life forever. It was one of those movies that's just so amazingly well made, it never fails to boggle your mind. The following year, the director of that fantastic movie, David Fincher, handled a new interpretation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and then took a three year break that ends with this falls Gone Girl. Here's the newest trailer for that new movie.