Movie Trailer Sunday (268)

Here are this week's trailers.

Ghost in the Shell
Director: Rupert Sanders
Description: A cyborg policewoman (Scarlett Johansson) attempts to bring down a nefarious computer hacker.
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Michael Wincott, Michael Pitt, Juliette Binoche
Trailer: Trailer "Ghost in the Shell"
Comment: I never saw the anime, but now I think I will. Or have to!

Beauty and the Beast
Director: Bill Condon
Description: An adaptation of the Disney fairy-tale about a monstrous prince (Dan Stevens) and a young woman (Emma Watson) who fall in love.
Starring: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Ewan McGregor
Trailer: Trailer "Beauty and the Beast"
Comment: FInally a trailer, my favorite of the week. Can't wait for this movie to come out!!!!

The Zookeeper's Wife
Director: Niki Caro
Description: The Zookeeper's Wife tells the account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Antonina and Jan Zabinski (Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh), who helped save hundreds of people and animals during the Nazi invasion.
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Daniel Brühl, Johan Heldenbergh
Trailer: Trailer "The Zookeeper's Wife"
Comment: What an AMAZING trailer!

Kong: Skull: Island
Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Description: An action/adventure story centered on King Kong's origins.
Starring: Brie Larsson, Tom Hiddleston, Toby Kebell, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly
Trailer: Trailer "Kong: Skull Island"
Comment: Looks epic and the cast is awesome!

The Edge of Seventeen
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Description: High-school life gets even more unbearable for Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) when her best friend, Krista, starts dating her older brother.
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson, Blake Jenner, Kyra Sedgwick
Trailer: Trailer "The Edge of Seventeen"
Comment: I'm especiallyliking Woody Harrelson here!

100 Movie Challenge 2016 - # 150"Secret in Their Eyes

Director: Billy Ray
Genre: Drama/ Crime/ Thriller
Runtime: 111 minutes
Year: 2015
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Ju;ia Roberts, Dean Norris, Alfred Molina, Joe Cole, Michael Kelly, Zoe Graham, Patrick Davis, Eileen Fogarty, Niko Nicotera

Description: A tight-knit team of rising investigators, along with their supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered.

Review: “El secreto de sus ojos” was overwhelmed with praise. The American remake, “Secret in Their Eyes”, managed to get an impressive cast. But that’s about all the praise I can give this film.
“Secret in Their Eyes” takes place from 2002 to 2015. It’s a roaring time politically. In 2002, FBI agent Ray Kasten, Jess Cobb and Claire Slaon form an anti terrorist unit. Short after 9/ 11, Los Angeles is feared to be the next target. The team is closely watching a mosque and during a routine check up, a dead body is found. It’s the body of Carolyn Cobb, Jess daughter. Carolyn has been brutally raped and murdered. They can’t find the person who did it, but thirteen years later, Kasten is still looking for him. Many scenes from the movie are an exact copy from the original. Director Billy Ray show ambition by translating this much praised film with an American background. But it also looks a bit lazy, because just placing this story in another time and place isn’t enough. The base material is good, but Ray turned it into an unnecessary film.
The three main actors in the film play solid roles, but they have no chemistry whatsoever. For instance Kidman and Ejiofor’s characters seem to have this desire for each other, but besides some talk about it, you never seem to notice that they do. There is no mystery or tension present in this film and it never keeps me interested the entire runtime. And the jumping in time is not clear. I sometimes don’t know wether a scene is set in the past or present.
In Hollywood they feel the need to copy great foreign films. Almost always it’s the original that wins. With “Secret in Their Eyes” there is no difference. You can skip this film.

Rating: 2/ 5

Top 5 Thursday: Actors That Are Sexier with a Beard

I love beards, or I love men with beards. A good beard. And there are so many men that look much hotter with a beard. I listed five of those men, actors to be specific, that look way better with a beard.

5. George Eads
He had many looks on “CSI”, but the season(s) where he had a beard I loved Eads the most. Eads is one of those men that gets more attractive by the years. And that beard on him is just sexy. Especially with a few grey hairs in it…

4. Ryan Gosling
He has a more trimmed beard, not very heavy on the facial hair. And Gosling is extremely attractive without it, just look at him in “Drive”. But that beard makes him more of a man and more handsome too.

3. Ryan Reynolds
Without a beard, Reynolds simply has a baby face. He is super hot with that beard, just look at the Amity film he was in.

2. Chris Evans
The beard doesn’t make Evans a tough guy, it just makes him more serious and appealing. As Captain America it doesn’t fit him, but for other roles it does. Throw that razor out Chris!

1. Chris Hemsworth
Okay, this man. I sometimes think he isn’t real, that’s how perfect he is. And with that beard he is the definition of a perfect man.

They Almost Made the Top 5: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Hardy, Jake Gyllenhaal, Bradley Cooper, James Franco, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba, Kit Harrington

100 Movie Challenge 2016 - # 149: The Walk

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 122 minutes
Year: 2015
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Guillaume Baillargeon, Émilie Leclerc, Mark Trafford, Inka Malovic, Lucas Ramaciere, Martin Lefebvre, Philippe Bertrand, Laurence Deschenes, Patricia Tulasne, Jean-Robert Bourdage, Sylvie Lemay, Sasha Dominique, Soleyman Pierini, Jade Kindar-Martin

Description: In 1974, high-wire artist Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) recruits a team of people to help him realize his dream: to walk the immense void between the World Trade Center towers.

Review: A good 3D camera is all you need. When high-wire artist Philippe Petit walks on a rope between the Twin Towers and you look over the edge of the building, the images give you vertigo. This movie is definitely a movie experience while watching it on the big screen, but you can still feel it when you’re watching it at home.
The movie builds up to the climax at the end: the actual walk. We meet Philippe and his big dream of making the impossible possible. We see how he shows his acrobatic tricks in Paris, but how he wants to go to New York to do something much bigger.
If you saw the documentary “Man on Wire”, you know the story. What Petit did and what his drive was. He is an interesting man and it’s great to get to know him in “The Walk”. The film is good, but the final act is sublime. I was on the edge of my seat at all times and loved it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt performed wonderfully. It’s easy for an American to mess up a fake French accents, but he pulled it off. Levitt made Petit a likeable and intriguing figure. It shows he was very dedicated to this role.
“The Walk” is a very good film, I highly enjoyed it. Just for that final act alone.

Rating: 4,5/ 5

Movie Trailer Sunday (267)

Here are this week's trailers.

Wonder Woman
Director: Patty Jenkins
Description: An Amazonian princess (Gal Gadot) leaves her island home to explore the world and, in doing so, becomes one of the world's greatest heroes.
Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, RObin Wright, Connie Nielsen, David Thewlis, Danny Huston
Trailer: Trailer "Wonder Woman"
Comment: A new official trailer. Kick ass Wonder Woman.

Collateral Beauty
Director: David Frankel
Description: Retreating from life after a tragedy, a man questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death. Receiving unexpected answers, he begins to see how these things interlock and how even loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty.
Starring: Will Smith, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, Naomie Harris, Michael Peña
Trailer: Trailer "Collateral Beauty"
Comment: I already got tears...

Valerian and a City of a Thousand Planets
Director: Luc Besson
Description: Time-traveling agent Valerian is sent to investigate a galactic empire, along with his partner Laureline.
Starring: Cara Delevingne, Ethan Hawke, John Goodman, Dane DeHaan, Clive Owen, Rutger Hauer, Rihanna
Trailer: Trailer "Valerian and a City of a Thousand Planets"
Comment: Luc Besson directing this is promising.

The Salesman
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Description: Forushande (The Salesman) is the story of a couple whose relationship begins to turn sour during their performance of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
Starring: Taraneh Alidoosti, Shahab Hosseini, Mina Sadati, Babak Karimi
Trailer: Trailer for "The Salesman"
Comment: Looks intense.

The Adulterers
Director: H.M. Coakley
Description: A man who returns home to find his wife cheating on him on their anniversary. He holds her and her naked and humiliated lover captive at gunpoint while he decides whether or not he's going to kill them. The story, inspired by true events, takes place over one day and is set in New Orleans during a stifling heat wave.
Starring: Sean Faris, Mehcad Brooks, Danielle Savre
Trailer: Trailer "The Adulterers"
Comment: Looks a bit shitty.

100 Movie Challenge 2016 - # 148: Citizen Kane

Director: Orson Welles
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 115 minutes
Year: 1941
Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloane, Paul Stewart, Dorothy Comingore, Ruth Warwick, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, William Alland, Paul Stewart, George Coulouris, Fortunio Bonanova, Gus Schilling, Philip van Zandt, Georgia Backus, Harry Shannon

Description: Following the death of a publishing tycoon (Orson Welles), news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.

Review: “Citizen Kane” tells the story of the American dream and its shadow sides. Charles Foster Kane, played by director Orson Welles himself, starts out as a paper boy and grows to be a rich owner of the most read paper. He eventually breaks down because of greed, envy and loneliness.
The film starts with Kane’s death and follows with the search for the true Kane, by a journalist. The man behind the myth. And especially what his last word, ‘rosenud’, means. With flashbacks, we get fragments of the dictorial yet brillian tycoon.
Director Welles experimented with sound and visuals. Voice-overs that tell something different than we see or letting the past flow into the present. He used deep-focus and extreme low camera stand points. The compositions of the images are extremely well done.
At the time “Citizen Kane” came out, it got nine Academy Award nominations, but only won one. The movie was later rediscovered and is now one the most famous films ever made.

Rating: 4/ 5

Top 5 Thursday: Movies That Make You Stay Out of the Water

I used to be a swimmer. A good one. But in the pool. I was never that keen on the ocean, although I did snorkel when I was in Galapagos. It’s stepping out of my comfort zone. The not knowing what goes on below and the unpredictability of the water just scares me a little bit. And there are many movies that make you stay out of the water, for various reasons. Here are my five favorites.

5. Deep Blue Sea
I wouldn’t take a job in a laboratory that is in the middle of the freakin’ ocean and surrounded by extremely smart sharks.

4. Piranha
Being killed by a shark is terrible, but I think piranha’s are even worse. Those little sharp teeth all over your body. It’s a slow death, or even no death and just pain and missing body parts.

3. Open Water
You’re in for the trip of your life, you go scuba diving, see the most beautiful underwater world. But then the boat leaves without you and leaves you in the middle of the ocean. Isn’t that a nightmare? That’s why “Open Water” makes you think twice about diving in the deep sea.

2. Lake Placid
Lakes aren’t safe either. Because many of them have crocodiles or alligators in them. Okay, not as big as the crocodile in “Lake Placid”, but they are super dangerous. Because once a croc gets you, he won’t let go. The death role you know.

1. Jaws
Off course this is number one. Because of this movie, almost everyone is afraid of sharks. Even though “Jaws” is everything but realistic, the movie gives me the chills even after seeing it so many times. The moments where you don’t see the shark are probably more scary then the moments where you do see him.

They Almost Made the Top 5: Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, It Follows, Deep Rising, Anaconda, The Perfect Storm, All is Lost, Rogue