Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Ant-Man (2015) - Reed and Rudd succeed with light, refreshing, FX-driven 3D spectacle

11/26/2016

Ant-Man (2015) - Reed and Rudd succeed with light, refreshing, FX-driven 3D spectacle

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Superhero Movie of the Year

The handsomely designed, almost popcorn-smelling poster for Peyton Reed's Ant-Man

Hank Pym is an alienated business pioneer in the field of minimizing the human being for military purposes. He now wants to protect his company by making an ant-man out of an unsuccessful petty criminal.

Michael Douglas (The China Syndrome (1979)) makes an impressive comeback in this his highest-grossing pic to date, and he works well as the person that the film's protagonist ant-man Paul Rudd (The Simpsons (2011-14)) plays up against. Rudd's three friends in the film, played by Michael Peña (Cesar Chavez (2014)), T.I. (Get Hard (2015)) and David Dastmalchian (Chronic (2015)), add to the fresh sense of fun that this self-ironic movie benefits from, - Peña especially.
Ant-Man is truly a spectacular special effects film, and so watching it without the 3D element some of the point of the film evaporates, and especially in that case, some adult audiences might have to really force themselves to stick with its naturally loony plot. It is phallocentric but done with an infectious energy and a lightness to it. The film also boasts a tremendous climax. It is written by Joe Cornish (The Adventures of Tintin (2011)), Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz (2007)), Rudd and Adam McKay (The Other Guys (2010)) and directed by Peyton Reed (Yes Man (2008)).

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Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 130 mil $

Box office: 519.3 mil. $

= Big hit

[Ant-Man premiered June 29 (Hollywood's Dolby Theatre) and runs 117 minutes. The film had been in development since the late 1980s. Wright was hired as director and shot footage before he was replaced by Reed, reportedly because Wright's vision was too removed from the overall Marvel cinematic universe. Filming took place from August - December 2014 in Georgia and California. The film opened #1 with a 57.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed atop for another week and spent a total of 4 weeks in the top 5 and grossed 180.2 mil. $ (34.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 105.3 mil. $ (20.3 %) and the UK with 25.1 mil. $ (4.8 %). The film was nominated for a BAFTA for its visual effects. Deadline.com have calculated the film's profits to 103.9 mil. $, figuring in most all costs and profits, making it the 14th most valuable movie of the year. A sequel, with Rudd, Peña and Reed already signed on, is set for a 2018 summer release. Ant-Man is certified fresh at 81 % with a 6.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Ant-Man?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

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Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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