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Steve Coogan's large head and the styles of the European dance set of the latter part of the 20th century make up this poster for Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People
Tony Wilson is a TV-host and a music pioneer in 1970s Manchester, and in the dozen or so years to come he helps punk and rave groups to emerge and break out on his Factory Records.
24 Hour Party People is written by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Millions (2004)), based on the actual Wilson and his record company, and directed by Michael Winterbottom (Butterfly Kiss (1995)). Steve Coogan (The Look of Love (2013)) is terrific as Wilson, and the film has an original concept, in which Wilson himself comments the story directly to us from time to time, breaking the fourth wall. 24 Hour Party People has some funny episodes, and the title sequence seems designed to induce epileptic seizures. The music, save for that by Joy Division, is unimpressive, and the majority of the musicians around Wilson appear to be faceless losers.
Cost: Unknown Box office: 2.8 mil. $ = Uncertain [24 Hour Party People premiered 13 February (the UK) and runs 117 minutes. Shooting took place in England. The film opened #59 to a 34k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #32 and in 37 theaters (different weeks), grossing 1.1 mil. $ (39.3 % of the total gross). The rest of the film's gross sheet is incomplete; but it only grossed 379k $ (13.5 %) from its apparent 2nd biggest market, production home the UK. It won 1/2 British Independent Spirit award nominations and was shown in competition in Cannes, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to 3 notches higher than this review. Winterbottom returned with In This World (2002). Coogan returned in 6 TV and video projects before his theatrical return in Coffee and Cigarettes (2003). 24 Hour Party People is certified fresh at 86 % with a 7.27/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.] What do you think of 24 Hour Party People?
Ensconced in dark-blue metallic, futuristic designs, this poster for Ryan Coogler's Black Panther highlights the film's main characters
The African nation of Wakanda, who enjoy a secluded life in technological bliss due to their natural resource, vibranium, has a new, kind monarch in T'Challa. But the kingdom is shaken, when a stranger emerges to claim the throne. Black Panther is the 18th Marvel Cinematic Universe film and the first in what is destined to become its own franchise within the franchise. It is written by Joe Robert Cole (Amber Lake (2011)) and great Californian co-writer-director Ryan Coogler (Creed (2015)), whose third picture this is, based on the Marvel comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Chadwick Boseman (Persons Unknown (2010), TV-series) has the timbre and soft, sensitive eyes that make him ideal for the title character. Martin Freeman (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016)) as a CIA operative and especially Andy Serkis (King Kong (2005)) as a wild-man villain are good, the film's only Caucasian characters. Everyone else is African-American, making this tentpole stand out and feel a bit like an inverted huge movie, since it is most often the ethnic minorities who find themselves with just two smaller roles. SPOILER Serkis is killed off, which is a bit of a shame since he's so damn electric and enjoyable to watch; but he is, and it is to open up for Black Panther's main villain, played by Michael B. Jordan (Fantastic Four (2015)), who is certainly the sexiest villain in recent memory here. The two lead opponents naturally fight, but the film's more thrilling fight scenes are the ones with its female characters: Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave (2013)), Danai Gurira (Restless City (2011)) and especially Letitia Wright (Cucumber (2015), TV-series) (who is actually from Guyana) make the younger women characters come to vivid and enjoyable life here. The film benefits from a cool score by Ludwig Göransson (Central Intelligence (2016)) who traveled to Senegal and South Africa and recorded musicians for it. There's an it-vibe and enormous hype surrounding Black Panther at the moment, especially in North America, where it may almost seem like the film is going to cure cancer and end all wars. So groundbreaking is its reversal of the ethnic representations over there, and some of this hyperbole is not just bordering on ridiculous but just plain ridiculous. The excitement for Black Panther is palpable, but the film talks especially to the African-American audience and their feelings and frustrations, not least in the Jordan character's motivations for his plan of an essentially militaristic revenge campaign on the Western world for its past misdeeds in Africa. - The film's connection to the actual African peoples and their plights now and in the past are far more elusive: - In the film's first act, some of the young women around T'Challa want Wakanda to start helping refugees in their region. - Despite Wakanda's overwhelmingly developed situation, helping their neighboring African nations with issues of refugees and devastating famine, as has killed millions for the past century, apparently hasn't been on the radar until now that we meet them today. - Issues of Africa's unique wildlife and its extinction from poaching, pollution and overpopulation is also non-existing in Black Panther, SPOILER in which the only wildlife we meet are rhinos that help one of Wakanda's tribes in battle and well-behaved obey the sound of their whistles. In this way Black Panther is still a standard action-adventure film for the urbanized Western ex-African (and everyone else) more so than the actual peoples of Africa, whose problems it largely neglects, (and who are also not likely to beat up the film's gross, a pivotal point for a film as expensive as this.) So Black Panther is best enjoyed without thinking too much about the actual realities of Africa, which, however, is a relevant criticism of this particular film. - We can always hope the sequel dares a bolder relevance. The film is also overlong. But it undeniably has thrilling sequences, a good story and a tempting freshness and sense of idealism about it: SPOILER For instance; what other superhero tentpole ends with the enthusiastic planning of opening an outreach center? Related posts:
Cost: 200 mil. $ Box office: 520 mil. $ and counting = Too early to say (but already a box office success) [Black Panther premiered 29 January (Los Angeles) and runs 134 minutes. Wesley Snipes was aiming to star in a Black Panther film from 1992 on, but the project never materialized. Marvel approached Ava DuVernay to direct the film, but she exited as she found they did not "see eye to eye" about the film. Shooting took place in Argentina, South Korea, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Georgia, including Atlanta, from January - April 2017. The film is released in 3D, IMAX and 2D formats and opened #1 with a 202 mil. $ first weekend and a record-breaking 242.1 mil. $ over the full 4-day Presidents' Day weekend, the 2nd best 4-day opening ever, trailing Star Wars: The Force Awakens' (2015) 288 mil. $. Black Panther is likely to end up as one of the top-grossing films of the year. It opens in Russia 26 Feb., Japan 1 Mar. and China 9 Mar., its last announced market. Boseman returns in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Marvel's next blockbuster. Coogler returns with Wrong Answer, again starring Jordan, and is also in talks for a Black Panther sequel. Black Panther is certified fresh at 97 % with an 8.2 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
The contours of the well-known cartoon characters stand out on this adventurous poster for Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin
Tintin buys a model ship at a market, which is instantly coveted by the sinister, reckless Ivan Sakharine. Our young journalist hero and his dog Snowy will get to the bottom of the mystery! The Adventures of Tintin is written by Steven Moffat (Coupling (2000-04)), Edgar Wright (Baby Driver (2017)) and Joe Cornish (Ant-Man (2015)), based on Belgian artist Hergé's (Fred and Mile (1931)) Tintin comics The Crab with the Golden Claws (1941), The Secret of the Unicorn (1943) and Red Rackham's Treasure (1944), and directed by Ohioan master filmmaker Steven Spielberg (Hook (1991)). The film is made as a motion capture animation, which means that actors have acted in special suits and had their performances captured for use for animators, who have created the characters and film with inspiration from these performances. The film moves a bit too fast for us to really fathom the logic behind the fantastic plot; the filmmakers have focused too much on the incredible action sequences to enable this. Some of these, however, are rousing, funny and impressive, - with a 'camera' that leads one more to think of video games than films. - But they are allowed to drown out some of the stage that should have been used for storytelling. Best in the film is, without a doubt, Captain Haddock whom Andy Serkis (War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)) gives fine life and his wonderful voice. The other characters are brought to life with varying degrees of luck, - some simply seem to lack just that; life. I couldn't help but miss Tintin actor Jamie Bell's (Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017)) real physical presence. Some older audiences will not be able to watch The Adventures of Tintin without dreaming themselves back to the good old days of Indiana Jones (the memorable first three films were made by Spielberg in 1981, 1984 and 1989), as the movie icon Spielberg really walks the opposite, modern CGI plank all out here. The Adventures of Tintin is a mixed experience. Related posts:
Cost: 135 mil. $ Box office: 373.9 mil. $ = Box office success [The Adventures of Tintin premiered 23 October (Brussels, Belgium and Paris, France) and runs 107 minutes. Spielberg discovered Tintin and Hergé during his making Raiders of the Last Ark (1981), the first Indiana Jones movie. Hergé also became a Spielberg fan and wanted him to get the film rights but passed away before the two had met. Jack Nicholson and Roman Polanski were in talks to make Tintin movies in the following years, before Spielberg announced an animated Tintin film and partnered with fellow Tintin fan Peter Jackson (who acted as one of the first film's producers) on a mo-cap (motion capture) version, the first film to be directed by Spielberg, the second by Jackson and a possible third film co-directed by the two. Filming took place from January - March 2009 in New Zealand. The film opened #5, behind Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (the only other new release in the top 5) and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, to a disappointing 9.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it earned more in the following week but left the top 5 and ended up grossing a slight 77.5 mil. $ (20.7 %), undoubtedly influenced by Americans' lesser familiarity with the Hergé source material than, especially, Europeans. The film's 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 53.9 mil. $ (14.4 %) and the UK with 25.9 mil. $ (6.9 %). The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Score (John Williams, who was also nominated for Spielberg's other 2011 disappointment, War Horse), which it lost to Ludovic Bource for The Artist. It also won a Golden Globe, was nominated for two BAFTAs, a Grammy and many other honors. The sequel plans have sat on the backburner since the good but not impressive performance of Spielberg's first film. The Adventures of Tintin is certified fresh at 75 % with a 7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.] What do you think of The Adventures of Tintin?
Without giving much away, this poster for Matt Reeves' War for the Planet of the Apes indicates the seriousness that marks the film
War for the Planet of the Apes is the 9th movie in the Apes franchise, following the 5 in the original series (1968-73), Tim Burton's unsuccessful reboot of the original film, Planet of the Apes (2001) and the two previous entries in the new 'trilogy', (which may not be a trilogy because more chapters could manifest depending on the performance of War), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It is written by Mark Bomback (Live Free or Die Hard (2007)) and New-Yorker master co-writer/director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield (2008)), who also directed the previous film, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. When ape leader Caesar's wife and oldest son are killed by an evil human colonel and his forces, he leaves his group on a quest for revenge that takes huge tolls and teaches him more about himself and the colonel. It seems just plain unlikely that War is as good as it is. Following the somewhat disappointing Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I missed Dawn and have yet to watch it. War for the Planet of the Apes is the only Apes sequel or reboot to reach the height of the very first film, which broke new grounds for science fiction in terms of scope and technical elements (effects, costumes, makeup and prosthetics) and showed its possibilities with a thought-provoking - and much copied - story of humans, exploration and apes with deeper, underlying, very timely themes of racism, segregation, democracy, science, religion and man-created (nuclear) doom. In War for the Planet of the Apes, we meet a perverted, militarized, fascism-resembling army gathered around a colonel who has sacrificed his own humanity in a quest to save the human species. - The type of wrong decision that makes a leader dangerous. Elements of the story are as universal as they are thematically timeless: War and destruction; fight for survival against the stranger, the other kind or race and its progeny vs. peaceful co-existence and a respect for earth and the universe and the sufferings and losses of others. The powerful narrative is told in a cinematography (by Michael Seresin (Foxes (1980))) with a delicious kind of texture and depth to it, combined with a sound universe and with a great, grand score (by Michael Giacchino (Star Trek Into Darkness (2013))) that seem to have a direct line to the original classic film. War doesn't have a single showy camera tracking or an unnecessary cut; it is fixed, most of the time, on the faces of the apes and humans involved in the scene, and its relaxed pace feels assured in the strength of these faces, lines spoken and the underlying narrative. There is something a bit old-fashioned about this, but in the best way possible: It takes its time to tell its compelling story in its own pace, and again and again scenes astonish and show real depth that would have been lost with any other, faster, flashier, more 'current' approach. Of course a primary part of the spectacle that this huge film also contains lies in these very faces, especially in the faces of the apes, which in War actually seem to have more humanity and relatable emotion to them than the faces of the humans, who are for the most part unwise brutes. It is impossible to overstate the brilliance of the visual effects accomplishments in War for the Planet of the Apes, especially in creating the faces of the ape characters, which are modeled using acting performances from a talented cast. It is inevitably impossible to ascertain for an outsider, just how much of the greatly affecting performance onscreen is thanks to the actor involved and how much to the team of visual effects wizards who crafted the ape, but Andy Serkis (Wild Bill (2011)), who has made it into his personal specialty to give life to later animated characters in this way, (he was Gollum, King Kong and Captain Haddock, among others), is certainly deeply felt in his truly great lead performance as Caesar, a portrayal that is as dramatic as they come, simply, and deserves great recognition. The other ape performances that go over and beyond what I have ever seen before and truly touch audiences include Steve Zahn (A Perfect Getaway (2009)) as Bad Ape, Judy Greer (Californication (2007-12)) as Cornelia and especially Karin Konoval (The Quality of Life (2008), TV movie) as Maurice. War also has a terrific child performance from Amiah Miller (Lights Out (2016)) as Nova and Woody Harrelson (Play It to the Bone (1999)) a magnetic lump of muscle and mean determination as the Colonel, a character with clear linkage to Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz character in Apocalypse Now (1979). For those familiar with the original film, War ties neat strings that lead up to the universe that meetsCharlton Heston's astronaut Taylor in the first film, which must be some 20-25 years after the events of this film. War for the Planet of the Apes is a rare science-fiction film that is both compelling, breathtaking, deeply moving and meaningful. Furthermore, you are guaranteed to regret it, if you miss seeing this in a cinema, so make sure that you don't!
Cost: 150 mil. $ Box office: 186.4 mil. $ and counting = Too early to say [War for the Planet of the Apes premiered 11 July (UK and Ireland) and runs 140 minutes. Bomback and Reeves were given a longer period to write the script for War than they had been given for Dawn, and they saw and were inspired by countless classic movies, including all the Apes films, Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Bridge on the River Kwai, The Great Escape, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Apocalypse Now and others. Shooting took place in British Columbia, Canada, including Vancouver, from October 2015 - March 2016. The film opened #1 to a 56.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, significantly lower than Dawn's 72.6 mil. $ debut, and took a sharp 62.9 % drop in its second week, dropping to #4. The film has yet to open in several major markets, including Germany, France, Japan and South Korea, but it has not gotten a Chinese release, a major problem for such an expensive film, which is suffering an underwhelming performance in North America. Reeves and Bomback are already booked to write and direct The Batman, starring Ben Affleck, Jeremy Irons, J.K. Simmons and Joe Manganiello, which should shoot in spring 2018. War for the Planet of the Apes is certified fresh at 94 % with an 8.1/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.] What do you think of War for the Planet of the Apes?
The gnarly poster for Michael J. Bassett's Deathwatch
QUICK REVIEW:
A company of English soldiers are trapped in a ghost limbo of a German trench during World War I, wherein they become increasingly mad and gun-crazed. Writer-director Michael J. Bassett (Silent Hill: Revelation 3D (2012)) wants to make a colorful horror movie here, but he also wants to say something about some of what war destroys and corrodes, - humanity. There's no humor in Deathwatch, so the ambition is for us to taste the mud (metaphorically), be entertained and catch the anti-war message. Alright. Unfortunately, Deathwatch is slow in getting moving, and not all of its special effects are equally sharp, - SPOILER although Andy Serkis' (Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)) death-by-barbed-wire is pretty cool. I did also miss some humor, I have to admit. Serkis goes batshit in a believable performance, and Jamie Bell (Fantastic Four (2015)) is pleasant as a (mostly) innocent young private. - The ugly trench war has rarely looked grosser than it does here in Deathwatch.
Watch the creepy trailer for the movie here
Cost: 3.2 mil. $ (2 mil. £) Box office: In excess of 2.2 mil. $ = Uncertainty [Deathwatch was shot in Benesov in the Czech Republic. The box office figure is not a world total but the combined grosses from only 4 countries, the only ones that I can find online: the UK (1.4 mil. $), Hong Kong, Mexico and Spain. The film is a UK-German co-production, and the German gross figure isn't even known. But as it stands, it looks like a big flop.] What do you think of Deathwatch? And other films by Bassett, if you've seen any?
The face of the key chimpanzee in the Apes reboot, Caesar, on the poster for Rupert Wyatt's The Rise of the Planet of the Apes
QUICK REVIEW:
Fox's second reboot of its beloved Apes franchise, (after Tim Burton's less than favorably received Planet of the Apes (2001)):
An Alzheimer's scientist has developed a smart ape and experiments his new drug on his sick father. - But then all hell breaks loose! The cast includes good forces such as John Lithgow (The Campaign (2012)) and Brian Cox (L.I.E. (2001)), but James Franco (Interior. Leather Bar. (2013)) leads the film, and he just seems like Franco throughout, instead of a real character. Tobey Maguire (Pawn Sacrifice (2015)) was in talks to play the part, but that unfortunately fell through. Despite the fact that the big action scenes, - in particular the gorilla that sinks a helicopter! - are neat, it is disappointing to me, - a big fan of the original 5 Apes films, - that this new film doesn't have one doll or ape costume in it. (All the apes are CGI-designed, some of them based on motion captured actors.) Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver's (Jurassic World (2015)) script bows to the 1968 original film in references to it, and the plot of Rise proceeds without any big surprises. The film is directed by British director Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist (2008)). Rise of the Planet of the Apes mostly left me hoping that the sequel would be better. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) is now a fact, and War of the Planet of the Apes (2017) is in pre-production. Related reviews: Rupert Wyatt: The Escapist (2008) or, Frank's Escape The Apes franchise:Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) or, The Final Ape! Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) or, The Ape Uprising Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) - Decent follow-up to the SF milestone
Watch the trailer for the film here
Cost: 93 mil. $ Box office: 481.8 mil. $ = Huge hit [Rise was surprisingly successful; it opened #1 in North America with a 54.8 mil. $ opening weekend and stayed #1 for a second weekend as well, the 4th biggest August opening up until that point. It grossed 176.7 mil. $ in North America (37 % of the total gross) and was Oscar-nominated for its visual effects, losing to Hugo.] What do you think of Rise of the Planet of the Apes?
