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

Showing posts with label Asa Butterfield. Show all posts

10/14/2020

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) - Burton and a fine cast bond with auspicious material

♥♥♥♥

Eva Green clad in leather fronts this fantastical poster for Tim Burton's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

The adolescent Jack has an unexciting daily life in Florida. But when his beloved grandfather dies mysteriously, he is driven to visit a strange orphanage in Wales, where he claimed to have previously lived.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is written by Jane Goldman (The Limehouse Golem (2016)), based on the same-titled 2011 novel by Random Riggs (Hollow City (2014)), and directed by Californian master filmmaker Tim Burton (Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)), whose 18th feature it is.

Asa Butterfield (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)) is well cast as the kind and a bit haunted protagonist; Eva Green (Euphoria (2017)) is charismatic as the orphanage leader Peregrine; and Samuel L. Jackson (Resurrecting the Champ (2007)) enjoys himself as the villain. The unusually beautiful blond that Jack falls for, played well by Ella Purnell (Wildlike (2014)), and others of the peculiar children are also sweet, especially Finlay MacMillan's (Waterloo Road (2014-15)) Enoch.

Burton fans will enjoy recurring imagery from earlier works by the master such as Beetlejuice (1988). The film has fantastical effects, fascinating characters and a strange story. It is spun about 15 minutes too long, but Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is still an imaginative and fun journey to be on.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) or, Tim Burton's Bloody Theatrics
Corpse Bride (2005) - Impressive, loud, hollow, dark doll fairytale
Ed Wood (1994) - Burton's sticky biopic with strenuous Depp
Batman Returns (1992) - Burton gives us the ultimate, Gothic spin on Gotham City and its sinister characters
Top 10: The best action movies and TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date
Batman (1989) - A huge, glitzy, empty joker
Beetle Juice (1988) - Burton and team serve one of the best horror comedies ever

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 110 mil. $

Box office: 296.4 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 2.69 times its cost)

[Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children premiered 25 September (Fantastic Fest, Austin, Texas) and runs 127 minutes. Fox bought the film rights in 2011. Shooting took place in Belgium, England, Florida and California from February 2015 - ?. The film opened #1 to a 28.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it remained in the top 5 for another 3 weekends (#2-#2-#4) and grossed 87.2 mil. $ (29.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 20.1 mil. $ (6.8 %) and South Korea with 18.6 mil. $ (6.3 %). Burton returned with Dumbo (2019). Butterfield returned in The Space Between Us (2017); Green in D'Après une Histoire Vraie (2017); Jackson in xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017). Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is fresh at 64 % with a 5.95/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children?

5/31/2015

Hugo (2011) - Scorsese's critically acclaimed, magical 3D family adventure/financial disaster

♥♥♥♥♥

2 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Non-adult Actor: Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz (lost to Amara Miller for The Descendants)
Best Cinematography: Robert Richardson (lost to Phedon Papamichael for The Descendants)

+ Best Family Movie of the Year
+ Most Expensive Flop of the Year
+ Best 3D Movie of the Year
+ Worst Poster of the Year

Does the poster for Martin Scorsese's Hugo spell magic and adventure, in 3D? (Probably not as much as it should have.)

QUICK REVIEW:

Hugo Cabret lives in Paris' main train station in 1930, because he operates the clocks there alone after his father's death and his uncle's disappearance. Together with a girl, he wants to unlock his father's message from inside a robot that he has left him with.

Hugo is an adaptation of Brian Selznick's (The Houdini Box (1991)) 2007 illustrated novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret by John Logan (Skyfall (2012)), directed by master filmmaker Martin Scorsese (Casino (1995)). It is a film that brings joy to its audiences simply through its images, which Scorsese and Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson (Django Unchained (2012)) have created with enormous, visual talent and resources. Hugo is a 3D movie, and praised for its 3D use, among others by James Cameron (Avatar (2009)), which he has said was the best he had yet seen, but it can also be seen and enjoyed without 3D, - no problemo.
On the Hugo posters, Asa Butterfield (Ender's Game (2013)) and Chloë Grace Moretz (Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)) look sickly pale, unappealing, almost ugly, (which is a really bad choice for the posters that have to mass-sell a film), but the two act fantastically in the film, and they are backed up by a first class ensemble: Jude Law (A. I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)), Ray Winstone (Edge of Darkness (2010)), Christopher Lee (The City of the Dead (1960)), Sacha Baron Cohen (The Dictator (2012)), - who is really funny here, - and Ben Kingsley (Gandhi (1982))!
This is a magical, touching, grandiose film about the amazing world of film and its importance. It might not be absolutely unforgettable, but it is certainly an outstanding movie.

Related posts:

Martin Scorsese: 2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - One helluva movie!
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Boardwalk Empire - 1st season (2010) - Luxurious 1920's ensemble gangster treats
The Aviator (2004) - The grand American biopic
Casino (1995) - Scorsese's sumptuous Vegas gangster tale has the wingspan of a Greek tragedy
The Age of Innocence (1993) or, Stayin' IN the Pants
Cape Fear (1991) - Scorsese adds lots of stuff to remake but loses the balance

Sascha Baron Cohen is funny in Martin Scorsese's Hugo

Watch the trailer here

Cost: 150-170 mil. $
Box office: 185.8 mil. $
= Huge flop
[Hugo's production, co-produced by GK Films and Johnny Depp's Infinitum Nihil, shot in London and Paris, went way over budget, (a reported 70 mil. $!) due to runaway production and 3D-related costs. It was extremely well-received critically, making it to many top 10 lists of the year, and it won a mountain of awards, including 5 Oscars (Cinematography, Art Direction, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing), out of 11 nominations, making it the year's most Oscar-nominated film! But the public did not, regrettably, flock to see it in the required numbers. It was quite a hit in Italy, where it made 7.3 mil. €. In the US, it made 73.8 mil. $ (40 % of the total gross), following its 15.4 mil. $ opening weekend. Besides better posters, it might have helped it Hugo had had one or two significant non-white actors in its ensemble as well.]

What do you think of Hugo?

5/10/2014

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008) - Powerful Holocaust story seen through the eyes of an 8 year-old German boy

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best War Movie of the Year

The poster for Mark Herman's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas seems to promise something more hopeful than is the case

QUICK REVIEW:

Bruno is 8, when his parents decide to move the family because of his father's soldier-job. The new place is very boring, but Bruno does meet another boy behind a fence with a weird name, and they become friends.
Outstanding film; a new concentration camp story, achieved to powerful effect in non-epic playtime (just 94 minutes).
Fine performances from David Thewlis (The New World (2005)) and Vera Farmiga (The Departed (2006)); particularly Asa Butterfield (Hugo (2011)) is magnificent, slightly gawky and innocent the movie through. Jack Scanlon (Married Single Other, TV (2010)), who plays the Jewish boy Shmuel, is also good.
Very depressing and tragic film, - a real heart-breaker, but, of course, no serious Holocaust-film could be anything else.
British director Mark Herman (Little Voice (1998)) seems to have possibly ended his career with Pyjamas, an awesome end for any director.

Related posts:

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess

The amazing Asa Butterfield offers us a fresh, outside look on Holocaust, - that of an 8 year-old boy, - in Mark Herman's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Watch the affecting trailer here

Budget: 12.5 mil. $
Box office: 20.4 mil. $
= Minor hit

What do you think of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas?
Have you seen other movies by Mark Herman, and if so, how were they?

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

Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)