Meet the free, proud, independent people of Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNxLzFfR5w Nothing but reviews. In excess.
From ZERO to 6 ♥s. 100% ad-free. Run on pure love for movies, documentaries and TV-series. June 2025: Countdown to: Top 10: Best horror comedy movies - Upcoming review: There's Still Tomorrow (2023)
Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value (2025)
Showing posts with label Chernin Entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chernin Entertainment. Show all posts
Three women of color tower as formidable heroines on this poster for Theodore Melfi's Hidden Figures
The 'space race' in 1960s America: The Soviets have succeeded in being the first to send a human into space, and NASA is under tremendous pressure to attain the upper hand on the new frontier. A group of black American women also work towards reaching this goal.
Hidden Figures is written by Allison Schroeder (Mean Girls 2 (2011, TV movie)) and co-writer/co-producer/director Theodore Melfi (Winding Roads (1999)), based on the non-fiction book Hidden Figures (2016) by Margot Lee Shetterly.
Segregation falls by the wayside in favor of reaching a common goal in the course of the work described in the plot outline above, - eyes are opened to the fact that brainpower has no skin color. But the sympathetic narrative lacks opposition; the villain here is 'the times', and that gets boring. The funky score (made with help from Pharrell Williams (Despicable Me 3 (2017))) and the honest performances from all help this polished, safe product (it feels more as such than as a film) go down without fail.
[Hidden Figures premiered 1 December (Virginia) and runs 127 minutes. Shooting took place from March - May 2016 in Georgia. Although based on real people, several aspects of the segregation and racism shown in the film are entirely fictional constructs. The film opened #18 to a 515k $ first weekend in 25 theaters in North America, where it peaked some weeks later at #1 with a 22.8 mil. $ weekend before grossing finally 169.6 mil. $ (71.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Australia with 13.3 mil. $ (5.6 %) and the UK with 7.9 mil. $ (3.3 %). The film was nominated for 3 Oscars: It lost Best Picture to Moonlight, Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer (The Witches (2020)) to Viola Davis in Fences and Adapted Screenplay to Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney for Moonlight. It was also nominated for a BAFTA, 2 Grammys, 2 Golden Globes, won 2 National Board of Review awards, among many other honors. Melfi returned with The Black Ghiandola (2017, short), Daughter (2020, short) and theatrically with The Starling (2021). Taraji P. Henson (Empire (2015-20)) returned in The Simpsons (2017, TV-series) and theatrically in Proud Mary (2018); Spencer in The Shack (2017); and Janelle Monáe (Harriet (2019)) in 8 music videos and a TV-series prior to her theatrical return in Welcome to Marwen (2018). Hidden Figures is certified fresh at 93 % with a 7.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Star Tom Cruise walks away from a bridge that has seen better days on this poster for Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion
Repairman Jack Harper learns new things on the devastated Earth in the future.
Oblivion is written by Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3 (2010)) and Karl Gajdusek (Trespass (2011)), based on an unfinished graphic novel by Iowan master filmmaker, co-producer/director Joseph Kosinski (TRON: Legacy (2010)), whose 2nd feature it is.
The arguably worst Tom Cruise (Valkyrie (2008)) movie to date, Oblivion is a horrible, empty shell of non-characters, who move around in 'beautiful', expensive-looking shots without chemistry or anything meaningful to relay to us for a couple of hours. What the film really is about is just about impossible to decipher. What is discernible is that Oblivion made me feel like my brain was actively shrinking, while I saw it.
Morgan Freeman (Kiss the Girls (1997)) appears with gigantic, black goggles on, ensuring that the film gets the minimal amount of performance from the beloved actor. Oblivion is a sexualized, self-enamored ego-trip, that comes off as unsexy and irrelevant nonsense. Watch it and feel the sensation of growing into a black hole of annoyed indifference.
[Oblivion premiered 26 March (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and runs 124 minutes. Jessica Chastain was cast in the female lead but was released from her contract in order to do Zero Dark Thirty. Shooting took place from March - July 2012 in Iceland, California, New York, Hawaii and in Louisiana, including in New Orleans. The film opened #1 to a 37 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#4), grossing 89.1 mil. $ (31.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 23.8 mil. $ (8.3 %) and Russia with 19.1 mil. $ (6.7 %). Kosinski returned with The Dig (2017, short) and theatrically with Only the Brave (2017). Cruise returned in Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Oblivion is rotten at 54 % with a 5.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
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.
= 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 inD'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?
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?
1980s retro-styled, super-packed poster for Paul Feig's The Heat
Sandra Bullock (Miss Congeniality (2000)) and Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids (2011)) star as an unlikely cop team, one an up-tight, unpopular but professional FBI-agent from New York and the other a street-wise, dangerous and profane Boston cop. Together they are put together to put an end to a drug lord in Boston.
The Heat has earned many differing reactions, from wild praise to death threats. Its writer, Katie Dippold (Parks and Recreation (2009-2012)) wanted to make a cop buddy action-comedy in the style of Running Scared (1986) and Lethal Weapon (1987), but with women in the main parts. The result is a sometimes funny, and never action-fueled with excitement movie that is unlike said films because of the grotesqueness of the events and dialog in it. It is closer to the Bad Boys films, but still something very different, more outrageous and less of an action film. A lot of the humor of The Heat comes from its American inside running gag of a Europe-aligned, modern New-Yorker pitched against an old-USA, Republican, gun-crazed Bostonian cop. This aspect is lost on many people outside of the US, and naturally the film was way bigger in the States than anywhere else. Great Michigander filmmaker, director Paul Feig's (Bridesmaids (2010)) choice of music for The Heat underlines its outrageousness, being a loud mix of mostly clubbing and dirty hiphop tunes that smash into your ears like beef pompoms. Marlon Wayans (Respect (2021)) acts as an awkward office commodity in the film, simultaneously looking insulted at and trying to flirt with Bullock's agent Ashburn. The rest of the supporting characters are mostly as thin and unsound as his. That is a problem. The story never surprises in any way. That opposite type cop characters must partner up and eventually bond is more or less the main convention in the buddy movie sub-genre, and The Heat stays true to it. But around this, nothing new happens, crime or detective-wise. Only the bar scene (and all the other scenes, really) have gotten more outrageous, as this buddy cop comedy aims to ironize the genre while performing in its arena. McCarthy as Mullins gets her laughs from a (sometimes creative) 'insult-everyone'-strategy, while Bullock gets laughs mostly as a pawn for her bossy partner, as when she gets an involuntary make-over in a club bathroom, or when she steps up and becomes outrageous herself, like when she performs throat surgery on a man in a restaurant, who just has some pancake stuck in his mouth, or when she yells at a colleague for using his smartphone, while she's talking, - both funny moments in the film. I don't have any problems with the buddy cop film being invaded by women here or the fact that The Heat doesn't want to have any romantic element, but then its action and cop plot elements have to work a lot better than they do. The problem is that the film wants to participate in a genre and poke fun at it at the same time.
Mullins' family, headed by her troubled brother (Michael Rapaport (Chuck (2016))) are the civilians we have to hope make it through the crime surge in the film. While some of the very dysfunctional family scenes are quite funny, they don't work in this part. Who cares if these idiots to make it?
Cost: 43 mil. $ Box office: 229.9 mil. $ = Big hit (returned 5.34 times its cost)
[The Heat premiered 23 June (New York) and runs 117 minutes. Co-producer Peter Chernin bought Dippold's script for 600k $. Bullock was paid 10 mil. $ for her performance; McCarthy 2.5 mil. $. Shooting took place from July - September 2012 in Massachusetts, including in Boston. The film opened #2, behind holdover hit Monsters University, to a 39.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#3-#4), grossing 159.5 mil. $ (69.4 %). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Australia with 13.4 mil. $ (5.8 %) and the UK with 11.2 mil. $ (4.9 %). Talks of a sequel have not materialized. Feig returned with People in New Jersey (2013, TV movie) and theatrically with Spy (2015). Bullock returned in Gravity (2013); McCarthy in Tammy (2014). The Heat is fresh at 66 % with a 6.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
