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 Christian Slater. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christian Slater. Show all posts
+ Best New Franchise of the Year + Best Poster of the Year + Best Spoof Movie of the Year
A barrage of fun quotes from the film in psychedelic 1960s styled lettering and the inimitable Mike Myers fill out this hilarious poster for Jay Roach's Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
England's #1 spy is cryogenically frozen at the peak of 1960s 'swinging London' period, as his arch nemesis Dr. Evil does the same. 30 years later he is unfrozen, as his unique talents are needed again: Evil has reawoken with a new terrible scheme!
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is written by writer/co-producer/star Mike Myers (The Love Guru (2008)) and directed by great New Mexican filmmaker Jay Roach (Zoo Radio (1990)).
It is a wildly cheerful, coarse comedy that's a grand spoof of the Bond movies and the 1960s in the West. It opens with an irresistible dance sequence, and is followed by wacky scenes in London of the past, leading into a veritable sea of vulgarities, word puns and physical gags. Will Ferrell (Zoolander (2001)), Tom Arnold (Hard Breakers (2010)) and Christian Slater (True Romance (1993)) are fun in cameos, and Robert Wagner (The Hunters (1958)) as No. 2 is really funny!
Myers has created his best and most resilient character yet here in Powers, which pulls the leg hilariously on the sexualized, male-centric, reality-detached 007 fantasy universe of the past. One might suspect that some of the film's non-stop gags are there mainly to boost the playing time, because some of them truly are detours. - But since they are mostly so funny, it doesn't really matter.
[Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery premiered 29 April (Los Angeles) and runs 91 minutes. Powers was an early 1990s SNL character that Myers created with inspiration from his father. Myers was paid 3 mil. $ for the movie. Shooting took place from August - October 1996 in Nevada, including Las Vegas, and in California, including in Los Angeles. Many of the scenes reportedly contain improvisation. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release Breakdown, to a 9.5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 4 weekends in the top 5 (#4-#4-#4-X-X-#5), grossing 53.8 mil. $ (79.5 % of the total gross). The film did not have a big reception in the UK, which is attributed to Princess Diana's tragic death shortly prior to its release there. Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Daniel Craig said in 2014 that the Bond movies had to change to a more serious tone following Austin Powers, which made the gags the franchise had previously done "impossible" due to its satirizing them. The film spun two sequels, the first being Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999). Roach returned with said film. Myers first returned in 54 (1998). Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is fresh at 74 % with a 6.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery?
+ Best Heist Movie of the Year + Best Indiana Movie of the Year + Best Mega-flop Movie of the Year + Costliest Flop of the Year: 57.6 mil. $ range + Worst $ Return of the Year: 0.52 Times its Cost
Heavy downpour soaks a man on the run on this strong poster for Mikael Salomon's Hard Rain
Two related armored truck drivers are ambushed by a team of bank-robbers during a torrential rainstorm in a town in Indiana.
Hard Rain is written by Graham Yost (Justified (2010-15)) and directed by Mikael Salomon (A Far Off Place (1993)).
Randy Quaid (Davis Rules (1991-92)) is priceless as the greedy sheriff villain in this hugely entertaining action picture. The pace is high from beginning to end; there's humor and charming side characters as well as Christian Slater (Ask My Anything (2014)) and Morgan Freeman (Levity (2003)) skillful as the leads. The score by Christopher Young (The Tower (2002)) is involving, and the action scenes are impressive and sometimes innovative. It is also well done the way Yost manages to get the water element to work for his script, paired with a 3 mil. $ heist.
There are a few loose ends, and the shoot-outs may become a tad too numerous at some point, but Hard Rain is still one heck of an action spectacle.
Watch the opening title sequence from the film here
Cost: 70 mil. $
Box office: 26.6 mil. $ - 31 mil. $ (different accounts)
= Mega-flop (returned between 0.38-0.44 times its cost)
[Hard Rain was released 16 January (North America) and runs 96 minutes. John Woo was slated to direct but bowed out to do Face/Off. 10 companies were involved in the financing and production of the film. A 6 mil. $ set was created in an aircraft hangar in California. Shooting took place from August 1996 - January 1997 in California, Indiana and Toronto, Canada. The ending of the film was changed due to poor test audience feedback. It opened #5, behind holdover hit Titanic, fellow new releases Good Will Hunting and Fallen and holdover hit As Good As It Gets, to an 8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 19.8 mil. $. One source claims the film only made 6.8 mil. $ abroad, while another claims that its final gross was 31 mil. $ (11.2 mil. $ abroad in that case.) Roger Ebert gave the film a 1/4 star review, translating to 4 notches under this one. Slater was imprisoned for about 90 days on drug and violence charges directly following the premiere. Freeman later publicly dissed the film, and Minnie Driver said in an interview in 1997 (so before the film was even released) that she hated working on it due to the wet conditions (...). Salomon turned to TV and a prolific career directing there but did return theatrically with Freezer (2014). Freeman returned in Deep Impact (1998); Slater in Basil (1998). Hard Rain is rotten at 30 % with a 4.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
The two stars, dressed for gala, send tense, loathsome looks on this poster for Björn Runge's The Wife
An American novelist is awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, and together with wife and son, the three make the daunting journey across the pond, as old resentment and a major secret surface.
The Wife is written by Jane Anderson (Mad Men (2008, TV-series), adapting the same-titled 2003 novel by Meg Wolitzer (Surrender, Dorothy (1998)), and directed by Björn Runge (Harry och Sonja (1996)). It is a tense and fraught marital drama with Bermanesque tones, (especially since it is mostly set in Sweden), which is powered by sharp performances, especially from leads Jonathan Pryce (Leatherheads (2008)) as the Grand Man author husband, whom Glenn Close's (Hoodwinked! (2005, voice)) complex wife character has just about had enough of finally. Christian Slater (Breaking In (2011-12)) is solid as a bio-writer, who is sympathetic while at the same time circles the couple with a vulture-like hunger; Max Irons (Dorian Gray (2009)) seems a little old to be the son who lives in his father's shadow, badly needing his approval, but he plays well in the climactic fight and denouement scenes. Harry Lloyd (The Iron Lady (2011)) and Annie Starke (Albert Nobbs (2011)) are very good and credible as young versions of the marrieds, SPOILER who lay the groundwork for the constellation of a Great Writer husband and a secretly ghost-writing missus, which is tearing their marriage apart half a century later. The Wife is generally a fine drama and a great occasion for Pryce and Close to shine in fleshy roles, which they both fill out very satisfyingly. It annoys that characters more than once smoke indoors in contemporary Swedish establishments, which is simply unthinkable and has been for more than a decade, important VIP guest or not. Lazy writing, honestly, because what modern people light up cigarettes in fancy locations today? And then there are small psychological things that nag: SPOILER After decades of such self-discipline, why exactly does Close's character have to explode so impulsively when at the plush gala, seated right next to Swedish royalties? The ending has her indicating that she will write another book under her own name, implying that her deceitful nature now turns to self-deceit, as she must imagine that she'll be able to publish without the world realizing her secret as a decades-long ghost writer. SPOILER It doesn't seem to be intentional from the creators, but the many decades of diligently churning out novels without demanding credit by Close's character in my eyes blocks an exculpation of her now as her husband takes the world' arguably highest literary honor. She is no victimized innocence but someone who has entered a marriage for self-serving purposes (publication), just as her husband did (to attain her gift for writing.) The Wife serves well as a debate-starting picture about deceit, equality and the basis of relationships.
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: Unknown Box office: 14.2 mil. $ and counting = Uncertain [The Wife premiered premiered 12 September (Toronto International Film Festival, Ontario) and runs 100 minutes. Frances McDormand, Gary Oldman and Logan Lerman were pursued to star in the film. Shooting took place in Stockholm, Sweden and in Scotland, including Glasgow, ending in October 2016. The film opened #35 to a 108k $ first weekend in 4 theaters in North America, where it has peaked at #14 and in 541 cinemas and grossed 7.6 mil. $ to date. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets are Australia with 2 mil. $ and the UK with 1.9 mil. $ but the film is still playing. It will open in Russia 22 Nov., Norway 23 Nov. and in Japan on 26 Jan. 2019. It is rumored that Close is up for a Best Actress Oscar nomination, which would give the film another push in North America and globally. If the film is made for a likely 8-10 mil. $, it still has quite a distance before becoming a theatrical success. Runge is announced to next helm US drama Remember Me. Close returned in Crooked House (2017), Pryce in The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017). The Wife is certified fresh at 84 % with a 7.1/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Christian Slater looks astonished, holding a giant bomb to his chest, on this curiosity-sparking poster for Frank A. Cappello's He Was a Quiet Man, which has a tagline and title that eerily echo what neighbors and co-workers to sudden homicidal maniacs often utter in the aftermath of carnage
Bob Maconel is a middle-aged, ugly man, who is planning a small massacre at his office workplace, when a colleague beats him to it, and he instead starts dating the paralyzed colleague hottie, whom he had saved in the attack.
He Was a Quiet Man is a psychological romance-drama written and directed by Frank A. Cappello (No Way Back (1995)). You might call it a different kind of office drama. Christian Slater (Breaking In (2011-12)) and William H. Macy (ER (1994-09)) are really good here, but especially Elisha Cuthbert (The Ranch (2016-18)) as the paralyzed love interest make an impression and actually act here. (I have previously lampooned her for the often grotesque situations her annoying character found herself in in her most famous outing as Jack Bauer's daughter in 24 (2001-10)).) Cappello treats the story as a playground for especially digital effects and inventiveness (such as a talking fish), and most of it works for this small, dark pearl of a film.
Cost: Unknown Box office: 83k $ = Uncertain - but certainly a box office disaster [He Was a Quiet Man premiered 11 March (South by Southwest Film Festival, Austin, Texas) and runs 95 minutes. Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles, for 21 days. The film opened #84 to a tiny 2k $ in 3 theaters in North America, where it was pulled after just one week's release. This was the film's smallest out of 6 markets. The 3 biggest were South Korea with 41k $ (49.4 % of the total gross), Turkey with 17k $ (20.5 %) and Italy with 12k $ (14.5 %). The film's budget is unknown, but if it was made for a modest 1-2 mil. $, it would rank as a box office disaster, since it almost made no money at all theatrically. Cappello only returned as a director 8 years hence in 2015 with 2 video shorts. He has directed an episode of Malibu Gothic (presently unreleased) and upcoming hitman-focused feature Steele Wool. Slater returned in Slipstream (2007); Macy in The Deal (2008) and Cuthbert in My Sassy Girl (2008). He Was a Quiet Man is fresh at 79 % with a 6.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.] What do you think of He Was a Quiet Man?
Adventure springs to mind from this neat, painted character-poster for Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose
The Name of the Rose is an adaptation of Italian writer-philosopher-semiotician Umberto Eco's (The Prague Cemetery (2011)) first novel and the fourth movie from French director Jean-Jacques Annaud (The Bear (1988)). Annaud had developed and nursed the project for 4 years and taken his time with studies of the novel, the medieval portrayal and facts presented. And with the casting of all the monks in the film that all have very distinct and interesting faces. Rose is a whodunit crime thriller set in the very unusual place of a 13th century monastery in Northern Italy. Here, a monk has thrown himself off the roof of the monastery in a hailstorm, and soon other eerie irregularities follow. William of Baskerville is a learned monk from another, more liberal order, who is called upon to solve the mystery. And he does so with the aid of his young apprentice, Adso. Sean Connery (Time Bandits (1981)) is a major reason to watch Rose, although his casting wasn't obvious at the time of production, when his career was in a slump. But seeing him tackle the Sherlock Holmes-inspired character (Holmes is also referenced in a few lines in the film) is a joy. He has the warmth and humor that takes some of the gruesomeness out of the film, and the possibility of anything supernatural at hand never seems a possibility due to his straight-shooting nature. As Adso, we get a 17 year-old Christian Slater (True Romance (1993)), who breaks his celibacy with a poverty-stricken girl in a feisty sex scene. Annaud's keen sense of the sensual is very clear throughout Rose, a film with lots of intellectual and religious ideas floating around, which is aptly balanced with the horrors of the monastery and the vileness of its inhabitants, as Annaud tackles the occult to great effect and seems to revel in the stuff. Most vile of them all is Ron Perlman (Drive (2011)), whose already somewhat ghoulish features have been heightened greatly to suit his menacing, humpbacked character here:
Ron Perlman in Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose
The details: F. Murray Abraham (The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)) plays the adversary, who arrives late in the film after it has lost some pace. Still, it is a very enjoyable time and a very specific, different, exotic place to be taken to for a couple of hours. The film seems to have an implicit, agnosticist skepticism of all the (Christian) religion involved, which is represented mainly as ludicrous or of very poor consequences, but Baskerville also shows another, lighter alternative, retaining his Christian faith. And the ending is definitely no rejection of strong faith and quite memorable. Annaud is working on his Chinese adventure movie Wolf Totem (2015) at present.
Sean Connery and Christian Slater in Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose
Budget: 18.5 mil. $ Box office: 77.1 mil. $ = Big hit, - mainly in Europe, (Rose only made 7.2 mil. $ in the U.S.) What do you think of The Name of the Rose? Other unusually located whodunits that you want to recommend?
This is a review of Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 and Nymphomaniac: Volume 2, as they play in Copenhagen these days, in a cut version to suit international markets, as two two-hour films with a ten minute break in between. I saw them in a jam-packed theater last night and had a very intense experience with Danish master director Lars Von Trier's latest magnus opus. If the films should be reviewed individually, - which they seem to welcome themselves, being parted with credits, and released (perhaps) in America as two individual films this spring, - I would rate them as follow: Nymphomaniac: Volume 1♥♥♥♥♥ Nymphomaniac: Volume 2♥♥♥♥
Incredible group photo of most of the stars of Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac
Nymphomaniac is about a middle-aged woman, Joe, who is found battered down in an alley by an elderly gentleman, Seligman. He takes her to his apartment, where she begins to tell him her life story, which is the story of a nymphomaniac. For those unaware of the diagnosis, a nymphomaniac is also what is known as a sex addict. Joe has an unhealthy obsession with sex and sexual stimulation in all its forms, and this dictates her life and makes her live a life of seemingly unavoidable disasters. Volume 1 is surprisingly warm and humorous, given Trier's previous films and person. Joe's friendly conversation with Seligman lends the film a charming narrative device, and Stellan Skarsgård (Breaking the Waves (1996)) has one of his best parts ever, and puts wonderful life to his character. We quickly go through Joe's childhood play with her sexuality to her youth as a frivolous searcher and soon fanatical sex enthusiast. The only really dubious acting performance in the film unfortunately comes from Jens Albinus (The Boss of it All (2006)), who gets serviced by the young Joe. And this part is only on the screen for a minute or two. Otherwise, a highlight of Volume 1 is the scene with Uma Thurman (Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (2003; 2004)), who plays with an electric emotional intensity that wells out into the theater and fascinates. A great, great scene:
Uma Thurman is one of the actors, who deliver incredibly fine work in Nymphomaniac
The only real discomfort I suffered in Volume 1 was during the hospital scenes, in which Joe's father dies. He is played by Christian Slater (He Was A Quiet Man (2007)). As most of the audiences, I left the theater for the break high on the film and excited and a little anxious to see Volume 2.
The second volume leaves out Skarsgård's calming Seligman-figure for most of the runtime. Instead we are introduced to Joe's escalating sex mania, as she becomes a mother and choses her addiction over her family and delves into different fetishes. Her great tragedy is that she has overused her vagina to an extent where it becomes numb and later disfigured. By and by she cannot cover her regular job anymore and gets a new job that relies on her moral plasticity and sexual knowledge. She is introduced to new levels of depravity and tragedy and continues her long journey of addiction and extreme loneliness with no other alternatives in her sight. Needless to say, Volume 2 is discouraging with a vengeance. If some of us saw Volume 1 and thought for a while optimistically that Trier had lightened up, Volume 2 clearly shows that he hasn't, and that he was just fooling us, perhaps so as to tramp us down even further in a muddy, black hole of despair in the film's second half. Volume 1 is fine to show anywhere, in my opinion, for grown-ups mind you, but in Volume 2, lavish amounts of explicit sex and violence made me feel sick in my stomach, and the film still sits like a dark cloud around my head. The ending makes all the difference, and, without spoiling it, I will say that Trier goes to new pessimistic lengths with the ending of Nymphomaniac, which can best be described as utter hopelessness. This deprives the film of great praise from me, since my favorite Trier-film still is the amazing, cathartic masterpiece Breaking the Waves (1996), - perhaps his only film to end on a hopeful note. At the same time, Nymphomaniac is an amazing piece of cinema and totally unique. It is a crazy cornucopia, which could only be made and realized by Trier, and although I had hoped that he would have mellowed and served a less tangy, stomach-turning piece of pie, it still comes from an exquisite pie.
As noted earlier, Nymphomaniac is embellished by several great acting performances: Besides those already saluted, Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist (2009)) is phenomenal as the older Joe. Jean-Marc Barr (Europa (1991)) has a memorable scene. Young model Mia Goth does well in her shocking scenes with Joe. Willem Dafoe (The Boondock Saints (1999)) plays the only really evil character in the film, a near-satanic man, and he is a specialist at such roles and does great. Shia LaBeouf (Eagle Eye (2008)) plays his part as Jerôme, Joe's love, with great sensibility and grace. Young actress Stacy Martin (The Clown, upcoming) is impressive as young Joe, and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot (2000)) is fierce and believable as a sadist practitioner in some very lengthy, almost unbearable-to-watch scenes, in which Joe (and us as audiences) are slapped, beaten and whipped harshly. It certainly is (upliftingly) difficult to imagine Bell returning as Tintin after this... Nymphomaniac is a sprawling tale filled with digressions, which was part of Trier's design and idea for the film, for it to be more like a great novel than a film. This only partly succeeds: In Volume 1, the digressions are mostly Seligman's, as he informs Joe and us of points on numbers, fish, literature, knots etc., and mostly these digressions are humorous and welcomed by audience interest. In Volume 2, most of the digressions are Joe's, and they are mostly poorly disguised outlets for Trier's own opinions on this and that. Because Trier has not permitted himself to speak in public any more, (since the debacle at Cannes with his previous, apocalyptic Melancholia (2011), in which he said he sympathized with Hitler, and was subsequently kicked out of the festival, and later questioned by Danish police), Trier takes the chance with Nymphomaniac to speak in VOLUMES. About democracy, political correctness, pedophilia, hypocrisy and other issues dear to his heart. Joe is the speaker of these ideas. And most of them are well-founded and reasonable, - especially the thoughts on pedophilia where meaningful to me, - but there are just too much of it, and it doesn't brighten up the already heavy tonnage in Volume 2. It also doesn't levitate that the final scenes are the lengthy conclusion to the conversation between Seligman and Joe, in which they both seem close to falling asleep. Nymphomaniac is packed with a heady mix of pop, rock and classical music; it is technically superior and thematically charged. It makes Steve McQueen's celebrated, good film Shame (2011) look like a meek parenthesis on the subject of sex addiction. Nymphomaniac is the definitive cinematic work on the issue and will probably remain so for decades to come. It is taboo-breaking, depressing, funny, riveting, terrible, crazy and wild to see: Trier still knows how to develop a female lead that comes to totally own the audiences, even if she's mostly bad, and we suffer greatly because of it. The film is set to come out in America in March and April, respectively, and I am curious to see how that will play out, and in how many countries the films will finally land. They are bound to become controversial and could result in downright hysteria and bans. I predict Nymphomaniac will be called racist, blasphemous, dangerous, illegal, incestuous, satanic, misanthropic and other dubious 'distinctions', even if I don't think either of them really fit. But it does walk on a fine line on many of these accounts. How to judge Nymphomaniac? As a morality tale, or rather an immorality tale? As a film about sex? A drama? A literary film? The third film in Trier's trilogy of depression, (which also includes Antichrist (2009) and Melancholia (2011))? I think the most correct and crediting way is to view it as a film about sex addiction, about being a nymphomaniac. Seen in this light, Nymphomaniac is the bleakest of views, showing no feasible way out or solution to the strongly motivated addiction, which only results in continued avalanches of calamities in the film's universe. For this reason, and because Trier has been better before, - often when he has confined himself more and been less indulgent than is the case here, - I cannot totally embrace Nymphomaniac. But I will still recommend it to every one, who is up for it. And I consider it Trier's best film since his hilarious dark comedy The Boss of It All (2006). Related posts:
Budget: 4.7 mil. $ Box office: 10.2 mil. $ so far = Still not possible to say Are you going to see Nymphomaniac? If you already have, then share your thoughts, please
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