Movies

Blast of the Week -  What did you think of Avengers: Age of Ultron?

For my generation, Christopher Reeve will always be the best Superman, and Michael Keaton will always be the best Batman. Taking on an iconic superhero role always runs the risk of stereotyping the actor, but Michael Keaton had already made a name for himself before donning the cape and cowl, with a string of comedies like JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY, MR. MOM, and BEETLEJUICE, contrasted with incredible dramatic performances in shows like CLEAN AND SOBER and, later, PACIFIC HEIGHTS.

As Riggan Thomson, the lead character of BIRDMAN (subtitled THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE), Keaton portrays a washed-up actor, best known for having played the titular superhero, Birdman. While Keaton may have had some experience to draw on for part of this, he's never been "washed up" and has kept busy his entire career. With BIRDMAN, Keaton delivers a disturbing performance of a man mocked by his past and taking incredible risks to redeem his status, even if it takes suicide.

Disney has finally started to release some information on their forthcoming Disney Infinity 3.0.   What we know so far is that the game will be very Star Wars heavy.  The new starter pack will come with Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano.   I am actually surprised they didn't got a little heavier on Rebels or The Force Awakens...but the variety of figures here is pretty cool. 

We also got a pretty cool trailer, which features a lot of vehicle action and lightsaber duels, which makes sense for Star Wars.  Hopefully they will have decent controls for the flying:
 

On the Marvel side, the only new character they have shown is Hulkbuster Ironman.

Sometimes you're lucky to review an item that simply put, you know going in you already love. I mean, what can I tell you about the film Goodfellas that hasn't already been said? It's up there with the first two Godfather films as one of the greatest achievements in gangster cinema. So glorious is this film that it transcends the genre and isn't JUST a gangster film. It's simply a masterful piece of storytelling. Beautifully written, masterfully directed, and featuring some of the best performances of the past quarter century. It's fingerprint is upon so many films that have come since. Goodfellas has created stereotypes and tropes of the genre, yet when it was released it was original and vibrant. The only question to be pondered: does it hold up twenty-five years later.

By now you know the main players: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner are back in “Marvel’s The Avengers 2: The Age of Ultron,” reprising their roles as Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Hulk, and Hawkeye, respectively. The S.H.I.E.L.D. brass, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and Cobie Smulders’ Maria Hill are also back, along with Anthony Mackie as The Falcon and Don Cheadle as War Machine. Idris Elba appears as Heimdall but Tom Hiddleston does not reprise Loki in this installment.

That’s already a rather ponderous list and we haven’t even got to the bad guys yet.

FROM THE DARK, available on Blu-ray, tells the haunting tale of a young couple who are on a road trip around the Irish country side. When they develop car trouble, they seek help at a nearby farm house and it isn’t long before they discover a terrible evil is lurking in the dark.  A creature has been awakened from a thousand year slumber by the owner of the house who unearthed it while digging in the bog, and the couple soon learn the only safety they have from it lies in the light. But night is falling quickly, and the darker it gets the more powerful the creature becomes.

The movie has a very limited cast and stars Niamh Algar and Stephen Cromwell as the young couple Sarah and Mark.

Whenever I hear the phrase “based on a true story,” I often wonder, “Which part?” Take “Titanic” for example. I know the boat is going to sink. I wonder if there was a romance between the characters played by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio or if that was contrived to distract the audience from the inevitable disaster that nearly everyone on Earth knew was coming in that film. I suppose if Hollywood didn’t spice it up they’d be making documentaries, not blockbusters.

JJ Abrams debuted a new teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the Star Wars Celebration today.  I guess to prevent crappy bootleg versions from showing up online, they actually posted it online, which was pretty decent of them. 

I do have some quick comments about it, but I'm sure you are much more excited to watch the trailer than read to what I have to say, so here it is.  Meet me below to read my thoughts on it:

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

THE POSTHUMAN PROJECT is an idea we've seen before, any number of times with varying degrees of success, with outings like X-MEN and GEN-13. In this particular version of the trope, the teens are a group of Oklahoma high school kids nearing graduation. To celebrate, they're going to climb a mountain. Denny Burke (Kyle Whalen) is still recovering from falling off a mountain, in a freak accident which also saw his father disappear.

All is not as it seems, however, as Denny and his beleaguered brother, Archie (Collin Place), meet their long-lost Uncle Billy (Jason Leyva), and his unusual offer. Soon enough, the Burke brothers, joined by their friends Adam (Josh Bonzie), Lisa (Alexandra Harris) and Gwen (Lindsay Sawyer) pile into the SUV and drive off to conquer Mount Dominick, which Uncle Billy now owns.

This is the trailer Marvel posted this morning.  It definitely looks like it will live up to the terrific movies Marvel has been putting out the last few years.  I'm still not sure Ant-Man needs his own movie, but at least the movie does look pretty awesome.  I laughed when Lang says "my days of breaking into places to steal stuff are over.  What do you want me to do?" and Pym replies, "I want you to break into some place to steal some stuff." 

If nothing else, the effects look incredible.  And the Yellowjacket costume looks incredible.  I was actually thinking that Pym was going to end up having a split personality and secretly be Yellowjacket, but the trailer definitely suggests otherwise. 

Shameless self-promotion: Ant-Man is one of Critical Blast's most anticipated movies for 2015!

Enough out of me, let's check out the trailer:

Mike Maillaro: Welcome to Blast of the Week.  Each week, the Critical Blast staff will post up a question and do our best to answer it.   This is going to be pretty freeform and stream of consciousness, so I have no idea what we’ll end up with.   So, good luck, and hopefully we will all survive this.

Picking up from the ashes of SON OF BATMAN, BATMAN VS ROBIN pits father against son in one of the most dysfunctional family dynamics that could be imagined.

Damian Wayne (Stuart Allan) is a ten-year-old assassin, trained by the best in the business. His bloodlust is potentially inborn, what with having Talia al Ghul as a mother. United with his father, Bruce Wayne (Jason O'Mara) for the first time has been tumultuous at best, as Damian is eager to accompany his father in the battle against crime as Batman and Robin. Only this Robin has to be reined in to keep him from killing the bad guys.

As BATMAN VS ROBIN opens, Robin has gone off on his own in search of some missing children taken by The Dollmaker ("Weird Al" Yankovic). It is during this encounter that Robin meets Talon (Jeremy Sisto), who fights like Batman but isn't timid about crossing the line of taking lives. He offers Robin an opportunity to join him, which Robin begins to seriously consider.

From Variety:

Stephen Amell has been tapped to play Casey Jones in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2″ for Paramount and Platinum Dunes.

Megan Fox is set to return as April O’Neil. Will Arnett is also returning. David Green is directing the pic. Plot details and information on other returning cast members are still unknown.

A loner who becomes an ally of the turtles and a love interest for O’Neil, Jones is a fan favorite of the series going back to when Elias Koteas played him in the 1990 New Line pic.

Michael Bay is producing along with his Platinum Dunes partners Brad Fuller and Andrew Form. Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec are penning the script.

Amell tested with a half-dozen actors over the weekend, but it was his chemistry with Fox that led to the studio eventually giving the role to the star of CW’s “Arrow.” Paramount had no comment on the casting.

The concept of getting various fairy tale characters to interact with each other in a shared universe is always an intriguing concept (if, not necessarily, a new one, as easily attested to by ONCE UPON A TIME and, even before that, with Bill Willingham's series, FABLES). In this Disney musical, the audience enjoys an interweaving of Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Rapunzel, orbiting around an entirely new tale of the Baker and his wife who are out to lift a curse put on their family by a witch.

BEYOND THE MASK is the brainchild of writer Paul McCusker, brought to cinematic life by director Chad Burns. This is McCusker's first official screenplay, and Burns has one other film to his credit, PENDRAGON: SWORD OF HIS FATHER. One wouldn't guess their recorded lack of experience by watching this film. I found it to be exceedingly well done, with nicely choreographed action, well-crafted believable conflicts, exquisite settings and a rousing score by Jurgen Beck.

As the film opens, we are introduced to William Reynolds (Andrew Cheney), an assassin in the employ of the East India Trading Company in the mid-1700s. He's had his fill of the business, however, and turns in his notice to his employer, Charles Kemp (John Rhys-Davies, ONCE UPON A TIME). Unfortunately for Reynolds, he knows too much about Kemp's plans for the fledgling colonies to be allowed to live.

Will Farrell is one of the funniest and talented actors to ever grace the Saturday Night Live stage, but I’ve found his big screen output to be a bit of a mixed bag. I laughed a lot at “Talladega Nights: The Story of Ricky Bobby” and his somewhat absurd yet semi-dramatic “Stranger Than Fiction” is one of my favorite movies to recommend. On the other hand, I saw more of the inside of my eyelids when I attempted to sit through “Step-Brothers” and “Semi Pro.” Kevin Hart is a very funny comedian, but the film version of his stand-up routine from last year was marred by poor editing. Could these two hilarious entertainers succeed together? For me, the answer was a resounding yes.
 

Hello readers! I know we're still just getting started for Critical Blast, but it's never too early to open up with a bang.

To that end, I'd like to introduce you to our first annual Critical Blast Awards -- and you get a vote! In the future, we'll have more categories, but for this year we're limiting ourselves to Best Movie, Best Television Series, and Best Actor (from each).

In an effort to prevent ballot box stuffing (as much as we can), the form below requires a Google+ account to participate. We look forward to your input. The polls will remain open through April 6th, 2015.

In comic books, we have this thing called "the fight scene." Some comics end up being nothing but an extended fight scene, skipping over story for wall-to-wall slugging it out.

With the end of THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, the great dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) was awakened. As THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES opens, Smaug has begun his attack on Lake-town, destroying all in his path. The humans who live there are left refugees, as Bard (Luke Evans) escapes the cell that imprisons him and tries to defend his crumbling and burning town with arrows, eventually succeeding with the enigmatic (and huge) Black Arrow and a makeshift bow.

“The Gunman” is a rare foray into an action-heavy role for Sean Penn, who wrote and produced the film as well. Directed by Pierre Morel, the man who surprised us all with the taunt and darkly comic “Taken” film (which spawned a perhaps ill-advised franchise starring Liam Neeson, who in turn cannot seem to escape that role now) this action thriller is well-crafted but feels very familiar.