The movies released by WWE Studios over its eleven year history have mostly been action movies starring wrestlers, comedy movies starring wrestlers, and when the company has been ambitious, action-comedies starring wrestlers. Many of those films were direct-to-video and critically panned. However, in the last two years WWE Studios has taken a smarter approach to its filmmaking. First, it has begun acquiring independent films for release (2012′s The Day was the company’s first movie that featured no wrestlers) and the company’s slate of theatrical releases cast wrestlers in supporting or cameo roles instead of lead roles. Such is the case with Dead Man Down, a revenge thriller which stars Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace and features wrestler Wade Barrett (real name Stu Bennett) in a supporting role.
Rumors began to buzz back in 2010 about the development of Oz the Great and Powerful, a prequel to the legendary The Wizard of Oz, which explores how the wizard himself came to be the ruler of Oz. Revisiting places like Munchkinland, the yellow brick road, Emerald City, and the sleep-inducing poppy fields seemed like an amazing cinematic opportunity to create a modern classic, especially after the Blockbuster success of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, and the revamping of Snow White-based stories for both the big and small screens. Director Sam Raimi (the Spider-Man trilogy) was behind the camera sharing the backstory behind one of the most beloved films of all time.
Oz the Great and Powerful, which hits theaters on Friday, stars a clumsy and uninteresting James Franco (Spring Breakers) as Oscar “Oz” Diggs, a charmless and philandering magician / conman who fails to bring any likability to the screen, falling flat with only hints of greatness. Once arriving by hot air balloon during a twister in the land of Oz (yes, both the character and location have the same name), we learn that the aloof trickster is mistaken
An epic and ambitious anthology, Magnet Releasing’s latest film, The ABC’s of Death, might just be the weirdest, nastiest, funniest, most diverse and downright wrong collection of horror shorts to ever span an 123 minute duration. The film’s premise: 26 directors from around the world were each given a letter of the alphabet, from there they are given free rein to choose a word starting with that letter and create a story involving death. What’s follows is an example of just how diverse the horror genre can be and how twisted some of these great directors’ minds are when working with limited resources and a short amount of time.
Written and directed by the screenwriting duo behind The Hangover, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore are making their first foray into the director’s chair(s) with 21 and Over, a mindless and raunchy college comedy hell bent on pushing their dirty sense of humor to the max.
When old friends Casey (Skylar Astin) and Miller (Miles Teller) take a trip to surprise their high school best friend Jeff Chang (Justin Chon) on his 21st birthday, Jeff regretfully informs them that he can’t go out because of a big med school interview the next morning that his strict father will be accompanying him to. After Miller applies some pressure, the trio head out for “one beer,” but what starts out as an innocent time at a bar turns into rowdy Jeff taking full advantage of his newfound 21 year old privileges and a night of love and chaos for the other two. All Miller and Casey want to do is bring Jeff home but they don’t know his address and Jeff is too drunk to help, their quest leads them on a road to an Eyes Wide Shut sorority, a bonfire with an angry buffalo and a video game-like frat part.
If I had to name my top five directors working today, one of them would undoubtedly be South Korea’s Park Chan-wook. His film Oldboy, which everyone should see at some point, blew me away and pulled me into the world of Korean cinema, so it should be no surprise that I was really excited when I finally had the opportunity to sit down and watch his English language debut feature, Stoker.
Written by Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller, Stoker follows a smart, friendless and quiet high school girl named India (Mia Wasikowska) whose father recently died in a car accident. It’s at that point when Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), who she never knew existed, enters her life and that of her emotionally unstable mother (Nicole Kidman). Though charming, something seems off about the mysterious Uncle Charlie’s motives and while shock is India’s initial reaction, she begins to take a liking to him, opening up in a way she has never done before.
Few film franchises have made it to five films, and I can’t think of many action movie franchises that have made it to five films without the last few sequels making it out as low-quality direct-to-video movies. Yet Bruce Willis is still going strong with Die Hard, starring for the fifth time as wiseass supercop John McClane. While A Good Day to Die Hard is an acceptable entry to the franchise, it won’t convince newcomers that John McClane is one of the greatest characters in film history.
New York City police officer John McClane (his current rank goes unmentioned in this entry) finds out that his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney) has been arrested in Russia for murder. The elder McClane travels to Russia to see if he can help out his son in any way when he discovers that not only is Jack a covert CIA operative, he doesn’t want anything to do with his old man. However, Jack soon finds that his mission to extradite government whistleblower Yuri Komarov (Sebastian Koch) is more difficult than he realizes
This Valentine’s Day hopeless romantics nation wide will flock to Safe Haven, the latest Nicholas Sparks film adaption, directed by Lasse Hallström (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen). The melodrama is Sparks’ first attempt at mixing suspense with romance. The story follows a young wife named Katie (Julianne Hough) on her journey to escape from a grim past involving an abusive, alcoholic husband (David Lyons). Fleeing Boston on a Coach bus, Katie lands in a quiet North Carolina seaport town to start over with a “blank canvas.” After securing a job as a waitress, she meets Alex (Josh Duhamel), a widowed store-owner and father of two young children. Reluctant to open up at first, Katie is encouraged by Jo (Cobie Smulders), her independent single neighbor, to pursue the romance.
Seth Gordon is an interesting director. He rotates evenly between television, documentaries and comedic features, though he excels at some way more than others. The Horrible Bosses director’s new film, Identity Thief, re-teams him with Jason Bateman and the hilarious Melissa McCarthy in a road trip crime comedy about, well, Identity theft.
Jason Bateman plays Sandy Patterson or, as I like to call him, the same exact semi pushover character he plays in every single movie and TV show that he’s ever been in. Anyway, Sandy’s a businessman whose identity has been stolen by the glamorous Diana and, after being arrested and his job put on the line, he decides to travel from Denver to Florida in order to capture and bring back the criminal who stole his identity. Things obviously don’t go according to plan and the ride is extremely far from smooth, but the two eventually have to work together in order to avoid capture by both a bounty hunter (Robert Patrick) and two other criminals (T.I. and Genesis Rodriguez).
This weekend, Jonathan Levine’s (50/50) zombie romantic-comedy, Warm Bodies, hits theaters everywhere. Though it was bound to happen eventually, it was a movie that actually was piquing a lot of people’s interest when the first trailer dropped and made its way around the net. A zombie with a sense of humor? That would be a first., but a zombie that had the potential to fall in love, now we are getting into unchartered territory that has the potential to be really sweet or really pathetic.
Warm Bodies follows the life of R (Nicholas Hoult), a zombie who can think but who has no idea who he is. He has this ability to grunt a few words with one of his zombie pals M (Rob Corddry) that makes
t’s been just over 10 years since Fisher Stevens was behind the camera of a feature, but he’s back with a mouthwatering cast and a heartfelt story. Stand Up Guys begins with Val (Al Pacino) being released from prison after a 28 year stint. With his best friend, Doc, (Christopher Walken) waiting for him on the other side, the two ex-cons hit the streets with a bang as Val is eager to party the night away, and party hard. There’s a catch however, as Doc has been ordered to kill Val by 10am the following morning for a past job gone wrong years ago. What makes matters worse is Val knows this and accepts his friends task. With this knowledge the two begin a night that consists of dining, sex, robbery, a police chase, and Viagra, while we get an insight into who these men are and their history together. Just before the ha
Gimme the Loot won the Grand Jury Best Narrative Feature at last year’s SXSW Festival, and writer/director Adam Leon won the “Someone to Watch” Award at the Independent Spirit Awards earlier this year based on his work on this movie. With that sort of buzz I wanted to see...
Alex Winter, yes the one from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure took it upon himself to make documentary about the insanity surrounding Napster and the crazy way it revolutionized the digital world as we know it. In his film, titled Downloaded, Winter takes us into the lives of Shawn...
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (JGL) has been around for years as an actor, but Hollywood’s latest “IT” man is finally making the jump to feature directing and writing with his film, Don Jon (formerly Don Jon’s Addiction). Don Jon is a modern day tale of a Don Juan type character. Don...
Ryan Gosling and his Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance reunite with a star studded cast for a crime drama titled The Place Beyond the Pines. In the film, Ryan Gosling plays Luke, a motorcycle rider who discovers that his lover (Eva Mendes) from a year ago had a baby…and...
Very rarely can a British film pull off the same high impact, blood rushing action like the Americans, but with Welcome To The Push we may have found an equal. Written & Directed by Eran Creevy who creates some beautiful shots of London in the evening, Welcome To The...
One of the unsuspecting gems that I saw at this year’s SXSW Festival was Vincent Grashaw’s directorial debut, Coldwater. The film follows Brad Lunders (PJ Boudousque), a troubled and short tempered teenager that deal drugs and hasn’t seemed to find a way to deal with the loss of his...
Often times I tend to stay away from reviewing shorts. In my experiences they are either a very gory experience or a very indie artistic experience; both of which typically leave me wondering if I’m too stupid to “get it.” When I do watch one that doesn’t make me...
Paul Weitz’s Admission tells the story of one Portia Nathan (Tina Fey), a college admissions officer at the ultra-prestigious Princeton University. Each year, her job requires her to cut down a field of thousands upon thousands of applicants into a small matriculating class just a fraction of the size....
Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers isn’t your run of the mill spring break flick. First off it stars a bunch of former Disney chicks as “girls gone bad” type characters. Secondly, it has James Franco as a grill wearing, drug dealing, corn-row stylin’ G. Lastly, it has a score by...
