cult film freak: emily blunt

Showing posts with label emily blunt. Show all posts

Written by James M. Tate / 10/04/2015 / No comments / 2015 , benicio del toro , drugs , emily blunt , FBI , josh brolin , thriller

REVIEW OF SICARIO

2015, benicio del toro, drugs, emily blunt, FBI, josh brolin, thriller

REVIEW OF SICARIO

year: 2015 Like any film centering on the "truth" being covered up during an undercover operation having to do with the usuall...

Written by James M. Tate / 1/12/2015 / No comments / 2014 , disney , emily blunt , johnny depp , meryl streep , musical

GROUNCHY GROWNUP REVIEW OF INTO THE WOODS

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2014 rating: **</td></tr>
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In any musical, the songs should be unique, setting apart each sequence while moving the story along instead of, in this particular case, every tune sounding so similar, it's like each character were taking a piece of the same thread, tying it around the same tree, over and over again… and again and again… like a scratched record... Or fingernails on a chalkboard.<br />
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An hour feels like three, but INTO THE WOODS isn’t without artistic and creative value. Whereas TITANIC added unknown characters into a known (true) story, here we have a common baker and his wife intertwined within a handful of fairy tails including Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella and of course, Little Red Riding Hood… And with the promotion of Johnny Depp as the Big Bad Wolf, you would think he was more important – but JD's a tiny shriek of a howl compared to the other players, all lost within a busy maze that is sometimes entertaining and other times, just plain redundant.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Johnny Depp Cameo</td></tr>
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The funniest number has our two handsome studs, Cinderella’s Prince and Rapunzel’s Prince, outdoing each other's sorrow and rejection, providing genuinely witty satire and giving the characters a tongue and cheek platform. At certain moments throughout, right when the movie gets humorous the characters take themselves too seriously, and vice versa. Yet Chris Pine in general seems to realize an important element: this is a parody liken to THE PRINCESS BRIDE… And here we catch the tail end of each famous tale: For example, Cinderella’s dance with the prince and Jack’s adventures in the clouds are spoken of and dealt with afterwards, which can be frustrating... It feels like we're missing all the good parts. <br />
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Meryl Streep plays the Witch who cursed the Baker’s wife, sending the couple on a scavenger hunt (also the main plot) to retrieve one item from each story including Red Riding Hood’s Red Hood, Jack’s cow and Cinderella’s slipper. Streep, who gets nominated on an annual basis, feels like a special guest star; her input is nothing special, really. The two most talented performers are the youngest: Jack and Little Red were probably hired for their voices, both obvious "ringers" to legitimize this patchwork musical that occasionally breaks into dialogue.

2014, disney, emily blunt, johnny depp, meryl streep, musical

GROUNCHY GROWNUP REVIEW OF INTO THE WOODS

2014 rating: ** In any musical, the songs should be unique, setting apart each sequence while moving the story along instead of, in th...

Written by James M. Tate / 6/06/2014 / No comments / 2014 , emily blunt , race against time , science-fiction , tom cruise

TOM CRUISE & EMILY BLUNT IN EDGE OF TOMORROW

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: white;">year: 2014 rating: **</b></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Anyone yearning for a combination of GROUNDHOG DAY and STARSHIP TROOPERS, your prayers have been answered…</span><br />
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This purposely redundant <i>reliving the same day till it’s done right</i> thriller stars Tom Cruise as Major Cage, whose transformation from cowardly media correspondent to courageous battler of speedy, multi-tentacle aliens is as good as EDGE OF TOMORROW gets... While it's fun seeing the usually intrepid Cruise playing the fool, what a relief that he eventually becomes the hero, a role far more believable and less contrived.  <br />
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His beautiful co-star is a co-lead rather than love interest… although Cruise’s Cage <i>almost</i> becomes smitten with Rita, a resilient warrior played by Emily Blunt. They do, after all, have something extraordinarily unique in common: she used to wield the same time loop “gift” Cage is now stuck with. But any deep connection is merely hinted at, occurring sporadically throughout the shaky action and never amounting to a worthwhile friendship, partnership or romance… EDGE has no time for that, which is unfortunate since her unpredictable fate should mean more to Cage and the  audience. After providing loads of specific expository, Rita's job is to shoot Cage in the head every time there’s a setback in the mission… Thus he keeps repeating the same battle that the aliens, called Mimics, have already foreseen in order to win that particular ground-strike. Eventually the duo must figure a way to swipe the lead creature's memory so the aliens can no longer acquire this particularly unfair advantage.<br />
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Attempting to balance science-fiction and espionage, the most intriguing 
moments occur whenever Cage and Rita venture slightly past the point we 
keep experiencing. Otherwise it’s passable 
fight-or-be-killed filler, which might be difficult to watch 
more than once since, by the end, you’ve seen it over a dozen 
times already.

2014, emily blunt, race against time, science-fiction, tom cruise

TOM CRUISE & EMILY BLUNT IN EDGE OF TOMORROW

year: 2014 rating: ** Anyone yearning for a combination of GROUNDHOG DAY and STARSHIP TROOPERS, your prayers have been answered… This ...

Written by James M. Tate / 9/30/2012 / No comments / 2012 , bruce willis , emily blunt , jeff daniels , joseph gordon-levitt , science-fiction , thriller , time travel

REVIEW OF LOOPER

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">year: 2012 cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis rating: ***1/2</td></tr>
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Any story dealing with time travel must have a ton of exposition to make things clear. But what LOOPER provides is, once we know the situation… of a future where bad guys are sent back in time where hit men quickly take them out… it’s all about Bruce Willis, as the older version of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Joe, and his quest to… set things straight in the future.<br />
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But before this we have Joe’s workaday life as a hired gun – known as a Looper – and some of the politics involved within the department, run by a bearded (and one particular scene-stealing) Jeff Daniels. It’s when Willis returns to the past and Levitt can’t pull the trigger – that’s when the race is on.<br />
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What’s at first confusing clears up when we follow Levitt’s life till he ages into Willis, who lives with his wife and, after a bloodbath by a vicious crime lord, Willis, back in the present, has to find this kingpin... who isn't quite powerful yet... Or is he? Here’s where the movie, entering love interest Emily Blunt as an independent farmer with her son, turns into a bionic version of THE OMEN, and the disbelief gets tougher to suspend. But when you center on young and old Joe battling each other – trying not to be killed by their vicious employers – the backstory doesn’t matter. It’s really about the action and a reliable performance by Bruce Willis, who looks great for his age and can still get around, and especially Levitt… Despite having to pull off a Willis imitation for the storyline he’s his own person – this is really his film.<br />
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2012, bruce willis, emily blunt, jeff daniels, joseph gordon-levitt, science-fiction, thriller, time travel

REVIEW OF LOOPER

year: 2012 cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis rating: ***1/2 Any story dealing with time travel must have a ton of exposition to m...

Written by James M. Tate / 5/09/2012 / No comments / 2012 , comedy , emily blunt , jason segel

THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT

2012, comedy, emily blunt, jason segel

THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT

Who made Segel a sex symbol? Why? title: THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT year: 2012 cast: Jason Segel, Emily Blunt rating: ** We’ve all s...

Written by James M. Tate / 4/04/2012 / No comments / comedy , emily blunt , ewan mcgregor , indie , tens

SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif86oMnR3ufH6RyzveyyOpUzqYEI4CZs2kTldX1gNPPNMTuZD17FWXmcBuKtnH4Jm7plhwDTnt8YxXJoBbubnMTFx1uRAue9lQBZpI83NQQdCslKJL0y8o9zf1T5whdUuXQpF4ipZcirer/s1600/salmon.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif86oMnR3ufH6RyzveyyOpUzqYEI4CZs2kTldX1gNPPNMTuZD17FWXmcBuKtnH4Jm7plhwDTnt8YxXJoBbubnMTFx1uRAue9lQBZpI83NQQdCslKJL0y8o9zf1T5whdUuXQpF4ipZcirer/s320/salmon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b>title: </b>SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN<br />
<b>year:</b> 2011<br />
<b>cast: </b>Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt<br />
<b>rating:</b> ***<br />
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If you think the title, also the plotline, is preposterous and farfetched so does the main character… at first. Ewan McGregor plays Dr. Jones, a fishery expert in England given a task to help a kindhearted Sheik – whose dream is to introduce fly-fishing to the desert: a sport he feels can bring people together. Scenes between the Sheik and McGregor talking shop knee deep in a river, two polar opposites with a shared love for fishing, are reminiscent of Burt Lancaster and Peter Riegert in <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2012/02/local-hero.html">LOCAL HERO</a>, both films sharing the "man out of his element" theme (and HERO co-stars Ewan's uncle, <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com//search/label/denis%20lawson">Denis Lawson</a>). Yet with likable characters including a frantic scene-stealing Kristin Scott Thomas as the head honcho shaping up the deal, Emily Blunt as the “middlewoman” beauty who talks Jones into the gig, and a fat office jerk i.e. comic relief scapegoat given the seemingly impossible task of moving fish from England to the desert, SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN lacks the quirky magic of the title. Everything seems too normal while 11th hour snags, including sabotage at the makeshift fishing site and Blunt’s military boyfriend's return as she falls for McGregor, are resolved too quickly. But for a breezy ninety minute stretch, this works just fine. McGregor’s mellow charm will make you believe the impossible, and there are gorgeous underwater shots of the Salmon – the real protagonists... despite being doomed. <br />

comedy, emily blunt, ewan mcgregor, indie, tens