cult film freak: michelle monaghan

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Written by James M. Tate / 4/10/2025 / No comments / ariel winter , buddy , comedy , crime , dark comedy , genre tarantino , gumshoe , michelle monaghan , neo noir , robert downey jr. , shane black , shannyn sossamon , stephanie pearson , val kilmer , zeroes

ROBERT DOWNEY JR WITH VAL KILMER IN 'KISS KISS BANG BANG'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTj5QgmC1f71xgyKkF0lcZiIl1qKi7hBW0KNvl06PgXD04-mamsq10Y2JMAxEkIlLb03I86x2sTX8rRudWdE3dK3izMCVcxAKxGR-92jvJ5VQ-io-r7G6iTdXlkjE6aEBHIHvBJmtQ9FcB9bJLG_ioQmt87uiG_u7OS2vMqdc5lHctsHNS0u3tfGwocmjX/s2394/Screen%20Shot%202025-04-04%20at%2011.12.14%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="2394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTj5QgmC1f71xgyKkF0lcZiIl1qKi7hBW0KNvl06PgXD04-mamsq10Y2JMAxEkIlLb03I86x2sTX8rRudWdE3dK3izMCVcxAKxGR-92jvJ5VQ-io-r7G6iTdXlkjE6aEBHIHvBJmtQ9FcB9bJLG_ioQmt87uiG_u7OS2vMqdc5lHctsHNS0u3tfGwocmjX/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-04-04%20at%2011.12.14%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Michelle Monaghan in KISS KISS BANG BANG Year: 2005 Rating: ****</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Famous for writing the original LETHAL WEAPON, thus receiving story credit for the entire hit-and-miss franchise, Shane Black energetically attempts to trade mainstream action for a Quentin Tarantino style wheelhouse of humorously neurotic criminals who still do violent, desperate, horrible things... </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And instead of outright ripping off the PULP FICTION auteur, Black goes back even further, basing the adapted KISS KISS BANG BANG on his love of Pulp Fiction itself: detective novels that inspired everything in the 1940's/1950's Noir lexicon, making this a mile-a-minute Neo Noir that runs itself ragged before the first fifteen minutes...</p><p><span></span></p>

ariel winter, buddy, comedy, crime, dark comedy, genre tarantino, gumshoe, michelle monaghan, neo noir, robert downey jr., shane black, shannyn sossamon, stephanie pearson, val kilmer, zeroes

ROBERT DOWNEY JR WITH VAL KILMER IN 'KISS KISS BANG BANG'

Michelle Monaghan in KISS KISS BANG BANG Year: 2005 Rating: **** Famous for writing the original LETHAL WEAPON, thus receiving story credit ...

NEUROTIC REACTION TO KISS KISS BANG BANG

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Review of KISS KISS BANG BANG with the eclectic team-up of Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer</u></td></tr>
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So basically, this is to the Audrey Hepburn/Cary Grant movie CHARADE what... or rather, this is to Hitchcock what... or wait, no, this is to Tarantino what CHARADE was to Hitchcock after he'd done his two horror flicks and was fledging around with awkward genres before what should have been his genre-founding send-off/return to form in FRENZY...<br>

action, genre tarantino, michael beck, michelle monaghan, quentin tarantino, quirky, robert downey jr., shane black, team-up, val kilmer

NEUROTIC REACTION TO KISS KISS BANG BANG

Review of KISS KISS BANG BANG with the eclectic team-up of Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer So basically, this is to the Audrey Hepburn/...

THE BEST OF ME & THE BOOK OF LIFE

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcB5OvRxt62D0dyVHduJDwyyzWHehyphenhyphenTdg3ktwovuSnlCJVRBrN199dilJaZ8-ab8Qhp3_Rujp0Mvdsv1gwPPZtB4NwZt341DG8iMx4E8d1wwmFPuNEjMPMjS2eSd2vyaGafx9kIjonND0/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcB5OvRxt62D0dyVHduJDwyyzWHehyphenhyphenTdg3ktwovuSnlCJVRBrN199dilJaZ8-ab8Qhp3_Rujp0Mvdsv1gwPPZtB4NwZt341DG8iMx4E8d1wwmFPuNEjMPMjS2eSd2vyaGafx9kIjonND0/s1600/1.jpg" width="201" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">year: 2014 rating: *</td></tr>
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<b>THE BEST OF ME:</b> In a chick flick, it's no surprise when the good rich girl falls for the bad boy... only this boy isn’t bad but he's poor – and dull as a box of hammers…<br />
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That’s the backstory, which jumps to and from what seems to be the mainline: of two melancholy grownups, with different lives, both inheriting the same house.<br />
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As teenagers, Dawson and Amanda are in a relationship that’s much too easy. For her, it's the epitome of love at first site, and she won’t give in until he gives in, and then they’re a couple. That’s pretty much that. <br />
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The problems are ignited by Dawson’s father, a white trash hillbilly who looks more like a scruffy English professor with a hangover. He beats his kid, making Dawson not only scarred but homeless... eventually living with a gentle WWII vet (Gerald McRaney) who recently lost his wife. <br />
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The grownup Amanda and Dawson are played by Michelle Monaghan and James Marsden, both otherwise talented actors. The biggest problem (in a movie loaded with problems) is that the teenage version of Dawson looks absolutely nothing like Marsden – the flashbacks seem like completely different stories, and it’s tough to decipher which is worse than the other. Let’s call it a tie. <br />
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Based on a book written by the film’s producer, Nicolas Sparks, THE BEST OF ME is the very worst of romantic kitsch. The chemistry is awkward and forced in the past... boring and pointless in the present... while the future provides a “twist” ending that should even make THE NOTEBOOK fanatics cringe. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbOwXFi117LvjfkomI29dtd093_29s3XIW36jSOoSgrd5cdk2kVD0G9bEptPP5tfYQQscU7M14GaD_UXRBx_ENea0J1mr-xaYED8mT2X8Legiu15jvGC9AFLauFKOtnNCi4ASFeE8JX7w/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbOwXFi117LvjfkomI29dtd093_29s3XIW36jSOoSgrd5cdk2kVD0G9bEptPP5tfYQQscU7M14GaD_UXRBx_ENea0J1mr-xaYED8mT2X8Legiu15jvGC9AFLauFKOtnNCi4ASFeE8JX7w/s320/2.jpg" width="211" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">year: 2014 rating: ***</td></tr>
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<b>THE BOOK OF LIFE:</b> In most stories, when you die and go to that place below, it’s not so good. But in BOOK OF LIFE, death rules… It’s a colorful underworld carnival where happiness is everywhere. People are dancing and having one… um… hell of a time.<br />
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We eventually journey to this place with our hero Manolo, a bull fighter nice enough to spare the bull. He’s in love with childhood friend Maria, who has returned from abroad – and he’s not the only one smitten. Their mutual friend Joaquin, voiced by Channing Tatum, is a decorated soldier who desperately wants… well that’s for the viewer to find out.<br />
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The spoiler isn’t that Manolo dies since the main plot involves the journey to find his true love, whom he thinks is also deceased. Much of the adventure, after the first twenty minutes loaded with an overkill of confusing exposition and distracting pop tunes, involves the vivid land reminiscent of WHAT DREAMS MAY COME only with an aeasetic combination of CGI, stop motion and surreal paper cutouts.  <br />
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Guillermo Del Toro, in the Tim Burton fashion, produced this quirky kid's flick with heart and soul and enough eye-candy for a lifetime… and then some.

2014, adventure, animated, channing tatum, chick flick, james marsden, kids, michelle monaghan, romance

THE BEST OF ME & THE BOOK OF LIFE

year: 2014 rating: * THE BEST OF ME: In a chick flick, it's no surprise when the good rich girl falls for the bad boy... only this ...

FAVORITES SHORTLIST

1)OTLEY 2)ROBBERY 3)HELL IS A CITY 4)THE FEARMAKERS 5)CANYON PASSAGE 6)HOT CARS 7)VIOLENT SATURDAY 8)THE BREAK 9)THE CROWDED SKY 10)THE ROARING TWENTIES 11) ANATOMY OF A MURDER 12)CALCULATED RISK 13)SWEENEY TWO 14)RAIDERS FROM BENEATH THE SEA 15)HARDCORE 16)JUNGLE STREET 17)WHITE HEAT 18)FALLEN ANGEL 19)A PRIZE OF ARMS 20)THE BIG HEAT 21)SHARKS' TREASURE 22)THE MARKED ONES 23)THE DRIVER 24)THE SYSTEM 25)AIR PATROL 26)THE STONE KILLER 27)JOURNEY INTO FEAR 28)WILLIAM CONRAD'S BRAINSTORM 29)FRENZY 30)THE MAN FROM LARAMIE FAVORITE ACTORS 1)DANA ANDREWS 2)JAMES CAGNEY 3)STANLEY BAKER 4)MARLON BRANDO 5)JACK NICHOLSON 6)CHARLES BRONSON 7)BURT REYNOLDS 8)WILLIAM LUCAS 9)TOM COURTENAY 10)GENE HACKMAN DIRECTORS 1)JACQUES TOURNEUR 2)RICHARD FLEISCHER 3)VAL GUEST 4)STANLEY KUBRICK 5)OTTO PREMINGER 6)ORSON WELLES 7)JOHN GUILLERMAN 8)JOHN LANDIS 9)SAM PECKINPAH 10)MICHAEL WINNER