cult film freak: michael peña

Showing posts with label michael peña. Show all posts

Written by James M. Tate / 12/24/2018 / No comments / 2018 , bradley cooper , clint eastwood , crime , drama , drugs , laurence fishburne , michael peña , new

CLINT EASTWOOD STARRING IN 'THE MULE' W/ BRADLEY COOPER

2018, bradley cooper, clint eastwood, crime, drama, drugs, laurence fishburne, michael peña, new

CLINT EASTWOOD STARRING IN 'THE MULE' W/ BRADLEY COOPER

Year of Release and Capture: 2018 Actor/director Clint Eastwood, using very little action and suspense for a supposed crime thriller, is...

BELATED POST-WEEKEND REVIEW OF 'ANT-MAN AND THE WASP'

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgkAMuaEnWyDybLJIbVJeXa2paoKn6GX6-dxVklFj0GmbI4CNWES0RX53m1wKPvsnjqJTZN2OcAjLIH8NE4CqCs60Usv7RprCjB7mcgq0s28JIriR2iCUKBiCeCWcrtlsNz_h-5VeWJSRU/s1600/ant-man-and-the-wasp-3840x2160-ant-man-hd-4k-14167.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1135" data-original-width="1600" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgkAMuaEnWyDybLJIbVJeXa2paoKn6GX6-dxVklFj0GmbI4CNWES0RX53m1wKPvsnjqJTZN2OcAjLIH8NE4CqCs60Usv7RprCjB7mcgq0s28JIriR2iCUKBiCeCWcrtlsNz_h-5VeWJSRU/s400/ant-man-and-the-wasp-3840x2160-ant-man-hd-4k-14167.jpg" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Year of Release: 2018</u></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
ANT-MAN should have his name changed to Size-Shifter. That's what he does, and what everyone around him does. And every single <i>thing</i> for that matter: from buildings to suits to vehicles. Which makes sense because there's only so many visual gags where you see a Hot Wheels-size car rolling down the street in its realistic silence after being loudly inside it during an action scene set-up... <br>
<br>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYa1_9aFc-p0LcOvgon2EKR3P9kbd_aloyVPh8dWpV0viiyQrxcRELjGPNz0tjO79EXeuitULWlZiqKI-AZzDV62OP5gVGYfZ6EMQYpTCtp5V1WN8KIaWAIwUOb2WRAxlxU7wd8rO4EZKp/s1600/Ant-Man-and-the-wasp-Dolby-poster.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1216" data-original-width="291" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYa1_9aFc-p0LcOvgon2EKR3P9kbd_aloyVPh8dWpV0viiyQrxcRELjGPNz0tjO79EXeuitULWlZiqKI-AZzDV62OP5gVGYfZ6EMQYpTCtp5V1WN8KIaWAIwUOb2WRAxlxU7wd8rO4EZKp/s400/Ant-Man-and-the-wasp-Dolby-poster.jpg" width="95"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Score: **1/2</u></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
Still, those moments are kinda funny, and maybe the best thing going for ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, yet another Marvel sequel that seems more made for the cast & crew of inside-joke-sharing friends than an audience of strangers that need a dose of old-school entertainment. With a barrage of family oriented plot-lines, including elder genius Hank Pym's ex partner helping a badass female anti-heroine named Ghost; or Pym himself trying to free his beloved wife (and Wasp's beloved mom) from an inner-space dimension visually liken to FANTASTIC VOYAGE and...<br>
<br>
Well you better get used to the sciencey stuff because this ANT-MAN hardly takes a physical step forward without a ton of rambling exposition while constantly reminding us of the CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, after which Paul Rudd's much more mellow and this time, lethargically-sarcastic ex-thief got on house-arrest where he spends corny playtime with his daughter...<br>
<br>
Thankfully, Evangeline Lilly keeps him centered while her dad (with his past catching up) really just gets in the way: Making the entire third act... taking place on the famously steep <i>streets of San Fransisco</i> (where Michael Douglas feels at home)... a prolonged chase-epic homage to BULLITT, and feeling more like a fresh start from all the previous get-the-important-device-back-in-time frenzy, rather than the winding-down of what eventually tries to be the same kind of urgent heist flick that the original was most of the way through. And Michael Peña, the comic relief, isn't funny. At all. Because he never stops constantly trying to be. 
<br>

2018, marvel, michael douglas, michael peña, michelle pfeiffer, new, paul rudd

BELATED POST-WEEKEND REVIEW OF 'ANT-MAN AND THE WASP'

Year of Release: 2018 ANT-MAN should have his name changed to Size-Shifter. That's what he does, and what everyone around him does. ...

MATT DAMON IN THE MARTIAN

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW4DoO-uMmhPARygh-uk8IVsD2karU8Ezp6x6WQcd7l8eMIzK47vFHNQ0lP6O5IL-m7uz_wZz8VKQlgHNW8nP_Yqc1WWYW4LsfKsb6Sz2aLoxS3pYzjmwvfRB0q5Vvj3WFOKJOrZXkL0Y/s1600/The-Martian_poster_goldposter_com_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW4DoO-uMmhPARygh-uk8IVsD2karU8Ezp6x6WQcd7l8eMIzK47vFHNQ0lP6O5IL-m7uz_wZz8VKQlgHNW8nP_Yqc1WWYW4LsfKsb6Sz2aLoxS3pYzjmwvfRB0q5Vvj3WFOKJOrZXkL0Y/s640/The-Martian_poster_goldposter_com_4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Year: 2015 Cast: Matt Damon, Jeff Daniels, Jessica Chastain Director: Ridley Scott</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This CASTAWAY meets SILENT RUNNING with more than a touch of GRAVITY is set far, far away with Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars. His character, Mark Watney, is the team's botanist and must survive after being left for dead following a raging storm, until he's possibly... hopefully... but not very likely... rescued. Well that's the plot in a nutshell, and this tale of desperation and survival seemed the right fit for Damon, whose likable personality alone could have made the interstellar Robinson Crusoe completely entertaining: Too bad so much time is spent on Earth where NASA bigwig Jeff Daniels and company are forced to politically decide whether to send the returning ship back to Mars; but only after telling them their missing man is still breathing.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsaqKD5H1plRzshb_LVi6RYRHyzm20HMO-aPzMwmmCo0qSpP5w5ixQaSNWtFrofc3-h1CfvPyvIkImXmLDjWaXPKfIFok6tiWhlUv3Y13Lcdp-UKZ8VSprnKMVUJaFRasUG81FN7SDdhg/s1600/Screen+shot+2015-10-03+at+12.59.03+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsaqKD5H1plRzshb_LVi6RYRHyzm20HMO-aPzMwmmCo0qSpP5w5ixQaSNWtFrofc3-h1CfvPyvIkImXmLDjWaXPKfIFok6tiWhlUv3Y13Lcdp-UKZ8VSprnKMVUJaFRasUG81FN7SDdhg/s1600/Screen+shot+2015-10-03+at+12.59.03+AM.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Matt Damon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Right when the stranded-alone element gets intense and suspenseful, we cut back and forth to characters with reputations, not their lives, on the line, where scenes on Earth merely fill time with scientific exposition while the rescue ship's crew (including Jessica Chastain and Michael Peña) act too breezy and loose, making Damon's potentially enthralling solo plight a lazy afterthought. In fact at one point he actually points out (aloud to himself) how amazing it is to have survived that long on Mars, and it's true. Yet we never quite experience his genuine struggle and suffering from all the distractions. So basically, in the case of THE MARTIAN, Houston <i>is</i> the problem.<br />
<br />
RATING: **<br />
REFERENCES & TRIVIA: The movie CASTAWAY starred Tom Hanks as a man stranded on an island, and was not science-fiction unlike GRAVITY, which we all know about, and the claustrophobic 1970's cult flick SILENT RUNNING where hippie botanist Bruce Dern survives alone in outer space. And as for the literary Crusoe mention, there is an old movie called ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS, which has nothing to do with this motion picture nor the reference therein.

2015, jeff daniels, jessica chastain, matt damon, michael peña, ridley scott, science-fiction, sean bean