Marvel brings their first family into the MCU with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. It’s charming, and has some solid casting, but it never really has the impact that this iconic team deserves. And that may be due to superhero fatigue. Marvel and Disney have upped the audience of dosage of superheroes that everything feels…
Tag: casting
The Producers (1967) – Mel Brooks
Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder star in Mel Brooks’ Oscar winning comedy The Producers. Scoring the Academy award for Best Original Screenplay, this one is a hoot from beginning to end. It also saw Wilder get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Mostel stars as Max Bialystock, a producer, who will do anything to make…
Now You See Me (2013) – Louis Leterrier
What happens when you take Ocean’s 11 heist vibe and throw some magic at it? Well, you could come back with something like Now You See Me. While it doesn’t have all the star power of the Soderbergh film, Now You See Me is fairly entertaining and has some solid casting. Mark Ruffalo plays FBI…
The Bone Collector (1999) – Phillip Noyce
Denzel Washington brings Jeffrey Deaver’s brilliant detective Lincoln Rhymes to life in Phillip Noyce’s big-screen version of The Bone Collector. Haunted by the moment he became a quadriplegic, Rhymes is an ex-homicide detective who is planning for his final transition, an assisted suicide, much against the wishes of his caregiver, Thelma (Queen Latifah). When one…
The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017) – Patrick Hughes
Ryan Reynolds leads a pretty solidly packed cast in a fairly paint-by-numbers action film that despite its predictability is a lot of fun, largely in part because of the casting. Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Salma Hayek, Gary Oldman, Richard E. Grant, and Joaquim de Almeida. That’s some pretty top-drawer talent, and they all look…
The Equalizer 2 (2018) – Antoine Fuqua
Sure the first installment of the Antoine Fuqua/Denzel Washington actioner came out in 2014, and I watched it for the first time nine years ago, and hadn’t watched any of the films since. And yes, I’m a fan of the original series with Edward Woodward. but I rather enjoy Washington’s interpretation of the character. The…
Road House (2024) – Doug Liman
Did we need a Road House re-boot/re-imagining? No, but the locations make for a pretty picture. But that doesn’t mean it has the charm of the original, most of which was because of the casting of Patrick Swayze and Sam Elliott. This time out, Jake Gyllenhaal takes on the lead role of Dalton, a former…
The Addams Family (1991) – Barry Sonnenfeld
I remember enjoying The Addams Family from Barry Sonnenfeld when it came out in 1991, as it brought back memories of watching the original show on TBS in the evenings. I loved Raul Julia’s portrayal of Gomez, the family patriarch, and consequently, I figured it was time for a revisit. It’s definitely not aimed at…
The World is Not Enough (1999) Raymond Benson
Raymond Benson’s next Bond story was the adaptation of the Pierce Brosnan film, The World is Not Enough. It doesn’t differ too much from what ended up onscreen, but because it’s the written word, it allows one to recast the film, and I happily eject Denise Richards as Christmas Jones from the movie in my…
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Season 3 (2022) – Blu-Ray Review
I’ve been a fan of the Jack Ryan character since I first encountered him in 1985 when a friend of mine introduced me to him, he was reading The Hunt for Red October and I was intrigued by the plot and the characters. I was delighted when Paramount Pictures teamed up with Prime to deliver…
The Mind Reels 