The movies-based-on-toys trend continues with the November 4 release of “Trolls,” and early reviews aren’t great. Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman is a rare exception, calling the animated musical “an ecstatically happy movie, a giddy Edm kiddie musical that sends you out on a high.”
Read More: ‘Trolls’ Sneak Peek: How DreamWorks Embraced Retro Happiness
Alonso Duralde is much less forgiving in The Wrap:
Even if you plug your ears during the endless Kidz Bop numbers, you’re still stuck with the eye-assaulting visual palette from director Mike Mitchell (‘Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked’) and co-director Walt Dohm (‘SpongeBob SquarePants’) — the troll scenes offer a mix of neon pastels that suggest someone ate a Lisa Frank store and promptly regurgitated it, while Bergentown features the vast spectrum of tones you might find in a baby’s full diaper.
Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechtshaffen lands between those two extremes:
If you could take the ‘Shrek,...
Read More: ‘Trolls’ Sneak Peek: How DreamWorks Embraced Retro Happiness
Alonso Duralde is much less forgiving in The Wrap:
Even if you plug your ears during the endless Kidz Bop numbers, you’re still stuck with the eye-assaulting visual palette from director Mike Mitchell (‘Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked’) and co-director Walt Dohm (‘SpongeBob SquarePants’) — the troll scenes offer a mix of neon pastels that suggest someone ate a Lisa Frank store and promptly regurgitated it, while Bergentown features the vast spectrum of tones you might find in a baby’s full diaper.
Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechtshaffen lands between those two extremes:
If you could take the ‘Shrek,...
- 10/9/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
What happens in a year without Star Wars or Bond? On the eve of CinemaCon (April 11-14), John Hazelton looks at how Us exhibitors plan to keep audiences visiting the big screen.
Us exhibitors — the savvy ones at least — know the Force may not always be with them. Though Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World and Avengers: Age Of Ultron drove the North American box office to a record $11.2bn tally in 2015, the success of those films also underlined cinema operators’ reliance on the kind of blockbusters that don’t necessarily come along every year. And the record tally didn’t alter the fact North American cinema attendance has been essentially stagnant for the past decade (1.32 billion tickets were sold last year, 4% up on 2014 but down on four of the previous five years).
No wonder exhibitors in the Us and Canada remain eager to find new ways to maximise their revenues — by making the most out...
Us exhibitors — the savvy ones at least — know the Force may not always be with them. Though Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World and Avengers: Age Of Ultron drove the North American box office to a record $11.2bn tally in 2015, the success of those films also underlined cinema operators’ reliance on the kind of blockbusters that don’t necessarily come along every year. And the record tally didn’t alter the fact North American cinema attendance has been essentially stagnant for the past decade (1.32 billion tickets were sold last year, 4% up on 2014 but down on four of the previous five years).
No wonder exhibitors in the Us and Canada remain eager to find new ways to maximise their revenues — by making the most out...
- 4/4/2016
- ScreenDaily
"It’s no surprise Meryl Streep can sing—she’s proven she can do anything," writes Jordan Hoffman in the Guardian. "In Ricki and the Flash, from director Jonathan Demme and screenwriter Diablo Cody, she’s something she’s rarely been before. She’s badass." For Screen's John Hazelton, this is "a breezy but touching dysfunctional family dramedy, with real heart and some genuine musical soul." But TheWrap's Alonso Duralde finds it to be "an assemblage of almost-characters in an almost-story, resulting in a very disappointing almost-movie." We're collecting reviews, interviews and, of course, the trailer. » - David Hudson...
- 8/4/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
"It’s no surprise Meryl Streep can sing—she’s proven she can do anything," writes Jordan Hoffman in the Guardian. "In Ricki and the Flash, from director Jonathan Demme and screenwriter Diablo Cody, she’s something she’s rarely been before. She’s badass." For Screen's John Hazelton, this is "a breezy but touching dysfunctional family dramedy, with real heart and some genuine musical soul." But TheWrap's Alonso Duralde finds it to be "an assemblage of almost-characters in an almost-story, resulting in a very disappointing almost-movie." We're collecting reviews, interviews and, of course, the trailer. » - David Hudson...
- 8/4/2015
- Keyframe
Exclusive: The French-Canadian director, whose Sicario is set to premiere in Competition in Cannes, has paid tribute to the “master” Ridley Scott.
Speaking in an interview with John Hazelton in Screen and Telefilm Canada’s Cannes Special supplement due out in May, Villeneuve admits the prospect of tackling a Blade Runner sequel was intimidating.
“Let’s say it wasn’t an easy decision to make,” he said, “because I’m a massive Blade Runner fan, it’s one of my favourite movies.”
The director of Prisoners and Enemy added: “I was massively influenced, like a lot of people, by this movie. And Ridley Scott is a master.
“So I’m going there with a great amount of humility and a great amount of deep joy. And I know I can do it.”
The project is scheduled for a summer 2016 star and will star Ryan Gosling alongside Harrison Ford, who reprises his role as Rick Deckard several decades...
Speaking in an interview with John Hazelton in Screen and Telefilm Canada’s Cannes Special supplement due out in May, Villeneuve admits the prospect of tackling a Blade Runner sequel was intimidating.
“Let’s say it wasn’t an easy decision to make,” he said, “because I’m a massive Blade Runner fan, it’s one of my favourite movies.”
The director of Prisoners and Enemy added: “I was massively influenced, like a lot of people, by this movie. And Ridley Scott is a master.
“So I’m going there with a great amount of humility and a great amount of deep joy. And I know I can do it.”
The project is scheduled for a summer 2016 star and will star Ryan Gosling alongside Harrison Ford, who reprises his role as Rick Deckard several decades...
- 4/28/2015
- ScreenDaily
After months and months of column inches, including a lengthy New York Times profile documenting star Lindsay Lohan's woes, The Canyons is finally poised to face the public.
American Gigolo director Paul Schrader and American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis are the creative force behind the drama, about an La producer (porn star James Deen) who learns of his live-in girlfriend Tara's infidelity.
What are the critics saying about Lohan's much-discussed movie comeback? Digital Spy rounds up the latest reviews for The Canyons below...
Indiewire (Eric Kohn)
"So The Canyons is a bad movie about the world of bad movies, which might make it sound like the victim of its own vitriol. But it's nearly impossible to appreciate it even on those terms. Lohan's performance is certainly terrible, but her steady slide started long ago; The Canyons has nothing on the awesomely horrendous 2007 I Know Who Killed Me, a...
American Gigolo director Paul Schrader and American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis are the creative force behind the drama, about an La producer (porn star James Deen) who learns of his live-in girlfriend Tara's infidelity.
What are the critics saying about Lohan's much-discussed movie comeback? Digital Spy rounds up the latest reviews for The Canyons below...
Indiewire (Eric Kohn)
"So The Canyons is a bad movie about the world of bad movies, which might make it sound like the victim of its own vitriol. But it's nearly impossible to appreciate it even on those terms. Lohan's performance is certainly terrible, but her steady slide started long ago; The Canyons has nothing on the awesomely horrendous 2007 I Know Who Killed Me, a...
- 7/30/2013
- Digital Spy
The very early word on "The Canyons" has arrived, and save for a positive review from Variety film critic Scott Foundas, Lindsay Lohan's new film has been raked over the coals. Critical notices from The Hollywood Reporter, Indiewire and Screen Daily range from mixed to outright slam pieces.
"Lohan's performance is certainly terrible, but her steady slide started long ago," wrote Eric Kohn for Indiewire, before citing the infamous 2007 Lohan flop "I Know Who Killed Me." "Here, Lohan is as bland and unfocused as the material. During the one scene that allows her [to] degrade her oppressive boyfriend, her robotic delivery freezes the possibilities of bonafide tension (as well as titillation, for whatever that's worth)."
Written by Bret Easton Ellis ("American Psycho") and directed by Paul Schrader (screenwriter of "Taxi Driver" among other films), "The Canyons" follows a ne'er-do-well actor (played by porn star James Deen) who loses a role...
"Lohan's performance is certainly terrible, but her steady slide started long ago," wrote Eric Kohn for Indiewire, before citing the infamous 2007 Lohan flop "I Know Who Killed Me." "Here, Lohan is as bland and unfocused as the material. During the one scene that allows her [to] degrade her oppressive boyfriend, her robotic delivery freezes the possibilities of bonafide tension (as well as titillation, for whatever that's worth)."
Written by Bret Easton Ellis ("American Psycho") and directed by Paul Schrader (screenwriter of "Taxi Driver" among other films), "The Canyons" follows a ne'er-do-well actor (played by porn star James Deen) who loses a role...
- 7/29/2013
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
Lionsgate Katherine Heigl stars as Stephanie Plum in “One for the Money.”
While the world of filmdom trains its sights on the Sundance Film Festival this week, there are plenty of diversions in multiplexes for those of us who couldn’t make the trek to Park City. We’ve got a snowy survival story “The Grey,” starring Liam Neeson and Dermot Mulroney), a twisty heist thriller “Man on a Ledge,” starring Sam Worthington and Elizabeth Banks), and the tale of...
While the world of filmdom trains its sights on the Sundance Film Festival this week, there are plenty of diversions in multiplexes for those of us who couldn’t make the trek to Park City. We’ve got a snowy survival story “The Grey,” starring Liam Neeson and Dermot Mulroney), a twisty heist thriller “Man on a Ledge,” starring Sam Worthington and Elizabeth Banks), and the tale of...
- 1/27/2012
- by Rotten Tomatoes Staff
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
Let's begin with last week's backgrounder in the New York Times, wherein Dennis Lim notes that Contagion "revisits a conundrum that has bedeviled many filmmakers over the years: how do you make a movie about a virus, a villain that isn't even visible? Epidemic movies have sidestepped the problem by focusing on the aftermath of a deadly plague, as with The Omega Man (1971) and 12 Monkeys (1995), both set in postapocalyptic wastelands. Another option is to invent a disease with outlandish symptoms, as in The Crazies (1973), in which the infected turn homicidally insane, or 28 Days Later (2002), in which they become zombies." Contagion, though, "resists the sheen of science fiction or fantasy and instead stresses the chilling plausibility of its nightmare situation." And he quotes Steven Soderbergh: "It's an ultrarealistic film about a pandemic, and that's the key phrase. We were looking for something that was unsettling because of the banality of the transmission.
- 9/5/2011
- MUBI
Updated.
"Prolific documentarian Alex Gibney's latest take on power and its abuse is an engrossing look at the story of Eliot Spitzer, the once high-flying Us politician whose rise and fall involved Wall Street barons and top dollar New York prostitutes," writes John Hazelton for Screen. "It's an intriguing story grippingly told, though the film doesn't quite have the force or universality of earlier Gibney documentaries like Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Oscar-winner Taxi to the Dark Side."...
"Prolific documentarian Alex Gibney's latest take on power and its abuse is an engrossing look at the story of Eliot Spitzer, the once high-flying Us politician whose rise and fall involved Wall Street barons and top dollar New York prostitutes," writes John Hazelton for Screen. "It's an intriguing story grippingly told, though the film doesn't quite have the force or universality of earlier Gibney documentaries like Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Oscar-winner Taxi to the Dark Side."...
- 9/13/2010
- MUBI
John Hazelton has been selling movie posters since the days of “old-school” printed catalogs. Now he’s online and you never know what he’s going to dig up next, from any vintage, any country. Best of all he’s a bona fide film buff who knows whereof he speaks. My old friend Jerry Beck and his partner-in-crime Amid Amidi maintain a lively site that’s a must for any animation fan or aficionado. Updated constantly, it’s a cornucopia of information, opinion, film clips, trivia, and just plain fun about the world of animation—past and present. Mark Evanier is a longtime writer/producer of television…...
- 1/18/2010
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
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