As adaptations of literary sensations go, the film version of late Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was good, not great. A bit long, maybe, but hardly the cure for insomnia that was The Da Vinci Code. Its cinematic follow-up, The Girl Who Played with Fire, is a definite step up, [...]
Read More blu-ray, crime, David, DVD, Michael Nyqvist, Mystery, Noomi Rapace, Paolo Roberto, R, Ralph Carlsson, Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire, thriller, Yasmine GarbiUntil I saw Adrien Brody in the energetic Predators, the fifth flick to feature the dreadlocked, crab-faced alien hunters first encountered by Arnold Schwarzenegger two decades ago, I never even imagined the guy as an action hero. But Mr. Skinny pumped some iron, got himself a crew cut and a macho attitude and, voilà, proves [...]
Read More action, Adrien Brody, adventure, Alex Litvak, blu-ray, David, DVD, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Finch, Nimrod Antal, Predators, R, Sci-Fi, thriller, Topher GraceEdward Norton was definitely smoking something when he decided to make Leaves of Grass. You see, the oh-so-serious star of Fight Club trying to be funny is like Jim Carrey trying to be serious. It goes against nature, and the end results of their efforts are generally lacking. Such is the state of this pot [...]
Read More comedy, crime, David, drama, Edward Norton, Keri Russell, Leaves of Grass, R, thriller, Tim Blake NelsonThough this slick reboot of the horror franchise featuring razor-gloved boogeyman Freddy Krueger never even comes close to replicating the uniquely unsettling eeriness of the 1984 original, it still makes a pretty decent fright machine. Jackie Earle Haley takes over for role-originator Robert Englund in donning the familiar fedora and red and green sweater of [...]
Read More A Nightmare on Elm Street, David, DVD, horror, Jackie Earle Haley, Katie Cassidy, Mystery, R, Samuel Bayer, thrillerMurder is a nasty business. Few writers have understood this as well as pulp legend Jim Thompson, whose storytelling in the 1950′s revealed a writer of rare abilities, one with genuine literary skills who was also able to illustrate the depths of human debasement without lapsing into the sort of parody which typified ‘True Detective’ [...]
Read More blu-ray, Casey Affleck, crime, drama, DVD, J.D., Jessica Alba, Jim Thompson, Kate Hudson, Michael Winterbottom, Ned Beatty, R, The Killer Inside Me, thrillerPretty people Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl may be the stars of Killers, a lackluster variation on True Lies that was released last summer to poor box office reaction, but the lone reason for seeing it turns out to be Tom Selleck. Kutcher plays a government-trained killer who gives up the life after meeting the [...]
Read More Ashton Kutcher, blu-ray, Catherine O'Hara, crime, David, drama, DVD, Katherine Heigl, Killers, R, thriller, Tom SelleckDon’t let the fancy-sounding English accents fool you. Harry Brown is a vigilante flick, pure and simple, a bleak and bloody blending of Death Wish and Gran Torino starring Michael Caine that just happens to be set in England. Caine plays an ex-serviceman living in a South London neighborhood where gangs of drug-pushing punks harass, [...]
Read More blu-ray, crime, Daniel Barber, David, drama, DVD, Harry Brown, Jack O-Connel, Michael Caine, R, thrillerIt’s grim up North. This, in a nutshell, is the philosophy of novelist David Peace, a native of Yorkshire in England, whose series of books about crime and corruption are the base for this excellent trilogy, originally broadcast on the BBC. Peace is a progenitor of pulp, and obvious student of American crime writers Jim [...]
Read More Andrew Garfield, BBC, blu-ray, crime, David Morrissey, David Peace, drama, DVD, J.D., Mark Addy, Paddy Considine, Red Riding Trilogy, Sean Bean, thriller, Tony GrisoniAs a movie, The Square, a low-budget Australian thriller produced sometime in 2008, is far less energetic than its DVD preview would have you believe, but is saved by a first-rate script that renders it reminiscent of the best noir flicks.
Read More Claire van der Boom, David, David Roberts, drama, DVD, Matthew Dabner, Nash Edgerton, R, The Square, thrillerGoodness, the British certainly do hate Tony Blair… But, I’m getting ahead of myself. There have been any number of political thrillers released in the last few years, the culmination of the ‘lost years’ of America, where the Bush administration, and its allies in England, have come in for a right kicking over any number [...]
Read More blu-ray, drama, DVD, Ewan McGregor, J.D., Kim Cattrall, Mystery, Olivia Williams, PG-13, Pierce Brosnan, Roman Polanski, The Ghost Writer, thriller, Tony Blair