Shameless Self Expression

Robert De Niro is a veteran mid-level film producer with a lot of shit to deal with right now, and not just professionally. He’s got two film projects running at the moment, one with a seriously temperamental Bruce Willis (as himself, kinda), who refuses to shave off a huge bushy beard for a romantic lead role (he also needs to lose a few pounds), and the other a violent, but pretentious action film that has just had an hilariously unhappy test screening (One especially amusing comment reads; ‘My wife is still crying, asshole!’), and has the money men above De Niro panicking. What was so bad about it? Well, audiences hated the part where Sean Penn (again as himself, kinda) shoots the dog in the head...in close-up. The drugged-out, neurotic English director (Michael Wincott- seemingly really wired ) takes exception to demands from the producers to cut the scene out, claiming it would offend his artistic integrity and ruin his film and what he was trying to say. Icy studio head Cathe...

Two rivals (Charles Rogers, Richard Arlen) for the same girl (Jobyna Ralston) end up bonding whilst serving in WWI as pilots. Meanwhile, Clara Bow plays a girl who has a thing for Rogers, who is oblivious. Bow ends up joining the war effort driving an ambulance. That’s a young (but not young-looking) Gary Cooper as a fellow soldier in a mere cameo. This 1927 William A. Wellman ( “The Story of G.I. Joe” , “The High and the Mighty” , “The Ox-Bow Incident” ) silent picture is remembered today for one thing: The trivia titbit that it was the first film to be awarded Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Well I’m here to tell you that it’s also better than just being a piece of trivia. It doesn’t seem to get a lot of good reviews, but I actually rather enjoyed this one. In fact, it’s really only gross length that holds me back from liking it even more. Scripted by Hope Loring and Louis D. Lighton (a husband and wife screenwriting team), it’s the kind of sweeping romantic war epic th...

Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) are enjoying wedded bliss but trouble comes in the form of the mysterious cyber-terrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron) who basically coerces Dom into working for her…and against Letty and the rest of his old crew who are currently helping out Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson). Dom’s seemingly open betrayal of his comrades puts Hobbs in the slammer…with an old foe waiting for him in Deckard (Jason Statham). Whilst working for shadowy government man ‘Mr. Nobody’ (Kurt Russell) and his stuffed-shirt cohort (Scott Eastwood), Letty and the gang are perplexed, angry, and shocked that their former comrade is now running with their current nemesis. Meanwhile, Hobbs and Deckard want to punch each other in the face at every opportunity, Roman (Tyrese Gibson) won’t stop whining, and we even meet the mother of Owen (Luke Evans) and Deckard Shaw, played by Oscar-winner Helen Mirren. Kristofer Hivju plays Cipher’s muscle, Nathalie Emmanuel and Ludacris reprise th...

Beginning in the late 50s, the interracial couple of the film’s title (played by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga) run into trouble with Virginian law when they come back from a trip to Washington DC to get hitched (Negga is with child). Virginian law doesn’t allow interracial marriage, and the racist local sheriff (Marton Csokas) raids their home in the middle of the night and has them both thrown in jail. Given a year’s jail sentence, the judge suspends the sentence on the grounds that they not return to Virginia together for 25 years. Yes, the law is so ridiculous (and it already was ridiculous to begin with) that it stipulates that they can return individually, just not at the same time. So off to Washington the Loving couple (in both senses of that word) goes, until they get the bright spark idea to go back home to Virginia for Negga to have the baby. Unsurprisingly, the law once again catches up with them and they’re arrested. Their lawyer (Bill Camp) finds a way to get them off ...

Gal Gadot stars as Diana, Princess of Themyscira, raised on an island of Amazon women. She’s the demi-god daughter of Zeus and an Amazon woman named Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), and raised as a warrior woman. Into this setting literally crash-lands American Intelligence officer Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), who finds his current feminine surrounds baffling, and their ignorance to the World War (I) going on around them even more baffling. Thus we begin the main plot, which involves Diana assisting Steve in trying to stop the conflict by heading to early 1900s London to find the god Ares, whom she believes is a higher power behind the growing conflict. Danny Huston plays Ludendorff, a nasty German General, accompanied by a scarred Elena Anaya as mad scientist Dr. Maru. David Thewlis and James Cosmo play a British diplomat and Field Marshall Haig, respectively. Robin Wright plays Amazon woman Antiope, who helps train Diana as a warrior. This 2017 DC Comics flick from director Patty ...