Bradley Cooper
News, Reviews, Features, Trailers & Rants...
While fans continue to squabble over the correct, surely-soon-to-be-official 'Ultimate Ranking of MCU films' (nearly there, guys! Seriously, you're doing great work), it's easy to overlook the fact that, at this stage, the Marvel movie-making model looks unlikely to ever produce a truly bad film. Sure, there have been Dark Elvish messes and Mickey Rourke-sized hiccups, but Marvel really has its mathematically-safe, formulaic shit together now and, as a result, always delivers an agreeable level of fun and action albeit without taking any real risks. That is, except for Guardians Of The Galaxy, the only property in the Universe that still feels like a gamble, sitting apart from the homogenised Avenger adventures to follow its own completely different set of rules. Which is why it's a shame that this sequel follows them too.
As I was leaving my work office to come to the screening of this film, I happened to tell a colleague where I was going. His response was: "Oh cool! I saw a trailer for War Dogs. It looks like The Hangover meets Lord Of War". He's not wrong, but it's the kind of reference point
used far too much these days and is so simplistic as to become meaningless. He might as well have said "Oh cool! War Dogs looks like Todd Phillips meets gun-running". Or "It looks like funny stuff meets serious dangerous stuff". "Oh cool! I saw a trailer for War Dogs. It looks like Jonah Hill meets Miles Teller". Yes. Yes, he does.
Posted by
Ali Gray at 13:30 on 17 Feb 2016
Now Burnt, see, is a film about a chef, a bloody
chef, and it looks very dull indeed. So dull that it was at one point called 'Chef', which is literally just the job of the person it's about, like if The Fugitive was called 'Vascular Surgeon'. Then it was called 'Adam Jones', which is not a good title for a film, or arguably a person. No one interesting has ever been called Adam Jones. Go on, name one.
FINALLY the poster for Adam Jones has been released.
Posted by
Ali Gray at 22:40 on 21 Jan 2015
Clint Eastwood's military biopic
American Sniper tore through cinemas in the red states last week to break January box-office records, making military supporters fire their guns in the air in celebration. However, questions remain over the movie's accuracy, following accusations that the movie's subject, Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, was a fantasist (he claimed he shot and killed two carjackers and that police covered it up, and that he picked off looters during Hurricane Katrina; neither incidents were ever confirmed). Eastwood's movie makes no mention of these events, so what other inconvenient truths does the movie ignore?
Oh, great. This should help smooth things out. While I wouldn't support the action, I'm surprised to have heard no calls to postpone the release of American Sniper. Here's a portrait, entirely unshaded by grey, of a US Navy SEAL who claims more confirmed kills than any other sniper in US military history, all of them in Iraq. There are interesting questions about the morality of this, given how many more lives he likely saved, about the effect it had on him, and about the implications of American occupation in the Middle East. Clint Eastwood isn't terribly interested in asking them, though. While this is an effective and very watchable war movie, it's as uncomplicated as it gets.
Posted by
Ali Gray at 18:30 on 29 Jul 2014
Just for a second there it looked like Marvel might have let their foothold slip. Edgar Wright's departure had irreparably sullied Ant-Man; Captain America 3's release date clash with DC's Batman V Superman in 2016 seemed like a suicide mission; the suspicion lingered that
Thor: The Dark World wasn't actually all that great in retrospect. Momentary blips, all, because Guardians Of The Galaxy is the most confident, daring and balls-out fun Marvel movie of the lot. The last two Marvel releases have been samey sequels, adhering largely to a tried and tested formula, but Guardians Of The Galaxy is one of Marvel's best films simply because it doesn't really feel like it's part of the Marvel universe at all.
Posted by
Ali Gray at 08:00 on 21 Feb 2014
You haven't properly seen the first teaser for Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy until you've seen my step-by-step analysis, which mainly consists of cries for help, fashion queries and unforgivable inaccuracy. Still, I do know one thing: raccoons are EEEEEEE! (*clutches hands beneath chin in girlish glee*)
Posted by
Ali Gray at 19:40 on 01 Jan 2014
Disney have released the first official image from their forthcoming Marvel intergalactic adventure, Guardians Of The Galaxy. We can't help but feel there's someone quite important missing, especially given the obvious Usual Suspects homage. Thankfully it was my New Year's Resolution to do more rubbish Photoshopping, so I made amends. Send the cheque to the usual address, Disney.
