Tag: Sam Rockwell

Wild Horse Nine

Wild Horse Nine

Director – Martin McDonagh – 2026 – US – Cert. 15 – 118m

*****

Two Santiago-based CIA operatives travel to to Easter Island prior to the 1973 coup in Chile; one of them is dying – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, November 4th

In 1973, Shortly before the CIA’s destabilisation of Chile, two of its operatives travel from Santiago to Easter Island. The terminally ill Chris (John Malkovich) wants to see the Big Heads (the island’s famous indigenous statues) before he dies, and his colleague Lee (Sam Rockwell) – possibly his only friend – has agreed to accompany him.

Their Santiago-based boss MJ (Steve Buscemi) is concerned; Chris has a habit of shooting his mouth off and saying things he shouldn’t, as evidenced in the airport when Chris starts to chat with two attractive female Chilean students Monica (Mariana di Girolamo) and Alicia (Ailín Salas) and he states, after bringing up the subject of “destabilising your country”, that “we ARE the CIA, actually,” leading to furious denials of the fact by Lee. Both girls are horrified.

Chris has an agenda beyond seeing the Big Heads – as he later confides to Lee, when you’ve seen one Big Head, you’ve seen them all.… Read the rest

Movies Animation Features

The Bad Guys 2

The Bad Guys 2

Director – Pierre Perifel – Co-Director JP Sans – 2025 – US – Cert. PG – 104m

****

A criminal gang of animals led by a wolf mastermind attempts to go straight but are extorted into doing one last job – animated feature sequel is out in UK cinemas on Friday, July 25th

Like its predecessor, The Bad Guys 2 manages to successfully parody the meanness and violence of the gangster movie genre in a children’s animated film without any of the meanness and violence normally associated with that genre. You might wonder where you could go with what is essentially a sequel to five bad guys turning from bad to good. This skilfully implements its answer: introduce a rival gang, as bad as the original protagonists, who force our reformed heroes into that old gangster movie trope: they want to go straight, but before they can get there they have to do one last job.

Here’s the twist. The Bad Guys, like most gangsters, are (mostly) male. Their new rivals, The Bad Girls, are all female.

Thus, the eponymous, anthropomorphised animal gang Mr Wolf (voice: Sam Rockwell from (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonagh, 2017; Seven Psychopaths, Martin McDonagh, 2012; Lawn Dogs, John Duigan, 1997) the leader of the pack, Mr.… Read the rest

Movies Animation Features Live Action

IF

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date May 16 2024
1 Comment on IF

Director – John Krasinski – 2024 – US – Cert. U – 104m

****

A 12-year-old staying with her grandma in New York meets many imaginary friends forgotten by the adults who befriended them as children – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 17th

This follows the time-worn children’s story template of a child whose father in hospital and is worried that they might not ever come home. In this instance, the child’s fear is grounded in her previous experience of this happening to her mother, who went into hospital and never came out.

Thus, 12-year-old Bea (Cailey Fleming) is sent to stay with her grandmother (Fiona Shaw) in New York while her single-parent dad (John Krasinski) goes to the hospital for what he assures Bea will be a routine operation. Dad is an inveterate practical joker of a gentle sort, performing impromptu song and dance routines with his treatment drip on a stand or staging a tableau of his escape out of the window via a rope made of knotted bedsheets. As you can probably tell, director Krasinski is clearly having a lot of fun playing this role, and fortunately for us that fun translates onto the screen.… Read the rest

Tags 12-year-old, Alan S. Kim, Awkwafina, ballet, bereavement, Bobby Moynihan, breaking and entering, Cailey Fleming, children's story, Christopher Meloni, door handles, doors, Emily Blunt, fantasy, fathers and children, fathers and daughters, fear, fear of losing a parent, Fiona Shaw, Fleischer Brothers, furball, grandma, grandmother, grandmothers and granddaughters, grandparent, grandparents and children, horror, hospital, hospital operation, imaginary friend, imaginary friends, John Krasinski, Jon Stewart, Louis Gossett Jr., Matt Damon, Maya Rudolph, mystery, New York, otherworldly beings, parents and children, patient, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, practical joker, Richard Jenkins, Ryan Reynolds, Sam Rockwell, Sebastian Maniscalco, single parent, song and dance routine, staged tableau, Steve Carell, teddy bear, trench coat, US, Vince Vaughn, ward

Movies Features Live Action

See How They Run

See How They Run

Director – Tom George – 2022 – UK – Cert. 12a – 98m

A barely competent Inspector and a trainee WPC investigate a backstage murder at The Mousetrap in 1950s London’s theatreland – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 9th

London West End, 1953. Following his involvement in a fight at a party to celebrate the hundredth performance of The Mousetrap at The Ambassadors Theatre, blacklisted Hollywood film director Leo Kopernick (Adrien Brody), hired by John Woolf (Reece Shearsmith) to make a film of the play, gets into fisticuffs with the play’s leading man Richard “Dickie” Attenborough (Harris Dickinson) over the latter’s wife and co-star Sheila Sim (Pearl Shanda).

Later, Kopernick is murdered backstage by a mystery assailant. Perhaps it’s pertinent that Kopernick has ruffled numerous feathers in and around the production, not least foppish, English literary figure Mervyn Cocker Norris (David Oyelowo) who has been hired to write the script and despises everything Kopernick stands for, a feeling which proves in flashback to be mutual.

Thus begins a whodunit based around the world’s longest running play. The police are called in, with Commissioner Harold Scott (Tim Key) assigning alcoholic Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and film buff and over-enthusiastic trainee WPC Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) to the case.… Read the rest

Movies Animation Features

The Bad Guys

The Bad Guys

Director – Pierre Perifel – 2022 – US – Cert. U – 100m

****1/2

A group of criminal animals led by a wolf mastermind pretend to go straight to pull off their greatest job ever – animated feature previews Saturday and Sunday, March 26th & 27th, out in cinemas on Friday, April 1st

It sounds a near impossible feat to pull off, yet The Bad Guys manages to successfully parody the meanness and violence of the gangster movie genre in a children’s animated film without any of the meanness and violence normally associated with that genre. It opens with two guys (well, a wolf and a snake) hanging out in a restaurant shooting the breeze. Yes, there’s only the two of them, but anyone who knows their gangster movies will immediately think of the six guys sitting around a restaurant table at the start of Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1993) and to underscore the point, the characters are called Mr. Wolf and Mr. Snake (along with, when we meet them shortly after, Ms. Tarantula, Mr. Piranha and Mr. Shark). They’re animals, but they could just as easily have been colours.

As his animal type suggests, Mr Wolf (voice: Sam Rockwell) is the leader of the pack.… Read the rest