Last Flag Flying Review

Richard Linklater's new film Last Flag Flying is in UK cinemas from 26th January 2018. I caught it at London Film Festival and reviewed it for Starburst Magazine. Here's a snippet of my review:

"Richard Linklater delivers his most mature film to date in Last Flag Flaying, starring a trio of acting heavyweights; Bryan Cranston, Steve Carrell and Laurence Fishburne. After offering some of the greatest films about boyhood, high school parties, college days and finding young love while travelling, Last Flag Flying sees the director on melancholic form with a film about war, death and growing old (not so) gracefully..."

Read more of my review of Last Flag Flying at Starburst Magazine here. 

Here's the trailer:



More from the London Film Festival 2017

 

Godzilla 2014 Review

Hi everybody,

Please check out my review of Godzilla starring Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen and a bloody great monster (or two or three!) over at Filmoria now.

I also got to meet and question some of the stars on the red carpet at the premiere so check out the full red carpet report, plus pictures at Filmoria.

New trailers: Godzilla Vs Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

Two new trailers hit this week with Gareth Edwards' Godzilla and Robert Rodriguez's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. I know damn well which one I'm most looking forward to already.

Godzilla has an awesome soundtrack, brilliant Bryan Cranston voiceover and just enough of the big scary monster to keep everybody satisfied. I saw this trailer in 3D before a screening of 300: Rise of an Empire and it looked absolutely breath taking. It looks like it should be action packed, emotional and undoubtedly spectacular. Anyone (or everyone) disappointed by the Roland Emmerich version will be pleased to see no Matthew Broderick or 'size does matter' jokes so far. Get ready to be trampled back to the Stone Age.



Total Film also shared this neat version where someone has taken the audio and replaced the visuals with the old original Godzilla movie.



Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is the long awaited (but not by me) sequel from Rodriguez and Frank Miller and has an even bigger cast than the original with Powers Boothe, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Josh Brolin and Ray Liotta joining the cast. It looks gorgeous but I found little to interest me in the characters last time around so I'm not getting my hopes up for this one. All the girls look like they'll spend most of the movie in bras and all the men will be the usual hard boiled cliches from film noir past.



Either of these take your fancy?

Breaking Bad cast break out big time in 2014

So the stars of Breaking Bad were here long before they got the call to become forever set in stone as Walter White and Jesse Pinkman but now all eyes are on them as they make their first steps in the post-Breaking Bad world. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul must now be two of the hottest stars in Hollywood with everyone wanting to get a little bit of the Breaking Bad magic dust sprinkled all over their new film. So far they've been snapped up for six projects across 2014 with Paul leading the way with four films to Cranston's more restrained two.

Hellion

When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob’s delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home. Cast: Aaron Paul, Juliette Lewis, Josh Wiggins, Deke Garner, Jonny Mars, Walt Roberts.
Read more at http://collider.com/hellio-images-infinitely-polar-bear-images/#VGWuPsBI9Pzhm9M4.99

When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob’s delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father (Aaron Paul) must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home. Joining Aaron Paul in the cast are Juliette Lewis and some relatively unknown individuals. It's been in Sundance this year and has some decent reviews.

When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob’s delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home. Cast: Aaron Paul, Juliette Lewis, Josh Wiggins, Deke Garner, Jonny Mars, Walt Roberts.
Read more at http://collider.com/hellio-images-infinitely-polar-bear-images/#VGWuPsBI9Pzhm9M4.99

A Long Way Down

Four people meet on New Year's Eve and form a surrogate family to help one another weather the difficulties of their lives. Aaron Paul is joined by Toni Collette, Imogen Poots and Pierce Brosnan. It's based on the 2005 novel of the same name written by Nick Hornby (of About a Boy and High Fidelity fame).



Need for Speed

Fresh from prison, a street racer (Aaron Paul) who was framed by a wealthy business associate joins a cross country race with revenge in mind. His ex-partner, learning of the plan, places a massive bounty on his head as the race begins. The more I hear about this, the more excited I get. Refreshingly free of CGI, this has the potential to be awesome fun. Paul is joined by Dominic Cooper and Imogen Poots (again!).



Exodus

An account of Moses' hand in leading the Israelite slaves out of Egypt. Christian Bale takes the role of Moses. Let's hope the director of photography doesn't get in his way while he's trying to part the sea. Aaron Paul is Joshua under the direction of Ridley Scott and the rest of the cast is rounded out by Ben Kingsley, Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver.

Godzilla

A giant radioactive monster called Godzilla appears to wreak destruction on mankind. Bryan Cranston plays Joe Brody and is joined by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen. It's directed by Gareth Edwards who made the memorable Monsters. Should be interesting to see what he does woth this kind of budget.



Get a Job

A comedy centered around a recent college graduate, his friends, and their attempts to secure employment.  Cranston is joined by Miles Teller, John C. McGinley and Anna Hendrick.

What are you most excited to see the Breaking Bad boys star in this year?

New trailers: Godzilla, Edge of Tomorrow, Jupiter Ascending

Three brand new trailers to celebrate this festive season; Godzilla, Edge of Tomorrow and Jupiter Ascending.

Godzilla

The teaser trailer for Godzilla is finally here after a few false starts  and many videos going online before being taken down and blah blah blah. Starting with a group of soldiers being dropped into a city and putting us right in the point of view of one of them, there is an unbelievable air of dread about the whole thing. We get glimpses of a fair amount of destruction, a lot of running and a decent slice of emoting, particularly from Bryan Cranston, the artist formerly known as Walter White. Godzilla only briefly emerges from the smoke but it's a hell of a lot more of the monster than we got from the Cloverfield trailer back in 2008. Enjoy!



Edge of Tomorrow

Retitled from the probably a bit better but equally baffling All You Need is Kill, Edge of Tomorrow stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. It looks a little bit Source Code, a little bit Groundhog Day but has a hell of a lot more big ass guns, big ass explosions and looks a hell of a lot of fun. The soundtrack to the trailer is suitably robotic and repetitive and I wonder if they are now going to release a new trailer to Fatboy Slim's Eat Sleep Rave Repeat but perhaps re-dub with Eat, Kill, Die, Repeat. Check out the trailer:



Jupiter Ascending

The Wachowski's don't look ready to dial down their desire for the epic anytime soon. After the critically divisive Cloud Atlas, they return with more science fiction, this time with Channing Tatum in distracting makeup and Mila Kunis looking gorgeous as ever. Not sure what is going on here but it certainly looks huge in scope, loaded with special effects and hopefully might have a few big ideas up its sleeve. Check out the trailer:



Any of these take your fancy?

New Godzilla Trailer features no Matthew Broderick

Unless Matthew Broderick is the man in the Godzilla suit, I don't think he's going to be in Gareth Edwards' latest incarnation of the radioactive giant monster movie and this is already a good sign. The first teaser trailer has finally made it onto the net for Godzilla (2014) and it already looks plenty epic. No offence to Mr Broderick who I'm sure is charming and has been in some fine films but he was just one (very small) part of the many things that were wrong with Roland Emmerich's abomination.

Gareth Edwards who previously directed low budget (but in my opinion slightly overrated) wonder Monsters has been showering himself in a reported $160 million budget and looks to be spending it wisely. Securing an excellent cast that includes Aaron Taylor Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston and Sally Hawkins, the teaser shows absolutely none of them. Instead we get very few humans at all and only the shortest glimpse of the real star, although it is clear the makers have not resulted to a man in a monster costume to bring Godzilla back to life.

What we do get is a foreboding soundtrack, portentous voice over and lots of shots of the aftermath of the beast's rampage. Smoke fills the sky, buildings are torn to pieces and then we get our first glimpse of 'the destroyer of worlds' as he emerges out of the destruction. It's a moody first trailer promising a much more serious take on Godzilla than Matthew Broderick running around Madison Square Gardens being chased by monster spawn.

With Legendary Pictures behind the film, could it be too much for ask for a Pacific Rim/Godzilla crossover for the future? check out the trailer and see what you think. Expect future trailers to start giving more of an idea about the human characters in the film and the strong themes of family that all the stars have been promising.

Godzilla 2014 Teaser Trailer from Joey Shabadoo on Vimeo.


More trailers from I Love That Film:

Need for Speed trailer

The LEGO Movie Trailer

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues Trailer

The Wolf of Wall Street Trailer

Man of Steel and The Desolation of Smaug

Breaking Bad: The final countdown

Shell shocked is how I feel right now. I just watched Season 5 Episode 14 of Breaking Bad from between my fingers that were clasped for most of the episode over my eyes and clutching my head. If you aren't up to date with the show then I strongly suggest you stop reading this right now as here will be spoilers! We are now 2 episodes away from the finale and the latest episode titled Ozymandias is sure to go down in history as one of the best bits of TV ever written.

Taking its title from a sonnet (thanks Wikipedia) whose central theme is the 'inevitable decline of all leaders', this episode was an emotional roller coaster of the most terrifying kind. Starting with the blistering cliff hanger of the previous episode where all the central players ended up facing off against one another with far too many guns thrown into the mix, it wasn't long before a much beloved character was dead in the dust.

Walter White has descended over five series from family man and high school chemistry teacher to meth dealer, murderer, drug lord and utter, utter bastard. Creator Vince Gilligan has stated that he wanted to write a show where the protagonist gradually became the antagonist. Over the five series, Walt has become more and more morally questionable and despite staying true to his family man values (at least where his own immediate family is concerned) he has become a truly repugnant figure by the end of the fourth season (if not before).

The problem with Walt is that he is still in many ways the protagonist and everything he has done, it could be argued has been done for his family. OK so a lot was just to save his own ass too, but he has always had a strong desire to protect and provide for his wife and children. Most viewers will likely have been rooting for him throughout even as evil has frequently overcome him.

However Walt has become increasingly arrogant, ruthless, scheming and just damn hard to like. The turning point for me was when I realised he had poisoned the child at the end of series 4. Until then I had been rooting for him to come out on top against the sinister and terrifying Gus. As soon as Gus was defeated and there was no antagonist to Walt's 'protagonist', I realised just what I'd been rooting for and quickly shifted sides. Or wait was it earlier? Was it when Walt forced Jesse to murder Gale in order to save their skins? I'm not sure.

Series 5 for me has just been about hoping that Jesse gets as far away from Walt as possible and seeing that Walt is brought to justice. I have started to hate Walter White. I have started to root for Hank. I have started to feel much more sympathy for Jesse who I so often thought of in the past as stupid and a total liability.

But still, thanks to the incredible performance of Bryan Cranston there are these odd moments where I (and I'm sure most of us) find myself empathising with Walt again. In this last episode he failed to save Hank, dropped Jesse right in the shit and stole his own child from her mother. But when he pleads for Hank's life, breaks down in tears and appears to save Skyler I see that little sliver of good in him again. It is, as I said earlier, an emotional roller coaster. Never did I think the show could get much darker but seeing poor Flynn/Junior watching as his parents fought with a knife was seriously distressing TV. And then there is the fate of Jesse to think about.

With only two episodes to go, Breaking Bad is destined to get darker and to go down in history as one of the greatest dramas ever put on screen (cinema or TV). There is hope in how Walt left Holly at a fire house but I'm still not sure if he was saving Skyler through his final phone call or simply distancing her from what else he is about to do. As for Jesse I guess as long as he is alive there is still some hope. I'm still gutted Hank is gone and as much as Walt tried to help, he deserves to be punished for his part in this.

My question for Breaking Bad fans is when did you stop rooting for Walt or are you still hoping he's going to come out on top? Also if you fancy leaving a prediction, how do you think Breaking Bad is going to end?

One more thing... how f**king cool is this?