Tag Archives: Heath Ledger

MOV115: “Fear, Chaos, Pain”

In this reel of COL Movies, It’s another “very special episode” as the boys talk about the Dark Knight Trilogy. They kick off with the original Nolan-verse creation, “Batman Begins”, and move on to what they feel is the gem of the series, “The Dark Knight”. In theaters, of course, they review the conclusion of the triumvirate, “The Dark Knight Rises”. In trailer news, they look at the (spoiler alert) utterly forgettable preview of “The Expendables 2”. In brief movie news, we bring up John Favreau’s partnership with Pixar and Peter Jackson’s attempt at making “The Hobbit” into a trilogy! It’s the 115th reel of COL Movies…”Fear, Chaos, Pain”

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News:

The Past: Batman Begins
Rotten Tomatoes: 85% Fresh; 90% Audience

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The Past: The Dark Knight
Rotten Tomatoes: 94% Fresh; 96% Audience

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Director: Christopher Nolan

Staring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, Heath Ledger

Trivia:

Talking Points:

  • The flaw of the microwave emitter
  • When you first saw this did you expect it to be a trilogy?

What We Learned From Batman Begins:

  • The world is too small for a man like Bruce Wayne to Disappear
  • A vigilante is just a man lost in the search for his own gratification
  • Death is not considerate or friendly
  • We fall, so we can learn to pick ourselves up.
  • All creatures feel fear, especially the scary ones.
  • Invisibility is simply a matter of patience and agility
  • You always fear what you don’t understand
  • It’s not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you.
  • Never go into business with someone without finding out their dirty secrets.

What We Learned From The Dark Knight:

  • What doesn’t kill you makes you stranger.
  • When your the Gotham D.A. if your not getting shot at your not doing your Job right
  • You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain
  • Criminals aren’t complicated you just have to figure out what they are after.
  • Some men just want to watch the world burn.
  • The night is darkest just before the dawn

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: Nolan has really taken an amazing approach to what has to be my favorite superhero ever. He stays relatively true the the Batman story but knows that it’s his universe and Batman does things differently in his world. Heath Ledger’s Joker was amazing and perfect for the world. I can’t recommend these movies more.
Ray: Anyone who is a fan of superhero movies needs to watch these, but the great thing about these especially The Dark Knight is that you don’t have to be. I consider The Dark Knight one of the best Crime Dramas to come around in the last 10 years, plus it’s pretty cool that Batman is in it too. Cemented by an amazing performance by Heath Ledger that also demands to be seen.
Steve: OK…I admit that I enjoyed the Dark Knight the most! Heath Ledger is awesome – although Maggie G just didn’t do a darn thing for me. That’s one time I missed Katie Holmes. Batman Begins just kind of set the stage for the rest of the films…and drags for me.

The Present: The Dark Knight Rises

Rotten Tomatoes: 86% Fresh; 93% Audience

Director: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard

Trivia:

Talking Points:

  • The tale of two annoying voices. – Bane – Raz al Ghul
  • The soundtrack.. good or bad?
  • The Ending – could it have been done differently?
  • Sequel in the nolanverse?
  • Wait! What? Talia’s in this movie!
  • Plot Holes!

Critic Notes

  • Positives: Production value was extremely high and Nolan knew the look he was going for and delivered it; the conclusion was a fitting end to the story and the epicness of the hero;
  • Negatives: “clunky”; an ordeal to sit through; acting was manufactured; hard to understand the dialogue; extremely stretched out because every recollection had to be done in flashback; overall Nolan tanked or dialed this one in.

What We Learned:

  • Detectives are not allowed to believe in coincidences
  • People don’t pay attention to you until you put on a mask
  • Hope is really the key to torture
  • A hero can be anyone

Trailer:

Recommendations :
Jeff: I was right. This movie did not pull out the amazing awesomeness that The Avengers did and I don’t expect it to perform as well in the box office still. It still was an incredible ending to the Nolan Batman story line but this was still I movie I could have waited for and just suffered from a pre-release lack of enthusiasm. I think it’s definitely worth seeing in the theaters but I wouldn’t say there’s much off a rush.
Ray: A good strong finish to the Trilogy but not my favorite of the three. This is very much the “Return of the Jedi” of the series for me, but instead of annoying ewoks, it’s got annoying vocal performances and plot holes. A must see if your a fan of the other two though.
Steve: Definitely not my favorite, except for Tom Hardy of course. Just didn’t have the same punch as the others and seemed like it was just there to wrap up the story. It was pretty though. I actually liked that they did bring stuff in from the previous movies – made it feel more complete than just 3 stand alone films.

The Future: The Expendables 2

Release: August 12, 2012

Director: Simon West

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Liam Hemsworth, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture

Summary:

After taking a seemingly simple job for Mr. Church (Bruce Willis), the Expendables find their plans going awry and one of their own is brutally murdered by rival mercenary Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme).[2] The Expendables set out into hostile territory – with their new members Bill the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and Maggie (Yu Nan) – to put a stop to a deadly weapon and gain their revenge against the people who killed their brother-in-arms

Talking Points:

  • Why are we reviewing this trailer? Did we not destroy the first film?

Trailer:

Excitement:
Jeff: Hey, The Expendables again. . . . Would love to see this on Netflix streaming.
Ray: Move along…nothing to see here.
Steve: Slept through the first one…I image it will be more of the same.

The Past:

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The Present:

The Future:

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MOV056: “I Wish I Knew How To Quit You.”

This week the boys continue their celebration of pride month by traveling back to 2005 to watch 3 time Academy Award winner “Brokeback Mountain” Is it more than just that “Gay Cowboy Movie”? Or was Jeff’s dismissal of all the movie Hype warranted? In The Present we go back to the 1960’s to dissect X-Men: First Class, does the film jump to the head of the class or is it the first summer movie dud? Then Swing with us out of the trees and into the future as we talk about the upcoming Rise of The Planet of the apes do these damn dirty apes do the franchise reboot justice? All this and news about The Fighter 2, Romeo and Juliet, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, And a possible Tarantino / DiCaprio collaboration? All this and more on this 56th reel of COL Movies.

News:

The Past: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Rotten Tomatoes: 87% Fresh; 77% Audience

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Director: Ang Lee

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Randy Quaid

Trivia:

  • According to reports, Heath Ledger nearly broke co-star Jake Gyllenhaal’s nose while filming a kissing scene.
  • According to an interview that Heath Ledger gave to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Steven Rea, there was a sequence that was filmed for the movie in which Jack and Ennis help some hippies get their car out of a river. According to Ledger, the scene took three days to shoot and was disliked almost immediately by everyone involved. The scene was written by James Schamus as an attempt to show Jack and Ennis in a heroic situation, but it does not appear in Annie Proulx’s original short story, the published screenplay, or the final cut of the movie.
  • There were 75 visual effects shots created for the film by the Canadian house Buzz Image Group. Of these, 15 were of CGI sheep. The film called for about 2,500 sheep, but only 700 were on-set, necessitating the additional woolly creations. Also created for the film were sky replacements, set additions, erasures and the hail in the hailstorm
  • Ang Lee struggled continually with the sheep during the shoot. Apparently sheep don’t drink from running water, only ponds and dams. Ang tried all day to get the sheep to drink from a stream, but they wouldn’t oblige. He had to give up on the shot. Also, American sheep carry a bacteria/virus that Canadian sheep don’t possess. The film’s scene where two herds of sheep become mixed up had some nightmarish real-life parallels, as the Canadian government had expressly warned them of dire consequences if they caused any disease to spread to the local animals from the south-of-the-border variety.
  • According to producer James Schamus, the movie cost so little to make that it recouped its cost during its first week of limited release.
  • Banned in China because homosexuality is considered a taboo subject there.
  • Over 90% of the footage was shot within 70 feet of a road
  • Among the actors considered for the male leads were Josh Hartnett, Colin Farrell, Matt Damon, Billy Crudup, and Ben Affleck.
  • Heath Ledger was only four years older than Kate Mara, who played his daughter Alma Jr. in the movie’s last scenes (for most of the movie, Alma Jr. was played by younger baby and child actresses; Mara only played her as an older teen once the Ledger character was supposed to be in his 40s).
  • The shirts worn by the 2 actors that feature prominently in the film were sold on eBay in February 2006 for $101,100. The buyer, film historian and collector Tom Gregory, called them “the ruby slippers of our time”. In 2009, Gregory lent the shirts to The Autry National Center of the American West, a Los Angeles museum that seeks “to explore the experiences and perceptions of the diverse peoples of the American West.” Their exhibition of the shirts is part of their larger attempt to examine representations of the Western LGBT experience in history and fiction.
  • The poster for the film was deliberately styled to resemble another romantic epic, James Cameron’s Titanic (1997).
  • In March 2006 Randy Quaid filed a lawsuit against Focus Features alleging that the company had misled him into thinking that Brokeback Mountain (2005) was a low budget, art-house film with no prospect of making money. He saw this as a ruse to get him to lower his salary. At the time of the lawsuit, the film had earned more than $160 million. Quaid dropped the lawsuit in May, seemingly after Focus agreed to pay him a bonus. Focus, however, denied that any such payment ever took place, and Focus spokeswoman Adriene Bowles was quoted as saying, “the circumstances of him dropping the suit are as mysterious as the circumstances under which he filed his claim.”
  • Universal made the rare decision to release the film on DVD when it was still playing in theaters. It was also the first film to be released as a DVD and a download on the same day.

Talking Points:

  • Snubbed at the Oscars?
  • Take on the ending – Was what happened to Jack real or just what Ennis imagined.
  • were they gay cowboy’s? or bi cowboys?
  • Anyone know a gay guy named Ennis?

What We’ve Learned:

  • If your gonna be a sheep Herder, best you develop a taste for beans
  • The only point of riding rodeo is the money
  • Rodeo cowboys are all fuckups
  • You dont have to know what the Pentecost is in order to believe in it
  • Spit works….

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: I really don’t see what all the fuss was about. This movie was boring to me. I can’t really give it a recommendation either either good or bad. It was just boring.
Ray: Beautiful photography, and a heart breaking performance from Heath Ledger that can only be described as “Once in a generation” I think this is a beautifully told modern day western that makes me cry every time I watch it.
Steve: Despite being slow (like The Way Back slow), it’s an interesting take on people coming to terms with who they are in a society who teaches them they have to be something else. Makes you think.

The Present: X-Men: First Class (2011)

Rotten Tomatoes: 85% Fresh; 88% Audience

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence

Trivia:

  • A telepathic battle between Professor X and Emma Frost was going to be in the film, but upon the release of Inception (2010) the concept was scrapped.
  • To prepare for his role as Erik Lensherr, Michael Fassbender studied Sir Ian McKellen’s performance as Lensherr in the previous X-Films, but also looked through the comics as he decided to make his own version of Magneto: “You want to respect what someone else has done, especially because the fan base really liked what Ian has done with it. But while I could have gone and studied him as a young man and brought that to the performance, I don’t think Matthew is very interested in that. So I’m just going my own way and working with whatever is in the comic books and the script.”
  • The filmmakers had only two choices for the role of Sebastian Shaw: Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon. They decided to go with Bacon as he was American and seemed more menacing than Firth.
  • This is the second time that January Jones has been cast in 1962 opposite an actor with a pork based name. The first was in “Mad Men” (2007) opposite John Hamm and then this alongside Kevin Bacon

Talking Points:

  • Anyone ready for a X-Men film that doesn’t have Magneto in it?
  • Kevin Bacon – I had no Idea the man was in the movie until I saw it!

What We Learned:

  • Mutation Is groovy
  • Sexy Lingerie can get you in anywhere
  • True Focus Lies somewhere between Rage and Serenity
  • I’m a mutant and I’m proud – where’s my parade?

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: This was a very refreshing prequel for the X-Men Movies. I felt a very different style to this compared to the previous films which was . . . . well . . . refreshing. Go see it.
Ray: Pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this film.. went in with LOW expectations and got my ass kicked. This is a promising start to the summer movie season!
Steve: I wasn’t sure about the film’s style, but I did enjoy the movie overall. I like origin stories like this – I don’t need a 2 hour one on a single character. Kept me interested.

The Future: Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (8/5/2011)

Director: Rupert Wyatt

Starring: James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto

Trivia:

  • The film is not based on any specific plotline from the original series, but instead takes elements from the earlier movies to create an original origin story.
  • In a segment of a video blog post, director Rupert Wyatt commented on the originality of the plot: “This is part of the mythology and it should be seen as that. It’s not a continuation of the other films; it’s an original story. It does satisfy the people who enjoy those films. The point of this film is to achieve that and to bring that fan base into this film exactly like Batman [Begins].”
  • Director Rupert Wyatt commented: “I think we’re ending with certain questions, which is quite exciting. To me, I can think of all sorts of sequels to this film, but this is just the beginning.”
  • Screenwriter and producer Rick Jaffa has also stated that Rise of the Planet of the Apes will feature several clues as to future sequels: “I hope that we’re building a platform for future films. We’re trying to plant a lot of the seeds for a lot of the things you are talking about in terms of the different apes and so forth.”
  • According to Rick Jaffa, a version of the spaceship from the 1968 Planet of the Apes will be featured under the name Icarus in Rise of the Planet of the Apes as a hint to a possible sequel.
  • Unlike previous films in the franchise, the apes in the film will be created digitally using CGI technology, by Weta Digital.
  • Filming began in July 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Filming also headed to San Francisco, California, and around O’ahu, Hawaii.

Talking Points:

  • Another reboot! After the abortion that was the last attempt at a reboot.. are you ready for this one?
  • CGI monkeys… good or bad?

Summary: An origin story set in present day San Francisco, where man’s own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.

Trailer:

Excitement:
Jeff: It’s looking good. Really don’t have any expectations for it, just would like to see it.
Ray: Feeling rather indifferent about this one, I’m a big fan of the Heston era apes movies…
Steve: Not sure about this one…I think I get the purpose, but where the hell do all the apes come from to be in the city? That was a big-ass zoo!

Coming Attractions

The Past
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The Present

The Future

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