Review: "Reign of Fire" is a Hot Popcorn Thriller (Happy B'day, Matthew McConaughey)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 125 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Reign of Fire (2002)
Running time:  101 minutes (1 hour, 41 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for intense action violence
DIRECTOR:  Rob Bowman
WRITERS:  Gregg Chabot, Kevin Peterka, and Matt Greenberg from a story by Gregg Chabot and Kevin Peterka
PRODUCERS:  Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, Lili Fini Zanuck, and Richard D. Zanuck
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Adrian Biddle (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  Declan McGrath and Thom Noble
COMPOSERS:  Ed Shearmur and Brad Wagner

SCI-FI/FANTASY/ACTION/THRILLER

Starring:  Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Izabella Scorupco, Gerard Butler, Scott James Moutter, Ben Thorton, and Alice Krige

The subject of this movie review is Reign of Fire, a 2002 post-apocalyptic, science fiction and fantasy-action film from director Rob Bowman.  The film takes place in a time after fire-breathing dragons emerged from beneath Earth’s surface and began setting fire to everything, on their way to establishing their dominance over the planet.

Director Rob Bowman’s Reign of Fire is a beautiful, amped-up B-movie with the gloss and sheen of serious A-list action movie.  Bowman is known for his work on the television series, “The X-Files”.

Set a few decades into the 21st Century, it’s the tale of band of humans led by two rivals Quinn Abercromby (the sexy Christian Bale) and Denton Van Zan (the sexy Matthew McConaughey) who fight a brood of dragons that have destroyed civilization and hunt what’s left of mankind.  After the dragons deliver to huge setbacks to the humans, Quinn, Abercrombie, and the beautiful Alex (Izabella Scorupco), the action movie girl de rigueur, travel to London for a last stand against the mightiest of the dragons.

Bowman, who directed many episodes of “The X-Files” television series, as well as the feature film based upon the series, is very good at putting his cast and crew through the paces to create this fantastic and fun film.  It doesn’t have to make much sense (and it doesn’t) to be entertaining, but Bowman takes the B-movie to new cinematic heights.  Yes, I will wonder why everyone is filthy and grimy in this burnt-out world while Alex manages to look freshly washed every scene – a little thing compared to some others.  However, I enjoyed Reign of Fire’s intense portrayal of humans barely holding on, yet fighting for their lives in this post-apocalyptic thriller.  If you like fantasy and action, I’m sure you’ll have a good time with this tasty popcorn thriller.

7 of 10
B+

Updated:  Monday, November 04, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

"Zetman: The Complete Series" Now Uncut on DVD and Blu-ray

VIZ MEDIA RELEASES SUPERHERO ANIME ACTION SERIES ZETMAN IN UNCUT BLU-RAY AND DVD EDITIONS

A Super-Powered Killer Turns A Boy Into An Unlikely Hero In A Visceral Sci-Fi Anime Adventure Inspired By The Manga Series By Acclaimed Creator Masakazu Katsura

VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest distributor and licensor of anime and manga in North America, expands its substantial anime catalog with the addition of the dark sci-fi action series ZETMAN on November 5th. The 13-episode series is rated ‘TV-MA’ for Mature Audiences and will be offered Uncut in DVD and Blu-ray editions. The DVD MSRP is $44.82 U.S. / $43.24 CAN and Blu-ray MSRP is $54.97 U.S. / $66.15 CAN.

ZETMAN is based on a popular manga (graphic novel) series by Masakazu Katsura, who also created VIDEO GIRL AI and I”S (both published in North America by VIZ Media) and was the character designer for the hit anime series, TIGER & BUNNY (also available on Blu-ray and DVD at North American retailers).

Features for the Blu-ray and DVD editions include English dubbed or original Japanese audio selections (with English Subtitles), clean opening and ending segments, the original Japanese broadcast trailer, marathon play option, and an exclusive interview with ZETMAN manga series creator Masakazu Katsura taken during his recent appearance at New York Comic Con.

Jin and Kouga may come from very different walks of life, but both boys are searching for the real meaning of justice and what it means to be a hero! Jin may be poor, but he lives a happy life with his grandfather, until the day tragedy strikes and changes his life forever. Kouga, born into a wealthy family, is in line to inherit his family’s power and fortune. But what is true strength? What does it really mean to be human? Jin and Kouga’s fates intertwine in their struggle to harness the power that lies within each of them!

“ZETMAN delivers unique perspectives on being human and a hero and combines expressive characters and a thought-provoking story with plenty of uncut visceral action to make for a fast-paced and thrilling highlight of our winter anime release schedule,” says Charlene Ingram, Senior Marketing Manager, Animation. “With the start of the holiday season, the ZETMAN anime series also makes a cool gift for gritty action anime fans, and we look forward to fans catching all of the action with this new home video DVD and Blu-ray release.”

For more information on ZETMAN and other animated titles from VIZ Media please visit www.VIZAnime.com/zetman.

About VIZ Media, LLC
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, VIZ Media distributes, markets and licenses the best anime and manga titles direct from Japan.  Owned by three of Japan's largest manga and animation companies, Shueisha Inc., Shogakukan Inc., and Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, Co., Ltd., VIZ Media has the most extensive library of anime and manga for English speaking audiences in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland and South Africa. With its popular digital manga anthology WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP and blockbuster properties like NARUTO, BLEACH and INUYASHA, VIZ Media offers cutting-edge action, romance and family friendly properties for anime, manga, science fiction and fantasy fans of all ages.  VIZ Media properties are available as graphic novels, DVDs, animated television series, feature films, downloadable and streaming video and a variety of consumer products.  Learn more about VIZ Media, anime and manga at www.VIZ.com.

Review: "Firewall" is Not Memorable Harrison Ford Flick

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 145 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Firewall (2006)
Running time:  105 minutes (1 hour, 45 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some intense sequences of violence
DIRECTOR:  Robert Loncraine
WRITER:  Joe Forte
PRODUCERS:  Armyan Bernstein, Basil Iwanyk, and Jonathan Shestack
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Marco Pontecorvo
EDITOR:  Jim Page
COMPOSER:  Alexandre Desplat

CRIME/THRILLER/ACTION

Starring:  Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Robert Patrick, Robert Forster, Alan Arkin, Carly Schroeder, Jimmy Bennett, Kett Turton, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Vince Vieluf, and Vincent Gale

The subject of this movie review is Firewall, a 2006 British-American crime thriller starring Harrison Ford.  The film focuses on a security specialist who is forced into robbing the bank that he protects in order to pay a ransom for his family.

From 1990’s Presumed Innocent to 2000’s What Lies Beneath, Harrison Ford literally ruled the box office charts with a series of hit thriller flicks.  It didn’t matter if the film was set in a courtroom (like Presumed Innocent), in foreign countries (the Jack Ryan movies), a jet (Air Force One), or a haunted marriage (What Lies Beneath); Ford films were hits – some even blockbusters.  However, the new century has found Ford’s box office success largely diminished.  His 2006 film, Firewall, is a return to his 90’s form, but the film has only about a third of the scope and action thrills of his glory days.

Jack Stanfield (Harrison Ford) is the creator of Seattle-area Landrock Pacific Bank’s state-of-the-art-security system.  He has a reputation as being the man who’s thought of everything when it comes to protecting the bank from electronic theft, but Jack doesn’t know that he’s being watched.  A wily and vicious thief who says his name is Bill Cox (Paul Bettany) has hacked his way into Jack’s personal life and knows everything about Jack and his family:  wife, Beth (Virginia Madsen), his 14-year old daughter, Sarah (Carly Schroeder), and 8-year old son, Andy (Jimmy Bennett).

Now, Cox is holding Beth and the children hostage to force Jack to be their unwilling accomplice in a scheme to steal $100 million dollars from Landrock and the larger bank system with which Landrock recently merged.  Under constant surveillance, Jack must breach the very security system he created and siphon funds to several offshore accounts Cox and his accomplices own.  Jack, however, is sure that Cox will kill him and his family once Cox gets what he wants.  With only hours to accomplish his task, Jack must find, within Cox’s labyrinth of false identities, subterfuge, and plots Cox, an escape hatch through which he and his family can escape with their lives.

Firewall is an entertaining thriller, although it seems as if Ford is on automatic for this role.  Sure, he’s done this before.  He can turn on the grim intensity and growl on cue at the bad guys about what will happen if they hurt his family.  In fact, the script really plays up the hurt my family, protect the family, and family is all-important angles, as if the filmmakers were trying to hit some key red state demographic.  This family protection angle, like Ford’s performance, lacks spontaneity.

A thriller doesn’t have to be plausible to be thrilling, but Firewall stretches the limits of belief.  For every moment that I spent being thrilled, I spent two counting the times in this tale when some bank official, co-worker, or policeman would (or realistically should) have become so suspicious that he or she would have stepped in to stop this insane plot to rob a bank with the oh-so-formidable security system that the hero himself designed.  What?  Is there no oversight at this bank?

Other than Ford’s Jack Stanfield and Paul Bettany’s mechanical villain, Bill Cox, the script and the director ignore the rest of the characters, including several bank employees and officials.  The reason is simple:  the more you bring other people at the bank into this story, the more likely both the film’s plot and the villains’ plot would fall apart.  Still, Firewall is passable entertainment, especially for fans of Harrison Ford.  They won’t remember Firewall the way they do 1993’s The Fugitive, but it’s still something.

5 of 10
C+

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Updated:  Saturday, November 02, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

8 Documentary Short Films Vie for 2014 Oscar Nominations

8 Doc Shorts On Oscar's 2013 Shortlist

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that the field of Documentary Short Subject contenders for the 86th Academy Awards® has been narrowed to eight films, of which three to five will earn Oscar® nominations.

Voters from the Academy’s Documentary Branch viewed this year’s 40 eligible entries and submitted their ballots to PricewaterhouseCoopers for tabulation.

The eight films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:

“CaveDigger,” Karoffilms
“Facing Fear,” Jason Cohen Productions, LLC
“Jujitsu-ing Reality,” Sobini Films
“Karama Has No Walls,” Hot Spot Films
“The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life,” Reed Entertainment
“Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall,” Prison Terminal LLC
“Recollections,” notrac productions
“SLOMO,” Big Young Films and Runaway Films

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2013 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® and televised live on the ABC Television Network.  The presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

11 Months a Negromancer

It's November 2013.  Welcome to the website, Negromancer, a side publication of the ComicBookBin (www.comicbookbin.com).  This is the rebirth of the former movie review website as a new movie review and movie news website.

All images and text appearing on this blog are © copyright and/or trademark their respective owners.

DreamWorks Acquires Film Rights to Another Doris Kearns Goodwin Book

DreamWorks Studios Acquires the Film Rights to Pulitzer-Prize Winning Author Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Highly Anticipated Book, "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism"

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DreamWorks Studios has closed a preemptive deal to acquire the film rights to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin’s soon-to-be-released book, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, it was announced today by Stacey Snider, Partner and Co-Chair at DreamWorks Studios. Goodwin previously collaborated with the studio on the critically acclaimed and award-winning Lincoln, based in part on Goodwin’s #1 New York Times bestselling Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit will be released November 5, 2013 by Simon & Schuster. The book, seven years in the making, tells the riveting story of two longtime friends who become bitter political opponents. Roosevelt’s fighting spirit and impulsive temperament stood in counterpoint to Taft’s deliberative, conciliatory disposition. Yet, their opposing qualities proved complementary, allowing them to create a rare camaraderie and productive collaboration until their brutal fight for the presidential nomination in 1912 divided them, their families, their colleagues, and their friends. It split the Republican Party in two, and altered the course of American history.

“Doris has once again given us the best seats in the house where we can watch two dynamic American personalities in a battle for power and friendship,” said Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg and Goodwin previously worked together on Lincoln, based in part on Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, with a script by Academy Award®-nominated writer Tony Kushner. This new project expands upon that winning combination. Lincoln earned 12 Academy Award® nominations, including an Academy Award for actor Daniel Day-Lewis for his portrayal of President Abraham Lincoln, and box office grosses of over $270 million.

“Working with Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks on Lincoln seemed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Doris Kearns Goodwin. “I cannot imagine anything better than the prospect of working with them again, this time to bring Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft to life.”

Goodwin, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, is also the author of the bestsellers Wait Till Next Year, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream and The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, which was adapted into an award-winning five-part TV miniseries.

Doris Kearns Goodwin was represented in the deal by ICM.

About DreamWorks Studios
DreamWorks Studios is a motion picture company formed in 2009 and led by Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider in partnership with The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. The company’s recent releases include Spielberg's Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones. The film has grossed over $180 million at the U.S. box office and was nominated for twelve Academy Awards® with Daniel Day-Lewis winning for Best Actor. Other releases include Real Steel, starring Hugh Jackman and directed by Shawn Levy, Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, based on Michael Morpurgo’s award-winning book and nominated for six Academy Awards® including Best Picture, and The Help, which resonated with audiences around the country and earned over $200 million at the box office and received four Academy Award® nominations with Octavia Spencer winning for Best Supporting Actress. Upcoming films include the comedy Delivery Man, starring Vince Vaughn, car racing actioner Need for Speed, starring Aaron Paul, and the drama The Hundred-Foot Journey, starring Helen Mirren.

DreamWorks Studios can be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DreamWorksStudios and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dw_studios.

Review: "The Covenant" a Poorly Cast Spell

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 194 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Covenant (2006)
Running time:  97 minutes (1 hour, 37 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for intense action sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, sexual content, partial nudity, and language
DIRECTOR:  Renny Harlin
WRITER:  J.S. Cardone
PRODUCERS:  Gary Lucchesi and Tom Rosenberg
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Pierre Gill (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Nicolas De Toth
COMPOSER: tomandandy

HORROR/FANTASY/MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring:  Steven Strait, Laura Ramsey, Sebastian Stan, Taylor Kitsch, Toby Hemingway, Chace Crawford, Matt Austin, Wendy Crewson, Robert Crooks, Steven Crowder, Larry Day, and Jessica Lucas

The subject of this movie review is The Covenant, a 2006 supernatural horror and action-fantasy film from director Renny Harlin.  The film follows four young men who belong to a supernatural legacy and are forced to battle a fifth power long thought to have died out.  The young men must also contend with is their jealousy and suspicion of one another, which threatens to tear their union apart.

In 1692, four families of the Ipswich Colony of Massachusetts formed a covenant of silence to hide that they wielded The Power – what their fellow colonists identified as witchcraft.  Cut to the present: Caleb Danvers (Steven Strait), Pogue Parry (Taylor Kitsch), Reid Garwin (Toby Hemingway), and Tyler Sims (Chace Crawford) are the Sons of Ipswich, the heirs to the bloodline of those four families.  They are bound by their sacred ancestry, and Caleb, as the oldest, is their de facto leader.  As minors, they possess only a fraction of The Power they will have as adults, but Caleb is just a few days from his 18th birthday when he will “ascend” and receive his full powers.

Caleb and the other sons are students at the elite Spencer Academy.  There are two new students.  The attractive blond, Sarah Wenham (Laura Ramsey), catches Caleb’s eye.  The raffish Chace Collins (Sebastian Stan) becomes a rival for the affections of Pogue’s girlfriend, Kate Tunney (Jessica Lucas).  High school puppy love and rivalries are put on hold when the body of a dead student is found in the local woods after an outdoor party (rave?).  Caleb and Pogue sense that one of their own is abusing his power, threatening to break the covenant of silence that has protected their families for hundreds of years.  And this mystery user is very powerful and also hunting Caleb and Sarah.

The Covenant is kind of like the 1987 film, The Lost Boys, jammed into The WB’s (now The CW’s) TV series, “One Tree Hill.”  Director Renny Harlin (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Exorcist: The Beginning) is no stranger to cheesy horror flicks that have a few scary moments, and The Covenant is a cheesy horror flick with some genuine atmosphere, a few scary movie thrills, and an obnoxiously loud soundtrack and score.  The main problem with The Covenant is that it’s all surface – lots of pretty visuals.  In fact, Harlin focuses so much on how the film looks – with its bevy of sexy male leads and haunting Québec, Canada filming locations – that he never gets into the meat of the story.

I will grant that co-producer/writer J.S. Cardone’s script is top heavy with backstory, pre-history, and mythology, so Harlin has a lot of text and subtext to transform into a movie that holds the short attention spans of its intended audience.  (This probably would work better as a novel, or hey, even a television series on The CW.).  There is so much intriguing stuff left in the air, and Harlin only brushes on the characters enough to give the audience a nebulous idea about what’s going on.  Still, The Covenant is a faintly entertaining, half-assed popcorn flick.  It’s the kind of horror movie that will live a half-life in the limbo of video rentals – lucky to be an afterthought behind the good horror movies.

4 of 10
C

Saturday, September 9, 2006

Updated: Thursday, October 31, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.