Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)
DIRECTOR: Robert Rodriguez
CAST: Josh Brolin, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eva Green, Bruce Willis, Powers Boothe, Rosario Dawson, Dennis Haysbert, Christopher Meloni, Jeremy Piven, Ray Liotta, Christopher Lloyd, Jamie Chung, Jaime King, Julia Garner, Stacy Keach, Juno Temple, Marton Csokas, Lady Gaga
REVIEW:
Sin City was one of the coolest movies of 2005 (or any other year). Adapted by Robert Rodriguez with painstaking accuracy from Frank Miller’s hyper-stylized, ultra-violent graphic novels, it was a blast of visually inventive, kinetic, wildly over-the-top sadistic fun. For various reasons which vary depending on whose version of events you listen to, it took a whopping nine years for the much-discussed sequel to finally return to Basin City, and like many follow-ups that take this long to see the light of day, it’s dubious whether it was worth the wait. It would be overly harsh to call A Dame to Kill For a trainwreck (though its disastrously abysmal box office returns would argue otherwise), but while it’s diverting, much of the freshness has evaporated. Like other inferior sequels, it remixes a lot of familiar ingredients but without that undefinable “spark”. Dame is not really “bad”, but while it apes its predecessor’s style, it largely lacks its panache, despite moments of flirting with recapturing it. Continue reading
Iron Man 2 (2010)
DIRECTOR: Jon Favreau
CAST:
Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson, Jon Favreau, Paul Bettany (voice)
REVIEW:
Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2 doesn’t surpass the first installment, and might fall short in a couple areas, but the sequel largely provides plenty more of the same to make it worthwhile summer entertainment. Continue reading
Sin City (2005)
DIRECTOR: Robert Rodriguez
CAST:
Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, Jaime King, Rosario Dawson, Benicio del Toro, Brittany Murphy, Carla Gugino, Nick Stahl, Michael Clarke Duncan, Elijah Wood, Alexis Bledel, Devon Aoki, Josh Hartnett, Michael Madsen, Rutger Hauer, Powers Boothe, Tommy Flanagan
REVIEW:
Sin City is an adaptation of three stories in a series of ultra-violent, hyper-stylized graphic novels by Frank Miller set in the crime-ridden metropolis of Basin City, dubbed Sin City by its inhabitants. Continue reading
Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
DIRECTOR: Robert Rodriguez
CAST:
Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Johnny Depp, Mickey Rourke, Willem Dafoe, Eva Mendes, Ruben Blades, Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, Enrique Iglesias, Gerardo Vigil, Pedro Armendariz, Julio Oscar Mechoso
REVIEW:
To put it simply and bluntly, Once Upon A Time In Mexico is a mess of a movie, but it’s enough of a colorful, stylish, entertaining mess that it’s possible to enjoy as a series of action/comedic setpieces even if the overall story is a convoluted jumble. Continue reading
Desperate Hours (1990)
DIRECTOR: Michael Cimino
CAST: Anthony Hopkins, Mickey Rourke, Lindsay Crouse, Mimi Rogers, Kelly Lynch, David Morse, Elias Koteas
REVIEW:
Bad movies are a dime a dozen. We generally know what they’re trying to do, they’re just not very good at doing it. Desperate Hours is on a whole other level, a movie not merely incompetent—although it’s that too—but so relentlessly strange that by the end, one is wondering what everyone involved is smoking, and if the proceedings might have been more enjoyable—if not necessarily more coherent—if you’d had some too. A loose remake of a same-named 1955 William Wyler film starring Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March and an earlier Broadway play, both written by Joseph Hayes, it’s purportedly loosely “inspired by real events”, although it also shares plot similarities with the 1951 John Garfield film “He Ran All The Way”. Director Michael Cimino and a script credited to Joseph Hayes, Lawrence Konner, and Mark Rosenthal tries to craft a slow burn suspense thriller, but seemingly have absolutely no idea how to go about it, and the result is an overwrought melodrama with ridiculous dialogue, unintentionally comical overacting, and plot holes you could drive a truck through. Unless one is imbibed enough to find the nonsensical proceedings hilarious, the only Desperate Hours might be the ones endured by the viewer.
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