Tag Archives: Kevin Durand

Fruitvale Station (2013)

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Fruitvale Station
Director: Ryan Coogler
Writer: Ryan Coogler
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray, Ahna O’Reilly, Ariana Neal
Seen on: 8.12.2018
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Content Note: police violence, racism

Plot:
It’s New Year’s Eve and Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) has a full day ahead of him. He lives with his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz) and their daughter and he hasn’t been exactly honest with her, but he wants to do better. He also wants to try and find a new job before she finds out that he lost his old one. And it’s his mom’s (Octavia Spencer) birthday to boot. But by the end of the day, all of his plans will come to a screeching halt and Oscar will be dead, shot by the police.

Given that Fruitvale Station is based on a true story, I was aware that this film wouldn’t be exactly easy. Even though I was braced for that, it still hit me hard. It’s just really, really good.

The film poster showing Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) standing on a subway platform.
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Tragedy Girls (2017)

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Tragedy Girls
Director: Tyler MacIntyre
Writer: Chris Lee Hill, Tyler MacIntyre, Justin Olson
Cast: Brianna Hildebrand, Alexandra Shipp, Jack Quaid, Kevin Durand, Timothy V. Murphy, Craig Robinson, Josh Hutcherson
Part of: Viennale
Seen on: 1.11.2017
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Plot:
Sadie (Brianna Hildebrand) and McKayla (Alexandra Shipp) are best friends and do pretty much everything together. Most notably, they run an online channel together where they discuss true crime cases with which they’re both fascinated. Trying to gain popularity for themselves and their show, they try to catch a serial killer in the area. But when they do catch up with him, a simple capture seems not enough anymore.

Tragedy Girls is a very entertaining film, even if it doesn’t revolutionize the “twist on the slasher-movie” counter-genre that is now its own genre. I had fun all the way through.

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Noah (2014)

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Noah
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Writer: Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel
Based on: the bible and other religious/mythological texts
Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth, Nick Nolte, Mark Margolis, Kevin Durand, Marton Csokas

Plot:
Cain’s descendants industrialized and ravaged the earth, while Seth’s descendants try and live a harmonious life with nature. Noah (Russell Crowe) is one of the latter and he and his family are the last ones.That’s when God sends Noah a message: he will send a big flood to renew the Earth and only Noah, his family and the animals of the earth are supposed to survive. But Cain’s descendants, led by Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone) don’t think much of that plan.

I was serisouly let down by Noah. I’ve loved Aronofsky’s work so far but this film is not only boring over long stretches, it shows severe misogyny.

noah[SPOILERS]

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Winter’s Tale (2014)

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Winter’s Tale
Director: Akiva Goldsman
Writer: Akiva Goldsman
Based on: Mark Helprin‘s novel
Cast: Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Russell Crowe, William Hurt, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Corrigan, Matt Bomer, Lucy Griffiths, Scott Grimes, Kevin Durand, Graham Greene, Will Smith

Plot:
Peter Lake (Colin Farrell) didn’t have it easy in his life so far. He’s an orphan who didn’t go through the best part of the system and ended up living with and working for Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe) as a thief. When the two of them have a falling out, Peter runs, aided by a mysterious and magical horse, and ends up robbing Beverly Penn’s (Jessica Brown Findlay) place. But only until he sees her: Peter immediately falls for her. But Beverly is dying and only a miracle could save her. A miracle Peter might just have in himself.

I don’t think I read one good word about Winter’s Tale and I do understand why. The film has issues. But nevertheless I really enjoyed it, sometimes in the way the movie intended and sometimes laughing about the film.

winterstale

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The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)

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The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
Director: Harald Zwart
Writer: Jessica Postigo
Based on: Cassandra Clare’s novel
Cast: Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Robert Sheehan, Kevin Zegers, Jemima West, Robert Maillet, Kevin Durand, Godfrey Gao, Lena Headey, Jared Harris, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Aidan Turner

Plot:
One night at a club, Clary (Lily Collins) stumbles upon three teenagers – Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower), Alec (Kevin Zegers) and Isabelle (Jemima West) – who kill a boy they claim is a demon. She calls her best friend Simon (Robert Sheehan) for help, but he can’t see the perpetrators or the victim. The next day, Clary runs into Jace again and she receives a frantic phone call from her mom (Lena Headey), telling her not to go back home again. Then her mom goes missing and Clary finds herself in over her head in a world that is suddenly filled with magic and demons, and intriguing Jace.

City of Bones is actually a rather decent adaptation of the book. But since I’m not a huge fan of the book and since that meant that the movie also pretty much copied every flaw, it didn’t blow me away. But it was pretty entertaining and the headdesk-worthy moments are few and far between.

tmi-cityofbones

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Cosmopolis (2012)

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Cosmopolis
Director: David Cronenberg
Writer: David Cronenberg
Based on: Don DeLillo‘s novel
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Sarah Gadon, Mathieu Amalric, Jay Baruchel, Kevin Durand, K’Naan, Emily Hampshire, Samantha Morton, Paul Giamatti, Philip Nozuka

Plot:
Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson) is young and rich and drives through New York in his limousine trying to get a haircut. But since the president is visiting the city, traffic is pretty clogged up and this takes a lot longer than anticipated. Eric starts taking several meetings in his car but bit by bit his life is crumbling apart, as Eric purposefully loses money and sabotages himself.

Holy fucking shit, this movie is extremely bad. I thought that Cronenberg would outweigh Pattinson’s total lack of charisma, but unfortunately the script is a single excercise in what-the-fuckery that depends on said non-existant charisma and so the entire film is set up to fail.

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Real Steel (2011)

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Real Steel
Director: Shawn Levy
Writer: John Gatins
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo, Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, Kevin Durand, Hope Davis, James Rebhorn

Plot:
Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) was a rather successful boxer until an injury and a general shift in the sport from human to robot boxing ended his career. Now he spends his days with trying to get enough money to get by through at best second rate fights with robots that are rather close to the junkyard. When circumstances reunite Charlie with his estranged 11 year old son Max (Dakota Goyo) and let him find a robot that actually is from the junkyard, against all odds things start to look up for all of them.

I honestly expected this movie to be worse (well, at least as bad as a movie with Hugh Jackman about boxing robots can get). I expected this film to be craptastic and it wasn’t. Not that it’s excellent, but it’s honestly pretty nice.

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Robin Hood (2010)

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Robin Hood is Ridley Scott‘s newest movie, starring Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Max von Sydow, William Hurt, Mark Strong, Oscar Isaac, Mark Addy, Matthew Macfadyen, Scott Grimes and Kevin Durand.

Plot:
King Richard Lionheart (Danny Huston) has been on his crusade for many years and is on his way home now. Unfortunately, he never reaches Britain, dying instead in one last battle.
In his army is the archer Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe), who by coincidence stumbles upon a massive conspiracy against Richard, led by Godfrey (Mark Strong), a confidant of Prince John (Oscar Isaac), but ultimately also plotting against John.
Anyway, Longstride takes on the identity of Robert Loxley and they story only gets more convoluted from there.

I hadn’t heard anything good about this movie beforehand (the most positive “review” was from a co-worker who said, “I expected it to be really bad and with that expectation, it was reasonably entertaining”), so I didn’t expect much (even though I’m one of the five people on earth who actually like Gladiator). But even so, I was incredibly disappointed. This movie is not only bad, no, even more damingly, it is boring as hell.

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Legion (2010)

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Legion is the newest movie by Scott Stewart, starring Paul Bettany, Adrianne Palicki, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson, Kevin Durand, Charles S. Dutton and Dennis Quaid.

Plot:
God is angry with the world and decides to end it all. Or better, to end humanity. So he sends demons and plagues and his angels to earth to exterminate everybody. Only Michael (Paul Bettany) thinks that this is a bad idea. So he defies God, comes down to earth, gets weapons and then drives to an isolated gas station, where Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) works, a woman pregnant with the saviour.

Make no mistake people, this movie is really, really bad. [Oh, Paul Bettany, what did you get yourself into? Twice?] It has probably the worst script ever and the Christian imagery is so over the top that probably even Christians will shake their heads in disbelief. But if you expect just that and you bring along a lot of snark, you’re going to have fun watching. [At least if you have my sense of humour, which enjoys bad movies.]

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