Once again this year I’m helping cover the SeattleInternational Film Festival for The Seattle Times. That’s
where the bulk of my reviews and writing time are focused for this year’s fest.
And it’s been a fantastic slate thus far. Check out links to my reviews, and a
number of other fine writers, below.
What would a movie about a hitman on the run be without a bunch
of people to shoot? John Wick has never had a lack of targets, and the upcoming
John Wick: Chapter 3—possibly titled John Wick:
Parabellum—just added a crazy ton of actors. The list includes Halle
Berry, Anjelica Huston, Jason Mantzoukas, Asia Kate Dillon, Mark Dascascos, and
most importantly, at least from my perspective, Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif
Rahman from The Raid and Man of Tai Chi
and Triple Threat star Tiger Chen.
Though I usually wind up liking but not loving his movies as
much as many other people, Guillermo del Toro has an infectious love and
enthusiasm for movies. Last year, the same year he won a Best Picture Oscar for
The Shape of Water, he declared Issa Lopez’ Tigers
are Not Afraid one of his favorite films of 2017. And it’s easy to see why he
approves, as it bears a heavy influence of Pan’s Labyrinth
and The Devil’s Backbone.
A delicate coming-of-age story and tale of female friendship
mixed with squirm-inducing body horror, Lisa Bruhlmann’s debut, Blue
My Mind—which also happens to be her film school thesis—cast shades
of Raw, The Lure, and Cronenberg.
I’ve said it before, but I think it bears repeating: If Tom Cruise
can in fact die, and the jury is still out on that one, he’s going to die doing
an insane stunt, probably for a Mission: Impossible movie.
Seriously, just watch the new trailer for Mission: Impossible—Fallout
and count the times where he almost bites it.
Did we need a standalone Han Solo movie in the Star
Wars universe? No, no we didn’t. But no one asked me, and in the
grand scheme of things, unnecessary as it is, we could have done much worse
than Solo: A Star Wars Story. Granted, we also could have done
much better. It’s a wildly mixed bag, but with the utter chaos behind the
scenes—the ousting of directors Chris Lord and Phil Miller 2/3 of the way
through production, the recasting, the rewrites, the reshoots—worse was always
on the table as a very real possibility.
Marky Mark is sick of coddling all the pussies and his new
movie is here to prove that. I don’t exactly know how that ties into his new action
movie, Mile 22, but the Trump pal once again teams up with
director Peter Berg (Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon) for some rah-rah, flag-waving, manly shit. And they, of
course, can’t help but getting a jab in at people with feelings (AKA the
aforementioned pussies) at the start of this new trailer.
