Daredevil – Season 2 Trailer (Parts 1 and 2)

I swear, this is the final piece of Marvel stuff I’ll do today. But don’t worry, it’s worth it.

So this’ll be a small post on the two latest trailers for the second season of “Daredevil” the show which combined Marvel with Netflix to make something different. AS you might remember, I did review season 1 last year, and you might also remember me loving it to no end. Well now we have season two to look forward to.
So apparently the marketing people apparently decided to split up the trailer or whatever into two parts. And I have to say that it is a smart tactic. So let’s talk about them.

The first part mainly focuses on Frank Castle/The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) and how he is causing a lot of trouble in town, killing criminals. And then we get to see Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox) try to stop him and they duke it out for a bit. We also see Matt dealing with a lot of guilt and the struggle he has trying to both have his normal worklife with his best friend foggy (Elden Henson). And it all looks really intense, dramatic and fucking awesome.

The second part picks up where the first one ended, but this time it focuses on Elektra (Elodie Young) and how she apprently needs Matt’s help. It also has the introduction of “The Hand”, a secret ninja clan or whatever. We also get a few more shots of Daredevil duking it out with Punisher. But overall, it focuses on Matt’s complicated relation ship with Elektra.

So I guess my question is this: Are you looking forward to season 2 of “Daredevil”? I know I am… more than most movies coming out this year.
Have a good one!

Part 1

Part 2

Tommy Flanagan cast in “Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2”

Alright, final Marvel casting news for today, I promise.
It seems like Marvel has cast actor Tommy Flanagan in an (as of this moment) unnamed part in “Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2” in addition to the recently announced Elizabeth Debicki, Chris Sullivan and… Kurt fuckin’ Russell. Why didn’t I report on that massive casting thing earlier you ask? Well that’s because I didn’t feel like it. But this is something special since I was inspired to talk about Marvel stuff when I found out about Finn Jones late yesterday. This is also special because I am a big Flanagan-fan. For those of you wh odon’t know, Flanagan is known for his roles TV-show “Sons of Anarchy” and Oscar winning movie “Gladiator”. He have also had supporting roles in stuff like “Sin City”, “Peaky Blinders” and recently “Gotham”.

So as you may expect, I am pumped to see what he will play in “Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2”. But what are your thoughts? Share ’em in the comments.
Have a good one.

Finn Jones to play Marvel’s Iron Fist

Hello to you, my friends from all over the globe! As you know, I rarely touch upon casting news for movies and shows, but this is one that I felt was kind of important because it’s one I’ve been waiting for.
It seems that Marvel and Netflix has cast actor Finn Jones in the role of Danny Rand in their upcoming show “Iron Fist”. As you know, this isn’t the first collaboration between Marvel and Netflix as they have previously given us the shows “Daredevil” and “Jessica Jones”. All of these shows were announced sort of as a quintuple feature with the previously mentioned “Daredevil” and “Jessica Jones” together with the upcoming “Luke Cage” and “Iron Fist” to lead up to the final one, “The Defenders”. And before Luke Cage gets his own show he got to take part for about seven episodes of “Jessica Jones” where he was played by actor Mike Colter. And now finally we have gotten the Immortal Weapoin cast. Finn Jones has previously been known for playing the character Loras Tyrell in HBO’s hit TV-series “Game of Thrones”. And now he will lend his talents to Marvel and Netflix in… “Iron Fist”.

Are you excited about this casting? I am more indifferent towards the casting of Jones but I am instead a lot more excited that we finally got Iron Fist cast.
Have a good one.

Great Music #10

Hello, my friends and you other people who may or may not be reading this right now. Once again I’d like to share a bit of music with you.

The song I am sharing is one I’ve been listening for the past few weeks. It is the song “Red Right Hand” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds from their album “Let Love In”. I am usually not a fan of Nick Cave, but even I have to admit that this song is pretty great. I got introduced to this song thanks to the TV-show “Peaky Blinders” in which this song is the main theme playing at the beginning of each episode. (Shameless plug: go read my review of the show’s first season from a week or so ago). Now, the whole “Red Right Hand” thing is apparently a relatively old phrase which refers to divine wrath. So yeah… technically this is a religious song or some shit like that… weird.
Enjoy!

Movie Review: Straight Outta Compton (2015)

Straight outta Compton, crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube
From the gang called I’m not black enough to say this word With Attitudes.

Ladies and gentlemen… “Straight Outta Compton”.

Disclaimer: I know this thing is based on a true story, but I will not base my review on how perfectly accurate to the real situation it may or may not be, but I will instead judge it as a movie… which it is. Disclaimer over.

So this is a movie about gangsta rap group N.W.A that emerged in the late 80’s. The group consisted of Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr), Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), Eazy-E (Jaosn Mitchell), DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr) and MC Ren (Aldis Hodge). And this movie is basically how they started out easily in Compton, California and then after having met producer Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti) how they rose to superstardom. And then it follows what happened when some complications rose among the group. And I have to say that I found the development of the story extremely interesting. The basics of it is a “rags-to-riches” story, but it adds a lot of good drama and even a bit of tension to it all to make it surprisingly unique in it’s execution. I was heavily invested the entire time and I never felt like it dragged at any point which feels weird since the movie is two and a half hours long.

The people you see in this movie are all a bunch of interesting individuals. What I didn’t mention earlier is that while the movie is about NWA, it more or less follows Ice Cube, Eazy-E and Dr. Dre more than the other two. And I guess that might come from the fact that Cube and Dre are producers on this film together with Eazy-E’s widow. Anywho… the acting in this movie was good. You know what’s kind of weird in that sense? Ice Cube is played by Ice Cube’s son. Doing a movie like that would feel like a dumb idea A.K.A. tooting your own horn, but here it really worked. O’Shea Jackson Jr. was great as his dad… that just feels so weird to say. Every other actor was great as well in their roles. I don’t wanna say that every individual because then we’d be here all fuckin’ week… yeah.

I think it goes without saying that if you absolutely hate hip hop/rap, you will not be too happy with the soundtrack for this movie. But would once expect a different kind of soundtrack for a movie like this? Not really. However I have to say that I was a little surprised to find out that there was an original score in this movie as well. And I also have to say that it was really good. It was tense, dramatic and just great. Good job with the score, Joseph Trapanese!

This movie was directed by F. Gary Gray and I am impressed, this is a very well directed movie with lots of great shots and little touches to it. And I think that really helps with the pacing of the movie that I mentioned earlier. Ya know, the part where I mentioned that this movie moves at a pretty quick pace for it’s long(ish) runtime. I also wanna mention that if you hate cursing, nudity, violence, drug use and other not too decent things then maybe you wanna keep away from this movie.

This movie has been very well received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an 88% positive rating and a “Fresh” certification. On Metacritic it has a score of 72/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 8,0/10. The movie was also nominated for 1 Oscar (Fuckin’ really?) in the category of Best Original Screenplay. 

“Straight Outta Compton” is an interesting movie about the lifetime of a legendary hip hop group. It has a great story, great acting, a great soundtrack and great directing. Time for my final score. Yo. My final score for “Straight Outta Compton” is a 9,87/10. IT most definitely gets the “SEAL OF APPROVAL!”.

My review of “Straight Outta Compton” is now completed.

Damn, that shit was dope!

 

 

My Favorite Scenes: Godzilla: Final Wars – Godzilla Vs. Zilla

Well hello there, ladies and gentlemen of all ages and colors and welcome back to “My Favorite Scenes”, the series I sporadically do when I feel like it. For new(ish) people who may not know and can’t do a simple analysis of a fucking title, this is the series where I show a scene from a movie or TV-show and try to briefly explain why I like that scene. Now… onto the main show.

So for this edition of “My Favorite Scenes” I’d like to share one of the most gratifying scenes in any movie I have ever seen. Which is weird because it’s not even a minute long, but still reamains one of the most memorable and satisfying moments in cinematic history. The movie in question is “Godzilla: Final Wars”, and it’s basically an all-out monster brawl between Godzilla and pretty much every monster from his filmography ever. And this might be the best out of all the moments. In the scene we’re talking about, Godzilla (AKA the real one) faces off against the shitty American version (named Zilla by fans). And by faces off with it I mean totally fucking destroying it by tail whipping it into the Sydney opera house and giving it the good ol’ atomic breath. I know it sounds like I spoiled it, but honestly, it’s still fantastic to see even if you know what happened. And I honestly don’t mind the choice of music for the scene (Sidenote: not edited in by a fan, but by the film crew). The song in question is “We’re All to Blame” by Sum 41 and I think it actually kinda works. Just… just watch it because it’s just one of the greatest things ever.
Enjoy!

Series Review: Peaky Blinders – Season 1 (2013)

I don’t know why, but I find myself incredibly fascinated by British history. Whether it’d be in the early 1000’s or much later like during WW2… the Brits seem to always have some interesting history to them. So it didn’t come as a surprise (more than a year ago) that I would find myself interested in a show about British gangsters. Questions is though… would the show be any good? Now  that I finally have sat down to watch the first season of this show, I am ready to tell you.

Ladies and gentlemen… “Peaky Blinders”.

This show is set in 1919 Birmingham and follows a gang called the peaky blinders and it’s leader Thomas Shelby (Cillian Murphy) and how he’s trying to hold this gang together with members of his family. But he runs into some trouble because of an Irish detective (Sam Neill) who comes to town because of some stolen guns, which the blinders are accused of stealing. And I will not say anything else because there is a lot of elements to the plot of this show that I don’t wanna spoil since they are interesting and needs to be experienced. That’s right, I do think that the plot for the show is really great. The plot has the right amount of drama without being dreary while also pacing itself perfectly. A lot of it thanks to the excellent writing of the show and the surprising amount of suspense built from the events and character interactions.

The characters in this show are all perfectly fleshed out and they’re all very interesting. What’s also great is that you get to know them all very well in the very first episode which is something a lot of shows don’t manage. Cillian Murphy is fantastic as Tommy Shelby, a gang leader who just the year before had been in the war, so you can expect him to be a little bit broken. And Murphy absolutely captures this perfectly. Sam Neill as the detective coming to Birmingham does a terrific job too, playing a man who is both despicable and sympathetic. I mean, the guy is technically just doing his job even though he does it in a less than morally correct way. Sure, his Irish accent can be a bit off on occasion, but his performance overall is great. British actor Paul Anderson plays Tommy’s brother, Arthur and he is absolutely terrific as well. The final one I wanna mention is Annabelle Wallis who plays Grace, a barmaid at the bar Tommy owns. Yeah, she’s fucking great in her role too. Every actor’s great in their role. Nothing more to say about that.

What is interesting to note about the soundtrack for the show is that they pullex a Tarantino for it. What I mean by that is that they used a mix of songs from anything ever, whether it’d be from some rock band or tracks from other movies. A large chunk of it I noticed had something to do with Nick Cave. Either it would be a song from his career (both solo and with The Bad Seeds) or it would be from a movie he had composed for with Warren Ellis. Sure, there were some other bands too like The White Stripes, but it was mostly Nick Cave-related. Hell, the theme song for the show is “Red Right Hand” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (Sidenote: One of the few Nick Cave songs I genuinely like). But yeah, even though I would say it’s a weird soundtrack for a historical movie I do think it works for this show. I guess it’s because of the songs used being chosen well enough by the crew working on the show.

This show was created by Steven Knight who also directed the movie “Locke”, a movie I really enjoyed. He also wrote the movie “Eastern Promises” which I coincidentally reviewed yesterday. And while he didn’t direct any episodes of this show, he did write some of them. And like I said, the writing in the show is terrific. And the directing from the different people who took on that mantle is great. Some shots do look pretty standard, but then there are scenes where the cinematography just looks absolutely beautiful.

This bit is usually the easiest one for me since I basically just have to state what I read off of my regular sites. But this time it is slightly different since it hasn’t gotten the same mainstream attention as other shows. I will say then that Metacritic is out of the game. On Rotten Tomatoes however the season has an 86% positive rating. And on imdb.com the show overall has a score of 8,8/10 and is ranked #86 on the “Top 250 TV” list.

“Peaky Blinders” is an excellent British show with a great story, fantastic acting, a great soundtrack, great directing and great writing. Time for my final score. Bloody hell. My final score for season 1 of “Peaky Blinders” is a 9,90/10. It most definitely gets the “SEAL OF APPROVAL!”.

My review of the first season of “Peaky Blinders” is now completed.

Razor blades in the front of the cap? Sure, why not?

Movie Review: Eastern Promises (2007)

In Soviet Russia, movies direct you.

Ladies and gentlemen… “Eastern Promises”.

After a Russian teenager in London dies while giving birth, a midwife named Anna (Naomi Watts) finds a journal in the young girl’s bag that helps give her clues to everything leading up to this. And this makes Anna run into a Russian mob family who might’ve had something to do with it. So we get to see Anna trying to find out exactly what happened while we also follow a man named Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) who’s kind of the driver/fixer for this mob family as he tries to do his job for them while also forming a little bit of a connection with Anna. And I won’t really say anything else about the plot itself because that would kind of be going into spoilers. I can however say that I found the plot infinitely interesting and captivating. The events that unfold before the viewer’s eyes are all perfectly handled and helps to tell a dramatic and surprisingly psychological plot. I’m not saying it’s trying to mindfuck you, but it definitely uses a bit more brain than most crime stories. Never did I find myself bored during this movie, my eyes were pretty much glued to the screen the entire time.

The characters in this movie… it’s difficult to call any of them 100% good guys, even Anna who is pretty much the main character has some shades of grey to her. But even though none of them are really perfect/good, I can at least understand where they’re coming from, I fully understand their motivations and thoughts throughout. Naomi Watts is great as Anna, really nothing else I can say about it… she’s great. However, I can definitely speak more about Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai. He is absolutely fantastic in this movie. It’s also kind of a daring performance for him since he is an American playing a Russian. But I honestly had no problem with it because of a few reasons. One of the reasons is that he perfectly nailed the accent, second was that he actually spoke a bit of Russian in the movie and third is because his performance did everything right as well. I was especially impressed after what he did/went through in a scene that’s late in the movie (no spoilers). Vincent Cassel plays a man who works together with Nikolai and he was great as well. Then we also have Armin Mueller-Stahl as the boss of the mob family and he was absolutely terrific in his role as too. Everybody in the movie did a great job, really.

The score for the movie was composed by none other than Howard Shore who everybody knows from the “Lord of the Rings” movies. And once again, he fucking nailed it with the music for the movie. And while the score for “Eastern Promises” isn’t as huge and extravagant as in “Lord of the Rings”, it’s still a great piece of music that has been created perfectly for the movie it’s used in. It’s very low-key, but it’s still great.

This movie was directed by David Cronenberg who also made the excellent “A History of Violence” (Sidenote: Also starring Viggo Mortensen). And he did a terrific job with the directing of this movie. It’s very smooth, it has a lot of long(ish) takes that let’s you see everything that happens and even notice details that are in the background. The movie is also very violent, so any person who hates violence in movies or can’t watch a lot of blood on screen might wanna stay away. I will warn you already, this movie is Rated R but borders heavily on NC-17. And while that doesn’t ruin any part of the movie for me, I am just saying it as a warning for people who might not be able to take that stuff.

This movie has been very well received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an 89% positive rating and a “Fresh” certification. On Metacritic it has a score of 82/100. Roger Ebert gave the movie 4/4 stars. And on imdb.com it has a score of 7,7/10. The movie was also nominated for 1 Oscar in the category of Best Actor (Mortensen). 

“Eastern Promises” is a fascinating crime-drama with a fantastic plot, interesting characters, great acting, a great soundtrack and great directing. Time for my final score. *Кашель*. My final score for “Eastern Promises” is a 9,89/10. It most definitely gets the “SEAL OF APPROVAL!”.

My review of “Eastern Promises” is now completed.

In Soviet Russia, movie review you.

Bourne 5 trailer is finally here

How are you doing, guys? As you know, I rarely talk about trailers unless it is for something I am really excited about. And holy shit, who knew the Super bowl could deliver something good?
That’s right, at long last we have finally gotten a trailer for the upcoming “Bourne” movie which I have taken to calling “Bourne Untitled”. But it seems like I have to stop with that now because apparently the movie might be called “Jason Bourne” (Meh). This is a trailer I have been waiting for more than any other trailer. I am a huge fan of the “Bourne” franchise, having seen all the movies, read the original three books by Robert Ludlum and also having played the video game “The Bourne Conspiracy”. But that’s not important, because none of those things are this new trailer. So in this we see Jason (Matt Damon) still kind of being in hiding, apparently taking part in some sort of fight club (call Brad Pitt!). And then he must come out of hiding again when something happens. It’s difficult to say exactly what the movie is about, but I honestly don’t mind that because I don’t want to have everything spoiled by a fucking trailer. But this movie looks just as intense as the previous entries, and that’s awesome. Matt Damon of course returns as Jason Bourne, Julia Stiles returns as Nicky, the operator who’s been an on-and-off ally of Jason’s. We also get the return of Paul Greengrass as director, Greengrass is the man responsible for giving us “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum”, so it’s great to know he’s directing this. But we’ll also get some new faces for the franchise including Toomy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel, Alicia Vikander and Riz Ahmed. So yeah… this looks pretty awesome.
Enjoy!

Great Music #9

Hello, my friends. Sorry for not posting so much this past week, been havin’ a bad case of the flu. But I can finally bring you a small post here. And by small I mean I will just shortly present a song I’ve been listening to recently.

This time there is a little variation in what I am sharing with you. In what way is this variation? Well, for once I am not sharing a rock song. Instead I am sharing a piece of folk music. It is a song called “Five Hundred Miles” and it’s sung by Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan and Stark Sands. If you recently read my review of “Inside Llewyn Davis” you would know that all of those people were in the movie. And this is indeed a song from the soundtrack of the movie as performed by these awesome people. This song is in my opinion beautiful and just overall great and that’s why I am sharing it.
Enjoy!