The Spy Who Crunched Me

by Jason Adams

Hey! Eyes down here! Thank you. Yesterday came news that the long-rumored sequel-of-sorts to David Cronenberg's 2007 film Eastern Promises was gaining some momentum... and that momentum was taking it straight towards the above-splayed abdominal muscles of one Jason Statham. Should we all be so lucky. And I think you can tell already that I'm hoping this film exists solely for a re-do of Viggo's balls-out sauna-brawl, just subbing in Jason, so we'll just go ahead and get that out of the way upfront. Say hello to our upfront business! 

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Say A Prayer For "Serenity"

by Jason Adams

Although I don't think it's ever spoken in the film it's hard not to have the "Serenity Prayer" -- God grant me the serenity, wisdom, change, courage, check and etc -- echoing in your cavernous, more cavernous by the second, head while watching Serenity, writer-director Steven Knight's nervous-breakdown-put-to-film. Starring Matthew McConaughey as the hard-drinking and hard-sexing good ol' boy in paradise called Baker Dill (and really we all knew it was only a matter of time before Matthew McConaughey played a character called "Baker Dill" right?) watching Serenity is, well, an experience that calls for prayer. Any prayer. An exorcism, even.

I realize at this point, with these balls-deep references to demon possessions and nervous breakdowns, you're probably thinking that Serenity sounds like a miserable experience. It's not...

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TV Review: Taboo

by David Upton

Tom Hardy gets a mythical movie star introduction as Taboo opens, hidden alternately by camera and cloak before he pulls back his hood and the camera creeps reverently below him. The FX and BBC collaboration is a real passion project for the British actor, co-created with Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and Hardy’s father Edward ‘Chips’ Hardy...

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Review: Tom Hardy is "Locke"

Here's Michael C. with a new review...
 

Is it too early to declare Tom Hardy in possession of one of the all time great movie voices? As the title character in Steven Knight’s Locke, Hardy speaks in an elegant Welsh timbre that brings to mind a slowly unraveling Richard Burton. It is an endless pleasure to listen to, which is fortunate since we have little else to latch onto through Locke’s 85 minute running time. The story begins late one night with Tom Hardy’s Ivan Locke leaving work in his BMW and follows him in real time on one long fraught drive to London. Just a man in his car trying to prop up his crumbling life, armed only with his voice and the digital Rolodex on his dashboard.

It seems like a twisted joke to cast Tom Hardy in such a role. From Bronson to Warrior to Dark Knight Rises, Hardy has proved himself to be one of our most intensely physical actors. Trapping him in the front seat of a car for the whole running time might as well be putting him in a straight jacket. Yet the casting turns out to be a masterstroke since that caged animal energy charges what might otherwise be a tedious stylistic workout with a surprising amount of tension...

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