Movies releasing today: Boxers, brothers, bad hair & black dudes in drag
It's a mix of quality and crapness at South African cinemas today, with 4 very different releases.
The Fighter: The most high profile of this weekend's new releases (and my pick of the week) is this boxing biopic, nominated for 6 Oscars, including Best Picture. Mark Wahlberg stars as Micky Ward, a likeable but frequently beaten blue collar boxer who gets one final chance at a title fight. Christian Bale is Ward's older half-brother and trainer, a failed boxer and troubled heroin addict. Meanwhile Amy Adams plays a feisty love interest.
The Fighter is 90% Fresh on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. Although the film is apparently a pretty standard entry in the boxing drama sub-genre, it's made worthwhile viewing by its excellent performances, writing and the fact that it's feel-good without being at all schmaltzy.
Drive Angry: It's Faster in 3D with a long haired Nicolas Cage, a hot babe in the passenger seat (Amber Heard), a cult and, oh, yeah, the Devil's bounty hunter. Cage plays a felon who escapes from Hell to avenge his daughter's death at the hands of a demonic cult who have stolen her baby. Meanwhile Satan dispatches one of his top agents (William Fichtner) to retrieve Cage. So, yeah, Drive Angry definitely has one of the most batshit insane premises of a movie released so far this year.
Drive Angry is currently a surprisingly solid 64% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Reviewers are calling it trashy, gory and exploitative, with Cage at his most unhinged. So expect it to be enjoyably bad schlock - a popcorn flick for adults with an appetite for sex and violence... and the additional gimmick of 3D.
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son: Just what we needed. A third Big Momma movie! Likely to be the big winner at the South African box office this weekend *sigh*, in Big Mommas Martin Lawrence dons the fat suit for the third time as undercover FBI agent Malcolm Turner. This time he's hiding out at an all-girls college, protecting his stepson (Brandon T. Jackson) - also in drag - after the teen witnesses a murder and must go into hiding.
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son is a pitiful 8% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Intended as a franchise reboot, appealing more to a teen audience, Big Momma 3 apparently satisfies nobody. It's embarrassing, unfunny and wearily (and soullessly) retreads the same premise as its predecessors.
Of Gods and Men: They don't come much more highly acclaimed than this French language drama based on recent real life events. Set in Algeria in 1996, the film centres on a group of contemplative Catholic monks (played by Lambert Wilson and Michael Lonsdale among others) who refuse to leave their remote mountain monastery despite the ongoing Algerian Civil War and death threats from Muslim fundamentalist groups.
Of Gods and Men is 90% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Although it didn't score an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language film, this multiple award winner has nonetheless received massive praise from critics, who are calling it tender, enjoyably earnest and a quietly powerful examination of courage and faith.
The Fighter: The most high profile of this weekend's new releases (and my pick of the week) is this boxing biopic, nominated for 6 Oscars, including Best Picture. Mark Wahlberg stars as Micky Ward, a likeable but frequently beaten blue collar boxer who gets one final chance at a title fight. Christian Bale is Ward's older half-brother and trainer, a failed boxer and troubled heroin addict. Meanwhile Amy Adams plays a feisty love interest.
The Fighter is 90% Fresh on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. Although the film is apparently a pretty standard entry in the boxing drama sub-genre, it's made worthwhile viewing by its excellent performances, writing and the fact that it's feel-good without being at all schmaltzy.
Drive Angry: It's Faster in 3D with a long haired Nicolas Cage, a hot babe in the passenger seat (Amber Heard), a cult and, oh, yeah, the Devil's bounty hunter. Cage plays a felon who escapes from Hell to avenge his daughter's death at the hands of a demonic cult who have stolen her baby. Meanwhile Satan dispatches one of his top agents (William Fichtner) to retrieve Cage. So, yeah, Drive Angry definitely has one of the most batshit insane premises of a movie released so far this year.
Drive Angry is currently a surprisingly solid 64% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Reviewers are calling it trashy, gory and exploitative, with Cage at his most unhinged. So expect it to be enjoyably bad schlock - a popcorn flick for adults with an appetite for sex and violence... and the additional gimmick of 3D.
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son: Just what we needed. A third Big Momma movie! Likely to be the big winner at the South African box office this weekend *sigh*, in Big Mommas Martin Lawrence dons the fat suit for the third time as undercover FBI agent Malcolm Turner. This time he's hiding out at an all-girls college, protecting his stepson (Brandon T. Jackson) - also in drag - after the teen witnesses a murder and must go into hiding.
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son is a pitiful 8% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Intended as a franchise reboot, appealing more to a teen audience, Big Momma 3 apparently satisfies nobody. It's embarrassing, unfunny and wearily (and soullessly) retreads the same premise as its predecessors.
Of Gods and Men: They don't come much more highly acclaimed than this French language drama based on recent real life events. Set in Algeria in 1996, the film centres on a group of contemplative Catholic monks (played by Lambert Wilson and Michael Lonsdale among others) who refuse to leave their remote mountain monastery despite the ongoing Algerian Civil War and death threats from Muslim fundamentalist groups.
Of Gods and Men is 90% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Although it didn't score an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language film, this multiple award winner has nonetheless received massive praise from critics, who are calling it tender, enjoyably earnest and a quietly powerful examination of courage and faith.
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