Tag: Chris Hemsworth

Screening Room: ‘Thor: Ragnarok’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Comics-Graphic Novels, Film - NewLeave a comment

So there’s another Thor movie out, and this one’s a blast.

Thor: Ragnarok opens tonight. My review is at PopMatters:

It says something when one of a movie’s main attractions is Cate Blanchett slinking around in a slinky black unitard and a halo of horns saying things such as “Kneel before me!” and it doesn’t quite capture your attention. That’s just the kind of ride that Thor: Ragnarok is. This is a “Damn the torpedoes!” operation. One imagines Marvel turning the keys of the studio over to director Taika Waititi, and saying to him, “There’s a couple hundred million on the kitchen counter, have fun. Oh, and make it seem like it’s the last movie we’re ever going to make”…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘In the Heart of the Sea’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Books, Film - Awards, Film - NewLeave a comment
One big whale: 'In the Heart of the Sea' (Warner Bros.)
One big whale: ‘In the Heart of the Sea’ (Warner Bros.)

In 1820, the Nantucket whaling ship Essex met a disastrous fate in the Pacific; only a few men survived. Later, the story that the ship had run afoul of a massive whale became the kernel of Moby-Dick and was more recently dissected in Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea.

In_the_Heart_of_the_Sea_--_book_coverRon Howard’s 3D adaptation of Philbrick’s book is opening this week, and hoping very much for some Oscar attention. My review is at Film Journal International:

…It starts in 1850 with a spry young Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) trying to claw a story out of Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), a drunk old salt who has refused for 30 years to talk about his connection with the Essex whaling-boat disaster. Melville’s money and Nickerson’s exasperated wife finally crack open that whiskey-sodden shell. But only after Nickerson fixes Melville with a probing look. “Have you read Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mr. Melville?” He asks. “Great writer”…

The trailer is here:

DVD Tuesday: ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’

On By chrisbarsantiIn DVD - FilmLeave a comment

My full review of the DVD / Blu-ray release of the gorgeous but strangely Twilight-esque Snow White and the Huntsman is available at PopMatters:

Like the original Snow White tale, although romance is ultimately involved, the film is truly more concerned with the fight between beautiful young Snow White and the slowly withering old hag Queen Ravenna. (The gender politics are none too subtle here, with Ravenna’s monstrousness keyed to her sensuality, as she is practically the only character in the film to show any evidence of a sex drive.) The Huntsman, a drunk who only took the Snow White job so Ravenna could use her dark arts to raise his dead wife back to life, supposedly falls for the princess on the run but there’s little evidence of that on screen…

You can see the trailer here: