Barbieheimer, the crafty, endearing portmanteau of Barbie and Oppenheimer, the two biggest blockbusters of the summer, became mainstream weeks months before the dual-day release of each movie. Moviegoers flocked to the theaters in greater fashion than even 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick. This ultra-successful and undeniably popular film has become universally accepted as bringing people back to theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic. Some would say that it saved movie theaters entirely. As someone who sees two, three, or sometimes even more movies in the theater in any given month, and often being one of a small handful of patrons, I am in that camp.
Category Archives: Gary Oldman
Man Down (2016)
Continuing the two themes of actors who I once didn’t really like but who, in recent films, has begun to win me over (Miles Teller) as well as films about characters suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after serving in wars in the Middle East (Thank You For Your Service) comes the critically panned Man Down, a movie that I don’t ever recall being in the theatre and didn’t know existed until a good six months after it was released. Earning a score of just 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, director Dito Montiel (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Fighting) delivers an emotionally disturbing uneven film about a character traumatized by a specific incident that happened on his single tour. Man Down stars Shia LaBeouf (Lawless, American Honey) in what might be his finest performance to date. He stars as United States Marine Gabriel Drummer, who, after a raid and clearing of a house gone wrong in a village in Afghanistan, tells his story to Captain Peyton (Gary Oldman – Darkest Hour, The Dark Knight Rises), a military superior. The critics said that this movie exploits PTSD compared to a more subtle movie like Thank You For Your Service (which also has the advantage of being based on a true story, something that Man Down lacks). While I can see that, especially in the film’s final act, I disagree as a whole. War is hell. It’s one of those things that we don’t have to experience firsthand to believe. But it is something we need to experience firsthand or be close to someone who experienced it firsthand to understand truly. When we can’t, we sometimes turn to books, television, or movies hoping that they will portray a true picture for us. I think that’s what Montiel did here, even if a vast majority of his critics disagreed.
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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
I’m not the biggest fan of reboots. I often think, “Why?” or “What’s the point?” or, “Can Hollywood not come up with an original idea?”. However, at the same time, I’m a big fan of origin stories. Usually, if the first movie in a franchise is good, I’ll keep watching the sequels until they start to stink. Once you lose me, though, you lose me, and I’m not coming back. So each subsequent movie in a franchise doesn’t necessarily need to be better than the starting movie (in fact, I don’t expect it to be), but it still better be pretty darn good. My favorite movies in the last decade include Batman Begins, Iron Man, and The Hangover. These three movies illustrate my point perfectly. The Dark Knight, unquestionably, and The Dark Knight Rises, probably, were both better than Batman Begins. In the Iron Man franchise, Iron Man was the best, Iron Man 2 was very good, but not great, and Iron Man 3 was still decent. With The Hangover, the first one was brilliant, The Hangover 2 one had me asking, “Why are they doing this again?” and the third one was so terrible that I will not pay another dollar if these franchises continue and has made me much less interested in ever watching the original one again.
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Lawless (2012)
Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Warrior) is quickly establishing himself as a leading man in Hollywood. Since really coming onto the radar after 2010’s Inception, Hardy went on to win audiences over in the surprisingly good Warrior before donning a mask as Bane and becoming 2012 biggest villain in The Dark Knight Rises. In a movie full of top-notch acting, Hardy turns in the performance of his young career in John Hillcoat’s (The Road, The Proposition) Lawless.
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The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Christopher Nolan’s (Inception, The Prestige) last chapter in his Batman franchise is the exciting but imperfect The Dark Knight Rises. This is an excellent movie and successfully concludes the best trilogy I’ve ever seen. However, if you go in with the idea that it will be better than The Dark Knight, you will be disappointed. With Hedge Ledger’s to die for performance as the Joker, The Dark Knight is as close to a perfect movie as you will get. It holds a place on my Top 10 Movies of All-Time list. The Dark Knight Rises is very ambitious, a little too ambitious. At 2 hours and 45 minutes, you’d think they have plenty of time to tell its story and conclude the franchise, but there is so much to the story, and rushing its development and racing to its conclusion would not have resulted in a successful movie. This is one of those movies where a review such as mine won’t persuade you to see it or not see it. You most likely have it in your head that you will either see this movie or not. So why do I write it? Because I committed myself to reviewing every film that will be on my Top 10 list at the end of the year. I am very, very confident there will not be ten other movies released in 2012 that will be better than The Dark Knight Rises.
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