Guy Pearce

Results

  • Title: Results
  • IMDb: link

ResultsWriter/director Andrew Bujalski‘s Results about a recently-wealthy client’s (Kevin Corrigan) impact on the lives of two personal trainers (Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders) in Austin, Texas boasts a strong cast and an unique indie feel but suffers from not being funny enough to be a true comedy, dark enough to be dark comedy, or dramatic enough to be taken seriously. Results intermittently entertains while teasing the audience with a cast (that also includes Giovanni Ribisi, Anthony Michael Hall, and Constance Zimmer) that is far better than its source material.

Pearce is all-in as Trevor, the odd-duck owner of a local fitness center whose life is complicated by the employee he loves (Smulders) and the untethered client whose infatuation with the woman throws all their lives into chaos. Anthony Michael Hall has a small humorous role as the guru whose philosophy Trevor has based his entire business on. Trevor’s eventual encounter with his idol needs to be either funnier or more soul-crushing but, like the entire movie, the script flounders when hard choices must be made.

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Iron Man 3

  • Title: Iron Man 3
  • IMDb: link

Iron Man 3The third time is hardly ever the charm in movie franchises, especially those adapted from comics. Shane Black, who replaces Jon Favreau behind the camera (although Favreau stays on to continue his role as Happy Hogan), delivers a thoroughly satisfying third (and quite possibly final) entry in a way Sam Raimi, Christopher Nolan, Richard Lester, and Brett Ratner all failed to do.

After some rather unsubtle foreshadowing involving Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) meeting with a pair of scientists (Rebecca Hall, Guy Pearce) back in 1999, we catch up some months after the events of The Avengers with a shaken Stark agonizing over the enormity of how much his world has changed since the alien attack that leveled much of New York. While struggling with both anxiety attacks and his relationship with the ever-plucky Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), Stark’s world is further shaken by an attack that leaves Happy severely injured by the hands of a new terrorist calling himself The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley).

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Lockout

  • Title: Lockout
  • IMDB: link

lockout-posterBorrowing pieces, plot threats, and characters from the likes of Escape From New York, Outland, Demolition Man, and others, co-writers and co-directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger give us an outer space action film set 65 years into our future about an orbiting prison ship filled with the dregs of humanity, the President’s daughter trapped inside, and the one man who can get her home.

To put it bluntly, this ain’t Shakespeare. Lockout would feel right at home on as part of a lazy Saturday afternoon triple feature sandwiched between The Last Boy Scout and Runaway. It’s certainly a flawed piece of filmmaking, and at times dumb as a brick, but with a smart ass sense of humor and two likable leads the movie provides its share of fun moments.

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The King’s Speech

  • Title: The King’s Speech
  • IMDB: link

In the age of the Internet and high speed wireless devices comes a tale about radio. When you’ve got you’re entire music library on a MP3 player, and can get your news from any number of 24-hour cable news channels, it’s easy to forget how vital a communication device radio was, and how a single speech could change the tide of history.

The King’s Speech begins and ends with speeches by Prince Albert, Duke of York (Colin Firth) who would go on to rule the British Empire as King George VI. The differences between the speech he gives at at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley as the King’s son and the famous speech he gave as King to the British people, uniting them as they marched to war, is what the film is all about.

Written by David Seidler and directed by Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech gives us a rousing performance by an actor at the height of his game, and a traditional story masterfully retold.

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L.A. Confidential

  • Title: L.A. Confidential
  • IMDB: link

“Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.”

The year was 1997 and the film was L.A. Confidential. Based on the James Ellroy novel of the same name the film tells the story of corruption and murder in 1950’s Los Angeles.

The film follows the investigations of three distinctly different cops.  The first is the ambitious career-mined Det. Lt. Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) who makes a name for himself on honesty and a willingness to throw those who don’t agree to the wolves.

The second is Officer Bud White (Russell Crowe) a blunt instrument with a strong desire to help women in trouble and more brains than most people, even himself, give him credit.

And the third, Det. Sgt. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), is a fame obsessed cop drunk on the Hollywood scene, his small role as a consultant for the cop show Badge of Honor (think Dragnet), and his ties to sleazoid magazine editor (Danny DeVito).

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