Josh Brolin

Avengers: Infinity War

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Avengers: Infinity War
  • IMDb: link

Avengers: Infinity War movie review2012’s The Avengers brought together all the elements from the planned Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was a payoff movie, and one that was executed brilliantly by Joss Whedon. It also gave us the first on-screen appearance of Thanos (now played by Josh Brolin) whose foreshadowed war on the universe would be put on hold for several years. Until now. Since The Avengers, too many of the Marvel movies have been forced into world building while telling their story. For the first time in years, there is no horizon which frees sreenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and directors the Russo Brothers to simply tie the elements together as Whedon did six years ago and tell one hell of a story. And you know what? They do a damn good job.

With some notable exceptions (Natalie Portman, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, and Marvel is still completely ignoring their television properties) everyone is on hand to deal with the threat of Thanos who finally gets around to collecting the Infinity Stones which will allow him to complete his life-long quest of killing off half the lives across the universe with the snap of his fingers.

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5 Film Collection: Gangsters

/ / Home Video
  • Title: A History of Violence, The Departed, Training Day, The Town, Gangster Squad
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link

5 Film Collection: GangstersWhat the hell is Gangster Squad doing on this set? The 2013 film wastes a talented cast on this idiotic take on a 50s cop (Josh Brolin) attempting to take down Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn). What a piece of shit. The rest of this collection is actually quite good, making you wonder who decided to try and polish this turd by putting in in their company.

Ben Affleck‘s The Town is the second-weakest entry in the set, but the look at Boston bank robbers is at least occasionally compelling. While flawed, 2001’s Training Day is worth a look for the performances of Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke as the older detective introduces his new partner to his world.

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Hail, Caesar!

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Hail, Caesar!
  • IMDb: link

Hail, Caesar!With Hail, Caesar! the Coen Brothers take a few good-natured stabs at the golden age of movies while celebrating, and lampooning, the studio system of Hollywood during the early days of the Cold War. Providing a film where Channing Tatum gets to play Fred Astaire and Tilda Swinton does double-duty as twin gossip columnists, I wouldn’t go so far to call it a screwball comedy, but Hail, Caesar! certainly does have a few screws loose (in mostly the right places).

Josh Brolin stars as studio exec Eddie Mannix dodging offers to leave the studio for a more stable job while overseeing a big-budget spectacular about a Roman general’s encounter with Jesus Christ when his star (George Clooney) is kidnapped by a group of Hollywood writers who are all Communists (Fisher Stevens, Patrick Fischler, Tom Musgrave, David Krumholtz, Greg Baldwin, and Patrick Carroll).

Not all the film works. Far too much time is wasted on Mannix being wooed by an airline, and, while opening up intriguing ideas about outside-the-box solutions to problems, the subplot involving Scarlett Johansson as a single pregnant starlet fizzles. More successful is Alden Ehrenreich as a Western star struggling with his role in straightforward drama.

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Sicario

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Sicario
  • IMDb: link

Sicario

How far are you willing to go to achieve justice? At want point do you draw a line you will never cross? And what happens when you are forced over that line by forces beyond you control? These questions are all at the heart of Sicario, a drama from director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan that stars Emily Blunt as idealistic FBI Agent Kate Macer stationed in Arizona. Kate volunteers for a joint DEA task force after the discovery of dozens of corpses in Chandler, Arizona, all tied to a Mexican drug cartel in a house rigged with explosives that takes the lives of two fellow officers.

Completely unaware of what she’s getting herself into, and lied from the beginning by the head of the task force (Josh Brolin) and his mysterious consultant (Benicio Del Toro), Kate follows the pair down the rabbit hole leading to a kidnapping in Juarez, Mexico (where she has no authority) and the torture of Mexican citizen, as she struggles with the end game of finding drug lord Fausto Alarcón (Julio Cedillo). Along the way she will discover the power of the Mexican cartel and their reach which extends into law enforcement on her side of the border.

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Everest

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Everest
  • IMDb: link

Everest

Based on a true story, Everest recounts the events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. There have been plenty of mountain climbing movies over the years and Everest does little to break from the pack. Working against the movie is the extended opening which plays like a Travel Channel infomercial attempting to sell the audience on traveling to Nepal to climb the world’s biggest mountain with the help of experts like Rob Hall‘s (Jason Clarke) Adventure Consultants.

The climbers themselves are the typical hodgepodge of one-note characters you always expect to see in movies like this with a couple of stand-outs (Clarke, John Hawkes, and Josh Brolin) while the rest (Martin Henderson, Tom Goodman-Hill, Naoko Mori, Michael Kelly, among others) quickly fade into the background. The movie picks up a bit once the climbers begin their ascent of the mountain in earnest and the disaster porn part of the plot kicks in.

The film, and the scale of the undertaking, is certainly helped in IMAX 3D. As a theatrical experience Everest does have something to offer (even if the story feels more straight-to-DVD). It’s certainly not a must-see, but it works as escapist entertainment.

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