Tony Shalhoub

The Blacklist – Alistair Pitt

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  • Title: The Blacklist – Alistair Pitt
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The Blacklist - Alistair Pitt

Reddington (James Spader) uses the resources of the FBI to further a personal vendetta in tracking down a negotiator (Tony Shalhoub) who attempts to unite two warring crime families through marriage in order the further the interests of his own conglomerate. Of course to further his cause Alistair Pitt will not only have to convince the heads of both families that such a union is in their best interest but also remove any obstacles (such as the young man’s current fiance). Tied to the actions of one of the negotiator’s former deals, we’re given flashbacks to Red’s relationship with a woman named Josephine (Stephanie Szostak) and his reasoning for vengeance on the negotiator whose actions left her a broken shell of her former self.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
  • IMDb: link

Teenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesDirected by Jonathan Liebesman (Battle Los Angeles, Wrath of the Titans) and produced by Michael Bay, it’s not really a surprise that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles isn’t a good movie. What is surprising is the fact it isn’t mind-numbingly awful, and at times it even borders on even being dumb fun and mildly entertaining.

Taking more than a few liberties with the comic, television, and toy franchise, the script by Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, and Evan Daugherty offers an origin story for our four amphibious heroes (who are mistakenly referred to as reptiles), their first meeting with Channel 6 reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox), and the start of their battle against the Shredder (Tohoru Masamune).

Highlighting the fact that Leonardo (Johnny Knoxville), Raphael (Alan Ritchson), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), and Donatello (Jeremy Howard) are mutant teenagers, and downplaying he fact that they’re actually ninjas, the film makes some bizarre casting and script decisions that remove much of the oriental influence of the franchise.

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Pain & Gain

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Pain & Gain
  • IMDB: link

Pain & GainBased on a somewhat unbelievable true series of events, Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne “It’s Okay to Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson, and Anthony Mackie star as a trio of bodybuilders who decide to kidnap and rob a local businessman (Tony Shalhoub). Played to the hilt, the insane over-the-top Pain & Gain embraces the ridiculousness of the situation to deliver some truly funny sequences. Sadly, it delivers almost as many groan worthy moments and some disturbing violence that doesn’t always mesh well with the zany tone of the movie. The true story the film is based on is so unbelievable director Michael Bay even stops the film at times to remind the audience that (some form of) these events really occurred.

The characters, who don’t seem smart enough to remember to breathe, aren’t even caricatures so much as full-blown cartoons. There’s a scene from Michael Bay’s first awful Transformers flick where a group of giant robots tiptoe around a suburban house hoping no one will see or hear them. That plan is near genius compared to those of Daniel Lugo (Wahlberg) and his confederates.

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Perception – Messenger

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Perception – Messenger
  • tv.com: link

perception-messenger

I’m not sure how much more TV can milk out of the goofy, off-beat, somewhat damaged police consultant that Tony Shalhoub brought back in vogue with Monk. Over the past decade we’ve seen psychics (Psych, The Mentalist), mathematics professors (Numb3rs), a writer (Castle), a thief (White Collar), a biophysicist (The Eleventh Hour), and the return of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock) just to name a few. The latest hour-long drama to cash in on the formula stars Rachael Leigh Cook as a FBI agent who taps a brilliant but schizophrenic professor of neuroscience (Eric McCormack) who often hallucinates people and events to help him work through complex puzzles into help solve her cases.

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