Tag: Tobey Maguire (Page 1 of 3)

Movie Review: “Babylon” (2022)

Margot Robbie stars in Babylon 2022

You have to give Damien Chazelle credit for trying. “Babylon” was an ambitious project. But despite all of the big stars, wild scenes and stunning visuals, the film is a disappointing mess. All of the brilliant cinematography doesn’t count for much when the audience can’t connect with the characters or the story. The 3-hour run time makes these flaws even more annoying. I couldn’t wait for the movie to end.

The film generated a lot of buzz around the opening party scene that features stunning shot of the beautiful and charismatic Margot Robbie dancing up a storm. Robbie draws you in and you can’t take your eyes off of her. She executes her elaborate dance moves in her spectacular red dress in the middle of what can only be described as managed chaos. It’s the best scene of the film and it goes on for quite a while, yet even this scene falls flat. All of the moves are overly choreographed and stylized. There are various couple engaging in sex in the middle of all the frenzied dancing, but none of it is remotely natural or believable. Rather, it comes across as awkward as opposed to erotic, reminding me of robotic orgy scenes in “Eyes Wide Shut.” Everyone is supposed to be having fun, but they just seem like they’re pretending.

Things slow down a bit with the rest of the film, which sadly does little to make anyone become more interested in the characters. The stories revolve around several stars of Hollywood’s silent film era and the excesses of those times. But many of these scenes do little to advance the story, but rather give Chazelle an excuse to create elaborate, cinematic scenes showing how these films were made. The scenes look great, but most are tedious and boring. You always feel like you’re watching a stylized movie . . . the film never grabs you and makes you feel like you’re there. It just feels like a bizarre series of sketches with little purpose.

A lot of acting talent is wasted here. Brad Pitt has proven his acting chomps again and again, but here he seems robotic as he recites his poorly written lines. There’s little that’s believable about his character or his performance. His character is a silent film star, living the life of a rich and adored celebrity, who then struggles with the emergence of talkies. But the audience isn’t given a chance to becomes emotionally invested in his plight.

Margot Robbie does her best with her part, but she’s asked to deliver an over-the-top performance. She delivers, but there’s little to like about her character beyond her stunning appearance. Tobey Maguire gives a creepy and memorable performance as he guides us through an underground party with disturbing visuals that we’d prefer to forget.

The ending is the film is supposed to make the audience feel nostalgic about the silent film era in Hollywood through the eyes of the lead character Manny (Diego Calva). But flashbacks to characters in their glory days don’t land as well if the audience doesn’t care about those characters.

Sadly, it’s not surprising that this film bombed at the box office. It’s difficult to imagine how a director who delivered the brilliant “Whiplash” could also create this self-indulgent disaster, but even the best creative minds have their misses. Don’t waste your time on this one.

1.5/5 Stars

A-List Gamblers

Everyone loves a bet. The thrill and anticipation of seeing your bet come in is a sort of drug-like feeling, to a degree there is a sense of euphoria involved. Human nature actively seeks out thrills, we all love a bit adrenaline and that is one of the reasons people look to gambling. Celebrities are no different albeit they do have a bit more change to throw around.

Below is A-List of gamblers.

Ben Affleck
While he may be at odds with Batman fans all over the world, Affleck is a hustler on the table. His game is poker. His biggest win to date is the California State Poker Championship, which netted him a $350,000. But it was Affleck’s antics on the blackjack tables that got him in the newspapers recently. It has been reported that Affleck was counting cards at the Hard Rock Casino, Las Vegas, and is now banned indefinitely. Considering he is worth $75 million it is not as if he is short of money so he must love the thrill.

Continue reading »

Matt Damon and Friends Get Away with Poker Winnings

Matt Damon, star of the Bourne series is among the big names to be spared a court battle which would have revealed details of massive illegal poker winnings.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Damon’s Good Will Hunting co-star Ben Affleck have also escaped the courts after being involved in games with jailed hedge fund manager Bradley Ruderman.

Ruderman conned multiple people out of millions of dollars before surrendering to the FBI in 2009. Two years later news broke that after reportedly losing $25million of his investors’ money, Ruderman was suing the celebrities who beat him.

It seemed inevitable that details of the high-stakes poker games; illegal in Hollywood; would come to light in the courts, but yesterday it seemed that the quartet of celebrities have gotten away with the cash.

The bankruptcy trustee who sued Damon, Howard Ehrenberg, told celebuzz.com that “all of the poker defendant cases are settled.

“The settlement of every poker related case without having had to incur the cost of taking any of them to trial means that the fund available for the victims has been maximized.”

Ruderman had been living a celebrity lifestyle himself, spending the victims’ cash in Malibu, California, before being jailed.
Poker is still illegal in California, though some States allow the game, and others are looking to get in on the act. There is a lot of revenue available in online gambling, Texas Hold Em and Fast Poker games on the net, and North Dakota is among the States already reaping rewards.

Tobey Macguire was the among the first to settle, agreeing to hand over $80,000 of the $311,200 that he took from Ruderman in the series of underground poker games. It is currently not known how much Damon settled for, but he is believed to have taken significantly more money from the ex-hedge fund manager.

Midweek movie bits

I’m going to be taking a day off from the blogging grind, but there’s plenty going on this late evening in the world’s cinema capital. Starting with…

* Team Coco, the movie! Okay, it’s a documentary about Conan O’Brien’s upcoming live tour and it’s still only in the “early talks” stage according to Mike Fleming’s exclusive. It’s apparently in compliance with his severance deal, even though most people will probably end up watching it on television sets anyhow.

* Speaking of documentaries and comedy, A.J. Schnack rounds up some of the SXSW reaction to James Franco’s SNL documentary.

* At the risk certainty of being repetitious, speaking of comedies connected to SNL, Pete Sciretta rounds up the SXSW reaction to”MacGruber.” We also have reaction direct from Jason Zingale at the big Austin fest just a few posts below.

* In the wake of the sale of Miramax, go-to producer Scott Rudin is negotiating to leave Disney, writes Claudia Eller.

* Okay, even if I might not be a fan of all the movies, I confess to enjoying the idea of having the stars of past Marvel films recreate their roles in the long-discussed “Avengers” film and Edward Norton appears possibly willing to play along by returning as the Hulk, maybe. Whatever else may be true, Norton is a very interesting guy.

* Does a serious version of the Black Knight sequence from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” sound like your kind of film? If so, Anne Thompson thinks you might like “Centurion.”

* I think all the entertainment reporters should just take the month off and let Mike Fleming do all the reporting of stories like the one that Jeremy Renner may be joining Paul Thomas Anderson’s not-about-Scientology movie which will star Philip Seymour Hoffman as not-L. Ron Hubbard. Though it’s relatively modest $35 million budget may be a bit high for the finance folks at Universal, other backers may have been found.

That’s hardly all. Fleming also brings us the one about “Hit Girl” Chloe Moretz joining the cast of Scorsese’s lastest and that Tobey Maguire confirmed to be playing Bobby Fisher.

And one two more from Mr. Fleming…If you think Spike Lee has been working as much as he should after the success of “Inside Man” and his acclaimed Katrina documentary, you’re apparently not alone. He’s switched agencies.

And, oh yeah, another beefcake “Captain America” potential. At least the names for the female lead have a bit of spark to them, I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing Keira Knightley or Emily Blunt hanging around a Marvel movie.

* Jeffrey Welles is nutso for “Hot Tub Time Machine,” for what it’s worth.

* I often say that the best movies these days are long-form television. So why shouldn’t Martin Scorsese be getting involved? However, does everything crime and Scorsese oriented have to have Rolling Stones music in the background? Unless I’m misidentifying that anachronistic music in the “Boardwalk Empire,” trailer, I guess it really does. Still, yeah, it is Steve Buscemi’s time to play a big bad boss.

* If it’s not news that Jason Segal will be costarring with muppets, why are we talking about  it? Still, based on his obvious love for puppetry as portrayed in the rather brilliant “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” I think it may turn out okay.

Tuesday late night movie news

It’s pretty clear that nothing going on in movieland tonight is going to be able to compete with the sheer entertainment value of the NBC late night TV quagmire, but there’s definitely stuff to talk about.

* Peter Saarsgard of the very good “An Education” is a highly intriguing actor who I’ve been following for some time, especially since catching his work in the underrated “The Dying Gaul” at Sundance a few years back. No matter what kind of character he’s playing, he seems to have a real gift for moral ambiguity. If he’s cast as a villain, we think he must have a good side, and if he’s cast as someone more upright, we wonder if there isn’t something underhanded going on. Anyhow, Borys Kit reports that it looks like he might be playing the villain side of the street in the Green Lantern movie. Could be good.

an-education-peter-sarsgaard-2

* The longest named director in show business is back on “The Tourist,” a remake of a French thriller to star Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is the very talented and personable multilingual director behind “The Lives of Others.”

* Simon Brew has some more on the upcoming “Spiderman” reboot announced yesterday. His list of possible new Spideys has two interesting entries that I can’t quite agree with. Daniel Radcliffe actually makes some sense, but we’ll have to see how his American accent is, though I’d personally advise the soon-to-be ex-Harry Potter to avoid overly franchisey roles for a while. Michael Cera would be interesting but, I fear, disastrous. He’d have to get muscular and we know what happens to funny young actors when they become too obviously physically fit. Just ask Anthony Michael Hall.

The trick with Peter Parker is that the actor has to be believable both as a vulnerable demi-nerd, and as the sinewy superhero. Tobey Maguire was actually a really outstanding choice.

Continue reading »

« Older posts

© 2023 Premium Hollywood

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑