Tag Archive: Ian McShane


Pottersville–Shannon and Greer highlight quirky holiday tale

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December 1, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

Three years ago at borg we previewed a quirky holiday film on its way to theaters called Pottersville.  It’s now on Netflix and one you might come across while looking for your next Christmas movie.  Universally panned by critics, it still has some charm and is a step up from the average Hallmark made-for-TV holiday flick.  It’s a quiet and evenly paced film highlighted by the performances of Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water, Midnight Special and Man of Steel) and Judy Greer (Ant-Man, Halloween, Jurassic World).  And it’s about Bigfoot.  But it’s not quite a “family film.”

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Now streaming–Hellboy arrives on video in time for monster movie season

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October 5, 2019

Review by C.J. Bunce

Prime viewing for October and the Halloween season, and a movie you probably skipped in the theater, is the rebooted Hellboy, now on home video.  Far better than critics would have led you to believe, director Neil Marshall′s Hellboy is every bit loyal to the Dark Horse Comics character, stories, and mythos.  Both Mike Mignola and Mike Richardson produced this third film in the series, and if you don’t agree it matches the quality of the first Hellboy you’ll likely agree it’s better and more memorable than its sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

In fact this Hellboy–this time with Stranger Things’ David Harbour in the red, sawed-off horns and hammer arm–is that kind of dark, violent, monster movie that would have appealed to fans of Freddy Krueger or Hellraiser in the 1980s.  It has that same kind of hard R rating that would have prompted 12 to 16-year-old boys to sneak into the theater to see what they were missing.  So if you don’t care for the kind of monster movie with innocent victims getting ripped apart by giant demons, re-stitching a witch together, watching another creepy witch and her cauldron of kid stew, and making it through several blood-bursts and beheadings, backed with a never-ending volley of F bombs, by all means run away now.

This isn’t Ron Perlman’s kinder, gentler demon.  But this presentation more closely matches Mignola’s stories, including steeping this tale in a variety of classic lore.  Here that means the vile Baba Yaga as villain, complete with her chicken-legged mobile house, and a film full of twisted King Arthur legend.
Missing is Doug Jones’ wonderful Abe Sapien, or Selma Blair’s fire-wielding friend Liz.  Trying to make up for that is the booming presence of Ian McShane (Magnum, p.i., Dallas, The Golden Compass, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Deadwood) as Hellboy’s father, and Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil series, The Fifth Element, Ultraviolet) as a banished witch trying to return to the present to smite out humanity with a plague.  Both McShane and Jovovich are good in anything, as they are here, even when the special effects aren’t up to that Peter Jackson quality we all hope for.

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All the movies you’ll want to see in 2019

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December 25, 2018

Merry Christmas!

It’s that time of year again, time to take a look forward at what movies should be on your radar for 2019.  Are you going to see them all?  Heck no.  These are the genre films we think borg readers will want to know about to make their own checklists for the coming year–and they are only the films we know about so far.  We pulled 78 of the hundreds of films that have been finalized or are in varying stages of final production, slated for next year’s movie calendar.

What looks to top the list for most fanboys and fangirls?  The last of the nine films in the Star Wars saga.  Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far From Home.  Shazam! is DC’s contribution.  Quentin Tarentino returns to movies to direct Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Martin Scorsese is back with an all-star cast in The Irishman (on Netflix).  M. Night Shyamalan finishes his dark superhero trilogy with Glass.  Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton return in Terminator.  Jordan Peele is back with another horror film with Us.

Do you like sequels?  This is your year.  Another Men in Black, X-Men, Shaft, Happy Death Day, Lego Movie, Hellboy, John Wick, Kingsman, Jumanji, The Secret Life of Pets, How to Train Your Dragon, Fast and the Furious, Zombieland, Addams Family, Charlie’s Angels, Godzilla, Shaun the Sheep, Annabelle,and Stephen King’s It and Pet Sematary—Disney is trying to get you to move into your local theater with another Toy Story, Aladdin, Dumbo, Frozen, and Lion King–all in one year.  Yep, lots and lots of sequels are coming.

Some films don’t have locked-in release dates yet.  Amazon Prime and Netflix haven’t revealed dates for these 2019 releases:

  • Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman, a film about Jimmy Hoffa starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, and Bobby Cannavale (Netflix)
  • The Kid, a Western biopic with Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Dane DeHaan, and Vincent D’Onofrio (Netflix)
  • The Man Who Killed Hitler Then Bigfoot, starring Sam Elliott (Netflix)
  • 6 Underground, a Michael Bay film starring Ryan Reynolds, Ben Hardy, Dave Franco, and Mélanie Laurent (Netflix)
  • The Last Thing He Wanted, Dee Rees directs Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Willem Dafoe, and Toby Jones; journalist quits newspaper job to become an arms dealer for a covert government agency (Netflix)
  • The Laundromat, Steven Soderbergh directs Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, James Cromwell, about the Pentagon Papers (Netflix)
  • Radioactive, Rosamund Pike plays Marie Curie, with Anya Taylor-Joy (Amazon)

Some of these films will have revised release dates, or get pushed to 2020.

So grab your calendar and start making your plans–here are the movies you’ll want to see in 2019 (and many you might not):

January

Glass – Superhero, M. Night Shyamalan trilogy part 3, stars Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy; continues where Unbreakable and Split left off – January 18.

Serenity – Mystery/Thriller, stars Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, Jeremy Strong, Diane Lane; sorry, no relation to Firefly – January 25.

King of Thieves – Heist Comedy, stars Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Charlie Cox, Michael Gambon, and Ray Winstone – January 25.

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First trailer arrives featuring David Harbour as new Hellboy

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December 20, 2018

Lionsgate released its first trailer this week for the reboot of Hellboy, a holiday gift for fans of Mike Mignola‘s character and his various Dark Horse Comics series and previous films.

The new Hellboy is played by Stranger Things’ star David Harbour, and his appearance and delivery are surprisingly different than that of Ron Perlman’s version of the character, despite the similar makeup and costume.  The entire trailer also does not have the nicely creepy, dark and brooding feel from Guillermo del Toro’s original from 15 years ago, opting instead to be brighter and have more of a comic book vibe.  Maybe it’s the use of Mony Mony as the song backing the preview?  This story is expected to be adapted from Mignola stories Darkness Calls, The Wild Hunt, and The Storm and the Fury.  Despite the brighter look, the head splatter and gore seal the deal with this new film scoring an R rating.

Hellboy stars Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element, Resident Evil), Ian McShane (Pirates of the Caribbean, John Wick), Daniel Dae Kim (Hawaii Five-O), Sasha Lane, and Thomas Haden Church (John Carter, Tombstone) as Lobster Johnson.

Check out this first trailer for the new Hellboy:

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Trailer Park–The “New Superhero Stories” Edition

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October 6, 2018

Along with a special sneak peek that can be found in theaters at the end of the credits for Marvel’s Venom, a new trailer for the animated Miles Morales Spidey pic Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse has landed this week, revealing some of the key characters fans of the modern comics stories have been waiting for.  It has Shameik Moore as Miles, BumbleBee’s Hailee Steinfeld as Spider-Gwen, Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir, New Girl’s Jake Johnson as Peter Parker, Lily Tomlin as Aunt May, and Liev Schreiber as The Kingpin.  And a few other cool surprises.

DC Entertainment’s latest effort, Aquaman, got its own extended trailer this weekend, too, showing more of the story arc with Jason Momoa‘s Arthur Curry and Amber Heard‘s Mera.   The CGI sharks are the highlight of this trailer, plus Yahya Abdul-Mateen II‘s Black Manta in action, and the first look at Aquaman in a new costume that more closely matches his classic look.

On the small screen Marvel’s Daredevil is back with its third season this month.  Charlie Cox is back as Matt Murdock, with Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy, and Vincent D’Onofrio returns as the season’s key villain Wilson Fisk.

And in case you missed it, the new Hellboy movie has a new official poster, featuring Stranger Things’ David Harbour in the updated prosthetics.  And a new wide-angle poster released at New York Comic Con shows a first look at co-stars Milla Jovovich, Daniel Dae Kim, Sasha Lane, and Ian McShane.

Here are the trailers:

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Now streaming–Soaring and magnificent, Pirates: Dead Men Tell No Tales is another great high seas adventure

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January 6, 2018

Review by C.J. Bunce

Say what you like about the three sequels to 2003’s surprise Disney hit Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, if you love adventures on the high seas, you’ve had a place to come home to, with Dead Man’s Chest (2006), At World’s End (2007), and On Stranger Tides (2011).  If you love the full scope of 3D technology, the series has revealed the potential beauty of the technology as the films provided some beautiful cinematography.  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales truly brings pirate lore full circle, with Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, and more all coming back and as barnacled as ever.  The fifth entry in the series is now streaming on Netflix and available on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD, and 4K.

In a year that should see award shows celebrating 17 years of Hugh Jackman fleshing out the story of genre favorite character Logan, also known as Wolverine, 14 of those years saw Johnny Depp create the most memorable character of his career as Captain Jack Sparrow.  Always coming back for more and playing the heart out of his stumbling, distracted, but savvy survivor of visits to the bottom of the ocean and back, Depp solidified what a generation (or two) will always think of first when they hear the word pirate.  Taking a close second for that honor is Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Hector Barbossa, who also graced the screen in each film in the series as an equally interesting but different kind of salty pirate.  When you think of great, modern, master thespians stepping into high-profile genre roles to make them compelling, Rush as Barbossa should be at the top of your list.

Along with the great costumes, weapons, ships, and locations, audiences will find even more Rube Goldberg and Charlie Chaplin-inspired physical comedy in Dead Men Tell No Tales.  For the perennial dose of pirate gravitas, Academy Award winning actor Javier Bardem steps in to the guest star space filled in past adventures by the likes of Ian McShane, Bill Nighy, Penélope Cruz, Zoe Saldana, and Stellan Skarsgård.  Bardem is another perfectly cast actor, as a gritty, mighty captain condemned to death with his crew by a young Jack Sparrow.  With some of the series’ best visual effects, Bardem’s Spanish Captain Salazar and his crew roam the high seas looking like they are walking on the ocean’s floor, complete with wet flowing hair and clothes–and missing body parts.  They are ghosts, but a new–and brilliant–take on pirate ghosts (or are they ghost pirates?).  Plus… ghost sharks!

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Just in time to save us from the cold, Hellboy now has his own brand of 66.6% proof cinnamon whiskey

Filed under: Comics & Books, Con Culture, Fantasy Realms, Movies, Superheroes — Leave a comment
November 6, 2017

Mike Mignola’s Hellboy took comic book fans by storm when it arrived in bookstores in 1994.  Since then it’s grown to become a pop culture sensation.  A hit character and supernatural world outside the caped crusaders of comicdom, Hellboy stories earned Dark Horse comics creators a dozen Eisner Awards and inspired numerous tie-ins, from novels, to video games, to animated films and live action feature films.  Next year Stranger Things star David Harbour will don the Hellboy (sawed-off) horns and bring the next live action film to theaters, and fans can hardly wait.  Check out the first marketing photos released of him below.  The film also is set to feature stars like Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Daniel Dae Kim, Brian Gleeson, Sophie Okonedo, and Alistair Petrie.

Dark Horse Comics has let Hellboy branch out beyond the normal comic book tie-in realm.  He’s inspired a draft ale, a wine, and now a very appropriate addition: Hellboy Hell Water Cinnamon Whiskey.  We’ve tried cinnamon whiskey before (umm… you know, at holiday parties and whatnot), but Hellboy’s whiskey is firey red like the man himself (instead of the orange of most brands) and tastes a lot like liquefied Red Hots cinnamon candy with a similar heat.  It also sports a sleek collectible bottle and has some clever in-universe information on the label, “American soldiers discovered Hellboy on December 23rd, 1944, after a Nazi experiment brought him into our world.  Dedicated to the B.P.R.D.”  Best of all, the XXX Distillery made the whiskey “66.6”% Proof, so you know this is 100% Hellboy.

Hellboy Hell Water has a smooth whiskey flavor, but it also packs a bite.  You can find plenty of mixed drink ideas at the distributor’s website, HellboyHellWater.com.  We mixed up a mocha latte 3 to 1 with Hellboy Hell Water to make a strong Mexican style coffee.  With the November chill already laying its stake into your chest you might also try a hot apple cider 3 to 1 parts with Hell Water.  We used a great local maker, Louisburg Cider, and its pulpy quality seemed to blend just right (and it seemed to clear away a Fall head cold, too).  And if cider and coffee aren’t your thing, add a shot to a mug of hot chocolate for some cocoa cheer with an extra kick instead of peppermint schnapps.

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First look–Michael Shannon leads a quirky holiday tale in “Pottersville”

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November 2, 2017

A quirky new holiday film is on its way to theaters next week.  Pottersville is next in the line of light-hearted regional comedies populated with plenty of familiar faces.  Genre fans can find Midnight Special and Man of Steel’s Michael Shannon as a friendly businessman who gets mistaken for Bigfoot when he gets drunk and stumbles through town in a gorilla costume.  This sets up an opportunity to perpetuate the story as a way to bring tourists into the town, a town which has fallen on hard times.

The trailer for the film is filled with holiday cheer and that unique blend of kooky characters and winter spirit you only find in the odd (stress on the word “odd”) attempt at a holiday keeper.  Or on the Hallmark Channel.  The man of many faces, Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Star Trek Nemesis) stands out in particular in the trailer as the town’s dopey sheriff.

The rest of the cast includes Firefly, Man Men, and Life’s Christina Hendricks, Ant-Man and Jurassic World’s Judy Greer, Night at the Museum and Bob’s Burgers’ Thomas Lennon, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Snow White and the Huntsman’s Ian McShane.  Pottersville gets a bit of a jump on another holiday film for the season, The Man Who Invented Christmas starring Dan Stevens (previewed here at borg.com).

Check out the trailer for the new holiday film Pottersville:

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First look–Dead Men Tell No Tales, Javier Bardem joins Johnny Depp in fifth Pirates adventure

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October 3, 2016

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The Pirates of the Caribbean series is a rare franchise in Hollywood.  Any other film based on a game or something like an amusement park ride would have died after the initial movie.  But Pirates has withstood critical acclaim, and Jack Sparrow, the lead in each adventure, gave Johnny Depp one of several well-deserved Academy Award nominations.  The fifth installment in the series, Dead Men Tell No Tales, is coming next year, and we have the first trailer for the film, a brilliantly moody clip where we meet the new undead antagonist Captain Salazar played by Javier Bardem.  Call them ghost pirates or pirate ghosts, the inhabitants of this fantasy world continue to excite fans of a good adventure story.  Thank Sir Walter Scott and later Robert Louis Stevenson for getting generations excited about a good pirate story.  Add in a ghost story and just tell us the time and place to show up and we’ll be there.

The last Pirates entry, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, was such a visually stunning production with–more importantly–an interesting story, that it could be the franchise may just be hitting its stride.  On Stranger Tides kicked up the film’s action compared to the prior two films, Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End.  Check out my review here.  It was almost as good as The Curse of the Black Pearl, which made my Top 10 fantasy movie list.

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We just can’t get enough of Johnny Depp and the roles he takes on, especially with this character–a character he has been able to develop over a 14-year span.  Depp and Ethan Hawke, who we discussed here at borg.com last week in our review of The Magnificent Seven, are the best actors of their generation.  It’s hard to beat Depp continuing on with a recurring role like this.  And just look at the guest stars of this series:  Jonathan Pryce, Bill Nighy, Naomie Harris, Stellan Skarsgaard, Penelope Cruz, Ian McShane, and Keith Richards?   Geoffrey Rush is back as Barbossa in Dead Men Tell No Tales, and its rumored David Wenham and Paul McCartney will appear.

So check out this preview for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales:

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3D Blu-ray review–Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

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September 17, 2014

Ian McShane Teach Pirates Blackbeard

Review by C.J. Bunce

When Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales hits theaters in 2017, the tenth largest money making movie franchise will give fans its fourth sequel.  Usually the fifth film in a franchise is so far from the spirit of the original that it fails miserably.  But the last Pirates entry, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, was such a visually stunning production with–more importantly–an interesting story that it could be the Johnny Depp-led franchise may just be hitting its stride.  The first of the films released on Blu-ray 3D is a showcase for the home viewing technology, and is worth another look, especially if you only saw it in the theater on 3D or just the DVD version.

Still derived on the amusement park ride and the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow, the role that earned Johnny Depp one of his best actor Academy Award nominations, On Stranger Tides kicks up the film’s action compared to the prior two films, Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End.  In part because director Jerry Bruckheimer branched out and borrowed the film’s story from an award-winning novel by Tim Powers (1987’s On Stranger Tides), this new film is simply better all around.  Except for some scenes that could stand to be edited down, On Stranger Tides is nearly as good as the original Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl. 

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