Tag: Ron Pearlman

Geekscape Movie Reviews: ‘Asher’

by AnalogJonesTOF

This Friday night I rented Asher – He’s a Hebrew hitman looking for love… and his retirement benefits.

Director: Michael Caton-Jones
Writer: Jay Zaretsky
Release Date: December 7, 2018
Runtime: 1 hour 44 minutes
Rated: R

Character Rundown
Ron Perlman plays Asher, a former Mossad member turned gun for hire.
Famke Janssen plays Sophie, a ballet teacher that takes care of her mother with dementia.
Richard Dreyfuss plays Avi, the man at the top who calls the shots.
Peter Facinelli plays Uziel, the younger hitman who was trained by Asher.
Jacqueline Bisset plays Dora, Sophie’s mother with dementia.

Geekscape Movie Reviews: 'Asher' | Asher Firing

Quick Synopsis
2018 seems to be the tough old man year. We’ve got The Oldman with a Gun starring Robert Redford at age 82, The Mule starring Clint Eastwood at 88 and now Asher starring a 68-year-old Ron Perlman. I’m not complaining, in fact, I love silver-haired character stories where the main protagonist questions their existence.

Asher lives a lonely life in a quiet apartment, eating dinner and drinking wine by himself every night at 8 pm. Asher has a routine that is foolproof. He works alone, gets his usual rate, shines his shoes and takes out his target. It’s rather enjoyable watching Asher’s tactics of making the “hit.” He lights up a cigarette, sets off the sprinklers and waits for his victim to come out of their door and BOOM, they’re dead. He even grabs a new umbrella for every job.

One night while Asher is getting ready to take down another mark, he passes out from walking up the stairs and falls into Sophie’s apartment. Sophie is a beautiful woman with somber brown eyes. Famke Janssen brings a lot of soul to this character. Instead of only being the love interest, she brings weight to Sophie’s character with witty banter and puzzling looks. Once Asher sees Sophie, he has to make her dinner. Sophie resists at first but decides to surprise him one night and change up his routine.

The story hits a snag when Asher decides to break his own rule of working alone. He takes a job with a younger hitman, Uziel, which Asher mentored. Uziel’s team needs back up, and Asher must cover them while they take out a house of rival mobsters.

After the job, Asher finds his world-changing, and he must find a way to keep it together along with getting Sophie out alive.

Pros:

Perlman seems to keep getting better with age. He may be older, but it seems to make him more interesting to watch. His grizzled look carries so many small details in how he walks and talks as Asher.

An older cast. Jacqueline Bisset is 74, Richard Dreyfuss is 71, Ron Pearlman is 68, and Famke Janssen is 53, they still can bring it. Hollywood is a young man/woman’s game, but that doesn’t mean it’s always better. This movie proves it.

Cons:

It can get a little sleepy at times. The Noir look coupled with the long takes can drag, but it’s a small nitpick.

Final Grade: B-

Thanks for reading, and check out our podcast Analog Jones and the Temple of Film. We are a VHS Podcast that breaks down the box art, trailers and behind the scenes.

– Stephen M. Bay

Teaser Trailer For Season 5 Of ‘Sons Of Anarchy’

by Scott Alminiana

On September 5th, SAMCRO will be riding back onto television screens everywhere. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen this season. Last season was insane! I’m a huge fan of the show and always look forward to it’s return. It’s going to be a long wait between now and then, but here’s a teaser trailer for season 5 to whet your appetite.

And don’t forget about the Sons of Anarchy panel at this years Comic-Con:

Sunday, July 15
2:45-3:45 Sons of Anarchy— Get an inside look into the world of FX’s highest-rated series ever, with creator Kurt Sutter (The Shield) and stars Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Ron Perlman, Maggie Siff, Kim Coates, Mark Boone Junior, Tommy Flanagan, Theo Rossi,Ryan Hurst, and Dayton Callie. Hall H

Check Out The First Poster For Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Pacific Rim’!

by Scott Alminiana

Here’s the first poster for Pacific Rim, Guillermo Del Toro’s upcoming movie. Warner Bros has released this exclusively for Comic-Con. The first footage of the movie will be shown on Saturday July 14th from 2:30-5:00 in Hall H during the Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures panel.

From acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro comes Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ epic sci-fi action adventure “Pacific Rim.”

When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end.  To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge.  But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju.  On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past.  Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

Oscar® nominee Guillermo del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth”) is directing “Pacific Rim” from a script by Travis Beacham (“Clash of the Titans”).  Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni and Mary Parent are producing, with Callum Greene serving as executive producer.

The film stars Charlie Hunnam (TV’s “Sons of Anarchy”), Idris Elba (“Thor”), Rinko Kikuchi (“The Brothers Bloom”), Charlie Day (“Horrible Bosses”), and Ron Perlman (the “Hellboy” films).  The ensemble cast also includes Max Martini, Robert Kazinsky, Clifton Collins, Jr., Burn Gorman, Larry Joe Campbell, Diego Klattenhoff, and Brad William Henke.

Del Toro’s behind-the-scenes team includes Academy Award®-winning director of photography Guillermo Navarro, production designer Andrew Neskoromny, editor Peter Amundson, and costume designer Kate Hawley.

Slated for release in Summer 2013, “Pacific Rim” is a presentation of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures.  The film will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

Hellboy 2 – The Geekscape Review

by Jonathan

I’m not that into Hellboy. I think he’s a cool looking character and Mike Mignola’s art is amazing. I think the stories are fun but it’s just a bit on the light side and I could never get too invested in them. I am, however, a huge fan of Guillermo Del Toro. So I was quite excited when the first Hellboy came out. It gave a filmmaker I adored a fun world to play in. The end result came off a bit like the Hellboy comics though. It was fun, it looked cool, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care too much.

Since the release of Hellboy, Guillermo Del Toro has grown immensely as a filmmaker and has proven himself to have one of the most vivid imaginations of any director working today. He has also earned critical acclaim and his name now carries some weight. So it’s a new, more powerful Del Toro who is tackling Hellboy 2, and it shows.

Hellboy 2 is a wild ride through a mad genius’ imagination. Del Toro finally had the freedom to go all out and every inch of the screen is filled with amazing little details. He took Mike Mignola’s world and really made it his own without betraying the source material, and in doing so turned something I only kind of liked into something I loved.

Yes, I loved Hellboy 2. I think it improves on the original in every way. The story is clearer and better told, the action is more spectacular, the visuals are breathtaking, and the characters that matter were front and center. In Hellboy we were forced to view this world through the eyes of a human outsider and as such we were one step removed from everything. This time we are with Hellboy and his crew and we are thoroughly entrenched in their world and it makes us do something we didn’t the first time around. It makes us care.

Luckily we have a good story to care about. The plot of Hellboy 2 is very simple but it’s told in an incredibly strong manner. There is a thing the bad guys want and that the good guys can’t let them have. That thing of course doesn’t really matter. It’s a classic MacGuffin that just serves as an excuse to get our characters moving. We aren’t buried under boring exposition. The real meat of the movie is with the characters and their relationships. Everyone gets screen time here and their characters are very clearly and strongly defined. We watch as Hellboy deals with doubt over his place in the world, as Liz deals with fear over the future of her family, as Abe deals with an impossible romance. We also get a villain who isn’t just “evil”. He’s not a cardboard cutout. He has depth and he has purpose and he is sympathetic, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Character and plot are all well and good, but the real star of the show here is the art design and makeup work. There are very few humans in this movie but there are tons of monsters and they all exist. What I mean by that is these aren’t empty CG shells. This isn’t one character design repeated ad naseum in a computer. These are wall to wall crazy creatures made with practical effects and makeup. They have personality, they have life, and it’s absolutely wonderful to watch. That’s not to say there isn’t any CG but it is used sparingly, and it is used to enhance rather than replace.

I was really taken aback by all of the different character designs on display here. It’s either an effects department’s wet dream or worst nightmare. The Troll Market scene in particular steals the show and has been getting a lot of comparisons to the Cantina scene in Star Wars. For my money this outdoes Star Wars by a large margin.

Makeup can only go so far without a skilled actor making it move and all the major players bring their A game here. Perlman IS Hellboy. He is so comfortable in the role and completely makes you forget that there is a nearly 60 year old human in there. Doug Jones finally gets to use his real voice in a movie and, even though I preferred David Hyde Pearce, does an admirable job as Abe Sapien. His true talent lies in his body language though and in this department he is second to none. The big surprise this time around was Seth MacFarlane, of Family Guy fame, as Johann Krauss, the German accented gas… guy. He provides some of the funniest moments in the film and is a very welcome addition.

I feel like I should say something negative about the movie, but there is really very little wrong with it. Kid Hellboy looks kind of stupid. Abe’s relationship with the elf princess seems a bit abrupt and he makes a questionable decision because of it that you don’t quite buy. I’m really having to try to nit pick here.

Point is, the movie is awesome and I’m kind of bummed that The Hobbit is going to keep us from seeing Hellboy 3 for quite some time.