Lawless - DVD Review

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman and Dane DeHaan.
Directed by John Hillcoat.

★★½

Tom Hardy has star power and he exudes it here.  He's Forrest, one of the three Bondurant brothers, hillbilly moonshiners who refused to pay off the law during Prohibition.  Forrest is the brains of the bunch.  Brawn, too, though older brother Howard (Jason Clarke) is capable of delivering his own psycho butt-whippin'.

But the main protagonist is the sensitive youngest brother (Shia LaBeouf), who wants to be part of the business.  He idolizes gangsters and puts up their newspaper clippings like a 10-year-old girl and her One Direction posters.  Gary Oldman makes an appearance as one such gangster, but his part's so small, it's more of an extended cameo.

The villain here is Guy Pearce as a creepy federal officer from Chicago who wants his piece and who will kill to get it.

There's a stop-and-start lurching to the pace that subtracts from the enjoyment.  I really wanted to love this movie but must admit it was merely okay.

Anne Hathaway as Fantine, Shia's A Giant, etc.

- Anne Hathaway will play Fantine in the big-screen treatment of the musical Les Miserables. Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) will direct. Hugh Jackman will play Valjean and Russell Crowe will play Javert. According to IMDB.com, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter are rumored to be up for the Thenardiers. Rush played Javert in the 1998 non-musical movie.

- On the day TMZ released footage of Shia LaBeouf getting beat up outside a Vancouver bar, Universal has announced he'll play a 20-foot giant in Gil Kenan's A Giant.

- Forest Whitaker and Johnny Knoxville has joined the cast of The Last Stand, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Random Entertainment News 7/19/11

- Tom Cruise will play Jack Reacher in One Shot, based on Lee Child's best-selling book series. In the books, Jack is 6'5" and 250 lbs. Christopher McQuarrie will direct. Afterwards, Cruise will star in the sci-fi actioner Oblivion for director Joseph Kosinski (Tron Legacy).

- Sean Bean (Game of Thrones) is in talks to play the King to Julia Roberts's Queen in Tarsem Singh's Snow White, starring Lily Collins.

- Kevin Costner will play Leonardo DiCaprio's villainous right-hand man in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, a spaghetti western about a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) seeking revenge and to free his family.

- Dennis Quaid is the latest to join the cast of What to Expect When You're Expecting, an ensemble rom-com about pregnancy. It stars Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Banks, Anna Kendrick, Chace Crawford, Brooklyn Decker (Just Go with It) and Matthew Morrison (Glee).

- Producer Don Murphy (Transformers 3) is planning a live-action Captain Planet movie.

- Robert Redford will play a Vietnam-Era radical still on the run in The Company You Keep, co-starring Shia LaBeouf as a reporter who finds him.

- Bill Moseley (The Devil's Rejects), Alexandra Daddario (Percy Jackson), Scott Eastwood (Gran Torino) and Richard Riehle (Office Space) are among those cast in the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D movie. Gunnar Hansen, the original Leatherface, will make a cameo appearance.

- Stephen Dillane (The Hours) and Carice van Houten (Valkyrie) have been cast as Stannis Baratheon and his witch-priestess Melisandre in the second season of HBO's Game of Thrones. Stannis is the younger brother of the late King Robert and rightful heir to the throne (if you ignore Daenerys's claim).

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - DVD Review

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Starring Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin, Carey Mulligan, Frank Langella, Susan Sarandon, Eli Wallach, Austin Pendleton, Vanessa Ferlito and Jason Clarke.
Directed by Oliver Stone.

The 1987 movie holds up surprisingly well, and this sequel is a pretty decent, timely follow-up to how a handful of greedy people can ruin the lives of millions. Shia LaBeouf, he who risks overexposure between Indiana Jones 4 and the Transformers franchise, does well here, playing a hotshot Wall Street type named Jake who actually has a pet project he believes in - green energy. He's also really good at what he does; he makes money.

This one hits some of the same stanzas as the first one, but Gekko is different. Still wily and untrustworthy, but he acts as a mentor to Jake, whom he learns will be his son-in-law.

The movie does an amusing job of making it look like the 2008 financial collapse was the responsibility of a handful of old men with pocket-watches in a room with finely varnished furniture. It also shows how another handful of men were able to make millions off short-selling and then buying stock in those companies whom the government bailed out.

I kept thinking about how math geniuses at Harvard don't invent tangible things; they get into Wall Street. They make millions of dollars off of nothing but credit defaults swaps and derivatives and market manipulation. But that's neither here nor there.

Stone is back to form here. He's had some indulgent projects recently (Alexander, anyone?) but the narrative is smooth and the editing is swift without feeling choppy. And it's an absolute pleasure to see Douglas revisit his Gekko role.