Caleb Landry Jones

Caleb Landry Jones

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American Made Review

Good

An enjoyably freewheeling tone and Tom Cruise's star wattage combine to make this an entertaining true story. Packed with an astonishing sequence of absurd twists and turns, it's the kind of movie that could only be based on real-life events. But Cruise kind of overwhelms the material, turning it into a film about his trademark cock-of-the-walk swagger rather than an actual man who got caught up in a series of outrageous situations.

It opens in 1978, as airline pilot Barry Seal (Cruise) is approached by shifty CIA handler Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) and offered a great job flying over Central America and taking spy photos of freedom fighters and terrorists. With his wife Lucy (Sarah Wright Olsen) oblivious, the job soon escalates into an arms-delivery service across the region. This introduces Barry to Colombian drug lord Jorge Ochoa (Alejandro Edda), who offers him huge amounts of cash to carry cocaine back to America on his return flights. Soon Barry is running a massive business under the protection of the CIA, DEA and Reagan's White House. But these are dangerous people, and a series of shaky events reminds Barry how precarious his position is.

The film is narrated with videotapes Barry records in 1986 to document everything he got up to over the previous eight years. This gives director Doug Liman and screenwriter Gary Spinelli a framework on which to hang a series of rapid-fire set pieces, and the story leaps quickly from one crazy moment to the next, rarely pausing for breath. This is a lot of fun to watch, especially because the details scattered throughout the script are so jaw-dropping. But this race through the material doesn't offer much time for character development, and Barry never seems like a person in his own right: he's Tom Cruise, flashing that white grin while diving into a series of dangerous stunts.

Continue reading: American Made Review

Stonewall Trailer


Danny Winters is a young man in 1969, who becomes disenfranchised from the marginalisation and discrimination of some members of society. His radical opinions cause his parents to kick him out of their Kansas home, and so he takes the opportunity to travel to New York where he meets a group of liberal and flamboyant youths who shelter him and bring him to a discreet gay club run by the mafia known as The Stonewall Inn. Unfortunately, this is a place frequently raided by cops, who are less than liberal in their way of thinking. Tired of the constant social threats and alienation, Danny leads an army with members of the gay, trans and cross-dressing community to fight against the corrupt police with a full scale riot.

Continue: Stonewall Trailer

Queen And Country Trailer


Basic training for the Korean War is tough on a group of young British cadets. It's specifically tough on Bill Rohan (Callum Turner), as their sergeant hates him. The only consoling factor is the trainee nurses school just outside of his basecamp. When he's not trying to woo the nurses in the town, he's sneaking over to their school to see the woman he has fallen in love with. But when the sergeant's prize clock is stolen, Rohan must do everything to save his best friend from court marshalling, catch the girl of his dreams, and prepare for war.

Continue: Queen And Country Trailer

God's Pocket Review


Good

Despite a strong sense of the characters and the setting, this film struggles to engage viewers with its downbeat story about how tough life is. Even though the performances are powerful enough to hold the attention, the film feels like it drifts aimlessly along, never coming into focus in a meaningful way. And since everything is right on the surface, there isn't much subtext to help the events resonate with the audience.

In the God's Pocket neighbourhood in 1980s Philadelphia, everyone knows everything about each others' lives. Mickey (Philip Seymour Hoffman) works as a driver delivering meat, but spends just as much time planning small-time scams with his pal Arthur (John Turturro). Then his life is thrown out of balance when his hothead stepson Leon (Caleb Landry Jones) dies in what is suspiciously described as a workplace accident. Mickey's wife Jeanie (Christina Hendricks) struggles to cope with her son's death, so Mickey is easily pressured by the local mortician (Eddie Marsan) into buying a funeral he can't afford. To make some extra cash, he plans a heist with Arthur and their careless pal Sal (Domenick Lombardozzi), which predictably goes awry. Meanwhile, a famed local journalist (Richard Jenkins) starts looking into Leon's death.

It's not like the film is low on plot: there are plenty of story strands to push each character further into their own personal desperation. And the tightly knit setting provides an intriguing counterpoint as everyone's dirty laundry is aired for all to see, which pushes their true emotions even further underground. This lets the actors deliver riveting performances, even as they're all beaten down to mere husks of humanity. In one of his final roles, Hoffman is terrific as a guy for whom everything goes relentlessly wrong. Hendricks is pretty wrenching as the rather drippy Jeanie, whose interaction with Jenkins is both warm and depressing. Thankfully, Turturro and Marsan provide a spark of energy, as does Joyce Van Patten in a scene-stealing role as Arthur's gun-crazy aunt.

Continue reading: God's Pocket Review

God's Pocket Trailer


God's Pocket seems to be an ordinary working class neighbourhood at face value; full of people with ordinary jobs and ordinary families. However, a dark undertone begins to show when Mickey Scarpato's insane stepson Leon dies following a so-called accident at a construction site. Mickey wants people to believe he slipped and fell to his death (not that anybody cares that the town is short of a man like Leon), but Leon's mother Jeanie is desperate to know what really happened. While Mickey tries to comfort his wife, Jeanie is approached by a shameless reporter named Richard Shellburn who is also investigating any mystery behind the death. All Mickey wants is the body in the ground and a large debt of his to be repaid - but it looks like his life is about to get a whole lot more complicated.

Continue: God's Pocket Trailer

Byzantium Review


Very Good

Nearly 20 years after Interview With the Vampire, Neil Jordan returns to the genre to breath some new life into a mythology that has grown stale, predictable and rather mopey  (see Twilight). With a lively script by Buffini, Jordan creates a lushly stylish dramatic thriller that continually takes us aback with off-beat storytelling and complex characters who don't always do what we expect them to.

The story centres on mother-daughter immortals Clara and Eleanor (Arterton and Ronan), who are on the run when they arrive in a fading British seaside town. The resourceful Clara seduces the nervous Noel (Mays) so they can stay in his dilapidated Byzantium guesthouse. To earn some cash, the always resourceful Clara turns the empty rooms into a brothel. Meanwhile, Eleanor befriends the fragile young Frank (Jones) and reveals the fact that she and her mother are actually more than 200 years old and need human blood to survive. Through all of this, they're being chased by two elder vampires, the ruthless Ruthven (Miller) and the more sympathetic Darvell (Riley), both of whom share a tangled romantic past with Clara.

Unusually intelligent, the film holds our interest with an astonishing series of twists and turns plus an array of colourful characters that play on stereotypes. Holding it all together is a fairly simple plot that reveals itself in bits and pieces until the full picture comes into focus. From this point, we pretty much know what has to happen in the big finale, but watching events unfold is satisfying and sometimes both thrilling and moving.

Continue reading: Byzantium Review

Byzantium Trailer


Clara and Eleanor are a mother and daughter, born two centuries ago as vampires and surviving only on the blood of mortal beings. They escape to an English seaside town and are taken into an abandoned guesthouse by the owner, Noel. While Clara takes on a job as a lady of the night who drains the blood from her clients, Eleanor has dreams of being a writer, chronicling her life as a vampire in pages that she usually scatters in the wind. It isn't long before they are discovered, both by the mortal people of the town and by The Brotherhood; an all-male vampire organisation that seek to find and kill Clara. Eleanor meets a boy called Frank, who she develops feelings for and spills the secrets of her world to, angering her mother who fears for their safety. As knowledge of their existence spreads further and further, they are forced to confront their past and the deadly secrets that come with it.

Continue: Byzantium Trailer

Antiviral Review


Very Good

It may be style over substance, but Brandon Cronenberg cleverly blends his father David's love of medical yuckiness with an elusive Lynchian-style mystery to keep us unnerved all the way through this low-key thriller. And the film also works as a dark satire on today's celebrity-obsessive culture, in which fans will go to any lengths to be closer to their idols. So imagine if they had the chance to share a star's illness.

This is the work done by the gleaming, futuristic Lucas Clinic, where clinician Syd (Jones) works. He injects one patient (Smith) with an STD taken from mega-star Hanna Geist (Gadon). But Syd has secretly given himself a more powerful virus, which he learns is killing Hannah. Now everyone wants to get their hands on him, even as he realises that he needs to find a cure before it's too late. So he gets in touch with Hannah's assistant (McCarthy) and doctor (McDowell), and discovers that there's a conspiracy afoot involving his clinic's main rival.

The idea that fans would go to this kind of extreme isn't actually that unbelievable in a culture in which we watch their every move on reality TV and feel like their friends through Twitter. And Cronenberg's idea goes beyond sharing viruses, including cloned skin grafts and even a butcher (Pingue) who sells meat grown from celebrity cells. While the ideas echo some of David Cronenberg's films (mainly Videodrome and eXistenZ), this is also a strikingly original approach. The imagery looks amazing, with all-white surfaces and a spare use of colour, against which Syd's unravelling physicality looks increasingly garish.

Continue reading: Antiviral Review

Contraband Review


Weak
There isn't a single moment in this film that feels authentic, as cast and crew charge hardheadedly through a ludicrous series of obstacles that would be comical if the film wasn't so insistent on grunting with explosive machismo every step of the way.

Chris (Wahlberg) is a notorious smuggler who has gone straight to have a quiet life with his wife Kate (Beckinsale) and their two young kids. But when Kate's brother (Jones) falls afoul of New Orleans thug Briggs (Ribisi), Chris and his pal Sebastian (Foster) have to plan "one last job" to get the family off the hook. This involves Chris and Andy travelling by ship to Panama to collect counterfeit bills from a crazy dealer (Luna), then furtively returning to America. But of course nothing goes to plan.

Continue reading: Contraband Review

Contraband Trailer


Chris Farraday used to lead a life of crime but that was before he met his wife, Kate. Now, he's happily married with two children and he wouldn't change it for the world. Even his own father is impressed with how he has turned his life around.

Continue: Contraband Trailer

Caleb Landry Jones

Caleb Landry Jones Quick Links

News Video Film RSS

Occupation

Actor


Caleb Landry Jones Movies

American Made Movie Review

American Made Movie Review

An enjoyably freewheeling tone and Tom Cruise's star wattage combine to make this an entertaining...

American Made Trailer

American Made Trailer

From a very young age, all Barry Seal had wanted to do was fly and...

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri Trailer

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri Trailer

Somebody messed with the wrong mother when they murdered her daughter Angela Hayes (Kathryn Newton)....

Get Out Movie Review

Get Out Movie Review

Leave it to a comedian to make one of the scariest movies in recent memory....

Get Out Trailer

Get Out Trailer

When Chris packs up for the weekend to go and meet his girlfriend Rose's family...

War On Everyone Trailer

War On Everyone Trailer

Terry Monroe and Bob Bolaño are cops who seek their own form of justice. If...

Stonewall Trailer

Stonewall Trailer

Danny Winters is a young man in 1969, who becomes disenfranchised from the marginalisation and...

Queen And Country Trailer

Queen And Country Trailer

Basic training for the Korean War is tough on a group of young British cadets....

God's Pocket Movie Review

God's Pocket Movie Review

Despite a strong sense of the characters and the setting, this film struggles to engage...

God's Pocket Trailer

God's Pocket Trailer

God's Pocket seems to be an ordinary working class neighbourhood at face value; full of...

Byzantium Movie Review

Byzantium Movie Review

Nearly 20 years after Interview With the Vampire, Neil Jordan returns to the genre to...

Byzantium Trailer

Byzantium Trailer

Clara and Eleanor are a mother and daughter, born two centuries ago as vampires and...

Antiviral Movie Review

Antiviral Movie Review

It may be style over substance, but Brandon Cronenberg cleverly blends his father David's love...

Contraband Movie Review

Contraband Movie Review

There isn't a single moment in this film that feels authentic, as cast and crew...

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