Tag Archives: Pierce Brosnan

Horror, Movie Reviews, Movies, Mystery, Thriller, Tribeca Film Festival 2021

TRIBECA 2021 REVIEW: “FALSE POSITIVE” HULU

06/27/2021 Peggy Marie 2 Comments

One of my tops to watch for Tribeca 2021 was “FALSE POSITIVE” and let me tell you how this slow-burn thriller did not disappoint – for the first hour. What started off semi-interesting, unfortunately took a spin into left field and went for ridiculous and non-sensical.

Lucy (Ilana Glazer), plays a mom who is struggling with something that many have before, conceiving a child. Her husband Adrian (Justin Theroux), agrees they need to to a fertility clinic in attempt to get pregnant, and he conveniently knows of one ran by his old medical professor, Dr. Hindle (Pierce Brosnan). It’s an odd place, with stepford like nurses in Nurse Rita (Sabine Gadecki) and most especially lead Nurse Dawn (Gretchen Mol). She conceives multiple babies, twin boys and a daughter she names “Wendy”. But the one fetus, the girl, is weak, and Lucy and Adrian have to make a choice about selective reduction: save the two males or save the female.

Replete with the evil fertility doctor played by Brosnan, and the thoroughly complicit husband played by Theroux, Ilana gets to play a mom, struggling with something that everybody, in this movie at least, keeps calling “mommy brain”. But it’s clearly much much more than whatever that ‘affliction’ might be. First her husband, then her friends, even the closest one from the ‘mommy group’ Corgan (Sophia Bush), seemingly start to turn on her as we see Lucy having all these random paranoid thoughts and dreams. But the absolute last straw is when the midwife she chose in secret and insists on using finally proclaims, “I am not your mystical negress.” How does that even come to be stated in a screenplay, one will never know. Anyway, what was actually intriguing and entertaining for the first 45 minutes, dramatically changes, but what puts you into the ‘really ick’ category is by what unfolds towards the end. It didn’t sit well with me at all. It was incredibly strange, cringey, and just in bad taste. I’m not even sure if the writers knew where they were going with this ending, most especially the last scene. None of this can be revealed as it’s something each person needs to see to decide for themselves what their ‘factor’ is. Plus it’s essentially the entire plot of the movie as well.

Taking all that under consideration, the acting was still quite good from all concerned, most especially Brosnan who took the creepy villain to heart here. But the whole dream sequence after dream sequence and with an ending that made me scream out WHY?? – just took what could have been a truly good creeper horror and made it almost into a joke – albeit a not so good one from this point of view.

C-

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Tribeca Virtual screening of ‘’False Positive” ~ courtesy of ID PR

“FALSE POSITIVE” DEBUTED AT TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL AND IS NOW PLAYING ON HULU

Comedy, Movie Reviews, Movies, Music

REVIEW: “EUROVISION SONG CONTEST: THE STORY OF FIRE SAGA” (2020) Netflix

07/02/2020 Peggy Marie 5 Comments

“EUROVISION SONG CONTEST: THE STORY OF FIRE SAGA” is the story of two clunky but charming singers, who chase their pop star dreams to perform for their country in the very popular International Eurovision song contest. We see Lars (Will Ferrell) as a child watching ABBA at the 1976 Eurovision and from that moment on in life, he aspires to be everything like them. Singing along to ‘Waterloo’ is too amusing for his family as they all laugh at him, this upsets young Lars and he loses their respect, especially from his father Erick (Pierce Brosnan) who does a wonderful, darkly comedic portrayal of one of those dads who had zero faith and belief in his son on this lifelong endeavor.

Fast forward to 2020 and we see Lars teaming up with his childhood best friend and local singer Sigrid (Rachel McAdams) who along with Lars are ‘Fire Saga’, the hometown band in their small town village in Iceland. They have a few fans at local bars but they are dreaming big and are entered into a knockout competition to have the chance to sing at Eurovision. Sigrid wants to get close to Lars, but he thinks it would get in the way of the music and would be a distraction. When the other contestants are blown up, Lars and Sigrid are Iceland’s only chance left and off they go.

On this wild ride that ensues their journey through the Eurovision contest and predicaments they find themselves in, they meet their crazy fellow contests, attend some wild parties where Sigrid finds she has herself an admirer in the Russian favourite, the arrogant and flamboyant Alexander (Dan Stevens), who gives an downright amusing performance here. He comes between Sigrid and Lars who have a love attraction, until Lars decides to not perform and goes home where he not only feels lost, but realizes that Sigrid is his true love and he must return to her – well that and OMG they actually qualify for the contest itself.

As someone who has never watched more than 10 minutes of a Eurovision contest, I must confess that the film is just a little much needed diversion from everything serious happening all around us on a daily basis. And while we shouldn’t just BOOM! forget everything, we as people can do two things at once at take a momentary diversion for a hot second to enjoy this as it doesn’t take itself too seriously and is a hilarious satire of all that Eurovision entails. The over the top performances, the voting fix of neighbouring countries, the notable guest starring roles of past contestants, and yes, the noticing of that Britain never gets a vote, just all add up to a gaggle of tidbits to make this comedic enough for all of us to at least crack a smile at.

All of it’s in good fun though you might not get a complete laugh out loud moment, you will be charmed by this one as even the Icelandic accents are funny, done in a very tongue-in-cheek manner. Again, the characters are more enjoyable and charmingly funny rather than a “ha!ha!” laugh-out-loud type funny. But with some sporting singing from both McAdams and Ferrell to close it all down, makes it one to check out.

Grade: B-

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“EUROVISION SONG CONTEST: THE STORY OF FIRE SAGA” IS AVAILABLE TO WATCH ON NETFLIX

Comedy, Movie Reviews, Movies, Musical

REVIEW: “MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN” (2018) Universal Pictures

07/19/2018 Peggy Marie 4 Comments

Oh my my my my “MAMMA MIA!! HERE WE GO AGAIN” had me from the moment one with my devotion and love for true icons ABBA & C-H-E-R all in one movie. What I didn’t expect, was an actual good movie.

Starting off, this sequel to ‘Mamma Mia’, which also presents itself as a prequel, in my world, this is a two-for-one deal of epic-ness that I loved from the get go. “Here We Go Again” has a much better story line than the original, and while all your faves return, you also make some great new ones. Writer/director Ol Parker – gets some good deeper cuts in, too with this being a new, complex and more mature story involving the characters we’ve known, and sang and danced along with for the past decade. The film quickly establishes the parallel stories with it’s fantastic opening number of “I Kissed A Teacher” and boom! we are introduced to the world of a young Donna (played terrifically by Lily James). Moving along back into the world of Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), is re-opening the hotel her mom Donna (Meryl Streep) ran. Donna died the previous year (this isn’t really isn’t a spoiler). In her mom’s honor, Sophie has renovated the place and is ready for a big celebration, with nearly every important person in her life invited, including Sam (Pierce Brosnan) and Donna’s Dynamo sisters – Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters).

“Here We Go Again” explores within it’s flashbacks, a vibrant and spontaneous Donna of the 1970’s, as she seeks an adventurous life – and we see how she meets the three younger versions of the men whom will play major roles in her life – Harry (Hugh Skinner), Bill (Josh Dylan) and Sam (Jeremy Irvine). It would take more space than I have to touch on every performance, so I’ll just sum it up and highlight a few. With this turn as Donna, Lily James is now officially a STAR as she will charm the socks off of you. In one simple, minute-long scene, Brosnan redeems himself for his lack of singing ability from the original. And in spectacular fashion with white silk wig and pantsuit to match, the one..the only..Cher makes a grand entrance in the final act as Sophie’s grandma… and instantly captivates the screen. And though how she gets to the point of singing is a big spoiler that I just can’t reveal, I will happily admit to yelling out “YES! YES! YES” when it did happen, media screening or not. (no one usually does something like this during them – but I wasn’t alone in my squealing joy of this.. so 🙂 )

Every single person here, from our older versions of Harry (Colin Firth) & Bill (Stellan Skarsgård) doing a bit of ‘Titanic’ for us all, to Fernando (Andy Garcia) & Sky (Dominic Cooper), looks like they’re having an absolute blast, and that happiness is resonates throughout the film and spreads to the audience. ‘Here We Go Again’ provides a carefree, yet meaningful, fun energy that’s so hard to find these days, even in musicals. I got chills during performances of “Mamma Mia!” and “Dancing Queen”, though those are saved till a little later in the film, as the first half has some of Abba’s lesser known hits dominating – though a true ABBA fan will know them!

Sure Mamma Mia 2! might not be perfect – and I might be a sap for anything musical related to ABBA & Cher – but I can guarantee a good time will be had by all who see it. And the beautiful, sweet final scene has a spirit all its own, touching on loss and new life in ways that will hit very close to home. I can only say — I do, I do, I do, I DO want you to see this film.

Grade: B
@pegsatthemovies

Media Review Screening: Monday, July 16, 2018 ~ Courtesy of Universal Pictures
“MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN” WILL BE OUT NATIONWIDE/WORLDWIDE ON FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2018

Action, Movie Reviews, Movies, Spy Thriller, Thriller

REVIEW – “THE NOVEMBER MAN” (2014)

08/28/2014 Peggy Marie 7 Comments

Let me just preface this whole review by from the beginning.. I love Pierce Brosnan..yep..there I said. I don’t give a shit what people say..I loved him as James Bond, clearly a role he was meant to play.. And in so many more movies like ‘Evelyn’, ‘The Tailor of Panama’, ‘The Matador’ just to list a few. So you can clearly imagine how much I was looking forward to this movie ESPECIALLY after seeing him play the James Bond video game on Jimmy Fallon last week & seeing him pitch it.. My hope of all hope was to just see Brosnan back in some sort of spy, actiony-type thriller delivering the one-liners as only he could, with a dose of good action.

So a quick brief over of the plot – “Peter Devereaux” (Pierce Brosnan), a now-retired CIA agent is brought back into service by one of his closest friends “Hanley” (Bill Smitrovich) to help out with one last mission helping to protect someone they both know “Natalia Ulanova” (Mediha Musliovic) who happens to be Devereaux’s old flame and claims to have a information & a name that once given to them, will turn the pending Russian election for President upside down. Turns out, much to his surprise, he is going up against his old, younger protege’ “David Mason” (Luke Bracey) whom he considered a ‘drop’ after a mission gone very bad involving the death of innocent bystanders including a child. They are both looking for “Alice Fournier” (Olga Kurylenko) who unbeknownst to us is really a refugee named Mira from the Chechen War who has enough information to take down the man who is in line to be the next President (aka Dictator) of Russia “Arkady Federov” (Lazar Ristovski). In between all this is a Russian hitwoman “Alexa” (Amila Terzimehic) who as far as I could tell, is trying to basically kill everyone.

As with many others at this screening, I wanted to love this movie..I wanted it to be a great action flick with Pierce Brosnan just giving it all his witty, charming debonairness that he has.. sadly, this is not the return to super spy-ness I had hoped for. It’s more like a mediocre spin at a storyline we’ve seen way to many times done way better say 10 years ago with the Bourne series or Mission Impossible. It all seemed very dated with plot holes GALORE. Brosnan tries, and sometimes succeeds in making the best of this character with maybe a bit of a meaner edge that say James Bond would never be allowed to have While it has a few good moments when Devereaux is outwitting his protege’ Mason ~ for the most part it’s dull, uneven and lackluster…oh and did I mention the plot holes.. At one point, Devereaux threatens to harm Mason’s next door neighbor “Sarah” (Eliza Taylor) whom he has of course, just slept with..by cutting one of her arteries & making him choose to save her or go after him.. yet we never know what happens to her. The ending is one you can see coming at you a mile away and just as sappy as you know it’s going to be once you see, again a mile away, whom has backstabbed who.

I wish Brosnan’s performance here was something to write home about, and it’s okay..but not enough to make the movie pop. Luke Bracey is no where near suave enough to up against Brosnan as a spy and does his best just to keep up here. He doesn’t carry himself of have the oompha Brosnan has, which let’s face it, is what makes him so like-able in most of his roles. Adding even more James Bond-ness wanna be to this movie is well.. a former Bond girl, Olga Kurylenko who while she has some decent chemistry with Brosnan, you feel as though she might be suited a bit better to Bracey’s character considering you realize Brosnan’s character has a 12 yr old daughter whom she doesn’t look much older than. But while she has a few interesting moments she really just doesn’t cut it here as in one scene especially you just want to scream out “REALLY” as while being hunted by literally EVERYONE and they all want to kill her, she stops at the public airport internet service to write up her newspaper story like it’s all the norm. Now I know that’s the writing also, but at least try to make it seem believable..that’s what acting is after all.

Last request.. remember when Sean Connery came back for one last Bond after he’d been retired all those year..yeah..THAT is all I’m asking for.. give Pierce a chance!! #neversayneveragainpartdeux

Grade: C- (below average)

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Grading scale: A = exceptional ~ Oscar worthy B = above average – must see C = Average D = don’t see F: just don’t (+ or – gives it an edge up or down)

Peggy at the Movies