Posts Tagged ‘Zachary Quinto’

The Boys in the Band

Director: Joe Mantello

Cast: Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, Charlie Carver, Robin de Jesus, Brian Hutchinson, Tuc Watkins, Michael Benjamin Washington

This film is only available on the streaming service NETFLIX

Based upon the Tony Award winning play by Mart Crawley, The Boys in the Band was originally made into a film in 1970 by the Oscar winning director of The French Connection William Friedkin. Screenwriter and playwright Mart Crawley died in March 2020.

50 years later, director Joe Mantello remade the film for Netflix and assembling an all gay cast to basically play bitchy versions of themselves in the 2020 version of The Boys in the Band.

Set in Greenwich Village, New York in 1968, this film is about 6 gay men who gather for a fabulous birthday party and one heterosexual man who accidentally gets invited. The cast includes The Normal Heart co-stars Jim Parsons and Matt Bomer who offers some genuine eye candy; Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Margin Call) as Harold, Andrew Rannells (The Intern, Sex and the City 2) as the flirtatious Larry; Tuc Watkins as the straight acting Hank; Charlie Carver as the Cowboy and Robin de Jesus as the quick-tongued Emory along with Michael Benjamin Washington (Love and Other Drugs) as Bernard.

It’s really the Golden Globe winning star of the TV comedy series The Big Bang Theory Jim Parsons who steals the show in a masterful performance as Michael, the twisted and conflicted host of the party whose razor sharp tongue gets released during the second half of the evening as he viciously takes to the Vodka bottle and starts verbally annihilating his closest friends forcing them all to reveal their dark secrets.

Jim Parsons is brilliant in this film and he actually deserves an Oscar nomination in 2021. Parson’s portrayal of Michael is brittle and cruel, unleashing a verbal tirade of bitchy repartee on his unsuspecting guests only to be intellectually challenged by the equally vicious Jewish gay man Harold, another superb performance by Zachary Quinto.

Director Joe Mantello gives each of the characters in the film especially Bernard’s a perceptive flashback into their first crush.

The Boys in the Band has to be contextualized in contemporary queer history as its set the year before the infamous Stonewall riots that happened in Greenwich Village in July 1969, which was the initiation of the gay rights movement in America and a decade and a half before the devastating effects of the AIDS crisis which ripped through New York’s gay community in the mid 1980’s.

Viewers must watch this film as a play being performed. The Boys in the Band is a vicious portrayal of 30 year old gay men projecting the bullying the conventional heterosexual world put onto them while growing up onto each other, a dark and bitter self-loathing wrapped in vodka, chardonnay and forbidden desire.

The Boys in the Band is brilliant, a bitter and fabulous evening filled with bitchy one-liners held together by a superb performance by Jim Parsons, who is the glitter that holds the group together.

The Boys in the Band gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is available on Netflix.

Hotel Artemis

Director: Drew Pearce

Cast: Jodie Foster, Charlie Day, Sterling K. Brown, Dave Bautista, Sofia Boutella, Zachary Quinto, Jenny Slate, Brian Tyree Henry, Jeff Goldblum

A film’s originality is always a bonus. In this case director Drew Pearce’s bizarre yet crazy action thriller Hotel Artemis set in Los Angeles in 2028 is a stark reminder of how chaotic a world can become when law and order breaks down and climate change ravages a city.

A Multi-National Corporation has control of downtown L. A.’s water supply and riots have ensued. In the midst of this anarchy, two brothers codenamed Waikiki and played by Sterling K. Brown and Honolulu played by Brian Tyree Henry get injured in a bank robbery as well as steal some precious diamonds from the Wolf King of L. A. a crime overlord played by Jeff Goldblum.

The only refuge the wounded brothers can find is at Hotel Artemis run by the Nurse, an embittered, heavy drinking nurse, superbly played against type by double Oscar winner Jodie Foster (The Silence of the Lambs, The Accused).

Hotel Artemis set in downtown L. A. is a Hospital for gangsters and has amongst its guests a lethal assassin codenamed Nice played by Algerian actress Sofia Boutella and a cocaine sniffing arms dealer codenamed Acapulco played by Charlie Day (Pacific Rim, Horrible Bosses).

Written and directed by Drew Pearce, who cleverly makes full use of his diverse cast and wisely gives sufficient screen time for Jodie Foster who really holds Hotel Artemis together as the Nurse who suffers from agoraphobia and alcoholism whilst coming to terms with the demons in her own past, namely the death of her son from a drug overdose.

Action man Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) plays Everest, the Nurse’s able bodied assistant, while Zachary Quinto plays The Wolf King’s son and heavy weight gangster Crosby Franklin, who breaches the criminal hotel.

While Pearce devotes the first half of Hotel Artemis to building up the characters and creating the chaotic atmosphere, he wastes no time in the second half with action, as each prisoner/guest turns on each and The Nurse realizes that her best hope for survival in this ruthless criminal underworld is by escaping it.

Despite its originality, Hotel Artemis gets a film rating of 7 out of 10.

I felt that writer/director Drew Pearce needed to spend sufficient time fleshing out the backstory to make the ending more palatable. Audiences that enjoyed Blade Runner 2049, will enjoy Hotel Artemis, a dystopian action thriller without the replicants and sophisticated imagery.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Director: J. J. Abrams

Cast: Chris Pine, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, Alice Eve, Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Morrison, John Cho, Peter Weller, Simon Pegg, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Bruce Greenwood

Director J.J. Abrams dazzling reinvention of the Star Trek franchise continues with the glossy sequel to the 2009 smash hit Star Trek with Star Trek: Into Darkness, pulling together the same cast from the original and then adding the amazing talents of big screen-newcomer Benedict Cumberbatch (last seen in the extraordinary Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) as the evil villain and celestial terrorist Khan, a reinvented character from the 1982 film: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Star Trek: Into Darkness opens with a spectacular volcanic sequence on a primal planet in which Captain Kirk rescues his half Vulcan friend Spock from near extinction to the 23^rd century high tech metropolises such as London and San Francisco. Meanwhile back on Earth the sinister superhuman Khan destroys an Enterprise space library in central London and then wages an attack on the commanding officers of the Enterprise fleet at their Californian headquarters before fleeing Earth for a Klingon refuge on a distant planet.

Captain Kirk played with boisterous heroism by Chris Pine and his team including Zachary Quinto as Spock, Simon Pegg as Scotty, Zoe Saldana as Uhura and ubiquitous Karl Urban as Bones, John Cho as Sulu and Anton Yelchin as Chekov head to the outer reaches of Klingon galactic territory and capture Khan, whose wily ways are only revealed as they head back towards earth. Cumberbatch is really superb as the sinister villain and far out does any of his co-stars maybe with the exception of Quinto’s slightly robotic yet sensitive Spock.

The unrequited love between Kirk and Spock is highlighted in a particularly touching scene when the dashing Captain appears to be dying in the heart of the Star Trek Enterprise and Chris Pine’s gorgeous blue eyes make the audience feel for his unfulfilled love as he seemingly expires due to radiation exposure under the mournful gaze of Quinto’s Spock.

But never fear Trekkies, Spock takes revenge on Khan and in a brilliantly orchestrated chase sequence through 23^rd century San Francisco resulting in an extraordinary fight sequence aboard an industrial spacecraft, not to mention a crashing spacecraft taking out Alcatraz.

Whilst Star Trek: Into Darkness has less characterization as the 2009 Star Trek, it really is Cumberbatch’s film as he makes the villain into a truly deceptive sinister terrorist with some superb dialogue.  The rest of the supporting cast ham it up in their Trekkie uniforms without too much in depth characterization whilst the only subplot to attract minor interest is Alice Eve as the blonde weapons expert Carol channeling the Nicole Kidman look as she reveals her complex relationship with her dubious father veteran Captain Marcus played by Peter Weller from Robocop fame.

Star Trek: Into Darkness is for true sci fi fans and whilst not in the same thought-provoking existential vein as Ridley Scott’s Prometheus or Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion, it is pure glossy sci-fi entertainment and sure to remain an inspiration at future Comicon conventions , not to mention Trekkie conventions from Tokyo to Anaheim.

After all what can audiences expect from the producers of the successful Hawaii 5 0 series, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman but another action-packed brilliant bromance, however this time the visual effects and excellent sound editing triumph over characterization whilst the script retains its mythological narrative that has made the Star Trek franchise so enduring and iconic.