#geoff murphy

[schlock-luster-video]

On April 30, 1992, Freejack debuted in Germany.

Here's some new Amanda Plummer art!

[omercifulheaves]

So I found out today that Eric Red, the guy that wrote Near Dark and The Hitcher, penned a serial numbers filed off version of The Wild Bunch (with a dash of Hill's The Long Riders) for HBO Pictures back in the early 90s. Sports a crazy cast -- Mickey Rourke! Dermot Mulroney! Ted Levine! Steve Buscemi! The bad guy from Death Wish 3! Keith David playing a character named Lovecraft! -- and was directed by Geoff Murphy, he of Freejack and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory fame! (And yes, The Quiet Earth, which was quite good.) As you can see, full movie's up on YouTube.

[directorsnarrative]

The Quiet Earth • Director Geoff Murphy

[whibleysims]

Tonight will pay for my dress and and then some.

[mariocki]

The Quiet Earth (1985)

"We might not have been responsible. God may have just blinked."

"God blinked and the whole world disappeared. A world of noisy, brawling, wonderful human beings."

[houseshoesandtallboys]

Geoff Murphy for PRHBTN

Lexington, KY

[clemsfilmdiary]

The Quiet Earth (1985, Geoff Murphy)

2/20/23

[olvaheiner]

[dynamofilms]

The Quiet Earth (1985)

6/10

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (Murphy, 1995)

I understand in the pre-internet era, you had to put in actual work if you wanted to look at naked people. For example, you had to leave the house and purchase or rent pornography. And if you didn't have any such shops in your area, you had to use the superpowered camera on a top secret military satellite to zoom in on a topless woman. The latter is something that happens in this movie. To be fair, we do get a brief attempt to saying something about cultural misogyny when the sole woman in the CIA control room expresses disdain and then gets hit on by some creep, which would feel a lot more sincere were we not in a fucking Steven Seagal movie.

I will say that Seagal himself comes off as credibly non-skeevy in his interactions with his niece Katherine Heigl, although their heart to heart is shot in the same style as the dramatic closeups in the first Under Siege, flatteringly framed and with a bizarre amount of shadows despite them being in a train car with lots of windows during the daytime. Real acting powerhouse, this scene is. This attempts the same gambit as the original by populating the movie with actual actors, but the result is less successful. Morris Chestnut gets the thankless role of Seagal's goofy, fast talking sidekick and struggles mightily as Seagal gives him absolutely nothing to work with. The brief scene he has with a low level baddie played by Peter Greene is easily his best as it's the one chance he has to play off somebody who can act. Bleach blonde Everett McGill is effective as the evil black ops guy, but plays things too one note and doesn't get to be fun and weird until it's much too late. And Eric Bogosian seems to be having fun doing a discount Jeff Goldblum, but it really sinks in how important physicality and movement are to a performance, as he's stuck sitting or standing in front of a computer for the entire movie and as a result his performance feels strangely inert.

As you can tell from the poster, this largely takes place on a train, but don't be fooled into thinking it's about Seagal getting stuck alone on a train that gets derailed and everybody celebrates. And also don't be fooled by the sight of the satellite early on that this is about Seagal getting stuck alone in a spaceship that loses contact with Mission Control and everybody celebrates. You can only pull an Executive Decision so many times. Anyway, it probably would be too expensive to shoot the entire movie on an actual moving train, so we get a lot of what looks like either greenscreen or rear projection, which makes it look like an underbudgeted TV show or an FMV game. The movie feels bizarrely cheap, despite the budget being bigger than the first one. And a passenger train is just not an interesting environment. The first movie was set on a naval ship and used it to its full advantage, taking every opportunity to use the coloured lights, the hissing steam, the protrusions from the walls to add visual interest and shape the action scenes in engaging ways. Here, the interior of the train offers little visual spice, and the cramped framings necessitated by the setting are very obviously intended to hide Seagal's slipping athleticism. The combined package just feels super lame.

I will say that when the movie bothers to use exterior shots, it does look pretty nice, there are satisfying bone crunching moments and squib-heavy deaths, and the Basil Poledouris is rousing enough. If those and the mere sight of (underused) character actors are enough for you, then maybe this is worth a look.

[schlock-luster-video]

On March 27, 1992 Freejack debuted in the United Kingdom.

[spaced-out-cosmos]

DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT

ABOUT MEN

BECAUSE

OH MY GOD

OH MY JEEZUS CHRIST

[whibleysims]

“Who’s this?” Nancy cooed, rubbing Bull’s happy big head. He panted and wagged his tail in delight.

“I didn’t invite you over to make friends with my dog.”

“Sorry, buddy, mama’s gotta pay the bills,” she said to Bull.

[homesickpiranha]

Daddy Day Care (2003)

"Any boob can run a day-care center but it takes a family to raise some kids and that's what we're gonna be from now on, a family."

[denimbex1986]

'Before he became one of cinema’s most prolific actors, Cillian Murphy was all set for a music career. He even attracted an incredibly tempting recording contract but changed course at the last minute to pursue a career in the movie business instead. Now, he stands as one of the greatest actors of a generation, bringing a mosaic of weird and wonderful characters to life on screen, including Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy and the more recent J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer.

As someone who once said, “I’m less interested in the good man’s life, I’m more interested in the conflicted man’s life or the contradictory man’s life”, Murphy’s interest in books comes as no surprise – particularly as many of his favourites tackle subjects like the complexities of human existence. For example, he cites Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara as one he regards highly after being drawn into “the atmosphere and pressure of what it must have been like to be alive in America at that time”.

Similarly, John Healy’s The Grass Arena makes the cut for the power held over Murphy, who decided to read the book after years of recommendations. “It is the story of determination and rebirth,” Murphy says. “The tale of a chess champion who overcomes a savage childhood to live again. A powerful book indeed”.

One of the more heartbreaking works comes with Patrick McGabe’s The Butcher Boy, which details the story of a young boy who descends upon a fantasy world to escape from his troubling home life. For Murphy, the book left a lasting impression on account of its ability to blend a series of dichotomous emotions: “[It’s] dark, fiercely funny, compassionate, and unashamedly Irish. Its depiction of a young boy’s descent into isolation and madness in small-town Ireland has never left me”.

Meanwhile, one of Murphy’s all-time favourite Irish writers is John Banville, who also became known for his humour and sharp, wintery wit. His 2000 novel Eclipse, while being a complete contrast to The Butcher Boy, also etched its world into the mind of Murphy. “In this beautifully mediative tale,” he says, “Alexander Cleave is a celebrated actor who returns to live in his childhood home. The book seemingly has little or no plot, but the sheer towering beauty of its language, atmosphere and insight make it impossible to put down or to forget.”

The late J. P. Donleavy, best known for his novel The Ginger Man, was an Irish writer who wasn’t afraid to completely disrupt the common consensus. So much so that The Ginger Man was actually initially banned in the United Kingdom and Ireland for its obscenity. According to Murphy, this is a book designed to be “savoured over the course of a life”. He also praises its subject matter, stating that its mischief and humour go perfectly with its empathy, particularly in relation to the “outsider struggling to imagine a purpose in this world”.

Cillian Murphy’s 10 favourite books:

The Ginger Man – J. P. Donleavy The Butcher Boy – Patrick McGabe Eclipse – John Banville The Sportswriter – Richard Ford Rabbit Angstrom – John Updike Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi – Geoff Dyer Grief is the Thing with Feathers – Max Porter The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway The Grass Arena – John Healy Appointment in Samarra – John O’Hara'