Tag Archives: Ryan Reynolds

Face Off: The Voices (2014) and Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

Motion State Face Offs pit two films, franchises, or television series against each another for no reason other than because we can.

There are ostensibly only a small handful of things that The Voices and Kingsman: The Secret Service have in common. Both are 2014 releases with a satirical vibe that sometimes plays as downright cartoony. Both are Rated-R violent. Both played on a recent transatlantic flight that I took. They’re both movies, too, and both star actors and actresses and have titles made up of letters. The fact that Voices and Kingsman both exist is their greatest commonality, although it’s not necessarily something you’re particularly happy about once you realize that all of these other really good movies — hey, they exist too.

And therein lies the actual thread linking Voices to Kingsman. The former stars Ryan Reynolds as a meek little manchild with an odd little habit of talking to his pets. He hears their voices in his head, and he and his cat and his dog have some rollicking conversations. Oh, yeah, and he also has a penchant for killing people and chopping them up, too. Kingsman is a spy flick that might be a spy spoof, following a young lad named Eggsy as he’s initiated into a secret service of super-suave sleeper scouts. Taron Egerton plays Eggsy, but the show is stolen by his mentor figure Galahad, played by Colin Firth. In both cases we have pretty solid cast at hand. And in both cases nearly every single one of them is slumming it.

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Adventureland (2009)

Adventureland represents everything I pray my first months as a college graduate do not include, although worse things than bro-ing out with Ryan Reynolds and having Kristen Stewart fall madly in love me could go down.

Jesse Eisenberg, the unexpected hero of Adventureland (expected hero, really) portrays a less asshole-ish version of his Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, pulling out all the nerdy stops, including but not limited to: an immensely awkward and unfailing stammer when speaking to any remotely attractive woman, a less-than-flattering Jew-fro, and a borderline translucent complexion (admittedly much like my own).  Kristen Stewart is…well, Kristen Stewart, bringing the exact same mannerisms and monotone speech that she brings to every other film she’s been in. Last but not least, Ryan Reynolds plays the classic douche.  Did I mention that Adventureland takes place in the ’80s?

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Film & TV News: June 1

News

  • Rumor has it that the casting for the new Spider-Man will be announced this week, as the character is scheduled to appear in the already-filming Captain America: Civil War. Also on the Marvel superhero front, the Ryan Reynolds jaunt Deadpool has wrapped filming this past week.
  • The Trevor Noah Daily Show handoff will occur on September 28th, less than two months after the late Jon Stewart passed aw…wait, he’s not dead? He left on purpose? Why, Jon, why?
  • Kung Fury is pretty hilarious, provided you’re in the right frame of mind (or, I suppose, the wrong frame of mind). The beginning is dumb, but the ending is more or less bliss:

Continue reading Film & TV News: June 1