Running Commentary - Following

Once again, Jonny Prophet and I decided to watch a movie we've never seen before and jot down our thoughts as the story unfolds. (Jonny's are italicized) Today's selection was a Christmas present of mine... Christopher Nolan's first feature length film called Following. 

********************* WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS**************************

Close up of a hands putting on rubber gloves.

This is how we prepare for anal rape.

No comment.

When is Kevin Bacon going to show up?

He’s not; Magneto killed him with a coin through the head.

Sad weirdos eating at Dunkin Donuts… nothing off here.

This guy is a writer who likes to follow strangers to see what lives they lead. He’s telling his shrink all about it.

I know what he’s going through.

Again, no comment.

Rubber gloves are not for eating, sir.

So his name is Bill. He said he broke his own rule about following the same person twice.

Bill sits down at a table in a café and watches the stranger he’s been following.  Oh snap, the stranger sits down with him! He starts trying to find out why he’s being followed. After denying it, Bill comes clean. The stranger, whose name is Cole, even lets Bill see the contents of his bag. He says “What were you expecting, drugs?”

No, sex toys.

So Cole is apparently a burglar. Now this is turning into a wacky adventure! He even puts on rubber gloves before entering a home.

Time for a rectal exam!

What is it with you and asses?

Those were clearly rectal exam gloves and you know it!

Oh my God, upon opening the door they entered into the amazing world of the early 90’s! There is a phone mounted to the wall with a long cord!

Cole finds a wooden box. He says everyone has a box.

Mine’s full of Vietnamese ears!

You’re a disgusting liar! You’re too young to have fought in the Vietnam War!

Who said anything about a war?

Um… moving on. Cole invades people’s homes to disrupt their lives so they don’t take what they had for granted. What a considerate criminal. Most just want to steal you stuff. He’s a thief who cares.

The home owners return. Cole pretends he is there for the open house and leaves… Bill follows his lead. They are really hitting it off! I can tell they’re going to be besties!

So Michael Fassbender’s going to show up, right?

Why would Michael Fassbender show up?

Because he killed Kevin Bacon!

(sigh)

So now Bill is at a bar. He talks to a woman who doesn’t like him enough to meet him back at his place for a snog.

I must not be a very good writer. Bill’s place looks like a rundown, paint-chipped shit-hole with a typewriter. I need to dream higher.

The woman abruptly decides she is leaving and the scene ends. In the next shot, we see it was Bill’s first night at the fight club.

Is Brad Pitt going to show up in this?

No, but I keep hoping for Benedict Cumberbatch. Following around Sherlock would be cool… except he already has a Hobbit for that.

Bill is talking to someone on the phone about getting protection. I get the impression for all of these disjointed jump-cuts that Following was just Nolan’s practice run at Memento.

Is Ian McKellan going to show up?

Wrong Magneto.

So Bill and Cole broke into a place with cassette tapes… I’m guessing a portal into the 1980’s.  But on the door of the place is Batman’s symbol! It’s like a prophecy put forth by Nolan that would come true in a few years! Now all we need is to see a poster of Matthew McConaghey and a spaceship and some corn. (Interstellar joke. In 10 months it will be funny, damn it!)

Now Bill is at the chick’s place. Sounds like she got robbed by Cole. He even went through her underwear!

Why wouldn’t you rifle through this lovely woman’s underwear?

Because restraining orders are a bad thing, Jon.

Is Hugh Jackman going to show up?

Why would Hugh Jackman show up?

To do magic tricks?

I don’t have a reply to that.

Exactly.

Anyways, Bill kisses the chick. End scene.

Back to post-Fight Club looking Bill. He gets a hammer and breaks into a home. Bill really looks a lot like James McAvoy. Just an observation.

Bill and Cole are hanging out again. BFF’s, I’m telling you! Oh, this part is now the past. Bill has a beard and long hair. They break into the home of the chick. Yeah, earlier Bill wandered her place looking haunted… now that makes sense. Pre-Memento!

Is Christian Bale gonna show up?

Not for 3 more movies.

I’m looking forward to that.

They’re in an abandoned building now.

There was a shot of a dead bird. That’s a good sign.

Now the short haired Bill is on a date with the chick.

I’m starting to think typing a running commentary to a Chris Nolan movie is a bad idea. His movies require more attention than I’m giving. Like for instance, some guy just got his hand and skull smashed by a hammer. Jon, what did I miss?

Now he can’t play piano!

No, but why did he get killed?

He owed the chick’s boyfriend who’s not really her boyfriend money and the scene establishes that he’s a bad ass. And now that guy can’t play piano! Is Heath Ledger going to show up?

While this movie was from 1999, I doubt it… Now I’m sad.

So am I.

Her boyfriend is concerned about blood on him, the chick is concerned about her carpet, but nobody is concerned for that man’s piano playing ability! And I’m starting to think Kevin Bacon isn’t in this at all!

Now Bill, with bruises and short hair as that has become the only means of following a timeline, has broken into a business. He’s really upped his game.

London seems to have very lax security in the year 1999. After the Olympics, the city put in missile launchers.

Yes, because the answer to terrorists hiding among the people is just to blow everyone up. Much more thorough.

Bill’s doing a bank robbery in reverse. London has the worst criminals ever!

But what about Moriarty in all of his scenery chewing glory?

Bill and Cole are eating at a restaurant. Cole thinks Bill has developed a case for his own considerate burglary ways… have you ever noticed that the food featured in British movies is always better than actual British food?

Anyways, the woman that returned to her home while they were robbing it earlier entered the eatery. Bill flips out and they leave. Now Bill is typing on one of those analog computers known as typewriters. Someday I will have to explain what those were to the Little Toaster… and probably compact discs… and books. This is depressing. “You mean they used to put the news on paper and you’d read about it the next day instead of watching it while it happens?” Stupid spoiled future children!

Is James Purefoy going to show up?

Who?

He’s the bad guy that Kevin Bacon is going after in The Following.

No. This isn’t THE Following, it’s just Following. That means no Batman, no Joker, no Magneto and no Kevin Bacon. 

But I was able to play ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’ while we did this! Fassbender to Pitt to McKellan to Jackman to Bale to Ledger to Purefoy to Bacon!

That’s seven degrees. And Ian McKellan was never in a movie with Brad Pitt.

DAMN IT!

So Bill shaved and cut his hair.

I forgot Cate Blanchet!

Let it go, Jonny.

I’ll get you next time Kevin Bacon!

Okay, moving along… oh, looks like Cole and the chick are working together to screw over Bill. That’s not good… ‘tapin’ money to my crotch’ Bill just knocked some guy out. Now he’s running away with lots of sissy looking Brit money strapped to his junk. I’m kind of confused why he’s taping cash to himself… is it Jonah Hill’s money?

So Bill confessed to Cole that he is having a relationship with the chick and Cole kicks his ass.

Well, that explains that.

I was still hoping Tyler Durden kicked his ass. So Bill returns to his place and takes off the bundles of money. He figures out he’s been played. Bill confronts the chick. Turns out Cole was being blamed for a murder he didn’t commit. He told the cops it was another burglar with a similar M.O. Cole noticed Bill following him some time earlier, then  followed him. He set Bill up hard.

Oh, so Bill wasn’t talking to a shrink, he was talking to an investigator. Apparently there is no open investigation into the murder of an old lady.

Cole’s going to give the lady a rectal exam, he just put on his rubber gloves!

Wait, so Cole was working for the chick’s boyfriend and apparently killed her. Bill is going to jail!

Oh, the burglar’s name was Cobb. Sounded like Cole the whole time. It’s sad that no one will play the piano anymore.

But look on the bright side… prison will give Bill lots of time to write and this will make one great story! 

Final Thought - Uh, yeah... doing a running commentary for a Chris Nolan movie is a bad idea. I missed a lot and considering the film is told in a non-linear manner, I REALLY missed a lot. Having already seen Memento, it is obvious that this movie helped Nolan perfect his non-linear storytelling skills. In all, Following was pretty good and really kept me guessing. At some point I will have to watch it again without the distraction of typing about it.  

Jonny is plotting his revenge on Kevin Bacon... for some reason.

Hey! We Saw a Movie! - Prisoners

Jonny Prophet and I decided to see the feel good movie of the fall… Prisoners! We ended up feeling worse for some reason… huh. Anyways, this is our review of the movie. Like before it is divided into my contribution and the ever insightful Jonny contribution.

There be mild spoilers ahead… be warned!

Toaster’s Contribution: I really enjoyed Prisoners. It was a smart, psychological thriller reminiscent of Silence of the Lambs. Granted, there were no colorful characters the likes of Hannibal Lecter or Buffalo Bill, but we did get some great performances from the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal, Terence Howard, Melissa Leo and Paul Dano. I should add that I think Dano’s performance as Alex Jones in this movie is probably his best to date. He perfectly captured an ambiguous weirdo who might be an innocent victim or might actually know more than he lets on, all in a very minimalist fashion.

Of course it was Hugh Jackman who stole the show. Some might dismiss his performance as just being Wolverine without claws, but I think it went deeper than that. Wolverine is an emotionally damaged loner who tries to keep people away for fear of what he or others may do to them. Keller Dover, Jackman’s character from Prisoners, is a stern but loving father and husband. He is a strong, proud man who looks out for his family as the breadwinner and as protection, evidenced by his basement full of survival goods. His true intensity comes from the fear that he can’t always keep his family safe and his daughter’s disappearance, a situation he can’t control, drives him over the edge. He can’t let the police handle the problem; he feels it is his duty to protect his family by any means necessary.

Prisoners explores the line drawn by morality and begs the question “How far will you cross the line to protect the ones you love?” In Keller Dover’s case pretty damn far; some of the violence made Jonny turn away. (I was only a little uncomfortable because I am disturbed! Insert smiley face emoticon here!) Terence Howard played Franklin Birch, a friend of Keller’s and father of the other missing girl. He represented the other side of the parent spectrum. He was also distraught but wasn’t fully able to cross that line, yet ended up complacent enough (with support from his wife) to look the other way. This all harkens back to something I really love from this movie; how it delves into the deepest parts of our souls and makes us, the audience, question what we would have done for our loved ones.

Jake Gyllenhaal played Detective Loki. (I suppose thwarting Thor just doesn’t pay the bills anymore.) His character had made a reputation for solving every case he had been assigned, something that drove him throughout the film, often to the extent of mirroring Dover’s obsessive behavior such as abstaining from sleep and lashing out at anyone who got in his way. However, Detective Loki generally kept his temper to a simmer while Dover let his spill out in alcoholism and rage. It was that buried anger that really defined his character as he was often straining to remain the calm authoritative officer of the law he was expected to be. While I thought that Gyllenhaal gave his best performance since Brothers, I did repeatedly joke during the movie that he was a crappy detective. Perhaps it was for the benefit of the audience to ‘play along’ in trying to solve the case, but Detective Loki kept missing some pretty significant clues such as the repeated theme of mazes and not performing thorough enough searches. Now, I won’t spoil the ending for you, but I will say Prisoners had some great tension as well as twists and turns that kept you guessing throughout. I also enjoyed the ending, though I think it would have been better without the whistling. I think it would have been a more fitting and poetic conclusion. (If you see it, you’ll understand what I mean by that.)

Jonny’s Contribution: There wasn’t enough Patrick McGoohan.

And I keep telling you that was The Prisoner and he’s dead!

Until the next flick… Stay Strange

TERRIBLE Comic Book Movie Adaptations (Part 2)

So I'm back from my vacation (on a related note, I can never return to Delaware or Maryland... don't ask) and have Part two of this list ready to go. Oh, did I say this was only a two part list? I meant three. Okay, I didn't really mean three at the time, I just had a lot to say about these next four comic book movies and think its best to not make this one ridiculously long entry. So without further ado, we continue my list of crappy comic book movies:

X-men 3: The Last Stand – Ah yes, another example of a bad movie ruining a franchise. Unlike Spider-Man 3 however, I really don’t like this movie. It was screwed from day one. Bryan Singer, who directed the first two, left to direct the next movie on this list and took with him James Marsden (the actor who played Cyclops). So you got about 5 minutes of Cyclops being emo over Jean Grey’s death and then she comes back from the dead just long enough to kill him. And right away, one of the founding members of the X-men is unceremoniously written out of the franchise… and the movie really just goes downhill from there. You had the introduction of Angel, utilizing great special effects, but ultimately do next to nothing with him. Seriously, he could have been edited out of the movie and nobody would have noticed. Plus, they squandered the perfect opportunity to appease generations of fanboys. X-Men 3 was the first of the movies to feature all 5 of the original X-Men (for those playing at home that was Cyclops, Marvel Girl aka Jean Grey, Beast, Angel and Iceman). It would have been awesome to have a moment where all 5 were on screen together at the same time, like a shout out to the comic savvy audience members… but no. For some reason Jean Grey, as her Phoenix persona, kills Professor X. I suspect part of this was to appease the diva-like complaints of Halle Berry, who felt she was underutilized as Storm, thus thrusting her character into a leadership position. (And with great lines like “Do you know what happens to a toad when it is struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else!” how could you not make her the star?) They built up this great end battle that, like the entire movie, was ultimately marred by massive errors and disappointments. They weren’t Morlocks, they were ‘Omegas.’ Okay, I can let that go just like I let go that Dark Phoenix was Jean Grey’s split personality. (Honestly it would have been a bigger train wreck to try to do the entire space saga anyway.) But why introduce a fan favorite like Psylocke and completely screw up her powers? Why couldn’t we have spent more time getting to know some of these Omegas, after all they were only Magneto’s army of mutants! Why didn’t they include some of the actual Brotherhood of Evil Mutants like Avalanche, Mastermind, Vanisher, Blob, Unus or maybe even Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch… you know, Magneto’s children? Why would Juggernaut, while having his powers neutralized by Leech, get knocked out by hitting a wall with his head when he is wearing a damn helmet? (By the way, after Jonny Prophet and I saw Hard Candy and Juno we both concluded that the film-makers terribly underutilized the very talented Ellen Page.) I will say that there were a few things that X-Men 3 got right. Kelsey Grammer played Beast exceptionally. Vinnie Jones was pretty entertaining as Juggernaut. I liked how they portrayed Multiple Man and how Pyro had come into his own as a villain. However, by the end of the movie, after killing off Cyclops, Jean Grey and seemingly doing the same with Xavier, I kind of looked at it as the final film… partly because I really didn’t want to see the franchise limp through another sequel after effectively maiming the series. (But I really wanted to see the brain-dead black guy from Muir Island with the voice of Patrick Stewart in action!)

Superman Returns – Ah yes, the weird sequel that nobody demanded to a franchise over twenty years old whose main actor is dead. Oh, and it’s only the sequel to the first two movies, not the two I already included on the list. (I didn’t know you could pick and choose what sequels you wanted to observe in continuity!)  Anyway, Bryan Singer’s decision to leave X-Men 3 to direct Superman Returns truly cursed us to 2 bad movies; a shitty X-men movie and a boring and ridiculous Superman movie. Now the film itself looks good, it is shot beautifully and the acting is great. Brandon Routh made a wonderful stand-in to Christopher Reeves and Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor stole the show. The problem I have is with the story. It sucks. It is boring, pretentious, self-serving, and a little disturbing. Why is it boring? Superman doesn’t actually fight anyone… unless you count a mountain of Kryptonite. Everybody loved Superman II because he fought General Zod and his crew of Kryptonian criminals! It had massive battles and destruction! But for some reason the writers thought a big mountain of Kryptonite was a worthy foe to the Man of Steel. I mean, Lex shanks him but all Superman did was leave him and Parker Posey on a deserted island… which seems more than a little irresponsible. Rather than bring Luthor to justice over the massive damage and deaths he caused, Superman says “Nope, I’m gonna leave him on a desert island.” Why is it pretentious? Superman is over glorified as a modern day deity, like a flying Jesus in tights. Why is it self-serving? It delves heavily into how Superman views his duality as Clark Kent and his never-ending quest for justice and saving people; in other words it creates its own drama. Kevin Smith really put it best by saying ‘Superman Returns is the art-house Superman.’ Now why is it disturbing? Oh, I don’t know… how about Superman is a creepy stalker? He seriously floats around outside of Lois Lane’s house using his x-ray vision to watch her and his super hearing to listen in on her conversations with her new man James Marsden. (By the way, you ditch a major role as Cyclops for the much smaller role of Lois Lane’s boyfriend? What the fuck?) If Supes weren’t pretty much unstoppable, he would be in jail! Plus, Superman’s a deadbeat dad? Okay, not really, but who really thought making him a father was a good idea and wouldn’t completely screw up the franchise? Plus, he pulls a breaking and entering into Lois’ home so he can sit by his sleeping son, stroke his hair and say “You will be different.” I know it was supposed to be really sweet, but holy crap was that creepy. Imagine waking up to find Brandon Routh stroking your hair and telling you “You will be different.” You may never be able to sleep again! Oh, and before I move on I must point out that Jonny Prophet was very angry that Kumar (Kal Penn) was in the movie and didn’t even have a line! He could have at least asked Lex if he wanted anything from White Castle!

Ang Lee’s Hulk – Okay, this should tell you how bad Hulk was. When I go to the movies, I never leave the theater except in the case of an urgent bathroom situation. During Hulk, I went to get a refill on my drink… and I took my time about it. I walked around the lobby, even stopped to look at those quarter vending machines. When I got back, I asked my friend if I had missed anything. He said ‘no.’ Another friend told me that he uses the DVD like Ambien; he has never made it through the whole movie without falling asleep. Of course, everyone else can define the failure of Ang Lee’s Hulk with two words… Hulk Dogs. I especially bring up the poodle Hulk Dog. Ugh… Hulk has many villains, why did they have to create something so terrible? And Nick Nolte’s insane driveling speech at the end of the movie is reminiscent of the Python’s paranoid psychotic rant at the end of Stan Lee’s Light Speed (perhaps a future Guilty Pleasure review?). In the same vein of Kevin Smith’s assessment that Superman Returns was the “art house Superman film” then Ang Lee’s Hulk is definitely the art house version of the jade giant. The acting wasn’t bad, the special effects were good (though on Hulk itself, I would rate them as only ‘okay’) and the cinematography was as good as what you would expect from the director of Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But when people see a Hulk movie they don’t want a story of childhood trauma and disconnection between a father and son; they don’t want a soul searching journey to deal with repressed anger before it explodes into an unstoppable force of pure rage. Moviegoers want Hulk to smash stuff and fight monsters and stuff like that. In the end, I wouldn’t call Ang Lee’s Hulk a terrible movie… just really, really boring.

X-men Origins: Wolverine – I will start by saying that this movie isn’t god-awful. It was decently entertaining and featured a lot of great characters for the first time on screen. But when this movie was bad… oh sweet Lord it was abysmal. First off I will say Liev Schreiber was excellent as Sabretooth. Taylor Kitsch made a great Gambit. Ryan Reynolds was awesome as Wade Wilson. (Note that I didn’t say Deadpool… oh I can feel the anger building!) Now that we got that out of the way we move onto what sucked. Some of the special effects were really lacking. For instance when Logan is examining his claws in the bathroom of the elderly couple’s farmhouse, they looked really fake. That’s not the biggest problem to me. The biggest failing of X-Men Origins: Wolverine is how it tries to cover every possible base while cramming in random mutant character cameos along the way. It feels a lot to me like Star Wars: Episode I in that the plot seems forced; everything that happens is to literally get from point A to point B regardless of plausibility and at the sacrifice of character development. They had to reveal how Wolverine got his adamantium skeleton, they had to explain his connection to and hatred of Sabretooth, they had to establish his past with William Stryker, they had to include Gambit, Deadpool (argh), Blob, Cyclops, Xavier, and some other random mutants along the way, they had to explain Logan’s inability to recall his past, they even had to explain how a bullet entered his head in X-Men 2… and what you get is a script that is a mess chock full of random, if not pointless cameos and senseless fighting. The plot itself is a gigantic fuck around to… I guess… trick Wolverine into being a super soldier? I am really not sure what the point was, but in the process they ruined a fan favorite character in Deadpool by making him a bizarre mess of eyebeams, teleportation and swords popping out of his wrists with a healing factor (might I add the only thing they got right about his powers) as well as some others I am choosing to forget. We got a ridiculous plot device that the only way to penetrate adamantium is with an adamantium bullet? Since when do metals with the same molecular density pierce one another? I know this is just a comic book movie and not to nit-pick, but that was not just insulting to the fans, it was insulting to the overall audience’s intelligence! It could have been a vibranium bullet and I would have said ‘okay.’ But no, we had to explain Logan’s memory loss in the stupidest, most ‘Midi-chlorian’ way possible. (Seriously, the comics had his healing factor “heal” his traumatic memories. What was so wrong about that?) But now we can explain how a bullet penetrated Wolverine in the second movie… except I didn’t care. It never occurred to me that the bullet even went into his skull. I figured the bullet hitting his forehead knocked him out and his regenerative powers pushed out the slug as it healed him. Oh, and Silverfox was in on the whole plan? That’s just stupid! And if Stryker had so much faith in Sabretooth doing his dirty work and giving Logan the motivation to partake in the Weapon X treatment, why the hell didn’t he just give Sabretooth the adamantium? Why wouldn’t Stryker have thought Sabretooth would survive? Victor Creed survived the firing squad alongside Logan!  Like I said before, this movie wasn’t the worst thing ever but it was an absolute mess.

Be sure to anxiously await the third installment which will be up whenever the hell I get around to finishing this list. In the meantime, stay strange!

Live Action Casting: Lupin the Third

Here we are with another installment of Live Action Casting where this time we will reveal our best candidates to play the major character roles of the classic anime Lupin the Third. For those who don't know, Lupin the Third comprises several animated films and television programs based on a series of novels by Maurice Leblanc about a gang of master thieves led by Arsene Lupin III.

So for the title role, we need someone who fits the look and can play the personality of the world's greatest thief, the cocky, conniving, thrill-seeking and often goofy Arsene Lupin III.

Lupin is supposed to be attractive, charismatic, suave (when he wants to be) and also needs to be played by someone with a knack for comedy. The actor needs to be someone who can also pull off action scenes. My first choice is Ryan Reynolds.

Unlike him playing Green Lantern Hal Jordan, I actually think that Ryan Reynolds is perfect for the role! Plus, he is a big enough name to anchor the movie in terms of star power.

If I have to go with a second choice, that would be Jason Lee.

The "My Name is Earl" star can obviously do comedy as well as action as seen on the show Memphis Beat. He looks the part too. I'm just not sure of his star power for the film.

Next we have to cast the members of Lupin's gang starting with his gun-toting partner in crime Jigen Daisuke.

 There are two ways I can cast this one. The first is by ignoring his obvious Japanese name (hey it worked for Dragonball Evolution, right? Uhhhh... moving on) and casting my first choice Hugh Jackman.

Wolverine here is perfect as the tough crack-shot with the scruffy beard. He looks the part and we know he rocks at action roles. Plus, his name also carries some great star-power.

But if I wanted to stick to accuracy in terms of the character's races, I would cast Jang Dong Gun.

Yes, I know he's Korean. However, he did play a ronin in the highly under-rated martial arts meets western flick The Warrior's Way. He's a good actor, knows English and can rock the action needed for the part of Jigen.

Next we have Lupin's favorite soft-spoken swordsman Ishikawa Goemon XII.

For this part I only have one actor in mind and he is one of Jonny Prophet and my Asian action film stars... Donnie Yen.

You may know Donnie Yen from Hero, Blade II or Shanghai Knights. He doesn't do very many movies in Hollywood but he is a massive star in the Asian market. He both looks the part and kicks ass.

Next we look at a woman who is both Lupin's love interest and biggest foil, truly his match in more ways than one, Mine Fujiko.

For Fujiko, I do want an Asian woman. She needs to be able to act, must be attractive, able to do action and fluent in English. I have two candidates. The first is Jamie Chung.

You might know her from Dragonball Evolution (congratulations on not hanging yourself) and Sucker Punch where she was one of the sexy mental patients. She totally fits the bill and both of those films prove she can do action.

My other pick is Ellen Wong who was amazing as Knives Chau in Scott Pilgrim vs the World.

Again, she can do action, comedy and she is extremely attractive. I would be happy with either actress to be honest.

The final pick is Lupin's arch-nemesis, the bumbling obsessed Interpol agent Inspector Zenigata.

Again, because of his name I would want a Japanese (or at least Asian) man for the part. Jonny and my pick is Tadanobu Asano.

American audiences would know him from Battleship if any of them actually saw that movie. The geeky among you will remember him as Hogun of the movie Thor. The demented among us might know him better as Kakihara from the bloody cult classic Ichi the Killer. Asano is an awesome actor, he looks the part, knows English, can do action and I am sure with the amount of range he has could pull off playing Zenigata.I would say he doesn't exactly look the part based on Zenigata's face, but seriously who's face actually looks like that? Well...

...I have to say his is closer. I have heard Bruce Campbell as a possible choice from other fan castings. I would love him for the part except that Zenigata is clearly not a 'white guy' name. However, if Hugh Jackman played Jigen, I would have a difficult time arguing that Campbell wasn't right based on his race. I love Bruce Campbell. We know he can do action and comedy, plus he and Zenigata certainly share similar chins. And the thought of Ryan Reynolds bantering with Bruce Campbell puts a smile on my face... so who knows?

That does it for this installment of Live Action Casting. Tune in next time when we cast a show featuring space travelling gun-slinging bounty hunters who love jazz. Stay strange everyone.