Lots of trailers out this week, showing us what's in store for the rest of the year. Let's start with the reboot of one of the greatest Westerns in cinema.
The wild, wild west is back with Antoine Fuqua's remake of the classic The Magnificent Seven! With his Training Day star Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-Hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Martin Sensmeier teaming up to go up against Peter Sarsgaard's baddie, the first teaser shows us how the assembling of the band of outlaws and heroes coming together to save a town. There will be much debate on whether a reboot or remake like this is needed after the previous masterpieces with Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) and the 1960 version with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen, but casting Washington in the lead is welcome addition, for sure. The Magnificent Seven releases on September 23, 2016.
Right on the heels of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl came Paula Hawkins's psychological thriller, The Girl on the Train. The best-selling novel is being turned into a film which releases on October 7, 2016 with Emily Blunt as the titular girl who thinks she witnessed a murder from the train. Along with co-stars Rebecca Ferguson, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Haley Bennett and Alison Janney, the movie focuses on Rachel (Emily Blunt) and quest to separate fact from fiction. The first teaser looks fantastic, great choice with Kanye West's Heartless playing over it. However, I am disappointed that the filmmakers decided to change the setting of the novel from U.K. to America. It's missing something essential in the change, I believe. The Girl on the Train is directed by Tate Taylor.
The spy who just won't go away, Matt Damon returns back to the franchise with Jason Bourne. This time, original director Paul Greengrass too is on board to helm this latest film. The first teaser has everyone's favourite amnesiac making his presence known, yet again. I don't know why they keep getting surprised that he returns. You created a super spy, now deal with it. Julia Stiles seems to be the only returning cast member from the previous films, while newly minted Oscar winner Alicia Vikander and Tommy Lee Jones join the cast to hunt down Jason Bourne. The film is in theaters on July 29.
Michael Keaton, who's on an all-time professional high with the last two Oscar Best Picture wins under his belt, steps into the shoes of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc. But as the first trailer begins to unveil, can he rightly be considered the founder of the fast food franchise, when the idea and the conception was someone else's? The Founder co-stars Laura Dern, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch and B.J. Novak and is directed by John Lee Hancock. It releases August 5, 2016.
It’s June, you know what that means. It's time to roll out trailers for films releasing in the latter half of the year that could potentially have an awards presence. Hence, you’ll find Hollywood’s A-list Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and Matt Damon all featured in the trailers for Suffragette, Bridge of Spies and The Martian respectively. The films below all come with good pedigree with award-winning and nominated directors, screenwriters, and actors showcasing their latest work.
The early struggle of the British women’s suffrage moment and their fight for equality is the focus of director Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane) and screenwriter Abi Morgan (The Hour). The mostly British cast, minus Meryl Streep, of Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Ben Whishaw and Romola Garai show how dangerous and brutal a fight the feminist movement had to have an equal voice. Streep, who plays British activist Emmeline Pankhurst, can be counted as an honorary Brit, after all, she did win her third Oscar for portraying the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. Come awards season, Suffragette could land potential nominations for best film and lead and supporting nominations for its actresses. The film releases in theatres on October 23, 2015.
James Marsh’s 2008 documentary Man on Wire on Phillippe Petit’s daring walk between the World Trade Towers already won the Best Documentary Oscar. Now, director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Back to the Future) is retelling Petit’s story from his book, To Reach the Clouds. With Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit and Oscar winner Ben Kingsley, The Walk recreates his famous 1974 walk in breathtaking 3D and will be showcased on the large screen IMAX format. Best of all, the film gives Gordon-Levitt the chance to show off his French accent. The self-confessed Francophile has been a fluent French speaker for years. Take that, Bradley Cooper! The Walk, with Zemeckis’s previous Oscar and Golden Globe wins, might gain best film, director and lead actor nominations for Gordon-Levitt. It releases in theatres on October 2 and will have its premiere as it opens the New York Film Festival on September 25, 2015.
Based on writer Jon Krakauer’s (Into the Wild) book Into Thin Air, Everest details the 1996 fatal climb to Mount Everest. A strong ensemble cast of Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Robin Wright, Sam Worthington, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson and Jake Gyllenhaal take us throw the harrowing expedition which takes a turn for the worse once a severe snow storm hits. Directed by Baltasar Kormakur (2 Guns) and co-written by Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) and William Nicholson, Everest also features a score by Oscar-winning composer Dario Marianelli (Atonement). Lately, most true life stories get recognized for their screenplay and direction, Everest too could like be nominated for the same. I have a feeling it could also squeeze through the technical categories, especially for VFX, if all the superhero films don’t crowd it out. Everest releases in theatres on September 18, 2015.
This is collaboration number 124578 between director Steven Spielberg and actor Tom Hanks. No, not really, but the Spielberg-Hanks partnership goes way back to 1990 when they first worked together a little film called Joe Versus the Volcano. (Sidebar: This ‘little’ film is a gem, do watch it if you can.) Based on the true life story of the 1960 incident when an US spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace, Bridge of Spies is also adapted from the book of the same name by Giles Whittell. Co-starring Mark Rylance, Amy Adams and Alan Alda, this Spielberg-directed cold war thriller could land plenty of nominations during awards season. The prolific Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, have contributed to the screenplay and composer Thomas Newman could earn his 13th Oscar nomination for the score. Could the 13th time be the charm? Bridge of Spies releases in theaters on October 16, 2015.
We just saw Matt Damon play a stranded astronaut in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. He’s back to repeat the experience, this time on the red planet, Mars, closer to home. Directed by Ridley Scott (Gladiator) and featuring a screenplay by Drew Godard (World War Z), The Martian is based on the popular novel by Andy Weir. The film costars Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Kate Mara and Chiwetel Ejiofor in this intense story of a man surviving and trying to find his way back to Earth. Damon could find himself once again competing for lead actor and this film, like Everest, will feature prominently in the technical categories like sound and VFX as well. The Martian releases in theaters on October 2, 2015.
These are just five of the many award hopefuls releasing in the second half of the year. What film are you most looking forward to?
Poster for Markus Zusak's novel adaptation The Book Thief. One of my favorites in the past few years, hoping the film adapts the book's themes well.
J.C. Chandor's All is Lost starring Robert Redford - Basically Life of Pi for old people and without the tiger!
Simple words on the poster for Her, A Spike Jonze Love Story.
Daniel Radcliffe has left Harry Potter far, far behind. Here he is in Kill Your Darlings as Allen Ginsberg.
Directed by Oscar-magnet George Clooney, the all-star cast features Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin and of course, Clooney. It's The Monuments Men.
Philomena is in my top 5 of movies I want to see by the end of this year.
The always lovely Judi Dench and Steve Coogan star.
Thor (Chris Hemsworth) vs. some guy.
Actually it's Daniel Bruhl as Niki Lauda in Ron Howard's F1 racing thriller Rush.
In his fantasies, Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) can go anywhere.
Welcome to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
You had me at Mark Ruffalo. The poster for Thanks for Sharing featuring Ruffalo,
Tim Robbins, Gwyneth Paltrow, Josh Gad, Pink and Joel Richardson.
The first film made in Saudi Arabia by a woman with a young lead who enters a competition
so she can win a green bicycle. I'm definitely rooting for Wadjda.
The 85th Oscars are so last month.We have clearly moved on and ahead to next
year.And while there are already
potential Oscar contender names being bandied about (Grace of Monaco, August:
Osage County, Inside Llewyn Davies, Wolf of Wall Street, 12 Years a Slave,
Saving Mr. Banks to name a few), I wanted to look at some actors who have yet
to nab that elusive Oscar.Every year, we see
some of the same actors (Daniel Day-Lewis, Christoph Waltz) win yet another
Oscar and some actors who receive their very first (Jennifer Lawrence, Anne
Hathaway).When will this highly
acclaimed bunch of actors make to the podium to finally make their victory
speech? Very, very soon, one can only hope…
1)Amy Adams
4 nominations for Junebug (2005), Doubt (2008), The Fighter (2010) and The Master (2012).
Amy Adams leads this list with 4 nominations in the past 8 years. She is in the Kate Winslet category, meaning she has to really earn her eventual Oscar. Winslet was nominated for years and years before she won her Oscar for The Reader (2008), which actually was actually a supporting role and ignored for her real leading turn in the devastating Revolutionary Road. Either way, she got that Oscar monkey off her back after 6 nominations. I think I've figured out what she needs to do to win, get nominated in an odd number year to finally win. She's working with director David O. Russell again so that's great sign and she also has a Janis Joplin biopic in the pipeline. The Academy does love its biopics.
I was drawn to see this film particularly because of its troubled path to release. For years, Margaret has been stuck in limbo due to problems that arose during the editing process between the director Kenneth Lonergan and the studio and producers. But the buzz grew that Margaret was too good to be ignored with a great cast to boot. There are many champions of the film and therefore we get to see a film edited down to 150 minutes from its rumored three hour director's cut which lay unfinished.
Margaret is a very unusual film. That's the best way to introduce it. It shows the ordinary life of a New York teenager Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) whose life is changed profoundly when she witnesses an a gruesome accident. This may venture a bit into spoiler territory here but I believe the reason it affects her so deeply is that she begins to feel guilty about her own role in the accident that she can't manage to shake off it of herself as you would with a change of clothing. It seeps into every aspect of her life. Into her relationship with her parents, especially her mother, her friends and even the people she meets as a result of the accident's aftermath.
Lisa makes some spontaneously terrible decisions as only a teenager can, with little thought to the consequences. And yet sometimes she overthinks things too much. What she is doing though through her actions is calling out for help and no one knows how to deal with Lisa, least of all Lisa herself. Her mother (J. Smith-Cameron) is bewildered and emotional most of the times. Her well-meaning attempts at any help are brushed aside. Her teachers offer counsel but other than some fascinating classroom discussions, that too, doesn't lead to anything.
The film is well intentioned and wants to show a young person's perspective on life but stumbles in its execution. The editing cuts are strange at times, we are left out of some conversations deliberately; sometimes the scene linger on, uncomfortably so. Is it intentional? Maybe, maybe not. As the film was shot so long ago, it feels from another time yet strangely relevant and the actors look like slightly younger versions of themselves. Matt Damon, playing a high school teacher, barely looks out of school himself.
Anna Paquin carries the lead role well even as her character get shriller and shriller trying to understand this event that has changed her life. I was glad, though, that Lisa finally got the emotional catharsis she needed before the film ended or else she really would have exploded. The supporting cast are old Lonergan familiars and they flit in and out of the film. If you were wondering about the title which doesn't refer to any character but instead a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Despite being able to finally view the film, I really do wish I could get to see the director's cut, however long it may be. It might have brought in some clarity to what the director was trying to say. If you do watch the film, allow the film to grow on you.
Written and Directed by Kenneth Lonergan; Cinematography by Ryszard Lenczewski; Edited by Anne McCabe and Michael Fay; Music by Nico Muhly.
Additional cast: Matthew Broderick, Allison Janney, Mark Ruffalo, Jean Reno, John Gallagher Jr., Kieran Culkin, Jeannie Berlin, Olivia Thirlby, Kenneth Lonergan, Michael Ealy
I haven't had the urge lately to write up about the movies I've been seeing as they haven't impressed me much. The ones I watched fell way below my expectation of them, like Love & Other Drugs (which I saw only for Jake and Anne), You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Woody Allen film, yes, but I hated the weak characters), Get Low (why, hello there, Bill Murray, where have you been?), The Tourist (not as bad as I thought but it had potential to be so much better) and How Do You Know (what were you thinking, James L. Brooks? I don't know until today what the plot was). So I felt it would take a really good movie to come along to make me write a review.
Well, Hereafter is not that movie. But it definitely got me thinking about the subject about the movie, afterlife, and made me wish that it did explore more about that theme than just limiting to the character's experience of it. And it is those characters that will remain with you. Marie Lelay (Cecile de France), a 2004 tsunami survivor and journalist who is never the same after her near-death experience, Marcus (George and Frankie McLaren), a young boy grieving for the loss for his twin brother Jason and unsure how to continue on in life and George Lonegan (Matt Damon) who is a former psychic who doesn't know how to lead a normal life as his experiences with the dead take over everything.
Before I saw this movie, I knew that Hereafter was nominated this year for the Best Visual Effects Oscar but I thought it was purely for one scene. After watching the devastating opening, the scope of the effects of the tsunami are difficult to watch especially after comparing it to the real-life images from the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami. The crew and movie fully deserved the nomination and the scene still echoes within me.
The main reason this film will be a must-watch with many people is because this is a Clint Eastwood film. I find his films fascinating. Most directors who are also actors, I find their film more telling, more revealing to me as a personal side of them than when they act because this has to be a story that they want to tell and show. Looking at Eastwood's filmography, you would never believe this is the same man who was also Dirty Harry. He becomes his movies, he directs, he produces, he writes, he composes the music and sometimes he also acts in them! He has guided so many of his actors to award-winning and nominated roles. You wish you had that same energy and enthusiasm at his age! He truly is someone to look up to.
This film has that Eastwood stamp on it too. And while it's a fine character study, I wish it had been longer and explored more of the subject of which it had hinted. Peter Morgan's script needed to delve more into it. Well, that's my two cents, my jumbled thoughts about the movie which I wanted to get out.
Directed by: Clint Eastwood; Screenplay by: Peter Morgan; Cinematography by: Tom Stern; Editing by: Joel Cox and Gary Roach: Music by: Clint Eastwood
Additional Cast: Byrce Dallas Howard, Jay Mohr, Thierry Neuvic, Lyndsey Marshal, Richard Kind
2011, already! Confused about what films are releasing this year? Never fear! I'm putting together a list of movies that I want to watch in this new year and I'm sure some of the titles will match what you would like to see as well. Let's get started, shall we?
JANUARY
Country Strong
Directed by: Shana Feste
Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim McGraw, Garrett Hedlund, Leighton Meester
The Way Back
Directed by: Peter Weir
Starring: Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Mark Strong, Saoirse Ronan
The Company Men
Directed by: John Wells
Starring: Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, Kevin Costner, Maria Bello
Come next December 2011, I'm going to have to have start living on weekends at the movie theaters because it seems like every movie is releasing that very month. At least the ones I want to see anyway. Lets look at the evidence.
It's starts off with December 9th. Martin Scorsese's Hugo Cabret is up first. His first 3D venture is about a young boy, Hugo, who lives in a train station in 1930s Paris and has to solve a mystery surrounding his late father. The cast includes Asa Butterfield as Hugo, Chole Moretz, Jude Law, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ben Kingsley and Christopher Lee. I'm really looking forward to see how Scorsese tackles 3D.
It goes up against New Year's Eve, the followup to Valentine's Day. It's just an excuse to see as many good-looking and famous actors in one film. Gary Marshall will be back as director.
The weekend after that brings Mission Impossible 4 and Sherlock Holmes 2 on December 16th. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo comes out on December 21st. Do you know how it's been since Daniel Craig has a release, I can't possibly wait that long? December 23 belongs to Cameron Crowe's movie with Matt Damon, We Bought a Zoo, which sounds very promising and The Muppets are back on the screen on Christmas Day with Jason Segel and Amy Adams.
And finally, my very own dilemma on December 28th, which Steven Spielberg film to watch first? Will it be War Horse, a WWI epic about a boy and his horse or The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. Hate the title, though I can't wait to see the collaboration with Peter Jackson. So long between releases and they both end up on the same day! How is that fair?
So there you have it. This isn't counting the other films that have yet to decide their release dates but all I know is we'll be spoiled for choices unless the studios blink first and decide to change their release date.
It's the mother of all casting news!!! No, they haven't announced who's going to play the mother on How I Met Your Mother. But Meryl Streep will play Julia Roberts' mother in August: Osage County, a dark comedy based on a Broadway play. John Wells will be directing and Harvey Weinstein will be producing. This will be definitely worth watching.
Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach G (that's what we'll call him as I can't keep typing his long last name all the time!) are back!! And this time they're hitting up Bangkok on their Hangover 2. That's what Todd Phillips has to say about the sequel on Empire Online. He promises more tigers and more mayhem. Oh, boy, there's so much trouble for the guys to get into in Bangkok. I can't wait.
One of my favorite actresses, Amy Adams, has decisions, decisions to make. She's considering three different roles. She could be starring in the Muppets Movie opposite Jason Segel. Or opposite Matt Damon in Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo. The story is about a man who, well, buys a zoo. The title is literal. Finally she may be thinking about joining Chris Pine in Welcome to People, being directed by Alex Kurtzman about a man whose father dies of cancer and learns that he kept a secret family. Adams would play the part of the half-sister.
More Olivia Wilde casting news. She'll play Justin Timberlake's mother in Andrew Niccols next project. No, really. The story takes place in a society where one stops aging at 25. That should explain everything, right? No, not really. Well, along with Olivia and Justin, Amanda Seyfriend and Cillian Murphy are also part of the cast as a rich heiress and a corrupt lawman, respectively. Maybe this was the mother of all casting news, no?
The Social Network wins the weekend box-office and so begin the start of the Facebook puns. Just you wait, this is will last all the way until Oscar weekend. Brace yourself.
