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Category Archive: Movies
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The Best of Wes Anderson
Whether you are looking for the theme for your next movie marathon or simply want a fun way to relax this weekend, you can’t go wrong with the movies of director Wes Anderson. Here are a few of his very best:
Rushmore (1998): After his writing and directorial debut Bottle Rocket, which made Wes Anderson an up-and-comer to watch, Anderson put out Rushmore, which became his breakout hit. The film, which stars Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray, is a quirky comedy about a boy named Max Fischer who spends too much time writing and producing hit plays and starting clubs to pay any attention to his schoolwork. The rich environment in which Anderson continues to place his characters is established in this unique and entertaining film.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001): Anderson followed up his Rushmore success with The Royal Tenenbaums, an unusual family dramedy with a star-studded cast including the likes of Gwenyth Paltrow, Angelica Houston, Ben Stiller and Gene Hackman. The film has a notably eccentric and wonderful soundtrack, featuring The Rolling Stones and Nico of the Velvet Underground. The iconic Tenenbaum house used in the film still exists in Harlem, NY, and is visited by devoted Anderson fans.
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004): The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, starring Anderson regular Bill Murray as Zissou, was Wes Anderson’s first film to go under the sea. With another cast saturated with celebrities, from Cate Blanchett to Willem Defoe, the film explores the psyche of a failing performer who must battle loneliness and his own responsibility as a father. The rich and textured visuals, as well as the memorable one-liners (“I’m sick of these dolphins”) make it a joy to watch.
Photo: Touchstone Pictures 2001.
A Quiet Evening With Sofia Coppola
Whether you are a seasoned fan of the filmmaker or a brand-new viewer, this list of Coppola’s best films will be great viewing material for a relaxing evening.
The Virgin Suicides (1999): Coppola’s debut film, The Virgin Suicides, is a beautifully photographed film that paints a delicate portrait of five sisters and their tragic youths. Based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides was adapted by Coppola from text to screenplay. The success of the film became her calling card, and remains an example of her talent as both writer and director. The film was also pivotal in the career of its star, Kirsten Dunst, who rocketed to fame in the years afterwards. It must be seen by anyone who appreciates the romanticism and pathos of high school love.
Lost in Translation (2003): Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson star in Coppola’s second film Lost in Translation, which received both great acclaim and harsh disdain, eventually garnering an Academy Award for the young filmmaker. The film centers on two characters, Murray and Johansson, who are both going through a similar genre of existential crisis. They end up accidentally exploring together and teaching each other, and their platonic love affair is set against the backdrop of a colorful and fast-paced Tokyo, Japan. Murray’s sharp and familiar humor and the quiet beauty of Johansson make Lost and Translation a joy to watch.
Somewhere (2010): Somewhere, Coppola’s most recent film, is also one of the most visually appealing. The film is about a hardened celebrity getting in touch with his role as a father for his daughter, Cleo. The bulk of the film was shot in Los Angeles, CA, most notably in the infamous Chateau Marmont, as well as a luxurious Italian hotel. Although Somewhere is saturated with beautiful imagery, it is only the backdrop to a compelling piece on the power of love over perceived success.
Photo: Focus Features 2010.
The Highlights of the 2012 Oscar Award Winners
At the 84th Academy Awards on February 26, 2012, many films were honored. Some awards were not surprises, while others caused great excitement amongst lesser-known filmmakers. Here are a few of the most notable awards of the evening:
Best Picture: The winner of the most esteemed award given by the Academy was The Artist, a silent film directed by French director Michel Hazanavicius. The film starred a range of actors of different nationalities and reputations. The acclaimed American actor John Goodman starred alongside the Argentinean Bérénice Bejo and the French Jean Dujardin, who won the award for Best Actor. The film is the perfect combination of the storytelling of early cinema and the appearance of contemporary film. The Artist is a magnificent love letter to the art of filmmaking.
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer won the award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the film Beginners. In it, Plummer, who is best known for his role as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, plays an aging father who has finally come out as gay to his son and must face a fatal illness just as he becomes his true self. The quiet joy that Plummer lends to the piece is fascinating, and his performance is more than enough of a reason to watch Beginners.
Best Foreign Language Film: Iran was honored with award of Best Foreign Language Film for A Separation. It was the first Academy Award for an Iranian filmmaker, making it a historical landmark of sorts. The film, directed by Asghar Farhadi, is about a married couple’s struggle to make the right choice for their family. Since the award was given, Iranian audiences have flocked to theaters in Iran to see it for themselves.
Photo: Warner Bros. 2011.
First Look At New “Die Hard” Movie
Australian TV star Jai Courtney is set to play Jack McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard, Fox has announced. Jack is the son of the iconic Bruce Willis NYPD detective character John McClane.
This will be the first time we have seen Jack in a Die Hard flick, and apparently he has plenty of chances to take shots at Russian mobsters in the film, while his father, it seems, will be truly a New Yorker fish out of water in the Russian capital.
The movie, scheduled for release on Valentine’s Day February 2013, will not begin production until April. It is the fifth installment in the popular franchise, and in it the estranged father and son find themselves in Moscow, where they need to work together to keep each other alive.
The project is directed by John Moore, and written by Roderick Thorp and Skip Woods, and British actor Patrick Stewart was rumored to have been cast as a Russian general.
Courtney played the lead, Varro, in cable drama Spartacus: Blood and Sand. He also starred opposite Tom Cruise in One Shot.
He landed the Die Hard role following an international casting search with Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games), reportedly the runner up.
Fox has also released a picture of Courtney from the screen test that won him the role of McClane Junior. In it, Willis looks like he might be in the middle of a characteristically sarcastic retort, while Courtney’s curly blonde locks are gone, and in his hand, instead of the sword previously seen, he holds a gun.
Appearance-wise, it certainly seems plausible. But you’ll have to wait until next year to see their on-screen dynamic.
The Die Hard franchise began in 1988, and has earned a total worldwide box office revenue of $1,130,432,180.
Photo: 20th Century Fox 2012.
Michael Moore Celebrates Documentary Filmmakers
Michael Moore, himself a veteran of the genre, championed documentary movie makers while speaking before the Oscars at an event which honored those who had been nominated in the Best Documentary category.
And the maker of gun control picture Bowling for Columbine and anti-war film Fahrenheit 9/11, the highest ever grossing documentary, attributed an increasing appetite for these kinds of films to “a public starved of the truth.”
He told a symposium featuring nominees for best documentary features and short subjects, “People have been lied to a lot. They are tired of it, and want the truth, which is what documentaries represent.”
Moore’s own career has not been without controversy, and some have criticized him for being too one-sided. Subjects have ranged from healthcare analysis to his 1989 film Roger and Me, about laid-off car workers. (But he has just as many admirers as critics.)
Moore asked each of the nominees about their work, and made a quip about “moving down the line of misery” as he discovered subjects ranging from the Japanese earthquake to acid attacks, and the plight of war veterans more likely to commit suicide than be defeated by enemy fire.
Another, Pina, looks at the life of German dance choreographer and ballet director Pina Bausch in 3D, an unusual format for a documentary, while the inspirational Undefeated is about a team of high school football players from a poor Memphis neighborhood striving to make something of themselves.
Moore concluded that non-fiction film “has a huge impact. Knowledge and information are good. And people empathizing and understanding has got to be a good thing for the world.”
Photo by Jesse Grant – © WireImage.com.
Michael Fassbender New Movie “The Counselor” Confirmed
Shame and Hunger actor Michael Fassbender has confirmed he will star in The Counselor, directed by Ridley Scott, and with a script by Cormac McCarthy.
Scott, who also bagged Fassbender as his star for the 20th Century Fox sci-fi movie Prometheus, out this summer, has his eye on a May 1 start date.
Now movie insiders are describing the project as “No Country For Old Men on steroids.” And The Counselor does have some similarities with the world depicted in the Oscar-winning adaptation of the McCarthy novel.
Fassbender plays a respected lawyer who reckons he can dabble in the drugs trade blamelessly.
All that remains now is for Scott to go get his baddie. Javier Bardem played one of the director’s last bad guys, winning an Oscar for No Country for Old Men in the process. Various names for The Counselor are being bandied around, including some surprising ones like Brad Pitt, who began his career in another Scott project, Thelma and Louise.
Producing The Counselor are Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz and Nick Wechsler, who also produced The Road, the adaptation of McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. When Scott committed, producers Scott Free also came aboard with them.
There’s no release date yet, but it is known that this one won’t be set in a studio.
Fassbender, who has been seen in A Dangerous Method, Haywire, Jane Eyre and X-Men: First Class, has become one of Hollywood’s hottest properties. Steve McQueen, who directed him in Shame and Hunger, will team up again with the Irish-German actor, who turns 35 this spring, in Twelve Years a Slave, for release next year.
Photo: Photo by Dave Hogan – © 2011 Getty Images.
Early March Movie Roundup
Whatever your taste in cinema, there should be something worth going out to a theater for in the first week of March.
On March 2, Taylor Swift and Zac Efron voice the Chris Renaud-directed Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax, a family animation in which a 12-year-old boy searches for the story of the Lorax, a grumpy yet oddly charming character who fights to protect his world. The story is the one thing that will allow the boy to win the affection of the girl of his dreams. Danny De Vito also stars.
There’s comedy the same week from Project X, about three high school seniors who hold a birthday party to make names for themselves. As word of the party spreads, things spiral gloriously out of control…
Or catch Will Ferrell in another comedy, Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, about two guys who get a billion dollars to make a movie, only to have their dream go wrong. They try to revitalize a failing shopping mall in a bid to make their money back.
If you fancy something a lot darker, The Snowtown Murders opens on February 29. This crime thriller is based on true events. A teenager, Jamie, falls in love with his mother’s boyfriend and his crowd of self-appointed neighborhood watchmen, in a story based on the crimes of Australia’s most notorious serial killer, John Bunting.
Finally, comedy drama Boy is on limited release the same week. Set on New Zealand’s coast in 1984, it centers on a an 11-year-old devout Michael Jackson fan whose dad has returned to collect some money he had buried years previously, giving his son a chance to get to know him.
Photo: Universal Pictures 2012.
Rihanna Featured Heavily in New “Battleship” Images
Beautiful Barbadian-born singer Rihanna has not been featured prominently in marketing materials for her big screen debut, this summer’s blockbuster Battleship. Instead, fellow actors in the film Liam Neeson, Taylor Kitsch, and the Transformers-style aliens that will attack US armed forces and communities from the sea have been highlighted.
Now, clearly, the pop princess, who just won International Female Solo Artist at the Brit’s music awards in London, is making up for lost time. She is the focal point of six newly released Battleship pictures which have come online from Universal Pictures.
The project, an adaptation of the popular Hasbro board game with its familiar red and white pegs, is directed by Peter Berg. Rihanna plays US naval officer Raikes. The story revolves around a fleet of ships forced to battle with an alien enemy.
Looking mean and moody, Rihanna seems to be brandishing a different weapon in every image. So it’s a safe bet that she’ll be heavily involved in the action of this picture.
The girl herself, recently turned 24, said of Peter Berg, “I couldn’t ask for a better director to work with on my first film. It was a role I felt I could handle for my first time in acting.”
When the movie opens in theaters on May 18, it will be a big day for Brooklyn Decker, who also appears in the thriller but also co-stars in the pregnancy-based comedy What to Expect When You Are Expecting, which opens on the same date.
That will give movie-goers an interesting decision to make: bombastic robot thriller or ensemble comedy aimed at couples…the choice is yours!
Photo: Universal Pictures 2012.
Tagged Battleship, Liam Neeson, Peter Berg, Rihanna
Could Have Called It The Artist…Banderas To Portray Picasso
The great Spanish painter Pablo Picasso was last portrayed on the big screen in the James Ivory picture Surviving Picasso, in which an irate Anthony Hopkins focused on the women with whom the artist was romantically involved. There was also a brief performance from Marcial Di Fonzo Bo in Midnight in Paris.
Now screen god Antonio Banderas is to throw his hat in the ring, with 33 Days, a French and Spanish language film whose shoot starts in the summer. The project has a much narrower focus than Surviving Picasso, looking at just the first inception of the painter’s masterpiece, the 25ft Guernica painting, completed 75 years ago this year.
The angle is that the work helped Picasso through a personal crisis, when he was in a relationship with French artist Dora Maar. The painting depicts a violent chaos of animals and people, and was completed to highlight the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by Franco-supporting Germans in the Spanish Civil War. Now housed in a museum in Madrid, Guernica is widely viewed as one of the 20th century’s great masterpieces.
Written and directed by Carlos Saura, 33 Days has a relatively modest budget, and legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storraro is reportedly in talks to be part of the project.
While you may have thought of Picasso as short and bald, look at photos of him back in the 1930s and you will see an uncanny resemblance with Banderas, who was born a few blocks away from where the actor was born, in Malaga.
The painter’s compatriot said, “He’s a character who has pursued me for a long time.”
Photo by Frazer Harrison – © 2012 Getty Images.
Tagged 33 Days, Antonio Banderas, Carlos Saura, Pablo Picasso
Orlando Bloom in Zulu Role
Orlando Bloom can hardly be said to have had an extraordinary run of career luck in recent years. Now that his two big franchises, Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings, are done, there has been the odd picture, but nothing major. We last saw him camping it up in The Three Musketeers, in which he played the baddie.
However, he’s now no doubt hoping for greater success with Jerome Salle’s Zulu, in which he acts with Dijmon Honsou. Don’t confuse this one with the classic Michael Caine film of 1964, though. Instead, Salle’s version, written with Julien Rappeneau, is based upon the Caryl Ferey novel, set against the backdrop of post-Apartheid South Africa.
Bloom and Hounsou play a couple of South African policemen who investigate the murder of teenager Nicole Wiese, whose father is a champion Springbok rugby player. And that’s just the starting point: things can only get darker… Cameras start to roll on Zulu in Cape Town this summer.
At the same time, Bloom is getting set to appear on big screens in Roger Donaldson’ s thriller Cities, as well as featuring as Legolas in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which is in theaters in the US from December 14, in time for the holidays.
For his part, Hounsou had been gearing up to appear in Paradise Lost. However, the $120m adaptation of English poet Milton’s epic poem about realising Lucifer’s rebellion against God and the ensuing heavenly carnage was put on hold due to budgetary concerns.
Photo by Steve Granitz – © WireImage.com
Tagged Cities, Jerome Salle, Orlando Bloom, The Hobbit, Zulu