Last week we brought you the freshly debuted international trailer for Matt Reeves’s “Let Me In,” a remake of 2008’s vampire-done-right yarn “Let the Right One In.” Today, Empire has the exclusive on the first teaser poster. Check out the full sheet after the jump.
It’s fascinating to me, the similarities between Leonardo DiCaprio’s two 2010 endeavors, Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” and Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” (which I will review in short time). The themes and considerations in both have the same blood pumping through their veins.
I’m talking about ideas of repressed trauma, avoidance of reality, the impact of children on a psychology, the kinds of things you don’t often see handled delicately, if at all, in blockbuster entertainment. It’s a profound coincidence, really, one that further reveals an ambition in DiCaprio’s career choices that shouldn’t go without commendation.
I think his work in “Shutter Island” is more powerful, more complete, more assured. And despite ignorant jabs accusing the actor of being “stuck in a Scorsese rut” as of late, he and the 40-year veteran have managed to make each collaboration unique and fresh. And by the way, he’s very much up to the task under Nolan’s helm as well.
So mark this as an appreciation. DiCaprio has always been a forward thinker, never content to rest on laurels or take an easy paycheck. He doesn’t get enough credit for that.
A few weeks ago, I commented upon the scarcity of viable awards contenders released in the last six months, coming to the unsurprising conclusion that there hasn’t been much to, well, comment upon. In the past few days, however, Variety’s Tim Gray and EW’s Dave Karger have revisited the subject … and haven’t come up with very much either.
A common emerging sentiment is that, with such a meagre first-half slate, filling 10 slots on a Best Picture ballot could be a challenge for many voters – and could ultimately result in a decidedly weak nominee field, one with more “Blind Sides” than “District 9s.”
Sasha Stone has challenged this by suggesting that, in what she (if not everyone else) believes will be “a great year for film,” the Academy may end up looking to arthouse or non-summer genre fare to fill the gaps – though, to take two of her listed alternatives, it has to be said that while most critics would be down with “Winter’s Bone” making the list, “Shutter Island” would be a much more contentious nominee.
Happy Independence Day to my fellow Stateside brethren. I was trying to find something nifty on YouTube, but this map from the folks at Hollywood.com is pretty cool. Click on the image to head that way, where you can hover your mouse over your state and find out what movie set there the editors consider tops. My two stomping grounds — Virginia and North Carolina — got “Donnie Darko” (boo) and “Blue Velvet” (nice) respectively.
And oh, why not a couple nifty YouTube clips after all (on the jump).
Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” is 13 days away, though the bulk of reviews will be dropping in 51 hours. How’s that for a countdown?
The score from Hans Zimmer is exciting the same people behind the scenes who saw greatness and potential awards success in his work on “Sherlock Holmes.” It’s already available for pre-order at Amazon, but even though the album doesn’t release until July 13, you can listen to excerpts from the ominous work.
The guys at Nevermind Pop Film went to the trouble of collecting a nifty sampler widget from the tracks available in part at Amazon. It’s a dense work, very unique to Zimmer’s experiences collaborating with Nolan, but I wonder if it will have the same staying power in the awards season as the delightful melodies of “Sherlock Holmes.” Which would speak nothing to quality, mind you.
Have a listen after the jump and judge for yourself.
*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.
Are you guys seeing this Uruguay-Ghana game? Unbelievable finish. But it’s Independence Day weekend and we are supposed to be talking about all things American. Like sissy vampires and casting obviously foreign parts movies with good old white actors!
The weekend will go long with most people getting Monday off and it’s actually already begun with “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” opening on Wednesday and “The Last Airbender” debuting yesterday. Let’s start with the record breaker. The latest installment of Stephanie Meyer’s abstinence trilogy debuted on the largest number of screens ever, only nineteen months after the first film came out and shocked the industry. It earned $30 million in midnight screenings alone and chalked up a $68.5 million opening day.
That’s the fourth biggest single day gross in history and a little behind the all-time champ and previous “Twilight” entry, “New Moon” and its $76.0 million. Taking away the midnight rush, we’re looking at a Wednesday gross of $38.5 million for “Eclipse” and then a Thursday of $24.2 million. Definitely starting a slow slide, but not disastrous. Almost $100 million in the bank already and we have a long weekend ahead of us where “Eclipse” could feasibly earn another $100 million.
Yes, the franchise reboot — to be helmed by Marc Webb of “(500) Days of Summer” fame — has finally settled on a leading man, and it’s the 26 year-old, red-haired Brit Andrew Garfield.
I can’t say I saw that coming, but it’s a welcome surprise. I’ve been predicting big things for Garfield for some time: he came fourth on my list of the industry’s best under-30 actors last year. This, however, should accelerate that progress big-time.
Some of you will know him from “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” or “Lions for Lambs,” but Garfield’s most impressive work so far has come in British TV projects (that were nonetheless released theatrically Stateside) “Boy A” and “Red Riding: 1974.”
This year should really announce him as a big screen presence, with hefty roles in both “Never Let Me Go” and “The Social Network” waiting in the wings. It’s interesting that the studios have once more opted for actorly credentials over teen-idol status: Tobey Maguire’s CV was similarly high-end (if a little more advanced) when he first donned the suit in 2002.
2008’s “Let the Right One In” was on plenty top 10 lists, including my own. So the thought of an American remake with “Cloverfield” director Matt Reeves at the helm has been, well, less than appealing. Sight unseen, of course. Judging by the new trailer, though (unfortunately debuting as an exclusive at Deadline with a YouTube embed and no HD option), there seems to be a proper reverence to the material. But who trusts trailers these days anyway? We’ll see. Check out the international trailer for “Let Me In” by clicking the image below or watch the embed after the jump.
Hate to be an advocate, but last year’s Best Original Song winner Ryan Bingham hit the stage for a modest private showcase last night at The Mint in West L.A. and just nailed it.
The new album, “Junky Star,” hits shelves September 7 and was produced by T Bone Burnett, as mentioned previously. It’s like a Springsteen album, focused, intense, but free-wheelin’. It’s exactly the kind of music you want to hear this guy turning out.
Bingham spent some years in Austin and made his way as a country artist. He’s been here in Los Angeles for four years now, but his sound isn’t country. It’s quite progressive, actually, with an awareness, respect and even dedication to traditional melodies and sonic sense. But it retains an authentic sheen that makes it quite unique.
Catch up with the idea behind this series here.
1955. The year my father was born and the year the Oscars threw the biggest curveball in their short history. A tiny, 91 minute romantic comedy that made no money at the box office and was initially just meant to be a TV movie won the Best Picture award. The film, of course, is “Marty” and it’s also the second, and to this day last, film to win both Oscar’s top prize and the Palm d’Or at Cannes. Unassuming, pleasant and genuine, Delbert Mann’s directorial debut is one of my favorite choices the Academy has ever come up with. Only downside? Borgnine’s lifetime membership in the Academy begins here.
Fellini kicked off the official Best Foreign Langauge film category in 1956 with a win for “La Strada.” He’d win it again the next year and remains one of the most obtuse filmmakers ever wholly embraced by the Academy. Lest you think the Academy was all of a sudden into personal, independent filmmaking, the Best Picture prize went to straight up stinker “Around the World in 80 Days.” Old habits die hard. If only they made room for the following stone cold classics.
1955 – “Pather Panchali” (Satyajit Ray)
There must be some kind of outstanding rights issues, because Satyajit Ray’s debut feature is almost impossible to find on DVD, despite consistently being cited as one of the greatest films ever made. I was lucky enough to catch a 35mm print at the Aero a few years back and the film was able to live up to the hype. The title translates to “Song of the Little Road” and the languid pace of the film matches the lyrical insinuation of that moniker. The film premiered at Cannes and single-handedly put Indian film on the map and has influenced everyone from Kurosawa to Spielberg to Wes Anderson.
Things looked so upbeat for fledgling distribution outfit Apparition when they started out last year. Masterminded by former Picturehouse head Bob Berney, the company was christened with the acquisition of one of 2009’s best films, Jane Campion’s “Bright Star.” A classy roster of titles followed, including “The Young Victoria,” “Fair Game,” “The Runaways” and, most eagerly awaited of all, Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life.”
They didn’t quite know what to do with everything they had — “Bright Star” was unfortunately buried by ill-thought scheduling and idle marketing — but they did manage to eke out an Oscar win for “Victoria” before their first birthday, and also nabbed one of the starrier titles at this year’s Sundance fest: the Kristen Stewart and James Gandolfini starrer “Welcome to the Rileys.” Not bad going, particularly in the current indie climate.
How quickly things change in Hollywood. Just before Cannes, Berney caught industry watchers off-guard by pulling out of Apparition, and the company has been reeling from the shock ever since. Anne Thompson reports that co-founder Bill Pohlad has taken the drastic measure of shutting down their New York office and nearly halving the staff.
If you go see “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” this summer, you’re likely to see the new trailer for “Paranormal Activity 2.” Last year’s DIY thriller scared up a healthy box office with an innovative approach to distribution, but the idea of a sequel is dubious to many. The trailer has been released at the film’s official site and I have to say, it’s not really moving the needle for me. Click on the image below to have a look or check out the embed after the jump.
SPOILER ALERT: By necessity, this article must reveal some key plot developments of the novel, though no more than you might have gleaned from the film’s recent trailer.
“(T)hough the tears rolled down my face, I wasn’t sobbing or out of control,” writes Kathy, the young female narrator of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel “Never Let Me Go,” on its final page. She’d certainly be entitled to a good sob: over the course of 31 years and 282 pages, she has had the possibility of real life – with its attendant romance and independence and uncertainty – dangled in front of her, only to be unceremoniously denied at every turn, a Pinocchio figure resigned to eternal wooden form.
That Kathy (to be played by Carey Mulligan in Mark Romanek’s upcoming film) remains so stoic and accepting in the face of even the novel’s most crushing revelations makes her very much of a piece with other Ishiguro protagonists; in many ways, she’s something of a modern-day sister (or daughter) to Stevens, the emotionally stunted butler later played by Anthony Hopkins in “The Remains of the Day,” the only other screen adaptation of the British-Japanese novelist’s work to date.
Stevens denied himself feeling, but the disability of Kathy – and her classmates at Hailsham, the plush private college where they spend their entire childhood – is less autonomous than that: if her responses aren’t entirely human, it’s because she’s not entirely human herself.
You may have heard “Never Let Me Go” described as a work of science fiction, and if you haven’t read it – and, say, are only going on the high-end, contemporary-set romance (albeit with mildly gothic overtones) of the film’s trailer – you could be forgiven for being a bit puzzled by that classification.
Mike Fleming reported at Deadline yesterday that George Hickenlooper’s “Bagman” (formerly “Casino Jack,” or maybe it still is, who knows), which debuted at Sundance and could be a power play for lead actor Kevin Spacey if it’s ever picked up, is being shopped around town after a distribution deal with Metropolitan fell through. So I guess it’s a good time to toss up the trailer, which I stumbled across at Hollywood Elsewhere:
Last year, when I erroneously thought the iPhone 3GS would include video editing software, I asked how long it would be before the first movie fully shot and edited on an iPhone would hit. Well the 3GS didn’t have editing software, but the newly released (and I hear buggy-as-hell) iPhone 4 does. Commenter Chuck says this couldn’t have actually been edited on the iPhone 4, but it was shot exclusively with it and has a hell of a picture:
I’m sure someone has dicked around and shot a home porno or something by now. Or baby videos. And I guess there’s this. But we’re still waiting on something substantial to be shot and EDITED on the iPhone. Brave new world.
The folks at Movieline got their hands on a list of the top 50 films of the decade, from a cinematography standpoint, as laid out by voters at American Cinematographer magazine. Topping the list: Bruno Delbonnel’s work on “Amelie.” Delbonnel is a favorite among DPs. After all, “A Very Long Engagement” won him the ASC honor in 2004 and he received his third Oscar nomination of the decade for last year’s “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” But it’s still a surprising call.
Another delightfully unexpected pick is Jeff Cronenweth’s lensing of “Fight Club,” but I was personally irritated to find John Toll’s serene, thematically potent work on “The Thin Red Line” go completely unrecognized in the top 10 (he finally shows up at #17). I’d also say Roger Deakins, though at his usual top notch on “No Country for Old Men,” probably should have seen top 10 representation for “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” instead. His work on the western just misses at #11.
I’ve been asked many times to offer up a list of the top 10 shots of the decade as a bonus to my annual top 10 shots of the year columns, but I don’t think I can do it. For one thing, it’s obviously a ton of work, but with so many shots in so many movies, I just think it would be tough to whittle it down. Too tough.
Check out the full list from American Cinematographer after the jump. (Note they’re picking from 1998 to 2008).
The “Harry Potter” franchise has been a nice cash cow for Warner Bros. So it was a stroke of genius to split the final novel, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” into two film adaptations, virtually assuring an extra $800 million or so. The “Twilight” series took note, too. The all-encompassing trailer for the two-parter wizard denouement has hit the web via Yahoo! Movies and, well, they’ve always known how to cook up fetching trailers for this series. I still think its finest hour was the first 60 minutes of “The Goblet of Fire” and was generally “meh” on the third film, which is the favorite for most. So I guess I’m just out of step with the rest on these. Check out the new trailer by clicking the image below or have a look at the embed after the jump.
This issue has obviously been put to bed, but it’s still an idea in the ether many are thinking about these days. Around the 4:30 mark in this “Doubling Down” video chat between David Poland and USA Today’s Anthony Breznican the two discuss the lingering notion:
