If you’ll recall, a couple of weeks ago The Martian was moved up over two months for an October 2nd release. There, it will compete with the Robert Zemekis film The Walk and Brian Helgeland’s Legend, starring Tom Hardy (twice). And, while we’ve had a couple of different looks at The Walk (which I always want to call “The Wire” at first – I wonder if that will ever stop), we only got our first full look at Legend late last week with the first official US trailer, and it looks like October 2nd is shaping up to be a spectacular weekend for film fans. Have a viddy:
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Tag: Drama
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What the Hell is this Dragon Blade trailer? When was the last time that a swords and sandal epic was actually worth anything? Well, here we get a major film produced in China starring Adrien Brody, John Cusack, and Jackie Chan. The film was originally titled, “Tian jiang xiong shi”; literally, “Celestial General, Heroic Army” which is an infinitely better name than the generic “Dragon Blade”, especially since I am pretty sure there will be zero dragons and zero mystical blades. The plot focuses on a battle in antiquity over control of the Silk Road between corrupt Roman generals and Chinese tribes during the Han Dynasty. Somehow, I have watched this trailer three times and have managed to avoid even a single seizure from the dozens of quick cuts. I have, however, scoffed aplenty at the flat line readings, ridiculous dialogue, and downright confusing plot. Have a look:
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There is a moment late in the second act of the Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy where everyone is celebrating the success of the Good Vibrations single and lyricist Van Dyke Parks is tasked with describing the next project, which Brian wants to call SMiLE. Parks describes it as a mixture of various artists ranging from Phil Spektor to Beethoven (I have no chance of re-producing the exact sequence here, and can’t find it online, but it is a cool little line). Similarly, Love & Mercy can be described as a mishmash of Amadeus, A Beautiful Mind, and Shine – with elements of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and even 2001: A Space Odyssey. That is rarefied air, but entirely deserved, and the film should please both die-hard fans of The Beach Boys as well as general audiences with its unique style of musical storytelling and parallel story structure.
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Enter the Void is not an easy movie to watch, and that isn’t simply because it contains a startling killing, gratuitous sex, and a horrific car accident which routinely interjects the narrative. When you watch the most recent film from Gaspar Noé (at least until Love is released later this year), you are cast into an active role as the main character in the film. Ostensibly, you are Oscar, and get to experience his world and story through his very own eyes. The entirety of the film is shot from Oscar’s point-of-view, and we only get to see his face in mirrors a handful of times. This perspective doesn’t even shift when Oscar is killed and his consciousness leaves his body – we still view the remainder of the film, including multiple flashbacks and flashforwards through this lens. This single effect give Enter the Void an encompassing feel, as though the entire world of the film reaches out and surrounds the viewer, challenging us with the psychedelic neon colors, flashing lights, and unabashed raw energy. Immersed in this world, we are forced to confront the troubling aspects of Oscars past, present, and future as we rocket inexorably towards a new beginning and a new understanding of life.
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In a Variety Exclusive it was announced that IFC has acquired the rights to Jenny’s Wedding, an indie dramedy (which is apparently a word we’re going forward with) starring Katherine Heigl, Alexis Bledel, Linda Emond, and Tom Wilkinson. The film was written, directed, and produced by Mary Agnes Donoghue, who has a number of writing credits to her name (most notably Beaches), but only a single other director’s credit (Paradise, from 1991). This film will tell the story of the Jenny Farrell who, while being openly gay, has kept her sexual orientation from her parents (Wilkinson and Emond). When she reveals that she wants to start a family with her longtime “roommate” Kitty (Alexis Bledel), everyone is forced to come to terms with things. The film is now set for a July 31st release date in the United States.
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All you c-section babies can bail, though.
I’ve already written about the new adaptation of The Scottish Play with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard in my Cannes Film Festival piece, but today they released the first trailer for Macbeth. It is bleak and gorgeous, offering an aesthetic more similar to the grime of Braveheart than the polish of your standard Shakespearean tragedy (even though sad things happen at the end, it is usually very pretty and opulent in the meantime). This teaser trailer, unnaturally long at nearly two minutes, provides us with an amazing view of the environment of this new Macbeth, gives us a glimpse into the lyricism of the language that will be employed, and is not afraid to show the main characters descend into power lust and madness. This is a perfect preview of the film, and has me even more excited than I was before.
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In this century, properties like Twilight, Vampire Academy, and even things like Underworld and Blade have infantilized the vampire genre. These films are overtly focused on either relationship drama for the girls or supernatural action for the boys, leaving very few recent vampire movies capable of approaching these creatures of the night and their mythology with any nuance or depth. Enter A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, a wonderful bit of nuance and grim splendor.
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Who wants to have exactly zero fun watching Michael Fassbender starve himself to death? If there are any takers, I’d love to point you to Steve McQueen’s Hunger, a dramatization of the 1981 Irish hunger strike. McQueen burst onto the scene with this sobering tale of a five-year-long protest by incarcerated members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. In Hunger, McQueen offers up the raw filth of the history, but also reveals the depravity justified by a ruling government when dealing with “enemies”, a timely theme considering the ascension of the surveillance state and hard questions about the incarceration of enemies of the state.
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When was the last time you were legitimately excited about a Johnny Depp movie? Be honest. Maybe you thought he and Tim Burton would pay appropriate homage to Alice in Wonderland (and were wrong). Or, before that, perhaps you thought a more faithful take on Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was warranted (also wrong). Mortdecai? The Lone Ranger? Dark Shadows? Holy shit, Depp probably hasn’t done anything worthwhile in this century, with the possible exception of the first Pirates of the Caribbean flick. So, it is a relief to see him put down the makeup and funny hats and return to a serious role with Black Mass, which released its first full-length trailer recently.
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I made sure to write this trailer reaction a good three hours after I first saw the trailer to Batkid Begins this morning, otherwise it would have basically been three paragraphs of teary-eyed blubbering. The story was vaguely familiar to me from various news articles, but I didn’t really know too much about it. Presented here, in all its onion-chopping glory, is the Batkid Begins trailer. It tells the story of Miles Scott, a 5-year old leukemia patient, and his Make-A-Wish Foundation wish to become Batman for a day. Produced and directed by Dana Nachman, Batkid tells the story of what transpired behind the scenes of the fulfillment of this wish, and documents how the story propagated around the world, inspired many, and eventually culminated in the entire city of San Francisco banding together to grant Miles’ wish.
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Plot and Theme 