Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis get naked, have casual sex
Nov 07Screen Gems have released the first trailer for their upcoming sex comedy Friends With Benefits, starring pop star-turned-actor-guy-in-heaps-of-movies Justin Timberlake and Meg Griffin’s voice, Mila Kunis.
Not sure what to expect? I wasn’t sure, either. I can tell you I didn’t expect this snappy little trailer to be as sexy as it is, nor as funny. Yeah, funny– it actually looks like it might play out as one of those easy-to-kick-back-to films, one where getting deep and technical about the film will be a waste because it’s only out to achieve three basic things:
- Look sexy
- Be funny
- Make money
Also, it appears there’s a decent little support role for good ol’ Woody Harrelson. That guy is crazy.
Friends With Benefits will be released 22 July 2011 in the States. No Australian dates have been announced yet.
A young female headhunter (Mila Kunis) in New York convinces a potential recruit (Justin Timberlake) to leave his job in San Francisco behind and accept a job in the Big Apple. Despite an attraction to each other, both realize they’re everything they’ve been running from in a relationship and decide to become friends… with benefits. It’s the perfect arrangement–until they realize there’s no such thing as no strings attached.
First full trailer for SUCKER PUNCH: what the hell am I watching?
Nov 04
I like video games. I like movies. I do not like video games that try to be movies, or movies that try to be video games. Sucker Punch‘s trailer plays like a bad Japanese beat-em-up: the juvenile misogyny is there in full force, there’s a lot of weightless CGI violence, and there’s even a Zelda-esque mythical-item fetch-quest thrown in for good measure.
As always, I’ll try to reserve judgement until the film itself is released, but trailers like this do little to inspire faith.
Sucker Punch is due on 25 March 2011 in the States, and is directed by Zack Snyder. Expect lots of punching, a fair amount of suckering, and way too much slow-mo ramping.
First pictures of Spielberg and Jackson’s TINTIN rear their uncanny heads
Nov 02
The trouble with adapting popular things from people’s childhoods is that you can never do nostalgia justice. The best you can hope to do is generate fresh nostalgia, like what Michael Bay miraculously did with his Transformers flicks, or you risk alienating the audience.
I was never super excited for a Tintin movie in the first place, and these motion-capped pics do little to instill anticipation. I don’t know what it is about the pictures — maybe I was expecting a more faithfully-cartoony visual style — but they seem to come across as something interesting shoehorned into something crushingly familiar.
Tintin is a collaborative project between industry juggernauts Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. The first film, due late next year (2011), follows the plot of the book (comic?) The Secret Of The Unicorn. I’m pretty sure I read most Tintin books as a kid, but the only one I remember distinctly is the one with giant mushrooms that land on an asteroid, or something, so don’t ask me to summarise the plot.
It stars Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) as boy wonder Tintin, Andy Serkis (Gollum from The Lord Of The Rings) as Captain Haddock, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thompson and Thomson, Daniel Craig as Red Rackham, and Cary Elwes in some kind of bit-part.
So here we have the first few images from the project. Make of them what you will. They come courtesy of Empire magazine (buy the next issue for more, etc.).
The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn (another franchise with unwieldy titles, neato) is due on 28 December 2011 in the States. We’ll probably get a Boxing Day release, something we’ve come to expect from Jackson’s films over the years.
No really, Christopher Nolan’s third Bat-film will be called THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Oct 28
Batman Begins. The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight Rises. Huh. I guess it’s a fitting title for a third act, but somehow I envisioned something a little less… samey.
In related news, Christopher Nolan has confirmed that neither the Riddler nor Mr Freeze will be in The Dark Knight Rises, which narrows the list of potential Bat-villains down to approximately one billion. I don’t really care who the villain is, as long as the acting and direction remains as solid as it was in The Dark Knight. (That is, the first Dark Knight, the one where he just sort of wallowed about, as opposed to, you know, rising, or anything.)
Nolan doesn’t want to shoot The Dark Knight Rises in 3D, but he is pressing studio Warner Bros. to let him shoot (or at least release the film) in Imax. Good to see someone in Hollywood sticking to their guns.
Oh yeah, and Tom Hardy (Eames from Inception) has been cast in The Dark Knight Rises. Make of that what you will.
The Dark Knight Rises is due 20 July 2012.
Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Oprah Winfrey starring a film being directed by the Sex and the City guy
Oct 25
Comingsoon reports Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock will co-star with Oscar nominee Oprah Winfrey in a new comedy film (currently untitled) being directed by Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City) at Universal Pictures.
Talk about winning over the majority female audience in a single heartbeat. Cast lady-favorites Bullock, Streep and TV legend Winfrey in a film directed by ‘the Sex and the City guy’. They don’t even need to name him, just display the title card during the trailer: From the director of Sex and the City. Then the already-intrigued will see who it stars and BAM! Universal’s work is done. Cash it in.
Plot? Story? Those things will only be added bonus. But in case you are actually interested, the film will be set around the world of a home shopping TV network and follows the characters as they make their way through the maze of mania that surrounds marketing, marriages and the media. I can already hear the girlie cackles.
Director Michael Patrick King is also writing. No word on when the film is expected to arrive, nor who the hunky male co-stars will be.
BURIED review
Oct 07
Buried is a surprisingly thrilling portrait of a middle-class American man held hostage in Iraq, completely contained within a wooden coffin. Its originality is only outdone by its ambitious attempt to hold an audience’s interest in one small and dark location, on one subject, for 90-plus minutes.
It succeeds.
I’ve decided that, in the few hours since seeing the film today, Buried works because of one key element. While filmmaking is a collaborate effort, and many factors need to gel for an entire film to succeed (especially in the case of an independent film such as this), Buried had something that exceeded expectations and carried the film from the realms of barely-passable to convincing.
For instance, Ryan Reynolds is convincing as contracted truck driver Paul Conroy– he had to be. I normally don’t dig on Reynolds’ performances, he hasn’t turned in a gig yet that I was overly entertained by, let alone convinced. Until now. Reynolds turns in a performance that is grounded and believable, and one for which he should be commended. If I were him, I’d keep this at the top of my resumè (but we all know that spots is reserved for Green Lantern, right after I Get To Sleep With Scarlett Johansson, So There). However, Reynolds is not the ultimate reason Buried works.
Director Rodrigo Cortés has paced his film perfectly, and rinsed every ounce of reality out of Reynolds. That’s the most important thing he had to do. Thanks to its low budget, the grit and style of Buried is a given, and, while it may have been testing to keep things fresh from scene to scene, the director’s vision seems to have been drawn from the creativity found in the writing, rather than personal expression.
Screenwriter Chris Sparling had his work cut out for him: Only one performance, in one box, for an entire film? The premise is delicious at first, but a bitch to pitch to an audience (let alone a studio head), and even more difficult to actually write over ninety pages. With the aid of some helpful items left in the coffin with Paul, the character is able to contact the outside world and negotiate the terms of his release while continually leaving us in the dark about his future (thanks to a time-limit set very early on). Nice move. These elements allow director Cortés to carefully handle story elements that are political, primal and heartfelt, without being overly obvious.
Save for a few questionable character decisions, the writing and direction are definitely solid, but they are still is not the winning factor for Buried.
I have no doubt Buried ultimately works because of the masterful work of Cinematographer Eduard Grau. The creative way he used his camera to conjure very real feelings of claustrophobia, anxiety and desperation are a testament to his attention to detail. A simple focus pull might be affective in a two-shot for a ‘normal’ film, but here, it becomes heart-stoppingly genius and new. And this is just one example. Clearly a fan of ‘Hitchcokian’ style, this is one setting where such a style makes complete sense without being pure copycat.
Thank you, Grau, for not being weak and predictable by resorting to a shaky hand-held camera like so many young, ambitious filmmakers would have done. Thank you for carefully selecting your shots with deliberate composition. Even when the frame became frantic, it was still superbly composed.
Without this masterful camera work keeping things visually fresh, Buried would have gotten stale very quickly. Thankfully, it doesn’t.
Buried is engaging to sit through and leaves space for conversation with fellow viewers afterwards. You’ll only ever need to watch it once, though. I can’t anticipate it being anywhere near as engaging on repeat viewings, thanks mostly to the film’s somewhat unsatisfying conclusion.
OPINIONS COUNT