James Spader has been cast as Ultron, the evil android in The Avengers 2, set to come out May 1, 2015. Joss Whedon is back to write and direct of course, but it's not known if Spader's just going to be the voice for the robot or if he'll actually be doing the performing, motion-capture style. Spader can be a pretty great bad guy (my favorite of his is still Steph from Pretty in PInk), so it'll be fun to see what he can come up with for this.
Before Gravity plays at Telluride this Saturday it premiered at the Venice Film Festival last night, and the reaction has been pretty ecstatic, to say the least. I think we're looking at a sure thing Oscar player right now in all the major categories- Picture, Director, probably even Actress, as Sandra Bullock is getting the best reviews of her career. A sampling from some of the critics:
"Suspending viewers alongside Bullock for a taut, transporting 91 minutes (with George Clooney in a sly supporting turn), the director's long overdue follow-up to Children of Men is at once a nervy experiment in blockbuster minimalism and a film of robust movie-movie thrills, restoring a sense of wonder, terror, and possibility to the bigscreen that should inspire awe among critics and audiences worldwide." (Variety)
"At once the most realistic and beautifully choreographed film ever set in space, Gravity is a thrillingly realized survival story spiked with interludes of breath-catching tension and startling surprise." (Hollywood Reporter)
"Cuaron shows things that cannot be, but miraculously, are, in the fearful, beautiful reality of the space world above our world. If the film past is dead, Gravity shows us the glory of cinema's future. It thrills on so many levels." (Time)
And for Bullock herself:
"...she's steely, vulnerable, occasionally funny and just about the best she's ever been in a dramatic role." (The Playlist)
"(Bullock) puts her impressively restrained performance to the fore just when the film needs her to, without straying from the character's slightly dour vulnerability or succumbing to focus-pulling bravado;..." (HitFix)
"Bullock is aces in by far the best film she's ever been in." (Hollywood Reporter)
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, when Dr. King's iconic "I Have a Dream" speech was shared across the land. Celebrating the occasion with our continuing series of civil rights films, today's entry sees another 60's icon, Sidney Poitier, take center stage in this Best Picture winner from 1967, about a Philadelphia cop who helps a Southern sheriff solve a murder in the South. Sidney Poitier was the first African-American movie star whose appeal stretched across audiences black and white. As a noble, moral and upright hero who was sometimes criticized for being too perfect in his roles, he helped to change the perception of African-Americans by playing positive characters with dignity, when they had rarely been portrayed as such on screen before. His presence is still incredibly powerful, as you can look back and see how dynamic his charisma and appeal was, especially when he appeared next to other screen icons, like Spencer Tracy in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner or Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones.
Original Trailer from 1967:
The Telluride Film Fest starts today and goes through Saturday, and as per usual they just revealed their lineup on the opening day. This is where Argo premiered last year and recent Oscar winners The Artist and The King's Speech also made their U.S. debuts in Telluride.
Oscar contenders set to hit the Festival:
I can't wait to hear the reaction for Gravity, my number one most anticipated movie this fall by far. I'll be posting the early reactions and reviews as they come in.
Writer-director Jeff Nichols' third feature, Mud, is a movie that boasts some outstanding cinematography and some fine acting, but the overall experience of the film is, I'm sorry to say, unsatisfying, thanks to a muddled screenplay that lacks focus and never quite knows what it wants to be about.
Set on a riverboat house in the Arkansas swamplands, two boys named Ellis and Neckbone go searching for an abandoned boat they found stuck in a tree, presumably after a flood has taken place. When they find their boat it bears traces of evidence that someone has been living in it, and that someone turns out to be Mud, played by Matthew McConaughey, a fugitive on the run from bounty hunters and the law after having murdered a man. The boys, especially Ellis, grow enamored of him and Mud recruits them to help him fix up the boat for use, so that he can whisk away his girlfriend Juniper (Reese Whitherspoon), whom he's come there to find. This is clearly a Boo Radley inspired situation, but I only wish Mud were that interesting. The character as written is rather uncomplicated and dull, and on the screen is sold purely on the basis of McConaughey's usual charisma. Which is there in spades, and I don't mean to diminish him as he continues his career comeback by turning in one serious performance after another in interesting, smaller films for the past two years, but Mud's troubled relationship with his girlfriend is only vaguely touched on and never given closure, which is something you can say about several of the plot threads in this movie.
Of the two boys participating in Mud's home project, Ellis is the protagonist, and he's played very well by the appealing Tye Sheridan. He comes from a home where his parents are splitting up and he's feeling disillusioned about love, so he tries to find it elsewhere by helping to reunite Mud and Juniper, and trying to find a girlfriend for himself. The girlfriend story is something that's introduced and then tossed aside, while the parent's marriage is similarly focused on for singular moments but not addressed in any meaningful way. The script meanders between a series of only vaguely connected scenes without pulling the various threads together so that there's an impact to what we've been watching for two hours- and the violent climax near the finale feels particularly tacked on and out of place, as though Nichols didn't quite know how the film should end, and thought that missing impact might as well be an action scene. There's also another abrupt moment near the ending that endangers Ellis's life in a sequence that to me was very nearly completely ripped off from The Coen's True Grit a couple of years ago, and the mimicry robs that scene of its dramatic impact as well.
It's a shame that the story never comes together tightly, because all of the performances are excellent in the film, from the two young boys to McConaughey, to the parents played by Sarah Paulsen and Ray McKinnon, and even Reese Whitherspoon as Juniper, despite her character being the most elusive. But none of these people are ever explored in depth and just when we seem on the verge of getting to know them, Ellis wanders off into another disparate scene, taking the opportunity away from us. I should mention that the film is gorgeously photographed, and the locations (in Nichols' home state of Arkansas) are astounding to look at, placing us in an atmospheric South that feels vividly alive. Unfortunately I can't say the same about the people in it.
* *
New poster for the George Clooney flick The Monuments Men, out in December.
Cute story today from an interview the President gave today to radio hosts Tom Joyner and Sybil Wilkes of the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Here's the quote:
Tom Joyner: "Ok, before were get out of here, did you see 'The Butler' and did you cry?"
The President: "You know, I did see 'The Butler' and I did tear up. I teared up just thinking about not just the butlers who've worked here in the White House, but an entire generation of people who were talented and skilled, but because of Jim Crow, because of discrimination, there was only so far they could go. And yet, with tenacity and dignity, they got up and worked every single day and put up with a whole lot of mess because they hoped for something better for their kids."
Aww. The tearjerking ending is pretty powerful- people in my theater were sniffling too. President Obama went on to say that Oprah can really act, lol.
Continuing our weeklong remembrance of the March on Washington, the second movie to celebrate civil rights this week is Spike Lee's Malcolm X, the sprawling biography of the slain civil rights activist played brilliantly by Denzel Washington (and for which he should have won his first Best Actor Oscar). The movie dramatized every major event in Malcolm X's life, from his early life as a criminal to his imprisonment, his conversion to Islam, his eventual falling out with the Nation of Islam, his spiritual re-awakening and so on, all the way to his assassination. It's a terrific movie that should have been recognized more in its time, but has since come to be considered a classic and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2010.
Trailer:
Potential Best Actor contender Matthew McConaughey stars as AIDS activist Ron Woodruff in this movie, out Nov 1st.
The Criterion series has been great about producing the best cover art to go with their new releases. The film stars Jack Benny and Carole Lombard (one of the great comediennes who died in a plane crash shortly before it came out), as part of a theater troupe that has to imitate the Nazis in order to get out of Poland. Considered controversial at the time of its release, both for its satire (remember, the Nazis were currently occupying at the time) and Lombard's recent death, the movie found new life soon after and is now considered one of the best of director Ernst Lubitsch's career. It's a great movie, and you should definitely check it out.
Original Trailer from 1942:
Variety reports that 42 star Chadwick Boseman has been cast as the legendary James Brown in the long awaited biopic that has finally been given the green light. Producer Brian Grazer has been trying to get it off the ground for years and the project finally picked up steam when Tate Taylor (The Help), came on board to direct. It sounds like a traditional biopic that's going to follow the singer from poverty in Georgia to stardom in the 60's and 70's, but presumably Boseman's going to be doing some serious performing in this movie, as you can see below (I wonder if his voice will be dubbed).
Here's the Godfather of Soul in 1966 singing one of my favorite songs:
The Movie Seasons
Use this site for movie and television recommendations throughout the year- we have picks for the changing seasons, holidays, and moods, along with new releases and recaps of the best shows on TV
