Here's the new trailer for Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, coming out at Christmas. I'm really not that interested in this movie- it just looks like pretty standard biopic survival stuff to me, although I do remember the lead actor Jack O'Connell from the U.K.'s teen show Skins. Good for him I guess, but otherwise this doesn't strike my fancy at all.
Movie of the Day: "Body Heat" (1981)
Moving right along in our femme fatale list, our next entry comes from a neo-noir that was actually a remake of Double Indemnity from 1944, one of the classics that set the mold for the genre. Most remakes never live up to the original, but surprisingly, this one really does stand on its own (some even say it's better than the first one- I'll leave that up to you to judge). The villainess here is Matty Walker, played by Kathleen Turner as a stunning seductress who uses all her feminine wiles to manipulate P.I. William Hurt into murdering her husband. The thing that makes this one stand apart from the original is the time in which it was made- what can be made explicit in 1981 was only allowed to be implied in the 40's, and obviously that's the sexual power a woman like Matty Walker employs to make men fall under her spell. Whether you prefer that to be implied or not will dictate which film you like more, but the sex scenes are very erotic and work really well in this updated version, and Kathleen Turner's slick, silky anti-heroine is one for the ages.
Original 1981 Trailer:
FINAL TRAILER: "Foxcatcher"
Up until now, Foxcatcher's only been promoted with a series of short teasers, but we finally have a full length trailer for this movie, and it looks awfully good, at least to me. It's been considered a major Oscar contender since Cannes, but there are those who wonder if it might be too cold and calculating for the Academy's tastes. It's possible, but they have responded to Bennett Miller's last two movies, Capote and Moneyball, so we'll see. Either way, the actor's branch should like it, as it's already been said to have three transformative performances from Steve Carell, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo. It comes out on November 14th.
Neil Patrick Harris to host the 2015 Oscars
The next Oscar host has been tapped and it's veteran awards emcee Neil Patrick Harris, who's made a run of it so far, having hosted the Tonys four times and the Emmys twice. The Oscars will air on Feb 22nd of next year, with the same producing team of Craig Zadan and Neil Meron behind the scenes, making this their third year in a row producing the show, to mixed results with hosts Seth MacFarlane and Ellen Degeneres. I don't know- I realize that fans of NPH as a host come strictly from his Tonys stints, which I've never seen, but I did see both times he hosted the Emmys, and I was not impressed with either. It worries me some that he's not a comedian, but hopefully he can pull off a song and dance man kind of routine, ala Hugh Jackman. That's probably the best precedent for him. What do you think?
Movie of the Day: "Out of the Past" (1947)
Our next all time great femme fatale is from one of the all time great film noirs in general, and that's the cold and two-faced Kathie Moffat from Out of the Past. She's one of the best because she spends most of the movie parading around as the innocent victim, captivating Robert Mitchum with her faux damsel in distress act, while simultaneously playing bad guy Kirk Douglas for a fool who thinks she's in his pocket. She plays both sides with ease, her every action is motivated by self-interest, and Jane Greer does a fantastic job conveying absolute sincerity in all her evolving faces so that the audience knows no better than Mitchum whether she's ever telling the truth or not. Cold to the bitter end.
Classic scene where Mitchum first sees Greer:
Robert Downey Jr. Signs on for 'Captain America 3'
Big news in the fanboy world last night, as it was officially announced that Robert Downey Jr. will in fact be co-starring in Captain America 3 in 2016, as Marvel will be adapting the much loved "Civil War" storyline from comic books. That basically means Iron Man and Captain America will fight each other in this one, which tells us why Marvel was not at all concerned about scheduling the third Cap sequel right on the same exact date that WB's Batman/Superman movie was already slated to come out. My guess is the DC heroes will be the ones to blink now and head somewhere else. By the way, RDJ is reportedly being paid over $40 million for this, with another $50 million for the next Avengers movie, which is what he got for the last one...I'm sorry, but how much money does a person really need at that point? I don't see how somebody could spend that much if they tried.
Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948)
I promise you, this is a totally serious pick. The title may sound like a joke, but if you're not familiar with Abbott and Costello, or have heard of them but never actually seen anything they were in, trust me, go ahead and start here, because it's one of their very best. The duo accidentally run into a cavalcade of Universal's classic horror monsters, in this one Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolf Man (with the original Dracula himself, Bela Lugosi reprising the role) and hijinks ensue, but it's still hilarious. It completely holds up and is just as funny today, plus it's perfect for Halloween!
Original 1948 Trailer:
Movie of the Day: "Leave Her to Heaven" (1945)
This week on Screen It Now! has been declared Femme Fatale week, and in honor of that theme we'll be showcasing the very best, most deliciously evil femme fatales in all of film noir. For today we're jumping right in with one the nastiest villainesses in movie history, and that's socialite Ellen Berent, who drained the life out of everyone she knew, often in a fatal manner. Played by Gene Tierney in a performance that won her an Oscar nomination, Ellen is the bearer of "suffocating love" as she calls it, and it leads to the ruin of all those who surround her. We never quite know exactly what Ellen's motives are, which makes her even scarier- what's on her mind? What is she thinking? Is she possessively jealous or just mentally ill? This is a lesser known noir from the mid 1940's, but it holds up really well, and for Tierney's character and haunting performance alone, it's a can't miss.
Original 1945 Trailer:
BOX OFFICE 10/10-10/12: 'Gone Girl' Overtakes 'Dracula' for #1
Despite a good showing from the dreadfully reviewed new opener Dracula Untold, Gone Girl repeated at number one this week, dropping just 30% from last weekend for another $26 million and a $78 million dollar total. At this rate, it will likely pass Benjamin Button ($127 million) to become David Fincher's highest grossing movie. Dracula meanwhile, opened in second with $23 million and an "A-" Cinemascore, so that's a pretty good showing for the fantasy, with audiences mostly male and under 25.
In third was Steve Carell's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which actually came in fairly strong, with $19 million and an audience that was 67% families. Live action family films were once a popular genre, but they don't often get made anymore, so this PG-rated Disney release is something of a rarity these days. Annabelle plunged 55% to fourth place, as all the cheap horror movies tend to do, while Robert Downey Jr.'s The Judge opened in fifth with just $13.3 million, a pretty disappointing number for the poorly received courtroom drama.
Top 5:
- Gone Girl- $26.8 million
- Dracula Untold- $23.5 million
- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day- $19 million
- Annabelle- $16.4 million
- The Judge- $13.3 million
In limited release, the Sundance winner Whiplash opened with a $24k average from six screens, which is pretty strong (and may have good word of mouth since Oscar buzz is building fast for this critical darling), and The Weinstein Company's Bill Murray starrer St. Vincent also opened well, with an even better $30k avg from just four screens. Next week it's Brad Pitt's Fury and the animated film Book of Life, with a limited release set for Birdman, the first major Oscar contender to debut for general audiences.
TRAILER: "Citizenfour"
One of the probable leading contenders for Best Documentary this year is Laura Poitras's Edward Snowden film, Citizenfour, which premiered at the New York Film Festival last night. It received a standing ovation and early reaction is pretty strong, so look out for this one whenever it comes out in the next few months. Docs are always in very limited release, but this is the kind of activist film that the branch tends to appreciate most.
REVIEW: "The Skeleton Twins" (2014) Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig. Dir. Craig Johnson
Every cast of Saturday Night Live produces its comedy buddies. Those are the guys who become pals on the show, often pair up in sketches, and then go on to be in movies or television together, as the camaraderie that goes on behind the scenes leads to fruitful creative pairings and lifelong friendships in many cases. Seriously, a lot of those cast members probably owe that show for finding their best pals. But the chemistry between real life friends is obvious most of the time, and it's a huge advantage in a movie like this, where the formulaic and somewhat cliched nature of the screenplay means it's entirely up to the actors to bring something more original to the screen. Luckily, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are so likable and charismatic together that they elevate this movie head and shoulders above the script and they alone are reason enough to see it.
The Skeleton Twins joins the ranks of family dramedies that are so common with indie filmmakers, and is another entry that explores the dynamic of an adult brother and sister, a relationship that's often proven more interesting and unique ground in film than that of two sisters or two brothers (I'm thinking of other memorable indies which produced pairs like Philip Seymour Hoffmann and Laura Linney in The Savages, or Mark Ruffalo and Linney again in You Can Count On Me). This one is funnier than those, and frankly gives us the most believable brother/sister pairing of all, thanks to the instantly familiar and familial interplay between Wiig and Hader, who are so effortlessly natural together that they manage to make every nuance of affection and dialogue seem genuine.
They play adult twin siblings Maggie and Milo, both deeply troubled since childhood, who've been estranged from each other for ten years despite their seemingly psychic-like bond. That link is displayed by the opening scene where Maggie is gazing in the mirror, about to down a handful of sleeping pills when she gets a call from a hospital in Los Angeles, telling her that her brother's just been admitted for an attempted suicide. Maggie sets off immediately to retrieve him, and though it's a melancholy reunion, it only takes a day or two for the two of them to fall into their old habits of wisecracks and sarcastic rapport, and Maggie takes him back to their hometown in upstate New York to recuperate.
Milo is an out of work gay actor with a tendency towards depression (like his sister and their late father), and as he settles in with Maggie and her new husband Lance, we see how he generates those depressive tendencies and eventually learn the traumas they're stemmed from (it partially involves an inappropriate past relationship with a former teacher, played by Modern Family's Ty Burrell in a dramatic turn). The same goes for Maggie, whose seemingly perfect life masks an equally disturbed pathology, as she cannot make herself be happy with the "puppy dog" nice guy Lance (played with welcome and unexpectedly subtle shading by Luke Wilson) and is continuously drawn into affair after affair. The dark past they share haunts their present lives, and this could be some dangerously depressing material as a movie, but Wiig and Hader pull off the dramatic moods as well as the easygoing interplay between their characters with zest and incredible appeal. It's very impressive to see these two comedy vets vacillate between the funny and the dark, and Hader especially is quite the revelation. This character fits him like a glove and allows him to be at turns sad, funny, and self-absorbed, yet remain inherently likable and so charismatic that you could watch him all day and believe everything he does and says, no matter that some of the situations are heavy-handed or dialogue campy. He always feels like a real person, not simply a character on a page.
The scenes between the two siblings make this film worthwhile, and luckily, that's most of the movie. Whether they're cracking each other up, confessing their darkest secrets, or viciously insulting each other in the place they know it'll hurt the most (as often only family can do), Hader and Wiig are dynamite. As for the film overall, there are some interludes that feel straight out of family indie cliche (an awkward dinner with Mom, a ridiculously quirky neighbor, some symbolic goldfish- I get really annoyed by symbolic objects and/or animals), and there's more than a little predictability in the script (you can always tell when two people are going to fight, then apologize, then fight for real and this time it's serious, etc.). But when the actors are this good and this watchable, you tend not to care so much as you simply sit back and enjoy watching them, even during the more formula driven aspects of the story, which is from writer-director Craig Johnson. And we're thankful for the buddies that SNL produces, because chemistry this effortless is a rare and wonderful thing, and it can turn a movie that might otherwise be forgettable into a genuinely affecting experience.
* * *
TRAILER: "Focus"
Margot Robbie seems to have moved very quickly up the ranks since being discovered in last year's Wolf of Wall Street, although admittedly, it's not very hard to see why. I'm going to call it right now, if this and the upcoming Tarzan (where she's been cast as Jane) are any good and/or hits, she's going to be the next Sharon Stone-esque sex symbol. This one looks different than what I would expect from the Crazy Stupid Love directing duo (it seems to be more of a heist/action movie), but who knows, it might work. Despite their 22 year age difference, Will Smith still looks younger than 46 and Margot Robbie older than 24, so this particular young woman/older man pairing works better than say, Emma Stone and Colin Firth. Focus is coming out Feb 27th.
