The teaser trailer for Rio 2 follows a well-established pattern: throw away the story, and just give the audience some cute, dancing animals. That works for quite a few family films, but in Rio’s case it is more appropriate than most. This is the sequel to a musical about colorful birds that was heavily influenced by the culture of Brazil, after all. So this teaser gets the idea of the sequel across pretty well: it’s Rio, again. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 by Russ Fischer
Briefly: We don’t know what Mission: Impossible 5 will be about, but we know who will write: Drew Pearce, who scripted Iron Man 3 with director Shane Black, has been hired to write the film. Tom Cruise returns to star, and the sequel will reportedly shoot in the fall of this year, after Cruise finishes The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Will Pearce again work with a director who is also known as a screenwriter? Christopher McQuarrie, who directed Cruise in Jack Reacher, has been linked to the film. And while he hasn’t signed on, THR reports that he is “in discussions” to direct M:I 5, even as he has already been set to direct a remake of Ice Station Zebra.
Pearce also did some work on the Pacific Rim script, and is writing another film that he’ll direct as well; details on that are thin right now.
Posted on Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 by Russ Fischer
Berberian Sound Studio started doing the festival rounds last year, but IFC is going to release it in the US this summer. Toby Jones plays a movie sound designer working on an Italian horror film, and the film follows his increasingly problematic mental state. Comparisons have been made to Roman Polanski’s work, and it’s easy to see some Coppola (The Conversation) and De Palma (Blow-Out) in there, too, along with the spirit of precisely the sort of films that Jones’ character is working on.
IFC has just released a US trailer, and it’s quite a nice piece of work. It does a good job getting across the idea that the film is rather quiet and a little bit strange, but it also stands as a great assembly of footage in its own right. Take a look below. Read More »
Posted on Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 by Russ Fischer
The time-travel love story is nearly a constant in film, and it can be played a few ways: there are sweet, earnest, slightly creepy, and super-creepy, just for starters. About Time, in which the rather charming Domhnall Gleeson learns of his ability to travel through time, stars off seeming like it might be the super-creepy kind, as Gleeson’s character uses his ability to score.
But then, thanks to his presence and a gentle turn from Rachel McAdams, it seems to swerve into much sweeter, funny territory. That might be due to the fact that Richard Curtis (Love, Actually) wrote and directed. The additional cast (Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander and Margot Robbie) doesn’t hurt. Sure, there’s a bit of heavy message delivery from Nighy, but that might just be the trailer.
We’ve actually got two trailers, one from the UK and one for the US. Check out both below. Read More »
Posted on Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 by Russ Fischer
Is Will Smith looking to make up for balking at starring in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained by starring in a remake of one of the biggest landmarks in the Western canon? Smith has signed to produce and star in the remake of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, which Warner Bros. has been trying to kickstart for a few years. That’s a piece of news that sounds pretty ridiculous, as the family-friendly guy who shied away fro Django is just about the last guy I’d expect to remake a film famous for its violence and adult themes.
(And yeah, let’s just get it out of the way: The Wild Wild Bunch. There, now we can move on.)
Posted on Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 by Russ Fischer
There are a whole lot of great people in Rapture-Palooza, written by Chris Matheson (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) and directed by Paul Middleditch (Separation City). The film features Anna Kendrick and John Francis Daley as a young couple navigating the slightly hellish landscape of Earth after the Rapture. Craig Robinson is the Antichrist, and Rob Corddry, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer, Thomas Lennon, Ana Gasteyer, John Michael Higgins, and Tyler Labine are on hand, too.
Like I said, a lot of great people… so we’ll just pretend for a while that the film looks a lot better than this red-band trailer makes it out to be. Knowing that this was written by the guy who created Bill & Ted helps, and this trailer seems to be angling for some of that spirit, and the weirder moments of the Harold & Kumar movies, too. But a lot of Rapture-Palooza looks a bit like Birdemic, only with recognizable actors. That might be good; a lot of people seem to like Birdemic.
There’s a lot of bad language in here, which is what earns the red-band status. Whether the language adds to the jokes is something we’ll let you decide. (I do like the vulgar crow.) Read More »
Posted on Monday, May 13th, 2013 by Russ Fischer
I’ll say this for James Franco‘s new outing as a director, and his highest-profile directorial gig to date: it takes some balls to tackle William Faulkner. The source material here is Faulkner’s seventh novel As I Lay Dying, which charts a family’s attempt to transport the body of its late matriarch to her preferred burial place, miles away. To grossly reduce things to a simple statement, the journey does not go well.
The film will premiere shortly at Cannes, and this trailer showcases the use of some of Faulkner’s original text in the script for the film. We get some idea of how Franco and the rest of the cast do with the material, but it’s too early to tell if the movie works. The novel is narrated by over a dozen characters, but we also don’t know how Franco, who also scripted, has dealt with the presentation of the story.
Each of the few times I’ve watched this Sleepy Hollow trailer, a new obvious influence comes to mind: Captain America, The Terminator, The X-Files, Demolition Man, and National Treasure are all in here, just for starters.
Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are the “masterminds” behind this goofy Mad Libs in which Ichabod Crane was tasked by George Washington with killing one specific redcoat. This redcoat becomes the Headless Horseman — but not merely your run of the mill ghostly horseman. He’s one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This horseman is now running around modern America, and Ichabod Crane is reawakened to stop him.
Oh, and there’s a “there’s a Starbucks everywhere” joke. And Orlando Jones, and Clancy Brown. The whole thing is either going to be so ridiculous it transcends the total absurdity of the premise. Or, as the trailer below suggests, it might not. Read More »
