Michael Haneke‘s latest film Amour (aka Love) is probably the saddest happy movie ever made. It tells the harrowing story of an elderly couple’s long time love for each other and how their bond is tested when one of them falls incredibly ill. Depressing? More than you can imagine. But Haneke’s realism and the unbelievable performances of his leads, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, somehow takes terrible pain and transforms it into an affirmation of life.
Audacious in its attempt to make opposite ends of the emotional spectrum into perfect complements, Amour is a true feat that’s not to be missed. The film won the Palme D’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and just played AFI Fest presented by Audi. Read more after the jump. Read More »
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Peter Jackson has not one, but two films coming out in late December. We all know about his little hobbit movie, but he’s also a producer of West of Memphis, the important and emotional documentary telling the story of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, three young men who, in 1993, were accused and convicted of murder. When the case became the subject of a documentary called Paradise Lost, it became a worldwide sensation, spawning several other films and tons of support for the boys who spent 17 years in prison before finally being released last year.
West of Memphis, directed by Amy Berg, is most likely the definitive work on the story and it’ll be released on a limited basis on December 25. After the jump, watch the brand new trailer. Read More »
At a time when even the most basic films feature once-impossible and now all but invisible digital effects and editing, it’s easy to look past the fact that the power of cinema lies in the simplest things: image and sound, and the way that two or three small elements can be combined to create a complex and very powerful effect.
One of the best moments in the trailer for Michael Haneke‘s new film Amour was a combination of an edit between two simple shots and an action in the latter shot. The edit cuts across time and through memory, and the action — a simple, mundane little thing — turns the construction into a montage that communicates deep, inescapable sadness.
Two clips of Amour are now online, and one highlights that moment. It’s one that should be studied by anyone interested in the construction of a film, because it is a lesson in pure cinematic storytelling delivered in one minute. If someone asked me what movies are, as a medium, I might point towards this clip. Read More »
One of the big hits of both Sundance and SXSW this year was the doc Searching For Sugar Man, about the singer Rodriguez, whose records bombed in the US in the ’70s even as it became a major cultural force in South Africa. Sony Classics picked up the film after Sundance, but no trailer has been released at this point. But last night 60 Minutes profiled both the film and its subjects, and that segment is now online.
I haven’t seen the doc, and so I can’t say whether or not this segment ultimately undercuts any narrative suspense built into the film. (I suspect that it does.) But if you’re willing to take that chance, or are more interested in the story than any reveals in the documentary, I’d recommend taking a a look.
When you do watch, I expect (just as Sony Classics hopes) that you’ll be eager to see the movie, as an interview with Rodriguez reveals him to be a wonderful subject, and the story of filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul is also wild. (He says he shot much of the doc on his iPhone.) Read More »
Anyone who thinks the disappointing box office of That’s My Boy marked the end of Andy Samberg‘s post Saturday Night Live film career hasn’t seen Celeste and Jesse Forever. The Sundance favorite finally hits theaters August 3 and features the actor in a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy alongside Rashida Jones, who co-wrote the film. They play long time soulmates who were married, happy, but then divorce and try to remain friends. Instead of handling the premise in a kitschy and stupid way, though, director Lee Toland Krieger (The Vicious Kind) presents much more realistic, sweet, mature emotions.
Check out the trailer for the film, which co-stars Elijah Wood, Ari Graynor, Chris Messina, Emma Roberts and Eric Christian Olsen, below. Read More »
Posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2012 by Angie Han
Where the original Blade Runner was known for its neon urban landscapes, the Blade Runner sequel will take us all the way out into flat, dusty farm country — or so says Ridley Scott, while describing one scene he’s already visualized for his upcoming project. Also after the jump:
- Men in Black 3 concept art shows deleted scenes, alternate Boris the Animal design
- Find out when and where Iron Man 3 is shooting in North Carolina this week
- Red, white, and blue balloons dot new set photos of A Good Day to Die Hard
- Lionsgate unveils a second TV spot for The Expendables 2
Read More »
Woody Allen‘s latest film will be his first to shoot in the US in almost a decade, but that might not be the big reason to pay attention to it. The film just added three cast members, and they’re quite a set. One of them is a great surprise: Louis C.K., a man we know is a fan of Allen’s work if only for the homage he paid Manhattan in the third season of Louie. Another is also a surprise, but a much more surreal one: Andrew Dice Clay, whose comic sensibility is everything a classic Allen character would claim to hate, but might secretly love. Then, to balance things out, we have Peter Sarsgaard.
A bit more info on the film follows. Read More »
Over the weekend the top Cannes prize, the Palme d’Or, was awarded to Amour (Love), the latest film from Austrian director Michael Haneke. It’s Haneke’s second Palme d’Or in a stretch of two films; his movie The White Ribbon took the award in 2009. (Other films of his, Cache and The Piano Teacher, have been nominated for the prize, too.)
Today Sony Pictures Classics set a December 19 release date for the film. While that seems like a serious attempt to court Oscar votes, the serious end-of-life story will have an uphill battle come Oscar time. Still, Haneke’s films, somber though they may be, are often extremely powerful, and reviews of Amour out of Cannes were positive. Check out a great trailer below. Read More »
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