Posted on Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 by Angie Han
Briefly: If you’ve been dying to see some full-frontal Fassbender, mark your calendar. Fox Searchlight has just tweeted a U.S. release date of December 2, 2011 for Steve McQueen‘s NC-17 drama Shame, which stars Michael Fassbender as a sex addict who finds his orderly life disrupted by the arrival of his troubled sister (Carey Mulligan, who also gets naked in case you were wondering). The distributor picked up the rights last month in Toronto.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, among the NSFW highlights we can expect from the film are “male and female full-frontal nudity, graphic depictions of straight/gay/threeway sex, masturbation, urination,” and something really gruesome that we’re not going to reveal here so as to avoid spoilers. Aside from its explicit nature, the film has also drawn lots of attention for powerful performances by leads Fassbender and Mulligan — no surprise considering how much praise both actors have earned for their talents in the past. Shame marks the second collaboration between McQueen and Fassbender, who previously worked together on the critically acclaimed Hunger.
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One of the biggest critical hits at the Venice Film Festival was Shame, in which Hunger director Steve McQueen once again works with actor Michael Fassbender to tell a story of a man who doesn’t quite have control over his sexual urges. I’ve edged away from full reviews, but reports peg it as both gruesome (for one scene) and quite sexually explcit, with full frontal displays from Fassbender and co-star Carey Mulligan.
(THR mentioned “male and female full-frontal nudity, graphic depictions of straight/gay/threeway sex, masturbation, urination and a gruesome [redacted to avoid spoilers].”)
Scanning reviews paints Shame as a venue for a very effective performance from Michael Fassbender, if nothing else. And as McQueen has refused to cut the film, it is also one which will go out as an NC-17. So it has been the subject of debate for the past week — who’ll pick this one up? As it turns out, the distributor with the balls (or the willingness to show them) is Fox Searchlight, which bought distribution rights to Shame today in Toronto. Read More »
Briefly: Baz Luhrmann has added two more to his 3D film version of The Great Gatsby. (Why is this 3D, again?)
His take on the ‘great American novel’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald already features Leonardo DiCaprio as the wealthy Jay Gatsby; Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, the object of Gatsby’s unrequited love; Tobey Maguire as narrator Nick Carraway; Joel Edgerton as Daisy’s husband, old-money dillweed Tom Buchanan; Isla Fisher as Myrtle, with whom Tom is having an affair; and Jason Clarke as George Wilson, Myrtle’s husband.
Now Gemma Ward, who was recently seen as a mermaid in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, will play an undisclosed role, and Callan McAuliffe has signed on to play the young Jay Gatsby in a few scenes. Along with young Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki, who also recently signed on to play Nick Carraway’s love interest, Jordan Baker, that makes a nice complement of Australian actors for this Long Island-set story. Not that I’m complaining; I’ve really warmed up to the idea of Edgerton playing Tom Buchanan. The 3D part on the other hand… well, not so much. [EW and Variety]
I think Nicolas Winding Refn‘s film Drive, starring Ryan Gosling as a stuntman/getaway driver who is pulled into a difficult situation through his attraction to his next-door neighbor (Carey Mulligan), is pretty great. (Bryan Cranston, pictured above, plays a supporting role; I wanted to give him some header image attention.) I’d love to have a trailer to show you that is the great key to selling audiences on the movie without showing too much.
We don’t have that trailer yet. This new one is French, and it’s a lot like the previous US trailer until the end, when some new footage crops up, along with a few quick shots of naked people. But because the plot of Drive is relatively… let’s say ‘contained’… there’s only so much a trailer can build on without showing quite a bit of that plot. So, NSFW warning and possible spoiler warnings taken into account, check out this new trailer if you’re ready. Read More »
Because there is more than a slight risk of over-hyping the Nicolas Winding Refn film Drive, I’ve resisted posting the regular green-band trailer for the film, which dropped a week or so back, because it is almost exactly the same as the red-band version that hit during Comic Con. The trailer shows just a bit too much, I think, because the film is fairly thin on plot, instead prioritizing character and atmosphere. Those priorities work quite well for the film, but not so much in trailers. (The first clip we posted from the movie is the best look at it so far, I think.)
But now there is a new US poster, and a TV spot that, by virtue of brevity, is also a pretty good way to see some footage from Drive. (Including a few new shots.) Both are below. Read More »
Be prepared for a whole bunch of posts today featuring images from the impressive 2011 fall festival slate, as the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced a big portion of the fest’s September lineup. Along with that announcement comes a batch of images to go with many of the films. We’ll have a complete rundown of the TIFF slate shortly, but first let’s highlight one of the most interesting films on the schedule: Shame.
This is the latest film from director Steve McQueen, in which he once again directs Michael Fassbender. The two worked together to great effect on Hunger, and so I’m very excited for Shame, in which Mr. Fassbender plays a man living in NYC who has a bit of a problem with his insistent sexual desires. Michael Fassbender has become one of the most reliable and consistently impressive actors around, and I’m hoping that Shame gave him the impetus to really let loose.
We’ve got a batch of images featuring the actor and co-star Carey Mulligan, playing his sister, after the break. Read More »
Yesterday in Hall H at the San Diego Comic Con, the new company FilmDistrict presented a panel featuring two films: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Drive, the latter being the sort-of action movie that won Nicolas Winding Refn the Best Director award at Cannes this year. We didn’t know what to expect from the panel; both of these films have been screened and reviewed, so the typical Comic Con approach of teasing some footage with a short Q&A wouldn’t work.
The panel turned out to be one of the best I’ve ever seen at Comic Con, as Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn spent most of it firing questions back and forth at one another and talking about their approach to filmmaking. It was the sort of in-depth conversation that almost never happens in a Hall H presentation, and it was wonderful. Almost as a bonus, the first US trailer for Drive was revealed. The trailer is now online — it is classified as a red-band clip due to some brief nudity — and I’ll offer it an a few thoughts about last night’s Drive screening after the break. Read More »
A popular actress and director, both with a lot on their plate, just added another dish. Gary Ross, who is currently directing The Hunger Games, has just signed to direct Carey Mulligan, who’ll soon shoot Baz Luhrman’s The Great Gatsby, in Outback, an Australian set sci-fi action film written by Nissar Modi from a concept he conceived along with the director. Read more after the jump. Read More »
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