Meryl Streep prevented the cast and crew of The Artist from a total sweep of the major categories at this year’s British Academy Film Awards, presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and commonly called the BAFTAs. Streep won Best Actress for playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, and The Artist took Best Film, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Music and Best Costume Design.
There were a few good winners for categories in between all those, and we’ve got the full rundown after the break. Read More »
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Actor Paddy Considine‘s first feature as a director is Tyrannosaur, which features the always reliable, often impressive character actor Peter Mullan as a violent, self-destructive alcoholic who strikes up a friendship with Hannah (Olivia Colman, of Hot Fuzz), a Christian charity-shop worker. Considine adapted the feature from his previous short Dog Altogether, and has said that “mainly [Tyrannosaur is] about my interpretation of life, and trying to function as a human.”
The film got outstanding reviews at Sundance early this year, and is set to play TIFF next month. Now there is an absolutely outstanding trailer that shows off the film’s grit, and suggests that Considine’s impression of life is a vision of harrowing experience. Read More »
If you’re more interested in the typical fall slate of festival entrees than summer’s glut of tentpole action fare, this is a great week. The Toronto International Film Festival announced the first wave of films that will play the fest in September. This is a batch of about 50 titles, which makes up only a small chunk of the programming. Usually TIFF features between two and three hundred films. But these are some of the highest-profile entries.
Below you’ll find rundowns on the new films from George Clooney, Bennett Miller, Jay & Mark Duplass, Todd Solondz, Francis Ford Coppola, Cameron Crowe, Sarah Polley, Fernando Meirelles, Lars von Trier, Marc Forster, Steve McQueen, Alexander Payne, and Lynne Ramsay. No announcement yet of the Midnight Madness programming choices, always some of my faves, but this is a great start. Read More »
So there’s this action movie starring Jason Statham. Shocker, right? This particular one is called Blitz, and we’ve already seen a couple trailers to show off the British action thriller. It looks like it’s going straight to DVD in the US, which is a bit strange given that Jason Statham action movies seem to earn enough coin to make a theatrical release worthwhile. But I’m not a company beancounter, so what do I know?
Jason Statham plays a cop who is targeting a serial killer who is targeting cops. It’s like an Ouroboros of cops and killers. For me, the attraction here is Paddy Considine, playing the openly gay partner to Statham’s homophobic tough guy. Until I can see his directorial debut, Tyrannosaur, I’ll be happy to watch him in anything. (More happy to watch him in Hot Fuzz and Red Road, but why split hairs?) Check out the trailer below, and see if you’ll be queuing Blitz in advance of its August 23 release. Read More »
Who’s ready for their biannual Jason Statham-obliterates-everyone fix? Hopefully you’re shouting, “Me, me, me!” because after The Mechanic, Blitz fills his quota for 2011. (Or at least it would, had he not turned out to be such an overachiever.) The premise is beautiful in its simplicity: A sociopathic cop is dispatched to take down a serial killer who’s targeting police officers. The result, likewise, appears to be everything one would hope: Brutal, visceral, and cheerfully demented. We already bore witness to the international trailer for the film, but now there’s a red band trailer, indulging a greater emphasis on C-words and facial-stomping. Check out the trailer after the break. Read More »
What is Page 2? Page 2 is a compilation of stories and news tidbits, which for whatever reason, didn’t make the front page of /Film. After the jump we’ve included 32 different items, fun images, videos, casting tidbits, articles of interest and more. It’s like a mystery grab bag of movie web related goodness. If you have any interesting items that we might’ve missed that you think should go in /Film’s Page 2 – email us!
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Paddy Considine is one of the best character actors out there. You’ve seen him in Hot Fuzz, Cinderella Man, Red Riding 1980, The Bourne Ultimatum, the films of Shane Meadows and more. Now he’s made the jump to directing features and his debut film, Tyrannosaur, is getting great notes at Sundance. And while promoting that effort, he’s dropped hints about his next film. That will be a ghost story called The Leaning. More details after the break. Read More »
Lionsgate Pictures has released an international movie trailer for the new Jason Statham film, a London-set serial killer thriller titled Blitz. Blitz is adapted by Nathan Parker (who also scripted Moon) from Ken Bruen’s novel of the same name and directed by Elliott Lester (Love is the Drug) . Statham plays Detective Sergeant Brant, a “tough cop is dispatched to take down a serial killer who has been targeting police officers.” In the hunt he partners with Sergeant Porter Nash, an openly gay officer played by Paddy Considine (memorable as one of the two Andys in Hot Fuzz).
They’re after a cop killer called Blitz who uses a hammer to perpetrate his misdeeds as he attempts to kill officers all over the city. The characters inhabit a dirty, violent London and have their share of regrets; as the story opens Statham’s character Brant is dealing with the repurcussions from his assault on a precinct psychologist.
The film also co-stars Aidan Gillen, David Morrissey, Luke Evans and Richard Riddell. The trailer is exactly what you might expect from the people involved. Watch it now embedded after the jump.
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