Posted on Monday, April 26th, 2010 by Russ Fischer
I didn’t have much doubt that a distributor would quickly move on Sylvain Chomet‘s The Illusionist. (Refer back to ourpreviousarticles detailing the film, which has origins in an unproduced screenplay by the great Jacques Tati and features a character very much designed after Tati.) In fact, I didn’t have much doubt that it would be anyone other than Sony Pictures Classics, which also released Chomet’s film The Triplets of Belleville. Hopefully SPC can find an audience for this picture; it looks simply beautiful. Check some previously posted footage below. [Variety]
After the break, a distro deal and some new casting for the promising film The Lincoln Lawyer, starring Matthew McConaughey and Marisa Tomei. Read More »
Posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 by Russ Fischer
The forward momentum on casting The First Avenger: Captain America seems to be moving rather slowly. Sure, casting Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull is a great start, but there is still that famously contentious shortlist of possible actors to play Steve Rogers, aka Captain America. That list has had a couple names knocked off, but now there’s word that one more has been added: Ryan Phillippe.
Meanwhile, Ed Norton is talking about his work with Marvel as the Hulk, and where he might fit into the studio’s long-range plans. Read More »
Posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 by Russ Fischer
There have been rumors (sourced from where, exactly, I couldn’t tell you) that MacGruber is a crazy, envelope-pushing action movie. The feature-length adaptation of Will Forte‘s Saturday Night Live sketches has a great cast (Forte, Kristen Wiig, Val Kilmer, Powers Boothe, Maya Rudolph) and now has a pretty effective red-band trailer to show off most of the players. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 by Peter Sciretta
Universal Pictures has released their 2010 movie preview, which included this first official photo from Jorma Taccone‘s big screen adaptation of the Saturday Night Live sketch MacGruber, starring Will Forte, Ryan Phillippe, Kristen Wiig, Val Kilmer, Powers Boothe and Maya Rudolph. You will find three photos after the jump, click on each one to enlarge.
Posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 by Russ Fischer
Ryan Phillippe and Val Kilmer may be joining the MacGruber movie, starring Will Forte and Kristen Wiig. And thanks to THR, we know a little bit more about how the one-minute Saturday Night Live sketches, which were originally little more than a brief parody of MacGyver, will be transformed into a 90-minute feature directed by Jorma Taccone, who created the character and directed most of the SNL spots. Read More »
HanWay Films has released the official international movie trailer for the dark dystopian fantasy film Franklyn on IGN. The first feature film by writer/director Gerald McMorrow, Franklyn is a “split narrative set simultaneously in contemporary London and in a future metropolis ruled by religious fervor.” Sounds pretty crazy right? Well it gets even weirder. “It’s the story of four lost souls, divided by two parallel worlds, on course for an explosive collision when a single bullet will decide all their fates.” Trailer after the jump.
Posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta
An early trailer for the dark dystopian fantasy film Franklyn has shown up online. The first feature film by writer/director Gerald McMorrow, Franklyn is a “split narrative set simultaneously in contemporary London and in a future metropolis ruled by religious fervor.” Sounds pretty crazy right? Well it gets even weirder. “It’s the story of four lost souls, divided by two parallel worlds, on course for an explosive collision when a single bullet will decide all their fates.”
Ryan Phillippe plays a masked vigilante detective named Preest, who is searching for his nemesis on the streets of Meanwhile City, a monolithic fantasy metropolis ruthlessly governed by faith and religious fervor. Bernhard Hill plays Esser, a broken man who is searching for his wayward son amongst the rough streets of London’s homeless. Sam Riley plays a heartbroken guy named Milo, who is desperately trying to find a way back to “the purity of first love.” And Eva Green plays an art student named Emilia whose suicidal artwork is “becoming increasingly more complex and deadly.”
The futuristic London city sounds like it almost ripped from the pages of The Golden Compass. But I must admit, the film has caught my interest even though the trailer is very poorly taped together. I’m pretty sure this is a temp trailer as it features the score from Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain. The concept of a trailer using the score from Requiem or The Fountain has almost a cliché. Why does every trailer editor choose to cut to Clint Mansell? I mean, I love his music too, but you would think it would get old at some point. As always, tell me what you think of the trailer in the comments below. Thanks to /Film reader Christopher M for passing along the photos.
Franklyn will hit theaters in the UK on January 30th 2009. No word on domestic distribution or release dates.
Posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 by Mel Valentin
Directed and co-written by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry, The Last Good Breath), Stop Loss dramatizes the U.S. military’s “stop-loss” policy that allows the military to postpone the honorable discharge of U.S. soldiers and send them back to Iraq and Afghanistan for another tour of duty (usually a year to eighteen months). Alas, Stop Loss proves the adage that “good politics don’t make good art.” Stop Loss suffers from a serious case of implausibility and contrivance that fatally undermines whatever insight Peirce hopes to shed on the stop-loss policy and its unfairness toward the soldiers who serve in the U.S. military in foreign countries.
