Posted on Friday, September 14th, 2012 by Angie Han
It’s not remotely fair to call a film Oscar bait when it’s not even close to shooting, but when a project combines an Oscar-winning director, two Oscar-winning stars, and a World War II premise, it’s tough not to wonder whether little gold men are in its future.
The Artist director Michel Hazanavicius has entered talks for In the Garden of Beasts, based on a book by Devil in the White City author Erik Larson. Tom Hanks has been attached to star and produce since last year, but the project’s only now picking up steam as Hanks has been tied up in other projects. That means casting is now underway as well, and producers currently have their eye on Natalie Portman to play Hanks’ daughter. More after the jump.
Read More »
.
Please Recommend /Film on Facebook
The themes of Cloud Atlas are legion, and the 160 minutes the film spans are epic. Six or seven plots are considered, depending how you define your storylines, and the time period ranges from 1849 to somewhere 400 years into the distant future. What I’m getting at here is the grandness of the scope, the giantess of the spectacle, the massive overarching ambition of the work. Co-writers and directors Tom Tykwer and Andy and Lana Wachowski have delivered a weighty film tome for our analysis, and I have a feeling this one is going to be spurring conversations for years to come.
Read More »
Posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2012 by Angie Han
Anyone who’s really eager to see the Andy and Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer‘s Cloud Atlas has likely already pored over that six-minute trailer released over the summer, but for the rest of the moviegoing public there’s now a more traditional two-minute theatrical version. Whichever camp you fall into, the new cut is worth checking out, as there’s a bit of fresh footage to be found here.
Based on David Mitchell‘s acclaimed novel, Cloud Atlas weaves together six tangentially related stories that traverse time and space. Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, and Bae Doona star, each playing a number of different characters across the different plotlines. Watch the trailer after the jump.
Read More »
Tom Hanks has had his brush with John F. Kennedy thanks to Forrest Gump, but hasn’t just about everyone had a brush with JFK at this point? Oliver Stone’s film may be one of the most notable movies to tackle the President and his assassination, but there is no shortage of films that take the life and death of John F. Kennedy as primary or incidental subject matter.
Still, Hanks and his Playtone partner Gary Goetzman are making a new JFK film. They’ll produce Parkland, described as an indie drama about the assassination. First-timer Peter Landesman (The Mission screenwriter) will direct. Read More »
Posted on Monday, August 13th, 2012 by Angie Han
The same breathtaking ambition that makes Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer‘s David Mitchell adaptation Cloud Atlas so intriguing also gives it the potential to flop, hard. Weaving together six interlocking stories that cut across time, space, and genre is difficult enough to do within the confines of a novel, to say nothing of a three-hour film. Then there’s that insane casting: stars like Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, and Jim Sturgess are each playing multiple characters, in some cases switching genders or races to do so.
Thankfully, buzz from test screenings suggests that much more of it works than not. Keep in mind that quite a few things may have changed in the few months since testing began (for one thing, some of these folks saw a cut that was four hours long), and that these reactions are coming from people whose tastes we don’t know. Even so, a flood of positive reactions seems like a very promising sign. Hit the jump to read the comments.
Read More »
We’ve finally got a chance to see footage from Tom Tykwer and Andy and Lana Wachowski‘s genre-hopping and centuries-spanning epic Cloud Atlas. If you just want to watch the footage, hit the jump now. But once you’ve seen that, I expect those who haven’t read the book might be wondering just what the hell is going on.
Because some people don’t start paying attention to a movie until the trailer is out (which makes total sense) let’s recap quickly: the film is based on David Mitchell‘s novel that is structured as a series of six vaguely interrelated stories, presented in an unusual structure. In the novel, you get half the first story, which jumps to the first half of the second, and so on until the entire sixth story plays out at the center of the novel, and then things work back out to the opening, so the end of the book is the second half of the first tale.
The trailer suggests that the film plays up the interconnectedness between stories perhaps even more than the book does. In part that’s because some of the key characters in various tales are played by the same actors. So, as the trailer shows, Tom Hanks and Halle Berry play characters in at least two or three chapters. (And does the trailer reveal too much for one of Berry’s characters? Maybe, but it’s not the worst choice.)
That’s just the beginning. What’s with the shots that look like they’re right out of Amistad? What’s all the futuristic stuff about? Below we’ll use some shots from the film to illustrate what’s going on with the film, in as spoiler-free a manner as possible. Read More »
With Cloud Atlas set to play TIFF, we knew that images and new info would be arriving soon, and now we’ve got the first official pics of Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, and Ben Whishaw as they appear in two of the film’s six stories.
Written and directed by Tom Tykwer (directing one unit) and Andy and Lana Wachowski (co-directing another unit) the film is based on David Mitchell‘s novel of the same name, and features all the actors playing multiple roles, some of which have them crossing gender and racial lines. (Hugh Grant says his characters are “incredibly evil,” too.) Their characters appear in six stories that cross genres and centuries, but are all thematically related, and linked by paths of intersection between the various characters’ lives.
Above you can see Hanks and Berry as they appear in the novel’s final story ‘Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After,’ which takes place in post-apocalyptic Hawaii. (Well, “final” isn’t quite right, as readers of the novel know, but that’s close enough.) Below you’ll find the shot of Broadbent and Whishaw. And more images are coming later today, at which point we’ll update.
Update: the promised additional images are here, and available in a flash player below.
Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2012 by Angie Han
When a project starts out with A-list leads like Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson, it’s not surprising when the supporting cast turns out to be equally impressive. Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, and Ruth Wilson have just joined the cast of Saving Mr. Banks, Disney’s drama about the making of Mary Poppins.
Though the film’s still in pre-production, it already boasts some serious pedigree, and not just in terms of acting talent: The Blind Side helmer John Lee Hancock is on board to direct from a Black List script by Kelly Marcel. More details after the jump.
Read More »
Cool Posts From Around the Web:
