Robert De Niro has been gearing up what’s been known as his “passion project” for some time, a film called The Comedian in which he would play an insult comic modeled off Don Rickles. De Niro has now secured a director for the film, Taylor Hackford (Ray, Parker). Deadline exclusively reported that Hackford came on …
Marky Mark is headed back to Boston in a new drama. CBS Films announced that Mark Wahlberg is attached to produce and star in the Boston Marathon bombings drama, Patriot’s Day. The film is based on the personal account of Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and is set to be written by Matt Chapman, who …
30. Sense and Sensibility Directed by: Ang Lee Ang Lee has gone in about eight different directions in terms of genre. His resume includes “The Ice Storm,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” Hulk,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Life of Pi,” and this delightful Jane Austen adaptation, starring Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, and young Kate Winslet. “Sense …
Usually the first thing added to a film when it is remade is glitz. American films from the 1970s had their own distinct, philosophical quality to them, something that inevitably gets lost in translation when the material is put to screen again by a new team of filmmakers. Still, the one thing I didn’t anticipate while watching screenwriter William Monahan and star Mark Wahlberg tackle The Gambler was a lack of visceral thrills. Director Rupert Wyatt’s film nails the look of 1974’s The Gambler, but it lacks the feel of the original.
As the end of the year approaches, the number of question marks in the Oscar ranks continues to sink lower. This past week, Selma, American Sniper, The Gambler and A Most Violent Year all dropped at AFI Fest, leaving only movies like Unbroken (still presumed to be a front-runner in a crowded field), Exodus: Gods …
For those looking for The Other Guys 2 news, I’m sorry to have to let you down, but the stars of the film will be re-teaming for a new comedy together. Deadline reported on Wednesday that Ferrell and Wahlberg would be teaming up again for the comedy Daddy’s Home, which comes from Horrible Bosses 2 directors …
Lone Survivor Written and directed by Peter Berg USA, 2013 The most unsettling moment in Lone Survivor, upon reflection, is its opening shot, one that mirrors the first moments of the extended long-take beginning of Gravity, albeit in a more Earthbound fashion. The former is a static shot of bleak, dry land in Afghanistan as …
Hollywood history always makes for fascinating reading. Hindsight and whatnot. During a month in which Sound on Sight takes an opportunity to tip a collective hat in the direction of recently ‘retired’ workhorse auteur Steven Soderbergh, there is a further chance to reel back the years and examine a period of time when one of …
In today’s trailer-analyzing, spoiler-focused culture, it’s a wonderful thing simply to be surprised by a film. The trailer for 2 Guns promised a bland, straightforward action movie starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg: wisecracks, gunfire, car chase, kidnapped girlfriend sets up an explosive climax. The actual film has all of those things in it, but they are connected in complex and unusual ways that remove all of the blandness and make the film much more enjoyable than might be expected.
2 Guns Directed by Baltasar Kornákur Written by Blake Masters USA, 2013 The charm to 2 Guns is that it’s content to not try too hard. This is the kind of movie that will find a home on HBO and cable networks like FX in a year’s time, and play to a wide enough group …
Best known in the English-speaking world for his Hollywood thriller, Contraband, starring Mark Wahlberg, Baltasar Kormákur returns to his native Iceland to direct the tale of one of its modern legends. In 1984, a fishing boat sunk off the coast of Westman Islands, killing its entire crew with the sole exception of the unassuming Gulli (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson). Incredibly, despite being overweight and a heavy drinker, he survived by swimming for up to six hours through the treacherous waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, becoming a national hero and scientific phenomenon in the process.
If cinema has anything to say about it, the modern American dream is best typified by a grandiose level of entitlement in those who covet it most of all. Just a month ago, we saw Spring Breakers, a nightmarish, neon piece of grotesquerie, compelling experimental art about nubile young women trying to attain their hedonistic Western utopia by stealing from and killing people who dared get in their way, consequences be damned.
On December 14, 2012, a young man named Adam Lanza broke into a primary school and fatally shot 26 people in the small village of Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Twenty of them were children, aged 6 or 7. On that day, no matter where I went or what I did, I couldn’t stop thinking about the …
Headhunters Directed by Morten Tyldum Written by Lars Gudmestad, Jo Nesbø, and Ulf Ryberg Norway, 2011 While American politicians abjectly deride the Scandinavians for being ‘pinko commies’, Hollywood has been taking notice of their considerable cinematic talent, finding every opportunity to import some of their best films for American remakes. David Fincher’s The Girl with …
—————— The Other Guys Directed by Adam McKay You’d be forgiven for hoping The Other Guys, Adam McKay’s fourth feature-length collaboration with Will Ferrell, would mark a full-on return to form for a gifted comedic performer who hasn’t had an opportunity to actually be funny since, well, McKay’s last movie, Step Brothers. As it turns …
Tragically, there’s ample evidence onscreen of Jackson’s love for the material, but he brings to the table none of the qualities that made Creatures – another drama surrounding pubescent girls and grisly acts – such a startling breakthrough. The Lovely Bones Directed by Peter Jackson At this point, Peter Jackson probably isn’t the sort of …