While Thomas Vinterberg’s The Commune failed to inspire the way acclaimed films The Hunt and The Celebration did, he’s a director who stays at a ridiculously high level no matter what. The Dogme 95 founder, who briefly went semi-mainstream with the underrated Far from the Madding Crowd, is back on the fall festival circuit with the submarine thriller, Kursk, and a new trailer for it has debuted prior to its world premiere in Toronto.
Kursk is based on a real life tragedy, the 2000 Kursk submarine disaster that saw 118 Russian sailors killed, while two dozen were left alive to wait for help as their air dwindled by the minute. The cast for this is phenomenal, led by Colin Firth, Matthias Schoenaerts, Lea Seydoux, Max von Sydow, and the late Michael Nyqvist in his final screen role.
Here’s the synopsis: It is the first major Russian Navy exercise since the end of the Soviet Union, but the K-141 Kursk is deemed unsinkable and its crew recognized as the best in the Northern Fleet. Among the crew is Captain-Lieutenant Mikhail Kalekov (Schoenaerts), a devoted naval officer with a loving wife (Seydoux), and child, and another on the way. He and his crew board the Kursk and descend into the Barents Sea with a sense of optimism and fraternity.
Then come the explosions…Once the sub’s seismic activity is detected, Britain, France, and Norway offer their assistance, but Russia insists it has the situation under control. Time is of the essence, but time keeps passing.
Kursk hits theaters overseas in November, and a stateside date should soon follow.
So while fans keep wondering when/if the James Bond franchise will cast its first black 007, could the franchise actually break new ground in totally different way? Variety lists SJ Clarkson as a potential director to replace Danny Boyle on Bond 25, which would make her the first woman to ever direct a Bond movie.
Clarkson has already made history on a different blockbuster franchise. She was recently named the director of Star Trek 4, the first woman ever to helm a Trek movie. Another listed as a possible candidate is White Boy Rick director Yann Demange, who was a heavy favorite before Boyle took over. Also a contender is Bart Layton, who made a splash earlier this year with his stylish heist movie, American Animals.
Demange looks to be the favorite right now, but it looks as if there will be more meetings before a final decision is made. Bond producers will need to make their decision soon, or risk having the film moved to 2020.
Of all of the action movie clichés the “hitman who is forced
to take one last job” has to be the most used, that or the cop who’s two weeks
from retirement, but for our purposes here we’ll just assume that “one last job”
is in the top spot. Silencer
starring Johnny Messner, Danny Trejo, Robert LaSardo, and Tito Ortiz follows
just that plot line. Now let me clarify before we get going, a cliché is not a
bad thing if it’s executed correctly, there’s such a negative connotation but
as long as the cliché isn’t used just for the sake of checking a box it can be
a good thing. Silencer follows
ex-assassin Frank (Messener) as he’s called back into action by his former drug
lord boss Ochoa(not surprisingly, Trejo) and right hand man Lazarus (Robert
LaSardo). When Frank elects not to finish the job he’s given, Lazarus and his
gang shoot Frank’s girlfriend and kidnap her child. Frank must then call back
all of his lethal skills to take out a drug kingpin and his empire while saving
the little girl he’s grown to love. So, yeah, nothing exactly knew here but
there is a lack of proper action movies centered around South American drug
lords. As we saw with Sicario if
done with care and the right amount of talent a myriad of stories can be taken
from that region. As I mentioned, there’s nothing wrong with cliché….but was
the movie strong enough to elevate those aspects or was there little more to
it?
Sadly, there was little more to it. This flick was not
without merit, and I’ll get to that soon, but as a whole the film left a LOT to
be desired. First things first, the action. You have a retired assassin going
up against a drug gang so it’s not like you have to dig deep to think of set
pieces but somehow just when the action gets going it’s over. The movie is
quite a bit slower than I expected and when things finally being to kick into
high-gear in the middle of the second act it all ends not a minute after it
begins. You’ve heard the term ‘Non-stop Action’ used to describe countless
movies, this was the opposite of that…literally start then stop action. Take
for instance a scene in the middle of the film where Timothy (Tito Ortiz) and
Frank track down one of the gang’s lieutenants to a strip club owned by the
boss. Frank heads to the back room while Timothy holds everyone at gunpoint,
eventually he’s rushed by 6 guys. Now you have Tito Ortiz, MMA legend, 6 bad
guys, and a strip club, those are the textbook ingredients for a great fight
scene, but it’s over in all of 20 seconds. This was the MO of each action scene
in the movie and the fact that they action they showed was actually really good
it became more disappointing then had the action sucked completely.
The biggest transgression I encountered was the fact that
watching this movie has lead me to type the following sentence. I really wasn’t
feeling Danny Trejo. The guy is one of my favorite character actors of all
time, he is a master of playing the same type of character in 100 different
projects and always nailing it. It wasn’t really his performance, it’s more
that he wasn’t the right guy for the character they wrote. His character Ochoa
is an unhinged sociopath…sounds like Trejo’s type right? Well, I left a word
out of that, he’s an unhinged emotional sociopath (how’s that for an oxymoron).
Ochoa spends equal parts of the film as grandfatherly nice guy, sadistic drug
lord, and a man on the verge of crying for loss. I suppose this could have been
done in a compelling way but it’s just not the kind of thing Danny Trejo excels
at. Lastly is Chuck Lidell. I’m not going to go so far as to say no fighter or
wrestler can act, not in a world where the Rock and Dave Bautista are starring
in the biggest movies of the summer, but I will say they also shouldn’t get an
open invitation to Hollywood. Lidell is painful to watch, it doesn’t help that
his character is an insufferable dick but ole’ Chuck can’t do anything to make his
character believable much less intimidating.
There’s a nice dichotomy here though, one of the pleasant surprises
this movie brought was Tito Ortiz, who I would have put money on being horrible
in any movie outside of playing a silent Bond villain. I’m not saying Ortiz
oozes charisma but he definitely shows a talent at playing the tough sidekick.
His sheer physicality projects intimidation from the screen and he delivers his
lines as well as anyone in the movie…honestly, I’ll go so far as to say better than
anyone else in the movie. Silencer
is not an unwatchable film, if you have a few hours to kill and have already
seen the summer action blockbusters you probably won’t regret spending the 6
bucks to stream it…but just the same I’d wait for Netflix.
Perennial funnyman Danny McBride as a murdering psychopath? Okay, sure, it makes some sense. He’s managed to craft a certain niche for himself playing sadsack losers with a violent streak, but always done for maximum comedic value. His role in Arizona is similar to that, just cranked up to 11, and the sheer lunacy of his performance is the brightest spot in a film that struggles to overcome an odd tonal imbalance, and a strong central premise that never quite meets its potential.
While McBride is the centerpiece, the leading role actually belongs the uber-talented Rosemarie DeWitt, playing downtrodden real estate agent Cassie. In the overpriced ghost town of Harden, Arizona she’s finding it hard to make ends meet, this being just after the devastating 2008 housing market crash. She can barely afford to keep her own house, much less sell one to somebody else, and her struggle would seem to be a reason to bond with Sonny (McBride), who thinks he’s been swindled on a house by her boss (Seth Rogen). The presence of Rogen instantly brightens up what is a depressing opener, but when Rogen goes toppling over the balcony, dead about 3 minutes after first appearing…well, all bets are off. With Sonny having killed Cassie’s boss, he can’t have any witnesses so he kidnaps her without any real plan what to do.
So there ain’t much bonding going on, even though they share more in common than they realize. His life has degenerated into shit just as badly as hers. They share not only financial hardship but personal struggle. He’s got problems with an angry ex (Kaitlin Olson), while Cassie is divorced from her dopey ex-husband (Luke Wilson) who left her for a younger woman, and keeps angling to have their daughter come live with him. She’s at least partially responsible for the crisis that turned the town into a desert wasteland, and he one of its unintended victims. But there isn’t a lot of sympathy to go around for either of them, especially when the bodies start piling up. Sonny goes unhinged and starts slaughtering any potential witnesses, including hapless cops, security guards, and any former lovers who stroll into his path. He even targets Cassie’s daughter, forcing her to fight to protect her child from the increasingly deranged killer.
Throughout all of this, Sonny insists that he’s still the “good guy” of this situation, that it’s people like Cassie who have sent him over the edge. He’s not totally wrong on that, which makes our feelings towards Cassie cloudier than they should be. It would be one thing if screenwriter Luke Del Tredici actually explored the parts both had in causing their murderous predicament, but he’s more interested in watching Sonny kill in increasingly silly and gruesome ways. The zany turn the film takes only works in part, though, and that’s largely due to the performance by McBride who continually ramps up Sonny’s psychosis. Eventually McBride drops the act and starts just being himself, but that’s fine because his boorish arrogance is exactly what the role needed. On the flipside, I found DeWitt to be a little too passive. She has some snappy exchanges with McBride and their chemistry is just this side of wonky, but as a woman who is being chased by a homicidal homebuyer she isn’t as invested as Arizona needed her to be.
Many a director has attempted to adapt Frank Herbert’s epic Dune novels for the big screen, with the only “successful” one David Lynch’s divisive 1984 film. But it looks like Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve is the guy who will get it done, perhaps because of his recent experience with cult sci-fi franchises, having already cast Timothee Chalamet for the lead role of Paul Atreides. Now he may be adding another big name in Mission: Impossible-Fallout‘s Rebecca Ferguson.
Ferguson is in talks to join the Dune cast, although her role is unclear at this point. Drawing from my limited knowledge, it seems as if Lady Jessica, the mother of royal heir Paul Atreides, caught up in a feudal war for control of the most valuable commodity in the galaxy, a drug known as “spice”.
Ferguson is red hot right and has been for some time. She starred in last year’s tremendously successful The Greatest Showman, and will be seen next in Joe Cornish’s fantasy-adventure The Kid Who Would Be King. She also has a role in the upcoming Men in Black spinoff. [Variety]
One of the great things about Olivier Assayas is that it’s hard to predict what he’ll do next, and no matter what genre he tackles always finds a way to great critical acclaim. Whether its Clouds of Sils Maria, Summer Hours, Carlos, or Personal Shopper, Assayas remains one of the top directors working today. His most recent film Non-Fiction recently premiered in Venice, but he’s already hard at work putting together his next project, Wasp Network, and an impressive cast is gathering to be part of it.
With Edgar Ramirez already on board, you can now add Penelope Cruz, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Wagner Moura to the cast. Based on a true story, The Wasp Network centers on Cuban spies that infiltrated a Florida-based anti-Castro terrorist network in the ’80s and ’90s. The film is based on the book The Last Soldiers of the Cold War: The Story of the Cuban Five written by Fernando Morais.
This is a Hell of a lineup Assaysas is putting together. Cruz is coming off her role in FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace alongside Ramirez, and recently starred in Everybody Knows which debuted at Cannes. Bernal has the upcoming true-life crime drama Museo, while Moura most recently played Pablo Escobar on Narcos.
Despite failing big with his first mainstream blockbuster effort, Assassin’s Creed, Justin Kurzel remains a director on the rise, and the pairing of him with stars the level of Margot Robbie and my man crush Matthias Schoenaerts is worth getting excited over. The trio are teaming up on a WWII thriller titled Ruin, which hopefully won’t be a descripor for the production once it gets rolling next year.
Robbie will play a Holocaust survivor with Schoenaerts as a former captain of Hitler’s SS. They forge an unlikely alliance to hunt down members of his old Nazi death squad in post-WWII Germany. The Black List-approved script was penned by Ryan and Matthew Firpo.
Before the whole Assassin’s Creed thing, Kurzel scored with The Snowtown Murders and Macbeth, the latter competing for the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Robbie’s credits and accolades go without saying. Besides the DC Comics flicks she’s attached to as Harley Quinn, she’s currently on board for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in which she’ll play Sharon Tate. Schoenaerts’ breakthrough role was in Bullhead, but he first crossed my attention with his phenomenal turn in Rust & Bone. He was most recently seen opposite Jennifer Lawrence in Red Sparrow, and the crime thriller, The Racer and the Jailbird. His upcoming roles are rather incredible. He’ll star in Terrence Malick’s historical biopic Radegund, followed by Thomas Vinterberg’s Kursk, and then Close Enemies which recently bowed in Venice. [Deadline]
Marvel and Disney are pulling out all of the stops as they launch into marketing Captain Marvel. After the cover image reveal of Brie Larson as the powerful hero, a batch of new images have given us a much deeper look into the ’90s-set film. They include our first looks at Jude Law as Mar-Vell, Samuel L. Jackson’s young Nick Fury, Lashana Lynch as Photon (!!!), and the reveal of Ben Mendelsohn’s villainous role.
One of the most interesting things about Captain Marvel is the setting, nearly three decades before the events of Avengers: Infinity War. That opens up a lot of possibilities, and one of those is seeing characters as we’ve never seen them before. One image features Captain Marvel alongside the team known as Starforce, described as “the SEAL Team Six of space.” Its members include the returning Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser and Djimon Hounsou as Korath, showing that they weren’t always the villains we saw in Guardians of the Galaxy. They were on the side of the angels once.
Another features Larson alongside Jude Law as the commander of Starforce, which looks to be Walter Lawson aka Mar-Vell aka the original Captain Marvel. He says of his role in the film, “These extraordinary powers she has, he sees them as something of a blessing and something that she has to learn how to control. That’s a motif throughout the piece, the element of learning to control one’s emotions and to use your powers wisely.”
We always knew Ben Mendelsohn would be playing a villain, because that’s just what he does, and he’s revealed to be Talos, leader of the shapeshifting Skrulls. We see him in two different forms, his alien one and as a human businessman alongside co-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.
Samuel L. Jackson gets digitally de-aged to play a younger, eyepath-free Nick Fury. He’s just a regular SHIELD pencil pusher at this point, not the hardened battle-weary spy we come to know and love. We also get our first look at Lashawna Lynch as Air Force pilot Maria Rambeau, seen in her jet with the call sign “Photon”, which we know will eventually become her superhero codename. That’s assuming she gets to become a hero as she does in the Marvel Comics. She damn well better. I’ve been begging for Photon to make her MCU debut for years.
Check out the rest of the images below. Captain Marvel opens March 8th 2019.
With a last name like Minghella, stepping out on your own can be tough. Max Minghella has had to escape the shadow of his father, the late great director Anthony Minghella, and has largely done so as an actor appearing in everything from The Social Network to his recurring role on The Handmaid’s Tale. A few years ago he took the first steps to following in his father’s footsteps as screenwriter on the offbeat thriller The 9th Life of Louis Drax, and now he makes his full directing debut with Teen Spirit, which is due to premiere at TIFF soon.
The title obviously brings to mind the iconic Nirvana track, but the film itself has been described previously by Minghella as “a piece of pop entertainment”. It stars the ubiquitous Elle Fanning as a young woman in a small European town who dreams of becoming a pop superstar, dreams that are closer to reality than she may know. The film co-stars Rebecca Hall and Zlatko Buric, and based on this teaser looks like a more youthful take on A Star is Born.
SYNOPSIS: Seventeen-year-old Violet lives with her mother on a small farm on the Isle of Wight. Her days are spent doing chores, waiting tables, and attending secondary school, where she keeps to herself. But in her free time — spent alone in her room, in the fields with her beloved horse, or at an under-attended open-mic night — Violet surrenders to song. She’s a naturally gifted singer for whom pop stardom might not be mere fantasy.
Teen Spirit has yet to land a release date, but that may change if the Toronto debut goes well.
Mark Wahlberg is in a weird place right now. A few years ago he was opening up a generic action flick like Contraband with $24M and nearly $100M overall. Now his action movies, like the already-forgotten Mile 22, can’t catch a whiff of those numbers. But his generic family comedies? Like Daddy’s Home 2 and the upcoming Instant Family? Well, the people love him in those, and fortunately for them the latter is right around the corner.
Directed by Daddy’s Home helmer Sean Anders, Instant Family stars Wahlberg and Rose Byrne as foster parents wildly in over their heads when they take in three kids who are totally off the chain. Besides his reteaming with Anders, Wahlberg will get a chance to reunite with Transformers: The Last Knight co-star Isabela Moner, who has been busy lately with Sicario 2 and the Dora the Explorer movie. The rest of the cast includes Tig Notaro, Octavia Spencer, and Margo Martindale. Can’t really complain about that, and it’s at least interesting that Anders, who co-wrote the script, based the story on his own family.
Here’s the synopsis: When a couple decides to start a family, they are inspired to pursue adoption through the foster care system. They feel like wonderful, altruistic people until they suddenly have three wild kids in their home. Now they must learn to love and parent children who have no interest in being parented in this heart-warming comedy.
