Trailer for 'Last Night' released

Contrary to what my posting record lately may have you believe, I am in fact alive and still watching movies, just not new ones. I honestly have not sat in a movie theater in months. Blame it on location. I'm either nowhere near a quality theater or if I am, it's infested with bed bugs. ANYway, as you may have guessed from the subject, the trailer for the long-awaited film "Last Night" has at last been released. It's had a bit of a rocky upstart over the last few years due to Miramax going under, a shift that left many projects indefinitely shelved, including this one. Luckily it has found a distributor and is slated for a release early next year. I have read the script, and I am extremely excited for it. It's somewhat similar to "Closer" but with sympathetic characters.

Note: there are better quality versions on YouTube, but this was the only one that allowed embedding.




In other Keira Knightley news, they have also released a trailer for 'London Boulevard' which you can view here and a handful of new stills from 'A Dangerous Method' which you can view here

First trailer released for 'Never Let Me Go'

This is the kind of trailer that makes my mouth water. It has pretty much everything I love in a movie: dramatic romance, an incredible cast, and what appears to be an extremely emotionally and intellectually complex plot. Not to mention lots and lots of British people. Personal preferences aside, I think it's safe to consider this trailer an early glimpse at what is sure to be a very serious Oscar contender. I mean, look at that cast. Knightley, Mulligan, Hawkins, Rampling, even Andrew Garfield, who got some very good reviews for his work in the experimental film series 'Red Riding.' The novel is supposed to be wonderful and I can't wait to read it in anticipation for this film. Definitely something I will be keeping track of.

Movie News: Cannes wrap-up and more!

Pictured: Javier Bardem and Juliette Binoche, winners for "Biutiful" and "Certified Copy," respectively.

A few weeks ago, May 23d to be exact, while I was weeping over the Lost finale, the Cannes film festival concluded with its 63d annual presentation of the Palme d’Or. This year the top prize went to the Thai film “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (and no, I did not just press random letters on my keyboard, that is his full name). The film appears to have polarized its audiences, not an unusual occurrence at Cannes, after all this is where Antichrist made its public debut, for which Charlotte Gainsbourg took home the Palme d’Or for acting in 2009.

This year Best Actress went to the ever lovely Juliette Binoche for the film “Certified Copy” by Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. Best Actor was a tie between Javier Bardem in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Biutiful” and Elio Germano in “Our Life,” an Italian film by Daniele Luchetti. Bardem made a bit of a PR splash in his speech, when he openly dedicated the award to longtime girlfriend Penelope Cruz, who has notoriously refused to discuss their relationship in public. But Bardem, usually on board with this policy, dashed pretense aside as he opened his speech by saying, “I share this with my friend, my mate, my love, Penelope.” Cruz, taken totally off guard, immediately burst into tears and began blowing kisses in his direction.




In other news, the first handful of stills from the upcoming American adaptation of “Let The Right One In” (retitled “Let Me In”) have been released, and quite frankly, I am pleased. Granted, anyone looking at that photograph who has seen the original Swedish film will realize that is almost an exact replica of a shot in that film, but at least we know they’re staying faithful to the barren atmosphere that made the story so effective rather than making a slightly creepier Twilight movie. Two more photos can be found at the following link: http://bigfanboy.com/wp/?p=3050

It has now been reported that Keira Knightley and Matt Damon have tentatively been cast in an adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel “Tender is the Night.” As is true with virtually all Fitzgerald novels, the story heavily reflects the relationship between Scott and his own wife Zelda. Therefore I think it’s safe to conclude that Knightley’s attachment to this film means that “The Beautiful and the Damned” is officially getting scrapped. I am not pleased.

Gwyneth Paltrow has officially dropped out of the upcoming film "The Danish Girl" about painter Eimar Wegener, the first recognized transgendered individual. I'm very intrigued by this film, largely because of the interesting casting choices. Nicole Kidman has been cast as Eimar both as a man and a woman. But it seems the role of Greta, Eimar's wife, is somewhat cursed. First it was Charlize Theron, then Paltrow stepped in, and now it's being reported that Uma Thurman is taking over. Most are crediting this sudden withdrawal from Paltrow to her strained marriage to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin. There have been some reports of animosity between the two lead actresses, but they seemed little more than tabloid fluff. But what is particularly confounding is that Paltrow dropped out in the middle of production, meaning reshoots are in order with a new actress, who has yet to be confirmed as Thurman. I don't think it will get shelved, but it is being delayed significantly. Regardless, this seems like a missed opportunity for Paltrow as the film simply wreaks of Oscar potential. Especially for Kidman.

Other than that I am developing a list of films I really want to see this summer, especially ‘The Killer Inside Me’ and ‘Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky.’ I'm hoping to see 'Ondine' next weekend, so hopefully a substantial review of something is coming. In the meantime, here is a less-than-one-sentence review of Robin Hood: Watch Braveheart. Or Gladiator. Or King Arthur. Or...eh you get the point.

Also, new layout! huzzar!

New Feature: Movie News

First of all, I need to start coming up with cleverer names for these features. I am open to suggestions, preferably involving some sort of horrible pun.

At any rate, I figured it would be a good idea to, instead of just posting reviews, to post news items regarding film since that's pretty much all I look at for 90% of my day. So let's get to it.

- In what is perhaps my most exciting discovery, Freida Pinto of Slumdog Millionaire fame has signed on for Tarsem's upcoming big-budget epic War of the Gods, starring Henry Cavill as a young Theseus. According to Tarsem, the look of it is "Italian Renaissance painting style meets Fight Club" so...awesome. Not only is this big news because a. it means another great part for Pinto but also b. it means something is finally happening with this movie, the progress of which I've been monitoring for about a year. Part of the drag with Tarsem is that it takes him VERY long to make a movie due to his rejection of CGI. Not sure if that will hold up with this film, but I know that The Fall is pretty much entirely shot on location and took 4 years to make.

- Not sure how 'recent' this news is, but I only just found out about it so I'm going to report on it. Evidently, Gwyneth Paltrow is signed on to star in an upcoming Marlene Dietrich biopic, a role for which she was specifically chosen by the Dietrich family. However, Hollywood studios are hesitant to greenlight it because of Paltrow's attachment. Not sure if it's because they don't like Gwyneth, or they, like me, do not see any remote resemblance between her and Dietrich. I like her as an actress, so I'll be interested to see if she pulls it off, but if you ask me, it should be Diane Kruger.

- In other 40s German film star biopic news, it looks like Jodie Foster's long-awaited Leni Riefenstahl film might just have gotten the go-ahead. It's listed on imdb as in development for a 2011 release, but as it's on imdbPro, that means it is WAY early in development meaning all information is subject to change. I really hope this works out, she's been trying to make it since the mid-90s but naturally there is some controversy about how to portray Riefenstahl, as the artist or the Nazi, ideally, it would be some reconciliation of both. We'll see.

- Just continuing with the German theme (I swear this is not intentional), a new movie is in development that I am VERY excited about. It's called The Talking Cure and depicts a fictional (I think) story of Sigmund Freud, Karl Jung and a young Russian woman whom they are treating and with whom Jung begins to fall in love, much to Freud's professional frustration. The casting is PHE.NOM.EN.AL. Sigmund Freud is going to be played by Academy Award Winner Christoph Waltz, Jung by his Inglourious Basterds costar Michael Fassbender, with Keira Knightley as the patient. I will definitely keep checking updates on this.

- Straying from Germany, but not from the 1940s, there are finally some updates on the upcoming Mildred Pierce revamp with Kate Winslet as the Joan Crawford title role. It will be produced by HBO as a five-hour mini-series later this year, and other cast members include Guy Pierce and Evan Rachel Wood. It is being written and directed by I'm Not There director Todd Haynes.

- In other projects-that-I-though-were-dying-but-aren't news, we have also gotten some news about the upcoming Jane Eyre adaptation that was originally supposed to star Ellen Page but after the writers woke up from their Juno-hyped stupor, wisely recast with Alice in Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska as Jane and Michael Fassbender (this guy is cleaning up) as Rochester. Other cast members include a number of British actors I adore such as The Dench, Sally Hawkins, and Jamie Bell. This is substantially more promising than the developing Wuthering Heights reboot starring Gemma Arterton and Gossip Girl's Ed Westwick. What has Twilight done to this novel? If you want to watch a good Wuthering Heights adaptation, I recommend Masterpiece Theater's 2009 version with Charlotte Riley and Tom Hardy.

- To wrap this up, here are some new titles out on DVD that I highly recommend:

Broken Embraces
Precious
An Education (EDIT: Not on DVD yet, coming out on March 30th, but imdb just likes to be wrong about things I guess.)