Haunting the Web Since 1999
“Burton called him ‘the most original actor to come out of Britain since the war,’ with ‘something odd, mystical and deeply disturbing’ in his work.'” Peter O’Toole, 1932-2013. “‘I’m a professional,’ he said in one interview, ‘and I’ll do anything — a poetry reading, television, cinema, anything that allows me to act.'”
Update: And another I missed on the first sweep: David Strathairn gamely rallies the paratroopers in the atmospheric trailer for Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla reboot, also with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins and Ken Watanabe. I prefer the leaked one with the Oppenheimer voiceover (“I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds,” bringing the thunder lizard back to its Hiroshima roots), but I can see how that might’ve been too edgy for a summer blockbuster.
Update 2: Tom Cruise cosplays Starcraft, and gets some mechanized infantry pro-tips from Emily Blunt, in the first trailer for Doug Liman’s The Edge of Tomorrow, a badly-named adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s All You Need is Kill. Eh, maybe.
Update 3: Matthew McConaughey and Christopher Nolan celebrate the dream of flight in a brief and relatively vague teaser for Interstellar, also with Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Caine, Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Topher Grace, John Lithgow, David Gyasi, Wes Bentley, and David Oyelowo. As it says, one year from now.
Update 4: Speaking of gamely rallying folks, Gary Oldman tries to get San Francisco’s few remaining humans to chin up against those damn dirty apes in the first teaser for Matt Reeves’ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, also with Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Judy Greer, and, of course, Andy Serkis. The first one was surprisingly ok, and this can’t be worse than Oldman’s last dystopian epic, The Book of Eli, so I’ll likely matinee it.
Update 5: A few more come down the pike for the holiday film season: First up, computer genius Johnny Depp goes the way of the The Lawnmower Man in this short teaser for Wally Pfister’s Transcendence, also with Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Morgan Freeman, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy, Clifton Collins Jr., and Cole Hauser. The Matrix-style binary is a bit of a cliché at this point, but Pfister has done memorable work as Nolan’s cinematographer, so I’m optimistic.
And, following up on the first trailer of a few months ago, Wes Anderson introduces us to the cast of characters of The Grand Budapest Hotel, among them Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Almaric, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saiorse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Owen Wilson, and Tony Revolori.
Standing athwart the recent attempts by Vulture to canonize the loathsome Love, Actually as a beloved Christmas standard, Chris Orr points out, once again, that it’s, actually one of the least romantic films out there. This may seem at first to be just another battleground in the current culture war of Snark v. Smarm, but I don’t think that quite applies. I defer to no man in my appreciation of good movie romances — I picked one as my top film of last decade — but I Find Love, Actually schlocky, gross, and the opposite of romantic. (That is, unless you happen to find it heartwarming when dudebros relentlessly hit on their subordinates and their best friends’ wives.)
As Inside Llewyn Davis hits theaters, Joel and Ethan Coen talk about their potential next projects — looks like Hail Caesar is still flitting around — and the trouble with filming felines. “‘You have lots of different cats on set,’ said Joel. ‘”Oh, that one won’t do the scene? Try this other one, see if he’ll do it.” And you just sit there until he does it, or until you say, “Fuck it, he ain’t gonna do it,’ and come up with something else.”‘”
I haven’t seen Davis yet — DC being a second-tier film town, it hasn’t arrived yet — but I have a sneaking suspicion Llewyn’s kitteh will be playing the role of Tom Reagan’s hat here — a metaphor for his self-possession. Looking forward to finding out this weekend.
This seems like a role that Jaimie Alexander was born to play, but I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve seen more of Gadot — She was apparently in Knight and Day but I have no memory of her.
I missed this during JFK retrospective/Thanksgiving week until Ted of The Late Adopter passed it along: The Magic Bullet is finally explained. In short, there was no second shooter — just a bullet-bending mutant master of magnetism on the grassy knoll. Seems like a good reason to authorize the Sentinel program, and no mistake.
Update: Upon looking over recent entries, I notice I neglected to post the full X-Men: Days of Future Past trailer, so here it is: Some questionable editing choices here (that jump-cut after “Patience isn’t my strongest suit” is jarring every time), but hopefully this will avoid the overstuffed pitfalls of X3 and continue in the positive vein of First Class.
As per last year, Film.Com’s David Ehrlich has once again spliced together an entrancing Supercut of his top 25 films of 2013. As always, my own year-end list will arrive at the end of the month, but I will say that I’ve seen most of Ehrlich’s (wide-release) choices, I generally agree with what he’s got going on here, my current top two films are in his top five, and I have very high hopes for his #3.
As a short companion piece to Gravity, the film’s co-writer (and director Alfonso Cuaron’s son) Jonas Cuaron offers up the other side of the howling conversation with Aningaaq. Not terribly essential, but no harm, no foul.
Down in South Carolina, back in 1993, I wore the blue and yellow, got ten free films a week. I built up some movie knowledge, right near the Florence Mall. Now those tapes have been taken away, lost amid the suburban sprawl. After mining the Internet hivemind, Matt Zoller Seitz gathers odes to the end of Blockbuster in the style of Bruce Springsteen.
Mowing neighborhood lawns notwithstanding, Blockbuster was actually my first job. And, while I never cottoned to their Republican-leaning ways or their ridiculous drug test policy, it was a pretty good gig for a high school kid, all in all — if you could withstand the same twenty trailers and episode of Duck Tales playing ALL THE TIME. Like I said, ten free movies a week. As an 18-year-old just working to raise beer-money for college, you can’t beat that with a stick.
