We’ve got a quartet of nude titles working their magic for you this week on DVD and Blu-ray: First, Starz’ Magic City explodes onto DVD and Blu-ray with an eye-popping assortment of nudity from Olga Kurylenko , Jessica Marais , and many more. Also nude on DVD and Blu-ray, Another Earth (2011)’s Brit Marling stars as a seductive cult leader in Sounds of My Voice (2012), and the sci-fi streak continues on Blu-ray with deluxe re-releases of Cyborg (1989) and Blade Runner (1982). More after the jump!
Welcome to Biz Break, Movieline’s inaugural roundup of film news that comes our way and other highlights from publications worldwide. Among today’s stories: Harvey Weinstein will celebrate his Legion of Honor award in New York, Willem Dafoe lands a role in an upcoming thriller, Ridley Scott gets a career retrospective, and more… Movieline Tidbits Harvey to Party for Légion d’Honneur Award in NYC Last month, French president Nicolas Sarkozy bestowed France’s Légion d’Honneur award on TWC’s Harvey Weinstein. The celebration continues next week in NYC: Friends and family of Weinstein will join together at the French Embassy of the United States in New York City on Monday, April 30 to celebrate at a reception hosted by the French embassy. At the reception, a “special guest” will read a letter from President Sarkozy to Weinstein before the crowd. Prior to the reception at the French Embassy, there will be a private screening of The Intouchables at the Paley Center for Media’s Bennack Theatre. The film will be released in the U.S. May 25th. Dafoe to Join Thriller Out of the Furnace Relativity Media has closed a deal with two-time Oscar-nominee Willem Dafoe to join the cast of its gritty dramatic thriller currently titled Out of the Furnace . Dafoe who will play John Petty, joins the previously announced award-winning cast including Oscar-winner Christian Bale, Oscar-nominated Casey Affleck, Zoe Saldana ( Avatar ), Oscar-nominated Sam Shepard ( The Right Stuff ), Oscar-nominated Woody Harrelson and Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker. The film, which started shooting on April 13th on location in Braddock, Pennsylvania, is written and directed by Scott Cooper ( Crazy Heart ). Film Society Readies Ridley Scott Retrospective The Film Society of Lincoln Center will host a complete retrospective of three-time Oscar-nominee Ridley Scott, whose career began in the 70s. The retrospective will run from May 25 – June 3 and will include the Director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven , a new 35mm print of Thelma & Louise and the chance for fans to catch all of their favorites on the big screen. Carlos Diegues to Lead Cannes Camera d’Or Jury The Brazilian filmmaker Carlos Diegues will be joined by Italian journalist Gloria Satta, Rémy Chevrin of the French Association of Film Cinematographers, Hervé Icovic of the Federation of Cinema Audiovisual and Multimedia Industries, Michel Andrieu of the Society of Film Directors and Francis Gavelle for the French Union of Film Critics. Launched in 1978, The Camera d’Or is awarded to the best first film presented in the Official Selection (Competition, Out of Competition and Un Certain Regard), La Semaine de la Critique or Directors’ Fortnight – a total of 22 films in 2012. Diegues will present the prize on Sunday, May 27. Blondie to Close Toronto’s Inside Out Inside Out is pleased to announce that Bye Bye Blondie , from director Virginie Despentes ( Baise-Moi ) and starring Emmanuelle Béart and Béatrice Dalle, will make its North American premiere as the Closing Night Gala Presentation at the 22nd annual LGBT Film Festival. The film will close the 11-day festival showcasing 45 feature films and 75 short films from around the world. And from around the ‘net… King Courts Queen Academy Award-winning producer Graham King confirms that Sacha Baron Cohen will play Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. “We haven’t closed the deal yet, but I want him to do it and so does he, and he’s the one who actually brought the project to me while we were shooting Hugo ,” he says. Variety reports . Daniel Craig set for quick return to Bond Bond 24 is already in the works with a 2014 release date As Bond fansite MI6 points out, Bond 24 will be the last film Daniel Craig is contracted to star in. But he will be offered first refusal on the fourth outing, and with the time gap so brief, it’s unlikely the studio would be eager to hire another man to step into his briefs, The Guardian reports . Jack White to Compose Score for Johnny Depp’s The Lone Ranger Disney taps the Grammy-winning musician to produce the soundtrack for the film adaptation. Gore Verbinski is directing the movie which will feature Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as John Reid, according to The Hollywood Reporter . Hurt Locker Actor to Star in Indie Kilimanjaro The Hurt Locker star Brian Geraghty will star in indie film titled Kilimanjaro , by writer director Walter Strafford, according to The Hollywood Reporter . The story centers on a man (Geraghty) who is determined to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro after a recent breakup. The movie will shoot mid-May in New York. Sony Buys Action-Comedy Spec El Tigre Sony has won a three-way bidding war for action-comedy spec El Tigre by first-time screenwriters Aaron Buchsbaum and Teddy Riley. Sale was for mid-six figures after bidding among Sony, Paramount and MGM, Deadline reports . Redford Gushes over Charles’ Green Agenda American Hollywood royalty teamed up with British royalty as Robert Redford appeared in London to promote a documentary on Prince Charles’ latest environmental projects. Redford praised the heir to the British throne, speaking Thursday at the launch of the first-ever Sundance film and music festival. He says Charles “has been committed for a long time, which I greatly admire, to sustainability and environmental conservation” and said working together “seemed like a natural fit,” Yahoo reports .
It’s hard to say whether Sound of My Voice is a wholly bogus and pretentious indie enterprise or a weirdly compelling bit of low-budget storytelling. Probably it’s a little of both – this is the kind of picture that may often make you snort audibly, even as you’re wondering how the heck it’s going to resolve itself. And ultimately, even if the payoff isn’t quite what it should be, the picture leaves a faint chill in its wake. You probably won’t feel totally shafted for sticking with it – maybe just a little punk’d. Snuggly couple Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius) have set out to make a documentary about cults, hoping to infiltrate one mysterious group in particular. The gang’s meeting place is a top-secret basement location; the faithful are ferried to and fro in a van, but they’re not allowed to see where they’re going. Once the loyal subjects have gathered, decked out in aggressively peaceful looking white yoga clothes, a mysterious creature appears in their midst. Her name is Maggie — she’s played by indie darling Brit Marling , who also co-wrote the script – and she greets her followers while hooked up to an oxygen supply. You see, Maggie is a refugee from the future – 2054, to be exact – and she’s come back to show the human beings she loves how to prepare for what lies ahead. To do this, she wears white leggings and swaths her long blond tresses in a white scarf. Because she’s allergic to modern food, she grows her own fruit in the basement. Also, she’s wearing massively chipped dark nail polish, the kind of WTF touch that makes you stop and wonder – WTF? Actually, Sound of My Voice relies heavily on just that kind of WTF-ness. Is Maggie a con artist, a master manipulator, as Peter and Lorna at first believe her to be? But when she appears to have read bits of Peter’s past as if they were tealeaves, doubt begins to creep in, driving the couple apart. Maggie certainly knows how to challenge her followers, urging them to eat apples tainted with something that causes them to throw up (the fruit is a metaphor for logic, you see) and serving them a post-fast repast straight out of Fear Factor (I won’t tell you what it consists of, but she seems to carry a supply of it around in a baggie). There’s also lots of sharing and hugging, Esalen-style, as Maggie probes the psyches of those in her midst, testing them to see if they’re worthy of the wisdom she’s carrying around in her futuristic noggin. Director Zal Batmanglij – also Marling’s co-writer — doesn’t attempt too many fancy tricks, other than dividing his movie into convenient, bite-sized chapters. He and Marling infuse the story with just enough slackerish suspense: You may not care much about the rather aimless lead characters, but you do want to know what this Maggie shaman is all about. That’s partly thanks to Marling’s off-kilter charisma, which appears to be equal parts nerd-girl intensity and beach-babe shrug. Marling garnered heaps of attention last year for Another Earth , a movie she both cowrote and starred in, and it’s clear to see she knows how to do a lot with a little. The question of whether it’s enough depends on your expectations, and it’s possible that people have taken Marling too seriously too soon, which in turn has led her to take herself too seriously. She certainly digs right into this enigmatic role, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find her weirdly fascinating, with her heavy eyebrows and serene, pillowy half-smile. Still, a bit of skepticism is a good thing when dealing with either cults or alleged wunderkinds. At one point in Sound of My Voice , Maggie’s followers urge her to sing a song from the future, and she obliges, reluctantly, with an a capella version of a sweet little ditty about life changing all around us. A guy named Lem is banished from the circle forever after he points out that, far from being a song from the future, the tune Maggie just warbled is actually a Cranberries hit from the ’90s. Lem just may be the hero of the movie. Similarly, the jury is still out on just what it is, exactly, Marling is trying to sell us. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
At one point following the critical and commercial success of his 2007 post-apocalyptic blockbuster I Am Legend , director Francis Lawrence entertained the notion of coming back with star Will Smith for prequel, but eventually that possibility trailed off and Lawrence casted doubt onto his involvement with the potential project. But today Warner Bros. announced a deal with Akiva Goldsman and Overbrook Entertainment , who have tapped screenwriter Arash Amel to write a follow-up to the $584M hit. Whether or not it’ll be a prequel or some sort of direct sequel is unknown, though it’s reportedly being created for Smith. Let’s speculate away: Just how WB can possibly pull off another installment? What makes the project a curious — and, frankly, conspicuous — one is the way in which Lawrence wrapped up I Am Legend , based on Richard Matheson’s 1954 sci-fi novel. [Spoiler alert] Following a global pandemic that wiped out 90% of the world’s population, scientist Robert Neville (Smith) had only just discovered a cure when, at the film’s conclusion, he faced an onslaught of mutated vampire-people solo and seemingly met his own demise. Of course WB wants their star and his famously potent box office draw to headline another I Am Legend movie. A prequel would explain Smith’s presence most easily, but Deadline suggests that won’t be the case. So how might they bring Smith back otherwise? Retcon the last scene in the first film, using the alternate ending in which Neville makes grudging peace with the vampire thingies? Maybe the survivors colony has cloning capabilities? Hell, why not bring in a long-lost twin brother for Neville who became a brilliant virologist as well – I Am Also Legend ? Whatever it turns out to be, at least it has a shot at being ” one of the greatest movies ever made ,” amirite? Warner Bros Plans More ‘I Am Legend’ With Will Smith [Deadline]
Festival darling Brit Marling burst onto the scene last summer with the sci-fi indie Another Earth (and will be seen in the upcoming fiscal thriller Arbitrage opposite Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon), but her turn as a mysterious cult leader in this April’s Sound of My Voice is the more impressive introduction to the charismatic up and comer. Hit the jump to watch the first 10 minutes of Sound of My Voice , courtesy of Fox Searchlight, and see for yourself. As seen in the opening 10 minutes, Sound of My Voice follows a couple (Nicole Vicius and Christopher Denham) as they infiltrate a secretive cult, intending to film a documentary exposing its leader as a fraud. But when they meet said leader — in the form of Marling’s Maggie, a young woman who claims to be from the future — they fall deeper in than they ever imagined they would. Sound of My Voice , directed by Zal Batmanglij, is the second of Marling’s Sundance 2011 pics to hit screens following Mike Cahill’s Another Earth ; both were co-written by Marling and screened to acclaim on the festival circuit. Shot on a tiny budget, SOMV pulls off a tremendous amount with very little in the way of the kind of resources available to most science fiction films, and like Another Earth it’s very much an intimate-scale indie that builds a greater sense for the world around it. But between the two — not to invite comparison, but it inevitably happens — SOMV allows Marling to flex her acting muscles with one of the more complex and layered female characters in to come along in a while. That alone will be worth the price of admission come April 27. Fox Searchlight, meanwhile, needs to figure out a way to push SOMV farther than it did Another Earth , which suffered from a lack of clarity in its marketing materials and opened to disappointing box office, even for an admittedly small-scale film with no stars. This first-10-minutes clip is a good start; not only does it draw you in to the plot of SOMV and give you a sense of Batmanglij’s shrewd directing style and the magnetic allure of Marling as Maggie, it also features a handful of “interactive” bonus features that click away to expand on ideas and concepts in the film, including viral clips like this . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
