Slap Ry-Go’s face on a poster, and it’s good to go. Really, if studios were smart they’d pay him a thousand bucks to use his face on posters for films he’s not even in. But Ryan Gosling is in this film. And as such, he’s featured prominently in the new Only God Forgives poster . Gosling reunites with his Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn for the new crime thriller. He plays Julian, a man living the criminal life in Bangkok, Thailand. When his brother is murdered, his mom comes to town and makes Julian get revenge. Kristin Scott Thomas plays Julian’s mother, with Vithaya Pansringarm, Ratha Phongam, and Tom Burke also starring. Only God Forgives hits theaters July 19.
Two new international trailers have dropped for Only God Forgives , Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn’s next film with Ryan Gosling , and they’re sinewy, tense numbers that do an effective job of ratcheting up anticipation for the picture. Audiences at the Cannes Film Festival will get to see the movie on May 22, while U.S. moviegoers will have to wait until July 19. The two trailers below aren’t that much different. Both employ a lightning-fast cutting pace that left me unsettled and disoriented, which, I suspect, is exactly what an American would feel while seeking to avenge his brother’s death in murky Bangkok. If I have to choose a favorite, I prefer the first, French trailer because, like rare steak and a good Bordeaux, brutal cinematic violence pairs nicely with French subtitles, The second clip is a little less frenetic and drops a clue as to why Gosling’s brother (Tom Burke) met with a grim end. ( If you aren’t familiar with the plot of Only God Forgives , you can read about it here . ) Taken together, the trailers add up to a handful of key moments, some of which were established in the red-band trailer that dropped earlier this month . Here are the five most bad-ass moments from the trailers (in ascending order). If you disagree, leave your list in the comments section below. 5. Vithaya Pangsringarm plunging knives through the forearms of a bearded guy and making him scream. Really loud. 4. Ryan Gosling smashing a drink glass into a guy’s face . Colossal velocity! 3. Gosling dragging a guy by the roof of his mouth . That cannot end well. 2. Gosling saying: “Wanna Fight?” in the French trailer. (Because it’s subtitled.) 1. Kristin Scott Thomas , who play Gosling’s mother, telling him: “If the tables were turned, your brother would have found your killer — brought me his head on a fucking platter! I can’t wait to find out what Daddy was like. More on Only God Forgives : ‘Only God Forgives’ Red Band Trailer: The Zen Of Ryan Ryan Gosling Don’t Look So Pretty In ‘Drive’ Director Winding Refn’s ‘Only God Forgives’ Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
To counter the operatic heat of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby , I now bring you the cinematic cool of Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling . A zen-like calm dominates this red band trailer for Only God Forgives , despite some very violent shit going down. In the filmmaking duo’s follow-up to the similarly cool Drive , Gosling reportedly plays a drug smuggler who descends into Bangkok underworld to avenge his brother’s death, and production stills of a battered Gosling certainly suggest that brutality will rule the day. The red band trailer contains plenty of mayhem, to, but with Gosling playing calm, cool-and-lethal — ” wanna fight?” is going to get a lot of usage in the weeks to come — that song with the music-box chimes playing over a lot of the action, even the scene where the guy gets his hands knifed to the restaurant table seem, well, all part of God’s beautiful plan, man. Check it out: The Zen of Ryan Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Nicolas Winding Refn has said that the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired him to become a filmmaker. So we shouldn’t be surprised that Ryan Gosling appears to be sporting a quasi-Leatherface look in what may be a poster for Only God Forgives. (Check it out after the jump.) Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but the actor’s face does look pretty damn tore up. The Film Stage posted the image , which it indicates it received from a reader. Certainly, it doesn’t seem implausible as a poster. What better way to whip up interest in a film than to go with a poster that messes with Gosling’s pulse-quickening handsomeness . On Gosling and Winding Refn’s follow-up to their most excellent 2011 film Drive , Only God Forgives is set in the Thai boxing underworld. According to the Film Stage, this is the synopsis: Julian (Gosling) lives in exile in Bangkok where he runs a Thai boxing club as a front for the family’s drugs smuggling operation. When Julian’s brother Billy is killed their mother, Jenna (Kristen Scott Thomas), arrives in the city. She wants revenge and forces Julian to find the killer. Julian’s contacts in the criminal underworld lead him directly to The Angel of Vengeance, a retired police officer who knows everything and who is both Judge and Punisher. Jenna demands that Julian kill The Angel of Vengeance, an act that will cost him dearly. The fight scenes in this movie are apparently brutal and intense — as if the poster image doesn’t convey that — and, like Drive , Winding Refn sets many of his scenes to the kind of electronic music that gets under your skin and makes those shots even more emotionally palpable. In this case, he’s working with M83 of “Midnight City” fame. (Try not to get hooked on that song. I dare you.) Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Studio has hired ‘Gangster Squad’ writer Will Beall to pen script. By Kevin P. Sullivan Justice League Photo: Everett/Rex Features/Warner Bros With the enormous success of Marvel’s superhero crossover “,” it was only a matter of time before we heard of renewed efforts from DC Comics and Warner Bros. to get their own franchise mashup, “Justice League,” off the ground. So it should come as no surprise that a new report from Variety confirms that Warner Bros. hired ” Gangster Squad ” writer Will Beall to write the “Justice League” movie sometime last year. Beall has become the go-to guy for Warner Bros., which recently hired him to write the screenplays for its “Lethal Weapon” reboot and the “” remake, which has director Nicolas Winding Refn and star currently attached. The report from Variety points out that the Beall hire occurred while Marvel was assembling “The Avengers,” so the move was more “in anticipation of — rather than a reaction to — the box office success.” Though the actual hire took place months ago, Beall has yet to turn in a script. Along the lines of the “Avengers” development pattern, Warner Bros. has also brought in a writer to take a swing at one of DC’s biggest heroes, Wonder Woman. Michael Goldenberg, one of the three writers of “Green Lantern,” will reportedly pen the script. The other two “Green Lantern” writers, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green, are already at work on a screenplay for “The Flash.” Hiring Beall is Warner’s first major step toward producing a “Justice League” film since production stalled out in 2008. Then, “Mad Max” director George Miller was set to helm the film with Adam Brody as the Flash, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman and a relatively unknown Armie Hammer as Batman. Warner Bros. claimed that a lack of tax breaks and the inability to hire a screenwriter to rewrite the script during the WGA strike stalled that version. For breaking news and previews of the latest comic book movies — updated around the clock — visit .
Some Heroes Are Real. Thanks to a tip from Bleeding Cool, we found this rather awesome animated tribute to Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, starring Ryan Gosling as the Driver. It was created by Bruno et Tom on Vimeo, aka Tom Haugomat & Bruno Mangyoku, and is a quick 60-sec recap of some of the best moments. It’s just badass. I was waiting for this happen, when I first saw Drive in Cannes I knew it would… Broadcasting platform : Vimeo Source : FirstShowing.net Discovery Date : 30/11/2011 23:51 Number of articles : 2
For some moviegoers, Nicolas Winding Refn ‘s Drive was the movie of 2011 (ditto that soundtrack). Nevertheless, over at Nerve, Jett Wells echoes the sad realization of many a Drive -loving Oscar-watcher: Academy Award nominations are about as unlikely for the stylish crime pic as a clean getaway is for Ryan Gosling ‘s boyish, near-mute anti-hero.
Ryan Gosling fans, Nicolas Winding Refn devotees, and soundtrack obsessives, take note: As of today, you can download the ’80s/electronica-influenced soundtrack to Drive , the crime-thriller-romance that should be on your must-see list for fall. Available for purchase on Amazon today, the album — combining original tracks by the likes of Johnny Jewel’s Desire and Chromatics with an atmospheric electronic score by Cliff Martinez — should make the perfect aural accompaniment to your Drive tour of L.A. !
The musical partnership between director Nicolas Winding Refn and electronic musician Johnny Jewel dates back to Refn’s Bronson , which used a track from Jewel’s group Glass Candy to strike its stylized period feel. For Refn’s latest film, the L.A. -set crime thriller Drive , he turned once more to Jewel to help create an ’80s-tinged pop synth sound — and the inspiration seemed to go both ways, as evidenced by drawings and a full collection of Drive -inspired tracks created by Jewel and his musical collaborators.
A few months shy of his 40th birthday, Nicolas Winding Refn has already directed a trilogy (the Pusher series), a biopic of England’s most violent criminal ( Bronson ), and has flirted with Hollywood projects featuring A-listers including Harrison Ford and Keanu Reeves. He is preparing to shoot the mainstream thriller Drive with Ryan Gosling, and he famously wants to make a megabudget adaptation of Wonder Woman . So with all this going for him, what is it about his gritty, nasty, surreal new Viking film Valhalla Rising that makes it the prolific Refn’s personal favorite?
