Two new Only God Forgives trailers have debuted, one domestic, and one international. The crime thriller reunites Ryan Gosling with his Drive director Nicholas Winding Refn. Watch both trailers below: Only God Forgives Trailer International Only God Forgives Trailer New Gosling stars as a drug boss named Julian, who runs a boxing club in Thailand as a front. When his brother is killed, his mother, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, forces him to hunt the person responsible. Refn wrote and directed the film, which is set to premiere July 19. Gosling can currently be seen reuniting with another former director in The Place Beyond the Pines . Read our our The Place Beyond the Pines review for more.
Two new Only God Forgives trailers have debuted, one domestic, and one international. The crime thriller reunites Ryan Gosling with his Drive director Nicholas Winding Refn. Watch both trailers below: Only God Forgives Trailer International Only God Forgives Trailer New Gosling stars as a drug boss named Julian, who runs a boxing club in Thailand as a front. When his brother is killed, his mother, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, forces him to hunt the person responsible. Refn wrote and directed the film, which is set to premiere July 19. Gosling can currently be seen reuniting with another former director in The Place Beyond the Pines . Read our our The Place Beyond the Pines review for more.
The Croods has done very well in its opening weeks in theaters. So well, in fact, that a sequel has just been greenlit. DreamWorks Animation has announced that it will move forward with The Croods 2 , with original writer/director duo Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders signed on to work on it. The Croods stars Emma Stone, Nicholas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, and Cloris Leachman. It follows a family of Cavemen who venture out into the world after an earthquake destroys their cave. The studio is currently in negotiations to bring back the voice cast for the sequel. No production or release schedule has been released. Read this The Croods review for more information about the film, in theaters now.
No, your television screens were not literally burning up during last night’s MTV Movie Awards. That was simply the Catching Fire trailer , finally released after weeks of anticipation. Catching Fire Trailer And while fans will no doubt be watching it almost every day until the film’s November 22 release, we’re giving you another way to take a look ahead to this Hunger Games sequel. Still picture style! From Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson looking concerned as Katniss and Peeta, respectively… to our first glimpse at Philip Seymour Hoffman as Plutarch Heavensbee… click through the following trailer captures now:
Scary Movie 5 is not a spoof. It’s not even a comedy. It’s a mess of very vague references to mostly outdated cultural phenomena, sprinkled in between half-hearted and half-baked “gags.” Genre spoof is supposed to expose the conventions of that genre in a clever way. The original Scary Movie was successful because it came on the heels of a horror film Renaissance that began with the movie Scream (which, in itself was somewhat of a spoof, but, that’s okay). Scary Movie had a reason to exist. It had something to say. Mainly, “Boy, there sure are a lot of horror movies copying Scream these days.” But what is Scary Movie 5 saying? I sat through it, and I couldn’t tell you. It doesn’t look like a horror movie. It doesn’t act like a horror movie. It plays off exactly zero horror movie conventions, and really only makes reference to the horror aesthetic a handful of times. The film mainly follows the plotline of Guillermo Del Toro’s Mama . Hardly the cultural touchstone that Scream was. Ashley Tisdale and Simon Rex play a couple who take in their nieces after they are found living for months alone in the woods. From there, there’s a bit of supernatural furniture movement, some mild possession, and a whole lot of references to already forgotten movies like Black Swan , Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Inception . To the film’s very minor credit, is was able to fit in a reference to the recently-released Evil Dead remake, and to the still-uncast Fifty Shades of Grey movie . Then there’s the utterly humiliating Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen scene that opens the film. The scene features the two celebrity train-wrecks in bed together (which just looks really gross), spitting out canned self-awareness directly to camera in a moment of “my publicist said this’d be funny” desperation. For a movie that fails to even qualify as a spoof, you’d hope it would at least be funny. But it’s not. The jokes seem thrown together by a couple frat guys on an all-night coke binge. “Let’s have a Mexican maid dance with a vacuum, and a black exorcist who steals. Because that wouldn’t be at all racist in 21st Century.” (note to the writers: It is racist). Watching Scary Movie 5 is like watching an awful stand-up comedian plod clumsily through a 90-minute set of fart jokes he just wrote back stage (the difference being at a comedy club you can have a drink). Also, he took a Percocet and is trying to stay awake. And so are you. Scary Movie 5 isn’t even “bad” in that gut-wrenching “how was this made” sense. It’s not interesting enough to be that bad. It’s just flat out boring. It’s hard to get through. It’s time to retire the franchise. Don’t see it. Listen to your friends make fun of Paranormal Activity at a bar instead. At least you’ll be drunk. RATING: 0/5 STARS
While the blogosphere debates the merits and drawbacks of Alcon hiring Ericson Core ( Invincible ) to direct its remake of Point Break , it’s time to start asking if Kathryn Bigelow’s 1987 neo-noir vampire thriller Near Dark will ever be remade. UPDATED/ 7:45 P.M. EST: Relativity Media spokeswoman Emmy Chang responds, “We do not have the rights to this title.” Stay tuned. Let me say up front that Near Dark doesn’t need to be remade. It’s a bloody, balls out thrill ride that pre-figures the endorphin rush of Point Break features a memorable cast that includes the seriously underrated Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton . Henriksen is utterly chilling and Paxton gives an unhinged performance as Severen , the craziest member of a pack of redneck vampires on the loose in the West. (Love their shades and the camper van with the blacked-out windows.) Is Near Dark Too Much Like Twilight ? Back in 2006, Michael Bay ‘s Platinum Dune production company was talking about remaking the picture, but in 2008, Bay’s partner, producer Brad Fuller told Empire magazine that the project was on hold because “I’m concerned that, conceptually… Near Dark and Twilight are too similar”. I had to read that statement twice because, while there is a romance between one of the vampire clan (Jenny Wright) and a murder-averse human (Adrian Pasdar), the ferociously over-the-top Near Dark bears precious little resemblance to the PG-13 Twilight franchise. (If anything, Bigelow’s film is a kindred spirit of HBO’s True Blood vamp series.) If Bay & Co. were making a Twilight connection, it’s probably best they shelved the project. As of the end of 2012, the Internet Movie Database indicated that Relativity Media subsidiary Rogue was developing the picture, but getting the company to confirm that the project is still alive (or undead) is another question. Relativity reps have yet to respond to my requests for clarity on the matter. If they get back to me, I’ll update. In the meantime, if a remake ever does get made, I’d love to see Michael Shannon as Severin role and Christopher Walken in the patriarchal Jesse Hooker role that Henriksen played. Here’s the official trailer to the film followed by a clip of Paxton at his bloody best. Watch The Trailer For Kathryn Bigelow’s Original Near Dark Bill Paxton Chews The Scenery (And His Victims) What do you think? Ripe for a remake? By which director and with what cast? Leave them in the comments section. [ Empire ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Remember Occupy Wall Street? Remember how popular support for the protest soared and then dwindled as organizers proved to be disorganized and ineffectual? In his new film, The Company You Keep , Robert Redford examines why so many movements like OWS fail. “They don’t always succeed, they tend to evaporate,” Redford notes. “I was curious about why. And what was the cost [for] those people that so believed?” In addition to looking back at generations of history, The Company You Keep also showcases several generations of acting talent: From Julie Christie to Stanley Tucci to Shia LaBeouf. Redford’s most contemporary casting choice is America’s Got Talent wunderkind Jackie Evancho, who makes her acting debut in the film. “Acting and singing are actually very similar,” says Evancho. “Because they’re both telling a story.” Check out my full interview from the NY Premiere below: Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
As mystifying as his 2004 sci-fier, Primer , albeit for entirely different reasons, Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color is a stimulating and hypnotic piece of experimental filmmaking. It’s also a poem about pigs, a meditation on orchids, a cerebral-spiritual love story, an intensely elliptical sight-and-sound collage, and perhaps a free-form re-interpretation of Thoreau’s Walden . Surely the most challenging dramatic entry at Sundance this year, this unapologetically avant-garde work regards conventional narrative as if it were a not-especially-interesting alien species; the mainstream will take no notice, but adventurous auds are in for a strange and imaginative trip. Primer fans and hardcore art-film devotees will likely be the sole takers for this long-anticipated sophomore effort, which again finds Carruth taking on writing, directing, acting, producing, scoring, lensing and editing duties. He’s even serving as his own distributor this time, with plans to release the picture in L.A. and Gotham in April, followed by a quick transition to repeat-viewing-friendly smallscreen play. At the center of Upstream Color is a young woman, Kris ( Amy Seimetz ), who finds herself an unwitting participant in some exceedingly bizarre experiments. First a thief (Thiago Martins) attacks her and forces her to ingest a bio-engineered worm that brainwashes her into handing over her savings. When the critter starts to replicate inside her body, in scenes that give the picture a brief horror-movie spin, she’s rescued, after a fashion, by an older gentleman identified in the credits as Sampler (Andrew Sensenig), who subjects her to a bizarre respiratory treatment involving one of his many farm pigs. Left with little to no memory of what has happened, Kris finds herself drawn to a young man ( Carruth ) who seems to have experienced the same ordeal. The two walk and talk, ride the subway, make love and at one point cradle each other in a bathtub. They wander a nondescript-looking city, exchanging dialogue laced with random repetition and impenetrable non sequiturs. Even as their actions and circumstances defy comprehension, a troubling and poignant idea rises to the surface: the universal human compulsion to construct a sense of identity and ascribe meaning to one’s life, to impose order on disorder. The futility of such a thing may well explain the befuddling, pretzel-like contours of the story; even the most attentive viewers may be hard-pressed to comprehend the significance of the women harvesting orchids, or why Sampler walks around using sound-recording equipment. Peculiar as it all may sound in outline, it’s even stranger to experience onscreen, arranged by Carruth in a complex symphonic framework that variously invokes Malick and Lynch in its narrative illogic, tactile lyricism and possible transmigration-of-souls subtext. The picture is so densely edited (by Carruth and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints helmer David Lowery) that no single shot seems to last more than mere seconds, which combines with the shallow-focus compositions to produce an experience of near-continual disorientation. Factor in the almost omnipresent synth score, layered under tinkling piano chords, and the film seems to be attempting to induce a state of synaesthesia. Walden , a frequent reference point here, provides a clue as to what Carruth is up to: In its intense levels of visual-aural stimulation, the film is at once transcendent and meditative, and in some ways a call for the sort of inner detox Thoreau prescribed. And since exalted literary works seem to be on the interpretive agenda, the transference of illness to a herd of pigs calls to mind nothing so much as the gospel accounts of Jesus casting out Legion by the Sea of Galilee. Pretentious or sublime, these ineffable spiritual overtones are finally what make Upstream Color so approachable, for all its mysteries: This is a warmer, less foreboding picture than Primer , not moving in any conventional sense, but suffused with emotion all the same. One can only imagine what directions the actors were given in order to inhabit roles that seem to splinter and reassemble themselves at will, but Seimetz supplies a quietly haunting presence, particularly in the film’s tender closing fade. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
As mystifying as his 2004 sci-fier, Primer , albeit for entirely different reasons, Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color is a stimulating and hypnotic piece of experimental filmmaking. It’s also a poem about pigs, a meditation on orchids, a cerebral-spiritual love story, an intensely elliptical sight-and-sound collage, and perhaps a free-form re-interpretation of Thoreau’s Walden . Surely the most challenging dramatic entry at Sundance this year, this unapologetically avant-garde work regards conventional narrative as if it were a not-especially-interesting alien species; the mainstream will take no notice, but adventurous auds are in for a strange and imaginative trip. Primer fans and hardcore art-film devotees will likely be the sole takers for this long-anticipated sophomore effort, which again finds Carruth taking on writing, directing, acting, producing, scoring, lensing and editing duties. He’s even serving as his own distributor this time, with plans to release the picture in L.A. and Gotham in April, followed by a quick transition to repeat-viewing-friendly smallscreen play. At the center of Upstream Color is a young woman, Kris ( Amy Seimetz ), who finds herself an unwitting participant in some exceedingly bizarre experiments. First a thief (Thiago Martins) attacks her and forces her to ingest a bio-engineered worm that brainwashes her into handing over her savings. When the critter starts to replicate inside her body, in scenes that give the picture a brief horror-movie spin, she’s rescued, after a fashion, by an older gentleman identified in the credits as Sampler (Andrew Sensenig), who subjects her to a bizarre respiratory treatment involving one of his many farm pigs. Left with little to no memory of what has happened, Kris finds herself drawn to a young man ( Carruth ) who seems to have experienced the same ordeal. The two walk and talk, ride the subway, make love and at one point cradle each other in a bathtub. They wander a nondescript-looking city, exchanging dialogue laced with random repetition and impenetrable non sequiturs. Even as their actions and circumstances defy comprehension, a troubling and poignant idea rises to the surface: the universal human compulsion to construct a sense of identity and ascribe meaning to one’s life, to impose order on disorder. The futility of such a thing may well explain the befuddling, pretzel-like contours of the story; even the most attentive viewers may be hard-pressed to comprehend the significance of the women harvesting orchids, or why Sampler walks around using sound-recording equipment. Peculiar as it all may sound in outline, it’s even stranger to experience onscreen, arranged by Carruth in a complex symphonic framework that variously invokes Malick and Lynch in its narrative illogic, tactile lyricism and possible transmigration-of-souls subtext. The picture is so densely edited (by Carruth and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints helmer David Lowery) that no single shot seems to last more than mere seconds, which combines with the shallow-focus compositions to produce an experience of near-continual disorientation. Factor in the almost omnipresent synth score, layered under tinkling piano chords, and the film seems to be attempting to induce a state of synaesthesia. Walden , a frequent reference point here, provides a clue as to what Carruth is up to: In its intense levels of visual-aural stimulation, the film is at once transcendent and meditative, and in some ways a call for the sort of inner detox Thoreau prescribed. And since exalted literary works seem to be on the interpretive agenda, the transference of illness to a herd of pigs calls to mind nothing so much as the gospel accounts of Jesus casting out Legion by the Sea of Galilee. Pretentious or sublime, these ineffable spiritual overtones are finally what make Upstream Color so approachable, for all its mysteries: This is a warmer, less foreboding picture than Primer , not moving in any conventional sense, but suffused with emotion all the same. One can only imagine what directions the actors were given in order to inhabit roles that seem to splinter and reassemble themselves at will, but Seimetz supplies a quietly haunting presence, particularly in the film’s tender closing fade. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Offering a more straight-faced brand of idiocy than its cheerfully dumb 2009 predecessor, G.I. Joe: Retaliation might well have been titled G.I. Joe: Regurgitation , advertising big guns, visual effects and that other line of Hasbro toys with the same joyless, chew-everything-up-and-spit-it-out efficiency. Largely devoid of personality, apart from a few nifty action flourishes courtesy of helmer Jon M. Chu , Paramount’s late-March blockbuster, pushed back from a 2012 release (ostensibly to allow for a 3D conversion), may have trouble matching G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra ’s $302 million worldwide gross. But with no shortage of merchandising and other cross-promotional opportunities, it should still score significant attention from targeted male viewers. Appreciably rougher and grittier in feel than the Stephen Sommers-directed The Rise of Cobra , Retaliation makes any number of ham-fisted bids for topical relevance, and naturally almost every one of them represents an affront to good taste. Among other things, the film is a sort of accidental comedy about nuclear warfare, as much of the silly plot concerns a global summit where the hope of mass disarmament soon gives way to the threat of mass annihilation. Elsewhere, the script (by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick) finds our trusty Joes raiding a North Korean compound shortly before they head to Islamabad, where they wind up framed for the assassination of Pakistan’s president. All this geopolitical mayhem is being orchestrated by the U.S. commander-in-chief (Jonathan Pryce) — or rather, the dastardly doppelganger who’s impersonating him with the aid of super-sophisticated “nanomite” technology (because latex is just a little too Mission: Impossible ). The president’s stand-in is a high-ranking member of Cobra, a secret network of megalomaniacs bent on wiping out the G.I. Joes once and for all, and in the early going, they come perilously close. Tatum Channing’s Screen Time Is Brief Probably aware that no one in the audience could possibly care about any sense of continuity with The Rise of Cobra and its eminently forgettable characters, the filmmakers have opted to retain just a few key players this time around. In what feels like an odd miscalculation given the actor’s recent popularity, Channing Tatum’s Duke is around for only about 10 minutes to pass the baton to a fresh G.I. Joe unit led by the physically imposing Roadblock ( Dwayne Johnson ) and rounded out by Flint (D.J. Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), both of whom evince far less charisma than the military-grade weapons provided them by Gen. Joe Colton ( Bruce Willis , phoning it in). Actor To Watch: Byung-hyun Lee Providing a bit more interest is the Joes’ ninja faction, chiefly Snake Eyes (Ray Park), whose inexpressive mask stands in marked contrast to the piercing gaze of his longtime nemesis, white-clad swordfighter Storm Shadow ( Korean star Byung-hyun Lee ). Along with newcomer Jinx (Elodie Yung), these returning characters figure prominently into the picture’s finest moment, a fight scene in the Himalayas that employs wirework and stereoscopy to highly vertiginous effect. The visual grace of this sequence is no surprise coming from Chu, who demonstrated a real flair for staging in the two Step Up pics he directed. But as in those movies, sustaining a narrative or transcending a patchy script seem beyond his abilities. One of the least savory aspects of the franchise is the unseemly pleasure it takes in the wholesale destruction of foreign cities, which goes hand-in-hand with its jingoistic portrait of American military might. Audiences who thrilled to the sight of Paris under biochemical attack in Cobra will be pleased to watch London endure an even more horrific fate here, although the sequence is tossed off in quick, almost ho-hum fashion, with no time to dwell on anything so exquisitely crass as the spectacle of the Eiffel Tower collapsing. Meatheaded and derivative as it is, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is hardly the nadir, as hollow corporate products go; certainly it’s nowhere near as aggressively off-putting as the Transformers movies, the other action-figure adaptations in the Hasbro universe. The dialogue has improved markedly since the earlier outing, and the lensing and editing, while hardly models of coherence, just about manage to avoid excessive jumpiness. Andrew Menzies’ production design, with sets standing in for everything from a Tokyo skyscraper to a Nepalese monastery, proves resourceful within the confines of a largely New Orleans-shot production. With the exceptions of the often mesmerizing Lee and the ever-reliable Johnson, the performances are merely serviceable. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
