12.2.2008 | By Alex Florez |
Rated: R for crude and sexual content, and pervasive language.
Release Date: 2008-07-25
Starring: Will Ferrell, Adam McKay
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Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/stepbrothers/index.html
12.2.2008 | By Alex Florez |
Rated: PG for epic battle action and violence.
Release Date: 2008-05-16
Starring: Andrew Adamson, Christopher Markus
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Country:UK, USA
Official Website: http://www.disney.es/FilmesDisney/narnia/
12.2.2008 | By Mack Chico |
Rated: R for strong violence including some torture, and for language throughout.
Release Date: 2008-06-27
Starring: Michael Brandt, Dean Georgaris
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Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.wantedmovie.com/
Wanted provides the jolt of adrenaline one expects from solid summer entertainment. It exists solely to keep the heart pounding as it shifts from one gear to the next, decelerating only when exposition demands a reduction in pace. The movie marries the superhero origin film with the revenge thriller, blending them with hints of the frenzied intensity embodied by 300 and the visual orchestrations of The Matrix. The storyline, while not Pulitzer material, is strong enough to keep the average viewer involved. But this is one of those experiences where the brain is not the primary organ engaged by what flashes on the screen in the darkness.
The backstory of Wanted is of a young man who finds out his long lost father is an assassin. And when his father is murdered, the son is recruited into his father’s old organization and trained by a man named Sloan to follow in his dad’s footsteps.
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Director Timur Bekmambetov showed in Night Watch that he knows how to do some arresting stuff with his cameras. He’s the everyman who discovers he’s more than he thought he was. He’s Peter Parker with an attitude. And, face it, who wants Mary Jane Watson when you can have Fox?
Angelina Jolie has always oozed sex appeal, but she’s never been able to match badass with dominatrix quite like this. Jolie doesn’t have any qualms about showing off her body, nor should she, considering how well sculpted it is. James McAvoy‘s American accent is a little flawed, but his transformation from dweeb to assassin is believable. Morgan Freeman adds a touch of class to things (much as he does with nearly every movie he’s in). There’s something perversely delicious, however, about getting to hear Easy Reader say two of George Carlin’s seven words that can’t be spoken on television.
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The film’s sense of style is going to capture the praise of some who might normally not applaud a summer movie fueled by adrenaline and testosterone. But Wanted manages to deliver what action fans crave while still maintaining a veneer of artfulness. There are times when the film is flat-out silly (such as the spinning car assassination), but that’s part of the movie’s charm. At its worst, Wanted is never boring. At its best, it can be damn close to intoxicating. One word, written without apology, describes it best: fun.
12.2.2008 | By Jack Rico |
New images from Agora, Alejandro Amenabar’s follow up to The Sea Inside, have shown up online as Fotogramas.es has a pair of images of Rachel Weisz as the astronomer Hypati.
Amenbar directed The Sea Inside, which won the Best Foreign Film Oscar, as well as Nicole Kidman ghost story The Others. Agora, like those other two is co-written by Amenabar, and is set in Roman Egypt in the fourth century telling the story of the legendarye Nastronomer Hypatia (Weisz), trapped in the legendary Library of Alexandria, and her fight to save the old world’s wisdom from the religious riots sweeping the streets of Alexandria. Her slave Davus (Max Minghella) wrestles with his yearning for freedom and his professed love for his mistress.
12.2.2008 | By Jack Rico |
Paramount Pictures has set Shia LaBeouf to play the title role in the bigscreen version of John Grisham‘s upcoming legal thriller “The Associate,” which the studio has just acquired rights to.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing.
LaBeouf will play a student who’s about to graduate from Yale Law School when he’s manipulated into accepting a job at a prestige law firm and given privileged information about a multibillion-dollar lawsuit.
The novel, Grisham’s first legal thriller since 2005’s “The Broker,” will be published in January by Random House.
Grisham’s longtime rep, David Gernert, shopped the book by giving it to four producers. While some felt that lessened the book’s chances to find a suitor in a tight marketplace, the strategy worked.
Par-based Di Bonaventura, who as an exec worked on the Grisham films “A Time to Kill” and “The Client,” received the book in the Middle East, where he and LaBeouf were shooting “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” There, they agreed to do it together.
Deal gives Paramount another LaBeouf vehicle to follow the “Transformers” films, on which the studio partners with DreamWorks. He last starred for the studio in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”
12.1.2008 | By Mack Chico |
You could be seeing these two films at the upcoming Oscar awards in 2009.
Director Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” about a poor Indian boy who gets a shot at winning millions in a television game show, swept the British Independent Film Awards on Sunday with three prizes.
“Hunger,” artist Steve McQueen‘s widely acclaimed directorial debut, also picked up three awards, followed by Mike Leigh‘s uncharacteristically upbeat “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which took both the best supporting actor and actress prizes.
Slumdog Millionaire won the best British independent film, best director and most promising newcomer categories, the latter going to young actor Dev Patel who played the lead role of Jamal.
The movie has already won rave reviews at film festivals and generated early Oscars buzz.
Also with three awards was Hunger, a hard-hitting film about the final days of IRA prisoner and hunger striker Bobby Sands in 1981.
Sands was played by Michael Fassbender, who won the best actor category, while McQueen was awarded the Douglas Hickox prize for best debut director and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt was honoured for best technical achievement.
Best actress went to Vera Farmiga in “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas,” and the best screenplay award was won by Martin McDonagh for “In Bruges.”
Alexis Zegerman was named best supporting actress for Happy-Go-Lucky, and Eddie Marsan won the best supporting actor prize for the same film.
“The Escapist” won the best achievement in production award, “Man on Wire” won best documentary, “Soft” won best British short film, and best foreign film went to “Waltz With Bashir,” Ari Folman’s haunting Middle East war animation.
Actor David Thewlis was honoured with the Richard Harris award for outstanding contribution to British film, and Michael Sheen won the Variety award.
12.1.2008 | By Mack Chico |
Thanksgiving weekend movie crowds gobbled up the Reese Witherspoon-Vince Vaughn holiday comedy “Four Christmases,” which premiered at No. 1 with $31.7 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The film raised its total to $46.7 million since opening Wednesday.
In terms of revenue, it was Hollywood’s second-biggest Thanksgiving period ever. The top 12 movies took in $223.7 million from Wednesday to Sunday, trailing only the $232.2 million haul over 2000.
“Twilight,” which had a huge No. 1 opening the previous weekend, took a steep 62 percent decline from its $69.6 million premiere.
Based on Sunday’s estimates, Disney’s animated “Bolt” had a slight lead on second place with $26.6 million for the weekend, to $26.4 million for “Twilight.”
In San Francisco, Focus Features’ film “Milk,” directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn as slain Supervisor Harvey Milk, set a box-office record at the Castro Theatre. From Wednesday through Friday, the single-screen theater grossed $109,440 on “Milk,” breaking the previous three-day record of $50,584 set in May by “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” according to film promoters Terry Hines and Associates.
The film opened nationally on 36 screens, two of which, the Sundance Kabuki and the Embarcadero, didn’t begin showing the film until Friday. “Milk” opened at No. 10 nationwide with $1.4 million in just 36 theaters. The film had a strong average of $38,375 a cinema, compared with $9,571 in 3,310 theaters for “Four Christmases.”
The weekend’s other new wide release, “Australia,” opened at No. 5 with $14.8 million for the weekend and $20 million since premiering Wednesday.
11.27.2008 | By Jack Rico |
The film version is based on the Tony Award winning musical, “Nine,” directed by Academy Award nominated director Rob Marshall (“Memoirs of a Geisha,” “Chicago”).
11.27.2008 | By Mack Chico |
There’s nothing but love between Alec Baldwin and Salma Hayek, who recently shot a five episode arc on “30 Rock” where the 42-year-old beauty will be playing Jack Donaghy’s love interest.
11.25.2008 | By Alex Florez |
Rated: PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence, some sexual content and drug material.
Release Date: 2008-11-26
Starring: Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen
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Country: France
Official Website: http://www.letransporteur3-lefilm.com/
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Let’s be frank (no pun intended). This review really isn’t needed.Â
The latest installment of the ‘Transporter’ series is everything you expect it to be: one ridiculous action sequence after another with a senseless romantic plot sandwiched in between. But who says that’s a bad thing?
Frank Martin (Jason Statham), a former Special Forces officer and now a highly skilled courier for the underworld world, has been pressured into ‘transporting’ Valentina (Natalya Rudakova), the kidnapped daughter of Leonid Vasilev, a top Ukrainian politician, all across Europe. But things get pretty ugly for him when he has to contend with the people who strong armed him to take the job, the special agents sent by Vasilev to intercept him, and his unruly passenger. If you haven’t seen the first two films, you’ll quickly pick up on its simple premise.Â
Oh yes, one other matter of hilarious complication. On this particular run, Frank is forced to wear a high tech bracelet which is programed to explode if he gets too far from his Audi S8. And so he speed races through Europe stopping only to battle dozens of henchmen that are on his tail using his masterful kung fu skills – all within 50 feet of his car, of course.
If nothing else, Transporter 3 is hysterical. The implausibility of all the stunts should be enough to keep you entertained for a couple of hours. And the fact that it takes itself so seriously makes it even funnier. If you’ve seen ‘Crank’ (my personal favorite Statham film), I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.Â
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It is what it is. A kung fu movie with fast cars and a British accent.
Now we all know the effects a big turkey dinner can have. So if you’re looking for a film to watch on Thursday night, perhaps ‘Transporter 3’ is a better choice than the 3 hour epic which also opens this weekend.
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