After a few lackluster sequels (not including the amazing Part 2) and a pair of misguided remakes, it seems like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre brand still has some gas in the motor with yet another reboot... in 3D, no less!
Oh, Mickey. You were once on top of the world and you threw it all away, but Hollywood loves a good comeback and you got yours with a vengeance in the form of Darren Aronofsky's blistering drama The Wrestler. Suddenly everybody was excited to be in the Mickey Rourke business again; he had a legion of fans, both faithful, fair-weather and brand-new, all eager to see what the Oscar-nominated actor would do with this heat.
One of the perennial highlights of the festival is its commitment to French cinema and its French Revolutions offering consistently serves up some of the strongest films in the entire field. Thankfully I caught two such Gallic treats last week, both of which tackled difficult subject matter in an utterly compelling and uncompromising manner.
Vincent Garenq’s Guilty (Presume Coupable) is signposted in its exposition as a faithful adaptation of a series of memoirs entitled “Miscarriage of Justice” by Alain Marecaux. Marecaux (a remarkable Phillippe Torreton), a family man who is too often distracted by his job as a baliff, is left shattered when he and his wife are arrested in the middle of the night on suspicion of involvement in what came to be known as the notorious Outreau paedophile ring.
Released to DVD and Blu-ray on 17 October, Last Night follows a successful young married New York couple who must both choose between fidelity and temptation. Writer and director Massy Tadjedin’s film is full of ‘will they, won’t they’ but short on any reason to care about the leads.
Everything about this adaptation of Herge’s infamous creation oozes class. Behind the camera you’ve got a veritable who’s who of some of the most successful franchises and comedies of the past 30 years and in front of it all there’s James Bond, Billy Elliot and Gollum – what could go wrong? Luckily not much.
Summer 2012, The Avengers finally arrives on movie screens around the world, completing an unprecedented chain of interconnected summer blockbusters that started back in 2008 with Iron Man. Where do they go from here? The answer appears to be: Do it all again!
Fans of the Star Wars animated television series The Clone Wars will be excited to hear that Darth Maul is making a comeback. The horned Sith assassin, who was believed to be dead (well, it was a pretty safe assumption) after Obi-Wan Kenobi sliced him in half in The Phantom Menace is to appear in the acclaimed series in spring 2012 over on Cartoon Network, according to EW.
Attack the Block grabbed the imaginations of US-based film press like it was a defenceless woman's purse, garnering huge praise from a variety of sources, but was met with a decidedly muted reaction on its home turf.
Personally, I loved the film and it's not my place to speculate why that critical divide is so pronounced, but I suspect it has something to do with the proximity to the "hoodie" problem. Would American audiences respond as warmly to a film that focused on an issue closer to their doorstep?
We may get the chance to find out, after all. While at the New York Comic Con, promoting the movies imminent American home video release, Cornish divulged some new information on possibilities for more adventures in the Block, including a potential American remake.
Hollywood is never one to let a cash cow go unmilked. While discussing development plans on Hasbro properties (cinematic staples such as Ouija, Candyland, Risk, Stretch Armstrong and Monopoly), Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner raised the very real possibility of re-teaming with Paramount, Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay for more Transformers movies. Yay.
Potiche’s director François Ozon has given all sorts of reasons for wanting to make this film – his free, fast-moving and witty adaptation of a French drawing room stage comedy. Retaining its 1977 setting, he said, gave him the distance to satirise the contemporary goings-on of the likes of Sarkozy and France’s first serious female political contender Ségolène Royal. Well, maybe. But it also gave him a fabulous opportunity to reunite the dream team of French cinema royalty, Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu, two legends now in their sixties playing opposite each other for their ninth time, amid some wonderfully recreated kitsch sets and colourful cinematography. Ozon being Ozon, he has a great deal of fun with a story that has a serious subject – emancipation – turning it into a comedy with a typically ambiguous tone.
