Gamers will be excited to hear that Legendary Pictures have picked up the rights to the Mass Effect series. The news comes less from a press statement than answers to fan tweets from this year’s Comic Con, so information is still a little sparse - but welcome news it is.
Today sees the release of Drive and to celebrate, Lost In The Multiplex is looking at a series of films that are connected or a direct influence to Nicolas Winding Refn's highly anticipated thriller.
Mainstream cinema clings to this idea that we must not only follow our protagonists, we must understand them, we need to see the shading that makes up a person's life; family, friends, big emotional beats that drive them to do what they do.
Soul Surfer is the true story of Bethany Hamilton, a semi-pro surfer, on the verge of making it into the professional circuit. She gets close until disaster strikes - a shark takes a bite out of her and tears off her left arm. It’s a tale of overcoming the odds to prove that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.
Directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha), the fourth film in the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' series again stars Johnny Depp as the dashing Captain Jack Sparrow. Ex-fiancée Angelica Teach (Penelope Cruz) tricks him into coming aboard Blackbeard's ship in search for the Fountain of Youth. Arr, and all aboard me hearties! Brace yourselves as we plunge into the uncharted waters of 'On Stranger Tides': whose murky depths are unmapped and unknown, hiding the darkest and most terrifying of secrets, and the most feared of all creatures...Sorry, got a bit carried away there. Actually, the fourth film in the Pirates series is depressingly prosaic and predictable; disappointing, considering Jack Sparrow's smorgasbord of a shopping list. The search for two chalices, a mermaid's tear, a victim and the Fountain of Youth is actually pretty straightforward, and lacks the entertainment and epic scale displayed by the previous films.
The teaser trailer and poster for Asger Leth’s new crime thriller movie are up online now. Some great Hollywood names are attached to the project: Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell, Anthony Mackie and Ed Harris. The plot is high cncept from start to finish: an ex-cop, Nick Cassidy (Worthington), is put away for a crime he claims he didn’t commit. After breaking out of prison he heads to a New York City high rise and out onto the ledge, presumably to commit suicide. The authorities are alerted and it’s up to a lone NYPD psychologist, played by Banks, to coax him back in through the window. What the Feds don’t realise is that this is just a ruse to pull off the crime he was framed for.
Word has it that man-of-the-moment Ryan Gosling was prescribed by a doctor to go straight into a comedy role, following his stint in Blue Valentine - perhaps not so surprising considering the film’s general tone (we’re sobbing just thinking about it). That’s not to say it wasn’t an utterly superb film. Indeed, Gosling has made some rather impeccable career decisions, with the actor seeming to avoid rom-coms entirely. So would trying out the genre at this stage in his fast-rising career put a black mark on his CV?
Iraq war veteran Tommy (Tom Hardy) returns to his childhood home after years of playing the absent son. But he’s not the only one who has kept a distance from his alcoholic father, Paddy (Nick Nolte). Tommy’s brother, Brendan (Joel Edgerton) is equally estranged from the rest of his family.
Whilst Brendan is blissfully ignorant, living a middle-class family life, Tommy returns resentfully to enlist the help of Paddy - his former MMA (mixed martial arts) trainer - so that he can return to his old fighting glory by throwing himself in the ring for the international Sparta contest and in turn, put himself in the running to win $5m in prize money.
David Fincher’s hotly anticipated adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s novel The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has finally got a full-length trailer.
At a surprisingly long running time of 4 minutes, the trailer shows The Social Network’s Rooney Mara in the lead role of Lisbeth Salander, a computer hacker who becomes embroiled in the investigation of a murder that took place decades ago. At her side are Daniel Craig, Stellan Skarsgard and Christopher Plummer.
This Friday, Drive will be pulling into cinemas around the UK. To celebrate, Lost In The Multiplex is looking at a series of films that are connected or a direct influence to Nicolas Winding Refn's highly anticipated thriller.
Vanishing Point is a change of pace from the last three tense action heavy thrillers. Vanishing Point is actually an action heavy, philosophical road movie.
The film begins in an unassuming fashion; a quiet town, a stillness in the air, the sound of lone police sirens and the rumble of heavy machinery breaks through. Two large bulldozers roll into position, forming a police barricade. The broad immovable blades of these machines are more than a simple blockade, they are inevitability given a tangible form.
It is impossible to discuss Vanishing Point without spoiling the ending, yet the word "spoil" seems a strong term as the end of Vanishing Point is clear from the beginning. This movie can only end one way; in death.
This Friday, Drive will be pulling into cinemas around the UK. To celebrate, Lost In The Multiplex is looking at a series of films that are connected or a direct influence to Nicolas Winding Refn's highly anticipated thriller.
Kenneth Anger is a director working within the underground circuit, he specialised in short film and was one of the first openly gay filmmakers in America.
Daring and almost revolutionary for the time, a lot of Anger's films are structured more like extended music videos and Scorpio Rising is a strong example of this. Anger's film mixes moody lighting, some brilliantly composed shots (particularly of Scorpio's posturing and strutting through scenes) and stock footage; his chief weapon with Scorpio Rising is the montage. He uses 1950s love songs over lovingly photographed scenes of men constructing, cleaning and polishing motorcycle parts. Mixed with the extensive use of homoerotic biker iconography (a lot of leather, studs, chains and pursed lips) and more explicit sexual imagery, it really plays into the idea of fetishizing motorcycles.
