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A Monster is Reborn in Trailer For Toho’s ‘Godzilla: Resurgence’
5 hours ago
Following up Star Wars: Rogue One, Gareth Edwards will deliver another Godzilla film in two years. For those looking for some more kaiju action much sooner, over on the other side of the world, Toho has been hard at work on the 29th film in their franchise — and their first in over a decade. Godzilla: Resurgence comes from directors Hideaki Anno (Neon Genesis Evangelion) and Shinji Higuchi (known for his visual effects for the Gamera trilogy), and today we have a new trailer.
In stark contrast with Edward’s slow-burn reveal, just this trailer shows virtually it all up front as everyone’s favorite monster towers above the city. Those curious about any issues of translation need not worry as the dialogue-free look gives one all they need to know about the scale and the main players. Starring Hiroki Hasegawa, Yutaka Takenouchi, and Satomi Ishihara, check out the »
- Jordan Raup
Martin Scorsese Gets Animated in 1990 Talk on Framing, Priesthood, and Westerns
6 hours ago
As we wait for Paramount to lift their current silence when it comes to Silence, we’ll take anything Martin Scorsese-related we can get. To do so we’re going back over a quarter-of-a-century to a previously unheard talk he had with author T.J. English in 1990, around the release of Goodfellas. Animated by PBS for their digital series Blank and Blank, it may only run just over five minutes, but it’s as enlightening as one might expect from the director.
In it, Scorsese talks about drawings he did as a kid (see one here) as he started to seriously think about the spectacle of movies and framing. He also opens up about dabbling with priesthood, the experience his parents had when watching the explicit nature of his films. To wrap up, he eloquently says, “The two elements I like best about movies are the sense of motion and performance, »
- Jordan Raup
‘Ain’t Them Bodies Saints’ Director David Lowery Reteams With Disney For ‘Peter Pan’ Remake
7 hours ago
One of the most promising studio features of the summer is Disney’s new take on Pete’s Dragon, arriving in August. We got a trailer for it recently, showing off the first glimpse at what David Lowery, director of the excellent drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, can do in a bigger playing field. It looks like Disney is keeping him in the family, as they’ve announced another remake he’s set to direct.
According to Deadline, Lowery is set to co-write (with Toby Halbrooks) and direct a new take on Peter Pan. While there’s no details yet regarding the approach for this new version, we can expect a boy who wouldn’t grow up and a little bit of pixie dust if it has anything to do with J.M. Barrie‘s original work.
In any regard, Disney must be confident a new take, with WB still »
- Leonard Pearce
Ramin Bahrani Burns for ‘Fahrenheit 451’; Rylance and Spielberg Plan Fourth Collaboration
7 hours ago
I thought about starting this with some note about living in a world where literature is increasingly unappreciated — but nobody really needs that so I’ll instead just relate The Wrap‘s story that Ramin Bahrani is looking to follow 99 Homes with an adaptation of Ray Bradbury‘s perennial sci-fi classic Fahrenheit 451. The project has been in WB’s pipeline for some time, in semi-recent years attracting the likes of Mel Gibson and Frank Darabont with its dystopian future and central figure, Guy Montag, a “fireman” whose main task is to burn the written word.
Unadaptable this text is not, judging solely by François Truffaut’s great adaptation. While that one’s a bit more off-kilter than what I expect HBO Films and Warner Bros. to deliver — unless they’re really putting their chips down here — Bahrani’s eye for social issues of this current day should make him »
- Nick Newman
Explore China of the Past and Present In Trailers for Films from King Hu and Wang Bing
8 hours ago
It would require two big restorations and come down to a limited, roll-out release of three films in total, but we might have a fine summer of Chinese cinema ahead of us. Janus Films have restored King Hu‘s legendary wuxia pictures A Touch of Zen and Dragon Inn — which, based on these first previews, have been given treatments that warrant the ticket price. (The former begins playing at Film Forum on April 22 and the latter starts its run at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on May 6 before expanding.) I’m sure the inevitable Criterion releases will do well for those who can’t make it, however.
On the somewhat heavier side is Wang Bing‘s four-hour ‘Til Madness Do Us Part, a documentary set within “an isolated mental institution in rural Zhaotong,” and whose very complimentary reviews have brought up comparisons to Titicut Follies and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Next. »
- Nick Newman
The Film Stage Show Ep. 184 – Everybody Wants Some!!
9 hours ago
Welcome, one and all, to the newest episode of The Film Stage Show! This week, I am joined by Jordan Raup and Bill Graham to discuss Richard Linklater‘s Dazed and Confused spiritual sequel Everybody Wants Some!!, which is now in limited release and expanding.
Subscribe on iTunes or see below to stream download (right-click and save as…).
M4A: The Film Stage Show Ep. 184 – Everybody Wants Some!!
0:00 – 01:58 – Introduction
01:59 – 20:09 – Everybody Wants Some!! Discussion
20:10 – 44:36 – Everybody Wants Some!! Spoilers
Bonus: Watch a 30-minute talk with Richard Linklater and the cast.
Opening music comes courtesy of Joy Division. Subscribe below:
E-mail us or follow on Twitter and Facebook with any questions or comments.
»
- Brian Roan
Brian De Palma Will Tell ‘The Truth and Other Lies’
10 hours ago
Nowadays, being a great fan of Brian De Palma means getting burned time and again by projects that are announced, linger, and taper off, and so I can only react to a new deal with some cautious optimism. But news is news, and word has it he’s signed to adapt Sascha Arango‘s black-comic novel The Truth and Other Lies, which the author himself has penned for the screen. [Deadline]
The basic outlines make it sound like an endeavor right up the filmmaker’s alley, following a celebrated author, Henry Hayden, whose messy personal life — his wife writes his books, for one, and he’s impregnated his mistress — and hidden past begin coming to light, necessitating the need to “manage a growing series of lies and complications.” It’s fair to say De Palma has some vested interest in lies, conspiracy, danger, suspense, and spinning these into sickly amusing scenarios — so who better, »
- Nick Newman
Watch Extensive Cinematography Breakdowns For ‘Hail, Caesar!,’ ‘The Hateful Eight,’ ‘Fury Road’ & More
11 hours ago
If supercuts featuring a director and — by extension — cinematographer’s predilection for a specific color or camera movement have watered down the field of video essays, today brings a series that reinstates an informative, technical approach to better understand what goes into crafting an image with light. Cinematography Database, coming from Dp Matt Workman, resembles something closer to a visual podcast as he takes anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour to break down each feature.
With a first batch including Robert Richardson‘s The Hateful Eight, Roger Deakins‘ Hail, Caesar!, John Seale‘s Mad Max: Fury Road, Emmanuel Lubezki‘s The Revenant, Matthew Libatique‘s Straight Outta Compton, and Dariusz Wolski‘s The Martian, he uses mostly behind-the-scenes stills to dissect the equipment and lighting techniques at play in each feature. While the series may not widely appeal to those looking to dive into how cinematography conveys the themes of a film, »
- Jordan Raup
[Review] My Big Night
12 hours ago
My Big Night tells you what it is right up front: big with a capital “B,” a maximalist extravaganza satirizing the day-to-day life on a show business set that has a dark bite lurking in the colorful madness’s shadows. Directed by the always gonzo Álex de la Iglesia (Witching and Bitching, The Last Circus), My Big Night brings the Spaniard’s wicked edge behind the scenes, letting a flashy, Edgar Wright-esque cartoonishness dominate this pastiche.
Poking fun at fame, jealousy, ego, and superstitions, My Big Night takes place during the filming of a New Year’s Eve TV special while a union strike rages just outside the set. Jose — played by Pepón Nieto as a mix between Nick Frost and Jean Reno, with the deadpan weariness of Ricky Gervais’ best performances — is an unemployed actor, called in at the last minute to replace an extra whose absence relates »
- Jacob Oller
Exclusive: U.S. Trailer for Hong Sang-soo’s ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’
13 hours ago
Rare is the occasion when distribution news is cause for celebration, but we liked Hong Sang-soo‘s Right Now, Wrong Then so much that its arrival in the U.S. — courtesy of a new outfit, Grasshopper Film — can mark something of an exception. So it is when one of our greatest living filmmakers gets a feature released in the U.S. for the first time since 2012.
With that in mind, we’re exceptionally pleased to premiere Right Now, Wrong Then‘s U.S. trailer, which gives a taste of the movie’s hugely inventive structural choices, screamingly funny scenarios, and incisive relationship dynamics. Still not sure about what you’re getting? Don’t turn away if you’ve never seen a Hong movie — this one is a great place to start.
As I said in my review, “Right Now, Wrong Then stands among his most immediately relatable endeavors. To say »
- Nick Newman
Benedict Cumberbatch Discovers a World of Magic In First Trailer for Marvel’s ‘Doctor Strange’
23 hours ago
Following last summer’s Ant-Man, the latest Marvel feature to let a new character lead the action comes is Doctor Strange. With the promising talents of Scott Derrickson (Sinister) behind the camera and perhaps the best cast the studio has assembled (Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mads Mikkelsen, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Tilda Swinton), the film’s first trailer has now arrived. First, though, if you’re like yours truly and know nothing about the character aside from Cumberbatch wearing a fanciful get-up, we’ll let producer Kevin Feige explain.
“He can do a whole host of things, eventually,” Feige explains to EW. “He does cast spells, which in the comics have very sort of tongue-twisty fun names. We don’t want to shy away from that, because that’s what makes Doctor Strange Doctor Strange. He has a Cloak of Levitation that allows him to fly, but he doesn »
- Jordan Raup
[Review] The Jungle Book
12 April 2016 1:34 PM, PDT
Advances in digital technology have now given filmmakers the chance to do things that would have been impossible just a decade ago. With this bold new power comes a slew of possible pitfalls, which we see in movies both large and small. Computer animation can be distractingly bad, pulling us out of the movie with its sheer artifice, or it can be too large, striking a realistic posture while doing things that are, in our mind, impossible to scale with reality. It may be the curse of The Jungle Book that its legacy will be defined by the way it charts a new pitfall for computer animation – that it can be so good and so real that it becomes almost impossible to focus on the story, for better and worse.
Which isn’t to say the story told in this movie is bad or fails to be affecting. Adapted from »
- Brian Roan
John Krasinski Discovers ‘God Particle’ for J.J. Abrams; Denzel Washington and Viola Davis Build ‘Fences’
12 April 2016 12:48 PM, PDT
Following word that David Oyelowo and Gugu Mbatha-Raw will get into the Bad Robot business with God Particle, a new casting update has made this project all the more promising. Variety has word that the J.J. Abrams-produced title is looking to add John Krasinski, who would play the member of “a team of astronauts who make a terrifying discovery that challenges everything they know about the fabric of reality, as they desperately fight for survival.”
Oren Uziel (22 Jump Street) and Doug Jung (Star Trek Beyond) have scripted God Particle, with Julius Onah (The Girl Is in Trouble) directing for a release on February 24, 2017.
Other casting news, also from Variety: reprising roles that earned them Tony’s, Denzel Washington and Viola Davis will lead a film adaptation of the Broadway play Fences. Washington will direct a script from playwright August Wilson, the pair presumably maintaining the original story of a former baseball player, »
- Nick Newman
The Science of Failure in the Films of Alexander Payne
12 April 2016 11:33 AM, PDT
Following his small-scale, black-and-white drama Nebraska, Alexander Payne has jumped to something with quite a large scope. He’s finally underway on production for what’s his biggest film yet, the Matt Damon-led sci-fi drama Downsizing, which is a social satire depicting a man who believes he’ll have a better life if he shrinks himself. Ahead of the shoot, Payne discussed his choice for a leading man. “Among contemporary leading men he is the closest thing we have to an Every Man. We saw it in The Martian particularly. More and more he is assuming the role that say James Stewart and more recently Tom Hanks used to play. At least you can relate to the guy and you can project some of your own fears, yearnings, aspirations onto his face. You understand him,” the director recently told Leo Adam Biga, author of a book on Payne.
He continues, »
- Leonard Pearce
U.S. Trailer for Hirokazu Koreeda’s Cannes Drama ‘Our Little Sister’
12 April 2016 10:36 AM, PDT
It is with a bit of embarrassment that I admit, amid Cannes’ overwhelming shuffle and hullabaloo, I’d failed to notice a new film from Hirokazu Koreeda. I was not alone, however. While one of the few consistently fêted contemporary Japanese filmmakers offering a new picture might seem like a bigger deal, we can understand when notices were generally lukewarm, the consensus telling us this, unfortunately, is not one of his better works.
I’ll nevertheless be curious to see the film, Our Little Sister, when it arrives in the U.S. this summer — especially on the strength of a new trailer, which often brings to mind his great Nobody Knows. This, despite our own negative take from the festival, which said, “Adapted from Akimi Yoshida’s highly successful manga Umimachi Diary, Our Little Sister is once again an examination of the dynamics amongst the members of a damaged family. »
- Nick Newman
Watch: Steven Soderbergh-Directed Music Video For Dtcv’s Jean-Luc Godard-Inspired “Histoire Seule”
12 April 2016 9:29 AM, PDT
He may not have any feature films in the pipeline, but Steven Soderbergh is still hard at work. After finishing up directing the entire second season of The Knick, he just shot the fascinating-sounding HBO series Mosaic, and he’s now shepherding a TV adaptation of The Girlfriend Experience to screens as an executive producer. Along with all that, he found some time to direct a music video for Dtcv‘s “Histoire Seule,” from their album Confusion Moderne.
As the official description reads, “The song’s title is a riff on [Jean-Luc] Godard‘s Histoire(s) du Cinema, and songwriter Lola G.’s lyrics are about how women tend to get erased from history. Steven’s video presents a slyly subversive but more iconographic and idiosyncratic take on history’s flux.” It also works nicely as a how-to guide for creating whiskey.
Speaking of The Knick, he recently told Vox his »
- Jordan Raup
Full Soundtrack Details For Nicolas Winding Refn’s ‘The Neon Demon’
12 April 2016 8:42 AM, PDT
It’s been known for quite awhile we’ll be seeing Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Only God Forgives follow-up The Neon Demon sometime this summer, thanks to Amazon Studios, but today it is now clearer when exactly it’ll be. A press release from Milan Records details the official soundtrack, which includes Cliff Martinez‘s score and three original songs (featuring a closing track by Sia, as well as tunes from Julian Winding and Sweet Tempest), and notes a release date of June 24th on CD and, digitally, July 8th. With a release date of June 8th in France, the film is now likely to arrive here in the United States between then and the CD soundtrack release.
Starring Elle Fanning, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee, and Bela Heathcoate, the story follows an aspiring model who moves to Los Angeles where her youth and vitality are devoured »
- Jordan Raup
Liam Neeson Awakens in New Trailer For J.A. Bayona’s ‘A Monster Calls’
12 April 2016 7:40 AM, PDT
Steven Spielberg won’t be the only filmmaker capturing a big, friendly giant on screens this year. Juan Antonio Bayona, the director of The Impossible and The Orphanage, has adapted A Monster Calls for his next feature and ahead of a fall release, a new trailer has arrived.
With a cast featuring Lewis MacDougall, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, Liam Neeson, and Sigourney Weaver, the story follows a 12-year-old boy who attempts to deal with his mother’s illness and the bullying of his classmates by escaping into a fantastical world of monsters and fairy tales that explore courage, loss, and faith.
The new trailer features a few more looks at our “monster,” voiced by Neeson, without thankfully revealing much more of the story. Check it out below, and see more info on Patrick Ness‘ novel of the same name, which the film is based on.
A Monster Calls opens on October 14th, »
- Jordan Raup
Recommended Discs & Deals of the Week: ‘Suspicion,’ ‘Only Angels Have Wings,’ and More
12 April 2016 7:05 AM, PDT
Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.
Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks)
Electrified by crackling dialogue and visual craftsmanship of the great Howard Hawks, Only Angels Have Wings stars Jean Arthur as a traveling entertainer who gets more than she bargained for during a stopover in a South American port town. There she meets a handsome and aloof daredevil pilot, played by Cary Grant, who runs an airmail company, staring down death while servicing towns in treacherous mountain terrain. Both attracted to and repelled »
- TFS Staff
Steven Spielberg, Mark Rylance, and Tony Kushner Team for ‘The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortata’
11 April 2016 5:40 PM, PDT
The speed at which Steven Spielberg‘s currently operating is almost exhausting to even think about. In the less-than-nine-month gap between Bridge of Spies and The Bfg alone, he’s set himself to premiere Ready Player One and Indiana Jones V in the summers of 2018 and 2019, respectively — which would seem like enough, so I’ll consider myself especially excited for whatever it is in The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara that has him going into production at the start of next year.
Then again, the pairing of lead and scribe is as good as he could hope for. Deadline have learned that Spielberg will, in early 2017, roll cameras on Edgardo Mortara, a Tony Kushner-scripted drama in which Mark Rylance — Bridge of Spies‘ scene-stealing Oscar winner and that eponymous Big Friendly Giant in the director’s next feature — will play Pope Pius IX. Based on David Kertzer‘s 1997 tome, it’s »
- Nick Newman
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