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Cinematical Seven: Best Mayhem of 2008
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Foreign Language, Horror, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, Disney, Lionsgate Films, Magnolia, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Brothers, Fandom, Focus Features, 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Family Films, Dreamworks, Cinematical Seven, Comic/Superhero/Geek
When we were kicking around ideas for year-end superlative Cinematical Sevens, I was proudly tasked with chronicling the year's finest in big-screen mayhem, violence, destruction and other such shenanigans. When I was kicking around ideas for said feature between me, myself, and I, there were too many titles to leave off the list, so instead of highlighting only a mere couple of movies, I've opted to sort these puppies out by specific manner of cinematic excess.
So there.
1. Most pervasive destruction - The Joker may have terrorized Gotham to the tune of a destroyed hospital, a wrecked helicopter, a sunken SWAT truck, a toasty fire engine, and a golden district attorney, but even he can't top the Cloverfield monster's swath of destruction across the real-life Gotham. Statue of Liberty? Gone. Brooklyn Bridge? History. Central Park? Adios. And that's not including all the Hollister stores that our protagonists might've fled to. (On a smaller scale, though, Inside's lady in black terrorizes a pregnant woman on Christmas Eve to the point of all but painting every last wall in her house with the blood of her victims. Gotta love the French!)
Exclusive Video: Danny Boyle Interviewing Darren Aronofsky
Filed under: Fandom, Fox Searchlight, Interviews, Trailers and Clips
Cinematical has received this very cool exclusive video featuring Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle and The Wrestler director Darren Aronofsky interviewing one another about their films, their process and a whole lot more. There are seven parts to this video -- two of which have popped up over at Slashfilm and First Showing -- and we have what I think is the best part: Part 7: Writing and Developing Projects (or as I like to call it, Part 7: The Final Awesome). Here, both Aronofsky and Boyle chat about how they develop projects. Boyle talks some about finding the right script, while Aronofsky tells us what it was like to work with another writer on The Wrestler -- one who used to edit The Onion. I won't spoil anymore, because this is one of those video interviews that don't come around too often -- it's best just to watch.
Both Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler (which are two truly excellent films, by the way) are currently in theaters, with the latter in limited release and expanding soon.
Review: The Wrestler
Filed under: Drama, Sports, Awards, Casting, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, Celebrities and Controversy, Fox Searchlight, Oscar Watch, Toronto International Film Festival, Venice Film Festival
(We're reposting our review of The Wrestler form the Toronto International Film Festival to coincide with the film's theatrical release.)
By James Rocchi
After winning top honors at the Venice Film Festival, Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler rapidly became the must-see of the Toronto International Film Festival, with huge lines at the press and industry screening this afternoon seemingly unaffected by the news that Fox Searchlight had purchased the film. After seeing The Wrestler for myself, I feel the need to extend a note of caution about the film, which sailed into Toronto buoyed by advance raves for Mickey Rourke's performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a low-level professional wrestler -- and we soon see how really, both those words could be in quotation marks -- whose '80s glory days are long over, scraping by at low-level, low-paying matches until a heart attack forces him to leave the ring and look at his life in the shadow of death. Many have already written about the parallels between Mickey Rourke and the swaggering, scarred wrestler he plays -- early success, fame and notoriety, a series of mis-steps and mistakes taking it all away bit by bit as the years advanced -- and the charge Rourke's own rise and fall offers a filmmaker like Aaronofsky looking to explore ruin and redemption.
But don't believe the hype -- or, more importantly, look past it; if a complicated, messy personal life were all it took to deliver a great performance, Paris Hilton and O.J. Simpson would have more Oscars than Katharine Hepburn. Rourke's work as Randy is physical, invested, powerful and sprawling -- but it's also quiet, sad and hauntingly wounded, too. And The Wrestler offers viewers far more than just Rourke's performance -- which, it must be said, is excellent -- if they're willing to not flinch from what it has to say: The Wrestler is a fascinating, rich, unblinking look at the dark, hunched mean streak that lies curled and poisonous inside of so much American popular entertainment and of so much American life. It's early to say this, but The Wrestler is one of the most grimly exciting, magnetically repellent movies we've had in a long time; it's flat-out one of the best American movies of 2008.
Indie Winners: 'Milk' and 'Slumdog Millionaire' Score Big
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Box Office, Focus Features, Fox Searchlight, Cinematical Indie
After a couple of weeks off (I had a bad case of Twilight fever), Indie Winners returns with a look at the best-performing independent films at the box office this weekend. As Indie Spotlighter Eric D. Snider noted before the long holiday weekend began, precious few new releases have entered the marketplace recently, so let's focus on two that distinguished themselves financially.
1. Milk (Focus Features)
2. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight)
Avoiding the fall festival circuit, and even drawing some criticism for not opening in time to possibly influence California's vote on Proposition 8, Gus Van Sant's Milk finally debuted to very strong numbers, earning $38,361 per screen (36) in 19 cities, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. Milk opened last Wednesday and has been riding a wave of critical acclaim (93% positive, per Rotten Tomatoes, including our own James Rocchi). It will expand its theater count over the next couple of weeks.
In contrast, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire followed the fall festival circuit, generated glowing early word, and continues to perform well in (slightly) expanded release in its third week, scoring a per-screen average of $27,898 at 49 locations. Slumdog Millionaire also has received extremely positive reviews (92% at Rotten Tomatoes) and is likewise inspiring good word of mouth.
The old, if not profound, lesson? Specialty audiences have been responding to intelligent films that resonate emotionally, ones that sound different from the usual art house fare. Stars like Sean Penn and Josh Brolin may snare some viewers, but I'd bet it's the rousing treatment of important (and pertinent) subjects that drives Milk to a solid success as it expands. Lacking recognizable stars, Slumdog Millionaire definitely is building momentum because of its underdog tale and looks primed to be a crossover success.
Another 'Notorious' Poster for Biggie Smalls Biopic
Filed under: Drama, Music & Musicals, Fox Searchlight, Images, Posters
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It really was about time that Christopher 'Notorious B.I.G.' Wallace received his own biopic. Unfortunately, judging by what I've seen so far, Notorious has been flirting with being one step up from a movie of the week -- and for someone so influential in music history, that's a shame. The latest poster for the biopic has just been released, and like most of the marketing for this film, it leaves you feeling a tad underwhelmed.
Before being crowned "the savior of East Coast hip-hop", Christopher Wallace could have been just another statistic. But, during his short career, he created some of the most influential sounds in hip-hop -- along with launching his producer, Sean 'Diddy' Combs into the spotlight. Notorious was directed by George Tillman Jr. (Barber Shop) and stars Jamal Woolard as Wallace, Angela Basset as his mother, Violetta, and Antonique Smith (RENT) as his ex-wife, Faith Evans.
A few posters have already been released, but in most cases they looked like rejected covers from Source magazine (if you don't believe me, take a gander at some of the previous one-sheets). By the looks of it, this latest poster is going for a decidedly more 'dignified' look -- and in this case, dignified seems to mean ripping off of the Ray poster. Luckily, no matter what the posters or the trailers may look like, at least this movie is going to have one hell of a soundtrack. Check out the full version of this poster after the jump.
Notorious arrives in theaters on January 16, 2009.
Grapple with This: the Trailer for 'The Wrestler'
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Sports, New Releases, Exhibition, Fox Searchlight, Movie Marketing, Toronto International Film Festival, Trailers and Clips
It paid off, too -- the acclaim for the film was nearly universal. (Read Cinematical's James Rocchi's rave review here.) Now, in advance of the film's limited release on Dec. 31 (just in time to qualify for Rourke's inevitable Oscar nomination), Fox Searchlight has released the first trailer. Variety has it, and we've got it here, at the end of this post.
The trailer is good in the sense that it accurately conveys the tone of the film: moody, reflective, and only partially set in the wrestling ring. Bruce Springsteen's theme song is a nice touch. We get a few glimpses of Marisa Tomei, who plays Rourke's stripper friend (you'll catch more than a glimpse of her in the movie itself, if you know what I mean), and Evan Rachel Wood as Rourke's estranged daughter. Their performances are terrific, too, as is Aronofsky's direction -- man, I really hope this gets the Oscar attention that everyone thinks it will. It deserves it.
What do you think of the trailer? Does it make you more or less interested in the film? Let us know in the comments.
Interview: 'Slumdog Millionaire' Director Danny Boyle
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Foreign Language, Independent, New Releases, Fandom, Fox Searchlight, Interviews
Opening today in select markets is a film I'm sure will carve out a spot on a host of top ten lists at the end of the year (including mine): Slumdog Millionaire. Directed by the spirited and always-versatile Danny Boyle, Slumdog shoots its way into the city of Mumbai (aka the Maximum City) like liquid from a syringe, as it tells the life story of one poor boy from the slums and the girl who always seems to escape his reach.
Directing a film that's both chaotic and beautiful at the same time is not easy, and shooting on location in one of the busiest cities of the world was a task Boyle welcomed with open arms. Cinematical sat down with the director of such films as The Beach, 28 Days Later, Trainspotting and Sunshine to find out what it was like filming with a cast that barely spoke his language, how big a part the real Who Wants to Be a Millionaire actually played, and, among other things, which genre he's itching to take on next ... in America.
(As always, we do have to warn you that this interview might contain movie spoilers.)
Cinematical: Because your last film was this big, expensive sci-fi flick, did you intend to follow it up with something smaller ... which sounds quite silly seeing as Slumdog Millionaire is set in one of the busiest cities in the world?
Danny Boyle: Yeah, it's very funny those words 'big' and 'small', because obviously Sunshine is a big movie in some sense, but then in other ways it's a very tiny movie. You're working in a small studio with just eight actors, and you're there for months and months and it's just so tiny. With India, you've got about a billion people, and they all seem to be in the shot most of the time. It's weird, the biggest thing I thought was the contrast -- the change it was to go from outer space to the heat of this city; what they call the Maximum City. It was just such a refreshing change for me, and I'm so happy I got the opportunity to do it.
Review: Slumdog Millionaire
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Foreign Language, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, Fox Searchlight
(Note: We're rerunning this review from Telluride to coincide with the film's theatrical release tomorrow)
By: Kim Voynar
Fans of director Danny Boyle's work will find much to appreciate in his latest film, Slumdog Millionaire, a sweeping, hopeful story about a boy in the slums of India who becomes an instant celebrity after he wins millions on India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. Adapted by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) off the novel Q &A by Vikas Swarup, the tale is framed within an interesting narrative structure that revolves around the young man, Jamal, being interrogated for fraud by the police, who cannot believe that a "slumdog" orphan could possibly have known the answers to the questions on the show.
Boyle uses this conceit to take us back and forth from the police station, where Jamal (Dev Patel) is tortured to get him to confess how he cheated, to his appearance on the show, to the events throughout his youth that led to him knowing the answers to the game show questions. How did a boy growing up in the slums amid piles of garbage and filth know which US president is on the one hundred dollar bill, or who invented the revolver? Boyle takes us back through Jamal's life story to show us the mean-streets education that led to him knowing the answers, while managing to avoid making the set-up feel contrived.
Fan Rant: 24 Hours of Aronofsky
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Romance, Sports, Artisan, Warner Brothers, Fox Searchlight, Toronto International Film Festival, Fan Rant
(from left to right) Sean Gullette in Pi, Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream, Hugh Jackman in The Fountain, and Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler
I had been writing a rambling introduction to this piece, but to make a long anecdote short, I decided to re-watch the works of writer-director Darren Aronofsky prior to seeing his new film, The Wrestler. Out of more happenstance than planning, I began his first film exactly a day to the minute before this one would end, and now I offer up my thoughts on his career to date. (Who knows what more could come following this: 24 Hours of Fincher? 36 Hours of Boyle? My Dinner with Andre Benjamin's Idlewild?)
'Angels', Slumdogs, and Klaatu, Oh My!
Filed under: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Remakes and Sequels, Trailers and Clips
Not days after Eric D. Snider brought us welcome proof of Tom Hanks' mullet-free appearance has the teaser trailer for next May's Da Vinci Code sequel (or is it prequel?) been posted online, and all that can really be said for Angels & Demons at this point is that Hanks is once again racing against the ironically shadowy Illuminati to solve another Vatican-set (but not Vatican-shot) mystery.He's paired up with another brunette agent (Ayelet Zurer in lieu of Audrey Tautou), Ewan McGregor pops up as a man of the cloth, and Stellan Skarsgard finds himself on the business end of a branding iron. I had heard that the novel is an improvement from its predecessor, so let's hope this follows suit next May.
Considerably closer and already loaded with acclaim is Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, the trailer for which just popped up over at Yahoo! Movies. I'm close enough to seeing the film myself that I'm going to forgo watching it, but this'll hopefully convince you to catch it if our review and others hadn't already. Millionaire opens in limited release on November 12th.
And to round things out is this five-minute trailer for the looming remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, which bears resemblance for the most part to this previous extended trailer, save for a last minute crammed with more completed money shots involving our big, bad friend Gort. TDTESS opens in IMAX and regular theaters on December 12th.
