Sheldon Candis’ greatest coup in directing LUV, his debut feature, could well be securing rapper-turned-all-around-entertainer Common as his leading man. Common only started making moves in the acting world in the early 2000s before landing roles in Smokin’ Aces and American Gangster in 2007, but he’s been writing rhymes about manhood and the value of family since 1992; combining that background with his natural, easy charisma, he feels like a natural fit for a story about a young boy learning life lessons from his uncle over the course of a single day in inner city Baltimore. When Common speaks, he speaks with authority. Were we in Michael Rainey Jr.’s place,…
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Cuarón to Strand Bullock, Clooney in Space This October
Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, one of G-S-T’s most anticipated releases of the year, has been a long time coming after delays kept it from seeing release in the fall of 2012. I’ll admit that I held some fears about its chances of seeing the light of day this year in reserve– who holds onto a movie driven by two major Academy darlings for this long?– but those fears have been put to rest: the film now has officially been given an October 4th release date. We know precious few details about Gravity beyond Cuarón’s position at the steering wheel, Clooney’s and Bullock’s starring roles, and what the synopsis tells us, but I…
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Anne Hathaway Circling Modern-Day Rendition of 'Taming of the Shrew'
Anne Hathaway has the kind of star power that lends excitement to nearly any project she chooses to associate with, so it’s nice to see her sign onto a production with huge potential. Yesterday, news hit that Hathaway– fresh off a great year, a Golden Globe win, and a so-surefire-it-hurts lock on an Academy win– is considering taking a role in a pending adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew for Working Title Films (the studio responsible for Les Misérables). I’m not going to lie; Hathaway feels like a natural fit for a work by the Bard, and a comedy such as The Taming of the Shrew in particular…
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Innocence Quirked: Wes Anderson's Kingdom
In seventeen years, Wes Anderson’s body of work has come to be identified by a specific, recurring set of the thematic interests and stylistic proclivities. His films contain deep-rooted traces of discontent and anger; his characters, whether they’re principal or secondary, carry parental (often paternal) chips on their shoulders and hail from families so dysfunctional that the label scarcely does them justice; he stages his mis-en-scene with the curated whimsy of a stage play. Yet despite his notoriety for maintaining a consistent aesthetic throughout his career and exploring the same concepts from picture to picture (but through different facets), it has taken Anderson nearly two decades to make a film…
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Warner Bros. Taking Homer's Odyssey to the Moon
I can honestly admit that while I read an absolutely enormous amount of Greek mythology as a lad– courtesy of taking Latin as a language through middle school and high school– I never wondered what Homer’s Odyssey would look like as a space opera. Fortunately, there are dreamers in the world with grander imaginations than my own, because it sounds like Warner Bros. wants to push the Greek poet’s vision out of Ithaca and Scheria (and countless other locations) into the final frontier with the aid of screenwriter James DiLapo, author of the screenplay for the blacklisted period thriller Devils At Play. Is this good news or bad news? I still have a bad…
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Hugh Goes High-Res in 'Wolverine' Image
This is exactly what it sounds like: a high-resolution photograph of Hugh “Heard the People Sing” Jackman from Darren Aronofsky’s James Mangold’s upcoming The Wolverine, a sequel/reboot/rebootquel/one-off for the eponymous beloved superhero after 2008’s disastrous Wolverine: Origins. Naturally, there’s not a whole lot to say about the shot– Jackman looks like he’s ready to tear off some heads after serenading audiences in Les Misérables, and I suspect for many that seeing Jackman in fighting shape will represent a huge chunk of the picture’s fan allure. If anything, it should be refreshing to see Logan go toe-to-toe with samurai and ninjas instead of yet another super-mutant heavy designed to make us…
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Spielberg Uncancels the Robopocalypse
Earlier this week The Hollywood Reporter acted as the bearer of some pretty disappointing news, announcing that Steven Spielberg’s follow-up to Lincoln— an adaptation of Daniel H. Wilson’s science fiction novel Robopocalypse— is being put on ice for an indeterminate period of time. That’s a king bummer of a bulletin if I’ve ever seen one; Spielberg and genre, particularly sci-fi, go together like peanut butter and jelly, the film had him working with Anne Hathaway and Chris Hemsworth in lead roles and Drew Goddard in a screenwriting capacity, and the book (so I’m told) happens to be pretty great. It’s a shame to hear about a project like that grinding…
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The Criterion Files: In the Mood For Love
In the Mood For Love: Directed by: Wong Kar-wai Written by: Wong Kar-wai Starring: Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung Cinematography by: Christopher Doyle Music by: Michael Galasso, Shigeru Umebayashi Released: September 29th, 2000 Wong Kar-wai’s role as a cinematic innovator on a local level has been well-established since the 90s, when Days of Being Wild— which announced his arrival to the film world despite being his sophomore effort– saw him strive to break away from the storytelling and artistic standards typical of most Chinese cinema of the period. Arguably, Wong didn’t really come into his own until 1994, the year he unveiled both Ashes of Time and Chungking Express to critics and audiences alike;…
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Sweet Trailer…'Trance'
I have a feeling deep in my gut that Trance— Danny Boyle’s follow up to 2010’s 127 Hours— inevitably will draw a lot of comparisons to another trippy, mind-bending film about theft, reality, deception, and the nature of memory by a certain well-liked British filmmaker. But Boyle isn’t Christopher Nolan; he never has been and he never will be, and that’s a good thing. How will Boyle handle a film about a thief (James McAvoy), an art auctioneer (Vincent Cassell), a hypnotist (Rosario Dawson), and the search to recover a lost, stolen painting? In a word, artfully. Have a look for yourself and see what you think: More interesting than…
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First Glimpse at Katniss and Finnick in 'Catching Fire'
The folks over at Entertainment Weekly managed to score Lionsgate’s first two official images for the next installment in the Hunger Games trilogy (well, quadrilogy), Catching Fire. At this point you’ve probably seen the original film, which means you probably are well-acquainted with Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) by now– so let me introduce you to Finnick Odair (Sam Clafin, of Snow White and the Huntsman), a former victor of the titular games and, as the book emphasizes repeatedly, one handsome son of a gun. How does Finnick figure into a story where Katniss already has two potential love interests? Good question. Turns out he’s a past victor of the Games…
