“The greatest escape adventure ever told,” it says on the poster of “Papillon” as Bleecker Street releases its first trailer.
The film is based on Henri Charrière autobiographies Papillon and Banco, as well as the 1973 film adaptation of the former which starred Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.
Charrière was convicted as a murderer by the French courts in 1931, sentenced to life in prison and ten years of hard labour, and in 1941 escaped from a penal colony in French Guiana with the help of another convict.
Charlie Hunnam is Charrière aka Papillon, a nickname derive from a butterfly tattoo inscribed on his chest, while Rami Malek is Louis Dega, the man he forms an unlikely alliance with in order to escape.
“If I ever get out, I’m going to live a different kind of life,” Papillon says in the trailer.
The book “Papillon” published in 1969, was an immediate success upon its release, becoming a worldwide bestseller and garnering critical acclaim.
Directed by Michael Noer (Northwest) and penned by Aaron Guzikoswski (Prisoners), “Papillon” premiered last September at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is currently set to hit theaters August 24.
“Leave No Trace” is a compassionate story of a father and daughter living simple lives in the great outdoors, and the circumstances that lead their paths to drift apart.
As simple as that sounds, the film is thought-provoking and powerful, touching on complex issues involving parenting, mental instability, and the alienation of many veterans who choose isolation as their refuge.
Directed by Debra Granik in her third feature film, “Leave No Trace” is a compelling character study that has been thoroughly embraced by film critics since its premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The story was adapted by Granik and her creative partner, Anne Rosellini, from the novel “My Abandonment” by Peter Rock.
The film stars Ben Foster as Will, a grizzled war veteran suffering from PTSD, living off the grid with his daughter, Tom, played by Thomasin McKenzie in her first major lead role.
The film follows Will and Tom living in a public park outside of Oregon, foraging for food and occasionally traveling by foot to town, primarily to pick up Will’s PTSD medication to sell to other military veterans on the black market. After being spotted in the forest by a jogger, the pair are brought into social services to live conventional lives. They are provided a home in rural Oregon where Will can also work on a tree farm. There, Tom meets a local farm kid who introduces her to his 4-H meetings.
However, it doesn’t take long before they’re back on the road. Will struggles to adjust to their new home and the social structure provided to them. “We can still think our own thoughts,” Will tells his daughter.
One day, while Will is injured and unconscious, Tom interacts with members of the community, meets kind strangers, borrows a dog from a former army medic, and even offers to pay for the temporary abode where Will is recuperating. She experiences a taste of normalcy and seems to appreciate it. But when Will decides it’s time for them to return to the forest, Tom objects.
“The same thing that’s wrong with you isn’t wrong with me,” she says. But this time, Will agrees, foreshadowing what may come next.
Foster is fantastic in the film. He has previously received acclaim for many of his intense roles, such as in “3:10 to Yuma” and “Hell or High Water.” He is more subdued here but fully embodies the character. Even with limited background information about Will, we understand that he is trapped within himself and sense his profound devotion and love for his daughter.
Granik’s prior film, the 2010 mystery drama “Winter’s Bone,” featured a breakthrough performance from the then-little-known Jennifer Lawrence, who later became one of the world’s biggest movie stars. This film might just have the same transformative effect on McKenzie. She displays talent beyond her years, skillfully conveying both the innocence and the evolution of her character.
“Leave No Trace” is a quiet and nuanced film that doesn’t succumb to excessive melodrama, even when the narrative reaches peak emotional conflict between the two leads. Nor does it criticize Will and Tom’s way of life. The beautiful cinematography by Michael McDonough, in fact, invitingly reveals spaces in nature that we know exist in our backyard but seldom experience.
“Leave No Trace” is set to open on June 29, 2018, in cinemas across the US.
After last year’s hugely successful supernatural horror film “It”, Stephen King adaptations are a hot commodity again once again. This time, its “The Tommyknockers” that’s getting a big screen adaptation, with James Wan getting involved according to Hollywood Reporter alongside Roy Lee and Larry Sanitsky.
The trio seem like a perfect match. James Wan is a driving force behind the Conjuring franchise, Roy Lee produced King’s blockbuster “It” film, and Sanitsky executive produced “The Tommyknockers” two part television mini-series which broadcast on ABC in 1993.
But with King’s name attached, the novel’s popularity can stand on it’s own. Tommyknockers is an international hardcover best-seller, outselling even some of King’s bibliography such as The Shining and Carrie. That said, the author was not very fond of the book, at one point calling it “awful” during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine decades after its release.
Published in 1987, The Tommyknockers follows the story of a small town in Maine, where a dangerous gas emits from a spaceship uncovered in the woods. The gas transforms the town’s residents except for one man who is immune to it’s effects.
James wan is currently directing Aquaman, the sixth installment in the DC Extended Universe, set for release later this year.
Sometimes movies are only as good as what viewers bring into them. Story-tellers give us the words and actions, and they’re enhanced or diminished by the viewer’s interpretation and point of view.
Such is the case with Annihilation, one of the best sci-fi films released of recent years. It is ambiguous and thought-provoking for being a lot of things, and its lose ends both frustrate and tickle the imagination.
The film opens with Lena (Natalie Portman) in quarantine, being interrogated by a team of doctors about what had happened. She is questioned about the fate of a few characters, to which she replied that some were dead; for the others she mumbled “I don’t know.”
The scene was followed by a meteor crashing on a lighthouse, which produced some sort of an alien zone bounded by a weird energy field (think water color dissolving and floating in the air). The phenomenon apparently happened three years prior and surrounded the Blackwater National Park, and anyone who goes in never comes back. They call it the Shimmer. But what happens inside is unknown.
Enter Kane (Oscar Isaac), Lena’s husband and soldier who mysteriously shows up on her door a year after he ventured into the the Shimmer with an expedition team. But it didn’t take long for Lena to realize that he is no longer the same person, and questioned what had happened during his expedition.
Hoping to find answers, she decides to join an all female team put together by Dr. Venress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a psychologist who works at the quarantined zone, to trace back her husband’s footsteps inside the Shimmer.
What transpires after this is both intriguing and terrifying.
Not long after they entered, they begin to lose their memory and get disoriented, their sense of time gets out of whack, their navigation equipment and compass start to fail, they get attacked by mutated alligator, and then, in one of the film’s most intense and horrifying scenes, they get attacked by a mutated bear that echoes the screams of one of its victims.
They realize then that it was in fact a suicide mission, and that Dr. Ventress herself has cancer, which explains her abrasive fearlessness to go to the center of the Shimmer. We also see flashbacks of Lena having an affair, the guilt of which led her to the join the expedition. “I owe him,” she said. It appears everyone on the expedition has a reason to be there and, albeit unwittingly, had a baggage which led some to their demise.
Based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer of the same name, the film is full of allegory, subtext and symbolism, from broader topics of biology, cancer, and environmental damage to more personal issues of depression, suicide and extra-marital affairs. At the center, it is about self-destruction, where human impulses lead to bad decisions.
Director Alex Garland expertly weaves these all together in its near 2 hour run-time. And like his highly acclaimed directorial debut “Ex Machina,” the film is thematically and visually ambitious.
Walt Disney Studio’s latest film in the Star Wars saga is officially the top grossing film of 2017 in North America. As of Sunday, December 31, Star Wars: The Last Jedi has grossed $517 million, ahead of the studio’s own Beauty And The Beast which ended its theatrical run at $504 million.
Happy New Year! What better way to ring in the new year than these new character posters and new TV spot for “A Wrinkle In Time,” Disney’s highly anticipated science fantasy adventure film from director Ava DuVernay.
The motion posters showcase the film’s three pivotal characters, Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling), Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) and Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), while the trailer shows some of the footage previously released by Disney as well as a look at Meg Murry’s mother Dr. Kate Murry (played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw).
The film tells the story of Meg Murry who, after learning her astrophysicist father is being held captive on a distant planet deep in the grip of a universe-spanning evil, travels the cosmos to save him. Joining her in the rescue adventure through space are his highly intelligent younger brother Charles, and their friend Calvin.
Based on Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 novel of the same name, the epic adventure was first adapted for a 2003 television film.
‘A Wrinkle in Time’ stars Storm Reid, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, Mindy Kaling, Deric McCabe,Levi Miller, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, André Holland, Michael Peña, Zach Galifianakis, and Oprah Winfrey. The screenplay was written by Jennifer Lee.
Set to be one of the year’s biggest blockbuster hits, ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ opens March 9th, 2018.
Focus Features has just revealed a first look image of “The Little Stranger,” from Irish film and television director Lenny Abrahamson.
Based on the 2009 gothic novel of same name by Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger was written by Lucinda Coxon (The Danish Girl) and stars Domhnall Gleeson (Brooklyn) as Dr Faraday, Will Poulter (The Revenant) as Roderick Ayres, Ruth Wilson (The Affair) as Caroline Ayres, and Charlotte Rampling (45 Years) as Mrs Ayres.
Abrahamson recently helmed the Oscar-winning film “Room” (2015) received academy award nominations for best picture and director, as well as earned star Brie Larson a best actress honor.
Focus Features will release The Little Stranger on August 31, 2018.
Here is the film’s official synopsis”
THE LITTLE STRANGER tells the story of Dr Faraday, the son of a housemaid, who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. During the long hot summer of 1948, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked. The Hall has been home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries. But it is now in decline and its inhabitants – mother, son and daughter – are haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life. When he takes on his new patient, Faraday has no idea how closely, and how disturbingly, the family’s story is about to become entwined with his own.
The latest trailer for director David Fincher’s Mindhunter has been released, ahead of its debut on Netflix on October 13, 2017. Produced by Fincher and actress Charlize Theron, the drama series is based on Mark Olshaker and John E. Douglas’s book “Mind Hunter: Inside The FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit“.
In the new series, Jonathan Groff plays Holden Ford, an FBI special agent for the agency’s Behavioral Science Unit who interviews imprisoned serial killers in an effort to understand what goes on in a killer’s mind and how they operate.
He is joined by Holt McCallany who plays Bill Tench, and together they pioneer criminal psychology and profiling in its early days of development, and use their research findings to solving ongoing murder investigations.
Set to Talking Heads’ “Psychokiller,” the trailer shows the duo meet Edmund Kemper, also known as the “Coed Killer,” all the while arguing and worrying if their superiors will discover their activities. “Certainly our goal is to be preemptive,” Holden says to Bill. “We’re the FBI, Holden. That is not our goal. Yet,” says Bill.
The book’s author Douglas, himself a notable name in the history of criminal profiling, is the basis of the character Ford, which guarantees some interesting insider stories. He was also previously an inspiration for the Jack Crawford character which appeared in Thomas Harris’ novels such as The Silence of the Lambs. The character was played in the movie of the same name by Scott Glenn.
Netflix seem to have a lot of confidence in what Fincher and co. has crafted that they already renewed it for Season 2. Not surprising since Fincher himself directed Mindhunter’s pilot episode, as he did successfully with Netflix’ House of Cards. It also certainly helps that chronicling characters pursuing killers is familiar turf to Fincher (“Se7en” and “Zodiac” come to mind.)
See Mindhunter’s trailer and official synopsis below:
In the late 1970s two FBI agents expand criminal science by delving into the psychology of murder and getting uneasily close to all-too-real monsters.
A Field Guide to the Aliens of Star Trek: The Next Generation
By Joshua Chapman, an 11-Year-Old Boy in 1991, Available September 12
Grab a cup of tea (Earl Grey, hot) and enjoy a good read in your command chair. In honor of Star Trek: TNG’s 30th anniversary this September, Devastator Press – the only all-humor press in America – is releasing A Field Guide to the Aliens of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The guide is an informative, exhaustive, and surprisingly personal ranking of every alien lifeform in the series and the TNG films, as written by a boy in the ’90s.
The book collects a series of popular handmade zines attributed to “Joshua Chapman,” thousands of which sold in bookstores across the country. Chapman allegedly began the zines as a class project when he was 11-years-old and the hit sci-fi series was still on the air. He continued rating aliens through his awkward teen years. The book was edited and compiled by Zachary Auburn, author of the bestselling satire How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety. Continue reading →
Peternelle van Arsdale’s dark atmospheric fantasy debut ‘The Beast is an Animal’ is being developed by Amazon Studios into a movie. According to Variety, the project will be developed by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions production company. Directors Bert & Bertie, who previously helmed Dance Camp (2016), are set to direct and the adapt the film.
Released earlier this year by Margaret K. McElderry Books, BCCB describes the book as a “horrifying tale of revenge, murder, and evil.”
Scott Free Productions is behind Ridley Scott’s own Alien: Covenant released early this summer, as well as “Blade Runner 2049”, sequel to 1982’s classic Blade Runner and a remake to “Murder on the Orient Express”.
Here is the book’s synopsis per its profile on Amazon:
Alys was seven the first time she saw the soul eaters.These soul eaters are twin sisters who were abandoned by their father and slowly grew into something not quite human. And they feed off of human souls. When her village was attacked, Alys was spared and sent to live in a neighboring village. There the devout people created a strict world where fear of the soul eaters—and of the Beast they believe guides them—rule village life. But the Beast is not what they think he is. And neither is Alys.
Inside, Alys feels connected to the soul eaters, and maybe even to the Beast itself. As she grows from a child to a teenager, she longs for the freedom of the forest. And she has a gift she can tell no one, for fear they will call her a witch. When disaster strikes, Alys finds herself on a journey to heal herself and her world. A journey that will take her through the darkest parts of the forest, where danger threatens her from the outside—and from within her own heart and soul.
