Monday, February 23, 2009 10:30AM - By Krystal Clark
Here are some of the top news stories you may have missed this Oscar winning weekend.
- Another box office record has been shattered by The Dark Knight. It has become the fourth film ever to gross over one billion dollars in worldwide box office sales. The film now joins the company of Titanic, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. [Superherohype]
- Check out some exclusive footage from this summer’s Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen. In the promotional video Shia Labeouf and Josh Duhamel talk about the film’s locations, the story, and their director Michael Bay. Be warned it’s very loud! [MTV]
- Two familiar faces are teaming up again. Academy Award winner John Williams will compose the score for Steven Spielberg’s Tintin. Williams has previously worked with the director on countless films including, Jurassic Park and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. [LatinoReview]
- An official release date has finally been set for the third installment of the “Twilight Saga.” Eclipse will be released on June 30, 2010. It will be the second sequel in the franchise following New Moon, which debuts in theaters this year on November 20. [ShockTillYouDrop]
- The Independent Spirit Awards took place this past Saturday and Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler took top honors as Best Picture. Mickey Rourke won Best Actor, and the film’s director of photography Maryse Alberti also won for Best Cinematography. [Variety]
Friday, December 19, 2008 5:23PM - By Travis Weir
Out on the terrace at the Four Seasons, Mickey Rourke smokes a cigarette and chats with one of the handlers. Nattily dressed in a pinstripe suit with a clashing green vest, he looks the way you’d imagine Mickey Rourke to look, and it magnifies the extremes taken to transform him into The Wrestler. The torso-length blonde mane is gone and the gun show has left town. He still seems like he can break you in half over his knee, but minus Randy “The Ram’s” labored gait that’s like gravity working extra-hard to yank him into a crumpled heap.
The buzz around the movie is good and Rourke has decided to enjoy it. Sometimes it’s hard to get a question in. He can’t stop talking about the fight work, the culture of wrestling, the endless months of practice and exertion he put in to prove to director Darrin Aronofsky he hadn’t made a mistake. To show his director he understood what it took to make it happen, and that he was going to return to favor.
Here’s what Rourke had to tell Screencrave about what he considers the toughest gig of his entire career, and why he believes Aronofsky was the only guy ready to pull him through it.
First thing’s first, though: he has to pet the dog.
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Thursday, December 18, 2008 12:00PM - By Mali Elfman
Finally we get The Wrestler in theaters. This film has more people saying good things about it than almost any other film coming out this year. In fact, aside from The Wrestler, everything coming out this week is good but has a better option. Seven Pounds is good, but not great, I would say The Wrestler, Doubt, or The Reader are much better picks, although I’m guessing that by shear Will Smith-power the film will make it to the top of the box office. Yes Man (review here) really isn’t as funny as it should be, do see Role Models or rent Hamlet 2 instead. I think Bolt is a better pick than The Tale of Despereaux. To be honest, I have not seen, nor heard anything about Nothing But the Truth, so it has escaped my cynicism for now!
Trailer below…
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Wednesday, December 17, 2008 7:13PM - By Travis Weir
As she bills time in big fares like Wild Hogs or Anger Management, Marisa Tomei has been building a stealth career in indie circles. In the Bedroom was the game-changing critical darling. She stole scenes as the two-timing Gina in Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Most stars are happy to get pigeonholed for life, with minor exceptions, because the work is guaranteed. Angelina Jolie will always get suitcases of money to play asskicking femme-fatales. Try to find a variation of middle class manchild that Adam Sandler won’t tackle for a solid script and a good price.
That’s not to say the aforementioned haven’t taken left turns here and there, or that Tomei herself is above a safe, studio gig. But with a project from the Duplass Brothers (writer/directors of Screencrave-fave Baghead) on the horizon and now Aronofsky’s The Wrestler opening this weekend, Marisa Tomei’s trajectory is becoming impossible to predict. She doesn’t have a packaged anecdote for why this is so, and she bristles when she’s pressed about it. She’s attracted by the ambiguous and, for lack of a better term, the ugly truth. She’s inspired by it.
Last week she spoke to ScreenCrave about what gives The Wrestler its edge, and how she managed to take some of the shine off the Stripper with A Heart o’ Gold.
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Thursday, November 20, 2008 9:15PM - By Mali Elfman
The Wrestler is definitely a film not to miss. It’s the story of a real life, everyday hero.
The film is about a wrestler named, Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) and back in the late ’80s, he was a headlining professional wrestler. Now, twenty years later, he ekes out a living performing for handfuls of diehard wrestling fans in high school gyms and community centers around New Jersey. His daughter has abondoned him. He has no money. The only thing he has, is his wrestling.
Check out the trailer below…
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Thursday, October 30, 2008 10:20AM - By Tom von Logue Newth
Taking place at venues around Hollywood (Mann’s, Grauman’s, LACMA, Cinema Lounge, the Arclight/Cinerama Dome) from Thursday 30th tiil Sun day 9th, the American Film Institute’s annual festival this year features over 150 films from around the world. Take your pick from Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s semi-documentary about factory closure, 24 City (Mon 3, Sat 8), Beat Takeshi’s lastest, Achilles and the Tortoise, a meditation on art and money and life (Mon 3, Fri 7), or Paul Schrader’s Jeff Goldblum starrer Adam Resurrected, an unsentimental, semi-absurdist post-Holocaust flick (Sat 8, Sun 9).
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