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08-30-2012 09:01 PM |
- Christopher Nolan directs, with Joel Silver producing, an epic remake of Fritz Lang's epic silent classic. The city of Metropolis will be dark and gritty, right up Nolan's alley. With $220 million, they have plenty of money to work with.
- The film is set in a dystopian future where state corporatism has run amok, resulting in a city where a single state owned corporation owns and runs everything.
- The city of Metropolis is also an allegory to the Late Roman Empire. The senate exists, but is virtually powerless, having long since transferred all of their real power to the Corporation. The CEO is analogous to the Emperor. It has simply come to be accepted that the CEO remains in his position until he declares his replacement. The citizens of Metropolis are, of course, the citizens of Rome, and have had many rights stripped away from them and essentially live in a caste system.
- Daniel Day-Lewis will take on the role of Joe Fredrickson, CEO of The Corporation. He's a cold, hard man but cares for his family. His number 1 goal is to keep the city of Metropolis running smoothly, and gets irate at every hiccup that occurs.
- Edward Norton plays our main protagonist, Frank Fredrickson, son of the CEO. Until now, he's lived a fairly hedonistic lifestyle as he enjoys his family's wealth, but his personality is the opposite of his father's. He cares about people, loves humor and is empathetic. But he lives his life in ignorance to what life is like for the lowers classes. The basic plot of the movie is his journey into the lower levels to discover the plight of the workers of Metropolis and his efforts to make things right.
- Amy Adams plays Maria Helms, a lower class worker and a community leader. She's also the main love interest of Frank Fredrickson. She pulls double duty on this film as she also plays a robot that is built in her image.
- Malcolm McDowell plays eccentric, mad scientist Dr. Jeremy Rotwang. He was in love with the CEO's wife and was building a robot in her image. Later in the film, he builds a robot to look like Maria Helms to go into the lower levels and sow dissent among the workers.
- Philip Seymour-Hoffman plays Patrick Williams, the CEO's assistant who is fired early in the movie. He helps Frank on his quest to learn about the lower levels, but his own personal goal is to turn son against father.
- In this most epic remake of an epic movie, I can't think of anyone better to come up with an epic score than Howard Shore.
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- In 1988, our national pasttime was a glorified part of sports culture Americana, as shown in touching films like The Natural and Field of Dreams. So when the irreverent and sardonic Bull Durham was released, moviegoers were immediately attracted to the very real and not so noble world of minor league baseball, a very different view of the sports heroes of our day. Nothing captures this more than the scene where the batboy hands Kevin Costner's Crash Davis a new bat and proclaims, "Get a hit, Crash!" To which, Crash immediately sourly responds, "Shut up!"
- One of the funniest movies ever filmed, Bull Durham made a grizzled hero of Costner, a sex symbol of Susan Sarandon, and elevated Tim Robbins above "that guy who was Tom Cruise's RO in the finale of Top Gun". It remains one of the most quotable movies written, and its heartwarming story appealed to well beyond the young male demographic it originally targeted for.
- To re-do one of the best comedies in recent memory, one must have the best in the business to bring the project in fruition. And so we turned to Judd Apatow (40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Bridesmaids) to re-envision and update the story of Crash Davis and Annie Savoy and the Durham Bulls. Apatow always maintained it was important to be true to the original, so he could not have found a better director to helm his project than the original Crash himself, Kevin Costner (Dances With Wolves, Open Range). Costner is not only the original Crash himself, but is also inarguably the king of baseball movies.
- To lead his cast, Costner turned to the ruggedly handsome Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, Wedding Crashers, The A-Team). Cooper brings just the right amount of dry wit and sarcasm needed to recreate the character of Crash Davis, as he displays so well in the Hangover movies.
- Costner brought in the lovely and witty Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers, Definitely Maybe) to play the sultry and sly Annie Savoy, who sets her seasonal target on Crash for her love machinations.
- In a nod toward the goofier approach Apatow tends to take, Costner cast the seemingly naive and geekesque Jay Baruchel (Tropic Thunder, She's Out of My League, The Sorcerer's Apprentice) in key role of Nuke Laloosh, the brash but gullible phenom pitcher Crash takes under his wing on his inevitable way to The Show.
- Costner rounded out the cast with the beautiful and charming Emma Stone (Zombieland, Easy A, Crazy Stupid Love) as Annie's young sidekick Millie, and one of Apatow's acknowledged favorite funny men in John C. Reilly (Boogie Nights, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Step Brothers) as goofball Coach Larry.
- With a much healthier budget of $50 M, far outstripping the production costs of the original, Apatow and Costner are able to make the Southern charm of the town of Durham come alive again. To help in this cause, they turned to reknowned songwriter and composer Randy Newman (Toy Story, The Full Monty, The Natural) to do the soundtrack.
- Come see Apatow's vision of Bull Durham, coming soon to a theater near you, and laugh at and love again the humble underpinnings of a once and still majestic national past time.
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- We're flipping the script on a couple things here. The most obvious is, by casting Samuel L. Jackson as John McClane and Aaron Paul as Al Powell, we've turned the original casting upside down, ethnically.
- The original Die Hard took place in Los Angeles. Consequently, even though it's a Christmas movie, nobody ever remembers that part. We're gonna fix that - the setting is Christmas in New York City (The Deutsche Bank on Wall Street, specifically). John is from LA, visiting his estranged wife to attempt reconciliation.
- This time, Al Powell and John McClane are both at the party - McClane to see his wife, Powell as an off-duty police officer providing private event security - when shit gets real. Each manages to elude the terrorists. They independently wage one-man efforts, and eventually discover one another's effect on the terrorist plot via pilfered radios. They don't meet face-to-face until the end of the movie.
- Never had a chance at Quentin Tarantino to direct, which is kind of a bummer with Jackson on board as McClane and John Travolta doing a turn as Harry "I eat Eurotrash like this for breakfast" Ellis. Would've been fun to reunite the three of them.
- Kenneth Branagh directs instead, and as has so often done before, will spend time in front of the camera as well. Meet Hans Gruber.
- John McTiernan, director of the original, produces. His job will be to give Branagh the freedom to experiment with the pacing of the story while at the same time keeping him grounded and connected to the franchise.
- Michael Kamen scored the original. Michael Kamen is dead. Dead men write no scales. James Horner is the next best thing, having earned a large pile of Oscar nominations for his work over the years (including such films as Aliens, Apollo 13, Braveheart and Avatar). Even better, some of his unused work from Aliens found its way into the original Die Hard, which should serve as an audible touchstone for viewers.
- Geraldo Rivera is gonna get punched in the face. Isn't that enough, really?
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Synopsis- Deliverance is equal parts horror film, survival film, and thriller. It is about finding out who you are when all of life's conveniences are stripped away. It is about the choices we make when no one is looking and the fragile complexities of our surface relationships with others.
- Four Atlanta businessmen, Lewis (Hardy), Ed (Renner), Bobby (Fassbender) and Drew (Clooney), decide to canoe down the Cahulawassee River in the remote Georgia wilderness, expecting to have fun and see the glory of nature before the river valley is flooded by the construction of a dam.
- During the trip, each man will face a horrific event that will threaten their lives. At no time is it clear that any of the characters will make it to the end of the story. What they face and the choices they make will define who they are and change them forever.
Primary Cast- Tom Hard as Lewis - a cocksure man's man. Experienced outdoorsman.
- Jeremy Renner as Ed - an experienced outdoorsman, but without the rough exterior of Hardy. Not as sure of himself, always seems to be having a crisis of confidence.
- Michael Fassbender as Bobby - an effete snob...prep school, country club, through and through. Not an outdoorsman.
- George Clooney as Drew - older member of the group. More cautious and deliberate. More mature, but also no experience in the outdoors.
Production Team- Produced by Brad Pitt (The Departed, Moneyball, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). Produces great, character driven films. Knows how to assemble talent and he has done that here with Deliverance.
- Directed by Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, X-Men First Class). Singer can deliver a well-paced film that is more than just a couple of guys talking around a campfire. He can deliver tense, heart-pounding scenes that leave the viewer wanting more.
- Principal Photography: Wally Pfister (Memento, The Prestige, Batman Begins). Pfister can do it as big as Batman or as small as Memento. The backdrop will be sumptuous and the action tighter than the viewer was expecting. Pfister is one of the few cinematographers that can give you the full range.
- Score: Dave Grohl - with the Foo Fighters, Grohl delivered an album (Echoes, Silence, Patience, Grace) that is a perfect example of the type of score that works with Deliverance. Breezy country rock to hard pounding percussion, to soft a capella. Grohl will also know when to shut the fuck up and let the natural backdrop of the movie deliver the score.
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